Race & Animal Crossing
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monochrome
Senior Member
The notion that you would have to still start out as a white character is still unsettling regardless of the fact that you would eventually be able to attain the skin tone you possess . Proposing that as an acceptable measure also unfortunately suggests that the "original" or "default" person is white, which also makes an even stronger suggestion that people of color are deviations from the "norm".
It's hard for a lot of people who are light skinned to see this, because they simply do not run into these situations in their every day lives. This doesn't mean light skinned people shouldn't make an effort to correct this way of thinking, however.
What's also upsetting, is that given the option, many children of color would stick with the lighter skin tone. But if more skin tones are at least offered it will encourage children with healthy racial identities to further that thinking.
This would be great. I have also heard rumors that it would do with street pass but I don't really get what they could do with it to improve it. Maybe allow an entire town to street pass through the Internet? I'm kind of hoping if skin tones are a new feature that they aren't the only feature, because lack of another feature for gamers who don't care for skin tone choice will cause outrage and overshadow the example setting step Nintendo would be taking in the gaming world. After all, if we can have different skintoned miis, why not our animal crossing characters too?
Aren't there cat hats you can get in game? This kind of thing is a lot less important than being able to represent yourself as you have been since your birth in a game bent on customization and self expression...
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Stevey Queen
The Queen of Mimosas
I never really noticed they haven't gave us the option to be a different color.
But that just might be cuz I'm white.
It would be nice though to actually have black AC characters.
But that just might be cuz I'm white.
It would be nice though to actually have black AC characters.
oath2order
#Porygon2024
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.
In Japan, the Japanese are the norm. You can't expect them to cater to such a small group in their game.
I'm gay and light-skinned. Would it be nice to have a gay character in a Nintendo game? Sure. But I'm not going to complain about it and say that Nintendo is causing identity issues in young LGBT children.
They could improve it by making it so SpotPass would work too? >.> I highly doubt skin color is going to be a new feature.
You can't pick and choose what identities are more or less important. Maybe one_eye is being sarcastic, maybe not. But maybe one_eye truly feels like a cat trapped in a human's body. This is an identity and you seriously cannot pick and choose which one is more or less important than another. That's discrimination.
XTheLancerX
Dedicated Gamer
I really wouldnt care if I had to play as an african american person, or whatever. Even if I HAD to play as a female it wouldnt bother me too much.. like portal. you have to play as a female obviously. I dont know, I am not very sensitive at all.. theres this dumb kid in my grade who tells me to die in a hole and tells me I Fail at life and I personally, dont even care xD It makes me laugh and I say "Yeah, dieing in a hole is my favorite recreational activity!" I am a very strange child. I really dont care what people think about me. lol
That's good, i applaud you! I would want to have choose able skin colors, but since you can get a tan i don't mind.
I feel that its not necessarily needed, well, I?m what you would call white so I?m light skinned and have gray eyes and light brown hair but my female cousin who is also "white" has much darker skin that a lot of colored people since she is born. So she has dark skin, dark brown, almost black eyes and dark brown curly hair. So if this feature was in this game and she would play with someone else they would always be "are you black? / are you afro(-in-this-case-)romanian?".
What should she do then? Different races have different facial bones structures, should that be included then too? http://youtu.be/zd7RRr5Eubg So whats with albinos that have "black ethnik background? I think the game is good as it is ,though I have alot of friends who would like to be all time tan in this game (especially one girl who is white and would like to be colored/black in real life). And sine this was just about brown to dark brown skin, what is with Indians who have red skin, wouldn?t they feel discriminated against as well because the would be left out in matters of skin color? Because someone will always be, you can?t make everyone happy. In my opinion Animal Crossing is nice as it is, if you want super customisation, play Sims. And if you say I don?t understand because I?m white, well I played old Harvest Moon games were you had to be MALE, no choise, as well as in Rune Factory.
If Nintendo would change the game to include special skin color , they would have to do much more as well, so that everyone would be included. (Don?t forget the people who put rings around their neck to make it longer, they would want that to be included too, dont you think so?)
I hope what I wanted to point out was made clear and not misunderstood, skin color and ethnic backgrounds are a difficult topic so hopefully nobody feels offended by my post.
What should she do then? Different races have different facial bones structures, should that be included then too? http://youtu.be/zd7RRr5Eubg So whats with albinos that have "black ethnik background? I think the game is good as it is ,though I have alot of friends who would like to be all time tan in this game (especially one girl who is white and would like to be colored/black in real life). And sine this was just about brown to dark brown skin, what is with Indians who have red skin, wouldn?t they feel discriminated against as well because the would be left out in matters of skin color? Because someone will always be, you can?t make everyone happy. In my opinion Animal Crossing is nice as it is, if you want super customisation, play Sims. And if you say I don?t understand because I?m white, well I played old Harvest Moon games were you had to be MALE, no choise, as well as in Rune Factory.
If Nintendo would change the game to include special skin color , they would have to do much more as well, so that everyone would be included. (Don?t forget the people who put rings around their neck to make it longer, they would want that to be included too, dont you think so?)
I hope what I wanted to point out was made clear and not misunderstood, skin color and ethnic backgrounds are a difficult topic so hopefully nobody feels offended by my post.
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Crying at that
I've never actually noticed but I'm white and a natural blonde with blue eyes but I hated being blonde, although I do notice on the game when I have a tan and as I made my character me i don't want the tan seeing as I don't. I do think there should be an option though.
tigereyes86
Senior Member
You look so young to be dying your hair and eyebrows such a dark brown 
. Your choice of course, but I'd be wary of such a huge change, maybe because my hair doesn't seem to like dye too much and gets a bit straw-like when I do haha! Having said that, it does suit you and I'd never have known you really have blonde hair.
Sorry back on topic, a lot of games as we have said have no customisation and I've not seen it brought up anywhere as an issue. I also agree with the fact that if it bothers you so much, go to Nintendo who can do something about it, with enough backing they may revise their character options in future across the board. I've always been the type not to bother too much about the characters I use anywhere though, but I can see both sides.
Someone said that children go into Mario knowing that they're playing Mario and it's not a representation of themselves. This is true. AC involves a character that's moving into a town populated by animals and depending on the game, you're either a resident or the Mayor. It doesn't promise that you're that character though (neither does any other game unless they let you use your Mii to represent yourself) and I think kids can see this and I'd think they're more likely to ask why there was a crazy mole with a weapon shouting at them over why their character was not black/brown/hispanic etc.
Again, these are just my views and I enjoy seeing both sides of this story (Loving how no-one has descended into an argument or name calling or attacking here, my kind of forum-nice work TBT !!!)
. Your choice of course, but I'd be wary of such a huge change, maybe because my hair doesn't seem to like dye too much and gets a bit straw-like when I do haha! Having said that, it does suit you and I'd never have known you really have blonde hair.Sorry back on topic, a lot of games as we have said have no customisation and I've not seen it brought up anywhere as an issue. I also agree with the fact that if it bothers you so much, go to Nintendo who can do something about it, with enough backing they may revise their character options in future across the board. I've always been the type not to bother too much about the characters I use anywhere though, but I can see both sides.
Someone said that children go into Mario knowing that they're playing Mario and it's not a representation of themselves. This is true. AC involves a character that's moving into a town populated by animals and depending on the game, you're either a resident or the Mayor. It doesn't promise that you're that character though (neither does any other game unless they let you use your Mii to represent yourself) and I think kids can see this and I'd think they're more likely to ask why there was a crazy mole with a weapon shouting at them over why their character was not black/brown/hispanic etc.
Again, these are just my views and I enjoy seeing both sides of this story (Loving how no-one has descended into an argument or name calling or attacking here, my kind of forum-nice work TBT
!!!)Shiny Star
State Alchemist
It's probably annoying for non-white people having to have a white character, I agree that there should be a bit of customization.
If you have a hat or an umbrella, it can stop you from getting tanned but yeah, there should be sun cream or something.
I don't see what's so difficult about being able to choose your default skintone.
You shouldn't be forced to have a specific color as your default. It's a customizable game, you can choose other features, but not your skintone? It promotes the idea that white is "default". Even the Japanese argument is a little weak considering that in Japanese media a lot of characters, especially main characters, are white rather than Japanese. And Japan has a big problem with people trying to be more white through surgery and treatment.
Harvest Moon recently added color choice. It's not anything spectacular, but it's something. Change has to start somewhere. And it won't happen unless there is a big enough voice for it.
Tanning is not a solution. It's a temporary change in the game. It's not fair for millions of kids to basically have the color of their skin written off as something as temporary as a tan.
It may not bother you personally, but it does bother people. Maybe not even directly, but you have to understand that race issues aren't just the upfront and obvious oppression, but a good portion of them come in small seemingly subtle packages. When games constantly have white only playable characters, you're silently telling every child of color that to be someone important in a game, you have to be white.
You shouldn't be forced to have a specific color as your default. It's a customizable game, you can choose other features, but not your skintone? It promotes the idea that white is "default". Even the Japanese argument is a little weak considering that in Japanese media a lot of characters, especially main characters, are white rather than Japanese. And Japan has a big problem with people trying to be more white through surgery and treatment.
Harvest Moon recently added color choice. It's not anything spectacular, but it's something. Change has to start somewhere. And it won't happen unless there is a big enough voice for it.
Tanning is not a solution. It's a temporary change in the game. It's not fair for millions of kids to basically have the color of their skin written off as something as temporary as a tan.
It may not bother you personally, but it does bother people. Maybe not even directly, but you have to understand that race issues aren't just the upfront and obvious oppression, but a good portion of them come in small seemingly subtle packages. When games constantly have white only playable characters, you're silently telling every child of color that to be someone important in a game, you have to be white.
Sure, but you could also argue that you don't have to be able to buy 10 different kinds of silly colorful glasses to be able to enjoy the game either. That sort of argument doesn't hold up in this situation.
It might just be cosmetic, but it's important. Perhaps if they had kept customization to the bare minimum level it was in the GC game it would be defensible. But they added new hair colors and styles, new facial features, and the option to change your eye color. A logical supplementary addition would be to add a choice of skin tone OUTSIDE of just the tanning feature. The fact that such a thing was omitted is disappointing.
It'd be nice if we could choose our skintones. I have a brown skintone and the only way I can effectively (permanently) portray that in the game is with the Mii mask. It doesn't detract from my love for the series, I played Wild World without the Mii mask and still enjoyed every second playing that game. It just sucks that we can't use accessories/hats when using the masks, I know why it's not possible but yeah. I just hope that the 3DS has more Mii style options than the Wii.
They definitely should, it would only improve the game. The new Pokemon game revealed options to change your skin color and that's a Japanese game as well, so it's not like it can't be done or they aren't aware of other races besides Japanese people. I'm willing to guarantee that the next Animal Crossing after New Leaf will include this because it's past the point where it's okay. It's basically like having The Sims with only white people, wouldn't that seem really crazy? There are all kinds of people out there and in a game where you essentially get to customize the way your character looks, the color of your skin should be an obvious addition too. It wouldn't hurt anything. It's like boys being able to wear dresses in this game. If you want that option, there you go. If you don't, don't use it!
I think the different skin colour option would be nice. I agree with Officer Berri that it may be awkward. I know that I misunderstood the questions in the beginning, when I first played the game and ended up naming my town Home and had to correct my gender. You'd have to get Rover to phrase it in a natural way or it may take you out of the AC experience. I guess Rover could comment on your appearance on the train and ask if you're naturally dark or tanned from a holiday away.
^ That could be easily remedied by upgrading the hair salon so that it's also a tanning salon. And the reason for not including something like it in the first place is simple: Japan isn't as diverse as America. Though now in other Japanese games they're doing it, I'm sure they had more things to worry about, like making New Leaf not suck as bad as City Folk.
oath2order
#Porygon2024
Well, I did read about the tanning salon idea somewhere, and I thought of a small problem with that. What about the starting race?
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