Can Your Avatar's Race Affect Your Behavior? | Game/Show | PBS Digital Studios
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 4 май 2015
- Viewers like you help make PBS (Thank you 😃) . Support your local PBS Member Station here: to.pbs.org/DonateGAME
Tweet at us! / pbsgameshow
Follow us on Facebook / gameshowpbs
Email us! pbsgameshow [at] gmail [dot] com
Follow us on Reddit / pbsgameshow
Videogames have always prized themselves on letting you, no matter who you are, experience something totally different from reality. They're marketed as something something separate from our real lives, and instead, a sandbox for us to play in. But we have to wonder, is what we're doing, and who we're playing as in those games, affecting how we act or think in real life? Join Jamin on this week's episode of Game/Show as we ask if your Avatar's appearance and race changes your behavior!
Mike's Idea Channel episode: Controlling vs. Being Your Avatar:
• Controlling vs "Being"...
Sources:
www.escapistmagazine.com/forum...
steamed.kotaku.com/rust-choose...
www.slate.com/articles/technol...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/...
news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_d...
www.thedailybeast.com/articles...
www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcrr20
researchnews.osu.edu/archive/r...
--------------------------------------------------------------
ASSET LINKS:
01:11
• Rust Update 51 | Diffe...
01:19
• LAUGHING TIL IT HURTS ...
01:30
• Software Enables Avata...
1:56
• 4 months old - Mollie ...
2:12
• Video
2:35
• Can Your Avatar Help Y...
3:18
• True Life: I'm Addicte...
3:21
• Video
4:44
• Let's Play GTA San And...
--------------------------------------------------------------
COMMENT LINKS:
notoriouswhitemoth
• Why You'll Always Lose...
eRR0Rq
• Why You'll Always Lose...
Neko Vermillion
• Why You'll Always Lose...
Scrotie McBoogerballs
• Why You'll Always Lose...
--------------------------------------------------------------
MUSIC:
"Oh Damn!" by CJVSO
/ cjvso-oh-damn
"Digital Sonar" by Brink
"Mindphuck" by Known To Be Lethal
• Video
"After Hours"
"Lakes" by Chooga
• Chooga - 3170 Lakes
"Beautiful Days" by Extan
/ beautiful-days
"Spectrum Subdiffusion Mix" by Foniqz
/ foniqz-spectrum-subdif...
"Good Way Song" by Electronic Rescue
"Alice y Bob" by Javier Rubio and Parsec
archive.org/details/escala19_...
"Sleet" by Kubbi
/ kubbi-sleet
"Toaster" by Kubbi
/ toaster
"Patriotic Songs of America" by New York Military Band and the American Quartet
freemusicarchive.org/music/New...
"Lets Go Back To The Rock" by Outsider
www.jamendo.com/en/artist/440...
"Run" by Outsider
www.jamendo.com/en/artist/440...
"Fame" by Statue of Diveo
www.jamendo.com/en/artist/352...
"Freedom Weekends" by Statue of Diveo
www.jamendo.com/en/artist/352...
--------------------------------------------------------------
Hosted by Jamin Warren (@jaminwar)
See more on games and culture on his site: www.killscreendaily.com
Made by Kornhaber Brown (www.kornhaberbrown.com)
A lot of people have been saying that the race of their character doesn't affect them. While they could be right I'd like to point out that if it did affect you then you probably wouldn't notice. There are a lot ways our biases affect the way act but we don't usually know that they affect us or in many cases that there even there at all.
rogue123987Totally!
rogue123987 while I would mostly agree with you I do believe there are ways to be more aware of how our biases effect us. Most people pay little mind to actual self observation, but taking that time to reflect on yourself regularly can allow insight into the effects of any of your habits. It's not that you couldn't know it is just that most won't honestly look before assuming the answer.
rogue123987 Honestly even then I think it comes down to a matter of context. Sure maybe some people will play GTV 5 depending on if they're Trevor, Michael or Franklin. But I can tell you, Megaton gets to eat Sh*t no matter what race you play as in fallout 3! (yes yes I know, not everyone blows up megaton...)
Next Episode: 'Is This Show All About Race?'
thebritishgeek I never said people become more or less racist because of games, that would be stupid. What I'm saying is that people's unconscious biases can affect how play or react to a character in a game and if it was affecting them they probably wouldn't notice it unless someone pointed it out to them and even then might not believe it affects them. Peoples real life biases affect how they perceive the game world (and by extension the real world) not the other way around (unless the game is presenting deep philosophical questions that the player never thought of before or the player is younger than seven, the latter case is the only time the "violent video games make you violent" argument makes any sense and even then so long as the violence in the game has been rated appropriate for their age [I don't think five year olds should be playing mortal combat] its not to hard to disprove).
Who said the "issue" that people have with what Rust did has to do with race?
Imagine a game like Fallout 3 or Dark Souls would randomly create a character for you, link it to your account and then won't ever let you change it.
The real issue is that choice and freedom is being taken away from the players.
SashaSexyfur
*The real issue is that choice and freedom is being taken away from the players.*
Why is that a bad thing? Most of the best games in the world have minimal player choice.
Correction: choice and freedom is being taken away from players who aren't used to not being solely represented. It's upsetting because the norm is usually "white protagonist" and when it's taken from you and you're given something else you can't change, people respond negatively.
Personally I think it's a very interesting choice, and maybe because it's a video game, there SHOULD be a choice... but there are toooo many games where there aren't.
Games like Fallout or Dark Souls are heavy on player customization because they want you to decide your experience, even though the result isn't often very different depending on the game. (James is always your father, regardless if you play a man or woman in Fallout 3, even if you have green skin)
Antenox Ehhhhhhh... yes and no? it really depends what game you're talking about... this isn't a black and white issue... (I just realized that was probably pretty bad timing for that expression.)
SashaSexyfur But the game didn't have a character creator like those two to begin with, just bald white dudes. There's not much to choice to take away.
SashaSexyfur There are numerous games with character creation, yes, but the majority of games don't have that. Also major video game protagonists are white, and if you aren't white you are forced to play as a different race. White people have the convenience of nine times out of ten being able to play as their race (which isn't a bad thing as long as it's not just one race). Rust comes along and randomizes the races to try and get white people to experience the same thing. If anything, it's people of color who haven't had much choice or freedom.
What I find interesting is that people will always say, "Oh! I died!" When their avatar dies. It's never, "Oh, my character died!" It's always "I". People become so attached to their video game selves, that they feel sad when the avatar is sad, get angry when someone attacks their character. Some people even say "OUCH!" when their character is hurt. I'll bet that this kinda thing intensifies when you get to customize your character.
It does, the work you put into the character affects how you play. Watch venturean's fallout tale and you will see how he and his character get super close. He refers to her like she is another person and he is just in control of her body. He recently finished another fallout tale ( set in new Vegas) and now has over 160 episodes of his and Cywren's adventure. He created her character for fun so it shows you how time and events can turn even a random made character into a member of the family.
I guess you could say the same for characters you didn't make, too. Like, if you're a big Legend of Zelda fan, you'll always refer to Link as Link and you'll get super sad when Zelda gets kidnapped, or whatever. Kinda interesting.
DaBagelSquad or it could be that saying " oh i died" is a hell of alot quicker than " my character died" we seek to shorten information when given the chance and since you are controlling a avatar that is 'you' regardless of what it is.
the space invaders ship is you, a black man is you, a woman is you. understand where im coming from? i cant customize my character in say call of duty but i still say i died rarther than my character died.
+thebritishgeek but then couldn't you have said "she died!" or "they died!"? It would be just as easy.
sigh824 because thats not how the human mind works. whilst you are playing you are that avatar but you dont place any values in that avatar, it does not matter what it looks like or what gender it is.
I don't find that race or gender affect my play through in any real way. If I create a character (i.e. skyrim) then I consider it a reflection of myself in some way. If the character is chosen for me then I see it as me controlling an un-associated avatar. Regardless if both these examples took place in Syrim (just bare with the example, I can't think of a better game) then it doesn't matter what gender/race I am im still going to shoot arrows instead of tossing spells around, because that's my play style.
If however you arbitrarily said your character is has +9000 points in their swordsmanship by default then yes I would probably switch. Until I get bored of wreaking house anyways...
Play by your ability, not by your appearance.
Taylor McPherson uhhh... haha. Khajiit actually, did it for the bonus to stealth and hand to hand. I like lore behind the khajiit and objectivetly think they manage to be "good looking" (lynx ears are really cool, also Khajiit in oblivion and morrowind looked f***** stupid). But just to be absolutely clear, no furry.
That's actually species, not race.
IDidSawABear Isn't that like calling an itemirus a velociraptor or something?
Sorry that was an obscure analogy and not quite correct, what I mean is that it's a matter of same part of the clade, different species.
mmm... I understood the analogy, but I'd say its comparable to maybe... Dogs and Wolves? (I don't know if those 2 can interbreed though...)
I was going to comment on how I didn't think it made a difference in my personal gameplay, then I realized that I rarely play games with an avatar of a different race. So many non customizable game have a white male lead. The most races I've ever played would have to be in skyrim or sims. And if it's customizable I normally play as myself. But all in all I don't think anything affects my play style since I have a constant mindset most of the time that I am playing as me. I just do what I would do, assuming a fictional situation. I don't go around murdering people.
I've noticed this very strongly on GTA V.
I really noticed how (to some degree) I played differently depending on the character.
With Franklin I listened to a lot of Hip-Hop, wore different clothes and stole more cars (god, this sounds racist). With Trevor, I randomly killed more people, drove pickups more and listened to punk stuff and wore flanel shirts and trucker caps. With Michael I almost exclusively listened to classic rock and wore suits while always driving my own car. I Think that's mainly because I view games as interactive movies, especially when the story is as strong as with GTA games. Now acting or dressing a certain way suits more or less to a character and in movies, we want to see realistic characters acting a certain way. So in a movie a black guy from a certain area that listens to classic rock and wears suits isn't as relatable or usual as him wearing a hoddie and listening to 2pac.
I hope this doesn't sound too racist
Duncan Wick I tried getting Franklin and Trevor in suits, and all of them in more offroad trucks. I'm not exactly sure what that says about me.
I agree that my characters look, class, race, voice acting or anything really that the game offers affects how I play the character in game. I don't usually "make" my characters personalities(I know that some people make huge backstories for their characters for example). They kind of just form in my mind as I play the game. But am I really changing my behaviour in the game or am I just roleplaying the character that I have subconciously created? I'd say it's the latter.
The random race assignment in Rust is very interesting. :-)
Kudos to Rust for this little experiment. As someone who teaches in Second Life - where avatar customization has reached epic proportions - all sorts of things are going on: perpetuation and subversion of stereotypes, gender (and even species) swapping for fun and identity exploration, etc. It'll be interesting to see what happens in Rust where no choice is given. It'll be a shocker when that racist white player with the black avatar hears the N word used against him/her for the first time - and it doesn't seem funny anymore.
Jean-Paul DuQuette indeed that would be interesting to see how they would react.
early on after this patch there was a post on the forums that was almost this. I wont assume he was racist. Guy didn't want to be black anymore because of people calling him the n word. This was when I first thought it'd be interesting and this was around the first and last time I heard about race gangs. The "excitement" has died down alot and it's rare for the races to be brought up anymore. At least on our server which is pretty small.
Jean-Paul DuQuette
I feel like there should be a reporting system to report racist players, then effectively trap them in a form of in-game Ironic Hell.
Funny, in skyrim I remember playing as a dark elf and feeling like I had to be sneaky and stuff.Like I was an assassin or something.
Bob war haven't played skyrim, but going by the older elder scrolls games don't dark elves actually come with buffs to sneak related skills? maybe that had to do with it
Drakan R Yeah most of the races come with some form of racial perk!
As a mixed person, I've never been able to connect with either side of my race in real life, even with family. However, I really did connect with Corvo Attano from Dishonored. Not because we share racial similarities; I'm Asian/white, and he's probably some kind of Mediterranean equivalent. Probably because I feel like a misunderstood person who, like Corvo, has never been able to feel like part of a group because of some innate quality like race. Throughout the game, as Corvo you are discriminated against in very subtle ways, like how your allies treat you with formal friendliness, but not respect, and how to everyone in the game you're unpredictable, thus something to be feared. The people of Dunwall believe in Honor-culture, which is very different from the Vendetta that Corvo exemplifies. It's not the specifics, so much as the struggle that I definitely identify with.
I think back to my days playing GTA III vs playing San Andreas.
I have caused so much more mayhem as Claude than as CJ. Even now, in GTA V, I find that I've ended up the most passive whilst playing as Franklin, more violent as Michael, and vastly more aggressive as Trevor. As Franklin, I might just walk or drive around, not really bothering anyone except so far as to perhaps say "hello" as i pass by-- as Trevor, I'll ram other cars that are in my way, perform random acts of violence on civilians and other drivers with fists or guns, and generally be a complete menace to society. Maybe that's because he's a crackhead, but when I'm STILL more prone to violence as Michael than Franklin, I don't think the things discussed in this video affect me to the degree that it does to most.
I do feel different when I play a male character only because im very observant of my surroundings i mean someone have to pay attention to the work and effort put into the clothing, animation and style; so when I see a female that looks like me even without my style (because im scarce either way so that's almost impossible to have my skin, my gender and my style) I feel more into the games when my image is finally noticed. *If games is to take you away and put yourself in a fantasy or another world, wouldn't it be great to create yourself and literally put yourself in that fantasy?*
Actually that happens to one type lots of time so the majority wont care or know what im talking about only because the majority hunger is always feed. They cant be hungry when always tended to so I cant expect them to understand what hunger feels like.
With that said, I will notice the stereotypes way more faster and way more than anyone without my skin or gender. Why when a person of my color or of my gender or both is always this type of stereotype? Ill notice because im scarce.
"im very observant of my surroundings i mean someone have to pay attention to the work and effort put into the clothing, animation and style
" maybe that's my problem, I'm terribly unobservant of of visual details like this. I get easily tunnel visioned into the task rather than the appearance of things, so much so that I remember action details far better than I remember the actors.
Kyle Davis
Those things follow after. But simple details like the smell of the experience bring forward the experience and the joy with it. That is why art exist, that's why art is superior in my life. It builds memories and the actions that comes with it.
HeirOfGlee Yeah cause im a white man i have a chizzled jaw and a perfect figure right? oh yes definitely!
you seem to be forget what a fantasy is, its not reality. the closer it gets to reality the worse it will be.
you say the majority wont know what you are talking about but honestly thats insulting peoples intelligence, what makes you think we cant understand what underrepresentation is? do you think us so 'fattend' that we only see what we want to?
and il give you the answer as to why sterotypes are used in games its really very very simple here is the definition : A widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing
See, can you understand why sterotypes are used in games and media? it allows people to quickly grasp what a character or group will be like. not saying its good but its easy.
thebritishgeek
its a fantasy yet..............one type of fantasy is always the standard. If it was a fantasy why is there only one type?
HeirOfGlee because of limited development time and the lived experiences of those developers? maybe, just a thought.
I think it probably varies wildly from person to person. The effect of confirmation bias, I imagine, would play a huge role in this line of experiments. People who have those biases ingrained into them through years of living in an environment where it gets enforced, are more than likely going to pick them up because they typically, unconsciously choose to look for them in the first place. But if you performed the same experiment on younger subjects, who haven't been subjected to that line of social enforcement yet, are more than likely just not going to see any connection with an avatar's skintone and their aggression levels. And of course, any persons of color who find stereotypes about them one of the most irritating things about their lives, are probably going to unconsciously put up a mental block between such connections.
Though I'm not a scientist, I could be completely wrong in this line of thought.
This is so odd... I am a white dude who tends to use black or middle-eastern avatars, but I don't see or have ever felt non of the things mentioned in this video. For me it's simply an aesthetical decision, I simply think dark skin is more beautiful (in my taste). Also, I'm bored of playing white dudes, so I change that whenever the option is given. Then again, being from a mostly white country like Spain doesn't shape my race stereotypes as much as living in the US would.
I'd be interested to see if it still affected you in a game like Skyrim, where (if you play first person) you rarely even see your own avatar. Would being black, or tall, or attractive in that kind of situation still have any bearing on how people played the game?
Rhetorical question by the way, I doubt anyone has an actual answer for that.
Vincent Freel I think you do start a game with a certain idea of what you character is going to be like, you'll probably won't be playing as a peace loving orc (or you'd do especially that because you can).In a game like Rust it might affect how players would react to you.
I did want to add that in Skyrim, Nords are a respected race throughout most of the game, however, playing as a Dark Elf or a Khajiit will be a different experience. The Stormcloaks are very racist (even if they'll still let you join as a Dark Elf) it was really uncomfortable for me to find my character getting drawn to the Nords as opposed to the Imperials, who were equally awful.
Eric Carter Maybe Skyrim is a bad way to find out because racism already is a thing there.
If I'm honest I wasn't really talking about Skyrim specifically in this, just using it as an example of a game where you can customise your appearance, and play first person, meaning you basically never even notice it. Would just knowing that you'd picked your character to look a certain way be enough to change it even if you're not reminded constantly be enough, is the kind of thing I was going for.
Why are americans so obsessed with race ? xD In most countries of the world, people would just be like "Hey, I'm black. Aww, I wanted to be white... Whatever."
Toma-Tora Because they have nothing left to complain/fight for so they just go after pointless stuff or made up things now.
Toma-Tora I don't think it's just America. Look at all of Latin America. Look at how Europe is dealing with immigration. As long as people look different, this will be an issue.
PBS Game/Show Well ya humans are naturally xenophobic (from an evolution standpoint it is usally better to err on the side of caution). Plus there have been studies done that show you are more likely to be nice to someone who has similar facial features as yourself (which has obvious evolutionary origins), even something as simply as the same or similar surname can cause this.
PBS Game/Show I wouldn't say all Latin America, maybe a good chunk of it but it's only because of the stereotypes made during our colonies era.
So it's all Europe's fault, kappa.
Toma-Tora Race theory was invented in America. Americans generally believe slavery was caused by racism. They have it backwards. Racism was caused by slavery. People who were enslaved along religious criteria became ineligible for enslavement once they started converting to protestant Christianity. The ruling caste invented 'race' as a way to continue their enslavement. You'll find most Americans are not even aware that 'race' is an invention. Hence all the confusion.
I noticed something like this while playing GTAV recently. Not so much based on race, but more based on character personality as it was laid out by the game designers. When I'd be using the Franklin avatar, I was playing much more non-violently simply because the character came off as a fairly balanced individual, not someone likely to drive through crowds of people or go on mad shooting sprees. When I'd play as Trevor however, I'd find myself behaving much more erratically, mentally justifying the wild gameplay as "well, that's how Trevor would do this." It wasn't an intentional thing at all, either. Just something I noticed maybe 20-30 hours into the game.
in a strange way this reminds me of The Button experiment on Reddit. There's a sense of overwhelming perpetuity in the kind of color you get once you push the button, and people have divided into warring tribes depending on their flair, trying to find meaning or personal traits in the color they were given.
And now with this mechanic in Rust, I have the sense that we're experimenting a lot more with irreversible consequences such as Permadeath or linking some non-erasable attribute to our accounts, kind of a digital tattoo of sorts.
It's a very interesting clash between the irreverence of games/Internet and life-long consequences. Almost as if all previous challenges were not enough for us and now we demand for higher stakes.
I'd like to see an experiment on how your avatar is dressed in a game and how it effects how you play. For instance, I have a detective outfit for my GTA5 character that I only wear when I decide to play (marginally anyway) as a good person, ie. don't randomly kill people for no reason, just go about my business. However when I want to cause havoc and chaos, I'll typically change his outfit to something more fitting that of a mobster or a member of the triads or something completely random.
What a lot of people don't realize--or ignore--about games is that they are actors while they play them. By that I mean actors like stage or movie actors. This is usually called role-playing, but I think in all games you are playing a role and I try to reflect that. When making choices in games, I try not to do what I, Mark Taylor, would do, but what the character I'm playing would do. The types of choices I made as Lee in season 1 of Telltale's Walking Dead were different from the types of choices I made as Clem in season 2 (although I think it's ridiculous this group of post-society adults constantly turns to a child to make their decisions, but that's neither here nor there). Lee was more optimistic, at least in the beginning, because he's still used to living in society. Clem was ruthless, considering what she went through in season 1.
Games are amazing in that they give everyone the opportunity to make some of the choices that stage/film actors make. I've done only a little bit of acting (high school, community theater), and even then when I'm playing games I can't help but think about some of the same questions of my player-character as I did of characters I portrayed as an actor. What was their childhood like? How does this character feel about money? Sex? Power? Does this character's actions make sense for the world they live in? How do they feel about the things they've done? What does this character value or want? Who does the character care most about? Game developers, like good directors, leave these questions open to the player/actor but still give hints and guide them toward a certain vision.
Sorry this is only slightly related to race lol
I love the idea of making people realize that dealing with what character race you get is like dealing with whatever race you get in real life (be it white, black, asian, etc). But the thing is, being say, black in a video game doesnt expose you to all the prejudice and stuff that blacks have to endure in real life. So, while i do think the random race thing is a good metaphor, its not gonna help decrease any racism by much.
lmao I laughed when you said "The results are mixed. Just like me" lol as a fellow mixed race person I'm totally going to use that from now on lol
I remember reading a review of tell tale's walking dead where the reviewer mentioned how he felt really conscious of the fact he was playing a black guy in the south. The exact things he said were pretty upsetting but he didn't seem to understand that he was projecting his prejudices of the south, bi-racial families, and "angry black guys" rather than having gleamed a new understanding from the experience. I would love to see a fine bros style react video of black guys from the south reading that review because when I moved down south the first people who would challenge me for criticizing the south were my black friends, and their arguments all revolved around the simple fact that I wasn't from here originally and I couldn't see past my own personal bias. This region has it's problems, and I definitely prefer the west, but the way our media portrays the south is unsettlingly bigoted. As far as race relations go, white millennials in CA and Vegas are starkly more racist than the white millennialis in Alabama, at least in my experience.
I can't wait til some one is like "Naw man, I get it. My avatar is black so I get what it's like to be black in America."
In every Assassin's Creed game with Ezio I played him the same in AC2 and Brotherhood, making him more like how a young man would be, risk taking and motivated by his own actions. In Revelations you get a much older Ezio and I felt making him climb these high places and jumping was a bit much for the old man so I took a low key actual assassin like approach, till I found that I was having a hard time getting 100% so I overwrote my own desire to keep Old Ezio safe and played like young Ezio jumping and killing things like the other games.
As for other Assassins like Altair, Conner, Aveline, and Edward, their age, race, and sex didn't effect my performance in the games. Far as I noticed anyway
An interesting follow-up to one of these studies would be division into five groups.
Control group - play the game with no cues to the race of the character in first-person view
Test group one: First person perspective, you can see that the character is white through hand interactions
Test group two: First person perspective, you see that the avatar is black
Test group three: Third-person perspective, you can see that they are white
Test group four: Third-person perspective, you can see that they are black
It would be interesting to see if different perspectives yield different results. Will knowingly playing a black avatar from the first-person perspective have a similar effect as playing the same avatar from a third-person perspective? It certainly would be an interesting result and could potentially impact how game developers think of using first-person versus third-person perspectives in future development.
Maybe it is mostly an US american stereotype that black skin colour is associated with violence, I mean as an European I somehow don't have that. If I really have to point at some human features and had to connect them to agression, I probably would do so with red hair, and even with that said, I have plenty of red haired characters, which I usually don't play more agressive than other characters. But I can say I would be annoyed if I cannot pick my characters appearence in game that obviously is made to have different looks, I don't mind if a character has a certain look like it is so often with JRPGs, but I prefer to create my own characters if that is not already predeterminated, since after all we are talking about games, so I don't have to be limited by any kind of realism, if I wanted realism, I would take a dose of reality outside gaming.
What was the asset at 2:50 from?
Whenever playing WWE games I always catch myself doing what that character would do on Monday Night Raw. I've always thought it was my desire to recreate scenes from the show but it might actually be subconscious ideas about how people who are similar to the trope they play on tv
Given the choice I crate and play as a character that is of a different race and gender than myself. It is difficult for me to say if that choice has had an impact on how I think and feel about the race of different people (fictional or real). I suspect it would take an outside perspective to determine if the decision to play a different race has a positive or negative impact on my perception of that race.
Would be interesting to see whether people tend to team up preferably with avatars that correspond to their real life race, their avatar race or both (and in the latter case, to what extents).
I think I usually play in a way that stays true to my character, regardless of race. For example in GTA V, I'm usually more calm and rational with Franklin, and I'm pretty much starting fights when I play as Trevor.
This sort of reminds me of 'A Class Divided.' The social excitement done by that third grade teacher to try and get them to understand racism
Devin Wakesfield is That the blue eye brown eye one?
To answer you question yah that's brown eyes,blue eyes
ANOTHER video about race... great.
I just opened the channel page and there are 7 videos about race/gender in the very first page. I really have to wonder why you're so fixated by this aspect when there many more problems or just interesting topics of discussion in gaming.
Highlaw I've done over 100 videos. It's not that often.
PBS Game/Show But the number of videos on race/gender/sexuality has been increasing more rapidly in the past few months.
Connor Leydon They have been on the rise, but they are issues that have also been in current events.
unlike other people Jamin has don't a lot of research and links the data for us to peruse
PBS Game/Show you do alot of videos on social issues though, way more now and you have admitted you are a videogame feminist.
most people did not come here for that you must know that by now, the more you go on about social issues the more angsty people will get is what ive found.
Highlaw Let the man focus on whatever interests him. If you don't like it simply don't watch...sheesh...
You just answered why bodies in video games are so extreme... Good job.
I wonder if mindfulness is part of this. I've read a lot (and care a lot) about diversity in game leads, so I actively like playing characters who deviate from the straight, white male "default", and I spend a lot of time thinking about how/if it makes a difference. I end up evaluating *this* character in particular, as it fits in *this* game, in particular.
In other words, I wonder if the "Aw man, I wanted to be white," attitude, (or even the, "Huh, weird, I'm not white" attitude) might contribute to the elevation of negative stereotypes. In other words, "Okay, I'm a black dude...?" with no further critical thinking lumps the character in with "black dudes", flinging open the door to broad unconscious bias and stereotyping. "Why am I a chick?" with no further critical thinking lumps the character in with "women", etc. etc.
Whereas going, "Oh wow, this game has chosen a black/female/gay/whatever lead; how do they develop the character? What ideas are they exploring here? Or is it purely a cosmetic decision?" puts the focus on *this character* and on *this game*. It (hopefully!) can still lead to immersion and empathy, simply kicking back and enjoying the experience, but it works against broad generalizations, and I'd imagine it reduces the inclination to stereotype.
This discussion is very interesting. I'm inclined to say that race doesn't really affect the way I play, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that isn't entirely true. In Skyrim, my first character was a Khajiit. I had a fun playthrough as a thief/assassin build. The next time I played I decided to challenge myself by sticking with the thief/assassin build but with a race that isn't built with those skill sets in mind. I decided to go with Redguard since they are better known for being warriors and most of their perks aren't in the thief trees. During that playthrough, even though I was playing in the same guilds with many of the same quests, I noticed my Redguard woman was a bit more aggressive than my Khajiit one. A bit quicker to shoot first and ask the questions later. I'm not sure if its because I was more familiar with the game and knew that people were going to try to kill me or what, but as a black girl myself I find this very interesting.
I wonder if there is a difference in how the avatar affects the player in first person and third person games. In Rust, you're generally playing in a first person perspective, so your race is a more minor visual factor than it would be in a game like Saints Row. It is still present, but there is a much smaller visual cue. I wonder if that would make the avatar's race less likely to impact the player.
About Rust: Yeah well, you'd get the same complaints if you fix people's hairstyles. So really, what these studies need for control studies are such that test out the psychological effects of changing avatar's hairstyles on the player.
For me, whenever I create my avatar, I give them their personality. Whether it's Dark Souls or GTA Online I usually create a character like me and I am usually less violent (as less violent as you can be in GTA) that any other character I make. I'll usually make a female character that is super aggressive to buck those stereotypes.
Depends on mood for me. I typically pick whatever race I like and I'm almost always myself - hence why I pick something that represents me. Like for instance, I play skyrim and I love cats. So naturally, khajiit. But I play as if I was that Khajiit as if it were me. Not sure if that made sense lol if I come across something that is interesting and Khajiit related, I momentarily step out of myself and act Khajiit. And yet, I do nothing unless it's what I would do. If I were to play a Bosmer, same idea. Now with an Orc, I'd be a bit more hostile but not quite so stereotypically. I'd just focus more on warfare than as a Khajiit or Bosmer. I find myself more feline like and friendly as a khajiit, more feeling skilled with the bow, one with nature and a hunter as a Bosmer, and lastly, and as an Orc, I fight valiantly and with ferocity. Then when I'm a werewolf...well, I think that speaks for itself. I'm only Dragonborn around Paarthunax lol
This kind of thing applies to games like sims and Spore too.
Love this topic. I've alwlays known it :)
Remember when that guy on Watch_Dogs made a video of him just killing any Muslim NPC? Yeah, not exactly the same thing... but clearly identity does inform some aspect of how we play.
I would have to say it depends.
In myskyrim playtrough I decided to play as a petite kajit lady (yes yes joke about it). Didn't stop me from wearing heavy armour and swinging greatswords around like nobody's business and didn't really use stealth much,but I did specifically train in stealth just for kicks and stole much less than what I used to steal in Fallout 3 and NewVegas.And that game had racial bonuses,fat lot of use I got from night vision and sneak.
On the other hand in my time playing saints row 3 I decided to play as a busty female with a haircut strongly reminiscent of Lara crofts.Picked the sexy taunt animations and almost always used dual pistols.
The only reason i don't like Rust's decision is because i like creating a multitude of different characters when a game allows me to. most of the time they are of a different race than me. But honestly it isn't a major deal. the psychology behind it is still facinating though.
While the question of how playing a certain race, or playing alongside a certain race can alter behavior, its not necessarily the most interesting question. A one of the more related but more interesting questions is whether a reaction that's born of subconscious stereotypes are likewise predictable, which first instinct suggests its not. Black player character seen as aggressive? The other players might not see them as a threat despite that; they may ask if they'd like to act as a guard, or perhaps if they'd like to play cards, or if they'll make a good market haggler.
Beyond that, its also worth asking whether "Real life races" are the only question of behavioral comparison in any form. In games where you can play as any number of fantasy races, how do conceptions work with the more animalistic races? And what kind of person are you if you prefer to play them over the more human ones?
If anything all these changes in the way we play are totally unconscious. I have never seen anyone changing their behavior in game because they play Tomb Raider instead of Uncharted. You might make some silly jokes about your friend's character's gender or race in some online games but that's it, in a video game you play mostly as yourself, not as the character on screen.
I feel like it comes down to the fact that when you play a game you're playing a role. in sociology, we say that every person is always playing some sort of role, whether it be the role of a student, employee, parent, child, etc, all of these are roles we play. the role we play in game is thus different than the role we play out side of game.
changing behavior based on your avatar isn't that far off from simply role playing. in both cases, you aren't yourself in the game, you are your character, so you makes choices you think your character would make rather than choices you yourself would make. that's also why very peaceful people could potentially play very violent characters: because everything you do is just make believe. for example, a game like GTA V is often played as a chance to see how you would behave if you had no reason not to commit crimes.
also, this is related to how very respectful play Card Against Humanity. it's been said that if you give this game to the most respectful people, suddenly they will be "laughing about genocide." the reason is that when you play that game, you assume the role of some who is okay using crude and even cruel humor, even if that is something you're not okay with normally.
lastly, this even translates into games like Uno, famed for "ruining friendships." except they don't actually ruin friendships, they just make you assume the role of enemies while playing the game. once you stop assuming that role, you'll take on the role of friends again. yet while still playing the game, you are enemies, ready to screw each other over, and take revenge on one another.
this is not even limited to the world of games. we take on a different role on sites like Reddit, tumblr, and Pintrest, than we in real life. we take on a differnt role when we're being professional VS. when we're living our personal life. we take on different roles in a dance class than we would in a lecture class. we would even take on different roles around different friends to match the rapport we have with that person. even my tablet's auto correct has learned to take on a different role in browser searches than in Facebook chat!
in all cases, you take a role in a particular situation you wouldn't otherwise. taking on this new role affects your actions. of course, the role you take on IRL affects how you behave IRL, the role you take on in game affects how you behave in game, and the role you take elsewhere affects how you behave there.
I am white and the more I try to educate myself about privileges, the more I want to pick a PoC when I have the choice. But at the same time, I always worry about doing/saying prejudiced things while playing. So I just don't.
It's like white people wearing Native American war bonnets. They shouldn't.
I am afraid of being racist by choosing consciously to play a PoC when I have a choice because my race IRL is the privileged one and, although I am working on my prejudices and wish I could say I would never equate races to stereotypes in a test like the one you talked about, I probably still have too many of them.
I like the initiative Rust took in assigning races to players without letting them choose. Makes me want to look into this game.
When I play Second Life, my avatar has often been pretty scantily clad or very confident in her own appearance to the point where she doesn't mind having skin showing.
And with that confidence comes a confidence in talking to others, where if someone hits on me, I can easily tell them to shove off without feeling afraid or nervous of the repercussions (it clearly says in my profile I'm taken, and I'm never overly cruel)
But this is very different from how I behave offline, because if someone were to hit on me in public, I wouldn't be able to tell them to screw off. I don't know what I'd do, I'd definitely fidget and look uncomfortable, but I definitely lack the confidence of my avatar.
When it comes to race, I've actually made a point of choosing non-human characters in games when I'm given the chance because I find it easier to not relate daily views to a species that doesn't actually exist. Yes, cats exist, but anthro cats do not. I wouldn't have the temptation to play a stereotypical cat-man because there ARE no actual cat-men.
In Diablo 3 I really wanted to play a black female demon hunter, but was saddened to find out that the only black characters you could play were... voo-doo...shamans????? I really hope they change this in the future because. Eugh. That's pretty offensive, don't you think?
Anyway I might have gotten off track there... But I definitely agree that our avatars affect the way we behave, and race is definitely a big factor, too. Such as the commenter below who mentioned they played Skyrim as a Nord Stormcloak who was very racist because that would make sense for the character, but may not be how they would act offline.
Mismatch
1) personal issue not related to games.
2 again personal issue not related to games.
3) no not really, because voo doo practitioners were black, whats offensive about depicting it?
This is more because of my love of role play but when I was playing skyrim if I ever played as a storm cloak or a nord I was always racist and mean to the other races because that's how the characters were supposed to act
***** But... He just said that he enjoys role playing...
***** Different strokes for different folks. He picked the race, and he felt like getting an authentic role playing experience. There is a game called Evil Genius, where you are just that. There shouldn't be anything wrong with acting in a way that's fitting to the character.
People tend to not give a crap about bad things in general, but as soon as something like race comes up,, there's a storm.
I think maybe the reason the way minorities are portrayed in media has such a larger effect on our perceptions of those races as a whole is simply because they are minorities to begin with. In other words we inherently have less experience with minorities so when a single portrait of them is presented to us that single example makes up a larger percentage of what we see that minority being as a whole since most people only have a few examples to draw from to begin with. This allows more room for preconceptions of that race we already have to be more heavily reinforced when we see those specific examples.This is in contrast to seeing another white person out of the millions we see in the media already, where any example is just a drop in the bucket.
Addendum: I just thought of this, but the results of these types of experiments could be skewed in addition to being small in number. A lot of people would prefer not to admit being racially biased, even if they're doing so subconsciously. Everybody likes to think of themselves as at least somewhat of a good person. Even and sometimes especially when they're really not.
I don't think avatar really affects me. In DayZ Origins, due to the strange humanity system and some bugs. I've played as girls, played as heroes, as back and white, but my play style was always ruthless bandit.
as i've just restarted it, i've noticed quite a few differences between my playthroughs of dragon age: inquisition. in my first playthrough, i was a female human rogue (i'm male) and in my second playthrough, i was a female elf mage (once again, i'm male) the character creator was where i first noticed a significant difference in both myself and my character. i realised, having played the other games, that i was going to be staring at “my” face, a lot. so i created a very pretty, scar-less, green eyed redhead, a look befitting a noble such as “myself”. however, as the elf, i arbitrarily decided that i was a dalish elf, and being the massive lore nerd that i am, i knew about what she should look like. however, why would i care. if i have to stare at “my” face for 60+ hours id better make myself good looking, yeah. its what i did with my human, so what was different about my elf. well, i took what i knew about the dalish and the circle of magi, and a made a character that reflected those thoughts and ingame biases. the character was just a bit… wild, fierce so to speak. scars that have faded, hair pulled up, but not completely subdued. still a redhead thought, god i love redheads. something that may be of note, both were white, just like me.
continuing through the game, i felt a big need to “protect my own” so to speak. (SPOILERS AHEAD. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!) when i had to chose between the rebel mages or the templars, as an elf i chose the mages. i still felt they were wrong, but i still wanted to protect them. later at a party, i was jaded but the emperor's cousin, a usurper to the throne. now, as with my human, i sided with them emperor. however, it wasn't just because the guy was a git, and frankly evil, but because i really didn't like him, all because of that one comment. perhaps tellingly, he said the same thing in both playthroughs, but as a human i brushed it off. also, as a human, i was a full supporter of andrastism, the games religion. i took the title of “your worship” and “the herald” with great pride. however, i was very sceptical as an elf. i took it all with a grain of salt, not really into it. i point this out because, at one of the many judgements, you judge a grey-warden. this warden wants to die for her actions. one of the choices was to let “andraste forgive you” i remember this because it was a hard decision for me. i picked it because it was the only way the warden would not die (besides jailing). so as an elf, imagine my surprise as i have to kill her, because the option is not available. turns out, you have to be a “faithful” inquisitor to get that option. (SPOILERS ARE OVER!)
but HERE is the big difference between RUST and DAI. in DAI, you get an emotional connection with your avatar, they are, more or less, your morals and ideals. not your body, but your brain. in RUST, you run into the problem of not really caring about about your avatar. i know many people who simple disavow their characters. not really caring, on an emotional level, when their called a “n***a” it just another insult being bandied about. “i'm white, what do i care.” they say. and they’d be right, what do they care? in dragon age, when i was called a “knife ear” i wanted to shove my staff so far up his… um… yeah, anyway. until a game can really make you feel for a character that has a randomised race, it won't do much to make people really feel for the “other side” however, this is a good first step, and i really want to see where this goes in the future.
I'd be interested in testing if race would affect my gameplay on something but I don't really play any games involving race except Sims, and I've only noticed one change in how I play with characters of different skin colors--and that's what color clothes I put them in. I don't like how gold or tan looks on tan/white skin or how brown looks on brown/black skin, so I bar those combinations for my outfit choices lol
Only other game I play that involves an avatar is Toontown, and you're literally a brightly colored animal in that. I'd be pissed if I wasn't allowed to choose what color and what species I was though. (Who wants to get stuck with a horse or a bear when ducks are way cuter? smh)
Aww I was really hoping to hear you say Scrotie McBoogerballs at the end of the episode haha
What about games where the races are not as straight-forward as black, white, etc.?
In Kingdoms of Amalur, you can be a blue-skinned Elf. In many games, such as The Elder Scrolls, you can play as a green-skinned Orc. Since these don't necessarily have an analog in real life, is it applicable in the same way?
I want to look closer at the GTA 3 vs GTA 4 experiment. 2 things are import here.
1. much more than race is dictated by these avatars, including race and personality. (I would like to see this experiment redone with GTA 5 where character development and gameplay is on a more even footing). anyway, the full character stereotype is presented rather than just race, This is important.
2. generally speaking the NPC's don't really treat your character different based on race. This isn't as easily seen because of the different games but the general reactions of NPC's is generally the same.
What rust has done assigns the race but leaves you to fill the personality while also having to deal with actions of players that may change their behavior based on your race. These are think are both vital to the concept of combating stereotypes about race.
I think this would be better as not a sudden change in an established game but a feature in a new game
Well, I use a lot of waterbreathing potions when I play as non-Argonian characters in Skyrim. So, that's a thing.
The Proteus Paradox is definitely interesting, and I can see myself doing some of what it talks about, but oddly in none of the areas really mentioned here. When I make my own characters in MMOs or games like Fallout/Dragon Age, I enjoy bucking stereotyping and such to have more fun with it. One example was in a playthrough of Fallout 3 I made a black character to be my full science/speech play and try to beat the game with as little violence as possible.
But the area I did see my avatar affecting my behavior was in pre-generated characters. A prime example of this was when I played GTA5. When I was controlling Michael I tried to obey road laws and generally not be a nuisance, being professional. But when I switched to Trevor, screw everything time to do whatever I want and run people over if I feel like it. I didn't even realize I was roleplaying their personalities until my partner pointed it out to me that any time I was playing Trevor I was a terrible person, and playing Franklin I started swearing more than usual. (that last one says something weird about the game)
Great episode!
I am completely predictable in my game behavior. Race does not change me personally at all.
My memory is terrible, but I think I have an inkling that in Rust, you start off with different resources as well (possibly tied to the race assigned). I may be wrong, but if true I wonder what that brings to the discussion?
I'm curious to know how context within the game world can impact people's perception and actions. For example, when playing GTA V, I typically would partake in less wonton violence and mayhem while playing as Franklin because his character seemed to be less prone to violence while Michael and Trevor had fewer problems with the idea. I should also point out that I am a 28 year old white American male.
Personally, I think it can vary quite a bit from player to player. I typically try to role play as my character within a game while a friend of mine tends to try and act against the character's traits just to see if he can. A good example is during a mission in Infamous First Light where your character, Fetch, has to draw police attention away from an area by causing general havoc elsewhere. Throughout the story, Fetch has made efforts to avoid civilian casualties so I took that into account while playing and made an effort to only cause damage to parked cars, light posts, street signs, and so on. My friend went ahead and made a point of killing every living thing in sight, not because he is a psychopath, but just to spite the game's intent.
I usually have my look dictated by my behavior and how I play. There's been a lot of games, such as God Eater Burst for example, where I changed my appearance just because it didn't reflect how I played. In God Eater Burst, I started with a typical bishounen look, but then changed to a more military look with a lot of pockets. About the only real exception is if I like a certain visual style, such as being a friendly support character, yet looking like an EGL yandere in a dark red dress. As for my looks affecting my behavior, never happens. If that was the case, then I wouldn't change my avatars so often.
I want to look into how people create characters with race. Whenever people make joke characters, they are almost always an overweight Black woman. With character creators, especially when we are not creating ourselves or something that we want to associate with, it seems we tend to turn to recreating stereotypes without thinking about what we are doing. So I wonder if this same line of thinking goes into when you are playing as a character as a different race such in Rust of GTA.
my skirt wearing troll charackter in dark souls changes my behaviour alot
idk if it is me or the first person nature of Rust but I regularly forget my race in game. I don't observe any direct effect on my play based on race. However there has been the occasional time when the actions of other players, clearly motivated by my avatars race, effected the way I needed to play the game. Most notably I had a group trying to recruit me on the basis that we were the same race in game.
I know that I personally get very connected to the characters I play. For example, while playing Skyrim I will often speak the lines I choose aloud. I do notice that whether I play male or female will affect my decisions slightly e.g. I will often be slightly more aggressive as a male character and slightly more "sexual" as a woman. Kind of an inherent sexism there I afraid to admit, but race never really changes my behaviour, as it isn't really something I consider too much.
However, I do have a natural bias when playing characters that aren't defined well or extensively. I often just assume my avatar is a white male because that just comes naturally to me (as a white male), so I can feel disconnected from the avatar if I were to play half way through a game assuming I'm a white male and then finding/realising I am a black woman.
Unfortunately, I think that some racial bias is naturally ingrained in us, not necessarily by the world around us, but innately. I can't be sure of that though, as I am in the "lucky" (MASSIVE quote marks there) portion of our population, and have never had to worry about race issues directed at me personally, so maybe I am just subconsciously racist. Who knows? I guess the best I can do is to be aware of any biases I may have and make sure they don't affect how I treat others.
Great episode :)
I think one of the big things that wasn't addressed is how long these changes lasted.
Did I only last until shortly after playing the game or was it long lasting?
whenever i hear psychology stuff like this i catch myself thinking "man, i must be way smarter than everyone else"
If all games of Tetris end with you loosing, then what happens if the batteries in your gameboy run out when you are doing really good?
I play differently as Trevor, than how i do as Franklin from GTA 5.
Thank you for this video because it actually made me realize my own bias in how I played characters in GTA games. In San Andreas at end game when I owned mansions in the hills I dressed CJ in clothes typical of a Hip Hop star. When I reached endgame in GTA IV and V I dressed Micheal and Niko in suits. I was also far more likely to role play offline (playing so much GTA it becomes the Sims) as white males like myself. Thank you for this video because it's made me think about what I imagined different races do when reaching success.
One genre of games to look into is fighting games. Instead of race, theres the consensus that people pick their characters based on the characters playstyle (zoning grapler rushdown etc.). But I know I picked a few of my characters because they look cool and I wanted to play like their character's personality. For example, for mortal kombat X I picked Kung Lao because I thought martial arts masters were bad ass and create my gameplan around moves of his that I thought were cool.
My avatar's race doesn't affect how violently I play a game, but the character that is instilled into them when they're preset may do that. I probably played a GTA characters like this, in order of less violent to more violent: Luis, Niko Bellic, Huang Lee, Johnny Klebitz, Carl Johnson... with Tommy Vercetti and Claude being somewhat in between. Not sure where I'd place the protagonists of the Stories games as I played those through only once each a long time ago, and I haven't played GTAV. Tommy Vercetti and Claude are more sociopathic and live in a much cartoonier wordl. With CJ they were going for more of an antihero, sometimes pushing it too much, but still it was a game where you were in a gang and had the most ridiculous ways of causing mayhem. In Chinatown Wars I was more interested in exploring the profitable lifestyle of a drug dealer, so I did more of that and less of the other stuff probably. The GTAIV minisaga has the best developed world, characters and writing. It was harder to me to have those characters be violent to those degrees.
I recently started playing Mass Effect. I made my Commander Shepard black (at first simply because the skin textures in that game look better darker.) I'll be curious now to observe if that effects how I relate to him in any way.
You forgot the role play aspect. I love doing different races in skyrim because each race is treated differently by the world. It is a little different, but there is a bit of overlap. Still I would love to see a study if the players avatar made you side with the Stormcloaks or the Imperials based on your in game character. Before you say anything else. Me and a friend had are decisions effected by this where I was an Argonian and he was a Kayiit. So there is some overlap.
I have one question to further this. We spoke about race, but how does an avatar's SEX affect behavior? You'd sort of expect the same sort of dichotomy between sexes as you do races, but I'm unaware of any specific studies going into this, at least to the extent mentioned in the episode.
Rust has in many ways had a selling point of being able to do whatever you chose. It's an openworld crafting game, with no clear winstates, so the player is left to decide what he wants to do. By chosing race for the player, you're indirectly working against what sold the player to buy that specific game. And I think that's a valid complaint that these players have. Not to mention that many of these players have sat through bad versions of the game, by supporting it through early access.
I will never be able to fully understand what it means to be a minority in America. I'm not american, and I live in a country where 96% are white. But I'm still bombarded enough with american media, that I know that EVERYTHING is about race in America. And maybe some people play video games to get away from that?
Race isn't everything in America we just have a hard on for it. In about five years it will be something else that everything is about
That has got to be longest cultural hard on I've ever seen, since muslims started to be antisemitic. It has been about race in the medias since the 60's
Now that I think about it, I've never played as a custom white commander Shepard of either Shepard. I did do my first playthrough as a default femshep, but since then I've only ever made Shepards who aren't white. There's been a variety of races (Asian, Indian, Latina and Black), but I wasn't actively thinking about race at the time. I'm not sure if that's a good place to start thinking though, since I don't really see my Shepards as me, but rather separate characters. If anything, I think gender affects things most. Both my Msheps are leaning to paragon, wheras one of my Femsheps is a renegade and one a paragon.
My two main Saints Row characters would probably be a better way to assess how race affects my play. I have one white one and one Latino one. My white character is more into the OTT weapons and more androgynous. (I made him wear women's clothes for most of the time tbh). My Latino character is more focused on just normal guns and fists, and is more stereotypically masculine. (Though I think that's partly because I made him a trans man and couldn't find feminine clothing that didn't look weird on him).
I wonder if what is really happening here is that your avatar's race might reinforce cultural upbringings rather the influence our views on one race or another.
For example, Japanese and Chinese do have some racist views on each other that is passed down via culture much like the black/white racism that exists in America.
So changing the race of the avatar to black or white may not in that instance affect any behavior as their is nothing to work from, no pre-existing racism or views on particular races to influence.
I'd wager you'd get very different test results from different countries with different biases.
I don't see any difference between race or gender. I just create entire stories for those characters and who they were and go from there. Skyrim is a lead example of that, creating stories for them, and when I played as a Nord, I played as a mage (which I never do). San Andreas, when I first played it (I was 10 years old) I for some reason tried playing it sort of like a soldier, I even got CJ in camo clothing, extremely different than how I play it now (Sort of a trained criminal, always wearing the nicer clothes ingame)
Making me wonder how my goateed female space elf with the up-pitched male voice possibly affected my behavior in the game.
I played Saints Row IV first with that character, then Saints Row the Third with like an Irish guy or something (I forget), and then Saints Row 2 with a dark-skinned female character who I think I also gave a weird voice to (a bit like Dr. Girlfriend maybe). But my relative level of violence may have been muddied by the fact that I started with the game where violence is justified and completely unreal (not against human opponents, in fact not even against alien opponents most of the time -- there's a weird multi-layered simulation going on, as I the player control a character controlling a simulation of themselves, who kills a computer simulation *of* a computer simulation of an alien pretending to be a cop)... and then went through the game where it's mostly parody and over-the-top, through to the most gritty and realistic (at least, that was my impression) of the three.
(Also, totally still annoyed that alongside "enslave the hookers" and "sell the hookers back to the baddies I just rescued them from" I was not even given the option of "free the hookers." Because I would've taken that option even if it meant a game-wide detriment. Longest I ever sat glaring at a gaming screen before.)
My nephews play as something like either The Hulk or Silver Surfer, with the body build turned all the way up to 100% muscle. Not much creativity but hey, it amuses them.
This is interesting but I have a couple of questions that may be answered with further research. When having people play GTA 3 and San Andreas, does the personality of the character have any influence? The GTA 3 protagonist is mute, shows no emotion and is pretty much a blank slate, but we are told he is a criminal and we are encouraged to play as such. With San Andreas, we play as Carl Johnson, a man who comes back to his home town as a former "gang banger" who falls back into that type of life, in large thanks to family and friends. We are presented with one as a white blank slate and the other as a black "gang banger" which itself is a stereotype. Did knowledge of Carl's past have an impact as well? If Carl was instead a successful crime boss would people's post play views on race be any different? What if the GTA 3 protagonist was a white hill billy who made a living running moonshine and meth around the state? Would that influence our views of white people as well? In GTA V my favorite character to play as is Trevor because he doesn't care and has no fear as well as nothing to lose. Franklin and Michael are sympathetic in a way because Franklin is trying to make it big and change his life, although he does it through crime, and Michael is trying to take care of himself and his family, again through crime. Trevor is by far the most aggressive and deranged of the trio, going so far as to steal a nuclear weapon from the government. This leaves me with the feeling that I can play as crazy as I want whereas I am more careful with Franklin and Michael because I feel like they have lives to lead so i avoid driving on the sidewalk whereas with Trevor, hitting pedestrians is almost a game in and of itself. I agree that race does play a huge role but would changing the characters personalities and circumstances make a huge difference? There is a dearth of white male protagonists in video games as is and if playing as characters with darker skin tones reinforces violent stereotypes, should we make room for more darker skinned protagonists? Making them more sympathetic characters, and being the protagonists having a more fleshed out narrative and personality, help mitigate such stereotypes or is it a damned if we do, damned if we don't scenario (because most video games use violence as a game play mechanic)? Is this an issue that will get better with time (people who have certain perceptions die out) or is it something that can be corrected within a generation by carefully exposing them to a changing media and culture?
I always play each character differently, and I know that I consciously and sub-consciously alter that behavior depending on appearance. I always create a full character for every new avatar (likes/dislikes, allegiances, sense of self, etc. The list goes on) and then act that character out in game. Often times I will pick an appearance first and then create the character.
On the subject of race, in a game like the Elder Scrolls series, where races have been designed with tendencies toward certain behaviors (orcs and violence, dark elves and stealth, bretons and magic) I am much more likely to follow that stereotype (or intentionally break it, with a juxtaposition). In a world with only humans, I am less aware of that change in how I play. I have no doubt that I have at least some preconceptions that affect how I play characters of different race, but I do hope that I handle my preconceptions responsibly and play in a way that doesn't damage myself or others.
Smackdown vs Raw 2002? The first Smackdown vs Raw game came out in 2004 and the first numbered game was Smackdown vs Raw 2006.
I think that we can shift racial stereotypes if we do two things in tandem: make more games that don't have violence as a core mechanic and cast multiple races in those roles, not just white people (see heavy rain and Life is strange, not judging quality, just acknowledging a trend), if anyone has a compelling example of either of these tell me, I've been wanting a palette cleanser
I don't really care about my avatar race, as a pen and paper roleplayer, whenever I create a character in a video game, I try to think about his characteristics, what he likes, how he would behave in such situation. So it doesn't really affect me on a subconscious level. However, when playing GTA San Andreas with the black protagonist, I think the "violent" behavior can come from the imagerie that comes in media, music videos and all. For an average white guy, to be able to play a minority in a "gangsta" environment can be seen as a way to try and be a stereotype and do things that they can't and won't do. You don't connect anymore with your avatar as a personifaction of yourself, you are watching a show from afar and you are it's director.
I'll admit I don't have a lot of experience playing an avatar that is ethnically different then myself. I don't get to play a lot of games, and most games have white protagonist (same race as I am). Because of this video I plan to make a non-white avatar the moment the next game I play gives me the option.
I don't know black stereotypes because I've never met a black person. My town in Scotland has few and I've not met them
Minecraft is cool because you customize your avatar so much that it doesn't have a real world example, thus preventing social perception from having an influence. You define what the avatar is and does.
I don't really see people putting themselves in their Avatar when they play someone who's different from them as I do them performing in a sort of digital theater role and acting out how they believe their Avatar would act out of they were real.
For me the looks of my avatar won't change my behavior depending on game genre.
My player character is a digital someone that allows me to interact with the game world and despite how it looks he or she (if there's a choice) will do that I would do personally in a situation that I face in games.
Well at least if the game has some kind of moral or choice system that changes the NPCs reaction based on what I have done.
If not, like GTA Vice City of course sometimes I go around the city and blow stuffs up, because why not.
I wonder if playing a particular class (warrior, archer, healer) in an rpg/mmorpg also affects how we behave. For example, why are most main characters in classic rpgs warriors? Why is healing in an mmorpg seen as predominantly female?
Also, I believe world of warcraft doesn't allow skin color change, is it different there because you get to pick between a green and a brown orc?
As a female belf death knight tank who collects pets and spends most her time farming raputations, I wonder how much is it a projection of my preconceptions of race, gender and beauty.
I think npc response to your players race/gender would have more affect on my gameplay.
It's depressingly fascinating about how using black leads in violent video-games can foster and reinforce negative stereotypes- but I still wonder if there would be a way to change that, and by using complex and sympathetic black mains, instead give positive connotations. For example, the two leads of The Walking Dead game (Lee and Clem) are both black, and while there is of course violence (it's set in the zombie apocalypse, duh), I'd say the main focus of both characters is wits, ingenuity, and kindness.
Also, what about black leads in non-violence orientated games (e.g. puzzles, platformers, etc). Or in co-operative games, creating black characters which are primarily intended for a healer/support class?
I played through the Mass Effect series twice. The first time I made an avatar that resembled me (at least my race and gender). I chose to go for a full 'Paragon' play-through. The second time around I decided to change things to see how different it could get. I made a FemShep, and went full Renegade.
This doesn't really address race, but what does that say about my opinion of women?
John Brophy
Presumably, your Mass Effect playthroughs would say that you're a misogynist.
John Brophy It seems more like you wanted your second play through to be as far removed from your first as possible, than that it reflected anything in your life or mind. It was a reaction to your first experience with the game, not your experience with real life.