Why diversity matters - A positive thread about how diversity in games has made us feel better

laudateluna · Jan 1, 2018

Hi folks,
I'm Luna and I am an autistic white queer trans woman with several mental illnesses.
This past year has been pretty difficult for us all, and I have seen a lot of discussions about the representation of minorities, which is not always easy to read through. While it is good to see that we are having discussions on how to represent instead of why (even though it often feels that the majority tells us how to feel but that's a whole other topic), I sometimes feel we lose the sense of why we should care about it after all.

So I wanted to make a thread about how a diverse character or developer or a scene or whatever else has made us feel better. Everyone of us has a story about something like that.
I have a three simple rules for this

[mod edit] We are tweaking the OP's rules a bit to make clear that no one is excluded from participation here. We believe in open discussion and a united community.
The takeaway has to be positive. You are allowed to be critical but in the end it should show why we need more diversity in video games!
DON'T discredit someone's representation just because you see it differently, or it is not "canon". Sometimes we see ourselves in stuff that isn't exactly representation, or the artist has denied it.

I will give my story as an example for how it could look like (again your story is probably very different)

Samantha and Yolanda in Gone Home

When Gone Home came out I was just in the process of accepting my identity of being a queer woman, especially a sapphic woman.
I heard so many positive things about this game, and everyone seemed to agree that I should play it without knowing anything about it. So I avoided everything that had to do with the game and waited for when I could afford it. Eventually I did, it was probably half a year or even a year later, I was about 17. I just came out to my family for being a trans girl and due to my depression I had to leave school to recover.
So I had a lot of time and not many friends, especially queer ones. The ones I had lived far far away.
So when I finally bought it, I was excited. I love stories, I love experimental story telling especially.

And wow did it hit me right in the guts. I cried my heart out.
I saw a girl that was so much into this other girl that they decided to run away to be happy. That was the most punk rock thing I have ever seen. I wanted to be this girl. I wanted to fall in love with this other girl and run away. Leaving everything behind and just being yourself.
I couldn't be myself back then, people around me just started to accept that I was a woman to begin with, let alone a woman that loves other women. Having seen that story made me realize how much I am like that.
How much I love being a queer woman.

After I dealt with the feels of this game. I of course showed it to everyone I knew. One story will stick with me forever though. I gave my brother access to my steam account so he could play it. He decided to play it with his girlfriend, cause it was a short game.
After they finished she got back to me and told me how much she thinks this story sucked. She went on this whole rant about how she thinks it's horrible that she left school for this girl.
I was devastated at first. I mean I understood what she meant but it made me feel bad for liking this story so much. Was I wrong with my feelings. Oh god were my feeling about these bad? Did that mean that me being a wlw is bad? I had no idea what to think.
So I decided to play through it again. If it was this bad I would notice it this time surely.

But when I reached the ending again, the tears started rolling down my face again. This made it clear for me, I wasn't wrong. Me being a wlw is good. It was my brothers girlfriend who didn't understand that the story was about queer women that decided to be themselves and not let other people decide the feelings for them.

MattWilsonCSS · Jan 1, 2018

Branching off from Gone Home, the relationship between Roberta and Natali in Tacoma (which I don't think is a spoiler because it's literally in the first AR playback) is so cute and wonderful, symbiotic and supportive. They're just so great! There's a scene where a conversation in one room is cut short by a loud noise, and then you find out the source of the noise.... it's a very sweet moment.

It just felt so authentic and real.

e: also it's not games-related, but being Ace, Todd in Bojack Horseman coming out as ace was sooo good, so natural in terms of figuring things out about himself!

IfSleepoversCouldTalk · Jan 1, 2018

Chloe and Max in Life is Strange helped me a lot with coming to terms with things.

Silky · Jan 1, 2018

As a young black male growing up without any real interest in conventional sports, I never felt the attachment of having a role model like say Kobe or Jordan. It was through Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 where I found a connection to a sport that genuinely looked awesome as hell to me, as well as my first, genuine black role model for me as a kid.

Discovering that there was a black skateboarder - Kareem Campbell - and he was fucking DOPE to use motivated me to get into skateboarding myself at that age. Each THPS release if I didn't have my own CaS, I used Kareem or any other black skater they would add. Every day from that point on I'd go outside to practice my skateboarding in my neighborhoods.

If it weren't for Kareem I would never develop a love for skateboarding, hip-hop/rap or find someone in sports that I could look up to.

Kickmaster Kim · Jan 1, 2018

I'm not sure if I encountered anything of the such in any mainstream game I've played. The few black characters I encounter in games I think are just okay at best and racist bullshit at the worst, but seeing Eddy for the first time in Tekken was a cool moment for me. Aside from that I was glad to see there was an all black studio that had a semi-popular game with Legacy of Aurion a couple years back. I never played it, but that was like the first one I ever heard anyone talking about because there just aren't that many black people making video games out here. Aurion did alright, but it was forgotten.

In 2017 a student came out with a simple flash game that went viral called Hair Nah.

This was the first time I ever seen a black woman on game development with a completed game. I've always had an interest myself, but always felt lonely in this regard. I hardly meet people period who want to own a game studio, I hardly meet women who game like me, I hardly meet women who are interested in game development and was told at an HBCU that it would be hard trying to get black women into, and I hardly meet black people who are interested in game development, so when I saw her game getting passed around I was ecstatic. I played it myself and it's pretty simple. Haven't had the chance to beat it because my pc is slow as hell, but I love what it demonstrates. I could go on about it, but I already wrote a lot about it already yesterday so it's unnecessary to do that again.

Dice · Jan 1, 2018

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Guillo - Baten Kaitos II
Uses two voice actors (one male, one female) has no real gender, has feelings for the main character, and is wonderfully mean. I really loved listening to them; when s/he was mean it was amusing, but Guillo also has a very soft side to them too.

Lenneth - Valkyrie Profile

I like her because she's a positive and kickass female lead that still gets to fall in love and didn't become 'softer' because of it. A lot of female leads get robbed romantic interests (because allegedly men can't play a character that kisses a man), or remain stoic, unimpressed, and unfeeling warriors (FF13's Lightning was basically defined for her inability to smile). Senua was another more recent example of an incredibly emotional relationship.

Richard x Asbel - Tales of Graces

These two were more interesting than the canon couple by 100x. Cheria (the side ho) killed on the battlefield but LITERALLY was useless to talk to and made her very existence about trying to impress the maroon-headed one above. Also Mikleo and Sorey from Zestiria were delightful (and totally gay for each other).

CannonFodder52 · Jan 2, 2018

Hey, very nice thread.

I don't personally have anything to share, as I'm already overly represented in games. Although it was pretty exciting to see people on this site and elsewhere overjoyed about the In the Valley of the Gods announcement last month, a game featuring two women of color protagonists. Some pretty awesome representation in a major video game, being unveiled at a significant venue too.

Lime · Jan 2, 2018

Heather Mason in Silent Hill 3 is an idol for me in terms of how girls can be angry, imperfect, upset, and sad.
James Sunderland in Silent Hill 2 made me realize that men can be vulnerable and meek.
Riley and Ellie in Left Behind made me remember the significance of innocence when you're an adolescent, and awkward & imperfect teenage love.
FemShep in Mass Effect 1 was so incredibly cool that I was able to experience a sci-fi narrative with a well-characterized female space ship captain

AnansiThePersona · Jan 2, 2018

I haven't played Watch Dogs 2 yet, but everything I've heard about the protagonist Marcus seems like the kind of young black protagonist that I'd have been wanting to see leading more games.

kittens · Jan 2, 2018

loving the more androgynous characters in Overwatch, especially Zarya and Moira

I still want a hero with they/them pronouns though

GamerJM · Jan 2, 2018

I know a decent amount of people didn't care about Athena Cykes in Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies, but as an autsitic person who has dealt with sensory overload, I loved the fact that Athena's backstory involved her dealing sensory overload due to her sensitive hearing, having trouble attending school due to it, and eventually using her sensitive hearing to her advantage with her profession. Here is a more detailed analysis of this written by someone who has sensitive hearing.

kittens · Jan 2, 2018

Dice said:
Guillo - Baten Kaitos II
Uses two voice actors (one male, one female) has no real gender, has feelings for the main character, and is wonderfully mean. I really loved listening to them; when s/he was mean it was amusing, but Guillo also has a very soft side to them too.

whoa this is incredibly cool

McNum · Jan 2, 2018

GamerJM said:
I know a decent amount of people didn't care about Athena Cykes in Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies, but as an autsitic person who has dealt with sensory overload, I loved the fact that Athena's backstory involved her dealing sensory overload due to her sensitive hearing, having trouble attending school due to it, and eventually using her sensitive hearing to her advantage with her profession. Here is a more detailed analysis of this written by someone who has sensitive hearing.

You know, I never really did catch why I liked Athena so much in Dual Destinies when I initially played it. Until I read that article a while ago. Because yes, she really is a very good representation of what it's like to have sensitive hearing. I do, and it's both a blessing and a curse, especially on days where I can't turn it down. Also I didn't get super-detective powers from mine, but that's a gameplay conceit I'm willing to give her.

I do like that, as the article points out, her distressed animation is her covering her ears. Because yeah, that seems pretty familiar. Stop the noise, try to refocus. I know that one all too well.

So for an easy to miss example of diversity that makes a difference, hooray for Athena Cykes, from all of us with over-sensitive hearing. It actually does matter to have a character to be able to point to like this.

psychowave · Jan 2, 2018

Metroid Prime: Corruption was the first Metroid game I played for more than 3 minutes, and playing as a non-sexualized, powerful woman was an amazing feeling. I was in awe the whole way through. I then went on to play the other Prime games, and the sensation was the same. I can't describe with words how important it was for me to be able to do all the things men were always allowed to do in video games, but through the lens of a woman who isn't there to be sexy for a presumed male, straight player.

Dary · Jan 2, 2018

Generally, video games are too often hampered by their rigid adherence to rules, and by society's norms and mores. Therefore, I guess the closest I've come to feeling represented in video games is an androgynous Link, in Gerudo clothing, surfing the skies of Hyrule on the back of a steel door.

*Link falls flailing into village as improvised transport crashes into nearby house*
"What was that?" asks nearby villager.
Link dusts off clothes. "Shenanigans."

petran79 · Jan 2, 2018

I think one of the first attempts where a game tried to tackle diversity from an adult perspective, was the game I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream

From wiki. There are spoilers. Ellen is a black woman

Ellen — Ellen, once an engineer with a promising career ahead of her, is transported to a pyramid made of electronic junk and with its interior resembling an Egyptian temple whose décor is largely yellow. AM says that the temple contains some of his primary units and is apparently offering her a chance to destroy him. Ellen suffers from a severe phobia of the color yellow, due to its association with her rape (her rapist, who isolated her in an elevator, wore yellow), preventing her from approaching AM's apparent weak spots. Facing her rapist again in her story, Ellen learns to overcome her fears and fight back.

Nimdok — Nimdok, an elderly ex-Nazi physician, finds himself in a concentration camp, expected to conduct pointless medical experiments on helpless subjects. Nimdok is given the task of finding "the lost tribe" by AM but his failing memory, or denial, make it difficult for him to comprehend or engage with the situation, even though it represents actions he has already taken before. Eventually he learns the truth: He himself was a Nazi scientist who turned in his Jewish parents to the regime, and helped develop the very same technologies that AM uses to prolong their lives and alter their bodies.

In a 2012 issue of Game Informer, Harlan Ellison, David Sears and David Mullich discussed the process that went into developing the game as well as the character developments and other changes that were made from the original story. For example, in writing the script for Ellen's confrontation with her rapist, Mullich channeled the memory he had of his infant son going throughchemotherapy, being with him at the hospital and sharing a room with other young cancer patients. In discussing the characters changes made to Benny, Mullich said, "Looking back, I think it might have been a lost opportunity to write a story about someone struggling with the challenges of being homosexual." Although Sears recalls that "gay angle" was in their initial script, but might have subsequently been a dropped thread

Mr. X · Jan 2, 2018

Bayonetta

I like the over the top, swaggy personalities and gameplay of Dante in DMC and Gene in God Hand. It was fun and refreshing to do the same thing as a woman and I am hopeful for us to do it as another minority in the future.

May I suggest a blaxplotation theme?

As a kid, Skate in SoR2/3 was amazing to behold. He was a black teen kicking ass on skates to save his big brother Adam. Thinking about it, Adam and Skate must be my first playable black hero encounter.

esserius · Jan 2, 2018

Valkyrie Profile still has some of the best female characters in any game I've played, and covers such a wide array of situations too. It's really interesting the sort of phoenix-like story arcs, where redemption is sought at the end of suffering, and found in some minor ways, as well as, and this is important, failed at as well. There's a really strong contrast between character failings in the game as well, presenting many ways in which characters fail - some miss their duty, others die in a blaze of glory, yet still seem unfulfilled, still others simply die from going too far down the magical rabbit hole. Even the gods are deeply flawed, and figuring out what is missing is part of every character's journey (and importantly, they all have a journey).

Deleted member 17210 · Jan 2, 2018

Back in the late '80s, I remember thinking Sega's Master System line up was pretty diverse. I thought it was cool and a sign of the times.

Phantasy Star was the flagship title on the system and featured a bad ass young woman named Alis Landale as the lead character in the most advanced console game on the market.

Their other RPG at the time, Miracle Warriors, also had a woman warrior named Medi in your party.

Quartet had a white woman (Mary) and a black man (Edgar) as the two playable characters. Mary looked Asian in the Japanese version so it was kind of racist to change her design for the West but I had no way of knowing about that back then. The playable white guys from the arcade version weren't in the SMS port (which was more of a spin off anyway).

And Alien Syndrome also had a woman named Mary as the player 2 character.

California Games was originally released on C64 but the SMS version was even more diverse as they made the foot bag guy dark skinned. The flying disc players were already non-white women. This multi-event sports title had men and women and multiple ethnicities as playable characters.

Also, some games like Shinobi and Kenseiden were localized with just their Japanese titles as the names. That was rare at the time, even for martial arts themed games.

Morrigan · Jan 3, 2018

psychowave said:
Metroid Prime: Corruption was the first Metroid game I played for more than 3 minutes, and playing as a non-sexualized, powerful woman was an amazing feeling. I was in awe the whole way through. I then went on to play the other Prime games, and the sensation was the same. I can't describe with words how important it was for me to be able to do all the things men were always allowed to do in video games, but through the lens of a woman who isn't there to be sexy for a presumed male, straight player.

The way you're talking, it's as if it was the first game you played that had something like that? Now I feel old LOL.

TheMadTitan · Jan 3, 2018

Being the first western style RPG I played and actually enjoyed, KoTOR did it for me, simply because the character creator allowed you to make a main character who was black. Not a side character, not a character choice option like in fighting games, the main focal point of the story could be black, and I thought that was pretty sweet at the time.

Then it was CJ.

Sure, he was a black man main character in a gang in a game about games and crime, but he was the focus of the story, wasn't a walking stereotype caricature, got a sweet katana, and learned martial arts.

But more importantly, it was KoTOR that got me really excited since I didn't have to depend on hope that someone would make a game with minorities as a focus. It made me realize that I too could be like Thanos more than a decade before Thanos got to be like Thanos.

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Valhalla_Nights · Jan 3, 2018

If we keep thinking about diversity in terms of quota based representation we're gonna have a bad time y'all.

Sure it's good to have actual positive images of humans who are similar to you in the media you consume, for self esteem reasons and beyond, but the tech environment is still fundamentally lacking in pooling people from the widest variety of human experience on the planet

On that note I thought it was really cool to have a scientist as a protagonist in Xenoblade. Was a great touch.

Growing up I really became interested in biology so it was fun to see that kind of back story for a major character.

Let see who else...... hmm kind of drawing a blank, lots of games are still lacking in having characters with African descent that participate in a big way.

psychowave · Jan 3, 2018

Morrigan said:
The way you're talking, it's as if it was the first game you played that had something like that? Now I feel old LOL.

It was, yeah. I must've been 17ish when I played it, and I mostly just played Nintendo games back then, which might explain that.

roguesquirrel · Jan 3, 2018

Last year I bought Aerannis during the steam summer sale just based on a few screenshots & its genre, and it was really cool to learn while playing the protagonist was a trans woman and its a key part of the story.
The way the game explores its themes can sometimes be clumsy (to the extent that early on i had to jump out and look up more about the game just to make sure i was setting myself up for disappointment), but it was still really potent to play a stylish game in a genre i love with a character i could legitimately see myself in.

KonradLaw · Jan 3, 2018

I'm polish, thus slavic. Our ethnic group doesn't enjoy particularly good representation in western media. We are most of the time shown as criminals, drunkards or crazy people, often a combination of some or all of those traits. We also haven;t been doing all that well in representing ourselves in games for a long time and most of games infused with slavic culture never even got english versions, not that there were many of them to begin with, as we mostly aped american-styled tropes and settings.

This is why Witcher series has been such incredible experience. Finally we got amazing game that not only was based on our culture, it was one that managed to become success in western world. And with each entry in the series it became bigger and bigger. It has been incredibly satisfying to finally see my own ethic group represented well in good videogame and the fact that so many people around the world have fallen in love with this franchise is endless source of joy for me.

Deleted member 17210 · Jan 3, 2018

KonradLaw said:
I'm polish, thus slavic. Our ethnic group doesn't enjoy particularly good representation in western media. We are most of the time shown as criminals, drunkards or crazy people, often a combination of some or all of those traits.

Speaking of slavic representation, I love the STALKER series. The characters in those kind of fit the stereotypes you mentioned but more from being a post-apocalyptic society than anything else.

I'm just happy when real world setting games take place in stuff other than the usual stuff like New York and Tokyo.

Morrigan · Jan 3, 2018

Recently, playing as Aloy, Emily Kalwdin, and Billie Lurk (HZD, Dishonored 2 and Death of the Outsider, respectively) felt like a breath of fresh air. It was the kind of high-budget, tightly crafted, highly epic action-adventure feast featuring badass, non-sexualized, and interesting and fleshed out female protagonists that I had been craving for a long time.

For less story-driven games, Souls games do a wonderful job at making a female created-character not feel eye-rolling and pandering (by giving them proper armour), something Monster Hunter is sadly failing to do. And seeing the breadth and diversity of female representation in Bloodborne was also a breath of fresh (or foul? ;) ) air. You had women in traditionally feminine roles, and others in completely non-traditional gender roles. You had women who were beautiful and women who were ugly, you had young and old, you had female beasts who were not sexualized at all, some were feminine but still monstrous, others who were more ambiguous and just beastly, etc. Even the sex worker character is treated tastefully and not objectified whatsoever. You rarely see games like that, let alone in Japanese games. It of course helps that the game is otherwise so, so good, of course. :)

Kapus · Jan 3, 2018

Silky said:
As a young black male growing up without any real interest in conventional sports, I never felt the attachment of having a role model like say Kobe or Jordan. It was through Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 where I found a connection to a sport that genuinely looked awesome as hell to me, as well as my first, genuine black role model for me as a kid.

Discovering that there was a black skateboarder - Kareem Campbell - and he was fucking DOPE to use motivated me to get into skateboarding myself at that age. Each THPS release if I didn't have my own CaS, I used Kareem or any other black skater they would add. Every day from that point on I'd go outside to practice my skateboarding in my neighborhoods.

If it weren't for Kareem I would never develop a love for skateboarding, hip-hop/rap or find someone in sports that I could look up to.

This is an awesome story!

psychowave said:
Metroid Prime: Corruption was the first Metroid game I played for more than 3 minutes, and playing as a non-sexualized, powerful woman was an amazing feeling. I was in awe the whole way through. I then went on to play the other Prime games, and the sensation was the same. I can't describe with words how important it was for me to be able to do all the things men were always allowed to do in video games, but through the lens of a woman who isn't there to be sexy for a presumed male, straight player.

This too! It's super cool to hear.

As a transgal myself, the character that touched me the most was Vivian of paper mario.

I always thought her design was really cute and cool so she became my favorite pretty quickly. But when I learned how she was in the JP version of the game it just blew my mind. I was like...wow. I didn't expect to have such a character in a game, much less a Mario one. And the fact that she was portrayed as sympathetic just intrigued me more.

This was long before I transitioned or even realized that I was suffering from gender dysphoria. I felt fascinated and drawn to her and I didn't fully understand why until I grew older. I considered choosing Vivian as my name when I transitioned because the character resonated with me so much(I ultimately didn't but the thought was still there)

Enduin · Jan 3, 2018

Dice said:
Guillo - Baten Kaitos II
Uses two voice actors (one male, one female) has no real gender, has feelings for the main character, and is wonderfully mean. I really loved listening to them; when s/he was mean it was amusing, but Guillo also has a very soft side to them too.

Guillo is the greatest. They are the best part of an already outstanding game.

I have to say that Obsidian's Tyranny hasn't seemed to get much attention for its diversity which I thought was really well done as it's not something that really stood out to me until well into the game when I realized how many characters in the game were women. From pretty much 50% of enemy soldiers in all factions to major leaders and important figures in the world, including the Overlord Kyros being referred to as both a Man and Woman. As well as there being a very healthy mix of difference skin tones among NPCs and a solid assortment of options for character creation as basic as it is.

Plus there are a lot of other little touches in the world building like having a matriarchal society and homosexuality not being taboo but just accepted. I believe Kyros forced a mandate requiring men and women be treated equally. It's a really fascinating setting they created. What's really great about it all is that it feels very natural and fitting for the setting to the point that it's quite easy to overlook these factors where in other games it can be a lot more obvious, not that that's a bad thing necessarily, but its nice to see it incorporated so seamlessly into the world.

Sad the game did so poorly sales wise. I would have loved to see the setting expanded upon.

Pillars of Eternity as well does a rather good job of having a strong mix of men and women throughout the game and positions of power, as well as racial diversity. PoE II's new CC is especially awesome and provides some really great options far beyond what PoE or Tyranny provided. Still incredibly limited compared to most other CCs, but you can make some really great looking characters of all types. Portraits at the moment are somewhat limited, and were in the first game too, but that's what happens when you have multiple fantasy races in your game making it harder to support all of them with a ton of different options but even then there are some great ones and should improve by release. And the game should be very modder friendly so the CC will only get more powerful once fans come in and add in a trillion more face types, hair options, skin options and so on.

Neto · Jan 3, 2018

For me, Tacoma is very unique in how it deals with the class struggle.

In the game, humanity lives in a capitalist distopia where, in the surface, there's no more prejudice of race, gender and sexuality... but, since it's capitalism we're talking about, the abusive nature of the bourgeois, and it's subsequent violence towards workers are more vile than ever.

The game takes in account the individual stories of the members of the crew, but never forgets that what unify them in the reality is the fight for a single cause, against their biggest enemy.

It's a very interesting take in collectivism. And how the fight for individual rights only makes any sense when we unite it with the fight for the survival of the class we're in: the class of the exploited.

It also solves brilliantly the "dichotomy" of 'workers' vs 'technology', by showing that the technologies are created by workers and thus it should be property of the workers, and it should work for the workers, not the other way around. The thing Tacoma shows us is that there's no dichotomy, the problem is that there's a privileged class robbing us of the technology that we develop (at the universities, at the factories, in our communities, in third world countries...) to oppress us even more.

Tacoma express a diversity I never encountered fully realized in a video game before: the diversity of class. By showing us how a crew of very different people can only survive if they come to the realization that what they have in common is that they're in the same class. That they're the exploited. And that, because of it, they have the strength to change the world.

Neoxon · Jan 8, 2020

A few years back, I let my little cousins join me in playing my Switch. They ended up really taking a liking to ARMS not just for its gameplay, but for Twintelle & Min Min specifically. This eventually led them to ask for a Switch for Christmas alongside ARMS & a few other games. A similar story happened with other little cousins who were visiting from another state, who took a liking to Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 due to characters like Miles Morales, Black Panther, Storm, Luke Cage, & Falcon (I'm Eritrean-American, in case you're curious). It was a mix of both instances that inspired me to push for more diversity in games, both for women & people of color.

ScoobsJoestar · Jan 8, 2020

I enjoyed having a Brazilian character that wasn't Blanka because I played too many Blankas not to hate him. So I loved Jetstream Sam in Rising, felt nice.

...Despite the decidedly non Brazilian accent

Asbsand · Jan 8, 2020

As a straight guy with only few friends IRL that I'm not that tight with being LGBT or non-white I feel games have helped me understand where people of other preferences are coming from better. Talking about Krem's acceptance in Dragon Age Inquisition made me understand the way some people feel they belong in a different gender than what was imposed on them from their childhood. Witcher 3 had a quest about two people from different countries at war hiding in a cabin to just hang out after a violent battle where their friends died, and makes you ponder about the needless infighting that goes on in the world. It also had a farmer looking for his dog who let me know he was gay and not everyone liked that, and I sympathized with that. A lot of people who aren't the 90% norm get needlessly bullied or ignored by peers.

Calvinien · Jan 8, 2020

As an atheist I get to be acutely aware of how 99% of all characters are nominally christian by default, and the mythology is considered true by default. So you can end up with settings (like in legends of tomorrow, a show that tries very hard to be progressive) where you have christian mythology being treated as obviously true and nobody batting an eye that jesus existed and was apprently really divine, despite there bing multiple other gods running around in the lore by this point.

Even games that I love, like Fallout New Vegas, don't really do this well. The honest hearts dlc doensn't really give you much middle ground beyojd agreeing with the two mormon characters and tell them to screw off. Dragon age inquisiton lets you play an atheist and while it affects the plot in the deeply religious setting (as it should) you arent reated as being a bad person because of it. Hell, when the bad guy does his rant when you beat him and claims to be a god, you can say 'I don't believe in you.' right before you kill him. Awesome. Especially nice given that in Origins the only non religious character is morrigan, who is a complete sociopath for most of the game.

Also, and i really only mention this because someone above brought up polish representation in the witcher, but being Canadian tends to mean you are treated as the nationstate equivalent of hufflepuff house, at best. But Call of Duty 3 has a campaign where you play as canadian forces and get to mow down Nazis with a bren. Not quite storming the beach at juno, but still unexpected and cool.

Still waiting on some decent aspie representation. I'm not aware of any in gaming and what we get on TV is often limited to characters being diagnosed out of universe...or sheldon cooper.

P-Tux7 · Jan 11, 2020

Dice said:
Richard x Asbel - Tales of Graces

Woah, is this canon?

Calvinien said:
or sheldon cooper

Yeah dear everybody, "You're just like Sheldon!" is NOT a compliment

Why diversity matters - A positive thread about how diversity in games has made us feel better

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