You may not like stereotypes in your entertainment, but others do.
Yes, and that's part of the problem.
It's also how every 'white western male' has been portrayed (how many media use non-western males as their lead/hero ?)
It's also how every female role has been portrayed ... except perhaps for Ripley in Alien-movies most tend to be standard stereo-types and even Ripley herself has become a stereo-type.
I agree. Which is why I went on to say that more complex characters are needed all around. It isn't just black people (the focus of the article), but it's almost all game characters.
So what ... the black stereo-type is exactly the same as the white/female/gay/terrorist-stereotype.
What I was saying is that since black men in videogames are almost all portrayed the exact same way (which is a negative and limiting connotation), it reinforces a casual belief that ALL black people are like that. Of course it's not true, but it is still something that needs to be addressed and corrected.
Even aliens are humans in funny suits with a standard stereotype :
= Klingons in Star Trek are almost literally used as the 'Russians' (cold war-era in the 'classic'-series, post-cold war 'russians' in the 'next gen'-era)
= Ferengi are greedy traders that treat females as slaves ...
You simply can't fill an entire universe with non-stereotypical characters, because it'd be either too boring or too complex to comprehend.
Using a fictional species as allegory is a wonderful idea, and is one of the greatest tools available to science fiction writers. To do so, they must create a stereotypical idea of what the Klingons are like, or the Ferengi are like. From there though, a good writer will make the individuals (Sorry that I can't remember a single name), their own person. They will not simply conform to a stereotype, but will differentiate themselves, and be individuals.
I am not saying that every single character introduced must be a completely fleshed out individual, which extensive back story, etc., as you're right, that would be boring as hell, but every major character CAN be kept free from indulging in stereotype. It is the lazy/talentless writer that indulges in such shortcuts.
It is because 'you' start topics like this because of the 'black stereotype' instead of stereotypes in general.
*that* is what is the most annoying bit of the article.
It's always the big 3 minorities that start whining about being 'oppressed' when their own kind constantly proves how well the stereo-type fits.
Oh get off of your high horse. One cannot talk about stereotypes in general without talking about them specifically. Yes, games in general are full of stereotyping that needs to be fixed. An example is how nearly every single black man is virtually the same urban cliche. Demanding equality and accurate representation != proving "how well the stereo-type fits."
Bioshock :
= Big Daddy + Little Sister ... aren't they Stereotypical Father&daughter ?
= Splicers => stereo-typical drug-addicts ?
Big Daddy + Little sister. Man, I really worry about your childhood if you think that they have a stereotypical Father-Daughter relationship. The Big Daddy + little sister relationship is more of a symbiotic one than anything else.
Splicers could be called stereotypical drug addicts more easily, but that is still far from accurate. They are the entire population of Rapture, more or less. In this respect, they are an allegory of a society in which the general public is increasingly vain and going through increasingly more extensive and drastic measures to satisfy their vanity. The splicers are the end result of that and serve as a sort of moral warning, if you will.
~Jason
