racism

News

Valve Writer Hits Back At ‘Racism’ Editorial

12:40PM Owen Good | Last week, a Houston Chronicle writer referenced Left 4 Dead 2’s setting choice – New Orleans – in an opinion piece lamenting the perceived insensitivity of several games. Valve has responded. More »
Culture

Houston Chronicle: Video Game Racism “The New Norm”?

12:00PM Owen Good | No, not that guy. Norm, as in, status quo. As in, we’ve masticated the shooting-black-people argument in Resident Evil 5, now let’s pile on Call of Juarez and an unreleased game for good measure. More »
Culture

Resident Evil 5 Producer Meets His Chief Critic

3:40AM Stephen Totilo | Tenured reporter N’Gai Croal sparked a debate when he commented on his gut reactions to the racial dynamics of the RE5 trailer a year ago. Recently he and the game’s producer met to discuss. More »
News

BioWare Tackles Elf Racism In Dragon Age: Origins

12:20AM AJ Glasser | You can’t have a ginormous fantasy epic without at least three different races — elf, human, dwarf, etc. — and you can’t have elves and dwarfs without racism according to fantasy standard-setter J.R.R. Tolkien. More »
Culture

Councilman Resigns After Spruiking Racist Flash Game

6:30PM Luke Plunkett | Georgia City Councilman John Dowdy thought it would be a good idea to send an email round the office recommending a racist flash game. John Dowdy is no longer a Georgia City Councilman. More »
News

New York Times on RE5: The Truth About African Zombies

12:40AM Mike Fahey | The New York Times’ resident game writer Seth Schiesel kicks off his review of Resident Evil 5 with a lengthy discourse on the racism controversy, invoking the one truism about zombies everyone keeps forgetting. More »
News

Days Before Resident Evil 5 Release, Race Debate Spikes Again

10:40AM AJ Glasser | Today, two articles tackle the tough issue of race in the upcoming Resident Evil 5. (Commenters beware – the ban hammer is poised at the ready.) More »
News

An Informed Expert Speaks Out On RE5 Racism

3:20AM Mike Fahey | VideoGamer.com played through the first three levels of Capcom’s latest with one of the UK’s top experts on racism to get the final word – is Resident Evil 5 racist? More »

Vexed by Online Bigots’ Language? Psychologists Say They Want You to Be

3:00AM Owen Good | By now it’s sadly common experience, hearing racist, homophobic, even anti-Semitic slurs during online games. Often it’s for no apparent reason other than as a term of abuse used against competitors, that packs more of a punch than your standard four-letter word. But a couple months back, I had a different experience, and I’m sure it’s no more uncommon for others, too. In a game of Castle Crashers — cooperative multiplayer — this guy I was playing with completely proffered some rather ugly opinions of African-Americans, and needlessly heaped racial slurs on the foes we were battling. More »

Study Finds Racial Bias Common In Virtual Worlds

6:20AM Stuart Houghton | Anyone thinking that virtual worlds are edging towards some kind of utopia, please revise your hopes downwards. A study into the social psychology of virtual environments, by Northwestern University, indicates that people respond to the same social cues about race in virtual worlds as they do in real life. In an experiment carried out in There.com users were approached by a researcher wearing either a light-skinned or dark-skinned avatar and asked a series of questions.. The study found that when asked a fairly demanding question, followed by a less demanding request (a so-called ‘Door in the face technique‘, dark skinned avatars received a significantly lower rate of positive responses. Same old, same old. Researchers find racial bias in virtual worlds [ITNews.com.au] (image source: http://soulsphincter.blogspot.com/) More »