'Bad buzz': How video games learnt to embrace diversity

I think the media largely misunderstood what players actually think and want. "Give us a playable female character" has nothing to do with diversity or representation, but we just find it funny to play as a female character. If these journalists actually bother to do research, then they will know a lot of players likes to choose to play as hot female characters in games because it's funny. And trust me, some of the weird things they do, it' probably not what the media had in mind for adding a playable female character.

Yup. It's all about money and appeasing enough people (sources of money). Game peaked at IV anyways.

My first thought with the twerking on car segment. We have that already.

Diversity is not a strength.

The pressure is coming from players demanding wider representation

It's not about what players are demanding, it's about Rockstar trying to increase their player base to include the "woke" inclined so that they can squeeze the game for more profit. Meanwhile, they alienate the people who have been playing their games for years. Sadly this trend has leaked over from movies and TV, and now infects games just to placate the minority.

Love the whole “gta is woke, our game is dead!” Rhetoric some morons are slapping out there. If you knew anything about the series, GTA had a playable female protagonist IN THE VERY FIRST GAME. Bunch a fake fans out here lol

Also GTA is constantly ribbing on people who make posts like this and have that opinion. It’s an entire franchise whose humor is based on making fun of extremely moronic things like saying diversity is woke. Way to not know they are not laughing with you but at you

The game is literally all about committing crime. So... more criminals are being portrayed as minorities? - or minorities as criminals, whatever.

Shouldn't minorities be upset about this?

activists have long complained

You mean activists like Anita “I’m not a fan of video games” Sarkeesian ( https://youtu.be/-5N5b5WDaYE )? Anita “Everything is sexist. Everything is racist. Everything is homophobic. And you have to point it all out” Sarkeesian?

how women in particular were objectified

Good thing they fixed that now huh? ( https://youtu.be/JEg563dNIUw )

she noticed her black character could not choose to have afro hair

Stunning and brave! What a hero!

British YouTuber HeelvsBabyface went viral in September with a rant about Starfield, a game that allows players to choose their gender and their pronoun.

Wicked and terrible! What a baby!

Samus Aran… massively popular female character… first appeared in 1986.

Lara Croft… massively popular female character… first appeared in 1996.

Nobody had a problem with strong and empowered women in games or in movies (Ellen Ripley in Alien (1979), Sarah Conner in Terminator (1984), both massively popular characters). Just more made up controversy to keep the masses bickering at each other.

Bob Fosse Today 08:33 am JST

With a name like that I wouldn’t imagine a balanced and thoughtful discussion was ever on the table.

Heel refers to the bad guy in wrestling, Baby Face refers to the good guy. But if you are interested in thoughtful discussion, perhaps you could try “The Critical Drinker.”

@jeffy

You're dang correct in absolutely everything you mentioned on your comment above.

The recent Marvels movie flip flopped and some are saying it did because the movie's main characters are female. But then, like you mentioned, we've had female main laid since forever and people love them. Movies and video games alike.

Sounds like people need to voice their support or lack of support with their wallet. Personally, I'm against it, but if that's what people want, they can buy it and I'm totally fine with that.

Why don't game devs just package games with character skin sets that allow the player to choose from a variety or percentage of ethnic characters? Then EVERY player could feel represented and NOBODY would have to feel left out. Technologically, it's not even difficult.

“British YouTuber HeelvsBabyface went viral in September with a rant about”

With a name like that I wouldn’t imagine a balanced and thoughtful discussion was ever on the table.

Diversity is not a strength.

Depends on if the diverse elements compliment one another. A pasta salad with diverse ingredients is only tasty if the flavors go well together.

"The trigger comes mainly from the players," she said.

Video games are what you make of them. I remember one from the 80s called 'Renegades' and at each stage you had to beat up street punks and them put the whupazz on the gang's thugmeister. At about stage five, the player had to deal with a bunch of dominitrixes and their nasty 'big mean mamma'. I've seen some kids with some warped (already) mentalities and attitudes get really caught up on that game, which I why after a few plays I quit playing it altogether.

And the same for the 'Mortal Combat' series which also featured women fighters like Sonya and others. Some guys I knew in college got so fixated on those female characters (and the increasingly gross violence) it was absolutely sickening. They needed to get a life.

Video games are what you make of them. It's the content and intent of the play that matters, diverse characters or not. You can pick and choose when it comes to that.

 "Give us a playable female character" has nothing to do with diversity or representation, but we just find it funny to play as a female character.

You are describing precisely a problem with diversity and representation. Giving more options for people to represent themselves in a game obviously increases the diversity. Both things are factors on how much fun a person has while playing the game. Maybe you are confusing between gender, sexuality, sexual preferences, etc. But neither diversity or representation has to be related to that. Male heterosexual players that enjoy controlling a female representation are also being benefited by the diversity that allowed that.

Meanwhile, they alienate the people who have been playing their games for years. 

Can you blame a company that stops giving importance to a segment of their public that can only find fun by limiting the options others would enjoy?

British YouTuber HeelvsBabyface went viral in September with a rant about Starfield, a game that allows players to choose their gender and their pronoun.

Oh yea, that guy went crazy because there's a screen in the game that asks you for your pronouns but defaults to male ones anyway. You just press one button and it's done. Aside from that, it never addresses that stuff again, so the guy was foaming at the mouth over a 1 second prompt before the game even officially began.

Anyway, people can say diversity isn't a strength but 2023 was undeniably the best year in gaming we've had in a long time. However, since I am a conservative male for the purpose of this post, I am deathly scared of women and would like less of them in my gaming safe space!

Woke car jacking. Perfectamundo. A match made in heaven!