And this is news why? This issue is not new. Where's the action on how to increase diversity? And no, a football game with a license from historically black colleges is not a start.

Dan,

The news is that somebody published a study with specific measurements, not that the issue exists.

Who cares? Why would you want to play as yourself? When I play Street Fighter my favorite character is Chun Li and I am neither female nor Chinese! And to use TV or movies as a reference to how minorities are being represented correctly, then you should look at the inordinate amount of gay & lesbian characters in movies and TV as opposed to the fact that they only represent about 4% of the U.S. population.

If you want to play video games because you want characters that look like you so you feel like you're immersed so to speak, then play SIMS or get a Wii where you can create a character that looks similar to your race.

It's probably important to note that "Latino children play more video games than white children" is not the same things as "more Latino children play video games than white children," which is really more relevant. I think that information actually came from "Generation M: Media in the Lives of 8-18 Year-olds," which should be available from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The most important point the article made was that the likelihood of minorities entering the game industry is key to changing the representation of minorities in game media. This is a serious issue, but I'm not sure that the report itself is particularly surprising or helpful; that said, it does reinforce the current state of affairs.

As annoying as ethnic analities are, is it really that hard to create diverse characters in games? I'm not a game developer yet, so please enlighten me if there are any serious barriers to this. In playing Fable, I liked how some of the main characters (Whisper and Thunder) were black. Did it make me jump for joy, praise Obama, and declare that the gaming industry has taken important babysteps toward racial equality? No. But I did enjoy and appreciate the diverse flavor it added to the game, however minor.
Recall Disney's new princess movie, the Princess and the Frog. It made a lot of black children happy because they finally had a princess that looked like them and could dress up for Halloween as. Ethnic diversity can make so many people happy and it's such a simple thing. Why not have it in games?

Awww....poor Rico Rodriguez gets no respect.

You can get the paper gratis off Dmitri Williams' homepage. By the way, Christian, the Science Daily article calls out Bulletproof, not Blood in the Sand (Bulletproof is also mentioned in the paper.)

Oops. Muscle memory and indifference to 50 Cent got me. Sorry 'bout that.

Brent Acop said: "If you want to play video games because you want characters that look like you so you feel like you're immersed so to speak, then play SIMS or get a Wii where you can create a character that looks similar to your race."

This ties into a point I was going to make. In many games where customizability of the main character is a featured component...there aren't that many skin tones to begin with. My niece is of mixed race, I don't think she'd find any color that would suit her Mii character.

To answer, "who cares?"...perhaps many consumer like to identify themselves with main characters, or are drawn to characters who are very much like themselves (or at least how they view themselves to be). It would be interesting to see how gamers of different ethnicities would react if they were playing a game that allowed you to choose an ethnicity of the main character before playing game.

I've read that part of Master Chief's appeal is the fact that he is not shown in the flesh allowing a player to put themselves in his shoes, rather than seeing him as a foreign or unfamiliar supersoldier.

I definitely prefer to see and play other races in games. I think we are making good progress. I remember the first game where the protagonist was black and female (Urban Chaos).

So we are getting there and this is great trend.

I am curious if other countries (Japan, France, England, Germany) are asking these hard questions of their developers and gamers. It always seems to me (venting here) that we in the States always ask these hard questions and try to find solutions...

maybe they have adult, white, male, protagonists because many developers are adult, white, males?

*flinches in anticipation of a lawsuit*

I'm not saying black people, or women or Hispanics or other minorities don't make videogames or anything. What I mean is that it can be kinda strange for a white male adult to make a videogame with a black protagonist, or a women, or a Hispanic hero. Without a minority or female in a design position or being consulted; how is a white male supposed to portray the black experience? the Hispanic experience? the female experience? Think of the storm it could cause if white designers make a game about minorities that are grossly inaccurate?

and if more Latino children play video games than white children; I'm sure we'll start to see more Latino developers in the future.

Games, movies, television all feature the white male everyman as the central character. Why? Because it is the safe choice financially. But usually that is when the game requires a single main character. Usually when their is an ensemble, you get a white guy, mexican/hispanic guy, woman, and a black guy.

So how did the study deal with that? Did the study differentiate between games that use a central character versus those groups of characers.

Also, what about games that allow for character creation. Where you can be chinese or mexican or an indian... Did those just get left out?

Remember when Prey came out and they made a huge deal over the inclusion of an Indian as the main central character? Well, the game failed. What message did that send? Of course, that game was a dollar short... as they say.

I think the point above is very interesting. Where the implication is that developers make games based on how the see themselves, if a mostly white guys make games, then you get white main charactes. The minorities in game development then the more diverse the game characters? Really? What about that game that had the Rabbit chained to the weasel. The developer was Black.

So that leads me to ask, what do you consider Sponge Bob? Yep, white guy. So does that mean that the study should have included the ethnicity implied by the voices used for characters?

Is the study flawed?

@Tommy
Have you ever read Girl or Prom Anonymous by Blake Nelson? They were written from the perspective of a teenage girl by a middle aged guy. Reading them, however, feels like reading a teenage girl's myspace. Just goes to show you don't have to be female or do extensive interviews with feminists to create a convincing female character. Likewise, developers don't need to be black to create black characters. Neither should making the main character a minority mean the game should have to be about minority issues.

My earlier point was that I am unaware of any evidence that more Latino children play video games than white children, or that Latino children purchase more games than white children; it is easy to read the article and assume that was said, but it wasn't. The article used very misleading language on that point... which is standard fair if you want your article to grab someone's attention.

In any case, they were referencing a separate study when they made the claim that "Latino children play more video games than white children." In that study, the researchers were using "more" to indicate a greater proportion, not a greater total number. In the context of this article, it seems to imply that they play a larger number of games, but I don't think that was indicated in the original report. Basically, population size is important. Someone else should fact-check me by reading the Generation M paper from the KFF.

This is an important issue for developers to consider, especially when hiring new staff.

And they DO accurately represent majorities?

What's next, humans sueing UI button artists because bowling pin people don't look like real people?

What do they want us to do is my question? In games where you get to customize your player - yes, minorities (and both genders) should be present most definitely - but other than that what do they want developers to do about it?

If every game -has- to have a minority character (or even worse a character of every race / gender) developers will lose creative control. Also, look at the most recent Resident Evil 5 which took place in Africa and they -still- got in trouble.

The real problem is that especially with recent lawsuits game developers may actually be -less apt- to put minorities in games due to the fear that they will get sued because that character is granted a magical shield of immortally and thus subject to the same violent / game situations other characters are (See Resident Evil 5).

The only true non-racial towards anyone solution I see is some type of "random human generator" that generates characters from different cultures, races, gender, and even disability - but something tells me that wouldn't work very well towards created good games (A Blind Main Character in Halo anyone?)

The is about in the below paragraph (now corrected) should be isn't:

"The real problem is that especially with recent lawsuits game developers may actually be -less apt- to put minorities in games due to the fear that they will get sued because that character isn't granted a magical shield of immortally and thus subject to the same violent / game situations other characters are (See Resident Evil 5)."

"The characters the developers put in the games do not match the real world"

I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. I have never in my life seen a blue hedgehog that wears red shoes and runs really fast... and can talk.

In all seriousness though, maybe I have a skewed perspective because I'm Australian and have never really seen major issues with race given how multinational the country is naturally, but is this really an issue? If I really wanted to, I could analyse it and say "well how many Aboriginal people do you see in games that come out of Australia?" (Escape from Woomera comes to mind), but you can't seriously go there because you hardly see any Australian people at all in games (minus AFL/Cricket etc.), given the kinds of games Australia produces (a lot of games for overseas publishers, etc.).

I'm inclined to agree with Brent and say that it's not really indicative of anything at all as far as who I'd choose to play in games goes. And I agree with Tommy's perspective about misrepresenting races. I'd say it's far more offensive to try and create a black character and end up being too stereotypical, or create a black character and essentially just end up with a white character in a black skin. Even if there are cases as Sharon pointed out that are quite the opposite, recently there was a huge fuss about the issue with relation to the twin robots in Transformers 2 for being so stereotypically black it was offensive to many. That's what happened with robots, let alone characters that actually look the part as well!

Games from Japan have Japanese style characters. Games from America have American characters. If the culture changes, naturally you'd see a shift in the kinds of characters you get out of games. If anything, I'd say it's just more a reflection of the current culture than it is a warning sign that things need to be forcefully changed.

As somebody who is black(for the record I don't identify myslf african-american because I was born in a foreign country to parents who who are also foriegners) I find it ridiculous that everything have be about race, if not gender or sexual orientation. If the entertainment industry(mainly in america) doesn't repersented either of these individuals, companies are essentially blacklisted by groups such as NAACP, GLAAD, NOW, etc..

Anyhow I peronally don't care if the game character is black or white, male or female, but all I care about is a great title, something I'm seeing less of these day. Not only that, but tired of all this collectivism and identity politics.

@Sharon

It's not about when it works; it's when it doesn't work. If you fail at portraying a minority realistically, you come off as a racist or at the least ignorant. Does an entire video game company want to do that? its WAY to risky to put out a game that could destroy careers. You make games to make money and entertain people (and possibly because you would die doing anything else). Why the hell would you jeopardize that?

the united states spends money. The united states has racism, its getting better now, but people are still sensitive. People alive today can remember when they were not allowed to drink at certain water fountains (and worse).

we can't change the past, the best we can do is try and move forward. You can't do that by making ignorant mis-steps that make you look like a bigot. I'm not saying its wrong to make video games with minority protagonists. You can make games with minorities but you have to be careful.

You know, we talk about this in many of our classes. I am black ("although I am no where near the color black"), and my view is like Mr Hanusa. Majority of the devs are white so therefore, more characters will be white. I do not see a problem with that, but it would be good if we had a choice.

If we as black Americans would stop complaining and penetrate the industry more, then it could change. All we do is complain and never take the necessary steps to fix the problem in away that suitable for everyone. If you want to see change then get off your a@# and do something that would give you the opportunity to change it.

I have my degree in Game Designing and Development, and currently working on my Software Engineering degree and I plan to make strives in the right way to change it and not complain about every damn thing.

I hate these studies so much...

Where are the numbers that show the races in related roles in society?

What about ugly people? Have you been to Walmart? The amount of ugly people to attractive people is TOTALLY out of wack. I for one am offended by not having more ugly people in video games! Where is my game dangit!

What this study should be saying is, latinos who want to make video games could have a wonderful niche to fill. It sort of says that, but it villianizes current game publishers in the way it was presented. That is wrong.

Also, I didn't get into video game development because I played as a white guy who saved the world. I got into video games because of moving around a giant yellow circle that ate other smaller circles was the most fun I had as a child.

Three points:
1. Dominic Santiago is not included by Design of this study. I just glanced over the .pdf and the sample of 150 Games is taken from March 2005 to Feb 2006 (see p. 822). So Gears of War and Scarface are both not included by design. I don't know why he took 2005 as his sample year.

2. worse is this:
"Each game was played by an expert game player – who was not one of
the coders – for 30 minutes on the default difficulty setting, typically ‘low’
or ‘easy’. [...] The 30-minute segments were the
largest unit of analysis and were used for the research questions that called
on game-level data." (p. 823)

it's like reading 50 pages of a book.

3. and worst this:

"In the event that a game provided the option to choose from a list of primary characters, such
characters were selected randomly so that characters from both genders, all ethnicities and all age groups had an equal chance of being selected." (p. 823-4)

I don't know, how to express my anger about this level ignorance. This study is _so_ wrong. It's a shame.

I think that the US suffers from racismphobia... That is, a irrational fear of racism, seeing racism everywhere...

This is a pendulum that swings back and forth. I recall being told I had to remove the Hitler character in Gunstar Heroes because Hitler would offend people. The character in the game was a boss and the player was supposed to kill him, but that wasn't enough... he had to be removed entirely. I was abel to reach a compromise where only the mustache was removed, making him look far less Hitler like.

Lets try to not become to politically correct. Let the game design guide us to the characters the player controls in the game. While I agree we need to have balance, lets not get overly cautious. We do tend to create characters like us... or in the case of Lara Croft, I'll quote the US producer: "Why does she have such big boobs? 'Cause she was created by bored lonely English designers".

I talk all about this kind of stuff in my blog...

http://aboutmakinggames.blogspot.com/

Mac

Racism in games is REAL! Why, when I was playing an Iksar in Everquest there were LITERALLY people all over the world willing to kill me, ON SIGHT, just because my skin was ....green.

I've noticed every time an article of this kind comes up people get uncomfortable or try to throw it under the rug like everything's cool. As an African American working in the industry I would like to see more minorities in main game titles. People come up with all kind of fantasy and out of this world concepts all the time (see it everyday) but can't come up with a concept story for any minorities. Like others have said above the industry is mainly white male we all know that but at least expand the horizon a little and try something different at times. I know its all about the dollar but what if a studio makes a good game with a lead Asian character think about how that will sell out east if there is a good story and concept.

Lastly blacks need to show more interest in gaming and stop thinking that working in gaming is only for whites. I get so tired of black people thinking certain jobs are for whites and certain for blacks. We need to stop being so narrow minded and realize that you can do anything you put your mind to.

@Andre @ Helder...amen my friends. Our country is plagued by this bullsh**. I am surprised North American developed games do not have Zoloft and Prosaic pills in them as powerups! :-)

Well said Greg Thomas, I agree with what you said. My so called friends back home considers me a white boy because I chose a profession that they think caters to white America. I do not want to sit outside on the streets every night looking at rims on other peoples cars.

I love to play games and make them. So why not, I have the same opportunity as everyone else in this world.

People, Stop complaining and educate yourself if you want to make a difference. Damn all we do is complain, get up and do something about it.

While such studies are interesting as an intellectual exercise, they're also interesting due to the unrecognized ethnocentrism behind the data analysis and drawn conclusions, particularly with respect to assumptions about how any particular artistic representation of characters is defined to be of any specific ethnicity (or age group, socioeconomic status, or any other category).

I strongly encourage everyone who is interested about this topic to read Dr. Matt Thorn's excellent essay, "The Face of the Other," where he offers an explanation of Japanese artistic styles in manga (and by extension, games and anime, as well as Korean manwa and associated entertainment) and the differences in perceptions and assumptions between East Asian creators and audiences versus Western creators and audiences. Here is a link to the essay on his site:
http://www.matt-thorn.com/mangagaku/faceoftheother.html

The main point is that Western creators and audiences tend to look for superficial (and completely irrelevant) external, explicit markers for indications of racial ethnicity, socioeconomic status, or other categorizations, while Japanese and other East Asian creators and audiences expect implicit, contextual markers that are part of the character, environment, setting, events, etc and are not superficial in nature. In other words, it is not true that someone has negative identity issues due to characters not "looking like them" - in fact, this is an example of blatant lookism. People want to play characters that they can empathize with based on how each person sees themselves and feels about themselves. This self-perception can be (and often is) very different from someone else's perception of the person.

Another excellent study about this type of issue is the one from Georgia Tech about 10 years ago where they had participants play a version of The Turing Game. Here is a link to an article about the study: http://gtresearchnews.gatech.edu/newsrelease/TGAME.html Perhaps a better link would be to read a case study one particular session, including input from a moderator who is a male-to-female transgender / transsexual individual: http://www.cc.gatech.edu/fac/Amy.Bruckman/papers/convergence-tg-01.pdf

Note that the Georgia Tech study shows that no one was able to consistently predict the gender orientation of participants, not even the transgender / transexual moderator who was a participant in the case study example, despite the fact that many assumptions and stereotypes continue to pervade both general and academic discourse about this type of issue. More studies like the Georgia Tech one need to be done. In fact, I would argue that this type of game is a perfect example of the power of interactive media, and that such a tool could be updated and modernized with sufficient support. I would argue that the same unpredictable outcomes would occur with studies of any category; after all, the Georgia Tech study allowed various types of games (age, class, etc), not just gender games. It just so happened that gender games proved to be the most popular, and this fact might say as much about a general preoccupation with superficial characteristics as it does about assumptions and stereotypes associated with categorizations of individuals.

Sorry... forgot to add one example to illustrate one of the points.

Some Western gamers have stated that Reimi Saionji from Star Ocean: The Last Hope is a WASP. Obviously, this is not true at all, and no Japanese creator or player makes such an assumption. It wouldn't even occur to them to make such a claim. The fact that Reimi is a young Japanese woman is very obvious to them (and to me, for that matter).

I think that everyone should stop claiming that the gaming industry is white male dominated, too, because obviously this is not the case if you consider the entire global industry. How many white males are working in Japan for Japanese developers and publishers? Or Korea? Or China? Right... not many. That's a pretty large chunk of the gaming industry, and it certainly isn't white male dominated. In fact, it isn't even male dominated because there are lots of women working in the industry, albeit usually on the artistic side rather than the business or technical side (although that is changing, too).

Just some info that I think needs to be part of the discussion when this type of issue is raised and discussed, at least if we're talking about the actual global industry rather than local or national parts of it.

@and if more Latino children play video games than white children; I'm sure we'll start to see more Latino developers in the future

Every Latino I know plays video games...and some of us actually make games too:)

In one of the productions of meda of honor:EA we made it a point to diversify the characters to actually represent the true demographics of world war 2 infantry. The previous game had a blonde blue eyed main character, which is great and all, but doesn't represent even the color spectrum of "white americans" or the american experience. The fact was it was a decision from the upper ups to make it a blond blue eyed anglo, why could it be an green or black eyed italian american instead? It was a safe marketing decision. (The fact is "white" people come in many colors, shades, tints and hues)

I'm hoping as we broaden the experience and mature our form, we can tell stories and play games from more than one vantage point and from more than one perception.

Nice summary, Daniel Boy. Now if only we could get people who have spouted random crap and then left the conversation to see that...

Let's not forget the Pacific Islanders, the South Americans, Arabs, Indians (both North American and Eurasia), Canadians, Vikings, and everyone else in the world. Everyone should have there time in the spot light. I wouldn't, however, focus on race to the point where you offend someone or hinder the game experience. Unfortunately the former is difficult because someone some where will find a way to be offended. The later is just a matter of not getting too distracted by politics.

I'm always impressed with games like Mass Effect where players can customize their protagonist. I don't know if the game was racial sensitive enough. Does the voice acting need to be customizable too? I honestly don't know, and I don't want to assume at of the fear of being labeled a racist white guy.

@Sean, yes I did read Daniel's post. And, he answered my last sentence where I said, rhetorically, is this study flawed? A resounding yes it is.

Everything I was concerned about that article made me think of as likely probems in the study were there and more.

Thanks, Daniel.

And in other news, fire is hot, clear skies are blue, and people resume not giving a rat's duff about the so-called epiphanies concocted by pompous college academic snoots requiring tens of thousands of tax-payer supported tax dollars.

Yes, USC. Congratulations. You have just stated the obvious.

...

...And hey! So did I! And I didn't require an extensive survey to pull it off! Tack plus one for me in the efficiency game! SCOREBOARD!

No matter how a character is "represented" there is always going to be someone who complains about it. I remember sometime back, I forgot what game it was, but a group of African americans were saying that some of the characters in the game were " too ghetto". Then it was pointed out that the game designer was African american himself,lol.As far as I know no one recalled the game or asked that changes be made to it after that( I wish I remembered what the game was, it was one of the kind I usually don't play anyway( I'm into Square Enix games mostly)

This reminds me of a conversation I had while I was in school...
Basically the topic of race came up and there were a couple the held the belief that there needed to be more latinos and african americans shown in games set in america... there were many that responded with: Who cares.

I think the challenge right now, is that most of the games made are so juvenile, that really, the designers do not care. Characters right now are simply stereotypical shells used to push some plot point forward. (EG: Characters from GTA: San Andreas, or GoW.)

I think this will eventually change, but when designers start actively caring more about plot experience, and more about reflecting the world about them - these things will change. I don't think that will happen until designers and developers are more educated. (Degrees, actual exposure to different ethnic groups, etc.) I also think development companies themselves need to invest a little in creating a diverse workplace. This could be tough in places like New England, where there don't seem to be many non-whites about... but I personally think it would be worth it. There is a deep richness of experience you lose by having a monocultural work force.

@David Mata - Just to expand on that, if developers and publishers sponsored boot camps where all kids could learn how games are made that would be a huge start.

But every game that lets me pick my own features has all the minorities, I just have to make them.

I personally think the race card is a lame play. Are minorities just as racist as the majorities then? to not be able to look past the character races that are in the games now? I see no reason why this affects anything unless of course the viewer themselves is racist/sexist.