Wargroove (Chucklefish) is receiving criticism for casting white actors for its POC characters(Dev respond, see threadmark)

[GSR]

This is making the rounds on Twitter at the moment; Wargroove's upcoming DLC features four new primary characters, three of whom are POC, and all of whom are voiced by white actors or actresses.

The base game also features what seems to be* a mostly white cast, with the exceptions of Kimlinh Tran and Aleks Le.

While I understand people who want "colorblind" casting, the VA industry does have a problem with underrepresenting VAs of color, even in POC roles - in fact, one of Wargroove's VAs, Sean Chiplock, tweeted about this problem recently (unrelated to Wargroove.)

*Using apparent skin color in photos isn't always a great way to ID ethnicity/racial identity, so it's possible a few of the cast members identify as POC without it being apparent, but at least the actors in the DLC appear to be caucasian.

 

[Zombine]

absolutely nothing against the VAs, as I'm sure they're happy to have landed the gig. But damn, it can't be that hard to diversify.

 

[GSR]

absolutely nothing against the VAs, as I'm sure they're happy to have landed the gig. But damn, it can't be that hard to diversify.

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Yeah, to be clear, no animus against the VAs. A gig is a gig, and I'm sure they're all doing their best. This is on Chucklefish for not considering how they were casting.

 

[AllChan7]

As a POC, it makes me think about the opportunities some aspiring black VA missed out on. I don't blame the VAs but I do wish more effort was made to diversify

 

[Kayotix]

Its a bad look.

Dunno if they had auditions or not but maybe reach out to VA's of color next time? Im assuming those actors can do a great voice but yeesh...

 

[maximumzero]

I wonder if the actors were cast before character designs were finalized.

 

[Mesoian]

Hmm.

It's a bad look. I get it, but it's a bad look.

I wonder if the actors were cast before character designs were finalized.

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I can't imagine that being the case.

 

[Unicorn]

As much as I adore Wargroove and it's in my top 5 games of the year, Chucklefish has been chucklefucking up.

 

[Aswitch]

absolutely nothing against the VAs, as I'm sure they're happy to have landed the gig. But damn, it can't be that hard to diversify.

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Totally agree. I seem to notice this reoccurring theme of studios just sticking to the same set of VA's which is pretty disappointing as I know there's a lot of more accurate and just as talented (if not more) representation that could've been done here especially considering a more accurate portrayal of these characters of color. I hope this changes for the better at some point.

 

[Forsaken82]

Are these VAs employed by Chucklefish or were they contracted VAs?

If they were employed by Chucklefish already, its understandable to see why they didn't want to begin hiring for more VAs. IF it's a contract thing, than they could have done a much better job at describing the character when auditioning actors (assuming they were auditioned and not just randomly assigned via some external actors guild. If it's the latter, and Chucklefish reached out to a voice actors guild/union, whatever and they just randomly sent over some VAs, that's not on Chucklefish.

 

[Deleted member 864]

absolutely nothing against the VAs, as I'm sure they're happy to have landed the gig. But damn, it can't be that hard to diversify.

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Agreed.

 

[Slayven]

Shhhhhhh.... I would not have announced it like that. It was unjarring looking at that

As a POC, it makes me about the opportunities some aspiring black VA missed out on. I don't blame the VAs but I do wish more effort was made to diversify

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Yep, folks will rush in and say "the best person for the job". But how can that be if not every got a call saying there was a part.

 

[The Mango Sentinel]

Are there any voice actors on resetera? There's so many questions about these kind of things that maybe someone could answer. It's also been a profession that I've wanted to try my hand at for a long time, but have no idea where to start.

 

[headspawn]

I mean, do what you want with your game, I love it, but I just wonder if maybe when they were working on the promo material for that tweet if anyone there saw it in context and was like, "oh fuck, we maybe missed something here".

Just not a good look, I'm not even aggro, that's all.

 

[DrDeckard]

As a POC, it makes me about the opportunities some aspiring black VA missed out on. I don't blame the VAs but I do wish more effort was made to diversify

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This right here. We dont need to drag people down, but these companies should be trying their best to diversify their casting.

 

[sir_crocodile]

reminder

A dev who worked "hundreds of hours" on Starbound wasn't paid a cent by Chucklefish, along with other unpaid workers after being promised pay

More on Twitter if you click through and see the whole comment chain. Confirmed by multiple other workers, and many of the employees were promised money. Please see this Twitter comment chain:

www.resetera.com

 

[Asbsand]

This shouldn't matter. It's what you see and feel in the game that does. Obviously there might be some politics behind the privilege of white actors getting the front row or something - I'm not neck-deep in that kind of stuff but I presumed it's not that bad inside VA. I know several good black voice actors that are pretty prolific, and there's a lot of white casted actors portraying POC people and vice versa but to the listener it's not apparent.

For instance Laura Bailey played Nadine the south-african military girl from Uncharted perfectly and Kimberly Brooks is a black actress who plays Ashley Williams who's about as white as a person can be in Mass Effect. It's the performance that matters to casting.

 

[Mifec]

This shouldn't matter. It's what you see and feel in the game that does. Obviously there might be some politics behind the privilege of white actors getting the front row or something - I'm not neck-deep in that kind of stuff

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So why say it shouldn't matter then, when you have no clue about what actually goes down?

There was a lot of people annoyed that they didn't cast a POC to play Nadine, you must have missed the threads.

 

[Deleted member 3815]

This is a major problem within the video game industry and I have been vocal about it in regards to Naughty Dog pulled that shit with Chloe and Nadine in Uncharted. You do not cast white folks as you people of colour characters. Not only is it fake diversity but you are doing nothing in growing the talent pool for people of colour.

I will not be getting the game.

 

[Asbsand]

So why say it shouldn't matter then, when you have no clue about what actually goes down?

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I didn't mean it in a dismissive way but you're right. There is no reason they didn't cast POC actors, and it's likely they had auditions for them.

 

[R dott B]

Smh

I remember when Naughty Dog pulled this shit.

 

[Garrod Ran]

For instance Laura Bailey played Nadine the south-african military girl from Uncharted perfectly and Kimberly Brooks is a black actress who plays Ashley Williams who's about as white as a person can be in Mass Effect. It's the performance that matters to casting.

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Nadine wasn't black when they cast Laura Bailey

 

[lowhighkang_LHK]

For instance Laura Bailey played Nadine the south-african military girl from Uncharted perfectly and Kimberly Brooks is a black actress who plays Ashley Williams who's about as white as a person can be in Mass Effect. It's the performance that matters to casting.

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Oh yeah I remember the controversy with Naughty Dog being something big. I think Neil himself even chimed on the matter.

 

[Asbsand]

Oh yeah I remember the controversy with Naughty Dog being something big. I think Neil himself even chimed on the matter.

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I maybe haven't read the discussion surrounding it but I did see that panel where Neil defended it, and I felt it ended up being shown in a positive light. I do feel with Laura Bailey it was kind of the safe choice though, but to her credit she is one of the good actors who can just nail a role the way the developers want it. It was the same story with Troy Baker as Joel. They held many auditions as people playing that gruff father character, but then Troy walked in and did his southern american accent and did it a certain way, and according to Neil it just clicked immediately.

 

[LoneWolfHunter]

Unless they deliberately dismissed POC from their hiring I don't see how this is a problem. As a player all I care about is their performance, as developers I'm sure all they care about is performance and their hourly rate.

 

[Skittles]

Unless they deliberately dismissed POC from their hiring I don't see how this is a problem. As a player all I care about is their performance, as developers I'm sure all they care about is performance and their hourly rate.

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There's no excuse in the age of the internet when there are 10,000s easily reachable voice actors of all races

 

[Heart of Poumn]

I don't think the race of a character and a VO needs to be 1:1 all the time, but you should always strive for a diverse cast.

 

[JDSN]

Unsurprising that this is already about defending that wack Uncharted casting.

 

[HadesHotgun]

Shit, the explicitly international casts in nearly every fighting game are still mostly just white people.

Voice acting in America is shameful in this regard and it's even worse in the anime dubbing industry where Funimation and all the other non NY/LA studios cast from a small pool of almost exclusively white actors.

 

[night814]

Can't tell me that they couldn't find some people of color who could do a good job on this. It's a bad look for sure.

 

[Uthred]

I don't see the problem if several VA's auditioned and the studio preferred these VA's performances. There are plenty of male characters voiced by women and vice versa when it comes to VA. You don't need a 1 for 1 representation of the character.

At the same time, that tweet is a poor bit of PR as it invites criticism.

 

[Gotdatmoney]

This shouldn't matter.

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I'm not neck-deep in that kind of stuff

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I'm not surprised.

 

[Yearsoflurking]

Unsurprising that this is already about defending that wack Uncharted casting.

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I cant believe people defended that bs

 

[Yearsoflurking]

I don't see the problem if several VA's auditioned and the studio preferred these VA's performances. There are plenty of male characters voiced by women and vice versa when it comes to VA. You don't need a 1 for 1 representation of the character.

At the same time, that tweet is a poor bit of PR as it invites criticism.

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I pray to goodness the average person Doesn't think like this.

 

[Mad_Titan86]

I pray to goodness the average person Doesn't think like this.

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I got some bad news for you...

 

[KcebAnier]

Before I make any general comments about how this is not cool, did anyone actually confirm these are voice actors? I dunno how big chucklefish is, but a lot of smaller companies just use employees for VA if they cant afford or do not want to pay for real Actors.


Edit: Just confirmed it myself. Not cool.

 

[Khanimus]

Before I make any general comments about how this is not cool, did anyone actually confirm these are voice actors? I dunno how big chucklefish is, but a lot of smaller companies just use employees for VA if they cant afford or do not want to pay for real Actors.

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Yes. Their Twitter bios all say "voice-actor" or "VA"

 

[GhettoGamer]

This is pretty absurd, going to boycott this company until this is rectified.

 

[Jon Carter]

This is making the rounds on Twitter at the moment

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The tweet says "54 people are talking about this." Is there more than the replies to that one tweet?

 

[KcebAnier]

I understand that it's not always possible to get a PoC voice actor for every role. But I gotta think 0/3 is a pretty hard sell.

 

[Hero_of_the_Day]

Not even ONE snuck in there!?

 

[newmoneytrash]

Yeah, to be clear, no animus against the VAs. A gig is a gig, and I'm sure they're all doing their best. This is on Chucklefish for not considering how they were casting.

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yep. they deserve this criticism. i won't condemn a VA for not turning down a paying job, it's on chucklefish to have done better. we should be past this

 

[principal]

i feel like people want this to blow up

 

[Slayven]

I was mentally running through my head of PoC Vas. Phil Hartman, Cree Summer, Keith David, Regina King, etc. Had to catch my self Regina King is no longer in the budget, she come a long way from 227

 

[Zeouter]

Eeee, how do you manage that?
And then not realize how that tweet looks?

Eeee

I do hope they address it.

 

[Deleted member 2226]

I think colorblind casting is a good principle, but I'd question that the setup really was colorblind if you have that many roles and the proportion of any minority talent is so low. Where are white characters being voiced by nonwhite characters?

 

[Starmud]

diversity in a field is a discussion to have, but how many VA's look representative to the material they are voicing?

this also seems to assume chucklefish somehow did this knowingly or in a harmful way and needs to be set as an example for diversity in the VA field of work. theres companies with much more influence and hiring power then... chucklefish.

 

[Jintor]

it's interesting that this has moved into VA now. If something like Avatar the Last Airbender released today, a franchise that is largely immensely respectful of asian cultural values etc, would it get lit up for its cast?

 

[Neoxon]

Shit, the explicitly international casts in nearly every fighting game are still mostly just white people.

Voice acting in America is shameful in this regard and it's even worse in the anime dubbing industry where Funimation and all the other non NY/LA studios cast from a small pool of almost exclusively white actors.

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In the case of fighting games, pretty much all of the fighting games out right now (outside of Capcom & NetherRealm Studio) are non-union (even Smash). This basically makes the problem of lack of diversity amongst voice actors even worse. Granted, there are up-&-coming people of color in the voice acting industry (Zeno Robinson is a prime example, as well as voice actors like Christopher Dontrell Piper & Gabe Kunda). But there should be more that companies take notice of.

 

[Vic Damone Jr.]

This happens all the time in the industry and it's obvious.