When Ethnicity mating Gender…

In the lecture, we surely had a lot of negative examples of how both the female and the ethnical community are represented incorrectly in the world of video game. People are craving for the source of all conventions to be found. In one hand, we could blame the programmers and their irresponsibly of not doing the right thing. In other hand, we could also blame the society which allows these perceived incorrect social stereotypes to be spread wide out. The digital image of the black community, in large, is the worst, especially if comparing to all others. They are shown as aggressive, violent and anti-socialism. Their living is interpreted as no contributions besides poisoning the good and honest. We all know it is wrong, but once we play the game, everything seems normal, so therefore, I wonder why? The image of female is better, but not that better. It has its improvement, only in two ways, and both of them are remediation of extremism; either the female is weaker and helpless than ever as the convention or they ridiculously powerful even than men. The following game is what I called, the “Perfect example of, when Ethnicity mates Gender, what is their kid looks like”, now let me introduce you the lovely and pretty, Mirror’s Edge (2008).

If you have played the game, you should know this game is a combination of inventions. First of all, the protagonist is a woman, not a man, and also she is not a Western woman, such as Lora Craft, but as an Asian. Her name is Faith Connors. Doesn’t sound like a name Asian should has, do it? No, according to the development team DIEC, she is a mix-blood, Asian and European. In the history of gaming, we, without doubt, don’t get a lot of Asian leading the game, aren’t we? Is she weak? I am not sure, because I don’t know which or what to compare to; if comparing to superwoman, then she is just ordinary as everybody else, but if it is Lora Craft we are talking about, then I think it is fully appropriate to call her, super nature. Following are the skills she learned from her mentor Mercury; the skill of running and the skill of combating. Sounds normal, however, in the game, she is a lot impressive and amazing. She can run as fast as she wants without taking a break, and she can jump as far as she needs without the fear of height and of the damage that could be done if she lands her face instead of her feet first. While running and jumping, the player is empowered by the agency to interact with many objects, mostly the walls, but also all kinds of pipe, even helicopter. When character is creative, the gameplay is creative, but when all facts are gathered, they simply didn’t result in good sells. Why?

The Xbox360 and PS3 version of Mirror’s Edge was first published in North America on November 11^th 2008, and late the 14^th in Europe. However, its reception was rather a depression. The game was only sold 60,000 copies in Europe, and not much more in any other countries. Although at the end of 2008, EA and DICE confirmed that the game was sold in total of over one million copies, but still, it was way below their expectation. A game made by the team which crafts Battlefield surely resulted as a huge disappointment. I wonder if this has anything to do with its ethnicity issue and gender issue, and I hope not. Lucky we, the authorities and critics were in conscious. They blamed the failures on the narrative and map design, not because of the Asian Female. If you haven’t try the game yet, I recommend you to try it out.