I was just sitting around when a question popped into my head; could an ethnic character maintain a franchise?

In fact, let me be a bit more specific, do you believe an African American or anyone of Latino decent could maintain a franchise?

I ask because frankly there simply aren’t any. At least, there are no franchises with lead ethnic roles like a Metal Gear Solid or Resident Evil.

As many games are Japanese developed, of course there are plenty of games with Asian leads or all Asian teams. In fact, Asians even use a fair share of Caucasians also.

However, for America developers, franchises seem devoid of any ethnic leads. Even women (Caucasian of course) have more leads than African Americans or Mexicans.

Unless of course you count games like NBA Ballers, Street Hoops, and NBA Jams in which African American rule the covers….

So do you think developers should work harder to try and incorporate more ethnic leads into videogames?

Maybe it’s time for developers to step into the 21st century and make a conscious decision to add more ethnics into their games?

Or are developers afraid? Afraid that if they don’t get the “personality” down of an African American then there’s going to be a black lash?

Even comics have ethnics written by white writers and no one cries foul too much. Then again, they are “writers” so their ability to purpose believable characters will exceed those of the typical programmer.

But overall what do you think about ethnics in videogames in regards to American developers?

The One, The only One
- The Lotus One

To tell you the truth I never thought about it. I mean most of the characters in the games I play aren' t human to start with so there are no racial things to deal with.

As for American games, since many of them are geared towards more realism I guess it tends to be more noticable, the absence of ethnic lead characters.

But like I said before, I don' t notice or look for those things. There' s enough of it going on in real life that my focus is only on blasting enemy ships out of the skies and kickin alien monster a$$ all over the place!!

Not to be racist, but I could care less. I do believe a character with different ethnic backgrounds could hold a franchise. Heck, if they made a franchise with one, more power to them. That is as long as they don' t flaunt it as the reason to buy the game. Making race an issue to buy a game is stupid. Basically, if they want to have a lead character that was black or hispanic I doubt many gamers would protest. I just don' t want to see people going off on how games should be " equal" and politically correct. The gaming industry isn' t the place for a racial movement.

I' ve really never thought about it.
Characters are characters, that' s about it.
Much like in real life a person is a person regardless of their ethnic background.

Yea it would be especially annoying if a game company put out a game with an ethnic main character and then pushed people to buy the game solely for that reason. However if they make such a game then who cares what ethnic background the main (or any) of the characters come from.

ORIGINAL: RavenShadow


Characters are characters, that' s about it.

Exactly.

Personally, I don' t care in the least. If the character is good, I' m happy. He could be lime green and polka-dotted. I don' t think developers should go out of their way to add ethnicity just because we' re obsessed with absolute equality in all areas in regards to race; if the game' s format and setting calls for an ethnic character, than fine. Cool by me. If not, that' s fine too. Just create whatever fits.

Race doesnt really matter in a game, as long as the game is good.

I myself couldn' t care less, I pretty much echo the thoughts of everyone who' s posted thus far - but...

It is odd, isn' t it?

It befuddles me why there aren' t any. Why not? It just doesn' t make a great deal of sense.

The only thing thatd be a negative to do is if the game had a create a player mode and only had one skin tone. But I dont think ne games done that.

I' ma mix of darker skinned races - mexican, native american, & african american (I dont know what the politically correct terms are these days). But the ethnicity of the character doesn' t really bug me in any way at all.

But true it does make you wonder why there arnt many franchises with a character of different ethnic background besides that of a caucasian one.