As E3 2015, the annual trade show for the video game industry, quickly approaches and more games are slowly revealed, the same question returns as concerned gamers ask “Will there be more diverse characters this year?”
Unfortunately, previous years’ list of games clearly shows that the industry still lacks some kind of understanding of diversity.
“Although there were a handful of exceptions, most of the main characters in big-budget action and combat games were variations on the same theme: angry, unshaven white men,” said a Daily Dot article that also included a video of the top 40 characters featured at E3 2014 that followed this theme.
From “Assassin’s Creed Unity” to “Metal Gear Solid V,” from “The Evil Within” to “Murdered: Soul Suspect,” from “Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare” to “Watch_Dogs,” the main characters are so similar that they are almost interchangeable. All of them are strong, angry white men.
With the exception of a few, video games have always had an uncomfortable and unfair lack of diversity with their characters, and despite the fact that this issue has been addressed many times by fans, critics and even developers, most games don’t seem to be making any plans to fix it.
In fact, Ubisoft is acting counterproductive as demonstrated by the release of “Assassin’s Creed Unity,” which allows players to control up to four characters, none of which are female.
According to Alex Amancio, Unity’s creative director, it was too expensive and was “a lot of extra production work” to include a female assassin. This was met with a lot of backlash from Twitter under the hashtag #womenaretoohardtoanimate.
“I think they must presume that they’re going to have to animate all these flowing dresses and flowing hair and jiggling breasts and things like that,” said Leigh Alexander, who writes about the culture and business of games for the website Gamasutra. “(It’s) really interesting insight into how technical folks in the game industry view women’s bodies.”
Alexander was also targeted during the Gamergate Controversy that impacted the industry last year. #Gamergate began with its attack against Zoe Quinn, a video game developer of “Depression Quest,” who had received death threats and harassment regarding her game and sex life. For the next few months, several other women in the industry have been assaulted.
Jenn Frank, an award-winning freelance game journalist, had to step back from her work due to the amount of harassment and threats she received. Mattie Brice, media critic and game designer, also implied that she was leaving the industry because of the torment.
Even though the controversy has now died down, it’s already left a heavy impact on female gamers and developers alike. E3 2014 only featured about six women presenters.
There are, of course, some games that have chosen to take a more diverse path.
The survival horror game, “Alien: Isolation,” developed by The Creative Assembly, stars a strong female protagonist named Amanda Ripley who fights her way off an Alien infested space station.
“Valiant Hearts: The Great War,” developed by Ubisoft Montpellier, is set during World War I with four diverse characters: the Frenchman Emile, the German soldier Karl, the American soldier Freddie and the Belgian nurse Anna.
If the industry can learn anything from these kinds of games, it’s that diversity is not difficult to represent in their games. Hopefully, instead of the same 40 protagonists, this year’s E3 will showcase not only more strong female characters but even stronger women presenters to help gain back the confidence that the female gaming community lost this past year.
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