Topic: Add Black Character Creation in Games

@Nintendoforlife op repeatedly mentions creation tools and only references Japanese games. Also your answer is bs.

I once sat in on a Speech & Debate member's expository round in one of the richest, whitest communities near to where I live. Her argument was that racism was over and now reverse-racism was the biggest injustice.

Besides the obvious rebuttals, this thread's replies again proves this is far from the truth. Like, you can't just say 'this may be controversial to say, buuuuut...' and then say something racist — the reason it's controversial is that it's racist!

Like seriously, OP asks a very reasonable question and receives a bunch of people (not every reply admittedly) trying to jump down their throat with sketch excuses before even entertaining the idea. It's pathetic.

Like seriously, no one not asking to be hurt by holding an irrationally exclusive worldview, is hurt by this.

Racism will always be a thing. The best one can do is punish/not condone it.

Even in my home country, racism and prejudice between people with hardly any/no differences in appearance is prevalent.

Anyways, we should really get back on the OP's question, before the mods close this thread.

Why black people though? It makes more sense to add Indians, South East Asians, Arabs, Turks and Hispanics first.

edit: because there's more potential costumers in those groups.

There should be a way to incorporate any kind of skin tone in a character creation tool. Shouldn't matter if one skin tone is more prevalent than another.

I'm in no way a "Social Justice Warrior" I just know that making people feel included and loved is the right thing to do. It is an easy addition to any character creation tool and should be standard.

I can't imagine having to explain to my children if they were not represented in the creation tool why that is happening. It is already hard enough when my daughter sees so many games with male leads. At least it is easy to say they create make characters mostly due to sales, but when you are creating your own avatar create the choice of inclusion.

I thought that this was more of an issue in the past. Nintendo's own games have been more inclusive of people of darker skin tones of late. I do notice when darker skin tones aren't included, but I can't really name any games from the top of my head. Fire Emblem, maybe? I can't recall whether black Corrin is possible, though I imagine that it would be quite jarring to have a black family member with Japanese lineage.

I certainly don't think that ethnic groups should just be shoehorned into games that are trying to cultivate a particular type of setting, but they should at least be represented in the avatar customisation tool, so it can allow players to feel further engaged with the material.

@JasmineDragon: I play Splatoon 2 as a black character because I like its appearance (in reality I'm Turkish with olive skin). The characters in the game also look really stylised, so in this circumstance, I prefer a more unique or otherwise more stylistically appealing appearance over trying to make an avatar that resembles myself (and if I remember correctly, there are no curly haired squid kids). In most other instances, I make my avatar resemble myself as much as possible (though I did opt for the feline in Skyrim because I wasn't satisfied with the character creation tool, as flexible as it is).

Wait, so do people have a list of games off the top of their head that doesn't allow for the creation of a black character in game? Maybe it's just the types of games I play but I haven't specifically noticed there being a massive lack of it in current games.

Also, it's not specifically racist for a company to not include black characters in their games but it's maybe not inclusive which can be a bit different. Racism is believing one culture or race is naturally better than another but if I draw a picture with only white people, that doesn't mean I'm automatically not valuing other cultures. It's a bit of a tricky subject which is why so many arguments happen but it's certainly not great when one representation is so strong and another is so weak causing trends that negatively impact people.

@faint Elaborate

Great wisdom and insight will come from this thread. It has been foretold.

#blackcharactersmatter

@Nintendoforlife well my point was clearly that this discussion is one worth having. This thread doesn’t need another “well more African Americans should develop then” argument when the op was clearly talking about Japanese games. Have you played Severed or Guacamelee? They were both made my white Canadians. This also ruins your point. Should an industry completely change over night? No. Is it responsible for a race to desire representation? Yes. That’s what this thread is about, representation. I’ll ask you the same thing I asked another poster. Does this harm you in anyway?

@Tasuki representation does matter.

@chriiiiiiiiiis I wasn’t aware of the op calling this racist. I think they are stating a lack of inclusion just as you have brought up. It however didn’t stop so light racism from a user or two here. I’m not talking about you nintendo for life btw

@Agriculture and of course this is exactly the kind of [removed] white people would say...

@Inertiacreep Last warning, mind your language please. Profanity isn't allowed. You can view our Community Rules here.

@Goatman Let's not go there, OK?

And to everyone in this thread. Here's a friendly reminder to keep everything civil. No profanity, no unnecessary abusive remarks, no personal attacks, etc. I'm fine with a discussion like this, but if it gets out of hand, we'll have to close it. So please, consider your choice of words.

It's not hard, the developers decided not to include it as an option

I think that a creation tool should be the most versatile possible, because this is the point of a creation tool. So every option imaginable should be included if possible (and skin colors are probably the easiest thing to do).
But at the same time I disagree with people that think that games as a whole, even those that give you predefined characters without any customization option, should have representation of every group of people as a priority, because this is not the main reason why games are made.
Games shouldn't be just a tool used to educate people, games should always be only the result of the creativity and imagination of their creators. If you want them to be something else too you are at the same time damaging this main priority that they should always have, not just on top of the others, but as the only one ever imho.
I obviously understand if one wants more games with black people to play, but while it is ok to think there is something wrong in a character creation tool that don't match your expectations it is not ok imho to think there is something wrong in a specific game that does not have any customization option if it doesn't give you the type of character you want. The game is supposed to be like it is, it has no customization option for nobody else either, not just for black people, it is up to you to decide if you are ok with its characters or if the game is interesting enough for you to want it even if you don't like the characters.

@faint Oh no, sorry I wasn't clear enough I guess. I wasn't referring to the OP about being racist but just in general how these discussions make people bring up the race card!

Being children, they're not "represented" in 99% of all creation tools, which are nearly always based on adult characters.
So you have nothing to explain at all, except why you were pushing a different expectation on them for skin colour that you weren't doing for age. (especially given that age is significantly more meaningful in how it defines you as a person)