One day in 2005, I saw my brother playing a game he called Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. I shouldn't have been watching this game since I was only eight and there were massive amounts of violence and profanity. But there was something that really resonated with me at that time: my brother was playing as someone that was black. This was surprising since in most games I would play, it was either an animal-like character or a white person that I controlled. The only games that I can remember playing from that time that had black playable characters were Beyond Good and Eviland the WWE games. But I felt like Carl Johnson, the main character in GTA: San Andreas, resonated with me because he looked like me.
Even though CJ portrayed many of the stereotypes our community should steer away from, just him being the playable character affected me deeply. Every other game that comes out usually features a white playable character. Look at some of the most popular series right now, such as Uncharted, The Witcher, or even Call of Duty. I enjoy these games, and some of them are my favorite games of all time. But they usually feature some sort of rough-looking white guy, which can be tiring to play as. This also isn't good for promoting diversity in gaming.
Even though CJ portrayed many of the stereotypes our community should steer away from, just him being the playable character affected me deeply. Every other game that comes out usually features a white playable character. Look at some of the most popular series right now, such as Uncharted, The Witcher, or even Call of Duty. I enjoy these games, and some of them are my favorite games of all time. But they usually feature some sort of rough-looking white guy, which can be tiring to play as. This also isn't good for promoting diversity in gaming.
This is why I feel games like Mafia 3 andWatch Dogs 2 are necessary. Mafia 3 wasn't the best game, but playing as Lincoln Clay felt like a fresh experience because we got to play as a black male who didn't perpetrate any stereotypes. Watch Dogs 2's main character, Marcus Holloway, was also a character that wasn't plagued with black stereotypes. They both fight injustices because of their race in their respective time periods, even though Holloway's fight with racism is way more relaxed than Clay's. These two characters show the reality of black people in American culture, and I feel that such representation is much needed in the climate that America is in today.
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Characters like Augustus Cole from Gears of War, Barrett Wallace from Final Fantasy 7, or even Coach from Left 4 Dead 2 are not needed in gaming. Even though it is undeniable that they do bring character to their games, they are plagued with stereotypes like being a sports star or affiliated with sports, being musicians, cursing excessively, and being extremely loud. Stereotypical black characters in gaming can hinder the experience of the game or just downright insult the player.
The Opportunity Agenda published a scholarly piece called Media Representations and Impact on the Lives of Black Men and Boys in which they explain the way black characters are stereotyped in media. In one section called "Distorted patterns of portrayal," they explain that positive associations of black males are limited to "sports, physical achievement in general, virility, and musicality." The article goes on:
"While the media's version of America is populated by some black males intended to inspire, they tend to represent a relatively limited range of qualities to the exclusion of a variety of other everyday virtues."