Dear
Gaming Writers, the year is 2013 and hopefully many more years with what use to
feel like space aged figures will come. There are roughly as I type this, 7.11
billion humans on this planet and a lot of psychotic sheep.
No one
person is the same, we all have something unique about us, be it personality or
physically. The time has come, and it went by a long while ago to be honest, to
start writing gaming characters that represent even a small percentage of the
people of the planet, you know, the consumers, the fans of your games, the
people that help ensure you take a salary home to pay for the necessities of
life.
The
trouble with writing about variety
I get
that it's not always easy to write about something you have very little
knowledge of and I get that it's made even more contrary when you're creating
and being responsible for a character that will be fleshed out by designers and
available for anyone with a gaming console to see and critique.
Some
writers might be worried about delving into new realms, but the problem there
is if you're a writer then that's exactly what you should be doing, at least
once or twice in your life. If your job and your passion is to imagine, re-imagine
and flesh out new worlds and inhabitants for gaming, then you owe it to
yourself to take that literary license clause and expand your horizons. Be
daring, be bold and be brave.
The worry
can also be attributed to the very understandable notion, that you could create
a character that in principle is based on a demographic and you get it totally
wrong. You write a character for a game, they're a companion for the main
protagonist in a sandbox game, heck if you want to shock us, pleasantly, they
are the protagonist. But for some reason the finish product has aroused more
concern and blasting than it has admiration.
Sometimes
this can happen because people are, lets be honest, a bit ignorant. They don't
quite get that sensitivities are not only valid, but a big part of the media
gears and PR appeasement process for advertising a game and hoping to make a
profit.
Then
other times this negative reaction to a character can come from a genuine
mistake, you thought you understood the demographic you were trying to cater
for and you got attacked for the finished product.
So what do you do?
First of
all, you do not give up. If you're on twitter or read a bunch of gaming news
websites, you'll see that things have changed, peoples opinions are not only
being voiced more but that they are given so many avenues with which to express
themselves, you cannot escape it. So no unless you never interact with the
internet again, you will probably definitely come across criticism, some very
damning, some psychotic and some fair, regarding something that was under your
care and development. But that's no reason to give in and yes all opinions
should be heard and the ones that are laced with a random basement dweller
threatening your life should be disposed and ignored, but you don't stop trying
to add inclusivity to your creations. You try even harder, you keep going and
know that no matter what we do we will never please everybody. But making
characters that represent minorities or those that feel left out, isn't and
shouldn't be about pleasing people, not even the individuals you're trying to
be mindful of. It's about doing the right thing.
Gaming is such a large,
important medium now, not just as entertainment but as a multi-million pound
business plan.
The
difference in creating a gaming character who represents, the so called
underdogs of life, disabled people, LGBT folk, those suffering with depression
ect and these characters being in a film is quite staggering. You ARE these
characters. You control them and you play as them. Depending on the sort of
game, you customise them and you decide the choices they make, good, bad, grey
or silly within the story of the game.
The great
thing about gaming, aside from the fun and social aspect is, you might get the
chance to play as someone that exists in this world, not an elf or an Italian
plumber (who are um fictional?) but as a real person, who's different and yet
the same as you. You get a tiny sampling of what it may be like to be someone
else, who has different ailments in life and at the same time you get to travel
through space, drive a go-kart that shoots bananas or save the world from neon
coloured alien invaders.
It's not
always easy, but it is very doable to create gaming characters that are not
over muscled, white heterosexual males. This is not the world we live in. I may
not be a proponent of games 'having' to be uber realistic in terms of story and
graphics, but I am very much in support of games containing human characters
who actually represent us all and don't segregate us. People are not all born
with the same desires and physically abilities as whoever is in the next cot on
the ward.
Games are
littered with so many copy and pasted characters, it become boring now, very
boring. Where are the decent transgendered, disabled, homosexual and even
non-subjectified female gaming icons?
The
internet can be a messed up place at times, but it also has many positive uses,
such as the ability to research or to get in contact with people to interview
so that you can create a respectable representation for a video game. Utilise
the tools you are given and be grateful that you are someone who's ideas can be
turned into vast, 3D worlds that anyone can interact with. Be grateful most of
all to the people who support you, who let you do your job professionally and
remember that those people come in all shapes, sizes, orientations and everyone
of them deserve, at the very least, a valiant effort to be made to include
them.
It's 2013
and we are very much, behind the times when it comes to equality and sometimes
all it takes is pulling your finger out and going for it.
Neither I'm a BEAR!
No comments:
Post a Comment