Racism and video games: Nintendo with Animal Crossing before New Horizons

[Embraeyce]

just to add to this briefly, I am not a POC but I do have a New Leaf player who has a relatively dark skin tone (as in, maximum tan dark) and it's very annoying that if I don't play for a while and I boot up the game I find him without a tan. it just doesn't feel right for him to not have dark skin. so I definitely understand the frustration in not being able to choose skin tone prior to New Horizons (with the exception of Pocket Camp and I think Happy Home Designer? but those are spin-off games so they don't really count)

it's also kinda wild that the default skin tone is like really pale. I have a light complextion but even in New Horizons I find myself choosing a skin tone darker than the lightest bc the lightest is almost ghost-like. I guess maybe that's the standard in Japan but it's still pretty wack.

Oh okay, thanks for sharing but if you’re white, shouldn’t your character reflect that you’re white?

I’m sorry if I’m being annoying, I think Darker characters aren’t for us and I think you understand as much as a white person can with being frustrated

Ohhh okay I thought you were implying that your character had very Dark skin. If the character’s Skin colour is only like a bit different than your actual skin colour due to the white tone being super white to the point where it doesn’t match your own Skin colour like, I get that

I usually go with the brightest white or a shade darker than that depending

 

[xSuperMario64x]

but if you’re white, shouldn’t your character reflect that you’re white?

I honestly don't think that should matter. as long as I'm not doing it to make fun of POC then why does it matter what color my characters are? I'm sure there have been other artists and even authors who have characters that aren't the same skin color as they are. not all of my AC characters are a direct reflection of myself, most of them have their own unique appearance and personalities (in fact, 8 out of my 10 AC characters arent based on myself at all).

and technically the character who is a reflection of myself (aka the one in my avatar) is also white so yea

 

[nightglow]

I have the label white. I'm female.
Growing up in the 90s I too was excited to play Pokemon crystal as a girl. My friend, who got pokemon before I did was showing me her pokemon red and yellow. One of the first things I asked her about was why her character was a boy and she told me you had to be. It was a tad disappointing but she happily pointed out that he wore clothes that we liked (we weren't girly girls). But it was still exciting to choose to be a girl when crystal came out and she was super happy too. Other games I played before then often had a male as the character you played and if it was ever female, it was an exaggerated female (like pink everywhere, makeup, bows, dresses or enlarged lips long lashes ect) often as a side character for a set time.
Also I was one annoyed with Barbies being blonde all the time. My cousin and I played Barbies often when we were together and neither of us looked like them. I was excited to get one with the same color hair and eyes as me.
Later down the road I don't remember which pokemon game it was, but we had clothing and I was annoyed that all I could find was skirts or short shorts. They existed be were locked to the male. I'm good with just a tee and pants on my character.

I do feel like video games are improving and I am sure some of the stuff was oversight, but I think the majority of it was marketing or space limitation. Tech and tools wasn't like it is today. The company thought they knew who had interest in their games or were buying thier games or who would potentially buy. That also led to racism and sexism.

I read somewhere that the reason red and blue didn't have a female character is that they thought boys would have more interest in their games and girls wouldn't want to play it or have interest. I also remember marketing being toward males when it came to video games in general lot of the time. It's changed since and companies realize females play a lot of games, adults and kids alike do, and yes people of various skin and hair colors and textures do too. There is still a way to go. And I hope to see more games implement weight and height. But all this takes time and programming knowledge.
Indie games I give a pass on few options, but there should be some if you are playing as yourself and not a particular character that effects the game and world.

 

[Rubygame]

Hi everyone I missed all the posts made during the period I left the forum due to various commitments, it's really nostalgic to see one of my first threads and realize how much I've grown since then, even thanks to Bell Tree forum which made me discover many wise and kind people and ways of thinking. I was still in high school at the time, it's only been 3 years but it seems like a lifetime! I thank again from the bottom of my heart everyone who contributed to this discussion, it is always a pleasure to read you! I hope you are all well and I wish you always the best

 

[Shawna]

as someone who is white, I did think the tanning was annoying.

I’m sure this can go for both white and people of color, but I thought tanning was frustrating. It can be frustrating for white people because some of us want our character to represent themselves and you have to wait for the tan to go away on its own. It’s annoying for people of color because they have to go through all that just for having colored skin that just gradually goes away.

I may be white, but I’m glad they did away with tanning and just let people change their characters skin color as they see fit. We should all have our characters represent the way we want them to, white, black, and everything in between.

I know other games were guilty of this oversight, but in later installments, they started doing it. Hell, in all the older games (you could always play as a girl in animal crossing, this goes for other game franchises), you couldn’t even play as a girl (which I am).

I wouldn’t necessarily call it racist or sexist, it’s probably just more of an oversight like one of the previous poster said. But I’m glad some game developers are finally realizing it. ^^

 

[Yoshi155]

I'm a POC, and I hate tanning. I get that in Japan it makes sense, but I thought that with the release of New Leaf this wouldn't be an issue. This is my favorite AC game, and one of, if not my favorite game ever, and this is one of the few things that kind of pisses me off about the game. If I want to always look dark, I have to go to Tortimer Island every day and sit there. I don't have as much of a problem in older AC games, but still. I'm very happy for the changes in New Horizons.

About sexism and LGBT, this is something that was a little better in New Leaf, because you're no longer forced to wear as a girl, but as a boy, characters will make remarks if you choose to cross-dress. In New Horizons, it was changed even more as now, gender is referred as style and, at least in the English version, you're always referred to with they/them pronouns. Also, no one says anything if you choose to cross-dress.

I don't think anything that Nintendo did was meant to be discriminatory, especially because it's a lot different in Japan. Maybe with the rise of political correctness, they realized they had to change something. I don't really care why, at least I don't have to sit outside every day for 30 minutes.

 

[Khaoticnoize187]

Ganguro is a part of Japanese culture for as long as the mid 90s and it was really made in mind to combat ironically against pretty twisted fashion standards of trad Japan apparently if you look up the history of it.

So i wouldn't really necessarily call it offensive per say, i'm Asian myself too so i have no issue with tanning really.