Blacks Males In Video Games
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I know this is going to be one of those controversial posts but I wanted to do this. As I am a black male I wanted to explore the perception and advancements of black men in the video game industry as it relates to gaming. I will also explore the industry itself at another time.
From my childhood to the present time I can see that major progression has been made in terms of black males in gaming. We have games such as GTA San Andreas, Left for dead, Spawn, Shaq Fu, GTAV, Mass Effect 2, Gears of War series, The Saints Row Series, Prototype 2 and countless others, you can fill in the blank for others that I have forgotten to mention. Most of them are military shooters and are sports titles. Is there a stereotype of the men portrayed in such games? Granted, there were hardly any games portraying black men when I was younger. I remember playing Shaq Fu and Mortal Kombat 2 which has Jax and even Streets of rage 2 which had a character named skate. Outside of the sports titles there were none.
Are black men only able to play sports and run fast? Do they all have a CJ from GTA San Andreas inside of them? Do they run around shooting and gangbanging all day? Are they all involved with the military in some way? Are we satisfied with the existence of such in the video games we play? Are we just excited to see someone who looks like us on our shiny HD television screen? I’m not saying that it’s a conspiracy nor that we are satisfied with it, but I am suggesting that the topic should be examined. It’s not a deep issue but it sticks out to me. This topic has been talked about many times and in my doing so I wanted to have an open discussion. I wanted to open up the discussion and add my two cents to it from my perspective as a Black male.
We are all not obviously affiliated with the military or even play sports professionally. We are not eager to do drive byes. Although it is fun to take part in the activities mentioned above in a fictional world. We are making progress as we are seeing more games that contain the black male as the lead character, games such as Star Hawk.
I would like to see more games where black males are the lead and do not cause trouble similar to that of some men in real life. I would like to see a positive male in gaming take the lead role and be a hero not a villain or gangster. Sure these games exist but there aren’t that many of them. Which brings me to my next question, does a characters race determine how a games sales? The name GTA alone will sell games from earth all the way up to heaven but is it because of the characters or the name?
Again, I am not trying to be politically correct and I didn’t want to turn this into a research paper but I wanted to be comfortable in stating my opinion. Some may say that the black male has to make a change in real life before their videogame counter parts do. For some that maybe a true thought but then I begin to wonder about all the Black Men who are doing positive things in real life, where are there counter parts in video games? These days your either a thug wanna be or you’re a soldier who less be honest may end up dying.
Sure playing sports is good and being in the NBA and the NFL is an amazing accomplishment but not all men are involved in such things.
I don’t want to make this a long post as I could go on and on this subject but I want you, the reader to sound off. What are your thoughts on the subject? Does it not matter to you at all? Am I out of my mind in bringing up such a subject as it doesn’t matter in your opinion? If you disagree or think differently, be sure to comment, share your thoughts, and make your opinion heard.
Black males in the video game industry will be coming really soon. As always thanks for reading. Be sure to vote below to cast your vote on your view of the stance of Black men in gaming.
EnglishgamerUninhibited 