Representation of ethnicity in the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Even in a fantasy world, the issue of representation of ethnicity is still applied. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim allows the player to adventure through the land of Skyrim with their own created character and a race of their choosing. However, the races in Skyrim aren't exactly the same as they are in real life. For example, you can choose from a selection of elf races, High Elves, Wood Elves, Dark Elves or Orc. But can also play as a human if you wish. 3 of the races that are human have white skin while only one has black skin.
In the game, the province of Skyrim is inhabited by a human race called the Nords which are notoriously racist to other races; claiming that "Skyrim belongs to the Nords." We are forced to live in this society where you constantly get racial slurs aimed at you such as "dark skin."
There is a race that you can play as called Khajiit which are cat like creatures, and they are not allowed in the cities of Skyrim because they are portrayed as stereotypical gypsies. The guards are sometimes reluctant to let you in the cities if you are a Khajiit because they have a reputation of stealing and setting things on fire.
Skyrim is not a racist game, however it deals with a lot of issues to do with racism by incorporating them into the game, such as racist insults.

Asians in the video game industry

While countries such as America and the UK are populated with so called "gamers", 82% of people who play games live in the continent of Asia. This is very shocking. Especially because of the characters that get created in the industry. We hardly see any Asian protagonists in games, the only ones that stand out are Sleeping Dogs and Final Fantasy and those are published by Japanese game developer and publisher Square Enix. However, we game developer Konami is also Japanese and in the Metal Gear Solid franchise you play as a American Caucasian male.
On the other hand, American game publisher EA make the Mirror's Edge franchise which has an Asian female protagonist which goes against stereotype of American game companies making only American protagonists.

Represtation of Ethnicity in the Saints Row franchise

The Saints Row franchise is known for its brilliantly crafted character creation; you can make your character any shape, size, gender and race. However, when we get into creating our character we immediately see a Caucasian male and that is the template we are supposed to build upon. Also, on the advertisements for the game and on the box art for the games, the main protagonist (the Boss) is always a Caucasian male.
We see Saints Row as a franchise where you get to create your own character but rather it is just editing a character that has been placed for us on the cover art and advertising campaigns. The trouble is with gaming today, we always seem to be playing as that same white man with a different name in every game.

This video explains a lot of the issues with the representation of race and ethnicity in the video game industry. This is always good to refer back to during my investigation.

Hello and welcome to my blog about the representation of ethnicity in video games.