“Generic white dude video game protagonist.” How does this trend/phrase make you feel?

[jackal27]

Immediately turns me off of a game.

I'm not saying games can't have white dudes as protagonists, but I get the complaint. It seems this complaint comes up whenever a game attempts to have a very cinematic, but turns it's lead into a boring rock with a gun. And more often than not, that boring lead is a white dude.

Obviously diversity in games is super important and I like having different kinds of playable characters throughout the games I play, but I really think this complaint says more about the game's writing than anything else.

 

[Kangi]

The worst part of it all is that there are so many generic white guy protagonists and yet none of them look like me, a generic white guy.

All these white dudes and they still haven't even actually run the spectrum of white dudes. That's how generic the white dude protags are.

 

[Phellps]

I think my personal issue is that there are just *so many* white male protags. Why? Why do we need so many? Even in games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age where you can choose the sex of the character, the official art and media all had the generic white man. Why? Homogeneity is boring.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, Mass Effect really never let that go. Even if Andromeda decided to conceal the protagonist's identity on its cover, the default Ryder twins are white. Although kudos to them for trying to escape the standards for the default female protagonist a little bit, at least.
They did go out of their way to avoid this in Inquisition, though. Marketing focused heavily on companions instead of the Inquisitor, and the cover art also conceals their identity to the point you can't tell the protagonist's gender, color or even race.

 

[-Tetsuo-]

I really could not care less who is the main character as long as they aren't annoying.

 

[Briarios]

It's always important to look at the industry, but I feel like it's getting better. I mean, two of my favorite games from this generation are AC Origins and Watch Dogs 2 -- both huge budget games featuring a poc as the lead.

 

[CattleCalypto]

Rockstar is like the direct example against this. most of their leads in their category of games tended to be "white males" but there all completely different characters

you can't group Niko, Johnny, Trevor, Michael, John Marston etc. to being "white guys" there completely different characters

 

[Stuggatz]

Looking over the games that I have played so far this year, I noticed I've recently played a fair amount of Japanese games (EDF, FE, Shadow Tactics, GR 2, Sadame, Last Guardian, Recetera to name a few). I don't consider the protags of these games to be white, but I never had any barrier to identifying with them and never paused to consider it as an issue until I saw this thread. I would not consider race or skin color to be a relevant factor in determining whether one of these protags is generic.

 

[Rotobit]

The phrase definitely describes a lot of games and characters, but that popular image that makes the rounds is just kinda dumb. It depicts games that were made years apart, by teams in different countries, with some characters that have genuinely interesting aspects to them beyond a surface level. By stripping all of that out it just seems cheap and doesn't help make the point.

Referring to Solid Snake/Big Boss as a "generic white dude protagonist" makes me roll my eyes especially, considering they're outright deconstructions of the tropes in question

Diversity is definitely something that is needed, and I'm glad we're seeing more of it, but I think that's thanks to the argument evolving past "look at all these samey dudes"

 

[Crossing Eden]

All these white dudes and they still haven't even actually run the spectrum of white dudes. That's how generic the white dude protags are.

Click to shrink...

Exactly, like there are only so many versions of brunette american caucasian male x1000 that one can be interested in.

 

[Funky_Monkey]

After getting a PM demanding I further explain my distaste and worry for the protagonist of RDR2, it struck me that any time people complain about how generic a protagonist is and that protag is a white dude, there's a subset of posters who get really indignant about those complaints. It happened with Days Gone's Bikerman#334, and now it's happening with RDR2's guy.

We've all seen the Generic White Man protag collage at some point. Indeed, there's been an abundance of nondescript, designed-by-committee white dudes as the protags in games. It seemed really prevalent in the mid 2000s on into the early 2010s.

There's been plenty of white male protagonists who've been distinctive and memorable—I don't recall seeing anyone complain about any white GTA (or rockstar, ore-RDR2 reveal) protagonist being generic. However, when there's another generic white dude protag, it's even worse because it's only reinforcing that stereotype.

How do you feel about the generic white guy player character trend and the negativity surrounding the stereotype? If you're a white guy, do you feel persecuted or shamed by it, and how come, if so?

Click to shrink...

As a white bloke I certainly don't feel persecuted/shamed by it. I have been thinking about this myself after reading some of the articles/reviews recently published on sites like Kotaku and Waypoint covering both racial and sexual equality in games. I certainly believe there is substantial effort still needed by the gaming community to ensure that everybody is adequately represented.

What I think is interesting, is that story driven (and realistic looking) driven games are beginning to be quite rightly critiqued on social issues such as equal representation, that have only recently been taken on in entertainment mediums such as TV and Cinema, even though they have been around for far longer, and even then with very limited success (and many failures). When you have a developer like Bend Studio, who despite having a history of making games, are now attempting there first triple A story driven game, is it unreasonable for them to base it around something that they want to tell.

 

[Edgar]

Does person being male makes him generic? Or being white? Or straight ? Or all of the above? Or how that particular character is written once the game releases? Wich sounds more reasonable

 

[R dott B]

It's very valid.

 

[CattleCalypto]

After getting a PM demanding I further explain my distaste and worry for the protagonist of RDR2, it struck me that any time people complain about how generic a protagonist is and that protag is a white dude, there's a subset of posters who get really indignant about those complaints. It happened with Days Gone's Bikerman#334, and now it's happening with RDR2's guy.

We've all seen the Generic White Man protag collage at some point. Indeed, there's been an abundance of nondescript, designed-by-committee white dudes as the protags in games. It seemed really prevalent in the mid 2000s on into the early 2010s.

There's been plenty of white male protagonists who've been distinctive and memorable—I don't recall seeing anyone complain about any white GTA (or rockstar, ore-RDR2 reveal) protagonist being generic. However, when there's another generic white dude protag, it's even worse because it's only reinforcing that stereotype.

How do you feel about the generic white guy player character trend and the negativity surrounding the stereotype? If you're a white guy, do you feel persecuted or shamed by it, and how come, if so?

Click to shrink...

people criticized you on your rash judgement of Arthur,because we don't know much about him. I think its kind of ridiculous for a company with a pedigree of Rockstar making great and interesting protagonists to think that there suddenly going to make Arthur generic

 

[SieteBlanco]

Why do we need white male protagonists? That's the real question you should be asking.

 

[Rogote]

I'm the whitest man alive, and the characters tend to be generic enough that I have never felt "represented" by them. Not once. I'm on the short side, I'm fat, unfit. Not one white character I've played as has looked anything remotely like me. I get the idea of it yes, I'm not stupid, but no I haven't felt represented by them. Not that I actually want something like "fat rep" etc. in games. Didn't mean it like that.

 

[Deleted member 7450]

My "problems" don't come from race, skin color, gender and so on.

It comes from the fact that it is uncreative.

It is the equivalent of drawing a stick figure.
Sure it works, but is so "meh." Normal, Boring. Vanilla sex.

 

[Ant_17]

Meh, i'm white and generic and a male. The new AC game covers a bonus for being Greek, but i'll play as the chick. I don't care what my avatar in a game is, since my focus is on the world and things trying to kill me.

 

[Braaier]

Minorities are definitely underrepresented. The only games I can think of off hand with a black protagonist is the Telltale Walking Dead game and one of the GTA games. In The Walking Dead the guy was an escaped convict and in the GTA game he was a gang member. What the fuck is up with that?!

 

[Ricker]

My opinion is that I dont care about this when I play a videogame...he could be white,black,purple,orange and have an eye on his ass,I dont care lol...as long has the story is good,voice acting decent,that is what I care about more...RDR is a western set in the late 1800,you have to take that in account also though...

 

[Zhukov]

I'd say even if the minority character is not necessarily better as a character, it still serves a purpose of making gaming more accessible to people who feel like outsiders.

Click to shrink...

I 'unno.

Pretty sure it's not really my place to tell minorities or marginalized people what they want.

My desire for character/protagonist diversity is purely selfish. I'm just bored of bland game protagonists and want something better.

 

[CRIMSON-XIII]

Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War, Detroit, Ratchet and Clank, GTA, Assassins Creed, been doing it fine.

The only two games i can think of at the moment where ive only seen white characters so far are death stranding and RDR2 tbh.

 

[CattleCalypto]

4 of the 6 guys here are "white males" but they are not the same character, they are completely different and no where near "generic"

 

[SlickShoes]

It makes me feel uninspired, I am a white male, I see white males everywhere, it's not exciting to play one in a game. They are usually so generic you can't even remember what they look like.

 

[Derrick01]

I really could not care less who is the main character as long as they aren't annoying.

Click to shrink...

Yup it makes no difference at all on a game and how it plays so I don't care at all.

 

[Deleted member 3815]

I wonder why it's such a fuss over video games where I don't hear much about protagonists in movies or books.

Click to shrink...

You need to broaden your horizon as people do kick up a fuss for movies and books.

In fact it was why Black Panther, Crazy Rich Asian, To All The Boys I Loved Before generated a buzz as it proved to movie studio that that a POC can be a leading character and still be a success.

As a black male, I gladly welcome it. If you're a white guy it might seem antagonistic or like we're shitting on you, but it's more that we're shitting on the fact 99% of media, whether it be games, TV shows or movies in the West, have you guys as the main characters and a good chunk of the supporting characters. It's just tiring when we finally get glimpses of people who look like us, or other minority groups, and then they're sidelined.

Generic isn't in the sense that these protagonists are all exactly the same, it's in the fact that while their stories, personalities, etc might be different, you can find dozens more that look like them. You can't do that with any minority characters. The number of Indian female leads in AAA games? Uncharted Lost Legacy and...? Number of Hispanic leads? Black female leads, especially ones without afros? The list goes on and for most it's a handful of characters. You can find any kind of white male lead and find dozens of other characters who look like them.

Some of you are just so use to being completely immersed in seeing characters like yourselves your entire lives you don't realize how it is for people who don't fit that mold. Yeah, most minorities are use to it, but just imagine if suddenly you only started seeing a handful of white male characters in games. Imagine how different that would feel. Minorities deal with that every day to the point it doesn't even phase us anymore. We've become normalized to it, and that shouldn't be the case.

Click to shrink...

This pretty much, it gets tiring to see that my race don't exist and when they do rarely exist they end up white casting the role by hiring a white voice actor to voice the role.

 

[beetlebum]

We've all seen the Generic White Man protag collage at some point. Indeed, there's been an abundance of nondescript, designed-by-committee white dudes as the protags in games. It seemed really prevalent in the mid 2000s on into the early 2010s.

Click to shrink...

For me, it's very hard to care about Guy McHuman game protagonists, white guy or otherwise. The search for photorealism has given us a whole bunch of those, and they're just not what appeal to me in a visceral way, even when they end up being well-written.

It took me finally playing through an entire Uncharted game to feel... something about Nathan Drake. Previously, I just looked at him and couldn't like him, or hate him, or feel anything, really. The same is true for Lara Croft, for what it's worth, or any charcater that's simply a non-stylyzed, nondescript human at first glance.

Give me a pink puff ball or a blue robot any day.

There's been plenty of white male protagonists who've been distinctive and memorable—I don't recall seeing anyone complain about any white GTA (or rockstar, ore-RDR2 reveal) protagonist being generic. However, when there's another generic white dude protag, it's even worse because it's only reinforcing that stereotype.

How do you feel about the generic white guy player character trend and the negativity surrounding the stereotype?

Click to shrink...

On generic white guys specifically: I'm glad games have started to branch out. It's definitely refreshing to see more women and people of color as main characters, even if at the end of the day my visceral feel for them won't be that much different if they're, well, generic as well.

If you're a white guy, do you feel persecuted or shamed by it, and how come, if so?

Click to shrink...

I don't consider myself white, but mixed race (3/4 white, 1/4 black), and I'd probably be called a latino in the US. I'm mostly seen as white in my country, however, and I feel comfortable in saying that anyone who feels 'persecuted or shamed' by this should just get a grip.

 

[Wamb0wneD]

Last gen was really bad, but this one seems to be way better so...yay?

 

[CattleCalypto]

there hasn't been much criticism of RDR 2 because everyone knows Arthur is going to be a developed protagonist

 

[808s & Villainy]

4 of the 6 guys here are "white males" but they are not the same character, they are completely different and no where near "generic"

Click to shrink...

You guys are intentionally taking generic too seriously. Yeah they're not the same, but there are tons of characters like Michael. Tons of characters like Trevor. Tons like Niko. How many MAIN characters can you point to like Franklin? In AAA, hell, even AA games? In movies? In TV shows?

 

[KORNdog]

days gone is an actual person. i'm not sure there's much design going on there.

RDR2 protag is definitely pretty low end in regards to creativity though.

 

[Redfox088]

It's cool. I don't mind it as long as he's not meant to be a blank slate avatar. Because a blank slate avatar ain't really an avatar if I can't make him black or female or trans. Like with persona if the character is gonna be a damn mute with no personality(which excludes link imo, that man got flavor) let me customize. If that man is Travis touchdown or Yuri Lowell then I'm fine with the trope.

 

[Pandora012]

People are tired that basically on 1 type of person is being represented.

 

[CattleCalypto]

You guys are intentionally taking generic too seriously. Yeah they're not the same, but there are tons of characters like Michael. Tons of characters like Trevor. Tons like Niko. How many MAIN characters can you point to like Franklin? In AAA, hell, even AA games? In movies? In TV shows?

Click to shrink...

i disagree, Michael for example was the most original of the 3 protagonists in V, at least in terms of GTA

 

[Redfox088]

I think my personal issue is that there are just *so many* white male protags. Why? Why do we need so many? Even in games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age where you can choose the sex of the character, the official art and media all had the generic white man. Why? Homogeneity is boring.

Click to shrink...

Are developers projecting themselves or what they perceive the player base to like? I always ponder this whenever this comes up.

 

[Pancracio17]

You can have a white dude that isnt generic, but people single it out because its the template at this point. If your character has no defining traits, he is probably white in the current gaming landscape.

This is a generalization, but its not entirely off.

 

[Dougieflesh]

Generic white guy protags are fine if they're written well. The real hilarity comes when they got a super default name like John or Jack.

 

[Rodjer]

As a PoC guy i don't care honestly, i just want well developed characters, skin color or ethnicity won't stop me from enjoying games.

 

[CattleCalypto]

days gone is an actual person. i'm not sure there's much design going on there.

RDR2 protag is definitely pretty low end in regards to creativity though.

Click to shrink...

watch the trailers. Especially the second Arthur had a lot of personality, he has a Cajun accent and it's ridiculous to think rockstar will make him generic

 

[GrimJawz]

I don't think anyone likes or wants a generic protagonist, white or otherwise lol.

 

[beetlebum]

As a black male, I gladly welcome it. If you're a white guy it might seem antagonistic or like we're shitting on you, but it's more that we're shitting on the fact 99% of media, whether it be games, TV shows or movies in the West, have you guys as the main characters and a good chunk of the supporting characters. It's just tiring when we finally get glimpses of people who look like us, or other minority groups, and then they're sidelined.

Generic isn't in the sense that these protagonists are all exactly the same, it's in the fact that while their stories, personalities, etc might be different, you can find dozens more that look like them. You can't do that with any minority characters. The number of Indian female leads in AAA games? Uncharted Lost Legacy and...? Number of Hispanic leads? Black female leads, especially ones without afros? The list goes on and for most it's a handful of characters. You can find any kind of white male lead and find dozens of other characters who look like them.

Some of you are just so use to being completely immersed in seeing characters like yourselves your entire lives you don't realize how it is for people who don't fit that mold. Yeah, most minorities are use to it, but just imagine if suddenly you only started seeing a handful of white male characters in games. Imagine how different that would feel. Minorities deal with that every day to the point it doesn't even phase us anymore. We've become normalized to it, and that shouldn't be the case.

Click to shrink...

This is an excellent post.

I'm reminded of Magic the Gathering, which is one of my favorite games, and whose creative team has been at the forefront of diversity in gaming pretty much forever. When I started playing, back in 1998, the previous block (called Mirage) had been set in an African-inspired continent, with the vast majority of characters being black or mixed race. One of them, a black mage called Teferi, is a main character to this day. It was very eye opening for me, given that my hometown (Salvador, Brazil) is the city with the largest number of African descendants outside of Africa, and as a result a lot of the folks who would go to my local Magic store were black.

They've also had a "avoid damsels in distress" policy since the game's inception in the early 90's.

 

[Stuggatz]

You guys are intentionally taking generic too seriously. Yeah they're not the same, but there are tons of characters like Michael. Tons of characters like Trevor. Tons like Niko. How many MAIN characters can you point to like Franklin? In AAA, hell, even AA games? In movies? In TV shows?

Click to shrink...

Do we really want more games with black protagonists acting like criminals? That reinforces a harmful stereotype.

 

[Suikodan]

You need to broaden your horizon as people do kick up a fuss for movies and books.

In fact it was why Black Panther, Crazy Rich Asian, To All The Boys I Loved Before generated a buzz as it proved to movie studio that that a POC can be a leading character and still be a success.

Click to shrink...

My horizon is wide enough to understand that I shouldn't be shocked if the cast of Crazy Rich Asian consists of more asian people than anyone else since the movie takes place in Singapore. It's part of the story and context. Same thing for Black Panther.

 

[808s & Villainy]

i disagree, Michael for example was the most original of the 3 protagonists in V, at least in terms of GTA

Click to shrink...

But you're arbitrarily restricting it to GTA. Characters like Michael can be found all over video games and other forms of media. That's the point.

Do we really want more games with black protagonists acting like criminals? That reinforces a harmful stereotype.

Click to shrink...

They posted GTA pictures. Every protagonist in GTA is a criminal. Any character that stars in a GTA game will be one too. This sounds like concern trolling almost. I want MORE black, and other minority, characters. I want them playing a wide variety of roles, having a wide variety of looks and personalities, and orientations and love interests, and hobbies, etc.

Do you watch movies about white office workers performing white collar crimes and question whether it reinforces stereotypes? Come on now

 

[JahIthBer]

Im open for more diversity, like in the new WoW expansion the main stories are based around Women in powerful positions, even in an MMO it's nice to see.
I don't have a problem with White dudes in games as long as they are well written & interesting, someone like Aiden Pearce is just so god damn terrible though, i really hope Marcus is the main character of Watch Dogs 3 if they ever make it.

 

[Redfox088]

No, not really. As long as the game's good I don't really care what the protagonist looks like.

Click to shrink...

I don't have a problem with people wishing for more diversity, if anything more people should. I start to take issue when people start saying it about any realistically designed white male character and start posting that stupid "generic white protagonists" picture which claims they all look the same. Nobody in history has mistaken these two characters.

Click to shrink...

Wow you totally picked two random characters to make your point, son.

 

[Joeyro]

I really could not care less who is the main character as long as they aren't annoying.

Click to shrink...

Perfectly summed it up.

 

[Deleted member 16876]

You can have a white dude that isnt generic, but people single it out because its the template at this point. If your character has no defining traits, he is probably white in the current gaming landscape.

This is a generalization, but its not entirely off.

Click to shrink...

This is where I am at.

When I hear the term all I can think of is the countless Nathan Drake clones or the CoD protagonists. We all know how they act and how they feel. It is an overused character type.

Characters like Solid Snake, Francis York Morgan, Claude, Tommy Vercetti, Kane & Lynch, Rex Power Colt, Max Payne, John Marston are some of my favourite characters on gaming yet they all feel different from each other both interms of looks and personality.

 

[SieteBlanco]

If you all don't care about who the protagonist is, then there is no reason to keep making white male protagonists, right?

 

[Deleted member 19066]

watch the trailers. Especially the second Arthur had a lot of personality, he has a Cajun accent and it's ridiculous to think rockstar will make him generic

Click to shrink...

Yeah, his look is what turned me off, but his personality is making me come around.

When I hear that phrase it reminds me of starting Titanfall 2 and being introduced to the protagonist. The campaign is great, but the hero is like "Hey! It's... a guy! He has brown hair! And, uh, facial... features."

If you all don't care about who the protagonist is, then there is no reason to keep making white male protagonists, right?

Click to shrink...

It's a super easy way to inject a little diversity. Some may call it lazy or inconsequential, but representation is representation. I thought Aloy was a perfectly generic protagonist, but you've got plenty of women who enjoyed the representation regardless.

 

[Pillock]

Not much. But then being a white dude I'm not part of a minority group that has been repressed or abused for centuries.

Well apart from having ginger hair!