“Like the number one argument I hear against...

15th August 2011

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“Like the number one argument I hear against [incorporating minorities into games], especially, what I just said, worrying about offending people. ‘Why do we have to put a minority character or a female character in a game just so we don’t offend minorities or females?’ To me, it’s never been about that, at all, to me. It’s not about fairness, it’s not video game affirmative action. It’s about actually pushing our medium to make better games, to tell better stories in our games.

I’ve played certain characters over and over in video games. Every time I save the world, it gets less interesting. It doesn’t matter what the journey was to get there. Ultimately, I know what’s going to happen. I know I’m going to save the world at the end, and I’m going to play the same like archetypical character to get there, because mythology says there are certain archetypes — the savior.

So, to me, thinking about the sexual orientation, the gender, and the race of a character can change… Even the age of a character — that can change the way your game is structured, what your game is about, the things a game can comment on, the mechanics of a game. They can bleed into several areas.

I find that to be incredibly interesting because I don’t want to see this medium get ghettoized, like what happened with comics, where we’re just making superhero things the entire time. Then there are games that are certainly trying to be more serious and more mature. And I’m not saying all the games need to be like that, but I would like to see a subset go that way, because that’s what I’m interested in. So, for me, if we make more diverse characters, when we do it well, we can make new and interesting experiences, which potentially can tap into new and interesting emotions.

That, to me, is the best-case scenario. So, this is just one tool in the toolbox. There are many ways to add to games. This is just the one that I’m interested in. This is the one that I’m pursuing as best as I can while working in the industry. And I just hope that other people will think about it and hopefully join the cause.”

Interview with Bioware designer Manveer Heir at Gamasutra

bam! pow! smASH!