Denial and Delusion – Why Public Conversations About Race Fail Before They Begin

Total Overdose and Chili Con Carnage, titles I helped develop at Deadline Games, were both targets of this type of criticism. When we designed these games, our goal was to provide a well-rounded, entertaining experience on many levels. We wanted exciting gameplay, but we were just as interested in having a compelling story, cast of characters, and setting, which is why we invested a great deal of energy towards researching the culture of Mexico, so we could produce an experience that was drawn from accurate source material.

When researching for Total Overdose, we spent a great deal of time in Mexico, taking over 6,000 photos—photos that were the basis for the vast majority of the textures that appeared in the game.

Leaving aside the “tongue in cheek characters not meant to be offensive” line, it appears that Mottes really put a lot of thought into what he was doing. Cultural research is a great thing, and working to have a compelling story and cast of characters is a goal that more game designers need to take into consideration. However, Mottes goes astray with his next few lines:

We visited a variety of nightclubs to influence the settings and humor of the game, and we spent time in the company of self-styled gangsters to get a flavor for how they spoke and what they said.

Do you see where this is going?

Mottes manages to get past this blip by explaining other steps he took in the creation of the game:

When recording dialogue for both games, we employed Mexican-American voice actors to ensure that we would be providing accurate representations. And when it was time to decide on the soundtrack, we chose to include music from several acclaimed underground Mexican bands, including Molotov, who enjoyed the game to such a great extent that they offered to record unique tunes for a sequel.

Employing Mexican-American voice actors? Great job! Promoting underground Mexican bands? Even better. I was so impressed by Mottes’ initiative, I was completely blindsided by his next statement.

However, in reviews, forums, and blogs following the releases of both games, some people slammed Deadline for being bigoted towards Mexicans. While we did employ stereotypes we considered lighthearted and humorous, our intent was most certainly not to cast Mexican individuals in a derogatory light…But despite our best efforts, critics still slammed us for being racists.

…

Why, Chris, why? Why would you throw away all your hard work for a couple cheap, race based humor shots?

The reality is that no stereotype can be considered light-hearted and humorous. A stereotype is defined as “an often oversimplified or biased mental picture held to characterize the typical individual of a group.” Stereotypes are negative. Even “positive” stereotypes are ultimately detrimental to the groups that struggle to find a sense of self within the narrow parameters of society’s vision.

I’ll touch on this more in next month’s Cerise, but I have to say I was blown away. The tone of Mottes’ piece is unmistakably clear – this is how game designers think. This is how they justify their characters. It is as if the thought never crossed their minds that maybe, just maybe, the industry is sending a very powerful message out to minorities by saying that we do not exist outside of our stereotypical roles. If there were five or ten games with a multi-faceted, modern latino protagonist, maybe slipping in a few “light-hearted” stereotypes in one third person shooter would not be such a huge deal. It is still ill-advised, but you would have enough positive images on the market to balance out the negative images broadcast into the homes of every person who purchased this one game.

However, there is no balance. Stereotype after stereotype abound in the virtually crafted console world, with very few characters of color to provide an alternate perspective. Mottes argues that “most games with racist characters do not reflect the mindset of their developers.” I would argue that they do. It reflects the developer’s mindset in dealing with the world and in dealing with minorities. If the developer was not holding on to this mindset that minorities can be categorized with one or two main characteristics, we would have multi-faceted characters of color to play.

Remember the game we played a little while ago? Let’s expand on it.

Try naming five characters of color in a major video game release that get to transcend stereotypes.

How many characters of color are allowed to have a personality? How many characters of color are allowed to exist outside of the ghetto, the realm of fighting games, or stereotypical shoot-em-ups?

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