Topic: Race and Ethnicity in Games Guest: Manveer Heir, Game Designer at Raven Software
Neither Daylight Savings Time or a case of the common cold keep us from recording this show on time. Though after listening to me sniffle and cough throughout, I'm thinking you might wish it had.
On this show we talk about the always touchy issue of race and ethnicity, specifically in games, with Manveer Heir. But before we get into that, we talk about demo reels, Guitar Hero, Valkyria Chronicles, the 13 Basic Principles of Game Design, and layoffs.
Show notes:
Your Career in Animation: How to Survive and Thrive by David Levy
The Art of Game Design by Jesse Schell
Imagination Is The Only Escape
Episode 19 - The RACE is ON!
(right click the above to download)
Sunday, March 8, 2009
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So today I was listening to the "This American Life" podcast (which rocks BTW) and in their episode on "Matchmakers", act three talks to a New York actress who worked at FAO Schwartz in NYC. She tells a story of some high end baby doll line and what happened when they ran out of white ones in the Christmas rush...
Hey Guys,
Great episode! One of my favorites so far.
I do agree with what you guys are saying about race. I am working on a licensed game title right now, but in the future I promise I will fight for diversity in our characters.
I also agree with your comments about demo reels coming out or AM. I graduated about 6 months ago from AM, and I had a similar problem getting hired. I HAVE modeled and rigged in the past, but I am nowhere NEAR a professional level. So a few companies passed on me for that exact reason. I was lucky enough to find a company that was looking for just animators.
I have read "Your career in animation..." the week it came out and I love it. While it doesn't deal with the game industry specifically, it does show how small the animation industry really is.
Great podcast again guys, keep up the great work!
-John
This American Life is one of my favorite shows. They actually air it on public radio here, but the mp3s are the way to go. The one this week was on human resources and wow, it was great.
Hey John, Congrats on getting a job man! That's cool as hell.
Yeah, that book doesn't include game animators much at all. But I think it's a great book to read and see how the other half lives. Most of it translates to games pretty well. I hate that the NY Nickelodeon studio closed down. I bet there are a lot of great animators still looking for work. The book is also good for animators that are looking into doing freelance work.
Dear Reanimators Staff,
I am writing to give you all a personal thank you for your discussion on Race and Ethnicity in Games. The discussion was very objective and well researched, and there was great perspective provided by Manveer Heir. You brought up some intelligent questions that have needed to be asked for a long time. I have wanted to ask them myself, but I don't know any developers or people with any influence. I am one of the many artists out there with an animation degree, a dream, and no job, which also means no influence on the industry. Yet, I keep investing in a product that seldom represents me. People who buy games come from all walks of life and every corner of the planet. I believe that there is a ton of storytelling opportunity across games and animation that can help grow the industry if developers would diversify. You all are seasoned veterans of the industry and I am glad that you allowed your podcast to be a platform for such an important discussion. I am a long time listener of the show and I look forward to many more. Again, Thank You so much for this discussion. I am going to link this show on my cartoon blog, www.celtherapy.net as a post for people to check out, and leave you a positive comment on iTunes.
Kevin Cooper
Thanks for the plug Kevin and I'm glad you enjoyed the discussion. Manveer was a great guest and made a lot of good, thought-provoking points. It's a topic that is hard to 'cover' in a single podcast, even one that runs as long as ours usually does and it's one I'm sure we'll get back to someday.
In the meantime, I look forward to checking out your own podcast. If you need any help with how to set up the remote recording stuff, feel free to ping us (though it's really just headphones, skype and a skype-recorder called "Pamela"). We've gotten it down semi-smoothly now.
I absolutely loved the discussion about race and video games--hell, race and entertainment in America in general.
That is an awesome episode of the podcast. So much of what they were saying applies to comics as well. I found myself saying "Thank God I'm not the only one who thinks like this" about a dozen times.
The main character in my own comic, "Razor Kid," happens to be Asian and an amputee. I'm happy to report an almost universally positive response to those facts. The only time I've ever had any static over his race or the fact that he doesn't have arms have been from marketing types, and never from the actual target audience for the book.
I guess the story about the game developers pushing for an Asian main character, but the marketing group shouting down and telling them to "make her white" really struck a chord with me. It just reminded me of the willfully ignorant mindset that permeates so much of the entertainment industry to this day in a really visceral way. I suppose that's how you end up with things like white guys cast in the roles of Son Goku and Prince Zuko (along with the entire cast of M. Night Shyamalan's "The Last Airbender" film, based on Nickelodeon's "Avatar"). It's sort of the mindset of "Asian culture is so cool, but do there really have to be Asian people involved?"
The short answer is "Yes."
Its hard to make ethnically different characters without being too stereotypical or being an bald army space marine.
I can only remember Indigo Prophecy having a multi-ethnic cast without going " Oh geez, he's so foreign, just like on "teevee" ah yuck!".
But we do need more of the "Prey" approach when it comes to ethnicity in games, hell, little bit of history and knowledge of other races is always a good plot boost.
Have you guys ever noticed "fictive/created" ethnic values that didnt feel like straight on copies from life?
(Stupid blogger just wiped out my long reply.)
Marcus, do you have a link to that comic? Sounds interesting.
Mokuu I think you're on to something:
Something we didn't cover much is that another reason for the whiteness is games is that people, including game devs are often uncomfortable outside their shoes and afraid of being accused of an unfair, stereotypical or offensive depiction.
I think it's also worth mentioning that for as white as the games industry is, I've know quite a few 'minorities' (non-white males and women; I don't like that word but it's appropriate in this context) in important creative, production and leadership positions. I think it's really just a numbers games why we don't have more leading projects.
I think that might be the next logical extension of this topic; next time we might have to move past the game content and get to what is quite possibly the root of this homogeneity: "why is the games industry so white and male?"
Fantastic show - there were so many insightful, on the mark statements. Not to mention that you get full credit for the variety of games you mentioned.
Anyhow, I'm a white male, but when I started playing Fallout 3 I created a hispanic dude with Einstein hair and gunslinger 'tache, just because I didn't want to be 'generic white guy' again.
But further than that, one of the most potent moments in that game was meeting Leroy Walker. He is a black man who is the head of a faction of slavers camped out at the Lincoln Memorial. The compounded ironies there are insane - yet totally believable. 200 hundred years after the nuclear apocalypse Leroy has no idea what happened to black people in American and all that thousands suffered. Totally ignorant, this black man is a slaver. One of the grand themes of Fallout 3 is that history is doomed to repeat itself. It was war between America and China that brought about nuclear devastation - but 200 years on nothing has been learned and humans are still fighting one another. 200 hundreds years on the American Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation mean nothing and Leroy Walker is a slaver. It's brilliant, but scary to think how accurate this game reflects our world.
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