I find it funny how mad people get if someone so much as mentions racial diversity, or lack there of in a video game forum. I’m not saying anyone is racist and I still have every intention of buying this game, but heck look at the response in here. My question didn’t even get acknowledged by Ravidrath who has done a fantastic job of answering everything else in this thread. It was a legitimate question that I asked in full seriousness.
There’s a difference between asking about gameplay mechanics and asking “Why are there only white characters?”, you know.
Your question wasn’t legit at all.
It’s a fictional god damn world, the notions of ‘white’ or ‘race’ are thrown out the damn window.
Fucking idiot.
It’s fine if you’re not questioning if the characters are racist and that you’re going to buy the game. And okay, you were legitimately asking why there are only all white girls in the game. The problem is…that question is pretty stupid, considering ethnicity was the last thing on their minds when designing the characters.
Seriously, when we have quotes like "Venus and her Parasite, Abaddon, can bend space, which I guess is why she can lay in her own lap or something. ", the last thing anyone should be thinking about is racial diversity.
So why don’t the characters all have the same hair color?
That’s kind of the whole point. This isn’t just a reflection on the designers it’s a reflection of the state of popular entertainment as a whole. I mean seriously, If you look at some of the most popular games or movies for any given year how many actually have a non-white male lead? Heck I’m sure you’ve probably stumbled on lists like this at some point or another. In the year 2011 there really is a startling lack of well written diverse characers. And the thing is, no nobody thinks about it. It really does seem to be the last thing designers think about.I’ve found that when something like this gets brought up it gets treated as a joke, people are annoyed, or you get colorful reactions like this:
but again, the two characters we’ve seen so far aren’t white.
If you look at Alex Ahad’s body of work he seldom draws characters that could possibly be misconstrued as black.
Why they gotta be black? Are you interested in racial diversity, or some black panther shit?
The point here is: So what? Like I said before, are you saying we need some kind of ethnical quota for entertainment? Is the race of a character even pertinent to any given story unless the race itself is related to it?
It annoys people - rightfully so - because you’re nitpicking a racial issue for no reason.
As long as race has nothing to do with the story ever character should remain white :tup:
Still ignoring that the two revealed characters aren’t white.
Also there aren’t enough white people in Tyler Perry movies, clearly bigotry.
Moving on!
http://ps3.gamezone.com/editorials/item/mike_zaimont_breaks_down_the_future_plans_of_skullgirls/
Highlight:
Send this to be put on the front page
A quick google search will turn up the portraits, and concept art for the main 8 characters plus additional. I’m not basing this my post on two characters. Also what the heck about Filia would distinguish her as non-white? Cerebella is at best ambiguously brown.
I’d noticed these things about the character roster a while ago but I never really intended to say anything. At least until I read the blog post on character design. In any case, considering how old I see some of that character art to be and the face that Mike Z said the amount of proposed characters is “staggering” I’ll drop this, for now. I really do want the game to succeed and despite what I’ve said with regard to the color of the characters, I do love the art direction.
I can somewhat understand ragoroke question, was it really bad to ask? It doesn’t seem he was out to critic SG design but understand it. Though their is a better place for Ragnorke question, it has just as much purpose just as game play discussion does.
For good reason, it’s got to be one of the silliest things to argue over ever.
Given the context of your complaint, this sentence is kind of creepy.
Did anyone even breifly skim the article I linked? Are people so used to the status quo of character design in games that questioning the abundance of white characters is considered the “silliest thing ever”? Seriously?
I can honestly see how the makeup of Skullgirls characters came about, though. If someone made a fighting game based on my sketch book in high school it would probably end up looking much the same. We’ve already touched on how poor Japanese media can be at including/depicting people of different ethnicities so if you base your work entirely on that you’ll likely end up a lot of white looking characters.
I think of the shelf of “how to draw…” books I have on my shelf. Most of the examples in them depict a character with caucasian features. Few of them focus on how to depict different ethnicities and several just have a couple of pages, if that, dedicated to the subject.
I find myself, even now, having to make conscious effort to mix things up in the characters I draw, and I feel my skill at doing so isn’t up to what I even want it to be. I’m sure there’s plenty of artists or character designers out there that are in a similar boat. No doubt a lot of people don’t see a need to try and mix things up. Heck, if the responses in this thread are an indication of the whole, many are hostile to the subject even being brought up.
Skullgirls is a new IP that’s still in developement by an indie team. It’s entirelly possible no one noticed what I noticed about the character design. Maybe the artwork I’m seeing is totally out of date and there actually is a diverse depiction of ethnicities in the cast, and I’m totally off base. I hope I’m totally wrong once the final roster of character and DLC makes it into the game. For now though, I just simply needed to ask the question.
Sent from my haxsung intercept using Tapatalk
Apparently you are very dense. Deliberately arguing about race in a fictional universe is considered “baiting for replies” and is a bannable offense, if I ever get enough motivation to contact a moderator who might give a fuck.
If you consider this incredibly bizarre cast to be limited because of their skin colors, then please don’t buy the game in protest of the art form. Thank you.
Did the part where I said I love the overall art direction and still plan to buy the game sail entirely over your head?
Sent from my haxsung intercept using Tapatalk