"Feel free to debate it further somewhere that isn't here" is a sentence I love with all my soul

The Phantom Thieves would be so proud that they're wreaking such havoc with the system.

Hearing Yahtzee talk about his "editor" was like a blast of ice water to the face. It somehow never occurred to me that after all these years he's not still doing all this on his own.

Serious question, since Vanguard was a recent release: Has there been any WW2 shooter with an Indian character? Like, even nameless extras, let alone a named character? It was only the largest volunteer army in all of human history.

...I remember The Conduit. Mostly for how every major video game outlet kept blurting about how its the Wii's first game for a "hardcore gamer audience", but I remember it.

Things get muddy when diverse characters are confused with an actual sense of diversity. You can have a cast of diverse characters from every corner of the globe, but if they are explored too thinly or only serve a very specific purpose in the plot, they’ll feel hollow (or worse, just there to put in the box art). I like it when games go beyond the surface, and let the cast of characters think or interact differently with the things around them in a way-even if that means friction between a character or getting a little uncomfortable. It hints and winks at the fact that maybe this character grew up differently than what you’re used to. In turn, maybe you can see things differently by following them on their journey

"The Shark from Maneater" legit did a spit take lol

"That's creative accounting, baby" I think Jack is rubbing off on Yahtz.

Yahtzee referencing the Sergeant from Perseus Mandate and even visiting the F.E.A.R. wiki was fucking bizarre. It’s like some forgotten door in my mind got kicked down.

To make the "do we count Japanese people in Japanese-developed games" argument even more complicated; there's a term of art in Japanese for this: "mukokuseki", or "countrylessness". Remember back how in the 90s everyone wondered why everyone "looks white" in anime? That's why. Of course mukokuseki isn't universal. Brock from Pokemon was meant to be vaguely south-east Asian, for example. There's plenty of anime and games that have stereotypically *American* characters, too. I'm going to assume Yahtzee either didn't encounter this or filed them as "non-white". The most egregious instance of this is really racist right-wing propaganda comics from Japan. The ones that deliberately draw the Japanese characters in mukokuseki while the Korean or Chinese characters are drawn to be very ugly racial stereotypes of east Asians.

Absolute mad props to the editor for taking the excuse to literally fill the screen with Dead or Alive Extreme screenshots immediately on cue from Yahtzee giving the green light. i really did almost fall out of my chair laughing. Fantastic stuff! :)

To complicate matters further, is Stella from Spiritfarer an adult? You'd think no, but the backstory does reveal she was a nurse, right? So then Stella's an adult, but the Stella you play as isn't, so she's like the manifestation of Stella as a kid, so... I don't have an answer I'm just here to confuse everything further. You're welcome.

I’m torn on him counting Faith as white. On the one hand being mixed race is a wholly unique experience. On the other hand as a mixed race person this is the first time I can remember someone counting a half-white person as white instead of 100% nonwhite.

JRPG fans will rightly point out that most video game protagonists are, in fact, schoolgirls and that they've a staggering diversity of hair colours.

"theres no reason he isnt" is basically the motto for all the fanfics out there

I always thought diversity is best tackled in one of two ways. #1: center the struggles of the character around their identity. Give conflicts that arise that are unique to their identity. It doesn't have to be the main focus of a plot, but it should be used as a condition or complication to it. #2: The complete opposite solution, have minorities simply exist and be proper representations (not just stereotypes) of their minority and have the other characters treat them as equals. It should NOT be used as a means of ticking a check box for "diversity" merely to say you have it when it's just white in different colors.

I would honestly LOVE to look at the entire data pool and how they're divided. Any chance the whole data set could be published?

Again, I'm loving this Extra Punctuation thing. Hell, in some ways I kinda like it more than Zero Punctuation. Don't get me wrong, ZP is good tasty fun, but EP has this "wholesome" vibe to it, like chunky Ardennes-style pate on a slice of wholemeal toast.

Loving these extra punctuation videos. They remind me of the "let's look back on a industry that never learns anything tee hee hee" videos which I love.

Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball WAS AND IS progressive. all diverse races, all female protagonists, all sizes represented *of bust size* and therefore hyper inclusive and hyper PC. REMASTER THIS MASTERPIECE GAME

Faith ought to count as non-white, since she definitely looks more Asian, and we're looking to see if there's any variance from solely white.

Unspecified adds agency and gives every player a unique experience, but it hardly shows diversity imo. Especially when you want to look at how supporting characters in a cast of a videogame. Think of a female or unspecified protag with their diverse cast of ragtag whatevers saving the world and see which ones are cartoons or actually are humanized.

"There's no reason he isn't" is really what's fuelled the LGBTQ+ fandom and video games for years

"feel free to debate this further...somewhere that isn't here"

Technically undead characters are neurodivergent, in that they're ostensibly deceased and have no neurological activity to speak of. That's certainly isn't neurotypical. So that would mean every Dark Souls protagonist is on the spectrum... kinda.

It's honestly beautiful to see you still going after all these years honestly. Fantastic work as always

Quite interesting even if the data capture might be a little rough, but honestly its good enough so nice job!

I genuinely love the expressions on yahtzee's avatar. The eyes are so simple but so perfectly expressive

I love that you put this together and can't wait to see it done in another 5 years or so. Especially now that you have the data for the previous time.

It would be interesting to look at the two groups of games in terms of talking roles/. As Yahtzee said a lot of the characters in those early games were silent protagonists. It would be interesting to see if the same clear gender / race split is the same for games featuring characters that are actually... well, characters.

I spent this entire video thinking about Warren from The Surge, and how, despite being the straight white male, he is more diverse than many other game characters because of the fact that he can't walk, and you brought up that kind of diversity at the end and it warms my soul

This may come as controversial, but diversity is not the same as representation. If we go by "amount of representation" in Ghost of Tsushima, There are Japanese and Mongolians, all Asians, while Call of Duty: MW2 has Caucasian and Hispanic protagonists, and the game features, South Americans, Russians, North Americans and Afghans, so it's more diverse than Ghost of Tsushima, but Tsushima gets the better rap because the main character isn't a white dude. And that's totally fine, I'm not criticizing Tsushima or CoD, I'm just pointing out that diversity doesn't necessarily equals representation, and vice versa. Going back to Ghost of Tsushima, it's a really good example of representation, a story that could only have been told in Feudal Japan, and the medium will definitely be better of it, without needing to worry about being diverse. And, Games like CoD Vanguard can tell stories in which the race or gender of the one pulling the trigger makes no difference and use that do be diverse and inclusive if you will.

Y'know, I think there's a fair case to be made that you can have a game who's female protagonist can show off some jibblies but still get full points for diversity. Bayonetta springs straight to mind. Make it clear that this is a decision made for fun and just as much a part of the character as it is done for the sake of the viewers enjoyment. Like yeah Shantae ain't wearing much and likes to work that thang. But also she seems incredibly confident, proud of it, and enjoys her dancing moves that allow her to work said thang. Compared to most anime-esque examples. Where the fanservice is often worsened by making it voyeuristic, not enjoyed by the cast, and not equally represented. Whereas if you have equal parts sexy boy, girl, and other, and unsexy boy, girl, and other. And in-universe they acknowledge that yes, the characters are sexy and that's just nice for the eyes ain't it. You basically get a free pass to have a good time. (Which ironically Dead or Alive wasn't far off from, but that was before the series hit it's current dark age)

I would love a broad range of experience and stories in games but instead we get copy pasted pallette swapped characters for the most part. The failure of diversity in gaming is that its a byword for lazy or poor writing.

"Don't be racist, be like Kung Fu Panda; white, black and asian" :D

I've been thinking of tabulating this information myself for a while but was turned off not knowing how to account for the nuance. Excellent video, thanks for the data.

This was a fantastic video. I love this new series and the work that Yahtzee did in this one.

"feel free to debate this further, somewhere that isn't here" -Yahtzee 2021

This has been my favourite extra punctuation to date, I've studies inclusivity in education for quite a while and really resonated with so much of what was said here. To also focus on the contextualised positive change that is happening instead of still framing the industry in its current deficits is something in inclusive theory that really becomes encouraging. Voicing anger and frustration is understandable but not a productive indevor, taking some cool headed prospective and trying to encourage change where it's being made always has a bigger difference. Yhatzee and y'all at the escapist thank you for hilighting this and trying to encourage more positive change in doing so.

This was a good watch. Thanks, Yahtzee, appreciate that you took all the time to do this and explained largely how you got the conclusions you did.

I take issue at "Japanese games that are set in Japan" counting as "white". The true spirit of diversity is to present a cultural viewpoint different from the presumed white western "norm". So like in the Yakuza series there are a lot of aspects specific to Japanese culture that you wouldn't get in a crime game set in the U.S. Though yeah, "splitting hairs, unscientific data" etc etc

I love these videos! Hoping for more longform videos from you

Whenever this discussion comes up, it's always a blast to listen to people try and address the panda in the room: _"Do Asians count as diverse...?"_

I'm loving this slow and pensive Yahtzee, it's honestly interesting how his mind works

i think the real trend that we can get from the data is that customized characters will eventually over take all pre written characters

Not gonna lie, after completing it, it always brings a smile to hear spiritfarer come up

How did The Great Ace Attorney figure into your calculations, given that it is made by a Japanese team but set in both Japan and England?

Holy handbrakes, you really went far with this study only to explain diversity. Thanks!

Have a friend who thought Yahtzee was crap because they really like Bayonetta and hated his video on it. Sending him this video to show that the dude isn't just an edgy swear jar.

As a professional duck I am kind of insulted that you mentioned goose eggs while showing a picture of a duck. Are we waterfowl all the same to you mr Croshaw? Joking aside, thinking this diversity debate over I noticed how many of my favourite games have an unspecified character in the main role. Probably because I like fantasy allot. I also wonder what the data would look like if you would separate indies from triple a when it comes to diversity. Indies probably have allot more options to offer for race, gender, age, background or neurodivergency. You can find a game for pretty much whomever you want to play as or whatever the game let's you engage with. For instance: I know of many indies that try to respectfully talk about mental illness and convey it's effects on that person's life. Can't think of many triple A games doing the same. Anyway hooray for the industry making progression.

Ayy nice Douglas Adams reference there

Seems a bit odd to count Asians as white just because those games were made in Japan. It doesn't seem right to call Kazuma Kiryu from the Yakuza games a white male protagonist. Should William Adams from Nioh not count as a white male because the game was made by a Japanese team? I know these examples aren't exactly in the samples you chose, but I think they're worth considering when you look at where you draw lines.

Would we count Nero, Sekiro, Raiden, Bionic Commando, and that guy from The Surge as disabled? They're more able than I am tbh

It's odd, been watching your stuff for years, but these and your dev diaries might just be my favorite, if not second only to your books. I love actually getting into the nuts, bolts, and philosophy of games and their creation

4:12 - The Pyro actually self-identifies as a mmhf-mhhp

This video is a great example of how conversations about "diversity in gaming" are often arbitrary, superficial, and pointless. Yahtzee even makes a joke or two to that effect.

Diversity of thought is the most important kind. You can have every color of the immutable rainbow, if everybody thinks the same and the medium is only viewing things through the lens of one set of ideas, then it fails to be diverse.

Thanks for doing the heavy lifting on this. Keep up the good work.

Cheers for doing the maths, my next social gathering won’t know what hit em

touhou has an all female cast but 'racially diverse' might be pushing it. most characters are japanese, with a few notable ones being vaguely european. theres a couple of chinese chracters and one character is allegedly persian, though she has pale skin and blonde hair (green eyes too but that's probably a trait of her species?) theres not a ton of variety in skin tones (this depends on the artist somewhat; series creator zun has an art style that ranges from "crudely drawn" to "rough" so fanartists have a lot more say than usual in this sort of thing). still having a cast of well over a hundred characters with only like 3 of them being male (a turtle who acts as a mount, a cloud creature that acts primarily as a support to another character, and a noncombatant shopkeeper who only appears in supplemental print works)

4:17 Skullgirls? Does that count?

I love this series more than the reviews. Pls more!

Thanks for the work, it was really interesting

Full Metal Furies is a great game that has a diverse human all female cast (at least on the heroes side of things) with some really clever puzzles and tough combat, highly recommend

How about ageism? I've never seen an adult female protagonist that wasn't in her mid 20's. Because once a woman is over 30 years old she ceases to exist, of course.

I feel like Yahtzee had fun with this one, it's nice.

the protagonist of the surge is disabled, until they screw an exoskeleton on him without anesthesia, that counts...

Yahtzee, you have way too much free time.

I think it's good to _explore_ a diverse range of stories, to see the life of this person and that person as they had diverse experiences, but I very much object to "whitewashing" history, of making it seem like racism didn't exist and every period of history was a friendly multicultural melting pot where everyone got along. That's just dumb. If you're going to set a project in a historical period, then accurately reflect that period, at least from a cultural perspective, don't just pretend that they were 2010s New Yorkers/Londoners who lived in a historical time.

Holy shit i've been trying to find the Conduit for years but genuinely couldnt remember the name and never expected it to show up again

An interesting thing is, when you mentioned that diversity was "not exactly representative of history", you showed the photograph Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima. Funnily enough, one of those five young men, Ira Hayes, was Native American, from the Pima tribe in Arizona. History is often much more diverse than most media has portrayed it, to the point that modern attempts to accurately show correct demographics are decried as "forced diversity"

Why is Dead or Alive not progressive. Look at the physics progression. These are the titles that have moved gaming forward. Remember triangle boobs? Now they can glimmer in the sun as well as bounce.

"if you only ever hear about perspectives from you and people like you, then you're thinking becomes stagnant" Absolutely...and the thing that gets my goat is that no one talks about how this is a two way street This can apply to EVERYONE in equal measure

interesting analysis. good work!

isn't the shark from maneater a "great white" (thank you, thank you. I'll see myself out)

I am a neuro diverge man and I love playing games since kid. My favourite protagonists are the silent ones. Because it feels like me. Passing through a harsh time alone and without spliting a single word. I am not playing God of War because kratos and atreus DO NOT SHUT THE FUCK UP.

DC Superhero Girls: Teen Power has six female playable characters, featuring two non-whites in the form of Wonder Woman and Catwoman. However it was also panned by audiences when it was announced during the Nintendo Direct for being a game targeted at young females... so that's the reaction you get when you go for a diverse cast of non-adult females.

That must have either taken a long time or a lot of people to organize that date.

4:23 absolutely killed me

Race is definitely a theme in Hamilton. It's certainly more deftly handled than by the work place abusers at Activision, but it is a theme.

Just for fun....portal, everyones fav: CHELL Her ethnic background is somewhat ambiguous; she appears to be of Latin or multiracial descent, and Valve concept artist Matt Charlesworth described her.

I remembered The Conduit. Not cause I ever actually bought, played or even saw the game in stores, just cause I remember watching the ZP episode on it.

I hope they keep up with Extra Punctuation. I love this series!

Final Fantasy X-2 has three female central characters and its japanese... so it counts? As says wikipedia: "Final Fantasy X-2 was the first game in the series to feature just three player characters and an all-female main cast."

4:15 would Skullgirls count? I haven't played it, but at a glance it seems diverse. If not, the only other games I can think of that fit the bill are stuff like Senran Kagura, which is just Dead Or Alive but with more anime.

Great video! Loved it

I really enjoy this analytical content

I want to do an adventure game playing as a dog

The thing is, AAA games just don't seem to have any interest in characterisation. There's a few notable exceptions, but they're intended to focus entirely on gameplay, with the characters just being a medium for it. In that sense, there can be no diversity in AAA games, simply because diversity is far more than having a non-white or non-hetero character. On the other hand, these are also the games with the most reach, so just having someone of a different race on the box is diversity in the sense of reminding white men that they aren't the only type of person who exists. Indie games are generally better at this, since they tend to be labours of love from a smaller team or individual, they will inherently put more effort into characterisation. The fact that they are more likely to have diversity amongst their creators then means that the characters being written are more likely to have a different viewpoint or background to the usual cis-white males. For instance, there's no way you could get a trans person as the protagonist of a AAA game, simply because it gets focus tested to oblivion, but a game that is written from that perspective from the ground up can tell a story that relies entirely on the protagonist being trans, and so explore what that diversity means. Basically, I don't think it's fair to look at AAA and indie games in the same way when it comes to diversity. The way they're made, and the approach that gives them to characterisation just makes it impossible to compare the two.

Hey, I remember The Conduit. Both of them. Even though I never played them. We wanted something that could show the Wii as the potential new home for console FPSs, and that didn't work out.

I love this series!

I think counting asian characters in asian games as white is kinda a wrong choice, the question "are games getting more diverse is posed by someone who's probably from the west so to them, japanese people are diverse since they aren't white. If you get what I mean

This is one of my favorite videos from Yahtzee by far, something about his humor along with tackling important social questions in games is very appealing to me lol

8:00 Come to think of it, the Fate franchise started out as an indy dating sim visual novel series that three branching paths depending on which girl you chose (woe be it to those who chose Sakura _holy heck_ is _that_ ever a messed up story) but as it grew in popularity in the west as result of fan translations and became a multimedia empire of a franchise, that player choice was abandoned and so were the dating sim elements. Fate/Extra isn't even a visual novel and _all_ the alternate endings are _bad_ endings, a fact the fanbase tries to cover for by encouraging you to see them. Not to mention that the s*xual elements were toned down for the re-release of FSN which had an official English translation (which would be a huge win for Sakura fans if the fanbase wasn't "oddly" upset about the disturbing content getting censored and the subtitled release of the anime adaption of her route kept to the original version of the story, leading to the dub to get straight butchered because there wasn't much that could be done because it's not a video game)

This is some great stuff!

The shark from man eater isn't unspecified. That's a great white shark, leaving female-unspecified with zero.

The other graph that's relevant to this is the one where the number of people complaining about lack of diversity has gone down while the number of people (racists, incels etc) complaining about diversity in games increasing has gone up

Touhou comes to mind as a popular video game series with an all-female cast.

I love Marcus Fenix being read as a grizzly.

Question. How do you decide that a female character is there to be ogled at? Are there any male characters that fit that description? :)