Toast On Jam: The Witcher 3, Fallout 4 And The Scandal Of Impossible Standards

All men are created equal.

A long time ago, someone somewhere said that and they were rather wrong. Not just about men but everything. Nothing is equal because nothing is the same so why then do we try to treat everything as though it’s all the same and then get upset when said thingamabob doesn’t fit through the hoops we’ve haphazardly strewn about for it to leap through?

It’s a fascinating spectacle to see outcry erupt every time a game does not conform to the standards certain people wish to impose upon it.

Do games lean on stereotypes a little too often? Sure.
Could games do with less white male protagonists? Absolutely.
Do we need more representation in gaming? Definitely.

The thing is… I’m going to leave that thread dangling for now. It’s a rather cruel twist, no? I’m sure you were gearing up to read my riveting commentary on social issues within the gamersphere but much like a poorly-crafted non-linear narrative we’re going to jump forward, backtrack and leave everyone confused, myself included.

There are three kinds of outcries in gaming – post-release, pre-release, and Far Cry (that joke took an hour to think up, send help) – but they ultimately stem from the same place in that the game is not what you or me or that ranting twat on Twitter wants it to be. Within that we can further dissect outcry into the following:

Social – “Why isn’t The Witcher 3 more inclusive and representative of different ethnicities?”
Game – “Why does Fallout 4 look like shite?”
Corporate – “Ubisoft has already opened pre-orders for their unannounced game.”

The third has been dealt with like a badly behaved schoolboy when corporal punishment was still in effect. Despite being a sado-necrophiliac dispenser of bestiality I’m not going to touch it but will instead focus on the first two categories.

You often hear talk about the impossible standards of beauty that media subject women to, but what of the standards to which we hold each and every developer? I’m a firm believer in reserving any damning judgements until something actually releases so until Suicide Squad is out in cinemas I won’t dismiss it despite the growing evidence that the film is all sorts of tonally naff. That said, snap judgements are hard to hold back and one of the overwhelming criticisms of the recently revealed Fallout 4 is that it doesn’t look good enough. So we find gamers being highly hyped for this game while already judging it harshly based on a single trailer. It’s a peculiar paradox and the equivalent of saying, “Is that it?” while sporting a throbbing erection. Sit with that image for a while, folks.

Project Rainbow Lightning failed horribly in trying to create human unicorns.

Why do we do this to ourselves? Fallout games have never been graphical powerhouses, that’s generally not Bethesda’s bag, but their games are always rich with gameplay and depth and scale. So expect that, don’t expect The Witcher 3 on a PC with Hairworks turned up to full volume.

Say it with me now: “Great graphics do not a great game make.” (Repeat as necessary for best results.)

Similarly, Assassin’s Creed is probably not going to give you a stellar narrative so why go in expecting that? I speak from experience because I’ve made that mistake a few times.

It should be noted that I’m speaking here as a gamer, not as a critic or reviewer because it is possible to enjoy a game without giving it a glowing review.

This is really just a build-up to what I truly wanted to talk about today and that is the potential value of newly third-world European nations such as Spain, Portugal, Italy, FIFA and Greece reverting to a barter system and being annexed from the EU. Okay, maybe not but just give it some thought, okay?

Anyway. Representation!

Ah, what a nebulous and catch-all term. On any given day it can be used to refer to minority ethnicities, people of various sexual orientations, strong female characters, people of different body types and the oft-misunderstood never-nudes.

The trouble is that “representation” tends to be misused or used in a manner that is rather exclusionary or in reference to something which perhaps shouldn’t really be the focus of calls for representation. We should probably unpack this a little.

When calls are made for X to be more representative it is often in a way that is indifferent to the developer’s creative freedom. It comes as an accusation rather than a suggestion or constructive criticism and that’s the wrong way to go about things. To be explicit, not everything needs to be representative just to be representative. That right there is the false sound of progress. If the developer wants to or feels the need to have characters of diversity then that’s great but don’t force and don’t put it where it doesn’t belong. GTA V is a mental caricature of West Coast living and filled with outrageous stereotypes. Expecting it to contain strong female characters is like yanking a fish out of water and demanding that it breathe the sweet and salty ocean air. You’re going to end up with WIP sushi in your hands.

Above: what you should be thinking right now.

Almost in contradiction to the above, there are some boundaries. Don’t be completely belligerent to the concept of representation but don’t overdo it either. At one end of the scale we have Uncharted where the heroes are all white Americans, the throwaway enemies are mostly minorities and the big bad is always a Brit. At the other end we have Tyler Perry and that’s all we’ll say about that. There’s a balance to be found and it has to be organic, it has to feel authentic and not forced; not like it was just another point on the checklist right between bolt-on social features and pre-order bonuses.

In order for this to happen the development studio or at least a large part of the dev team needs to be from an ethnically diverse environment. Creativity can’t be conjured out of thin air like a white rabbit (it’s not racist if it’s an animal right?), it comes from our life experiences and things which we can draw from.

Expecting diversity from a studio such as BioWare (based in Texas) is perfectly rational and would you look at that, they are pretty diverse with representation in their games. It’s not quite the same with CD Projekt Red. I’m not going to go off on an apologist tangent but this article highlights it quite nicely. The population of Poland is overwhelmingly Caucasian so it’s a bit unreasonable to expect these folks to write people of colour when they are drawing on their own life experiences and Nordic mythology. Further more, it’s a game that is representative of Polish culture and made for Poles in the same way that general elections in South Africa are a quinquennial game where everybody loses but other countries don’t understand how to play.

A common argument is that it’s a fantasy game set in a fantasy world, it doesn’t need to be realistic in any way so why aren’t there people more representative of modern society? I think I have an answer to that. Fantasy is region-locked in a manner of speaking, see: the above example of CDP and Nordic mythology. Fantasy also draws very much upon medieval archetypes. Knights are white, desert merchants are Arab etc. Take God of War for example, the main characters all bare Mediterranean features because that’s where the mythology stems from and that’s how they are depicted in historic artwork.

Of course, it’s not all region-accurate. Jesus couldn’t really have been that pale, right?

I’m personally tired of notable South African films either revolving around Apartheid, townships or farming. There is more to this diverse and (theoretically) wonderful country. On a global platform we are poorly represented and the likes of Lauren Beukes are doing a great job of remedying that. Meanwhile, as much as I adore District 9, Neill Blomkamp is doing the opposite. The former crafts stories which are uniquely South African in flavour but original and represent a large spectrum of our demographics while the latter leans a little heavily on stereotypes.

Aside: Chappie appears to exist as, a) an extended music video for Die Antwoord and, b) predicts the group going broke and becoming street urchins. Just an interesting observation I thought I might share with you. I’m sorry.

My point is that criticism is essential or else Neill Blomkamp won’t change the way he does things. The other side of it is that those changes need to be the creator’s own. Demanding things is tantamount to stifling creative freedom.

Of course, when we do get some good and interesting representation, people throw their arms up at that too. Johnny Storm can’t be black, that’s not canon! Nick Fury isn’t historically black either, deal with it. Ultimately, the Human Torch’s character is in no way tied to his race so I don’t see a problem. An African-American can be from New York and have a white sister who’s slept with Keyser Soze. It’s perfectly plausible rather than a stretch for the sake of representation. The justification for the casting from the mouths of Josh Trank and Simon Kinberg makes plenty of sense too. Family is supposedly a big part of the new Fantastic Four film so the introduction of that family dynamic and the troubles it no doubt presented to the Storm siblings in growing up will tie strongly into the story. That makes plenty of sense and offers perhaps a different take.

It’s never enough or “you didn’y do it right.”

Representation for the sake of it produces Remember Me, representation without forcing the issue or putting a gun to anyone’s head produces Dragon Age: Inquisition and The Last of Us. You choose.

Representation doesn’t have to mean what you say it means and it’s a lot broader than most think. At the end of the day, trying to please everyone gets us nowhere. To developers I say, make the game you want, the way you want (within those boundaries of representation) and you can’t go wrong.

This column was originally about something altogether different and I had a really cute, somewhat relevant, Charmander gif all ready to go for you fine purveyors of this torrid column. Here it is anyway because it would be a crying shame to not share this with the world. For your sins:

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