microaggressions in games
Tags: race
This was an essay for my game design class.
Many cultures are defined by large rituals that affect the way one perceives the world and grows up. A Jewish child raised with Chanukah and Jewish customs has a different cultural experience than a Christian child raised with Christmas and Christian customs. That said, in semi-heterogeneous Western countries like the US, persons with specific cultures are affected by the microaggressions around that culture just as much as they are affected by the overt aspects of that culture.
I think two games: GTAV and Watch Dogs: Legion, could display the effects of microaggressions through dynamic interactions from player characters and the environment around them.
Both games have an element of “open world game where you swap your current character”. In GTAV, you can play as one of three characters. Franklin specifically is black, and presumably grew up with different experiences of the world because of that fact. In Watch Dogs: Legion, you can recruit anyone to be a soldier for the rebellion. You could play your next mission with a white grandma character just as easily as a male Chinese college student. Errant signal’s critique of Watch Dogs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdEL4pf9tlg&t=5s) lays out my problem I have with Watch Dogs (and GTAV, though in a different way).
In Watch Dogs, your different characters are really just skins over the generic protagonist, and these skins in no way change anything. You don’t feel like you’re playing a hundred soldiers in a unified rebellion, you feel like you’re playing Character McProtagonist who just happens to have a hundred voice actors. GTAV is somewhat similar. Each of the different characters go on different missions and act differently in cutscenes, so there is variety there, but the game doesn’t grapple with their differences beyond their overt personality traits. Specifically speaking, the game doesn’t grapple with the fact that Franklin might be treated differently in subtle ways due to his skin color. (Full disclaimer: I haven’t actually played GTAV myself, so this might be false)
Note that I’m not talking about racism in cutscenes or large story elements. I’m well aware that GTAV has cutscenes where Franklin is treated differently. While these cutscenes can be a good way of showing the effects of racism, they don’t typically emphasize microaggressions. What I mean is that AI driven unscripted encounters should play off differently based on your character. In both games, AI driven characters could be a little friendlier, ruder, more suspicious, less forgiving, etc. in subtle ways, such as minor changes in inflection, different voice lines, or different actions. These changes could even be commented on by the characters, for example after a run in with a rude white person, it would be in character for Franklin to comment “f***er just hates me because I’m black”. In addition, these changes could play out in conjunction with the standard “racism in cutscenes and large story moments”.
Ideally, this system would create empathy for the problems inherent in simply existing as a POC. Someone who doesn’t have that background could play and start to feel bad that everyone around was treating their character differently than they expected. I fully recognize that there are a lot of ways this system could go wrong though. It could be too subtle, such that players don’t even recognize it’s happening. It could be too hamfisted, and players would get annoyed and there would be a backlash effect. Heck, it could go horribly wrong: Players might internalize mistreatment of POCs as the way they “should” act after seeing it so much in the game. Players might start to prefer white characters as it makes missions easier and the game smoother.
Despite these potential drawbacks, I feel like a well developed system that highlights microaggressions has the potential to illustrate a large, but not well understood aspect of living in minority cultures.
