From Witch Slayer to Pimp Slayer

The lecture on Friday was an interesting one with quite a lot of heated debate around the Resident Evil 5 trailer. I personally think whilst not inherently racist - it did touch a nerve deep down inside me. There are two strong arguments which I wont get into as most people have already discussed it; so I'll talk about how after the lecture I had my own little epiphany around ethnicity in games. I was playing a game called HoN (similar to WoW) where you can choose one of 90 heroes and run around the map killing things. The game has standard avatars - and through playing well (or buying) you can buy alternative avatars. One of the heroes is Witch Slayer - a kind of bad ass white religious demon slayer ....... his alternative avatar.... PIMP slayer....and what do you know? His skin ,changes from white to black - just because the hero is modelled around a Pimp. While not racist, it does clearly show how flawed ethnicity in video games can be.