Well the internet moves swiftly, and thus many articles on the trending hashtag #GamesSoWhite:
Twitter Is Pretty Much Done with Constantly White Games Protagonists
It’s pretty much agreed upon that representation in video games is really lacking in protagonists that aren’t white dudes. The amount of games that let you play hard locked as someone who’s not a white dude are painfully slim, and even the games that let you customize your character will more often than not have a white dude used in their marketing. This is starting to grate on people’s nerves, especially aroun 1d E3 time, and Twitter user Desertfox899 decided to start a hashtag, not unlike the OscarsSoWhite one from last year.
New #GamesSoWhite Hashtag Discusses Diversity In Gaming
The hashtag gained a lot of its momentum when Tauriq Moosa published a piece on Polygon titled “Colorbind: On Witcher 3, Rust, and Gaming’s Race Problem” which discussed how Rust recently decided to assign avatars, forcing white players to play as people of other races, an act one player called “forced politics.” In response, Moosa points out that people of color are often forced to play as straight white men and notes that Witcher 3, which has received tons of praise, doesn’t feature a single character of color. It’s a thoughtful piece that draws attention to a huge blindspot in video games and calls for thoughtful analysis and dialogue.
Or, well, tries to.
Reactions to the hashtag and article include the classic “I’m not racist, you’re racist,” “But look at these three exceptions,” “That’s how it was in that non-specific time period,” (Moosa discusses why “historically accurate” is a ridiculous defence for lack of diversity in his piece) “Why do I have to identify with someone who doesn’t look like me” and other variations of the same excuses that all just look like one big misinformed blur to me now.
