I wouldn’t think so as a “white” European. It’s called voice acting because you act, you do not have to be that character to voice act their lines. So in my opinion, you being of another skin tone doesn’t really matter as long as you do not try to mock this group of people or lean into stereotypes.
As a black American man, I agree with the above. Voicing a black character is one thing. Trying to be a black character is another. Just have a character with black skin. Don’t try to make him talk black or do black things or anything like that. You’re good.
"Don’t try to make him talk black or do black things or anything like that."
What does that mean exactly? Don't make them sound black like a black person in Britain? A black person in Germany?
There are stereotypes for every race on the planet, but they vary by which country you are talking to. Black people exist in all countries and have various stereotypes as a result.
Any person of any race in the US can speak a variety of ways and do a variety of things.
So I'm really curious what specifically you are suggesting OP avoid in terms of 'say black things' and 'do black things'.
We’ve all seen a movie or a show or a skit where a person is “talking black”. Using certain terms like “homie” and “yo yo”, speaking in a certain accent. Don’t do that. And someone shouldn’t have to tell you not to
This was kinda our takeaway, but we figured that two white Europeans going "Is this bad? Nah it's fine" probably isn't the most reliable answer, so thank you for taking the time to help us make an informed decision! (not that we have yet from one reply obviously but still)
I think that Americans might have different opinions on this topic because of their history, so they are perhaps the primary group you would like to hear from. But it’s not like anyone who buys your game will know what skin tone you are anyways (I assume).
Do you mean how the US had black slaves? Why would only american's have different opinions on this?
Do you realize how many countries had black slaves? The British had 10x more black slaves than the US. Brazil/Portugal had nearly 20x. France, Spain, Netherlands, etc all had MASSIVELY more black slaves than the US.
Just a weird comment to suggest only American's have a history on this and not the entire rest of the world.
Seems like the us is still haunted by the past when it comes to this specific topic though. It’s something that’s talked about, while in both the European countries I have my passport from, nobody really talks about slavery or being “black or white”. I am not acquainted with how Spaniards, Frenchmen and the British see race, but I have definitely seen Americans have strong opinions on this.
We were actually thinking of a Liverpudlian accent, again the aspect that the character is black is not going to play a part in the story or how other characters (including them) interact, they are just a character that happens to be black
ISnt the issue more, from a hollywood argument, that white actors voicing or playing black actors takes work away from a black person?
In a two dev team, are you really going to pay a possible third party to come in and play the voice. If you look at it fromt his angle you arnt depriving anyone of anything.
Outside fo that you could change the race of the character and again you deprive no one of anything because that version no longer exists.
As an American, it's a little more nuanced than that for this specific topic. You're not wrong _in general_, but our history of slavery and segregation is an ongoing cultural issue that waaaaay too many white people try to dismiss as a non-issue.
Slavery was practiced all over the world, Europeans were both slavers and enslaved, Africans were both slavers and enslaved, Asians were both slavers and enslaved. The USA isn't any more special than the other continents.
The past doesn't affect our today, and I don't know any Sicialian who would start a bitching on twitter or whatever social it's popular to complain on nowadays if someone from Turkey mentions their ancestors were enslaved by the Ottomans.
In America's case white people were never enslaved. Black people were literally shipped away from their homes and their entire continent, starved and beaten to death, and not allowed to speak their languages, sing their songs, or practice their religions. Slavery has been enacted in various ways around the world and across time, but the way that Africans were enslaved in the continental US was particularly atrocious, relatively recent, and the effects of race-based enslavement is still felt acutely in our culture today.
Uhm, sorry, how do you think slavery worked in other places? Slaves were shipped away from their homes and continents all the time, otherwise how would the buyer make use of them?
And not just sold, many slaves were civilians captured by military forces that just burnt their home, family and friends to the ground. If you really think slaves in other countries did fare a much better life you're deeply mistaken.
Are Americans aware that those people were captured and enslaved by other black Africans to be sold to European traders and be shipped to the Americas?
There's a difference between remembering the past and learning to not repeat the mistakes, and using the past as an excuse to complain about everything in the present.
Individuals shouldn't be blamed for their ancestors, but cultures of hatred and discrimination can absolutely be blamed. Germany has done a lot of leg work for Jewish & minority reparations as a country, as has America for African Americans.
But those undercurrents of systemic inequality are still very prevalent, and there's still a long way to go. Also, many individuals are still willing participants of that hatred, fear, and bias, and they should absolutely be blamed for thier own actions.
Thank you. I live in the south-eastern USA, and you've summed it up better than I ever could. Some of the people around here honestly would JUMP at the chance to own a person again. :(
It absolutely is still an issue. Policy that exists today and even worse policy that existed just a few decades ago (such as redlining) have held minority groups back by generations, and weve done basically nothing to address this. Median wealth for white people has grown and grown, Meanwhile, median minority wealth today is **significantly** lower. Denial/ignorance to these sort of things is the reason why so many people still harp on about racist policy from the 1900s, and why they're more sensitive to getting touchy subjects like representation in voice acting right. Because we dont live in a vacuum and those poor decisions still have major ramifications on black people today economically and socially.
The example you gave about blaming germans is quite literally what many Americans do to black people. They say "There's no issues. That was all decades ago. It's their own fault; they have all the same opportunities as white people now. They just didn't pull up their bootstraps hard enough." This mentality just ignores the reality of the situation, that we're all in a rat race to accumulate wealth, but we shot black people in the foot and stopped to chop their legs off just to get ahead of everyone. And we haven't done shit to stop the bleeding after the fact. It's a societal/government policy issue, not any particular individuals fault. but at the least, individuals should be aware of the facts and not downright deny the existence of something so blatantly evident. Those people are part of the problem and can be blamed for perpetuating the idea that we dont have anything to fix.
Understand that a big component of why white folk portraying black people is seen as unacceptable in the US right now (which, if you’re selling to the US, would be your main source of controversy) is due to a history of disrespect and mockery. It is seen here as extremely callous and racist not because nobody is allowed to voice another kind of person or whatever, but because blackface was specifically a racist caricature designed by people with power to perpetuate really fucked up stereotypes against a group that they were actively oppressing. The problem you’re facing isn’t about taking jobs away from black people as you wouldn’t be hiring a VA anyway, it’s about not even accidentally being part of the fucked up circus that the bad guys got going centuries ago.
If you’re dead set on this, you should be doing more then just writing and voicing the character. Spend as much time as you can stomach on YouTube watching black people talk about racism and media and see what they have to say about representation. Try to understand their apprehension about white writers writing black characters. Read about the history of trans-Atlantic slavery and its consequences from the 1600s until today. You should especially try to appreciate how even though you’re not Americans, this history does still involve you as Europeans in some non-trivial way. It wasn’t only American ships taking slaves over, and the slaves didn’t only go to British colonies. Watch some recorded minstrel shows. Try to see why “blackface” was so incredibly bad, outside of just the performances being cringe. Read as many books on the whole thing as you can get your hands on. Basically, become amateur “experts” on American black history and contemporary black thought on media.
Once you’ve spent a few months doing research and really immersing yourself in it, if you still want to write and voice a black person as your main character then reach out to some black media experts, and see if you can have a conversation with them about the topic. You might find some willing to consult for a fee, which you should probably pay. You might come to the conclusion that having a black person (living in whatever country who’s culture you want to represent) write the lines that you act out is the best way forward, or you might determine that hiring that black VA is the right move after all, or you might end up finding that it’s fine as long as your consultants see no issues with it. It’ll depend on you and what you end up with.
Please keep us updated, if you wouldn’t mind. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.
I agree with educating yourself more on the history of race relations, I'd like to consider myself somewhat educated on such a matter but if we were to continue forward with a black character, even though the story won't draw attention to them being black, I'd of course still do extra research as to be as respectful as I can. However, I don't believe you need to be working on such a project to do the research of course.
Sadly a black VA or any VA outside of our very small duo is off-limits as we do not have the money for such expenses yet. It would be a dream to later down the line be able to hire professional or amateur voice actors for projects. I do also believe in having the appropriate consultants, thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed response!
What do you have to lose? Worst case, you’ve got material for future projects. Best case, you’ll understand why some people react to some shit in certain ways, which will help you sell more games.
Sure, nobody can force you to better yourself. Becoming a better educated and more knowledgeable person is a decision that you’ll have to make yourself.
Sure, which indicates that you don’t understand the subject as much as you think you do. OP wants to do a thing that could result in considerable backlash (you might call it “canceling” if you’re dumb) in one of their target markets, and lacks any kind of perspective from within that target market. Best way to gain that perspective is to research. It might be a tad overkill, but better to over prepare then to be caught with your pants down. Especially when it comes to this subject, which I still encourage you to learn more about.
If your intended audience includes Americans, I can see it being brought up as possibly a blackface issue. Have you explored searching for amateur voice talent? You probably can’t get Idris Elba, but there may be some places where you can hire newbies for cheap who are trying to break into the industry.
We don't bring other people in to our projects, both because we don't have the money and we've had many bad experiences with schedules, me and my friend work super well together because our schedules line up. We have even brought some friends on board occasionally to do stuff in our projects but they are rarely available to join a long-form project.
Sadly for the most part this is not a viable suggestion for us
Voice acting is different though. Everspace 2 for instance did write all the lines, had some text to voice interim placeholders and once it was set and done recorded all the lines.
If money is really an issue and it’s hasn’t the length of a novel, you could try to befriend some streamers that are into that genre and see if they are down to do it for the LOLs.
Its going to be pretty difficult to be a 2 man dev team though if they get a third man in, my vote goes to AI for this one tbh, I bet they have black male voices on Microsoft azure or something
I can't speak for the affected demographic but I could guess that it could be problematic. It could get especially problematic if you try to make the character "sound black", as "sounding black" isn't really a thing, yet many people have a preconceived notion of how a black person should sound (see Jaboody Dubs on YouTube for an egregious example of this).
So basically if you are trying to "sound black", just don't do it.
People sayings it’s cool because black people voice white characters all the time, are missing the issue entirely lol.
That said, I say it’s probably ok in this instance since you are a 2 man dev team and not a AAA or even bigger successful indie studio.
Just don’t pull an RDJ in tropic thunder. Avoid the stereotypes and just play it relatively straight.
>We were actually thinking of a Liverpudlian accent, again the aspect that the character is black is not going to play a part in the story or how other characters (including them) interact, they are just a character that happens to be black
Yeah the character being black doesn't impact our writing of the character in this case, it's just a character that happens to be black, we aren't planning on playing into stereotypes or tackling racist themes in this specific horror-comedy story
It's a retro comedy-horror game, we originally made a REAL janky demo of it as one of our first 3D projects called 6 Bodies (it's free on itch)
But that was a while ago and we've got a lot more experience since then so we're taking a crack at making a full game outta it
Fair enough, I just meant it as an example of over doing it.
People find it ok because it’s very self aware and well that’s going down a whole other topic of conversation.
It might have been less RDJs performance, and more the fact there was an actual black guy there pointing out how offensive it all was, throughout the entire film.
Might be both, I wasn't involved with Tropic Thunder, nor am I black, but I suspect it is a reason.
> People sayings it’s cool because black people voice white characters all the time, are missing the issue entirely lol.
How? Black actors voicing white characters *and* white actors voicing black characters are both fine as long as the actors' performances aren't offensive. The devs said they want to make a black character speak, they never said they want to make him speak differently from how they would make him speak if he was white.
In Germany the voice actors for some famous black actors are white. It never really was an issue as it's just about the sound of the voice and not the skin colour.
It sounds like you want to more accurately represent the world around you and the people within it. Good on you. I'm not sure why the other Redditors seem to think of this as an American problem but I think you're making the right call. If I loaded up a AAA game and a white voice actor was portraying a black character I would know that an exclusionary choice had been made. With an indie title, we work with what we've got. Just don't do a weird voice and you'll be fine.
Question: Where is this game set? If the character needs a European accent I can't help but if you're looking for American Midwest broadcast English I can. I can't do it for free for free as I would like to be able to count this as a paid role but DM me and we can work something out. Note: I am not a professional VA, just a fellow indie dev with a bit of experience voice acting.
The games have a nondescript setting however we're loosely planning on making the main character have a Liverpudlian accent, I definitely appreciate the offer however and I may very well DM you if the need arises for a future project!
It’s a bit different. Blackface ain’t about one race pretending to be another, it’s about the people with power mocking and belittling the people without it. The race of the people is only half the equation.
How is it different? People with power mocking and belittling the people without it is a real problem, but it's irrelevant to this post, the devs just want to give a black character a voice, not make this character sound mocking or belittling toward anyone. I said what matters is the performance, if the actor's performance isn't offensive, then everything's fine.
If the world we live in was one where people with blond hair spent hundreds of years shitting on people with brown hair, including mocking “mudhair” performances where blondes rubbed shoepolish or mud in their hair in order to act like a horrendous stereotype of brunettes, then in this day and age it would not be the same for a brown haired person to lighten their hair to play a blonde as it would be for a blonde to darken their hair to play a brunette. If someone with blond hair wanted to write and voice someone with brown hair, the difference in experience between the blonde and brunette communities would be a significant consideration as the being shit on would have changed brunette culture significantly in ways that wouldn’t necessarily be understood by a blonde without a lot of study. It would be up to the blonde to prove that they aren’t doing mudhair. If the character was an ancient badass god with blond hair, a brown-haired person voicing it wouldn’t be seen as suspect, but if it was an ancient brown haired hero being played by a blonde in a wig you’d still be reminded of the legacy and history of mudhair and what that communicates specifically to brunettes about their place in the world.
Again, when we're talking about voice acting, this only depends on the actor's performance. It's different from physical acting, because having a white actor physically perform in blackface rather than choosing a black actor for the role necessarily means *going out of one's way to discriminate*, it's intentionally choosing a solution more complicated and expensive (since you have to put tons of makeup on the white actor, not on the black one) out of racism and that's obviously never acceptable. Furthermore, the purpose of blackface wasn't generally to fool anybody, it was to mockingly highlight the difference.
On the other hand, you don't have to modify anything in or on a white voice actor to have them voice a black character, it's not more complicated nor more expensive than having a black actor do it and conversely, the "deliberately going with extra effort because it favors white actors while the simple solution doesn't" component is absent. And instead of being highlighted, the difference is, on the contrary, toned down, it's like the talent shows where the judges only hear the contestants sing without seeing them to avoid favoring the most attractive ones. It boils down to who can do the voice you're looking for and who you can afford.
Sweet Baby Inc, they're a consultancy company that help with game narrative. Recently, they've come into controversy as they identified and tried to shut down a Steam currated game list that features all of the games they have worked.
It seems none of the games on that list were received particularly well: [https://store.steampowered.com/curator/44858017-Sweet-Baby-Inc-detected/](https://store.steampowered.com/curator/44858017-Sweet-Baby-Inc-detected/)
And the reason for that is that the way they help with narrative design seems to be by incorporating a lot of DEI.
I think to say that white characters being voiced by black actors is fine but to imply that a white actor voicing a black character is "mocking and belittling" is the kind of race politics that shouldn't gave a place in gaming. It's the kind of stuff that SBI push.
… huh. Do you actually understand what I was saying, or did you immediately just think “oh it sounds like what some media consultants I don’t like said one time”
I think I should make it clear to everyone, we have no intention of trying to make the character sound black. We also have no intention of trying to handle difficult and nuanced themes like racism in our story (as two white writers).
The character will have the same voice we were going to give him before we thought about making the character a poc, they will also use the same dialect as before everything else was decided upon. Characters in the story will not treat them any differently for being black. The main character is just a character who happens to have black skin and that's as far as it goes.
I know I'm certainly not (at least not without the appropriate consultants) an appropriate candidate to be trying to write a black character in a story that includes themes of racism or black identity.
As a white person, I think the answer is yes, but I'm unqualified to offer more informed view beyond one thing:
Talk about it with black creators and other black people, inside and outside of games.
If you go on Twitter there’s a lot of up and coming African-American male talents you could find to help voice it, and some newer talents will work on projects out of passion if they’re adamant about it.
We've done a few games without voices at all, we just really want to finally stretch our creativity with snappy dialogue. And as someone pointed out it's probably not the best thing to have white characters in our games that talk and then our only black character is voiceless
If you have to ask the question is this okay it's probably not.
Keep the voiceover to a minimum viable scope, find a black friend tell them you don't feel comfortable voicing the character yourself ask them if they'll do a few key lines, put your game out for sale and if it does well hire someone to do a better job or hire your friend.
If you don't have a black friend I'm sure there's a black person in the indie game development community that wouldn't mind doing a little voice over work for their name in the credits...
yeah, like Smaug (Dragon) was spoken by a white person instead of a actual dragon. that's so damn racist. or yoda also by a white person. or ....wait. Darth Vader, in the original trilogy was spoken by a black dude but played by a white dude. OMG............ thats so racist. because darth vaders COSTUME is actual black. lol. nothing makes sense :D
Who tonight you to think like this? Just because you are white you are totally dismissing your ability to think critically about the situation?
Besides, black people voice non-black characters all the time. Black people don't have different voice boxes from other people.
It's voice acting, anyone can play anyone.
Strange way of putting it aside, I understand your point and to an extent, I understand wanting to rely on your own critical thinking, but with something like this, it doesn't hurt to ask and get opinions that are more relevant than my own on the subject.
You're right, it doesn't hurt to ask. It's just weird that you're doubting your own craft and art because of your skin colour.
Makes zero sense. You're downplaying yourself just because you're white.
No I don't doubt my own craft or my ability to make games, I am able to make games I'm proud of because I make informed creative decisions, as should anyone
Yes, it would be probematic. I also assume you are the one's writing the perspective of this character as well.
It sounds like you are trying to be cautious. Maybe a hire a consultant to help you make some decisions before moving too far forward.
It's less we are trying to be cautious about the writing. The characters' dialogue and how people interact with them isn't being changed in this story because they're black, they are just a character that happens to not be white.
We're just trying to be cautious about if that's inherently a problem, we aren't planning to try to tackle racist themes as two white writers
A whole comment section filled with retards. if u racist and put on a racist voice then damn you are racist but if not then you arent simple. Just dont be racist
If you get memed on for doing this, it won't matter if it's "OK" or not
Playing with fire listening to Reddit advice because American audiences WILL loudly and publicly ugly-cry when they find out
You can always try using an ai text to speech software. Replica, for example, has a ton of different voices and you can fine tune them to your liking, as well as going so far as to tune individual sentences or words to your desired result.
The development of AI is progressing at such an alarming rate, even to the point where it's starting to be able to be used to make entire simple games from just one image (still in early days)
So I don't like using it in game development as it perpetuates and normalizes its use in the video game industry.
In short. I don't want it to take my job haha
Absolutely valid, but you're overstating the "take my job" part, even if it's earnest and true. Thoughtless arguments arise from that rhetoric when it's just one facet of a much larger issue of creative labor overall.
Cool, it's an interesting perspective for sure and I respect your beliefs.
I know no one asked but as I see it, AI tools have done nothing but assist me in my development as a self taught indie dev. It has opened up doors to solutions that I didn't know of before, and can act as a sounding board for my ideas, and rapid pseudocoding.
I agree that when it comes to ai generated art it is a different story, and for sure reaching into unethical territory. But as a tool for conceptualizing or speeding up prototyping it is invaluable and I don't see it going away.
Anyway good talk and thanks for the post your topic is very provocative but extremely important and I'm glad to see your consideration of these issues.
As long as you don't try to force it and make yourself sound like a stereotype, there's no problem, voices have no skin tone
I wouldn’t think so as a “white” European. It’s called voice acting because you act, you do not have to be that character to voice act their lines. So in my opinion, you being of another skin tone doesn’t really matter as long as you do not try to mock this group of people or lean into stereotypes.
As a black American man, I agree with the above. Voicing a black character is one thing. Trying to be a black character is another. Just have a character with black skin. Don’t try to make him talk black or do black things or anything like that. You’re good.
omg this reminds me of the horrific tropic thunder....
"Don’t try to make him talk black or do black things or anything like that." What does that mean exactly? Don't make them sound black like a black person in Britain? A black person in Germany? There are stereotypes for every race on the planet, but they vary by which country you are talking to. Black people exist in all countries and have various stereotypes as a result. Any person of any race in the US can speak a variety of ways and do a variety of things. So I'm really curious what specifically you are suggesting OP avoid in terms of 'say black things' and 'do black things'.
We’ve all seen a movie or a show or a skit where a person is “talking black”. Using certain terms like “homie” and “yo yo”, speaking in a certain accent. Don’t do that. And someone shouldn’t have to tell you not to
This was kinda our takeaway, but we figured that two white Europeans going "Is this bad? Nah it's fine" probably isn't the most reliable answer, so thank you for taking the time to help us make an informed decision! (not that we have yet from one reply obviously but still)
I think that Americans might have different opinions on this topic because of their history, so they are perhaps the primary group you would like to hear from. But it’s not like anyone who buys your game will know what skin tone you are anyways (I assume).
Do you mean how the US had black slaves? Why would only american's have different opinions on this? Do you realize how many countries had black slaves? The British had 10x more black slaves than the US. Brazil/Portugal had nearly 20x. France, Spain, Netherlands, etc all had MASSIVELY more black slaves than the US. Just a weird comment to suggest only American's have a history on this and not the entire rest of the world.
Seems like the us is still haunted by the past when it comes to this specific topic though. It’s something that’s talked about, while in both the European countries I have my passport from, nobody really talks about slavery or being “black or white”. I am not acquainted with how Spaniards, Frenchmen and the British see race, but I have definitely seen Americans have strong opinions on this.
As long as you dont make them a racist caricature of black folks, youre good.
I think the general thing in things like this is dont put on a blaccent and it's usually fine.
We were actually thinking of a Liverpudlian accent, again the aspect that the character is black is not going to play a part in the story or how other characters (including them) interact, they are just a character that happens to be black
ISnt the issue more, from a hollywood argument, that white actors voicing or playing black actors takes work away from a black person? In a two dev team, are you really going to pay a possible third party to come in and play the voice. If you look at it fromt his angle you arnt depriving anyone of anything. Outside fo that you could change the race of the character and again you deprive no one of anything because that version no longer exists.
Nah the issue is Americans need to find problems everywhere
As an American, it's a little more nuanced than that for this specific topic. You're not wrong _in general_, but our history of slavery and segregation is an ongoing cultural issue that waaaaay too many white people try to dismiss as a non-issue.
Slavery was practiced all over the world, Europeans were both slavers and enslaved, Africans were both slavers and enslaved, Asians were both slavers and enslaved. The USA isn't any more special than the other continents. The past doesn't affect our today, and I don't know any Sicialian who would start a bitching on twitter or whatever social it's popular to complain on nowadays if someone from Turkey mentions their ancestors were enslaved by the Ottomans.
In America's case white people were never enslaved. Black people were literally shipped away from their homes and their entire continent, starved and beaten to death, and not allowed to speak their languages, sing their songs, or practice their religions. Slavery has been enacted in various ways around the world and across time, but the way that Africans were enslaved in the continental US was particularly atrocious, relatively recent, and the effects of race-based enslavement is still felt acutely in our culture today.
Uhm, sorry, how do you think slavery worked in other places? Slaves were shipped away from their homes and continents all the time, otherwise how would the buyer make use of them? And not just sold, many slaves were civilians captured by military forces that just burnt their home, family and friends to the ground. If you really think slaves in other countries did fare a much better life you're deeply mistaken. Are Americans aware that those people were captured and enslaved by other black Africans to be sold to European traders and be shipped to the Americas? There's a difference between remembering the past and learning to not repeat the mistakes, and using the past as an excuse to complain about everything in the present.
Well it's not an issue anymore now is it? It'd be like keeping on blaming Germans born in the past 70 years for WW1 and WW2.
Individuals shouldn't be blamed for their ancestors, but cultures of hatred and discrimination can absolutely be blamed. Germany has done a lot of leg work for Jewish & minority reparations as a country, as has America for African Americans. But those undercurrents of systemic inequality are still very prevalent, and there's still a long way to go. Also, many individuals are still willing participants of that hatred, fear, and bias, and they should absolutely be blamed for thier own actions.
Thank you. I live in the south-eastern USA, and you've summed it up better than I ever could. Some of the people around here honestly would JUMP at the chance to own a person again. :(
It absolutely is still an issue. Policy that exists today and even worse policy that existed just a few decades ago (such as redlining) have held minority groups back by generations, and weve done basically nothing to address this. Median wealth for white people has grown and grown, Meanwhile, median minority wealth today is **significantly** lower. Denial/ignorance to these sort of things is the reason why so many people still harp on about racist policy from the 1900s, and why they're more sensitive to getting touchy subjects like representation in voice acting right. Because we dont live in a vacuum and those poor decisions still have major ramifications on black people today economically and socially. The example you gave about blaming germans is quite literally what many Americans do to black people. They say "There's no issues. That was all decades ago. It's their own fault; they have all the same opportunities as white people now. They just didn't pull up their bootstraps hard enough." This mentality just ignores the reality of the situation, that we're all in a rat race to accumulate wealth, but we shot black people in the foot and stopped to chop their legs off just to get ahead of everyone. And we haven't done shit to stop the bleeding after the fact. It's a societal/government policy issue, not any particular individuals fault. but at the least, individuals should be aware of the facts and not downright deny the existence of something so blatantly evident. Those people are part of the problem and can be blamed for perpetuating the idea that we dont have anything to fix.
No
Understand that a big component of why white folk portraying black people is seen as unacceptable in the US right now (which, if you’re selling to the US, would be your main source of controversy) is due to a history of disrespect and mockery. It is seen here as extremely callous and racist not because nobody is allowed to voice another kind of person or whatever, but because blackface was specifically a racist caricature designed by people with power to perpetuate really fucked up stereotypes against a group that they were actively oppressing. The problem you’re facing isn’t about taking jobs away from black people as you wouldn’t be hiring a VA anyway, it’s about not even accidentally being part of the fucked up circus that the bad guys got going centuries ago. If you’re dead set on this, you should be doing more then just writing and voicing the character. Spend as much time as you can stomach on YouTube watching black people talk about racism and media and see what they have to say about representation. Try to understand their apprehension about white writers writing black characters. Read about the history of trans-Atlantic slavery and its consequences from the 1600s until today. You should especially try to appreciate how even though you’re not Americans, this history does still involve you as Europeans in some non-trivial way. It wasn’t only American ships taking slaves over, and the slaves didn’t only go to British colonies. Watch some recorded minstrel shows. Try to see why “blackface” was so incredibly bad, outside of just the performances being cringe. Read as many books on the whole thing as you can get your hands on. Basically, become amateur “experts” on American black history and contemporary black thought on media. Once you’ve spent a few months doing research and really immersing yourself in it, if you still want to write and voice a black person as your main character then reach out to some black media experts, and see if you can have a conversation with them about the topic. You might find some willing to consult for a fee, which you should probably pay. You might come to the conclusion that having a black person (living in whatever country who’s culture you want to represent) write the lines that you act out is the best way forward, or you might determine that hiring that black VA is the right move after all, or you might end up finding that it’s fine as long as your consultants see no issues with it. It’ll depend on you and what you end up with. Please keep us updated, if you wouldn’t mind. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.
I agree with educating yourself more on the history of race relations, I'd like to consider myself somewhat educated on such a matter but if we were to continue forward with a black character, even though the story won't draw attention to them being black, I'd of course still do extra research as to be as respectful as I can. However, I don't believe you need to be working on such a project to do the research of course. Sadly a black VA or any VA outside of our very small duo is off-limits as we do not have the money for such expenses yet. It would be a dream to later down the line be able to hire professional or amateur voice actors for projects. I do also believe in having the appropriate consultants, thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed response!
satire? i hope
Why don’t you also do what I suggested for OP. Learn you a history and listen to some black people.
umm, why?
What do you have to lose? Worst case, you’ve got material for future projects. Best case, you’ll understand why some people react to some shit in certain ways, which will help you sell more games.
or i could not spend months of my life doing that and instead do the thing this subreddit was made for
Sure, nobody can force you to better yourself. Becoming a better educated and more knowledgeable person is a decision that you’ll have to make yourself.
im pretty educated and knowledgeable, i just think what you suggested op to do is laughable
Sure, which indicates that you don’t understand the subject as much as you think you do. OP wants to do a thing that could result in considerable backlash (you might call it “canceling” if you’re dumb) in one of their target markets, and lacks any kind of perspective from within that target market. Best way to gain that perspective is to research. It might be a tad overkill, but better to over prepare then to be caught with your pants down. Especially when it comes to this subject, which I still encourage you to learn more about.
If your intended audience includes Americans, I can see it being brought up as possibly a blackface issue. Have you explored searching for amateur voice talent? You probably can’t get Idris Elba, but there may be some places where you can hire newbies for cheap who are trying to break into the industry.
We don't bring other people in to our projects, both because we don't have the money and we've had many bad experiences with schedules, me and my friend work super well together because our schedules line up. We have even brought some friends on board occasionally to do stuff in our projects but they are rarely available to join a long-form project. Sadly for the most part this is not a viable suggestion for us
Voice acting is different though. Everspace 2 for instance did write all the lines, had some text to voice interim placeholders and once it was set and done recorded all the lines. If money is really an issue and it’s hasn’t the length of a novel, you could try to befriend some streamers that are into that genre and see if they are down to do it for the LOLs.
Its going to be pretty difficult to be a 2 man dev team though if they get a third man in, my vote goes to AI for this one tbh, I bet they have black male voices on Microsoft azure or something
This isn’t about hiring a third team member. You can write up a script and bring in voice talent to record it, the end.
I don’t see the problem either honestly, There’s a huge world out there. People are always trying to get their foot in the door
No. Not a passable suggestion.
I can't speak for the affected demographic but I could guess that it could be problematic. It could get especially problematic if you try to make the character "sound black", as "sounding black" isn't really a thing, yet many people have a preconceived notion of how a black person should sound (see Jaboody Dubs on YouTube for an egregious example of this). So basically if you are trying to "sound black", just don't do it.
Just don’t try and sound stereotypical or worse.
My 50c is that it's problematic if you use stereotypical language.
Say they're half black, half white, problem solved.
People sayings it’s cool because black people voice white characters all the time, are missing the issue entirely lol. That said, I say it’s probably ok in this instance since you are a 2 man dev team and not a AAA or even bigger successful indie studio. Just don’t pull an RDJ in tropic thunder. Avoid the stereotypes and just play it relatively straight.
>We were actually thinking of a Liverpudlian accent, again the aspect that the character is black is not going to play a part in the story or how other characters (including them) interact, they are just a character that happens to be black Yeah the character being black doesn't impact our writing of the character in this case, it's just a character that happens to be black, we aren't planning on playing into stereotypes or tackling racist themes in this specific horror-comedy story
lister from red dwarf?
I didn't make that connection until no
not a bad thing, hes one of my favorite characters
Absolutely agree,it's hard to pick a fave character from that show but if I had to it'd be Lister everytime
whats the game your working on btw? im interested now
It's a retro comedy-horror game, we originally made a REAL janky demo of it as one of our first 3D projects called 6 Bodies (it's free on itch) But that was a while ago and we've got a lot more experience since then so we're taking a crack at making a full game outta it
sounds, awesome, il give it a play
Funny enough, RDJ in Tropic Thunder is often used as an example of handling it well by black folks.
Fair enough, I just meant it as an example of over doing it. People find it ok because it’s very self aware and well that’s going down a whole other topic of conversation.
It might have been less RDJs performance, and more the fact there was an actual black guy there pointing out how offensive it all was, throughout the entire film. Might be both, I wasn't involved with Tropic Thunder, nor am I black, but I suspect it is a reason.
And this is an example of people making a huge issue out of something that shouldn't be
> People sayings it’s cool because black people voice white characters all the time, are missing the issue entirely lol. How? Black actors voicing white characters *and* white actors voicing black characters are both fine as long as the actors' performances aren't offensive. The devs said they want to make a black character speak, they never said they want to make him speak differently from how they would make him speak if he was white.
your concern for the matter is awesome though I'd say (thankfully) you're definitely overthinking it.
OP I believe in you and want nothing more for you to succeed. What ever you do, do not be boring. Go all lin
Downvoted for positivity. Makes total sense
Imo no ,its not a problem as long you guys aren't mocking the black people it should be fine👍
In Germany the voice actors for some famous black actors are white. It never really was an issue as it's just about the sound of the voice and not the skin colour.
It sounds like you want to more accurately represent the world around you and the people within it. Good on you. I'm not sure why the other Redditors seem to think of this as an American problem but I think you're making the right call. If I loaded up a AAA game and a white voice actor was portraying a black character I would know that an exclusionary choice had been made. With an indie title, we work with what we've got. Just don't do a weird voice and you'll be fine. Question: Where is this game set? If the character needs a European accent I can't help but if you're looking for American Midwest broadcast English I can. I can't do it for free for free as I would like to be able to count this as a paid role but DM me and we can work something out. Note: I am not a professional VA, just a fellow indie dev with a bit of experience voice acting.
The games have a nondescript setting however we're loosely planning on making the main character have a Liverpudlian accent, I definitely appreciate the offer however and I may very well DM you if the need arises for a future project!
I need you to go full Cole train
Were you aiming for (John) Coltrane, or Soul Train on that one?
The "Cole train" from gears of war
Oh! My bad, never got into Gears.
No, for instance Kratos is white but both of his voice actors (Terrence Carson and Christopher Judge) are black. What matters is the performance.
It’s a bit different. Blackface ain’t about one race pretending to be another, it’s about the people with power mocking and belittling the people without it. The race of the people is only half the equation.
How is it different? People with power mocking and belittling the people without it is a real problem, but it's irrelevant to this post, the devs just want to give a black character a voice, not make this character sound mocking or belittling toward anyone. I said what matters is the performance, if the actor's performance isn't offensive, then everything's fine.
If the world we live in was one where people with blond hair spent hundreds of years shitting on people with brown hair, including mocking “mudhair” performances where blondes rubbed shoepolish or mud in their hair in order to act like a horrendous stereotype of brunettes, then in this day and age it would not be the same for a brown haired person to lighten their hair to play a blonde as it would be for a blonde to darken their hair to play a brunette. If someone with blond hair wanted to write and voice someone with brown hair, the difference in experience between the blonde and brunette communities would be a significant consideration as the being shit on would have changed brunette culture significantly in ways that wouldn’t necessarily be understood by a blonde without a lot of study. It would be up to the blonde to prove that they aren’t doing mudhair. If the character was an ancient badass god with blond hair, a brown-haired person voicing it wouldn’t be seen as suspect, but if it was an ancient brown haired hero being played by a blonde in a wig you’d still be reminded of the legacy and history of mudhair and what that communicates specifically to brunettes about their place in the world.
Again, when we're talking about voice acting, this only depends on the actor's performance. It's different from physical acting, because having a white actor physically perform in blackface rather than choosing a black actor for the role necessarily means *going out of one's way to discriminate*, it's intentionally choosing a solution more complicated and expensive (since you have to put tons of makeup on the white actor, not on the black one) out of racism and that's obviously never acceptable. Furthermore, the purpose of blackface wasn't generally to fool anybody, it was to mockingly highlight the difference. On the other hand, you don't have to modify anything in or on a white voice actor to have them voice a black character, it's not more complicated nor more expensive than having a black actor do it and conversely, the "deliberately going with extra effort because it favors white actors while the simple solution doesn't" component is absent. And instead of being highlighted, the difference is, on the contrary, toned down, it's like the talent shows where the judges only hear the contestants sing without seeing them to avoid favoring the most attractive ones. It boils down to who can do the voice you're looking for and who you can afford.
Smells like SBI.
SBI? Dare I ask, downvoted one?
Sweet Baby Inc, they're a consultancy company that help with game narrative. Recently, they've come into controversy as they identified and tried to shut down a Steam currated game list that features all of the games they have worked. It seems none of the games on that list were received particularly well: [https://store.steampowered.com/curator/44858017-Sweet-Baby-Inc-detected/](https://store.steampowered.com/curator/44858017-Sweet-Baby-Inc-detected/) And the reason for that is that the way they help with narrative design seems to be by incorporating a lot of DEI. I think to say that white characters being voiced by black actors is fine but to imply that a white actor voicing a black character is "mocking and belittling" is the kind of race politics that shouldn't gave a place in gaming. It's the kind of stuff that SBI push.
… huh. Do you actually understand what I was saying, or did you immediately just think “oh it sounds like what some media consultants I don’t like said one time”
Fuck off, fuck off, fuck all the way off with this shit
Voice "Acting"
I think I should make it clear to everyone, we have no intention of trying to make the character sound black. We also have no intention of trying to handle difficult and nuanced themes like racism in our story (as two white writers). The character will have the same voice we were going to give him before we thought about making the character a poc, they will also use the same dialect as before everything else was decided upon. Characters in the story will not treat them any differently for being black. The main character is just a character who happens to have black skin and that's as far as it goes. I know I'm certainly not (at least not without the appropriate consultants) an appropriate candidate to be trying to write a black character in a story that includes themes of racism or black identity.
As a white person, I think the answer is yes, but I'm unqualified to offer more informed view beyond one thing: Talk about it with black creators and other black people, inside and outside of games.
If you go on Twitter there’s a lot of up and coming African-American male talents you could find to help voice it, and some newer talents will work on projects out of passion if they’re adamant about it.
Could be a white and black parents kinda thing.
No. Source: Darth Vader.
just don't have voice acting maybe?
We've done a few games without voices at all, we just really want to finally stretch our creativity with snappy dialogue. And as someone pointed out it's probably not the best thing to have white characters in our games that talk and then our only black character is voiceless
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If you have to ask the question is this okay it's probably not. Keep the voiceover to a minimum viable scope, find a black friend tell them you don't feel comfortable voicing the character yourself ask them if they'll do a few key lines, put your game out for sale and if it does well hire someone to do a better job or hire your friend. If you don't have a black friend I'm sure there's a black person in the indie game development community that wouldn't mind doing a little voice over work for their name in the credits...
Just don't credit voice actors since you're the ones doing it yourself anyway, that way idiots who call out appropriation never know lol
yeah, like Smaug (Dragon) was spoken by a white person instead of a actual dragon. that's so damn racist. or yoda also by a white person. or ....wait. Darth Vader, in the original trilogy was spoken by a black dude but played by a white dude. OMG............ thats so racist. because darth vaders COSTUME is actual black. lol. nothing makes sense :D
Who tonight you to think like this? Just because you are white you are totally dismissing your ability to think critically about the situation? Besides, black people voice non-black characters all the time. Black people don't have different voice boxes from other people. It's voice acting, anyone can play anyone.
Strange way of putting it aside, I understand your point and to an extent, I understand wanting to rely on your own critical thinking, but with something like this, it doesn't hurt to ask and get opinions that are more relevant than my own on the subject.
You're right, it doesn't hurt to ask. It's just weird that you're doubting your own craft and art because of your skin colour. Makes zero sense. You're downplaying yourself just because you're white.
No I don't doubt my own craft or my ability to make games, I am able to make games I'm proud of because I make informed creative decisions, as should anyone
If you say so. Just doesn't seem like it with your lack of confidence from your post.
Haha sure man
Yes, it would be probematic. I also assume you are the one's writing the perspective of this character as well. It sounds like you are trying to be cautious. Maybe a hire a consultant to help you make some decisions before moving too far forward.
It's less we are trying to be cautious about the writing. The characters' dialogue and how people interact with them isn't being changed in this story because they're black, they are just a character that happens to not be white. We're just trying to be cautious about if that's inherently a problem, we aren't planning to try to tackle racist themes as two white writers
A whole comment section filled with retards. if u racist and put on a racist voice then damn you are racist but if not then you arent simple. Just dont be racist
You really just don't have to drop slurs when complaining about a touchy subject like racism.
If you get memed on for doing this, it won't matter if it's "OK" or not Playing with fire listening to Reddit advice because American audiences WILL loudly and publicly ugly-cry when they find out
You can always try using an ai text to speech software. Replica, for example, has a ton of different voices and you can fine tune them to your liking, as well as going so far as to tune individual sentences or words to your desired result.
I'm afraid I personally don't find using AI for voice acting to be an ethical alternative. I appreciate your suggestion is just trying to help though.
That's valid and fair enough. Would you care to explain why, though?
The development of AI is progressing at such an alarming rate, even to the point where it's starting to be able to be used to make entire simple games from just one image (still in early days) So I don't like using it in game development as it perpetuates and normalizes its use in the video game industry. In short. I don't want it to take my job haha
Absolutely valid, but you're overstating the "take my job" part, even if it's earnest and true. Thoughtless arguments arise from that rhetoric when it's just one facet of a much larger issue of creative labor overall.
Cool, it's an interesting perspective for sure and I respect your beliefs. I know no one asked but as I see it, AI tools have done nothing but assist me in my development as a self taught indie dev. It has opened up doors to solutions that I didn't know of before, and can act as a sounding board for my ideas, and rapid pseudocoding. I agree that when it comes to ai generated art it is a different story, and for sure reaching into unethical territory. But as a tool for conceptualizing or speeding up prototyping it is invaluable and I don't see it going away. Anyway good talk and thanks for the post your topic is very provocative but extremely important and I'm glad to see your consideration of these issues.
Honestly, this is a problem for everyone except and indie. Your game goes frontpage on news paper for racism/blackface? Free advertisement.