Stereotypes in video games?
polycounter lvl 7
Hi,
I'm currently writing a paper on stereotypes of minority characters within video games, by stereotypes I mean the typical portrayal of female and ethnic characters; these can be both visual based or personality wise.
I want to get the views of gamers and designers/developers for this topic, so as artists do you think stereotypes of characters exist? If so do these stereotypes effect the way you design characters? Any opinions would be greatly appreciated, I'm not here to complain or spread my opinions on this topic, I'm just here to collect opinions on this matter.
Thanks in advance.
I'm currently writing a paper on stereotypes of minority characters within video games, by stereotypes I mean the typical portrayal of female and ethnic characters; these can be both visual based or personality wise.
I want to get the views of gamers and designers/developers for this topic, so as artists do you think stereotypes of characters exist? If so do these stereotypes effect the way you design characters? Any opinions would be greatly appreciated, I'm not here to complain or spread my opinions on this topic, I'm just here to collect opinions on this matter.
Thanks in advance.
Replies
* Who was/were the lead(s)? What gender and race did they have?
* Who are the support cast? What genders and races do they have?
Of the characters of non-normative gender: (i.e. women in a game featuring mostly men)
* Are the depicted as equals?
* Are they generally weaker and stealthier? Or stronger and more verbal? A mix of the two?
* Do the women wear less clothing or tighter clothing? Are costumes shared among genders?
* What ages are the women? What ages are the men? Are there any women over 50? Are there any men over 50?
* Are the women depicted as attractive? Are there any ugly-but-cool women? How about the men?
Of the characters of non-normative race (i.e. non-caucasians in a primarily caucasian game, non-Japanese in a primarily japanese game):
* Are they depicted as equals?
* Are they more mysterious?
* Is their race based on a real race, or is it made-up?
* Do they have secret powers? Are the powers associated with their race?
* Is their race depicted as natural mystical savages or a noble and forgotten civilisation? If so, and they are a real race, does this match reality?
* Are the characters added for comedy? Is their accent or speech pattern used for comedy?
Of the normative race and gender (i.e. white men in a game containing mostly white men):
* What traits do they show as typical of their group? Are these typical gender roles? Are these traits seen as mandatory or as making these characters better than the other characters?
* How much variety is there in these characters?
* Do the non-normative characters deviate as far from norm as the normative characters? Here I'm saying, if you've got lots of white men and one woman, how much difference is there between them? How different from an average woman is the woman? Is she white? Does she show typical traits of femininity, or is she sassy/dominant/independent/the leader/nonsexualised?
And if you don't do the research, you should be able to work out from the questions what I think are the major stereotypes
@KurtRussellFanClub Thanks for the reply, some really good questions there that I'll take into account. For the paper I plan to collect articles, characters references and players/designers opinions on this topic; the main question for the paper is "Does the portrayal of minority characters in a game effect the overall outcome of a game for the player?" I want to know if gamers are growing tired of these stereotypes and do designers/developers need to change their ways.
@Snader I remember seeing a tweet from Cliff Bleszinski about people creating characters with large breasts on CGHub and how they we're undermining their talents, I've seen similar things on the Polycount forums and I want to know the reasons behind why people do this.
This.
Oh god.
Because shock horror, people like to create things they find appealing?
Saw this the other day; wanted to link it here but had forgotten where I'd seen it hah!:)
It's very common in MMO's still.
Fair play to him. I'm very critical of the man but if he did actually say that colour me impressed.
you didnt play Terra? pretty much everyone there is half naked.
in a world where CoD is the most successfull gamebrand, where is the point in asking for the situation of stereotypes.
I honestly think this whole minority-stereotype stuff is more an issue if you are looking at movies. most modern games handle that stuff pretty decently imo.
By all means, people should stick to what they like, even if that means never going beyond their childhood comic book fantasies that probably got them into art in the first place.
If these artists don't mind being regarded as perpetual 14-year-olds, more power to them. c:
Instead, why not narrow it down to something you could actually write a 5000 or 10000 word paper on, like applying Edward Said's controversial 1978 book Orientalism to Prince of Persia?
It's funny on how people who ask 'Live and let live' for their own life are the very first ones to make condescending remarks on other peoples 'Likes' or what they do in their free time.
Essentially, New-Age Bigotry on what is a 'unsullied' standard vs. Old-Age Bigotry standard. Talk about repeat of history in the totally opposite spectrum.
Listen, we're literally publishing 1,000's of games in a single year alone, between 2-8 games a day, in 2009, over 1099 games were published, and these are 'registered' games, that number is straggling higher with unregistered games on non-Steam or Console platforms, not to mention the millions of flash games that come out in a single month.
We're literally producing 2-4 times more games in a single day in the Western world then the whole world is making movies in a single day.
What entitlement does one have to go to my portfolio, not game, product or service, but literally a 'FOLIO and judge me if I make the occasional girl with with large breasts as if that dictates me as a person? Does that mean anyone who makes Robots has a Mech-fetish? Or anyone who makes monsters with gore? Are they into Guro?
By that definition, people like Cliffy B. are Rabbit loving, Muscle growing, Vore fetishist's with daddy issues.
It's not your right, nor anyone else, I'm not promoting hate speech, I'm not promoting racism, I'm literally making a bunch of polygons look like the 'fat bags' on women body in a sterile, 3D environment in my free-time, help me improve my model by all means, but don't come in and think this model represents who I am or my ideologies.
Just because the game industry is the last place on Earth left that even remotely listens to it's fanbase doesn't mean they have to right to bring their grudge from the Comic, Movie, Show, and Work industry (not to mention upbringing and culture) and verbally throw their emotional baggage at your everyday artist that is doing something in their spare-time.
If you have problem with any of the -ism's, then please take it up with the rest of the culture in the world and the respective industries that aren't listening to you, don't get condescending with a passive-aggressive comment against an artist who is doing something in their spare time on CG-Hub and what they do.
Joking of course, I have complete faith that this thread will provide meaningful new insights into a topic that doesn't get rehashed every week here.
The fact that majority of lead characters are white males make me think developers are afraid of changing things up due to the current styles of characters selling well, I know there are examples of female or ethical lead characters but they are still outnumbered and usually forced into a side character role either used for eye candy or just a sidekick role. But even as a lead character or side character there are still certain stereotypes that still occur, whether these stereotypes are good or bad are personal opinions, which is what I'm trying to collect at the moment.
I have an example of a character that breaks the mould of stereotype, Aveline from Assassin's Creed III: Liberation, she's a strong female black lead character but she's the lead character in the spin off game of the main series, being on the Vita the character is only accessible to a smaller market, which raises the question of why couldn't she have been the main character in the main series?
Think you might be the only one that got that memo :poly142:
So.. all I can say about stereotypes is that some people are paying good money for them.
The stereotypes that aren't making money aren't going anywhere.
This is all.
I don't want to come across as someone stating Stereotypes are bad and should be banished from games, I understand some stereotypes are required to give characteristics. I was aiming to create an open ended post, where I can see what peoples opinions are on this topic.
Unfortunately because there are so few games with female leads it's hard to form any meaningful conclusions about what the lack of sales is being caused by. But then since when has lack of evidence stopped anyone from forming an opinion?
When one failed title can submarine your entire studio it's not hard to understand why people don't want to take risks with huge franchises on games with several million dollar budgets. So when they do take risks it usually starts small, like for example... a PSVita game.
I've done some research and planning before I posted this, there are a lot of papers that discuss sexism in video games but they tend touch on the subject via examples and get opinions from female gamers.
Whether this is different or not, my approach is to ask the opinions of gamers and creators and whether they have an understandable link that give reason to these stereotypes.
As artists, what makes you decide the gender or race of the characters you produce? What leads you to certain design features?
As gamers, do you think stereotypes exist in the games? If so, is it a negative thing? Does it effect your experience of the game?
Btw I'm really surprised by the amount responses I'm getting, I wasn't expecting so many, quite a few mixed opinions as well which is brilliant. Thanks everyone and keep em coming.
I agree, we men are not objects and should be celebrated for our minds, not our bodies.
Edit: PIGS!
I don't doubt for a second that games publishers aren't exactly the same - artistic control over design issues like ethnicities, gender, how much skin needs to be flashed or muscle should be on show, would likely be dictated from above by money-men and very rarely have anything at all to do with us as individual artists, no matter how much we might want to push for them.
I will say, though, there's a lot of clumsy stereotyping around but it doesn't mean stereotypes aren't a very, very useful tool in portraying character (strong alpha dudes do need to be bulky and handsome in some way, beauty queens will be most recognisable when they're beautiful and overly made-up, bikers portrayed as bearded, tattooed, leather dudes). It almost seems easier to me to design a character when I think outside of the 'white/handsome' box - it's more fun coming up with backstories and researching other cultural signifiers and fashions and finding ways to subvert from the 'expected' characterisation for a particular type. But I think you still need to work from an understanding and sympathetic recognition of stereotypes in order to understand how an audience 'see's' a character.
TL;DR - to answer your question - I try to look at the expected stereotype of a cast of characters and see if I can try and push or twist it in a way that might create something more interesting for that character. If I can also help get in more positive, non-stereotypical role models for underrepresented groups, or reflect as many diversities as possible, it would be in the hopes that at least some of it survives the blandifying or objectifying machinations of the money-men that dictate how marketable a production is. What people make in their own time, though - totally whatever they enjoy most, I guess!
I'm very interested in what Stabbington mentioned about people higher up the chain of production having a say on the character ethnicity, also what Mstankow mentioned about the lack of females and minorities in the industry. Would you say the business side has a major factor when it comes to the gender or race of game characters?
It's not that thread unless you turn it into that thread
Well if this paper is going to be graded on academic merit by a liberal arts teacher rather than just making game art students write a paper to be graded by a game art teacher then maybe you SHOULD narrow it down to one or the other. The point of a thesis/research paper is to be as precise as possible with your subject matter.
My thoughts exactly.
Going back to my previous comment, do people believe there is a business factor that effects the choice of race for a main character?
Thanks again to everyone for commenting
Of course there is. They look at the target audience and try and appeal to them often times. I mean guys like to feel strong and cool or some shit. So why play as a girl for war games? It's just not what makes sense from a business standpoint. The truth is no matter what you choose someone will see it as being one sided so I say who gives a fuck.
Furthermore guys like hot girls, so why make girls barley dressed? It's not that hard to figure out.
I mean advertising is the same fucking way. Have you ever seen the difference between say a magazine add in the us and in Russia? If there is one black guy or two in the US ad, they will make them all white in the Russian ones more often than not. It's just about hitting the right demographic and isn't a social issue.
It's not sexist or racist. Sure there are stereotypes in fucking everything. Sometimes things just are that way.
All I'm trying to say is that you can't make everyone happy. People are to easily offended and political correctness is absurd. I honestly didn't read the whole thread but I just kinda needed to rant so sorry.
To keep being profitable, and remain solvent, 'hypothetical AAA studio' needs consistent runs of best sellers or a franchise, or at the very least big investment from people/companies who expect a healthy return. There's very few companies that can take creative risks once they get over a certain size, because there's such a heavy requirement on operating costs to be met and there's a much larger proportion of executives, producers, marketing depts. and sales experts- so it becomes much more about making money, and much less about making art.
It seems to me that in our current market, following an established template is the preferred safe approach - sequels, remakes, reboots, knock-offs, etc. Obviously, cinema is the more blatant example of this and a good example overall - the majority of action blockbusters feature handsome white male buff-as leads - yet the audiences of blockbuster action films are presumably more diverse than the stereotyped audience of AAA FPS games. They simply make the most money, so that's what gets made, and big companies follow the most profit-making template as closely as possible in the hopes of replicating its success.
So, if the market best sellers show that FPS's with rugged, white, shaved-headed, stubble dudes are predominant in the best-sellers lists, then that becomes part of the visual template. Big companies are risk-averse, so sales figures and comparisons will be brought out, market research groups will be shown various tests and so on - unbelievable amounts of money can be spent on very rigorous psychological research testing (a friend of mine works in that particular industry), just to 'confirm' all these findings with focus groups.
This is where, when you get down to it, it all gets decided. If focus group/testers/marketers/"publisher experience"/etc or, even more horrifyingly, 'statistical proof' shows a white character will create more sales than a black character, then the black character is likely to be cut. Big market-driven companies will never go for something that might reduce profit, as harsh as that sounds, and this is where the orders eventually come down from.
So I believe a lot of the perpetuation of stereotypes in games come from - 'that's what our research and figures show sells best'. An ethnic lead might negatively influence sales, so why take the risk if you're solely about money generation? The art that gets made comes from 'who can do that (big muscle dude) the best that I can currently hire' using the 'art stipulations (big muscle dudes) that our committees have decided' and the whole cycle goes round again.
I think there are a lot of people who do tend to design characters solely in the 'caucasian hero' group, but there are also people out there who consciously try to represent outside of the normal stereotypes - I just think that these designs will most likely get nixed in production by executive decisions focused on 'widening the appeal' as much as possible. And, as above, the people entrenched at 'hypothetical AAA studio' are likely the kings of buff white dudes; whether this automatically makes them less likely to make or push for diversified characters, I wouldn't think is very realistic.
The real issue is that whatever sells well, will get made. I don't know how you break that cycle because it's about 'majority appeal' and the representation of 'minorities' by its nature makes it 'niche' and only (supposedly) marketable to such groups. Until more minority groups impact on the profitability of games or the majority becomes more interested in less stereotypical depictions, is a big company likely to invest in the risky enterprise of making a game that would only appeal to a smaller market?
The only way I think you'll see any major change in is if big companies or indies decide to take some risks and try and develop for a market outside of the long established middle-class white male stereotype. I think the Rockstar mention above is a good example of a company comfortable enough with its franchise's pulling power and are creatively assured enough to take such risks.
Maybe some kind of 'stereotype-fatigue' might set in, where people eventually begin to crave for 'different' or 'unusual' or 'new' again. But for now, I blame big business and people's love of bland, mass-market, predictable fare!
Consumers cry that developers never innovate and recycle the same crap, insisting that they only buy the same games over and over because "it's all that's available"
Developers cry that consumers don't allow them to take risks because they keep buying the same crap instead of more different games.
The incentive for both parties here is to keep making/buying the same things until they no longer provide what they want. Whether that be enjoyable games or sales stats. Only once they stop getting what they're looking for will they begin searching for it in other places.
I'm not sure I should be saying these things but what the hell.
Whilst not EXACTLY what you were asking, I'm 100% dead certain that questions like "What should the new Lara Croft look like?" Would have been one of, if not THE MOST hotly debated thing (in-house) in the entire production of the new tomb raider game.
And as for the artist(s) who actually built Lara - I would guess that he or she probably didnt have too much say in the final look at all.
So when you ask questions like 'As artists, what makes you decide the gender or race of the characters you produce? What leads you to certain design features?' - the question to MOST character artists is kind of irrelevant because those decisions have often already been made for them.
Either on the 2d side for the modeler to simply replicate, or possibly even prior to any 2d being done because either the lead, the art director, or any number of producers, or higher ups already have in their mind what that female should look like - and they want to see it like that.
Another point, when it has come to the look of a female character in a game, if its not a likeness; its always been a 'design by committee' scenario.
And the design by committee has always (to me) lead to a watered down middle ground idea that satiates the requests of all the chiefs.
My entire career on or in the front lines of character production I've always been at the mercy of superiors who want things their way, which is understandable tbh. I dont hate them, they are doing their job. Someone has to unify the vision. And almost certainly you will instantly divide the crowd by doing so, into lovers and haters.
I would LOVE as an artist, to simply create things the way I believe they should be created, BUT you have to remember in big business, and AAA titles with huge franchises thats simply not how it works. Marketing is paramount. I've seen them strong-arm art teams time and time again, I think the most valuable information you could get would be from the marketing department on a franchise game and not the artists, because frankly in big teams they dont have much say at all in the grand scheme of things.
If it's mentioned in the OP it's fair game; and it was. 'typical portrayal of women in videogames' is there.
Nice posts stabbington.
This cycle that occurs, is it getting outdated? I've read articles, other forum posts and even reviews where people complain about the generic characters we see today, whether these are the opinions of the majority market, I guess not, but do you feel the fault of this cycle that occurs is equally shared with consumers and developers or do you think one side has more say in the matter?
Re: generic characters getting outdated? Sure, I think so. If a game is creatively lacking and character designs are obvious, I'm going to go play a game that does put thought into their designs. Putting a hoodie on a character will only take you so far. At this point, yeah, I think it's fair to say I find some stock character designs off-putting.
However to put that into perspective Skyrim made $450 million in sales in its first week, god only knows what it has made since it's launch in 2011. The game had a budget of $85 million. If it had only made $40 million in sales not only would it have been a crippling financial failure, it also likely would have killed off the entire franchise.
"Success" is not measured by what critics think and being able to sell X number of copies. It's measured by whether or not your game can actually turn a profit, and by how much profit it is turning... Darksiders 2 was widely well received by reviewers (comparable metacritic scores to most of The Walking Dead episodes) and the game was dead on arrival despite selling over a million copies. After THQ went bankrupt, they put Vigil and the Darksiders IP up for auction -- No one even bid on them. One of the most painful things to read about in the game industry to date in my opinion.
Unfortunately narrative/story driven games which typically rely the most heavily on stereotypes are also the most costly to develop. One of the ways The Walking Dead managed this problem was to release the game in episodes, 2-3 hours of content each. Meaning they could develop with a MUCH smaller budget and also accept smaller sales figures. This is an old solution that has been tried in the past with mixed results. The biggest problem is that it means restarting your marketing campaign every time you launch a new episode which is very costly to do... unless your game is based on an existing television franchise whos advertising you can piggyback off of.
Ultimately peoples opinions about whos "fault" it is that the same content keeps getting produced over and over is more a reflection of their world view than it is an objective assessment of reality. I will say though that I think much of this is a result of the way the game industry is structured, the difficulty developers have getting their games to market, and the unfortunate fact that it's not enough to develop a great game... you also have to market it...
Edit: Going back to your example about lead female characters, I just want to state that I think the sales figures for the new Tomb Raider game is going to be an important (if not THE most important) benchmark going forward for publishers in determining whether or not the white-male trend is going to continue or decline...