Default Hero: Your Protagonist Is Boring

It’s a long running joke that just hasn’t hit a lot of developers yet. In some focus group somewhere somebody decided that controlling the world around you isn’t enough immersion, we need to relate to these gamers. So what they decided was to make the character you play as a blank slate. Somebody who is so uninteresting you will have to make stuff up either in your head or during the game. As a story based gamer, I’m particularly annoyed by this. Developers have the power to create brand new worlds and environments that have never been seen on TV or movies. And yet they create characters that resemble toast. From Aiden Pearce (Watch Dogs) to Every Assassin besides Ezio. Someone said every video game character needs to be a white male, in his mid thirty’s and have a scraggly beard to resemble how much he doesn’t care. Well, I’m here to say that isn’t true.
You have to imagine this trend started when Developers thought about relating to the people playing their games, and what they came up with was a middle aged white guy because that’s the stereotype. But I’m sure you won’t be surprised by the fact that people from all over the world play games and even crazier is that women play just as many games as men. So that stereotype doesn’t hold up anymore if it ever did. Of course not every game is this way. Fem Shep is a heck of a lot more popular than boring old Male Shep in Mass Effect, and almost every western RPG lets you play as anything you want. So that means story based games are hooked on this idea as a hero.
And part of that is understandable, The Developers are making their vision and their story and a large portion of Developers are White guys. Without getting too political about this, Video games are not just for middle-aged white men in yesterday’s clothes. If you want to make an interesting and engaging character do something different. And that’s not to say that White Guys with beards can’t be interesting, it’s just to say that don’t bend over backward to make your character relate-able to a particular demographic. That demo you’re trying to appeal to loves playing as Ellie just as much as they love playing as Joel. The point being a Blank Slate does not make an interesting character, sure back when Video games were in the dark ages we could only use our imaginations to envision these characters life. But now you have so many more resources at your fingertips.

You can’t be a hero without an unkempt beard.

In no way does a blank slate character make the game bad, some of the best games have boring main protagonists, Cole from Infamous started out looking like a skinhead, but then once that character evolved he became someone who cares for his friends and wants to do the right thing. (unless you went the other way.) Nathan Drake looks like someone you would see walking down the street and hate because he looks like a generic hipster. But once you play as him you realize he’s a charming and likable guy who just has horrible luck. These traits couldn’t be conveyed on the classic consoles or cabinets, sure Jumpman wants to save Pauline, but you don’t know why or where he comes from. And if you do know, you certainly didn’t get it from the game itself.

Even Pearce’s Profiler is bored by him

It goes without saying that Diversity in games is a great thing. Because if we keep getting the same old character style and likeness, it gets really boring, really fast. And a large part of gaming is the story, it’s no longer just about collecting things. I’m sure a large part of the gaming demographic is still middle age white guys but do they really need to be catered too? Broaden your horizon developers reach out to the other people who play your games. And many games already do that, indie or otherwise. But big publishers need to catch up to everybody else and realize that experiencing a game through someone else’s eyes and diversity is imperative to the growth of a medium.
Game developers and most publishers will do what’s best for the bottom line, and I can’t blame them for that. It’s important that they make money so the video game ecosystem can thrive but stepping out of your comfort zone is a good thing. Not everybody needs to look like Nathan Drake –I’m Looking at you Just Cause three– Where ever that idea came from, its had its time. Maybe it’s time to move on to a new Default character, like a woman, or a black man. Hell make a game about a fish. As long as I don’t have to pretend to be interested in Aiden Pearce’s Back story in the next Watch Dogs I’ll take anything else.