For years, video games have grown in terms of scale, depth, plot, and everything else, for that matter. From Super Mario to Master Chief to Cole MacGrath, the heroes make the game that much better. When they put their lives on the line for a great cause, it makes the story that much more enjoyable. The one thing not many notice is that a lot of these main characters belong to one shade of the spectrum, while others linger in the background.

Race happens to be a giant issue in gaming, and the lack of diversity borders on unacceptable. There is a clear difference between the portrayal of whites versus blacks, and it’s always obvious when stereotypes are being exploited for an extra buck. The question that should be asked is this: where are the heroic African American characters that save the day without being good at sports, loud-mouthed, vulgar, overtly sexual, or completely ignorant?

African American characters aren’t seen very often because African Americans don’t make a majority of the games we play. They are chocolate sprinkles in a giant bowl of vanilla ice cream when it comes to writing, development, and production; Gods tend to make their creations in their own image, right? It’s the same concept with gaming.

According to a study done last year, blacks and Hispanics make up only 11% of video game characters. Professir Dmitri Williams at the University of Southern California looked at 150 games across 9 platforms and come up with the analysis. Williams states:

“People make media about their own experience, so the games are a reflection of the game makers, who are not a representative sample of the population.”

This speaks volumes of truth, and it shows the lack of diversity in the gaming industry as a whole. How can it be that minorities are treated as extreme stereotypes when time have proven them incorrect time and time again? I can only assume that it isn’t an evil plot of oppression, but just of lack of experience, which doesn’t make it an easier pill to swallow. A lot of minorities play video games, and it would be nice to see more of them positively represented in video games. Below are a few examples of characters the fall into some stereotype:

50 Cent Blood in the Sand

50 Cent- 50 Cent Blood in the Sand:

Am I supposed to believe that 50 Cent gets his own video game where he basically shoots up the Middle East to retrieve a jewel-encrusted skull? Can’t we do better than that? Granted, Blood on the Sand was a decent shooter, but I can see adolescents playing it and believing that African Americans are as vulgar as they are in the games. Technically, 50 Cent wasn’t a hero in that game, but you don’t have to go very deep to see a blatant disconnect between African American and hero.

Dead Space 2

Director Hans Tiedemann- Dead Space 2:

Isaac Clarke returns in Dead Space 2 as a mentally unstable engineer battling gross mutated corpses on a space station near Saturn. The director of the station wants Isaac to die due to his own crazy religious notions. And Director Tiedemann proves himself a jerk at multiple points, only to have a spike shoved into his head by the end. Of course, the main villain of the game turns out to be a black guy.
Now, he wasn’t sipping Hennessey, nor was he speaking at a second grade level. Actually, Tiedemann was well spoken and he seemed extremely educated. If it weren’t for his insane plan to try and control the monsters, I’d buy him a drink. Are we saying that blacks can’t handle being educated and this is how we deal with it?

Final Fantasy XIII

Sazh Katzroy- Final Fantasy XIII:

He’s the jive talking, comic relief with a bird nesting in his Afro. I don’t want to say more than that.

Infamous 2

John White- Infamous 2:

It doesn’t matter what morality path you choose, you have an encounter with an old friend from the first game. John White, as it is revealed, is the one you have been building up to fight the entire game. He seems intelligent enough, and genuinely wants to help people, but his power kills a whole bunch of others in the process. Cole MacGrath has to choose between John or the world.

John doesn’t really seem like such a bad guy, but why does this particular character have to be black? And don’t get me started on the overly sexualized, black vixen known as Nix. Does the black chick have to tempt your dark side and be the ever-lingering devil on your shoulder? And she dies at the end! Whether you’re good or evil, she dies! Both ways are pretty crappy ways to go, but she kicks the bucket nonetheless. I wonder what it would look like to switch the roles between Agent Kuo and Nix. It wouldn’t be so bad to see a black woman in a position of authority and power, would it?

Halo series

Sergeant Avery Johnson- Halo series:

Everyone has either played Halo or heard of it. If you’ve played it, you know about the loud-mouthed, cigar smoking Johnson. Regardless of how he survived the first Halo game, Johnson has been spawned in the Halo trilogy and Halo ODST. He’s an obvious copy of Sergeant Al Apone from Aliens, and he sounds a lot like him, too. While it is great to have a cool African American on the cast, is it necessary?
Johnson is one of my favorite characters in the Halo series, but I think about whether it would have been necessary for him to be fried by a mechanical eyeball. Couldn’t he have waited on the ship while Master Chief took care of things? Better yet, what if Master Chief is a black guy? That would be nice!

The bottom line is that there aren’t enough African Americans (or people of other skin tones) in the lead roles. Gaming is a big part of entertainment nowadays, and not every hero has to be white.
Black isn’t whack, and it’s time to recognize that the old traditions are fading. We’ve become more diverse as a planet, and a lot more aware of it. I’d like to see that same diversity implanted into all aspects of gaming. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.