It’s hard to have a rational, nuanced discussion on diversity these days. For example, if you believe Poles have the right to make a game that is essentially Polish, you’re an ignoramus who “literally dehumanizes the people of color”. Because diversity apparently means homogenization. But I don’t know why I am surprised, when even respected dictionaries claim that literally means figuratively.

The closest I found to a rational reply from “the other side” is an article by Damon Schubert, called “On Tokenism”. Before I talk about the good points of this post, let me give you a context to what “the closest to rational” means. Feel free to fast forward past the first image below to skip the drama and the “captivity of negativity”.

Schubert decided that in my “On The Witcher 3 and Racial Quotas in Art” article I claimed that adding diversity is “hard” and “difficult”, and it’s “hard” and “difficult” because one will never please all “those blasted Social Justice Warriors”. The truth is that while I do believe you will never please them — proofs later in this post — I never said that’s why adding diversity was difficult. I never even said that adding diversity was difficult. That’s not what my defense of The Witcher 3 was about at all.

Straw man fallacy is typical for Schubert. Previously he went as far as to write a whole article about how I was “offended” by Polygon’s score for The Witcher 3, quoting my post in which: a) I never say that, b) I actually said I was okay with varied scores: “[…] obviously we need games analyzed and critiqued and reviewed from multiple angles. The result is that a game can get 10/10 from one publication, and 5/10 from another. But that’s fine.”

On top of that, the “On Tokenism” article is full of wisdom like:

Tropes are not inherently negative. Tropes are simply tools in the toolbox for writers to use. Some tropes are inherently negative […]

I am not even sighing at the lack of coherence in the above. It’s just that you cannot have an inherently negative tool. You can find a good, positive use for a whip, a gun, a knife, any torture device, or a nuclear bomb. We can have a bad, cliché, stupid use of a trope, but a trope itself is never inherently negative. I really wish people started distinguishing between tools and how the tools are used.

This one is also delicious:

This need to expand markets is why more and more game companies are inviting professionals like Anita to consult, in hopes of helping to broaden the reach of these games, not just within this country but abroad as well. […]. “The Witcher 3″ may be an excellent game, but it also dramatically limited its potential reach with its design decisions.

If only they had a consultant “like Anita”. But they didn’t, so they only sold four million copies in two weeks. Which is half of what The Witcher 1 and 2 combined sold in eight years, including $0.99 sales.

People sometimes ask me why I bother. Well, half of what I do is simply defending games from the lies of the “megaphoned dilettantes”. It’s hopefully useful for argument ammo, but also useful for me by forcing me to organize the knowledge and research. But the other half is looking into the future and produce actual usable solution proposals for game developers.

And this is why now it’s time to leave the drama behind and focus on where Schubert was right, and what it means for creators.

There are very good reasons why having more diverse representation of minorities in media is good for society (“Ellen”, for example, was a landmark event in the erosion of opposition to gay marriage and gay rights), but at the end of the day, there’s a very sound business case for it.

And here’s where Schubert is correct, in my opinion.

But before I get to the business side, let’s talk about the power of media for a second. Cultural critics often confuse media (the web, press, talk shows, news, advertisements for real products) with fiction (games, books, TV shows, movies, music, etc.). Real-life experiences are the ones that shape us the most (science argues that genes possibly come first, but that is not important for us at the moment), then media, and then, far behind, fiction.

Does fiction really affect people? We don’t know. People discussing this often confuse cause and effect. For example, The Catcher in the Rye was clearly of great cultural importance for a few decades of the 20th century. But did it reveal something to and changed the attitudes of 1950s-80s teenagers, or was it important because it merely put the hidden, but already boiling teenage angst to paper? Was the book a soul-rewriting pencil, or was it a reality-reflecting mirror?

Personally, I like to think that weakly, barely, but fiction does affect us. The alternative is that art is nothing but a more or less pleasant time killer. And that’s not how I feel about all art I experienced in my life.

What we know, however — as mentioned earlier — is that fiction is the least powerful shaper of attitudes and beliefs, far behind genes, real life experiences, and media. It has to do with the way schemata are constructed in our brain. A thousand books are less effective than genes and one real life experience. I wrote a short introduction to the subject here.

Investing their trust in the power of fiction, some people with an agenda push it beyond all reason. For example, they describe the Damsel in Distress trope, the promise to a loved one to never abandon them in the time of need, as a sexist trope reinforcing the stereotype of a woman unable to solve problems on her own, and claim that as such it should be abandoned. Sexism is not what the trope is about, but we can argue about it and that’s fine. However, demanding that we stop showing a woman in distress (e.g. kidnapped) and in the need of the help of a man (e.g. a SWAT team) is simply denying reality.

Pretending that such basic truths have no place in fiction is the desire to reshape the “malleable human brain” through destruction of existing structures and replacing them with carefully designed propaganda (which is why I call such approach “cultural Maoism” and not “cultural Marxism”). This is asking that dark skinned women are never sexual, or that rape does not exist, even if in a war-torn world. This is denying the art the right to tell truths about life, to challenge views, to disturb for catharsis.

All data that we have points to fiction having a fairly weak influence on human lives, and if anything, that influence is surprisingly unintuitive, e.g. behaving badly makes us better people. However, you can always find a sociological or psychological study that contradicts these findings, so the truth is that nobody really knows anything. But that is exactly why it’s so annoying when people talk about the nuclear power of fiction as if any real evidence and consensus existed.

The above obviously requires a separate, much longer article. For now I just wanted to make sure we understand that fiction probably does not have the power that some people wish it had.

The commercial angle of diversity is much more interesting, then, as it’s actually proven. The best example I can offer is the ethnic diversity of the Fast and Furious series.

There are many reasons why Fast and Furious 7 made so much money. It’s cars, it’s action, it’s beautiful men and women, it’s the death of a certain straight white actor and the perfect farewell that the movie offers. But I do think we have an indicator that the diversity of the cast mattered as well:

According to Universal, 75 percent of the audience in North America was non-Caucasian, generally in line with previous installments. Hispanics, the most frequent moviegoers in the U.S., made up the majority of ticket buyers (37 percent), followed by Caucasians (25 percent), African-Americans (24 percent), Asians (10 percent) and other (4 percent).

Of course, by itself, ethnic diversity means nothing. It’s not like having a diverse cast changed the 2008 remake of The Andromeda Strain into respectable commercial endeavor…

…or that people always appreciate the ethnic diversity just because it’s there:

I am even tempted to use my own game as an example. Bulletstorm had three heroes: a white man Grayson Hunt, an Asian man Ishi Sato, and a strong-yet-3D Trishka Novak. And a fascinating villain, General Victor Sarrano. The game got great reviews, and ultimately became a cult hit and a game that many gamers love, but its sales at the time of release were so-so, resulting in the cancellation of the sequel.

Obviously, the diverse cast of the game had nothing to do with the sales trouble. All I am saying here is that a diverse cast is not a magic ticket to sales heaven.

Still, when it clicks, and when various minorities can see themselves in a game or a movie, the diverse cast can be the sales amplifier. It’s just logic. A diverse cast, unless forced, will not ruin your sales, so appealing to as many people as possible with your AAA blockbusters — that are usually focused on the worldwide appeal for the obvious reasons — just makes sense. This is what I wrote once about design tweaks to a game that is supposed to attract mainly male audiences:

[…] creators should consider adding tweaks to the game that may please the female audience: female protagonist option, tailoring game experience, etc. If this approach does not work for your game or is too much work or is not needed as the game is universally appealing, great, stick to your vision — but if only a bit of work can increase your reach …why not do it? That’s just smart business. People invest a lot of time and money intro porting their PC games to Linux and Mac, because even 5% more sales is still real money, so it’s only reasonable you might want to achieve even better commercial results with only a few clever updates to the core design.

The same obviously goes for ethnic minorities and actually other minorities as well. Of course, humans are not defined just by their ethnicity or sexual orientation, but these things might be a factor to consider.

But the title of this essay is “The Moral and Commercial Appeal of Diversity in Video Games”. What do I mean by “moral”?

It’s probably too big of a word, I simply mean: telling the truth about the world is cool, and the world is a diverse place, and various minorities interact with each other (to a varied degree, depending on the place), especially in the modern age of inter-connectivity. Telling stories that include or even are about these interactions is just showing the world as it exists, and I consider it “moral” — as opposed to immoral coating of adult stories with reality-denying propaganda.

Now, does that mean the time of culturally, ethnically, sexually homogenous cast or stories are over?

For quite a few reasons, no.

First, a culture has the right not to be shamed for not including other cultures in their art. On the contrary, there’s a great value in telling stories that feel exotic to us, exactly because they come from different backgrounds. I was happy that Never Alone or The Witcher 3 had their clear cultural identity, and so is the case with countless other games, movies and books — like Wuxia stories or this little German movie called The Lives of Others — of which the local culture is an essential building block.

It’s basically a win-win for everybody. The local culture gets something to identify with. Everybody else gets a fresh, one of a kind perspective on whatever subject is being dealt with. It’s exciting, it’s mind expanding.

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.

–Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad (1869)

And today, we can travel to and experience other cultures through art, without ever leaving the room. Of course, nothing beats the real thing, but not everyone can afford or has the time to travel around the globe. Isn’t art a pretty great substitute?

But how would we be able to experience what these cultures have to say and see what unique perspectives they have to offer if all art had to go through diversity homogenization process?

Second, it’s not just wise to experience the true diversity, it’s also just as commercially sound as the diverse cast of Fast and Furious. The insane growth of hip-hip or the popularity of JRPGs or the box office smash of Titanic or the success of Queer as Folk are all a solid proof that a strong, unique identity is enticing.

Third, writers often say “write what you know”. It’s something not everybody must listen to, but for some of us it makes sense. Not every creator is good at mimicry, but it does not invalidate the work they do when they write about “what they know”. On the contrary, the truth is very important in art — that’s why we usually can’t stand bad acting, for example — and your work will only be better if that truth shines through it.

Fourth, if you do it to please the perpetually outraged, you’re playing a game you cannot win. I once joked that no one complained that Gone Home was about first world problems of a white family simply because it was before the onslaught of cultural Maoists on gaming …and I was totally wrong. Of course they did, it’s just that it was before the majority of gaming press decided to join in the fun and megaphone their shepherds.

Today, there’s no real ideological distinction between a game that pleases the alarmists and one that does not. A list of offensive traits would not matter even if it existed. For example, if you decide to include Anita Sarkeesian in your game, then suddenly the fact that the game is 100% about violence not only means nothing, but you’ll also get on Feminist Frequency’s “recommended games” list.

That’s hypocrisy, but it’s not the hypocrisy I mind, it’s the fact that there cannot be any real discussion about anything when the lines of conflict are not even blurry — they just don’t exist. Honestly, and I say it as a realist, it’s much easier to make a game you want and then kiss the ring, rather than to try to make a game that supposedly appeals to the warriors only to realize you forgot to get the blessing.

—

Where does it all take us?

Well, what if you went through the following thought process when creating a story for your game?

Is your local culture an important building block of the story you want to tell? Or maybe all of your characters are ultimately based on just the people you know? If yes, cool, cannot wait for this. One extra question, though: does adding other cultures or minorities hurt the story (e.g. by shifting focus)? If it does, this is where you stop, go and tell your story. But if it does not, consider the inclusion. It’s not a requirement, but something worth a wonder nonetheless. If not (e.g. your story is universal or you’re creating characters you never knew before), consider widening the human spectrum the story offers. In any case, go for the inclusion only if know how to do it, or if you’re good with writing what you don’t know. Never force anything, as audiences are very good at smelling a lie.

I think it’s that simple.

There’s a place for art exclusively about a majority, exclusively about a minority, and anything in between. Worth noting that it’s ridiculous to expect that all of these variations will be represented in equal numbers, unless the definition of minority means nothing anymore.

In the end, honest story-telling trumps everything, and let’s never forget why people escape to fiction in the first place. Some do it to learn more about the world that surrounds them or to relive their struggle through someone else’s binoculars. But some do it to forget about their everyday troubles, up to a point when e.g. representing a minority is exactly the opposite of what that minority is looking for.

With all of these variables around, there’s also an option that everything I wrote today — like the cold calculations of the commercial appeal, or the inclusion considerations — is bullshit. And the best way to create something that people will resonate with is to create something you’re passionate about, and not something other people want you to be passionate about.