Why no Black Male Leaders?

[Inotrobot]

I hate to be that Guy, but Data shows most people prefer to play as their Sex, & I'm sure if Data was drawn, it would be the same for Race. Is it that Black Men are a Small Demo for Civ Games? And even with that, I'm not asking for a majority or equal amount of Black Male Leaders, but none?!!!

Then based on the Veteran Sleuths who typically accurately predict the upcoming unrevealed content, the upcoming DLC will not have any Black Male Leaders either. Again if Black Men are a small Demo, I'll let it go, but I'm hard pressed to believe Black Females are a Bigger demographic.

This is not a criticism against Firaxis, & I understand most people in this site may not care, but it is very disappointing to me.

 

[Patine]

I hate to be that Guy, but Data shows most people prefer to play as their Sex, & I'm sure if Data was drawn, it would be the same for Race. Is it that Black Men are a Small Demo for Civ Games? And even with that, I'm not asking for a majority or equal amount of Black Male Leaders, but none?!!!

Then based on the Veteran Sleuths who typically accurately predict the upcoming unrevealed content, the upcoming DLC will not have any Black Male Leaders either. Again if Black Men are a small Demo, I'll let it go, but I'm hard pressed to believe Black Females are a Bigger demographic.

This is not a criticism against Firaxis, & I understand most people in this site may not care, but it is very disappointing to me.

What data? In my experience across gaming, where you choose or make a character, including Civ and Civ-style games, SPRPG's, MMO's, 2D SF-style Fighting Games, single athlete Sports Games, the Sims, certain FPS's, etc., I have observed this trend to not be in any great majority (and I've even participated, often, myself, in the counter-statistic - Boadicea, in Civ2, was my first leader to finish a game of any Civ-series game with).

 

[Inotrobot]

About 70% of Men prefer to play as Male Characters, there are also Race specific preferences. I'll try to post the studies & articles

30 Percent of Male Gamers Prefer to Play as Female Characters

A new study examines avatar preference, finding approximately one-third of male gamers prefer playing as female characters.

www.cbr.com

https://quanticfoundry.com/2021/08/05/character-gender/#

 

[Evie]

Even limiting to skin color/racialized group and gender, covering every possible permutation would leave very little room for anything else (snd invite accusations of tokenism). Some combinations were just going to be missing, and given that black men leaders have been in nearly every iteration of civ at release, while black women were only ever in DLCs and expansions if they were included at all (okay, there was Shakala but do we really want to go over THAT nonsense again?), it seems fair to change it around once. The larger demographic has had its turn for thirty years after all.

I'm certain there will be a black man as a leader sooner rather than later, and there certainly should be,

 

[Inotrobot]

Even limiting to skin color/racialized group and gender, covering every possible permutation would leave very little room for anything else (snd invite accusations of tokenism). Some combinations were just going to be missing, and given that black men leaders have been in nearly every iteration of civ at release, while black women were only ever in DLCs and expansions if they were included at all (okay, there was Shakala but do we really want to go over THAT nonsense again?), it seems fair to change it around once. The larger demographic has had its turn for thirty years after all.

I'm certain there will be a black man as a leader sooner rather than later, and there certainly should be,

Even if that's the thought, why do we have to take Turns with Black People? You can't do that with anyone else.. Do you know the Hell that would have been Raised if this game had no White Men, In a Male Dominated Industry?

Everybody else has Male Characters, to the point they are not asking for representation of the group, but particular Regions & Countries.. I mean technically I can make an argument for Ibn Battuta, but that's "Technically".

So not only do I have to wait 7 months to "Build Something, I believe in", I don't know if I'll get it in October.. Anyway I don't wanna be labeled as a Complainer, just saying I'm disappointed..

 

[Patine]

About 70% of Men prefer to play as Male Characters, there are also Race specific preferences. I'll try to post the studies & articles

30 Percent of Male Gamers Prefer to Play as Female Characters

A new study examines avatar preference, finding approximately one-third of male gamers prefer playing as female characters.

www.cbr.com

https://quanticfoundry.com/2021/08/05/character-gender/#

I'm dubious of Quantric Foundry's stats, from personal experience, and the apparent layout of relevant games I've played.

 

[Inotrobot]

I'm dubious of Quantric Foundry's stats, from personal experience, and the apparent layout of relevant games I've played.

Well they are a well respected Market Research Company across the industry...

 

[Evie]

My first sentence: “Even limiting to skin color/racialized group and gender, covering every possible permutation would leave very little room for anything else”.

Black men, black women, south Asian men, south Asian women, East Asian men, East Asian women, indigenous American men and women, etc: it adds up quickly to w lot of leaders. Having all of them covered in the base game is a lot of ground to cover, and leaves very little room for anything else.

We should get most if not all covered by the end of the game life cycle, but expecting it all covered at the start is a tall ask.

 

[Patine]

Well they are a well respected Market Research Company across the industry...

In World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV, by far the two biggest current MMO's, a notable majority of PC's are female. Overwatch and League and Legends, which are also HUGE online games, are famous (or notorious) for the overwhelming overrepresentation of female selectable characters. Cammy is one of the top three most played fighters in the whole Street Fighter franchise. These are all massive online games. So, what games are making up the counter-examples to push it to that antipolarity, in totality, I ask?

 

[Inotrobot]

My first sentence: “Even limiting to skin color/racialized group and gender, covering every possible permutation would leave very little room for anything else”.

Black men, black women, south Asian men, south Asian women, East Asian men, East Asian women, indigenous American men and women, etc: it adds up quickly to w lot of leaders. Having all of them covered in the base game is a lot of ground to cover, and leaves very little room for anything else.

Please don't misrepresent my concern, if you don't care, I totally get why you don't care. I'm not asking Firaxis to please every entitled player who wants their particular neighborhood in China Represented, so I don't know why you're adding sub demographics, when I'm talking about a General demographic. I'm being General & humble asking for 1 or 2. Instead for the next 7 months, I don't have what brought me to this Franchise in the first place.

We were obviously ignored..

 

[Patine]

Please don't misrepresent my concern, if you don't care, I totally get why you don't care. I'm not asking Firaxis to please every entitled player who wants their particular neighborhood in China Represented, so I don't know why you're adding sub demographics, when I'm talking about a General demographic. I'm being General & humble asking for 1 or 2. Instead for the next 7 months, I don't have what brought me to this Franchise in the first place.

We were obviously ignored..

Why am I baselessly being accused of apathy, or, "adding sub-demographics," and other things I had never said or intimated, on the main topic just for inquiring about the accuracy of a seemingly dubious source?

 

[Inotrobot]

Huh? That was directed towards Evie... Do you have 2 Accounts?

 

[Evie]

No one I named is “a sub demographic”. South Asian and East Asian are not “neighborhoods in China”: they’re huge and entirely distinct demographics of Asia (south = India, Burna, Persia, etc, east = China, Japan, etc. Pacific Islanders and Native American are even more varied groups covering even larger areas. All of them are perfectly comparable in either geographic, demographic or both sizes to Subsaharan Africa. So spare me the “sub demographics”.

Black people deserve representation, absolutely. But no more and no less than all these groups and arguably others, and fitting them all in the base game will take a lot of leaders

 

[leif erikson]

Moderator Action: Edited thread title to make it more clear. Please keep this thread on topic and civil.

 

[Inotrobot]

No one I named is “a sub demographic”. South Asian and East Asian are not “neighborhoods in China”: they’re huge and entirely distinct demographics of Asia (south = India, Burna, Persia, etc, east = China, Japan, etc. Pacific Islanders and Native American are even more varied groups covering even larger areas. All of them are perfectly comparable in either geographic, demographic or both sizes to Subsaharan Africa. So spare me the “sub demographics”.

Black people deserve representation, absolutely. But no more and no less than all these groups and arguably others, and fitting them all in the base game will take a lot of leaders

No they are Asian. Yes they are distinct, but they are Categorized as Asian. I didn't create the Classification, don't blame me. You brought up Race, then shifted to Sub-Racial Groups, but their Race is Asian. And Yes I believe all those Distinct groups should be represented.

I'm asking about Black Male Leaders. Just like you could make a Distinction between South & East Asian, I could make a Distinction between South African & Ethiopian. I specifically said Black Male Leader based on the Racial Classification. This is why I said Technically we could say Ibn Battuta, but that's a much longer discussion..

And even if not at Launch, you couldn't make up for it, in The next 7 months of DLC?! WOW

 

[Evie]

Of all the many (and all equally wrong headed) classifications of race in history, almost none has ever lumped South and East Asian together. South has been lumped with just about everyone - Caucasian, African, etc - EXCEPT East Asian. Because even the very racist colonizers could plainly see the Chinese and Indian were completely different.

As of today South Asian and East Asian are by a wide margin the two largest demographics on the planet, both dwarfing the Subsaharan African-Black demographics by several hundred millions people. (2 and 1.6 billions to 1.2 billions). Trying to lump half the planet in a single demographics is just disgraceful.

And they’re only adding four leaders on the next seven months. Leaders take time.

 

[Inotrobot]

Of all the many (and all equally wrong headed) classifications of race in history, almost none has ever lumped South and East Asian together. South has been lumped with just about everyone - Caucasian, African, etc - EXCEPT East Asian. Because even the very racist colonizers could plainly see the Chinese and Indian were completely different.

As of today South Asian and East Asian are by a wide margin the two largest demographics on the planet, both dwarfing the Subsaharan African-Black demographics by several hundred millions people. (2 and 1.6 billions to 1.2 billions). Trying to lump half the planet in a single demographics is just disgraceful.

And they’re only adding four leaders on the next seven months. Leaders take time.

You're preaching to the quire, but

 

[Patine]

You're preaching to the quire, but

Asian-Americans are any American who has a heritage in Asia and Oceania. However, from the cultural views IN Asia and Oceania, themselves, more pronounced distinctions are clearly made.

 

[Evie]

I couldn't care less how America categorize its immigrant populations ; that categorization has non-existant relevance to anyone outside the US. Which is the vast majority of the people in the world ; the vast majority of black people in the world ; the vast majority of East Asian people in the world, the vast majority of South Asian people in the world (etc), and, most importantly, the vast majority of Leaders in Civ.

US classifications are profoundly irrelevant here, and do not reflect global demographics.

 

[Patine]

I couldn't care less how America categorize its immigrant populations ; that categorization has non-existant relevance to anyone outside the US. Which is the vast majority of the people in the world ; the vast majority of black people in the world ; the vast majority of East Asian people in the world, the vast majority of South Asian people in the world (etc), and, most importantly, the vast majority of Leaders in Civ.

US classifications are profoundly irrelevant here, and do not reflect global demographics.

Paraphrasing, more or less, what I said, above.