Black girl magic.
May 26, 2023 7:05 AM Subscribe
Black Girl Gamers' Jay-Ann Lopez on the importance of Black representation in fantasy [Eurogamer] “Ahead of the release of Square Enix's Forspoken, there were concerns about representation. Frey, the game's Black female protagonist, was described in a 2021 preview session as having a "hip-hoppy kind of walk", as well as being "an orphan" and "very angry", raising eyebrows at the perpetuation of negative Black stereotypes. Before the game's release earlier this year, paid consultants were asked to play a pre-release build of the game, including a representative from Black Girl Gamers, a 10,000-stong community organization with lived experience of Black cultures and heritage that consults on various elements of the games industry, and whose founder Jay-Ann Lopez I caught up with to find out more.”
“As a trusted voice in gaming, diversity, and inclusivity, we were brought in. We had an opportunity to weigh in on the game - especially given that it is one of the first games to feature a fantasy female protagonist of Black descent. "The importance was key to us and our community and this was communicated during our consultation. Forspoken centres itself on the representation of women of all different experiences, and due to that - the game has unfairly received extreme and unjust criticism about its quality.”The group's consultation work on games typically includes feedback on character representation, lore, aesthetic authenticity, digital marketing strategies, and how to avoid simply furthering the status quo, where games have centred white male gamers.” [Previously.]
While it seems that this group does good work, I'm not sure it's fair to say that it's "unfairly received extreme and unjust criticism about its quality" because it has a Black protagonist.
Reviews have been pretty middling, and pretty unanimous, this game is just not that great. It's not horrible, but not great, and there's no significant split in opinion between more reactionary-minded gaming outlets and those that are more explicitly progressive.
It's also worth noting the context, Square Enix has been on what industry observers call a downward trajectory for a while. They closed down or sold off all of their non-Japanese studios and subsidiaries, and announced they'd focus the savings on investment in "blockchain" (and this was last year, when most of the buzz about blockchain bullshit was already over). Luminous Productions, the wholly-owned Japanese subsidiary which made Forspoken, was just folded into Square Enix proper. In short, Square Enix is not moving in the right direction.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 2:50 PM on May 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
Reviews have been pretty middling, and pretty unanimous, this game is just not that great. It's not horrible, but not great, and there's no significant split in opinion between more reactionary-minded gaming outlets and those that are more explicitly progressive.
It's also worth noting the context, Square Enix has been on what industry observers call a downward trajectory for a while. They closed down or sold off all of their non-Japanese studios and subsidiaries, and announced they'd focus the savings on investment in "blockchain" (and this was last year, when most of the buzz about blockchain bullshit was already over). Luminous Productions, the wholly-owned Japanese subsidiary which made Forspoken, was just folded into Square Enix proper. In short, Square Enix is not moving in the right direction.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 2:50 PM on May 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
Not surprised at this outcome -- the focus on "white male gamers" misses one important nuance: game makers often make disproportionate sales in their home market. Something like 50% of the 4 million DragonQuest XI sales were in Japan (and on day 1!). Forspoken? Reportedly sold 29,055 copies its first week in Japan. Seems there just isn't a lot of demand in Japan for black representation.
The only VG storyteller I really trust in Japan to handle international themes well is Matsuno, and even then there's pretty much no black people in his Tactics games. So kudos for farming out the writing staff and consulting with BGG, but it was an uphill battle all along, and you don't have to be a tactician to know how those usually go.
And man, its probably for the best Dragon Quest has no black people given Toriyama's track record there.
posted by pwnguin at 6:22 PM on May 26, 2023
The only VG storyteller I really trust in Japan to handle international themes well is Matsuno, and even then there's pretty much no black people in his Tactics games. So kudos for farming out the writing staff and consulting with BGG, but it was an uphill battle all along, and you don't have to be a tactician to know how those usually go.
And man, its probably for the best Dragon Quest has no black people given Toriyama's track record there.
posted by pwnguin at 6:22 PM on May 26, 2023
I played a lot of Forspoken to review it. The worldbuilding is the best part of the game, and I honestly liked Frey as a character despite her getting some pretty cringey writing here and there. But I do also squint at the idea of them saying, OK our protagonist will be a young woman of color from New York... so let's make the game start out in court where she is being charged for yet another petty crime! And then she's involved with gangs. It's just... not good. Once you get into the other world there's all this genuinely cool stuff that I enjoyed a lot, and there was real and interesting diversity on display. I thought it was great!
But yeah, I wouldn't call the criticism extreme and unjust. The game was really not good. I honestly wanted to find out more about Frey and the Tantas but it was all so janky, and ran so poorly, and was so empty and samey to actually play. Most of the reviews I saw suggested the same thing: we really wish this game was better because there's huge promise here.
Anyway, more to the point it was good to read this and as expected people aren't taking this group seriously (that is, "people" on social media). But a company like Square Enix is exactly the type that needs exactly this type of consultant to come in and be like "oh you want to do this right? great! let's get to work!" I'm glad they did but as everyone has found by now, the results are mixed at best.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 8:52 PM on May 26, 2023 [4 favorites]
But yeah, I wouldn't call the criticism extreme and unjust. The game was really not good. I honestly wanted to find out more about Frey and the Tantas but it was all so janky, and ran so poorly, and was so empty and samey to actually play. Most of the reviews I saw suggested the same thing: we really wish this game was better because there's huge promise here.
Anyway, more to the point it was good to read this and as expected people aren't taking this group seriously (that is, "people" on social media). But a company like Square Enix is exactly the type that needs exactly this type of consultant to come in and be like "oh you want to do this right? great! let's get to work!" I'm glad they did but as everyone has found by now, the results are mixed at best.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 8:52 PM on May 26, 2023 [4 favorites]
Speaking to Eurogamer, Lopez says she believes the game wouldn't have received this same level of criticism had Frey not been Black. "In the gaming industry, there are these dude bros that come out of the woodwork whenever they feel like Black and Brown people are stepping out of their place," Lopez tells me. "They feel they own the gaming industry and gaming culture. And part of that is because gaming media outlets and publishers have allowed them to feel that way for such a long time. They feel empowered to tank a game [that has a Black protagonist]. If it had a white person, they would probably have not felt the same way.
You could play as any person you want in last year's Saints Row reboot, but that game tanked for the same reasons Forspoken did: unfun gameplay paired with technical issues and a ton of cringy writing. It's just a bad combination no matter what the protagonist looks like.
posted by ZaphodB at 11:38 PM on May 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
You could play as any person you want in last year's Saints Row reboot, but that game tanked for the same reasons Forspoken did: unfun gameplay paired with technical issues and a ton of cringy writing. It's just a bad combination no matter what the protagonist looks like.
posted by ZaphodB at 11:38 PM on May 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
« Older Holy crap. I won Alone Australia. | For every winter I take my basket and ride down... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by Nelson at 9:25 AM on May 26, 2023 [3 favorites]