Video Games Are Lagging Behind In South Asian Representation

Entertainment mediums within the West are introducing likable South Asian protagonists into fiction–slightly steering away from its historical past of brownface casting and changing into extra inclusive of South Asian storytellers. Although Squid Game’s Ali Abdul and Midnight Mass’ Sheriff Hassan weren’t the principle characters of their respective tales, they had been unapologetically brown, purposeful, and supported by the story. Even the imperfect desi woman Devi Vishwakumar from Never Have I Ever–whose actor additionally voiced Priya in Turning Red–has turn out to be a relatable character to South Asians, teenagers, and other people recollecting their messy formative high-school years. However, illustration does not must be restricted to solely relatable tales when one thing as fantastical as The Green Knight makes brown characters shine. And whereas different mediums are exploring what South Asian illustration appears like from a wide range of angles, video video games are nonetheless fighting the fundamentals.The time period South Asian is extremely broad–including virtually two billion folks throughout a number of nations and the diaspora–but numerous experiences that leverage the those who have lived them of their creation are a approach to obtain an genuine story that avoids generalizations and typecasting. However, purposeful illustration of the subcontinental folks and its diaspora as protagonists stays largely absent in video games. I spoke to some South Asian recreation builders about their ideas on the present state of South Asian illustration within the video games business, and what it may turn out to be within the indie and AAA areas.”I think the indie space is leading the charge [in South Asian representation]–the game I’m currently working on with Outerloop is specifically about the South Asian experience, and the protagonist is a young South Asian woman,” mentioned Meghna Jayanth, narrative designer at Outerloop. “Brianna Lei’s Butterfly Soup was the first time I felt in any way like my identity was represented in a game. Visai Games’ Venba is a beautiful, grounded South Asian story of cooking and family. Indian designers are doing interesting work as well–look at the gorgeous Raji: An Ancient Epic by Nodding Head Games.”Outerloop’s Thirsty SuitorsThe aforementioned recreation by Outerloop is named Thirsty Suitors, and options spirited protagonist Jala, who embarks on her journey to raised perceive herself by skateboarding, cooking to impress her mom, and battling suitors and her exes all through the sport. Thirsty Suitors meshes tradition into Jala’s world in her life in a small city referred to as Timber Hills.When requested about characters in video games that he is discovered relatable, Outerloop co-founder Chandana Ekanayake mentioned, “In games not so much–it’s one of the reasons why we’re making [Thirsty Suitors]. I don’t feel like there is [representation]–outside of games like Hasan Minhaj’s Homecoming King, which came out in 2017 … I’ve been thinking a lot about this and have wanted to do more representation in games with more brown characters [since then]. That whole standup routine really hit home for me.” Ekanayake, who’s Sri Lankan and grew up in a small city in Maryland, talked about how Minhaj grew up in a small city in California and located a shared expertise of rising up as an immigrant.According to Ekanayake, massive corporations in different leisure fields might showcase brown characters to succeed in a broader viewers, however authenticity comes from the writers and creators behind the tales. Never Have I Ever, for instance, was created by Mindy Kaling and because of this “it’s obviously from a point of experience, the point of view from someone that’s lived through it or understands the culture more than just to expand an audience on screen.”Raj Patel, senior model supervisor at Relic Entertainment, mentioned he appears like South Asian characters in video games are included as an afterthought, and that whereas we is likely to be seeing extra South Asian faces, there may be little or no past this. “You’ll see a character that looks South Asian, but we’re not seeing South Asian stories or characters, which is both good and bad.” Patel mentioned.”You don’t want to have that every time there is a South Asian, they have to be playing a South Asian character–like speaking to South Asian stories specifically: Normalize it, normal characters can just be South Asian, but you want to go a step further and sometimes see your stories being told.”Furthermore, even how South Asian faces are introduced could be extraordinarily restricted. Patel shared an expertise the place he seen early idea artwork having a hijabi character get lower out via the event course of on a earlier AAA venture. “Later down the road I would see [the character] get cut quietly, no one would say it was cut–you just see it not appearing anymore. Then you would ask around, and someone would say something like, ‘Oh there are technical reasons,’ or something like that, and it’s not true because you’ll see an earlier prototype where it was actually working.”This is not to say, nevertheless, that there aren’t different video games merging intricate narratives and South Asian illustration collectively. Ekanayake talked about the narrative cooking recreation Venba, which he finds each narratively and mechanically fascinating as a result of “It’s about this immigrant mother who moved to Canada, and this game is about cooking and reconnecting with your culture. Even though you’re not from that culture I feel like there’s still a sort of universal truth there about reconnecting with where you come from,” Ekanayake mentioned.Abhi, a designer at Visai video games engaged on Venba, indicated that interesting to the South Asian demographic particularly is usually a tough prospect in big-budget video video games. “I feel that it’s hard to have a carefully developed anything in AAA. As the saying goes, ‘When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.’ I can’t imagine a giant production prioritizing this unless it feels it’s a target to hit. In which case, it’s even harder for me to imagine something like this leading to a portrayal that’s not tokenized or skin deep.”Visai Games’ VenbaAt the moment, well-known South Asian characters in AAA video games are predominantly restricted to participant versus participant video games the place the story and character improvement aren’t a core a part of the sport expertise and are as an alternative one thing that gamers normally must perform a little further legwork to expertise. In Overwatch, for instance, there’s the Indian character Symmetra, and the sport additionally features a map set in Nepal. However, Symmetra’s story is not included within the recreation in a significant approach. Of course, that is the character of recent multiplayer-only video games, and the identical is the case in Respawn’s Apex Legends’ Rampart, one other Indian character who, like Symmetra has her story informed largely has her story informed outdoors of the gameRegarding Symmetra, Ekanayake mentioned, “Exploration of the character is as deep as the game mechanics allow you to do, and Overwatch being a primarily multiplayer shooter, the only way you’d get some of that is through what she says after a kill or before a kill, or mostly through the cinematic introduction. That’s where you end up getting most of the cultural relevance of the character.” He additional defined, “Games [can] explore more than shooting as the main mechanic–that’s why with Uncharted games or Last of Us games, you get attached to those characters, because there are moments of character development between the characters and storytelling that’s allowed. Mechanically you’re still killing things in [those] games but in between the moments of killing things, there is some character development and storytelling that happens.”Essentially, gamers aren’t pushed to kind a deeper reference to a personality in PvP video games like they’d be in a story-driven recreation. But even in tales the place storytelling is a key focus, depictions of South Asian characters can very simply turn out to be defective with out South Asians being concerned in telling them. Jayanth, who delivered a keynote at DiGRA India on white protagonists in recreation design, mentioned, “One of the injunctions of white protagonism that I discuss is: The white protagonist does not see race, nor goes the game ‘see’ the white protagonist through the lens of race. Unless the AAA games industry rethinks the very notion of protagonism, it will be limited in how it portrays South Asians and non-white people in general.”Chloe Frazier, who was launched by Naughty Dog in Uncharted 2, is a half-Indian and half-Australian character. However, her Indian identification wasn’t revealed till it grew to become handy for the story of the standalone growth referred to as Uncharted: Lost Legacy–which launched eight years after the second installment of the Uncharted collection. Frazer, voiced by a white individual, starred as one of many two protagonists. Even the credit did not record a single South Asian author on the narrative workforce, unsurprisingly resulting in the sport’s exoticized plot. I got here throughout mentions of South Asian advisors and consultants for Lost Legacy’s elephant using scene or doing yoga poses, however brown folks should not simply exist to appropriate the white developer’s imaginative and prescient when culturally-knowledgeable environmental artists and animators may cleared the path.”I think Uncharted: Lost Legacy feels troubling to me,” Jayanth mentioned. “It’s technically extremely beautiful, and so intensely researched. It’s set in South India–there are marketplace scenes in the early games which feel very true, the languages spoken, colors, clothes, atmosphere all meticulously authentic, but the game portrays a South India where the military occupies the streets of metropolises and there are check-points everywhere. There are insurgents who are hoping to tip the country into civil war. While this would make sense in Kashmir, it makes no sense in South India. It’s not clearly an alternate universe, and it feels no need to explain itself–to play this as an Indian is extremely disconcerting. It is also to feel painfully aware that a civil war in South India is not something that needs explanation to the imagined player of the game, a white player, an American player.” Kashmir is the northmost area in South Asia, bordering India, Pakistan, and China. Its civilians have been rattled by militarized violence as a result of imperialist targets from neighboring areas.Uncharted’s Chloe FrazerShe added, “The culture and geopolitical realities of India are just set-dressing for this story of adventure. India is so ‘other’ it may as well be a fantasy–this is the very foundation of orientalism, which is still alive and well. In fact, I saw a lot of critical appreciation of Lost Legacy for its authentic portrayal and almost no mention of the baffling military occupation of Chennai.” Ekanayake, in the meantime, did not appear to search out a lot of a connection to this recreation or character both, saying Lost Legacy “kind of mentions Sri Lanka and [that] this was taking [place] somewhere in India, and there’s some war going on–I don’t know what war that was–but it was kind of there and sort of not there.”The attachment of brown characters to the struggles of fictional wars does not finish there. Previous Call of Duty video games had maps set in war-torn Pakistan and Afghanistan–regions that do not get a lot consideration outdoors of a army setting in video video games. Jayanth introduced up Call of Duty: Vanguard character Padmavati Balan, saying that utilizing South Asian characters inside the confines of tales about struggle “reveals the limits of the concept of representation.””Is being represented by an imperial war simulator something to be desired?” Jayanth mentioned. “Call of Duty is deeply enmeshed in Anglo-American imperial logic, full of fantasies of noble war and worlds transformed by white men with guns and industrialized killing. Padmavati’s backstory as a fighter against the British Empire is set dressing and makes Call of Duty marketable to a huge Indian audience without, in any way, committing to anti-imperialism or a genuine critique of the empire beyond the most gestural.”Vanguard lacks an understanding of India’s present social constructions, as nicely, and because of this, it turns into “a troubling fantasy to offer to Indian and diaspora players at a time where India is in the grip of an increasingly authoritarian and fascistic Hindutva nationalism, which is always accompanied by a fetishization of military power. In that light, it’s certainly interesting that the South Asian character in Call of Duty isn’t Muslim,” Jayanth mentioned. Even Raji: An Ancient Epic–an action-adventure developed by an Indian studio that is aware of the Hindu mythos–leans into the Hindutva perspective in keeping with Waypoint. Although the builders have not overtly cited Hindutva inspiration, it is one thing to be cautious of since Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi–who champions Hindutva nationalism–encouraged India’s online game business to inform Indian folks tales and tradition.The change that should occur, in keeping with Patel, is a real and constant curiosity in illustration that comes from those who aren’t marginalized and are in positions to make sure that video games mirror actuality extra precisely.”Non-marginalized people, even if they care, have to actively care,” Patel mentioned. “They have to make an effort to represent marginalized people, and I think that’s why we don’t see it as much. They might be sympathetic, they might talk to us and even understand us, but if I want a character to be non-white in a video game in the past, I’d have to push for it… I think as we see the industry grow, and South Asian and Middle Eastern game developers rise in it–if they rise in it–you’ll start to see that improve. I think as the leadership in games starts to become more diverse, we’ll grow past that to see people not just trying to represent themselves, but understanding the value of showing more people having diversity.”Call of Duty: Vanguard’s Padmavati BalanEkanayake defined that diversifying who’s in management roles and funding tasks can enact optimistic change for higher illustration. “Until we have more women and people of color in leadership roles, you’re not going to see a lot of risks being taken–especially for AAA games because the budgets are so much bigger, and marketing, and expectations of trying to appeal to as many people as possible–inherently there’s going to be less controversial subjects, themes or characters. They don’t think it will be as marketable,” he mentioned.Jayanth added, “There are few precedents for South Asian characters, stories, design thinking, and games development–especially when money and publishers and corporate interest are involved–in a risk-averse space. A huge barrier the industry faces is a deep-rooted notion that white players–who are still considered the core audience–will be reluctant to inhabit a racialized protagonist.” She added, “Another barrier is the overwhelming whiteness of the games industry, specifically in key decision-making positions. In my opinion, the industry, its processes, and its fundamental ideas of what makes an interesting protagonist and what constitutes agency will have to be transformed for us to design truthful and interesting South Asian protagonists.”Abhi, in the meantime, needs to see change inside the South Asian subcontinent itself, explaining, “The number one thing I’d like to see is more gaming studios emerge from South Asian regions. This is where my focus is currently. I would like to see the big consoles try to make the process of making and publishing a game as accessible as possible. Steam recently ran an Indian Harvest Festival event, which was really cool to see.””There are a lot of exciting initiatives and game jams that have started to happen in South Asia, which is fantastic,” he continued. “But even the cost of a next-gen console devkit can be a giant wall to climb for a studio there. Many studios are set up to do porting and other supporting development, but they also hope to make their own games at some point.”Abhi’s concern, nevertheless, is that within the fashionable panorama of know-how and improvement “the big companies pushing crypto/metaverse will view South Asia as a source of cheap development labor that can be utilized to build these experiences fast. Since these are technically interactive experiences–it’s worrying to think established companies will incentivize existing game dev labor in South Asia to work on metaverse/crypto games, veering them away from traditional game development.”Patel additionally needs to see modifications occur in South Asian communities. “You know the cliche of, ‘Oh you need to be a doctor, lawyer, or an engineer,’ a lot of times that’s coming from a place of parents not understanding. They think those are just safe options because they don’t know what else is a safe option for their kids, and it helps when kids and parents can see that there are successful people in video games and that’s a viable path.”Games like Thirsty Suitors and Venba heart on South Asian identification whereas highlighting struggles relatable to many players with out counting on clichéd views. The South Asian diaspora and builders within the subcontinent ought to have alternatives to inform their tales, develop environments, design characters, lead, and incorporate complete groups of South Asians to work on projects–be it at a small studio or in a big-budget recreation.