For an honest answer, it's just "percentage of audience". It's no secret that the majority of gamers (especially those interested in Star Wars) are white men. Of course, the reason for this is likely a lot to do with the fact that most Star Wars media featured white male protags, and of course that the US is ~50% white. One could make a very strong argument that featuring more diverse protagonists could attract other steadily growing minority groups in the US, and I do think EA is aware of this.
That said, western companies have been really good lately about diversity among protagonists and EA is shockingly at the front of it. I think they deserve some credit, honestly.
They "earned" it in the sense that that is the group most heavily spending money on these kinds of games. I don't think the word earned is appropriate here tho.
Your words were "not every game needs to be progressive". Do you not feel that statement is charged with a subtext that not being a straight white male is inherently "progressive", that my existence is an inherent challenge against the straight male (in my particular circumstance) majority? It's not "progressive" to represent the general population in games in an equal proportion to its existence within it. LGBTQ people make up anywhere from 3-10% of the population, but are represented in a fraction of a percentile of video game
characters (let alone protagonists), with many of the few that exist being harmful stereotypes. It's not a challenge against the status quo to want diversity, it's asking games to, y'know,
actually better reflect the status quo. For once.
I'll always give credit where it's due. EA has been one publisher who has made a stronger effort in the last 2 years, mostly with diversity of characters in games without a heavy narrative focus. But as with most publishers, when narrative is important? If there were Vegas odds on the outcome, "straight white male protagonist" would be considered the safest bet going. (hope it's OK to borrow this turn of phrase and use it more broadly) There's still a really thick glass ceiling when it comes to narrative-driven games and who ends up the protagonist.
But aside from the fact that you'd have to accept that this was absolutely a thoughtful decision to cater to the majority (which most here would say is likely not the case, which I'll come back to), that just creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. Straight white males make up the majority of gamers, so they're represented more, which alienates a large swath of people that are, demographically speaking, becoming more and more interested in playing games, but become discouraged when so little in the medium represents them, thus leaving straight white males as the majority of players by a wide margin. It's essentially engineering a consumer majority, favouring one consumer over another through deliberate acts of alienation. So again, I'll ask, you don't see the issue there? In such a circumstance, do you feel it's appropriate to continue that behaviour by suggesting that keeping the status quo in place more often than not is the right call?
And this comes with another implicit suggestion that white players will reject a more diverse protagonist. Catering to the fragility of the majority by not having them to accept a character that isn't like them while asking others to do that very same thing, should not be rewarded with more of the same to re-enforce an engineered audience majority, under any circumstances. Why do they deserve to have that privilege maintained while we're forced to be thankful for what little is given to others in return?
As I said in the beginning, though, the odds are pretty good that the straight white male is the protagonist because the creators are straight white males and don't have much imagination, which manages to make the recurrence even less justifiable, since we shouldn't reward unimaginative creations.
That brings me to my last point... I sometimes feel like this is a monkey's-paw wish for more diverse protagonists in narrative-driven games, because when you see how vapid and poorly-motivated so many of the protagonists in games are, you'd honestly be forgiven to say you'd rather have nothing than something that'll be written that poorly. Straight white male protagonists might be ripe with trope behaviour and shit characterization when written poorly, but I'm downright afraid that the same shit writing would lead to perpetuation of damaging characterizations and negative stereotypes if more diverse characters were the protagonists instead (see example: sexualized female protagonists).
Knowing that, it's still a risk worth taking. If THAT doesn't tell you how barren the landscape is for diverse protagonists and how desperate some of us want it to change, nothing else will.
Is Caustic white? And I thought Mirage was hispanic?
Pretty sure you're thinking of Octane. Mirage falls into the "Little Mac" zone where he is not pale but all other signs point to whiteness. Mirage's real name is Elliott Witt, so I consider that "case closed" on that mystery. Elliott is a stone's throw away from Skyler on the list of stereotypically-white names.
