Originally Posted by modernwaffle Go to original post
But whilst you've made some objective points about character positioning that does seem to show certain trends for white and non-white people I would have to disagree about their overall portrayal.
See I don't think these are "bad" covers necessarily. I also agree that AC3's cover is the best (with Black Flag being a second). It's just that the pattern is what is troubling and that they are still not attempting to break away, as if they aren't even aware of the problem. That's kind of off-putting. Ubisoft definitely deserves a lot of credit compared to say other companies and games. But again that only highlights how backwards the gaming industry is, that even baby-steps sounds impressive.

Mind you, I'm not disagreeing about the very possibility of unconscious marketing decisions that take place when it comes to portrayals of non-European characters not just in gaming but in all mediums of media - this is quite a fascinating topic for me personally - and you can quite well argue that Altair and Connor's side poses (and now Bayek's back pose) as the non-European characters of AC hardly seem coincidental. But tbh there's just not enough evidence to suggest that these specific differences are intended to be used in a negative light and I highly doubt a majority of people who see these covers are influenced by such decisions in any way since I certainly wasn't, it's always a neutral design choice first IMO.
Well the point is how certain things appear "as neutral" to the people making them and to some people of the public. Neutrality doesn't always mean a good thing. It can lead to the Golden Mean Fallacy. And I don't think it affected the sales. it more reflects the marketing and what the developers or the publishers feel about the product and its content. People buy games for all kinds of reasons so just because this pattern is there doesn't mean that it reflects poorly on consumers by itself or on the content necessarily.

I didn't have too many problems with AC3's marketing unlike some gamers. Some people were prejudiced because it's set in America and during the Revolution and people have problems with that for various reasons and biases. And that would be there even if the protagonist was white. There are genuinely a bunch of people who don't think America is interesting as a setting or don't have a history that is interesting. I am not an American but I like American history and the American landscape and setting, and think it's pretty interesting compared to Victorian England. There are also valid concerns about the American Revolution not being a proper AC-style setting, which considering how the game turned out is I think a fair complaint and I certainly feel that Syndicate and Victorian England didn't make sense as an AC-Setting either. But the real problem a lot had was definitely Connor. Because any time a non-white protagonist is in a major game you are going to deal with complaints. This happened with San Andreas when you had CJ and people, just like Connor, don't think he's a badass and the main reason is that a good number of people don't feel the same sense of power and gleeful abandon in a non-white protagonist. Games and definitely sandbox games are power fantasies and when you are playing a character who doesn't entirely have power, given that, it's going to cross wires in some people.

Like you see this with developers, like they talked about how Edward Kenway as a pirate allowed the ludonarrative dissonance thing to work, in that the player character's more ruthless and nasty parts can fit his character. Now compare that with Freedom Cry where you have Captain Adewale and the story and gameplay is not about power. The point that they don't quite put into words, but which is the obvious implication, is that AC games are historically based, and historically for a long time, white people have tended to have the most power and the power fantasy that gamers most like and look forward to, are going to be male white power fantasies. Any attempt to put across a non-white view and perspective is going to run counter to that expectation and interest. Now if developers own up to this, and attempt to subvert it in some way or complicate it, that might be one thing. But instead Ubisoft tend to be uncritical and unthinking about it.

Like the way Connor is handled by Ubisoft's transmedia after AC3 is frankly nasty and upsetting. I mean the joke about ROGUE is that they fill the holes of every part of the Kenway Saga, including Connor's Boat except Connor himself. And then Syndicate which is set several decades after AC3 goes to Kenway Manor and talks about Edward Kenway and no one mentions the grandson. Yikes. And let's not forget ROGUE. The Message of Rogue is that put an African-American in the role of Mentor of the AC Brotherhood and all the cities will be destroyed and it's up to a band of white supremacists to save the day.

Yet, I think this mindset represents an extremely small proportion of the fanbase and nothing of Ubisoft.
I am afraid that Ubisoft doesn't quite deserve the benefit of the doubt, but I do agree that they do have a guilty conscience and want to make up for it and set a trend. But you know it's always half-hearted and clumsy. And I much prefer Ubisoft to something like Bioshock Infinite which is out and out a racist game.