Lets talk about "inclusive" characters...

I'd normally link you to the big subject article that kicks off an event I discuss, but this is one of those times where I just don't want to give them any ad revenue. I wont even mention their names even if they're quite popular as it is. However its blowing up on the internet now as the interview named not as an interview but rather after a single loaded question: Why the next Zelda game (specifically triforce heroes) wont let you play as a female. This is yet another case of somebody making a problem where it doesn't exist. There's suddenly this growing idea that in order for you to make a good game, you need to make sure the game includes wide open options of some kind of blank slate character where you impose yourself upon them. You must be able to relate to a character and have it capable of representing a massive audience of gamers. Right now the issue is pushed with positive discrimination (which isn't actually so positive) towards females. Of course occasionally similar issues are presented with gays or various ethnicities, but the press loves focusing on female representation right now. However because I actually do believe in equality, my story and argument kind of covers this whole entire subject matter of character design, and unlike the press I'm not discriminating against or in favor of any specific region. That's because I don't believe there needs to be forced representation at all, and even if it does exist I question its meaningfulness. It should honestly be really clear by decades of past games that we do not need to design super inclusive/representing characters into all of our games in order for gamers to enjoy the product.

To give you some perspective, and a pretty good idea of my early viewpoint on wanting representation, I really didn't have much of one. I never once thought to myself gaming needed to better represent me or

1st favorite game character

anybody else. Now I'll admit I'm a white straight american male, so naturally the majority of modern releases do cover me. The "progressive" side may consider me lucky and disregard my opinion for such a thing, but that's not really something I feel lucky over, or care about. None of those white male protagonist games were what I played at my early childhood, and that's even when I exclude obvious preschool stuff like Freddi Fish and Putt-Putt. The oldest game I can think of playing which covered a biological relatable area via appearances might be Goldeneye, and even then that's a stretch. However before that game, I was left with all sorts of other characters types that were nothing like me. My favorite at a young age was a purple blocky midget dragon named Spyro. I loved platforming adventure games of that nature. Other favorites in that genre were being run by a smart alack gecko, a cartoon bear with a bird hiding in his backpack, and a certain famous cartoon Italian plumber named Mario who fights a turtle dragon in every game (maybe you know him). Somewhere before then I was playing DKC, and that to this day remains my favorite 2D platformer. It even goes beyond cartoon games though. The first serious human characters I remember playing as was Lara Croft and Joshua Fireseed (who is supposedly Native American, with the Turok series always featuring that sort of protagonist as a "chosen one bloodline" plot style). I'll admit that I did not play either game well at all considering my age, but never the less they were what I remember as my first exposure to serious human protagonist in gaming. I didn't have any trouble with that. I can recall I was fascinated by the worlds and plots surrounding the games and their characters. As a matter of fact watching my father play tomb raider (way better than I could) was just as amusing as watching television, because I just loved the adventure within it. I never felt torn away by the characters being different in heritage or gender. So naturally this idea that we must diversify, or must have things mirror the player, goes well over my head. I along with countless others grew up with neither of the two factors and there are people like me who adore gaming.

*gasp* they're not even human, how could this be a successful game?

Its not just up to me and my own little bubble of view point, or those like-minded individuals raised on cartoon platform gaming or weird exceptions. When you look around even well beyond my own playstyles and choices, the examples of how ridiculous these character demands are, get more embarrassing. We're not only talking about cartoon creatures, or a couple exceptions to the human demographic. we're talking about pixel characters and those games built off no character at all. We're talking sports games, we're talking pac-man, we're talking about RTS games where you're just a mere controller, or even freakin' pong where gaming was practically founded on two pixel walls being the best you had as a player character. We've come from a long history of empty characters, silly characters, using multiple characters at once, and also no characters at all. It wasn't until somewhere in the 2000's where you could even get the visuals to see a character that looked believably human in the first place (here's some of the best 1999 graphics. Not a very nice human figure is it?). We're talking about a medium where one of our most iconic past characters that helped build the present turned out to be a blue hedgehog wearing bright red shoes and getting help from a two tailed fox that could fly. One of the biggest publishers standing out there right now had a mascot that didn't even have limbs, and another sold its first console system with commercials of a man dressing up as a cartoon bandicoot shouting at a corporate building with a mega-phone. Multiple generations of gamers have cropped up around a time where there was absolutely nothing relatable to such characters, and gaming didn't burn with people crying of ill-representation. We just played them and enjoyed them for what they were.

Now I'm going to be understanding and say that times change, and it may take new tactics and full use of our modern tech and understanding to make everyone a comfortable gamer. Besides, we all know of idiots out there so shallow as to think something like Spyro, Donkey Kong, or even Mario is just for little kids, and they'll seek something different in design. They may need to be pandered to in a different way, with characters they have different standards for. Then there are some people out there really do come to games for a very personal experience, and may want characters that reflect that even if it may mean giving up good character writing in the process. If only there was a place for them, right? Oh wait, there is and there's been a decent place for them for at least the last decade if not longer. RPGs like oblivion to dark souls, giant canvases for building a whole world like Minecraft, and games with a strategy in team building that lets you make alliances and armies like certain 4Xs and strategy games. Oh and of course there's The Sims. There's various types of games with quite a good amount of personal features, or just a strong selection of character variety. Fighters are especially good with character diversity, since they build around a potential of 40 characters and have to make different origin stories for each of them, often resorting to diverse mythologies and nations and different types of people and influences. They've existed for a right good while.

If I wanted to right now I could hop onto terraria, go back into a house I made out of pumpkins (because I love pumpkins), and sort through tons of costumes I have including a fox outfit, a sheet ghost, an archaeologist suit, and cardboard robot suit. Then I can dye them all by colors I've picked and made myself from world materials. That's all long after I built my character by clothing, skin color, and hair tone. Its a fantastic little sandbox experience when I just want something a little more personal or silly without giving up mechanical depth of a real game. That sort of thing exists, but it has a place and a purpose and is not necessary in every single game, nor would I want it that way.

Some games let you have it your way with the whole world, and some don't. That's just fine.

However The Legend of Zelda is not such a series to cover that "personal" area, and it never needed to be one to get its spotlight and place in gaming. The funny thing is you actually can in fact play as a female from the Zelda franchise, but that's in spin-offs and for good reason: its not a piece of the core game's experience. Its not what they wanted, and its not desired except by the pretentious hyper-progressive white knights who think its okay to make those kind of demands where it doesn't belong. Link was chosen as a hero and that's really all that needs to be discussed because he was the chosen plot protagonist with a lore backing it. If you're a Zelda fan looking for that extra bit of "what if" and would like to try feeling the might of another character, you've got Hyrule Warriors and smash bros to play as Zelda herself or others for that matter. That's what happens with a truly successful and major franchise that knows how to keep things going and keep people happy, they tend to have spin-offs to help cover some crazy design & gameplay choices so you don't end up damaging the main series with them by changing their traditional character and legend lore.

Thing is games are always about the experience and gameplay (even if the focus on gameplay might be intentionally shallow in some cases). The character re only as important as the gameplay and experience needs it to be. That's why a game like minecraft or terraria are so personal, it matches its open game plan. Its also why generic FPS games never have a meaningful character, they mean nothing to your viewpoint so they just toss you a name, a shallow image, and a baren story to move things along on the shooting. Every game genre has a character style to it that suits its needs and purposes, and shockingly there isn't need for much thought beyond that because what counts is once again in the gameplay and whether or not it gets the desired experience done. If you're caught worrying over something so shallow as your character's appearance in an adventure game, then you are the one with a problem. That's where the truly disturbing and ironic thing comes in with this progressive push from the press.

The press are asking odd questions while saying its their "job" (I'll get to that later, because the article comes right out and says its "doing my job" to be disappointed in character representation), and getting too fixed on something so worthless as the cosmetic appearance of your hero. As a matter of fact the press was called out big time when they tried to make racist accusations against Witcher 3, only to then be slammed hard by fact that they messed up by lumping Polish culture as just another form of "white". Meanwhile the Polish are in fact discriminated against in parts of Europe, and that shows the ignorance and problem with the press and these social politics. They accidentally divide and make their own racist, prejudice, and bigoted assumptions by pushing this sort of demonizing narrative. The press likes to make up their own check-list of what good representation looks like (often without a word from those they think they're speaking for I might add), and will tear apart your game with a prejudice against things that don't suit that imaginary list. They're making discriminations in a way that puts developers on the defensive, framing them as the monsters for simply making a decent game. Yet the fact is the only person judging gender and race are those who go about stirring up these controversies. The fact is games aren't built on their character's details, which is why their questions and slants are so weird. It doesn't matter if a character is a male or female unless the game direction says it matters, it just matters if the game is good and delivers the desired experience. Period. This shouldn't even be up for debate, its just simply what games are. They're games, not rainbows; games don't need to hit every spectrum of color to look nice in your eyes.

Diverse enough? Nintendo has been doing this for years, and don't need the pushy press

I'm not even sure why anybody truly would want a totally relate-able character in the first place. If it were up to just me alone, I'd say give me more dragons, more creatures, silly cartoon characters, and cheesy villains. Personally I'd rather have things "relate" to me in more of the art styles, objects, story structures, and soundtracks that I like. If you gave me the choice between an RPG game with a character builder, or sly cooper, I'd go with sly cooper. That's because I'm in it for the experiences. I'm in it to have fun, and playing as a funny cartoon racoon that steals things vigilante style sounds like a fun plot to a game to me. That relates to me more because I'm a fan of general robin hood stuff (theif vigilante heroes are awesome), love cartoons, and enjoy 3D platformers, so naturally Sly Cooper is more for me regardless of how distant the character is. On a similar note, one of the best things about Witcher 3 so far is the fact that the fixed character presented is soooo good and has given me a much better experience than some blank slate nobody guy I made in 10 minutes. If you want to relate to me or others, you'll have to just make what they like into the world rather than just letting them stamp their face on a character. Yet these questions take us away from that, and demand to leave everything more open and trying to fill out some sort of equal representation quota, rather than just making a fun or creative experience that you envision others may like.

We can all relate, right?

A lot of gamers (including myself) are just happy to travel to new worlds, to see interesting things, and to interact with the imagination of many developers. I don't want to see my own self mirrored into every game because that's just boring. That's why when this issue is brought up you hear people talk of playing the other gender in RPGs, or building crazy people in saints row. They don't always stuff themselves into a game, I mean just take a quick glance at what our most popular genres are like. We're using magic, shooting guns from exo-suits, charging cars into each other, taking over a whole city one territory at a time, or building an entire world, and if not building one than saving one. None of that is relate-able to anybody! Gaming is one of many forms of escapism, we don't need everything to reflect our lives. In order to get the best potential of some of these games we in fact want quite the opposite. Its not just games either, but cultures, and people surrounding them. The audience shares its fans alongside people that stick close by their superhero comics, who read massive novels of Tolkien-esque fantasy, stay tuned to the latest television dramas, joke about zombie apocalypses, and change contexts of captured images across the world wide web. We're all about the fantasy if it brings us entertainment, and while occasionally we try to immerse ourselves better by making that fantasy more personal, we don't need or even want that to be the way everything works all the time. We have a long history of following those fantasies in weird and interesting ways with the help of creators and developers, and the last thing we need is to bully or question them into losing that amazing creative energy and demanding what they do with their protagonist set ups.

Nintendo, contrary to what a press member told them, knows we are not "disappointed" in the lack of a female Link or substitute. Gamers have been enjoying their franchise for all these years without disappointment in character. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise, they're just pushing a crooked agenda that is trying to divide gamers where we never were before. ...and to the press site that pushed it, its not your "job" to feel disappointed in a fixed character direction, rather its your job to report on games. Its your job to review them. Its your job to inform us. Its your job to look out for the very consumers that help gave you your job to begin with. Last I checked most of  the press stand idle while some of the most despicable acts from certain publishers reign around this time, rarely questioning them on things that matter like good PC ports (the site that pushed this interview did nothing on the recent batman matter, they don't even have a basic PC review I can access). All you're doing is making matters worse by shoving identity and social politics into the mix. This needs to stop. This discussion shouldn't have even been needed, but clearly there are those in gaming who are in it to champion a white knight campaign rather than to cover actual games, and when they pile up enough I suppose it is needed to say something on the matter.

Its okay to keep picking up that sword Link. Gamers are behind you.