Intelligent Gamer, April 11, 2008
A 2005 video game industry demographics survey by the International Game Developers Association found that only 2% of game developers across all disciplines are black. Contrast that with the national demographics of the countries that participated in the survey (Australia, Canada, United States, and United Kingdom) who have a combined 9% black population (aggregated from each country’s population and demographics data on Wikipedia).
Nielsen Entertainment also did a study on the demographics of video game players in 2005 and found that African Americans are spending more money to purchase games and more time to play them compared to your average gamer.
So why the disparity when it comes to developers in the industry?
This week MTV’s Multiplayer blog has a lengthy and fascinating look into the world of black professionals working in the video game industry. The five-part series interviewed several black game industry professionals to get their first-hand experiences and opinions on the state of race in the industry.
Some highlights from the series are after the jump.
Full blog series at MTV’s Multiplayer
Day 1: N’Gai Croal (General Technology Editor at Newsweek)
{snip}
On stereotypes in games:
Games are capable of more than people are doing with them. I think that’s what they have to look to and say, “How much longer are we going to rely on the bald space marine? Or how much longer are we going to rely on the Elven female warrior whose armor barely covers her breasts? Is that all we can do with this medium or is there more that can be done?” I think some people just don’t push themselves hard enough.
I think the audience isn’t demanding much change. They like the games they’re playing. They’re by and large comfortable with the amounts of stereotypes in their games.
On making gamers aware of stereotypes in games:
I think a lot of audiences, a lot of gamers, are happy with the games they play. I think there’s a kind of defensiveness seen from gamers when they feel their hobby, their pastime, is being attacked.
On the Resident Evil 5 trailer:
I looked at the “Resident Evil 5Åç trailer and I was like, “Wow, clearly no one black worked on this game.” . . . The point isn’t that you can’t have black zombies. There was a lot of imagery in that trailer that dovetailed with classic racist imagery.
The perspective of the trailer is not even someone who’s coming to help the people. It’s like they’re all dangerous; they all need to be killed. It’s not even like one cute African—or Haitian or Caribbean—child could be saved. They’re all dangerous men, women and children. They all have to be killed.
The portrayal of Africa, or the Caribbean, since we don’t know where it’s being set, as sort of this dark, dangerous continent filled with people who only want to do you harm goes back a long, long way. And based on the images put up on the trailer, what else are you supposed to take from it? Especially if you’re not familiar with the franchise?
{snip}
Day 2: Morgan Gray (Senior Producer at Crystal Dynamics)
{snip}
On the diversity of video game characters:
I am sick of playing the average white dude character. I’m just done with it. And I’m sick of playing a black stereotype. “Crackdown” made me smile. He’s a cop. I mean, he’s all future urban but he’s a cop and he’s black, and even though you can select from like 16 different characters they picked the black dude as their one [to represent the game]. He never talked, he never had a real characterization to him, so I was like “thumbs up.” But as a player I want to have more experiences other than the futuristic super soldier white guy to the unlikely hero white guy.
{snip}
On the importance of having diverse game developers:
It broadens the information pool at the developers’ disposal, and I think it ends up as a better end product especially since we’re not in a place like Hollywood where we can do a lot of focus tests because generally, we can’t focus test until our game is in decent shape. At which point publishers generally want to rip it from our hands and put it on the shelf.
{snip}
On black characters in Japanese games:
Their take on black folks in games has generally been poor. It’s either been here’s this ‘70s pimp, here’s ultra hip-hop dude, or here’s a straight-up thug. F—-ing Barret in “Final Fantasy VII”—they put a gun on the guy’s arm. It’s just like, “Yeah, black guy with built-in gun.” Okay, that’s really, really weird. So it’s generally been s—- characterizations that are way racist or way just hokey racist.
And there’s like zero, zero black women in these games. I don’t know how black people breed in these worlds, but I’m assuming they’d be getting progressively lighter over time because there’s no black women there.
On other ways of putting race in games:
Robert Heinlein did something with “Starship Troopers”—the book, don’t talk about the movie—but the book, it was genius. So you read this whole book and you read this whole story. You go with this character from high school to boot camp to wars. You get this character, you fall in love. In the last three pages, he says one line that made me completely re-evaluate the book and value the book even more. He said, “It’s nice to speak in my native Tagalog.” And I’m like, “This dude is Filipino?” He just didn’t make a big deal out of it. I just assumed it was a white guy in the future. And that kind of thing, can we not make a big deal about it? And games still seem to make a big deal out of it.
{snip}
On why African Americans play games, but don’t enter the industry:
We found out that kids didn’t know that you could have a career in video games. They play the games all day, but it never dawned on them that there were companies that pay people to play video games all day.
On the numbers of African Americans currently in the industry:
There’s very few African-Americans in the industry. You could tell from the roundtable that we were at. Microsoft actually has a “blacks in gaming” event every year at GDC, and I’ll say there was probably between 30 and 50 people there.
On the visibility of African Americans in the game industry:
If you pick up a video game magazine like Game Developer—which a lot of African-Americans don’t read—if you look at the pictures and they show post-mortems of the development companies that they feature in there, there’s not that many African-Americans that you’ll see. So you’ll never even think, “Wow I can do that, too.”
On the portrayal of African American characters in games:
The younger generation, if all they constantly see is minorities being portrayed in that role, that’s all they’re going to know. That’s why I have a problem with it. If there are games that show minorities in a positive light and if there are games that are in not such a positive light, as long as there’s a balance, I’m okay with that.
{snip}
On why there are so few African Americans in the game industry:
I think it’s not encouraged because you still have people who think that it’s not a real job. I think a lot of people don’t know how to get into the industry and don’t look at all the different areas in the game industry that you could work in.
On the importance of having diverse game developers:
There are cases where people are not necessarily trying to be offensive, but they’re pulling their ideas from their own knowledge and that does not necessarily mean it’s always correct. And so sometimes it’s good to have those second eyes or those other opinions or just someone to say, “Hey you may not realize it, but that could be offensive to this particular race or culture.”
{snip}
On the negative portrayal of African American characters in games:
With every race there are negative aspects and there are positives. But I would not take a stand to point out every negative about [a particular race]. And I don’t think those games have issues just with race, there’s killing to prostitution, etcetera. And I have heard people say it shows America in a bad light as a whole.
On gearing games towards African Americans:
I don’t think games should be geared necessarily towards African-Americans because once again you could isolate another audience. It’s just if you’re going to see representation of African-Americans you try to do it in the best light.
{snip}
On counting the number of black women at GDC:
The grand total was six, including myself, and I hear that [the Game Developers Conference] had an attendance of over 18,000 this year.
On the lack of African Americans in the game industry:
I think a lot of folks are just now starting to see it as a career choice. Young people are starting to realize that game development is something you can make a real living at. It’s not like running off to join the circus. There are curriculums that are centered specifically around it, and the industry is looking for talent above all else.
On the importance of having diverse game developers:
I constantly see article after article about how the games industry is starting to run into the same problem as the movie industry—making the same thing year after year. We need a new influx of talent and creativity to help us create that new genre or capture a new audience.
On the portrayal of African American characters in games:
I think the lack of diversity in game design/development teams is pretty apparent when you consider the way in which black people are typically featured. If and when we do appear, we are often uniformly portrayed as acting a certain way or speaking a certain way. There’s typically some criminal element in the game’s storyline, or they’re just over-the-top obnoxious characters. Oh, and they’ve probably had an arm sawed off and replaced with a gun.
On inclusive game design:
It’s something as simple as including ethnic characteristics in a character creation engine instead of just offering a palette swap or allowing someone to create a female player in a sports title. In a lot of cases, there’s very little overhead, and the payoff is noticeable … Game companies don’t always have to actively target a particular demographic; they just have to be aware that that group is also part of their consumer base during design and development.
Original article
(Posted on April 14, 2008)
Comments
As a gamer, let me get this out of the way. Resident Evil 4 has you killing cult-like white people in Eastern Europe. Evidently that’s OK. But in Resident Evil 5, you blast away at black zombies and that is horribly racist. OK got it. Classic double-standard. These games are made by the Japanese game company Capcom. Japanese don’t understand political-correctness thank goodness, ahh the joys of a homogenous popululation.
Second, it is alot and I mean alot of tedious detail oriented work to create video games. I doubt 1% of white people in this country could do it, much less blacks.
On why African Americans play games, but don’t enter the industry:
“We found out that kids didn’t know that you could have a career in video games. They play the games all day, but it never dawned on them that there were companies that pay people to play video games all day.”
Call me uninformed but I didn’t know that either. This person hopefully knows that game developers don’t just sit around playing games all day. Good god this is rubbish.
Posted by Eric at 6:38 PM on April 14
And there’s like zero, zero black women in these games. I don’t know how black people breed in these worlds, but I’m assuming they’d be getting progressively lighter over time because there’s no black women there.(FROM ARTICLE ABOVE)
Well I just read an interview of former Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver, who is now dead, about how blacks in the Black Power movement liked White women. And they would rape them because “they liked to defile what was the White man’s”.So from a Black Power point of view these video games are highlighting black lust for White women.
Posted by Howard in Las Vegas at 6:54 PM on April 14
As a gamer myself i appreciate the article. And as a gamer and race realist , allow me to speak from my own perspective.
In regards to the RE5 Trailer. Many of you older posters may or may not have caught it, but its very reminiscent of any other typically black whining. Blacks simply cannot handle being portrayed savagly though other races can. why is this? maybe it is because they fear it is truer than it is for other races.
Resident evil 1-3 hosted almost exclusively White enemies. RE4 hosted almost exclusively Hispanic enemies (though very light skinned) 5 takes place in africa, so now it is the Blacks turn, and they don’t want to play anymore.
Take it from a gamers standpoint, this is very much the gaming equivalent of ANY other black rambling. They demand this, they demand that, they’re “offended” at something.
Ignore them. Though it is likely the VG industry will now have to deal with the pressures of the ever tiresome “civil rights” groups and persons. they as always, will find something to dislike.
And as for the low amount of “diversity” in the industry. None of us need to wonder do we? there is a low amount of “diversity” in any career requiring competence, creativity and/or intellectual know how.
Posted by Stuck in No Mans Land at 7:09 PM on April 14
Does black complaining ever end. It does’nt matter what industry it is black complain. I’m surprised blacks don’t criticise the lack of black White Nationalists.
Posted by Howard in Las Vegas at 7:21 PM on April 14
I wondered how long it would take for blacks to whine about games. Gaming is by and large a white/asian hobby. Do blacks play games in large numers-you bet but they play the simplist arcade style shooters and sports games. Games are marketed to the audience that buys them not to pander to the blacks. The Resident Evil 5 protests are more black whining. The hispanics didnt whine when the battles took place in South America in previous games, or the virtually all white zombies in the begining. The very fact that this clown is crying racism is proof positive of the massive inferiority complex blacks have.
If this guy wants more black games he can check out 50 Cents series of gangster games that bombed miserably.
Posted by at 8:08 PM on April 14
I’m a gamer, and I know ‘N’Gai Croal’ is just trying to make me feel sympathy for the the plight of black game designer and the black game playing audience… all he really manages to make me feel is glad only 2 percent of game designers are black.
Sorry.
Posted by I should have taken the blue pill. . . at 8:10 PM on April 14
>>
On why there are so few African Americans in the game industry:
I think it’s not encouraged because you still have people who think that it’s not a real job.
>>
LOL! This implies that black people prefer traditional, old-fashioned hard work — when they are the most averse to that of ALL RACES ON EARTH. Blacks LOVE frivolous, non-serious occupations (athlete, rapper, pimp). In fact, the only thing they love more than these silly non-jobs is not working at all.
Of all the possible explanations for African-Americans being under-represented in game design, that they possess some sort of innate pride about doing “good honest labor” and “a real job” is the LEAST likely explanation anybody could come up with. The very suggestion is preposterous. We’re talking about blacks here, not the Amish!
Here’s a much better explanation: Blacks PLAY more video games than whites for the same reason that they watch more TV than whites. It’s because they have more free time than whites. And TV and videogames are FUN. Not as much fun as strong-arming white women into handing over their prostitution earnings, perhaps, but still more fun than punching the clock.
And blacks don’t DESIGN videogames for the same reason they don’t design cars, rocketships, or Soduku puzzles: because these tasks require the sort of “higher thinking” — abstraction, mathematics, and other brainy business — common in Europeans and Asians yet damnably rare in Africans. Most black youth, like most youth of any color, would go work in game design IN A HEARTBEAT if they had the IQ to do the job.
But they don’t. It’s beyond their abilities. The vast majority, anyway, just don’t gots the smarts for it.
This is not the videogame industry’s fault. It is not the Republicans’ fault. And it sure-as-shootin’ ain’t MY fault.
Posted by The Incredible Shrinking White Man at 8:35 PM on April 14
The article begins by saying how blacks are roughly 9% of the population of most Western English-speaking nations (by some Wikipedia figures). Then it goes on and on saying there are not enough blacks in the video game industry. If there is one black character out of every ten in a video game, or even one main protagonist that is of African descent for every ten games, is that not a fair representation? As with a lot of other media like TV or film, there is actually an over-representation of black characters in video games, if we are basing their appearances on these population figures, typically as some brooding bald tough guy with a Barry White baritone - a digital Ving Rhames.
As for the complaint about a lack of black protagonists, many games nowadays have a character modeling system in the beginning where you can actually decide what race, gender, and appearance the character will have (although it seldom has a major effect on gameplay, if at all). Any “racial” advantages are usually restricted to fantasy/sci-fi games where a certain species might be stronger or faster or more intelligent than another choice. It would be funny to see these attributes brought into the fray with modern human characters, but that’s another story.
About the argument regarding overall lack of blacks in the video game industry itself, it simply mirrors many other technical careers like computer programming or engineering. The major game releases sometimes demand months, if not years of planning and production, and are often require major technological innovations in the graphics engines to bring the concepts to life, and keep them at the forefront upon release. The people behind it often have a lot of schooling and possess complex programming skills. Does this sound like the ideal career path for De’Marrio or Quantravious to you?
Posted by ZKR at 8:36 PM on April 14
Finally! Something that I know a LOT about!
I am a lifelong gamer; I grew up with video games. I cut my teeth on Atari 2600 joystick controllers, and was the first in my house to beat the 8-bit Super Mario Bros. Now as a long time gamer, I ask, do any of us really want to see a Super Mario Bros. with Somalis instead of Italians? Or a Dragon Warrior/Quest without the strong white male lead, and the powerful-and-beautiful female mage? NO! I like my games as they are. I don’t want Ecco the Dolphin to become Ecco the Porpoise, Manatee, or Sea Cucumber!
Now for the secondary issue of gamer designers. When you read the credits on these games, what kind of names are listed? On my copy of Dragon Quest VIII, I see: Yuji Horii, Akira Toriyama, Koichi Sugiyama, Akihiro Hino ect. These are the people who are making the best games: the Japanese! The Japanese know that white people are buying the top games; the huge RPG’s and action/adventure/puzzle games that I love so very, very much. If I want to see a black characher, I’ll pop in one of the Madden 200? football games that come out every year. But I guarantee you that I only play quarterback!
Game Design is being pushed by all those online colleges and tech schools, but as my ex-boyfriend can tell you from first-hand experience, a speciality in game design will get you nowhere as there is a glut of designers, and limited opportunity in the United States. This major is promoted as playing video games all day long, with the occasional graphics design class. Maybe it is over here, but I don’t know anyone who plays an American-made video game…besides myself.
All UR Base R Belong 2 Us!
Posted by Jacqui in AZ at 8:44 PM on April 14
I have never played a video game, except for a time many years ago when someone was showing me what computers could do. I wandered in this maze for about ten minutes and quit. But it might be fun to try a game called “Civil War 2”, wherein White men defend their people, their culture, and their country from enemies within and without. It seems to me that Tom Clancy wrote a novel where the “hero” was struggling to stop a “racist” video game from being released. I have no doubt that our enemies would sic the FBI and the IRS on any underground game designer who put out a White Nationalist game.
Posted by Schoolteacher at 8:47 PM on April 14
Is this really a surprise to anyone? Isn’t it OBVIOUS why blacks play so much more in the way of video games? People who don’t work for a living and have no inclination to spend time raising a family have incredible amounts of extra free time on their hands. Because we give these leeches welfare, they have money to purchase what should be an extreme luxury item and spend all day, every day, playing them.
I bet THAT part never makes it into their study, lol.
Posted by at 8:49 PM on April 14
I, like those in the gaming industry, am a content creator and understand/educated with the likes of this type of person. Bluntly put, Blacks do not take positions in content creation because they do not create all that much aside from music and a few token television/movie endeavors. The positions in gaming to be had by Blacks will be the jobs where technology is already implemented and needs a manager. This is why most Blacks in the tech industry gravitate towards IT and networking…the technology is already in place (put there by technological creators) and simply needs to be managed, which is teachable. In other words, someone else invented the network that Mr. Black may then come in and learn how to manage the system. It does not require a high IQ to learn/be taught to manage that which already exists. Its kind of like autos, where the smarter one created and executed the concept (designer) and then retired the need of maintenance to one of less capacities (grease-monkey). Conceptualization in all its glory CANNOT be emulated, synthesized or taught. You either have it to be cultivated or you don’t. I really believe this is IQ related.
“They play the games all day, but it never dawned on them that there were companies that pay people to play video games all day.”
-Great, push them into the minimum wage sector of the gaming industry, (ie: Game Testing) where they shall languish at the bottom rung of the company and then complain the ‘man’ is keeping them down.
Posted by ilovemyfirstamendment at 9:08 PM on April 14
“Lots of blacks play video games, but few design them.”
Lots of Blacks travel in airplanes, drive cars, watch television, inhabit modern structures, receive medical care, and eat, too.
However, Africa has never engineered an airplane, or a car, or a television, or a modern structure, or medicine, or developed the ability to feed large groups of people.
Essentially, Africans are able to roam among the wilderness in the jungle’s underbrush, either partially or completely naked, and reproduce. Of course, they can be trained to do other things, in a limited capacity, but the innate ability and drive to better themselves, their community, their fellow man, and their surroundings is absent.
If left completely alone, Europeans would eventually rise to travel beyond the planet and colonize other worlds. If left completely alone, Africans would remain without even as much as a written language.
Does anyone honestly believe that both races are on an equal plane of existence? The truth is that Whites give and Blacks take. End of story.
Posted by at 9:08 PM on April 14
I’ve never seen so much dancing around the REAL reason why you don’t see black video game developers…IQ and patience.
Software programming is not an easy career. It takes a higher education, logic and years of experience to become qualified to code at the level needed for high-end video games. It also takes a patience that most blacks lack because of their spontaneous and impulsive nature.
Most blacks, according to recent HIGH SCHOOL drop-out levels, don’t seem to care too much for education unless it means staying in school so they can barely get passing grades so they can play football or basketball, both of which, by the way, were invented by White men too. Hmmm…I see a pattern here.
Posted by at 9:57 PM on April 14
“We found out that kids didn’t know that you could have a career in video games. They play the games all day, but it never dawned on them that there were companies that pay people to play video games all day.”
Ha ha, that’s what he calls a career? What aspirations!
Posted by at 10:20 PM on April 14
Another question is, “Why do blacks spend less money on computers than whites?” The old rationalization was that blacks have less disposable income than whites, yet they have more money to spend on video games and players, which can be just as expensive. So more convoluted rationalizations have to be devised.
Posted by Tim in Indiana at 10:41 PM on April 14
“Something as simple as including ethnic characteristics…”
Neverwinter Nights did that. I started that game in 2006, after the Platinum Edition was released. My best friend played a human tank (he looks like a human tank in person, too), while I specialized in speed, stealth and hitting power. My then-girlfriend started playing, she was able to adjust her character’s appearance to avoid looking like cheesecake, and still has a lot of fun.
Computer games are fun, but at their best, they are a good excuse to spend time with other people, and enjoy the same things together.
Ultimately games, whether household LAN games or card games, skiing, raquetball, or flying a kite in the park after a picknic lunch are a way of being ourselves in company with other people doing the same thing.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 11:05 PM on April 14
So, I infer from this article, that Microsoft heavily used Black programmers whilst developing Windows 98…
Posted by at 11:25 PM on April 14
“Lots of blacks play video games, but few design them.”
Lots of Blacks travel in airplanes, drive cars, watch television, inhabit modern structures, receive medical care, and eat, too.
However, Africa has never engineered an airplane, or a car, or a television, or a modern structure, or medicine, or developed the ability to feed large groups of people.
Essentially, Africans are able to roam among the wilderness in the jungle’s underbrush, either partially or completely naked, and reproduce. Of course, they can be trained to do other things, in a limited capacity, but the innate ability and drive to better themselves, their community, their fellow man, and their surroundings is absent.
If left completely alone, Europeans would eventually rise to travel beyond the planet and colonize other worlds. If left completely alone, Africans would remain without even as much as a written language.
Does anyone honestly believe that both races are on an equal plane of existence? The truth is that Whites give and Blacks take. End of story.
Posted by at 9:08 PM on April 14
That is one of the best comments I’ve ever read on Amren! And you are correct - if we hadn’t spent so much times and effort on Africans, and had instead focused on developing ourselves, Europeans would be on Mars by now.
The amount of resources we’ve poured into Africa and blacks in a vain effort to “catch them up” to more advanced cultures is mindboggling. Time and time again, all that effort has proven TOTALLY futile! But, more importantly, it’s distracted whites from their own progress.
Japan self-isolated for centuries because they regarded themselves as the most advanced culture on Earth and believed that contact with other cultures could only serve to spoil them or impede their progress. I wonder what Europe could have done if they took the same attitude?
What price have we paid for our “feed the world” attitude??
Posted by Jill at 6:31 AM on April 15
Also. The majority of games are as another poster stated. Created by the Japanese. Whom lack the PC syndrome ravaging our nations. That coupled with the fact games take many years to make and editing such a thing to be “inclusive” even partial way through production would be costly, and theres about a snowballs chance in hell blacks will get their way with RE5, or most other games for that matter.
Thanks to their lack of liberal brainwashing, the Japanese can continue to pump out games with barely a black to be seen.
And i’m very appreciative :)
Posted by Stuck in No Mans Land at 8:03 AM on April 15
I am a programmer (c,c++,dos batch,fortran). I have a degree in CompSci. Game programming is extremely complex. You have to keep track of movement (with the proper physics of course), textures, scaling, and too many other things to list. I was a damn good programmer but some of this stuff was beyond me. Of course as with anything this complex, breaking it down into logical subtasks is a must, and most games are now developed by large teams of programmers, or smaller teams if they are used canned commercial tools for game programming.
You would have to look at the extreme rightmost edge of the black iq bell curve to find blacks qualified enough to do this, coupled with a qualified black without a chip on his shoulder. Whereever I worked, there were always very few blacks, and most of them were in the support groups rather than programming, doing things like laying wire, doing backups, etc.
Being paid to play games??? Give me a break! There are groups in any software house whose job is quality control, however this is a very methodical and focused group who are definitely not “playing games”, although obviously playing the game in its entirety is the final measure of a games robustness. Very few people would be paid JUST to play the game, and I would not call “playing the game” a computer career.
No, the real reason there are so few blacks is that game programming is an extremely high IQ task at which Whites and Asians are naturally better.
Posted by Lonely Jew at 9:09 AM on April 15
What a pleasant surprise to find a robust gaming community within the racialist movement! Unfortunately, I no longer play computer games due to the amount of time it takes to get good at the ones worth playing — Starcraft was the main culprit.
Starcraft (a “real time strategy” game), however, is a great example of how innate racial characteristics shape gaming communities. I won’t bore you with all the specifics, but if you are unfamiliar with it, the game requires the hand-eye coordination of a fighter, the strategic sense of a general, and the brainpower of a programmer…and a ton of patience and practice. And thats just to be competent. Suffice it to say, there aren’t a lot of blacks playing these types of games. I have been following the game for 10 years and have never seen one “NAM” tournament winner.
Though Starcraft was developed by an American company (Blizzard), Koreans have dominated it for the last decade. They consistently win all the international tournaments…I know there are some tournies that have not even had a white winner in the 10 year reign of the game. Chinese also do quite well.
I wonder why this is.
Posted by Suburban Refugee at 10:34 AM on April 15
As a passionate video game player, I’d like to give a comment on this article.
The majority of the video games I’ve played so far were almost exclusively Japanese - they were produced for the Nintendos…
Playing video games is usually viewed as fun and “waste of time” that could be spent more effective with studying - at least from parents’ point of view. However, I’m surprised in the values those Japanese games convey to the player. Take Zelda for example (every game player should know about this game). In the versions of later generation, where graphics are good, I noticed that persons in the game are dressed fine and with taste - much better than the contemporary fashion among youngsters, who typically wear oversized Jeans. When talking to other characters, they usually send a message that implies certain values, like the importance of development of interest in a child, or just the “don’t lie” - commandment.
Furthermore, Zelda is so beautifully politically incorrect - the protagonist is a blond haired and blue eyed hero, as many other characters, and I’ve never encountered phases in the game where “tolerance” toward evil is promoted - unlike what whites practice today unfortunately. For that reason, it turns out that playing such video games s more productive than watching politically correct TVs - more so as the firm puzzles in the game strengthen one’s brain cells. I wish white societies would exhibit the values of Zelda today…
Posted by Ziwtra at 10:47 AM on April 15
“However, Africa has never engineered an airplane, or a car, or a television, or a modern structure, or medicine, or developed the ability to feed large groups of people.”
About the only African-American gun designer I know of designed the Super Soaker water gun!
Posted by at 11:48 AM on April 15
The people who “get paid to play games” generally aren’t doing it for fun. They’re supposed to try to cause special cases that might “break the game”, in order to test it for quality. In some games with multiple factions/classes, they’re supposed to make sure that they are roughly mathematically balanced.
The black kids that one of the people interviewed in the article talks about probably won’t have the patience for this.
Posted by at 4:29 PM on April 15
Jill wrote:
Japan self-isolated for centuries because they regarded themselves as the most advanced culture on Earth and believed that contact with other cultures could only serve to spoil them or impede their progress. I wonder what Europe could have done if they took the same attitude?
I read an article in the printed edition of Newsweek that was about the recent lack of innovation of globally-hot tech items among Japanese firms. Its thesis was that, because of Japanese insularity, the Japanese within Japan have some very very cutting-edged stuff, but it only appeals to the Japanese and their sensibilities, but doesn’t quite make it outside of Japan. It went on to say that the Japanese initially (ca. 1995) couldn’t understand the appeal of the global internet, because they couldn’t fathom the necessity of constant international communication.
I can add this — to this day, Japan tops the world in the quality of its domestic broadband internet speed within Japan, but do a speedtest from your American computer to a Japanese server, then to the same for a server in Europe, and you’ll find the USA-to-Japan speed is consistently slower than USA-to-Europe.
As for race and video games, someone else in this thread remarked, and I agree, that blacks tend to play the simpler games. For much the same reason why the sitcoms they gravitate toward have simple and boring plots. Because of their simple intellect. As it is, coding for a game (even a simple one) is more complicated than coding for a typical work application, like Microsoft Office, because of the pervasive user(s) interaction. A complicated video game takes even more work and more creative thinking and innovation. (This is why video gaming is the most intensive thing a CPU can do, why they get so hot, and why gamer computers are often liquid-cooled.)
Posted by Question Diversity at 5:37 PM on April 15
Most blacks, according to recent HIGH SCHOOL drop-out levels, don’t seem to care too much for education unless it means staying in school so they can barely get passing grades so they can play football or basketball, both of which, by the way, were invented by White men too. Hmmm…I see a pattern here.
Posted by at 9:57 PM on April 14
I always point this out when somebody makes a snide remark about blacks ‘inventing rock and roll.’ Earlier in the 20th century there were a lot of great black guitar players. Since the 60s almost all of the great guitar players have been white. Check out any guitar magazine and you will see very few black players featured. And most of those are old blues guys like B.B. King and Buddy Guy. Once again, the diversity among the younger players is provided by racially Asian players like Herman Li of DragonForce, who is an exceptional player but not any better than dozens of other white heavy metal guitar players.
Posted by Civilized Neighbor at 5:50 PM on April 15
Virtually all East Asians (men and women) I know find the facial features of blacks repulsive and do not want them in their anime or video games. They find their own facial features attractive but they also admire the facial features of Northern/Central Europeans. It is a matter of market and demand.
Posted by Jasper at 7:09 PM on April 15
I’ve worked in IT for years. Actually, the more complicated programming is done by Europeans and Americans. There are good Asian programmers, but not as many as there are good Caucasian programmers. People confuse the slightly higher number of Asians with good computational ability as meaning that they must have a higher number of people who can be programmers, but this isn’t the case. Take a look at the types of games the Japanese tend to enjoy putting together and the types that whites like to develop. There are differences, just as there are differences between the types of people who like certain games. Blacks? Not enough of them have the ability upstairs to do the type of work needed to create, develop, program and so on. Sad but true.
Posted by Worked in IT a long time at 11:23 PM on April 15
Suburban Refugee, starcraft is a rock/paper/scissors game which is heavily centered on build orders and micromanagement of units. Its not particulary complex compared to other RTS games, f.ex the contemporary game “Total Annihilation” was more complex (involving such advanced concepts as recycleable unit wreckage) but it never became a hit in Asia AFAIK.
Posted by Information Insurgent at 11:35 AM on April 16
I’m not surprised by any of this, frankly.
Especially by “…a lot of African-Americans don’t read…”
Posted by at 11:38 AM on April 16
Virtually all East Asians (men and women) I know find the facial features of blacks repulsive and do not want them in their anime or video games. They find their own facial features attractive but they also admire the facial features of Northern/Central Europeans. It is a matter of market and demand.
Posted by Jasper at 7:09 PM on April 15
Very true. LoL. Almost every time i see a black person in an anime, which is a rarity, they are almost always sideline characters with no substance. Sometimes their features are even overdone just to make them look even worse. i can recall several times i’ve watched anime, where the lips of a black character are incredibly over inflated. What puzzles me however is that even though they are constantly portrayed in poor light like this. there is no cries of racism. why is that you think?
Posted by Stuck in No Mans Land at 11:57 AM on April 16
2% seems extremely high as the percentage of blacks that develop games. There’s no way that 2 out of every 100 developers are black. No chance.
Posted by Lars at 1:14 PM on April 16
Information Insurgent,
Not exactly your typical Amren debate here, but those are fightin’ words! The relative simplicity of SC’s resource management to other RTS games demands more in manually developed battlefield tactics. So, it’s probably more apt to call SC an RTT: Real Time Tactical. The fact remains it takes above-average brain wattage to truly excel at the game.
Great to see other gamers here, but I’ve had to give up on video games, unfortunately. They just absorb an insane amount of time, and I’m a perfectionist to boot: have to be the best at anything I do. Now the career demands more attention as I enter my late 20s. This is indeed a matter of long-term strategy: the financially independent will be the only ones able to take a stand against racial orthodoxy in the coming years (even moreso than in the time of Carlton Putnam).
Posted by Suburban Refugee at 12:16 AM on April 17
Gaming need not interfere with career development. Think of games as a substitute for TV, and interactive where TV is not.
Online or LAN gaming with other players is even better, as the experience is shared.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 2:37 PM on April 17
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonnie_Johnson_(inventor)
I read the comment about the only gun designed by a black and looked it up. This guy is VERY impressive - an exception to the rule - and contributing to humans colonizing other worlds…
Posted by Blue Eyes at 3:21 PM on April 17
“Gaming need not interfere with career development. Think of games as a substitute for TV, and interactive where TV is not.”
Exactly right! I’m working on Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future right now; as is typical with Ecco games, it is ridiculously difficult, time consuming, and addictive as crack. I’ve only switched my TV over from my PS2 once in the last two months, and that was to watch Family Guy and American Dad, so you know it was time well spent.
Posted by Jacqui in AZ at 9:10 PM on April 17
We found out that kids didn’t know that you could have a career in video games. They play the games all day, but it never dawned on them that there were companies that pay people to play video games all day.
I find it hard to believe that black people are no longer watching television. This is one the latest touted career choices at your local “community” college and ITT.
It’s easy to dismiss as “they didn’t know” but the truth is “they didn’t care to advance and know”
Besides in the programming industry the BEST succeed while at least 90% never make it very far.
Posted by tommy at 6:41 PM on April 19
“Second, it is alot and I mean alot of tedious detail oriented work to create video games. I doubt 1% of white people in this country could do it, much less blacks.”
You mention this after talking about the Japanese people that make video games. Are you one of these posters who blindly believes that whites aren’t capable of doing these things but Asians somehow are?????
Posted by Courtney at 7:58 PM on April 19
