PBS Digital Studios: Why are NPCs still racist? (Also Known as PBS going FullMcIntosh) - General

[QUOTE=Impact1986;47164848]Don't forget to include gay/trans characters[/QUOTE] Nintendo could solve all their problems if they have the damsel in distress a secret alterego just as powerful and competant as the hero... oh... wait.

Minorities shouldn't always be infallible mary/gary sues who assist the protagonist, otherwise, you would get something similar to the "magical negro" trope. If the medium is saturated with poor representations of minorities, then just advocate for variety.

So it's racist if: The main protagonist is white while NPCs are not and the player has more control over the virtual world than the NPCs because it sounds like institutional racism. A zombie story takes place in Africa. (it's okay when white people are zombies) 2 traits of a made up evil "race" are similar to real or stereotypic traits of a real race. NPCs of color are reduced to XP or points. (I'm guessing every slave you free in AC's DLC has to tell you his life-story which will make him human?) Characters in the game have different skin colors yet everyone is treated equally. (that actually sounds like absolute lack of racism)

In the case of AC4's dlc without the slaves there would be no story to tell, how is telling a story about racism racist? Without adversary there's no point in a story, think of novels considered master pieces, would you be interested in Of Mice and Men if it was just a story about George and Lennie's farm or The Great Gatsby if it was a story about the happy marriage of Jay and Daisy Gatsby? In the case of AC4's dlc the story was about a former slave freeing people from slavery

Did he just say by putting labels on people's skin tone it'd be less racist? What?

I find it pretty fucking hysterical that, in an attempt to be less or not racist, they end up sounding more racist than what they are trying to criticize.

[QUOTE=Banned?;47165911]I find it pretty fucking hysterical that, in an attempt to be less or not racist, they end up sounding more racist than what they are trying to criticize.[/QUOTE] If you pay so much attention to someone's skin color you are racist. That's the reality.

[QUOTE=itisjuly;47166092]If you pay so much attention to someone's skin color you are racist. That's the reality.[/QUOTE] There's nothing wrong with identifying a difference, it's attributing the difference to 'better and worse' that's racism and acting upon it that's even more racist. [editline]18th February 2015[/editline] Just like sexism, there's no problem in thinking 'she is a women, he is a man' the problem is 'he is better because he is a man'.

[QUOTE=Rossy167;47166286]There's nothing wrong with identifying a difference, it's attributing the difference to 'better and worse' that's racism and acting upon it that's even more racist. [editline]18th February 2015[/editline] Just like sexism, there's no problem in thinking 'she is a women, he is a man' the problem is 'he is better because he is a man'.[/QUOTE] In context of videogames people are trying too hard to find racism.

Agreed, games are under massive scrutiny right now, I'm not 100% sure why it started rising again I thought the whole 'games make murders' thing was on the way out. Now games make bigots apparently.

RE5 actually has stereotypical "savage" tribal warrior enemies that throw spears at the player. [URL]http://residentevil.wikia.com/Sodibaya[/URL] [editline]18th February 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=Rossy167;47166447]Agreed, games are under massive scrutiny right now, I'm not 100% sure why it started rising again I thought the whole 'games make murders' thing was on the way out. Now games make bigots apparently.[/QUOTE] It's not exclusive to video games. Every other form of media has undergone analysis and criticism relating to character design, writing, representation, etc. It's just a result of video games gaining mainstream popularity and starting to be taken as seriously as books, movies, etc.

[QUOTE=RichyZ;47166087]the ac4 one is pretty valid, theres basically no reason to free the slaves other than "if u free 10 u get a cool sword! free 50 and you get a cool pistol!" etc when you're freeing plantations it pretty much just boils down to "ok how many dudes can i kill before the number of slaves runs out"[/QUOTE] Yeah, well, it's a videogame, what can you expect? What kind of reward would make it any less... videogamey, obnoxious, I guess?

[video=youtube;CPVjgTG1Rqg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPVjgTG1Rqg[/video] What the fuck did I just watch?

[QUOTE=Wowza!;47166546]RE5 actually has stereotypical "savage" tribal warrior enemies that throw spears at the player. [URL]http://residentevil.wikia.com/Sodibaya[/URL] [/QUOTE] Many games have that, it has less to do with race and more with the feeling of "ancient". Kind of like Jurassic Park and dinosaurs. Or like Egypt and mummies. Or like Japan and samurai, China and Terracotta Army... Plus there actually are communities there that uphold their rituals very strictly. Not that they really run around and hunt with spears or something though.

RE5 had you massacre nigger zombies. RE6 had you massacre slav, cracker and chink zombies, I think it's all fair. It evened out. [highlight](User was banned for this post ("Racist" - SteveUK))[/highlight]

[QUOTE=Wowza!;47166546]RE5 actually has stereotypical "savage" tribal warrior enemies that throw spears at the player. [URL]http://residentevil.wikia.com/Sodibaya[/URL][/QUOTE] I thought that it was a homage to african folklore. I remember that the concept of zombies derived mostly from haitan and west african culture.

[QUOTE=RichyZ;47166087]the ac4 one is pretty valid, theres basically no reason to free the slaves other than "if u free 10 u get a cool sword! free 50 and you get a cool pistol!" etc when you're freeing plantations it pretty much just boils down to "ok how many dudes can i kill before the number of slaves runs out"[/QUOTE] What's the correct way of doing it if the order of freeing slave camps is not linear and you have a leveling system in place? The only way is to make it linear without any reward for completing the task, because that would again be xp/gun for black people. The only way this works according to this mindset if it's a detailed drama story and not a free roam. But then you end up with a bunch of black NPCs who are nothing more than a plot device. Racist again. Now everyone of them has to have their live-story told to be an actual character and not just a plot device. And then when you have few dozens of black NPCs talking how they are poor and none of them are as rich as the white folk and BAM, it's racist again because it's misrepresenting black people by showing that that they are all poor and uneducated. The ride never ends.

[QUOTE=CoolKingKaso;47166734]I thought that it was a homage to african folklore. I remember that the concept of zombies derived mostly from haitan and west african culture.[/QUOTE] The reason they're like that is because the Plagas cause their hosts' mental abilities to degrade. In the village there are journal entries from one of the villagers who noted that his friends and family started acting strange after they got the 'medicine' from Tricell. It's just a case of "It has black people so it must be racist", never mind that the only competent member of the unit sent to back Chris and Sheva up was black, or that Sheva herself is black and perfectly competent. Or even that almost half the people infected with Plagas are fucking white anyway.

[QUOTE=CoolKingKaso;47166734]I thought that it was a homage to african folklore. I remember that the concept of zombies derived mostly from haitan and west african culture.[/QUOTE] It's not representative or accurate to African culture today. The vast majority of people in Africa today are not in tribal warrior societies, so it doesn't make sense to include those enemies in a game set in modern day Africa. Coupled with the fact that the half-naked tribal warriors without modern technology is actually a negative stereotype of African people, it's a pretty bad idea to include those characters in the game.

With all these arguments about how these characters are insensitively written, I wonder how long until they start saying 50 Cent Blood in the Sand has a insensitively written protagonist.

[QUOTE=Wowza!;47167458]It's not representative or accurate to African culture today. The vast majority of people in Africa today are not in tribal warrior societies, so it doesn't make sense to include those enemies in a game set in modern day Africa. Coupled with the fact that the half-naked tribal warriors without modern technology is actually a negative stereotype of African people, it's a pretty bad idea to include those characters in the game.[/QUOTE] If the game was taking place in USA and there would be a zombie dressed as a native american with the bonnet and all that shit, would that be discriminatory towards americans because "it's not representative or accurate to American culture today. The vast majority of people in America today are not in indian tribe societies, so it doesn't make sense to include those enemies in a game set in modern day America."? You are seeing racism where there is none. Are most zombies in this game dressed as tribal warriors? No? Then no one is trying to portray Africans as tribesmen.

[QUOTE=Silly Sil;47167812]If the game was taking place in USA and there would be a zombie dressed as a native american with the bonnet and all that shit, would that be discriminatory towards americans because "it's not representative or accurate to American culture today. The vast majority of people in America today are not in indian tribe societies, so it doesn't make sense to include those enemies in a game set in modern day America."? You are seeing racism where there is none. Are most zombies in this game dressed as tribal warriors? No? Then no one is trying to portray Africans as tribesmen.[/QUOTE] That's not a fair comparison, because there's no negative stereotypes associating Americans and Native Americans. Also, the US is frequently used as a setting in mainstream media, while Africa is rarely used. It's a problem if one of the few appearances of Africans in media perpetuates common misconceptions and stereotypes.

Just looking at the posts here it's clear the maker of the video is stupid, and then I saw [QUOTE=Tobin;47166612][video=youtube;CPVjgTG1Rqg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPVjgTG1Rqg[/video] What the fuck did I just watch?[/QUOTE] I'm going to assume that this video basically makes fun of gays. And that it makes the assumption that all gay people not only look but also act a certain way.

[QUOTE=Wowza!;47167951]That's not a fair comparison, because there's no negative stereotypes associating Americans and Native Americans. Also, the US is frequently used as a setting in mainstream media, while Africa is rarely used. It's a problem if one of the few appearances of Africans in media perpetuates common misconceptions and stereotypes.[/QUOTE] So it has to be a negative stereotype then? What if it was a fat American then? That's a negative stereotype. You ignored the second part of my post. Does the game has some of those tribesmen in there or does it try to portray all/most Africans as tribesmen?

of course people in resident evil 5 are african because its set in fucking africa skin color shouldn't stop you from being able to murder someone

Half the enemies in resident evil 5 aren't even black

no ones going to call you racist for killing french people in assassins creed unity [editline]18th February 2015[/editline] automerge

[QUOTE=Bathtub;47168048]no ones going to call you racist for killing french people in assassins creed unity [editline]18th February 2015[/editline] automerge[/QUOTE] or even better, Middle Easterners in AC1.

i attempted to bear this video up until he was criticizing bioware for including diverse races without having them stereotyped essentially. he went on criticizing how diverse characters are constantly being stereotyped, and i guess i just have no idea what his main argument is when his points are constantly contradicting each-other. i agree with him in that Letitia was completely tasteless in Deus Ex HR, but every other argument is a huge leap, and, from what i can tell, is simply someone trying really hard to find something wrong in everything

[QUOTE=Silly Sil;47168010]So it has to be a negative stereotype then? What if it was a fat American then? That's a negative stereotype. You ignored the second part of my post. Does the game has some of those tribesmen in there or does it try to portray all/most Africans as tribesmen?[/QUOTE] If there was an entire level featuring fat Americans throwing hamburgers at you, then it would be an issue, but not as much of an issue as RE5 since the stereotype only came about in the past 10-15 years. Whether or not if it's a majority of the game or one level doesn't really make negative stereotypes more or less of a problem.