It's not a matter of people not liking to see people of color in their games. It's that corporate game development studios as of recent years are more concerned with hiring people of a specific demographic, than they are with finding someone who is actually experienced and good at the job. And that coming from the horse's mouth. You should watch some things about Microsoft and Bridge and their DEI priorities. This guy, Smash JT has a great video on it, I highly recommend giving it a watch to better understand the frustration associated with DEI in games

In a game with humans and actual other races, like aliens or Dragonnewts and Orcs and the like, the species of Human is not relevant to the point that it impacts immersion and inclusivity which isn't a thing in the game. They should not need to "represent" our worlds "diversity" as the world of the game is not our world, even if it's supposed to represent Earth, in our era, as soon as something not of this Earth is introduced, like The Zone in Stalker for example, it's a new reality and is again, not our Earth. The call to escapism need not even be the defense for why such contemporary concern need not be added. All games in the last few decades as the norm make no distinction between gender differences that exist IRL, but are dismissed in game, i.e., not "represented." Women are just as kick-ass as any man irrespective of how buffed out the male model is compare to how slim and trim the female model is. Sometimes they're even more bad-ass as if overcompensating for something as the joke of the lifted-truck is done against men. Point being that is gender isn't going to be more realistically represented like back in the old D&D days were there were gender differences represented in the game, why make the case for the racial differences which in a different reality may not have relevance on a more extreme level as Human would be the Race as opposed to an Elf for example. The distinction of subspecies of a Race are usually not a point of interest to players in worlds of such True diversity - a human is a human, but an Orc or Goblin is not. Take the Elder Scrolls game world. There's "Man" and "Mer" Mer are the collective Elf races that are all different and considered different "Races" in the sense of different Peoples, but the term Mer to represent them allows for the conclusion that they're all the same "Race" - a type of Elf. Even the "Dwarves" are a type of Elf that went the way of tech instead of being isolated High Elves, Wood Elves, Dark, and Sea Elves. There are the Humans and mixes of them like Nord and Breton for example, with the Breton being ancestrally Human and some Mer half-breed making their magic stronger than standard "Humans," but they present as Human vs. Elfish with regard to physical features for example. And the Khajiit that look like bipedal Big Cat beast people, and the Argonian that are Lizard people. In this world, there are racial differences that dictate the player's build so choosing a race has impact, but many games like CCP's EvE-Online that started out with Racial and Gender distinctions, lost a lot in the immersion department when they 'rebalanced' the game to no longer have them. They removed the differences to force diversity in the race and gender when the distribution of playstyles was not diverse enough. The problem could have been fixed with a less heavy hand, if they'd kept the progression of the differing factions tech-base a living one vs. static to the original flavoring and racial doctrines as if they were actually evolving and reacting to the other factions, immersively, but they didn't. The game still works because the main avatar for the player is a spaceship. Yes there's a character sheet with a human on it to represent you, but as a Capsuleer, you are one with the ship, and it's is you in the moment. And as everyone is an off-shoot of Human, similar to the Mer of Elder Scrolls, the doctrinal and faction differences made sense for their divergences, but now the differences are only properties of the ship and skill of the Capsuleer, with no factional bonus for those steeped in the way of life that supports said doctrines, that was lost. I could go on with additional examples of enforced diversity trends in games that are ugly not just on the aesthetics of the characters appearance, for example Cryptic reshaping most of the females form shapely to flat, across the board, not with diverse shapely or flatness, but once size fits all. It harms nothing, but I wonder what drove the decision to turn the women into pretty men, but it was done. If Bethesda had done everything the same with Starfield but put in the DEI part of character creation, it would have been just fine, and just as inclusive because you can pick from the models to give a clue about the "Race" you wanted to be, and you could colourize the skin to affect. There's nothing I've yet come across in the game that makes them address me by the chosen gender declaration at the start of the game, But I will same that most of the models were physically unappealing as if the escape fantasy part of the escape fantasy was lost on the Devs, who decided to subvert expectations and only give us the escape part. The character creation part where the PC or loads of the NPC in game are objectively ugly, is too great for the time we're in graphics wise, and I think that's the rub of the outrage. The graphic capability is off the charts, but games are not even settling for ugly, they're deliberately making them so, either by deliberate deresolution of character assets, of which there are plenty of online evidence of what they had, and what they put out, where the what they had was of an attractive person real or manufactured, and they degraded the asset to look subpar and unattractive and or descaled the quality into grossness. It's a trend that no one can fathom how it's being let happen accept that maybe those that are committed and all in, don't have the say to stop, and management only cares about the $'s and otherwise doesn't care about if leaving it to happen will not rouse the woke mob for which it is likely a justification for letting be done. Like AD&D allowing language changes to retcon the game world where the term Race if ever was applicable, has been ruled no longer a thing, and the word Race has been replaced in all texts going forward. The problem of ugly here goes well beyond skin deep as applied to games, and short of a strike to buy from the user base long enough to get the message through that they can stop this political BS in games, we'll continue getting said protest statements of not-funness when we're trying to escape from it in something fun. But I ain't one to gossip... .

Have you ever found an example of a "pretty" aboriginal Australian? A single example?

Hey Kizzume, have you watched the recent Dawkins vs Peterson (with Alex O'Connor moderating) video? Any thoughts on it?

Just found this channel because I heard you’re the JCS guy, good job on that, you’re hilarious and got an epic voice I don’t get why people complain about ugly characters, sex sells, there will always be more attractive characters than ugly characters, most people who make characters would make then attractive rather than ugly What I will complain about as a minority is not when diversity is done but when it’s done completely wrong, like just started playing Spider-Man 2 recently and was pretty quickly pissed off because I forgot they changed Miles clean fade to the goddamn “Kilmonger cut”, I have been black for almost 30 years and have never seen anyone with that hairstyle in real life 😂, it’s not even really maintainable which is probably why Kilmonger doesn’t even have that hairstyle the whole movie but according to white game devs this is seemingly the most popular hairstyle among young black men On the flipside, I started playing WWE2k24 because it’s free on PS Plus, the first wwe game I played in about a decade, and while I always loved their customization system and thought it was the best, I’m still impressed with what they added including body types and black hairstyles, just as fun creating a character as when I was a kid Also I always thought the Tomb Raider reboot was the perfect example of taking an “over-sexualized character” and making them more “realistically attractive”

Damn, you left out the part where Richter glances and realizes it's quaid

i am just so tired of the whole "woke" conversation as someone who grew up in it. Its just BS. All of it. its not important if they put DEI, woke, gender-swap etc etc etc its because its a corporate manufactured garbage made by a committee of investors that knows nothing of games or culture, or much of anything besides money. they hijack some willing activists to guide the games or movies in the "correct" political agenda. propagandish garbage with a hint of an old but popular franchise that they try to milk off the last bit of profit with the least bit of effort and ANYBODY who dares say that the game / movie is bad, is deemed a racist, a Nazi, a communist, a rapist, a misogynist or any insult that is popular at the time. just don't buy their BS and buy some indie developer's game who has put a lot of love and care into their product. i don't know what to do about movies and tv as they most of them as descended into remakes of old movies or old franchises, or go almost full in on misandry, DEI and women - centrist stories where all males are underdog and beta-males. i think a recent example of this dreadful trend is a tv show called "Agatha All Along". sometimes there will be an occasional good story or TV show like "The White Lotus" or "Severance" but they are few and far between. but my media consumption has been reduced to RU-vid, indie games and audio books of classics like the "Sherlock Holmes" series which is great fun btw. But i would argue that we are at a stage of "wokeness" or "virtue signaling" that everything has been corrupted by this agenda that you no longer feel safe about buying any franchise, or anything for that matter as they tarnished everything with their mindlessly dumb stories and reduced nearly everything to "men=bad" "women=good", from "lord of the rings" to "resident evil" even to something as innocent as "Scooby Doo". It takes someone really VILE and malicious to politicize "Scooby Doo", you gotta be on the evil villain list to destroy a cartoon for kids, its unique, truly special

At least the reign of Emperor Trump can't be more than 10 years or so before even spare parts salvaged from his political opponents can't lengthen his life any longer and then at least 5 years of them keeping us thinking he still lives to build up the reputation of the next Emperor. Nobody likes to vote anyway, so doing away with fair elections really is a blessing to us humble folk anyway.

It makes sense to me that games are becoming more diverse with character designs because gaming is becoming less of a niche hobby and thus the audience for it is more diverse. I can understand why that makes old school gamers upset but they need to get over that. Gaming isn't just for teenage boys anymore, it's for everyone and so it won't just reflect teenage boys' aesthetic preferences. That being said if games are all being pushed to be as inclusive as possible or to look a certain way that's a valid complaint but honestly I'm not seeing that. It seems like the number of different styles and looks to games is vast so there's something for everyone.

14 to 15 days yea two weeks STEIN WARE 24. Confirmation that its been recieved.

I agree this one dreamworks character is gay the creator probably is the character is not memorable one armed guy the one with no arm has a hammer so unrealistic unattractive.

0:50 Quick protip: If what the group of entrenched fandom types are complaining about is obvious enough to someone who's NOT a fan or in that niche space to notice and comment on, then it's a thousand times worse or more pervasive/annoying for people who actually ARE fans or indulge a lot in the content or media that they're criticizing.

Anyone knows manga or anime with an overweight main character?

Here's a good example for folks that might not understand the landscape uhm, from the outside looking in. Imagine you're at McDonalds and you eat there regularly. One day, you notice that they just aren't selling the same burger, they've upgraded to expand their menu and replaced all meat with babyfood. It's still food. They can appeal to a wider, broader audience. Literally, more humans on earth can consume the product, but people still shy away from it or abandon the franchise entirely. When they'd have normal, standard business if they hadn't tried to radically change their trajectory and market appeal. But you can't complain to people who don't eat out regularly because "It's just food, are you too good for food?" or "Just eat somewhere else" but when you do, you get accused of hating babies or some nonsense.

"Some ethnicities are ugly and others are pretty" There are most definitely some bombshells and monsters in every race

your huge (((snoze))) is attacking my senses .

i must be good at curating my online experience, i basically forgot there was an election coming up.

Why do so many major corporations listen to a minority of activists' political interests? The public doesn't care, yet when the franchise fails they double down and blame the audience. Its just bizarre.

I feel like this recent fixation to the attractiveness of video game characters is a reaction to the Anita Sarkeesian mindset from a decade ago where overly sexualized female characters were heavily criticized. I'm in the middle here where I'm more concerned about the enjoyability of the gameplay and the how the characters look is secondary at best. There's no right or wrong way digital women should look. The Last of Us is clearly going for gritty realism where the character designs are meant to reflect the brutality of the world they're in. Resident Evil, on the other hand, is heightened and campy and even theatrical. You have your protagonists narrowly escaping exploding buildings and still looking like a million dollars. Neither is necessarily a better depiction of women, they just have a distinctly different approach and tone.

What with recounts, certification hassles, dodgy lawsuits, uprisings and attempted coups we'll be lucky if it's only two weeks!

Good movie that.

Banana fungus

yeah, who wants a mundane looking character when they could have top surgery scars! lol. that said i really don't care too much about what goes on in a game i would never play (or a film i would never watch etc), but you've at least got to admit that one's pretty funny, like even in a fantasy world you were 'born in the wrong body' that's got to be rough. haha. also diversity in videogames should never discourage anyone; but nor should it be the main selling point, or much talked about at all imo. gears of war had a white dude a black dude and a hispanic dude as the main characters and it wasn't this big, spectacular thing, that's just, what it was. had they made it a point to shine a spotlight on how 'inclusive' it was i would have certainly found that annoying. just make good games/stories and everything will work out.

bless you kizz that gave me a good belly laugh. i recognised the face but i couldn't remember from where XD

Also: People on the left after Trump wins. .... Also: People on the right if Trump does not win.

With experience people can simply tell when a "design decision" or a "customization option" is done by a directive of some diversity consultant. Although I often don't like how they seethe about it, similarly

🤣🤣😂🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Which one was done away with cheaply in your opinion?

I didn't intend to make this a political convo, but it happens to be a central part of the current issue of election so..'

BTW, you are one of THE BEST conversationalists on RU-vid!!! I love to discuss topics with an intelligent person without getting into arguments. THIS is what and how more people should discuss topics that ACTUALLY matter to our daily lives. I truky appreciate your monologues, because in the comments, they are 2 way convos.

And I must admit, the gaming part of this, I know very little. I can only go by what little I have seen from the games my sons play. I have noticed some things though.

I agree with your views. But oddly enough, many in the artistic communities are quite liberal, kinda shows you the truth about what they think. I have travelled quite extensively these last few months in both RED and BLUE states (yet again classified by a color) and the REAL people just don't seem to identify with this bullshit. They are just people. who genuinely like other people. And I have seen some truly selfless acts of sacrifice for fellow humans with NO regard for race, color, ethnicity or social status.... just FELLOW HUMANS!!! Why do we have these divisive divisions? You can thank the main stream and NOT main stream media for most of it. Kamala rallies are racially divisive, but by and large the Trump rallies are not. WHY? And I am NOT a big Trump supporter. I am just stating what I have seen in person over the last few years.

You're wrong. If someone finds people of another ethnicity to generally be less attractive, it's a preference. It doesn't mean they think those people should be discriminated against. I'm allowed to think certain groups are generally attractive or not attractive.

The whole uglyfication discourse is so weird to me. Half the time i see people posting screenshots of supposedly manish or ugly looking characters and they just look normal to me. I dont deny the trend exists, its just that the waters are so muddied with bad examples and also the people harping on about it day in and day out come across as strange people. The phrase "DEI chin" just makes you sound unhinged even if you did have some point. But I dont mind people complaining about and criticizing trends in gaming from whatever side, these people and anita sarkeesian have the same right to whinge and advocate for the type of games they want to see in the world as much as the next person

I never played sea of thieves because I couldn’t find a character I thought was attractive enough and didn’t want to play lol

Diverse characters = mix of beautiful, plain, and ugly Games nowadays = only ugly *Dustborn, Concord (seriously look at the total roster of these games and show me a conventionally attractive character) I think that is the issue. If you think the discourse in the west is extreme you should listen to Asian gamers. Not only will they not play a game unless it features only beautiful characters, they will boycott a game if it features a single male character, because they see them as competition (I am not making this up). By comparison I think Western gamers expectations and complaints are quite tame. Also the bigger problem is that western games are not fun or good in terms of gameplay. People will play games with mostly unattractive character models if the setting warrants it, and the gameplay is amazing. The original Dark Souls comes to mind. The vast majority of the game features very plain or ugly characters, until you beat a notoriously difficult boss pair called Ornstein and Smough upon with which you are greeted by the gigantic beautiful goddess Gwynevere lying in her bed with a massive bosom accompanied by angelic music who commends your bravery and gives you new tasks. If you ever touch her with your character you learn that she is merely an illusion created to further manipulate the player, and she just evaporates away. It is quite funny.

I think anti-wokeness is making good content fly under the radar. Like in movies, Furiosa bombed but that was far from bad and there was no big bad interfering with "the vision" but it was labeled woke anyway

Game idea: "Awake" in this game your class choice and build effects your gameplay. "Benefit" (B) lets you do actions in the game such as cast spells, or exert control because you have the power to do so, however you must deal with a bunch of these creatures that keep on complaining about EVERYTHING YOU DO IN THE GAME. Having Woken (W) mutes these creatures and you can use them to fight for you, but they barely do any damage they are mostly peaceful when they do cause fires. +1000 B for being "Bleached" - 10,000 W. -10,000 B for being "Unbleached" +20,000 W -91 B for "Richard Simmons is my hero" +91 W etc etc.. Its a very confusing system that sometimes changes its rules on a whim and everyone is unhappy with your choices and no one has fun and you only get one try at the game and can die for really dumb reasons.

word

Are you AI generated?

there is a distinct difference in the cast's diversity in halo 3 vs whatever people are complaining about now. i tend to side with the people complaining- not because i am a racist but because i can tell when its raining and im being pissed on

Kizzume do you like those little Mexican dogs can’t remember what they’re called also do you like female puppies

This a conversation many people want to blissfully ignore (knowingly), and a smaller but louder population want to bring attention to. Like... it's one thing to calla person a bigot because they don't like something you like 🙄, it's *six galaxies* of a difference when you call someone a bigot because they point out a the obvious "we have McDonald's at home" look of an A-list actor in a AAA-title with a budget of... I don't know, we'll say $20M, when they *had* the actual A-list actor on payroll. Except when the actor is generic white dude I guess. Make him 1:1. tf? Really, people? We got companies doing people dirty at this point. I suppose the the A-list Hollywood actors don't reeeeally care since they just got paid, but not everyone is a Scarlet Johanasson. There's said to be this long-since growing culture of narcissism that pervades the gaming industry.... and I see myself becoming a believer in it.

I think the main thing that drives these people to get angry is a matter of identity. They identify as a gamer, and they like what they like. When they see games of their preferred genre be created that don't offer what they want, they think people who are not gamers are infiltrating their space and altering it. Hurting their hobby, robbing them from better games and through their identification with their hobby, they also feel personally attacked. I think this explains 95% of this behavior we're seeing.

Agreed. Did you also watch that video by Emma Thorne on this topic? lol

Heyy Buddy…Nice Video 👍💯

I'm not triggered but im really fucking confused why they are "uglifying" their references. They really are doing these models hella dirty. great recent example is that Unknown 9 game they got the most beautiful middle eastern woman i've ever seen, so obviously they broke her nose and gave her a chad jawline. smh if you want average looking people just grab them off the street don't pay a million dollars for a supermodel and then mess with their features.

Bro i just want a white mage healer and a black mage wizard without deconstructing 400 years of oppression. REEEEE

It's a surprisingly multilayered cultural issue. There's a lot that could be said about it. I'll go with an anecdote as someone who works in the gaming industry: There is a genuine reluctance of western game designers to promote female attractiveness out of fear of being called a pervert. That's a very real concern in an industry plagued with an unfortunate history of game designers being real freaks. I can say from experience the same is not true the other way around - that is, male game characters are allowed to be portrayed in a possibly """objectifying""" manner, likely because there isn't as much of a perceived harm in doing so. Either way, it's not something that's meaningfully talked about, at least on the ground level in the big AAA companies. Things could change, but it would need to a conversation started by the women in the room, preferably those in the supposed demographic groups "empowered" by the rather frumpy portrayal of standard female characters. A heterosexual male would be absolutely out of his mind to breach that kind of subject.

They like to throw that "incel" or "porn sick" at you when you mention it too ... When you buy a car do you want it to be aesthetically pleasing? Do you wanna fuck your car? Whats wrong with using aesthetics as a factor when you make a purchase?