Man claims games are racist

[MadMonkee]

Ahhh another fat white c*cks*cker in a suit smoking a cigar bitching about racism. Racism is in the people, it's a state of mind to group differences and fear them subconsciously hence creating hatred. It's not given to children by GTA (children shouldn't even be able to buy the game since it's Rated M+) buy racism is mostly put into people through people they trust/feel secure with the most... mostly being their parents. It's not something you can get from a game. I really find racism a funny subject to make fun of to break the ice around multi cultural gatherings, but personally I like difference, I don't try to change people to my liking. I accept people for how they are... and howEVER they are... even if they have an eye growing from their nose, I don't care... that's you, and you are free to be who you want to be, to have freedom, you must give it first.

But no, I played GTA, and as a child and even to this day Shadow Warrior has been one of my favorite games and I never for a second thought about its racism. There we go again with the politicians and the pussyification of our generation. Soon the only game we will be allowed to play will be barney the purple dinosaur.

[Vancougar]

Damn thats weak.
Seriously, you can make much more of a case of negative black or latin stereotypes than with asian ones. But anyway, how about the positive asian sterotypes in games? Characters like Chun-Li or Liu Bei, the boy and girl in Ico, or the dude from Shenmue. Subtract the whole fighting people bit and you got a classy bunch there. But hey, does fighting people mean a game plays into a sterotype? If it does, then I'd be damned if all other races didn't qualify in this category too.
And from all the overseas stuff i've seen, trust me they peddle their own self-mocking junk out there in Japan. So you can say 3D Realms made a racial disasterpiece with Shadow Warrior; but please don't discount all the japanese games that feature japanese characters playing into adverse steroetypes.
So you can write a paper about racism in martial arts films and just replace where it says "film" or "movie" with "video game" (it's just a reiteration of the same concept); but don't do a half assed job and not focus on the greater scale of racism that is much more relevant in todays society.
Now if you excuse me, I'm gonna play Marc Ecko's Getting Up. man, is those white po-po so uncool or what!

[stotheamuel]

wtf the hero in gta3 isnt even caucasian

yes he is...

[dergreg]

He was going into this looking for racism. He was biased going in, and I'm certain he was never denying that. He's making the points to support his theory, not the counterpoints to undermine the work he's putting forth.

I certainly do NOT agree with the way he went about searching for racism in games. For instance, Kung Fu Master for NES was originally named Spartan X. Developed by Irem, a Japanese company, and based on a Jackie Chan movie called Wheels on Meals or Spartan X depending upon how you find it. Where is the racism in that? GTA, in ANY iteration, has CHARACTERS that are racist. Just as American History X has CHARACTERS that are racist, as an extreme example. Would it be looked at the same way if the main character were a different race? I haven't read his paper, but it doesn't appear that he's cited GTA:SA, and it wasn't reported as a played game for the report. Warcraft 3? I mean, come on. Where was he trying to go with that? Sure, there was "racism" in that the human race was battling the orcs, and whomever else they battled. But it's a WAR simulation. When two groups are fighting, there's going to be a defined line in who is fighting whom.

I will NOT say there is no racism involved in video games or development, as Lo Wang: Shadow Warrior is a prime example. While it was certainly tongue-in-cheek, it was still a stereotype filled attempt at keeping the Duke Nukem 3D style game alive. The developers intentions were almost certainly to shock people into playing the game. Much like the Mortal Kombat games initially shocked people with the addition of blood and homicide, which helped introduce a ratings system to video games and has also been a mainstay in mature rated games to date. Perhaps they were simply trying to relive the feel of 70's and 80's comedies which contained similar styles of humor.

A friend and I had a conversation the other day about something very similar to this, it wasn't a matter of racism in games so much as why there weren't very many ethnic or minority protagonists in games. However, there aren't very many foils who are minorities, either. So it's never been an "us" versus "them" sort of thing. I mean, I can understand making the main character white, there's a reason ethnic groups are called minorities. It's because there are less people of that particular race than there are white-europeans. So giving us a generic main character with whom people can easily identify makes sense.

I can honestly say the races in any given video game have never made a difference to me. I'm there to enjoy my experience, not analyze it. When I play games I become the main character, I don't watch him. I don't kill people based on the color of their skin, I don't fight people because I don't like their culture. I want to sit down and take myself away from the ignorance and boredom of the real world. I want an escape.

Hunting down racism where it doesn't truly exist serves no purpose other than to segregate people further. You never know when you're going to have an impact on a life. What kind of impact you have is up to you.

I'm done here. It's time to go to the gym.

[Hawkeyefile]

Parungao criticised GTA for featuring "non-white characters who are mainly triad members, Yakuza gangsters, latino gangs or black hoods.
yeah and?????? whats your point.

Parungao went on to claim that game developers "like to use a mix and match grab bag of Asian stereotypes that are often nonsensical", such as the villain in Shadow Warrior, who "goes by a Chinese name, Lo Wang.
(not villain dumb @ss he's the hero).
it's a flipping game! it's not suppose to be real! its suppose to be funny. and if you following low wang as a role model, get some serious help.

Parungao concluded: "I hope to continue looking into ways to improve videogames because they’re fun and I’d like to see them turn into positive media instead of negative ones."
they are already fun. violence makes it fun. bad puns make it fun. if you dont like that go play, Barbie Horse Adventures.

and another thing he forget the great duke nukem!
you the know the blonde hair, sunglasses wearing womanizer!

[Mushslap]

How can Robert Parungao claim GTA3 is racist???

The white guy (the main character) is the worst gang member, killer, murderer etc in the entire game and its MEANT to be violent meaning all the characters are gang members, killers etc. The Yakuza's are suppose to be bad, if the story was about the Yakuzas giving flowers to everybody and singing hymns, GTA3 wouldnt be the same. The black hoods again are there to be killers and murderers, if you look at the pedestrians in the game there are black, white all sorts of pedestrians living normal lives and not killing at all.

If anybodys racist I think its Robert Parungao claiming racism in games. Just shut up and let games have what they like in them. Also I think Robert needs to research games like GTA3 a little more and get a glimpse of the surroundings in the game (again the peds)

How can you justify racism in games though???

Is POKEMON racist then? It must be because Pikachu is yellow and Squirtle is BLUE :O

I Agree!