Race in VG!

Why I Didn't buy GTA: Chinatown Wars by Jaime Kuroiwa, points out that so many video games, and movies are all centered around the same kind of theme, or stereotype of certain races. Race and Video Games by Tanner tells us that the kind of stereotyping, or racism that we see in a video game all depends on what kind of video game it is. Video games racist, says study by Deborah Jones shows us that some video games "are more popular than movies" so the ways these video games stereotype races really does matter, because that is one big factor that teaches our children to act in a certain way. In Video Games the Bad Guys Come in All Shades of Stereotypes by Lynda Lin, informs the reader that "games speak to its audience interactively. . not like television and movies where stories are being told to you." Opinion: Resident Evil 5- How Does This Make You Feel, 'Partner'? by Tom Cross writes about how the setting of a video game can go much farther than that of what you would expect it to.
Some of these authors I really agree with, and some I am wondering what they are even talking about. When Cross states "West Africa is poor, dirty, and dangerous" and that being the main place the video game takes place, he thinks it is so wrong to do that. When I got to thinking about this, I just thought of how much Africa really does need help because most people there are extremely poor. Who knows, maybe after some got done playing this game they though "oh my, I should go help Africa" or "gosh I should give some money to help people who have to live life like that every day." If this is the affect that is going to be left on the player, then we need more games like that! Lin talks about how Asian characters are looked upon as the ones "who guzzle fortune cookies for power" and "prey on bathing girls, sometimes with chopsticks." I must say that these made me laugh. If we think about it, Asian people are the ones who do eat the most fortune cookies and use chopsticks, I do not see how this is a problem either. They are just using the everyday lives of a certain race to make a video game! Jones thinks that race is one of those things that are over looked when it comes to video games. Parungao was quoted in Jones' writing for saying "the games feature evil gangsters, all of them non-white." When I think of gangsters I get scared, and most of the time when you see a white gangster it is just plain funny! Let's face it, the white guys really aren't gangsters, but want to be gangsters, and maybe that is why they are not seen in these kinds of video games. Let's even take a look at some statistics given to us from the International Game Developers Association. The Game Developer Demographics Report shows us that eighty-three point three percent of players are white, two point zero percent are black, two point five percent are Hispanic/Latino, seven point five percent are Asian, and four point sever percent who picked another kind of background. Maybe we do not see as much stereotyping for the white due to the amount of white people who play video games. The game makers must think of who is most likely going to go out and buy the game they are trying to sell, and by these statistics the majority is going to be white males, around the age of thirty one. Maybe Jaime Kuroiwa has it down because he says "Chinatown Wars does not prove anything. It's just a game." Like he stated in his writing "I don't see it as a particularly new experience" because so many games are the same, with the same stereotypes. Sure some people might think race is a big problem in video games, but they are really just repeats of things we have already seen so many times before.