No, seriously, where the fuck are they?
I was just having a talk with a friend about how Batman would sound with a grimey hip hop beats instead of an orchestra and the conversation turned into video games.
How amazing would it be to play a psychological thriller set in the South where your Black character’s car breaks down and you come across an old plantation at night and all of a sudden, Del the Funky Homosapien starts whispering lyrics in your ears from generations ago?
How amazing would it be to play an RPG set in the ’20s, where jazz clubs and prohibition made Black people rich before the jealous, drunk white people came set their city aflame?
Where in the ENTIRE FUCK is my Boondocks fighting game?!
As a black gamer, I feel like this niche has been virtually untapped. To have a game that is unapologetically Black would mean mostly white developers would have to break the mold of their cookie cutter “tall, dark and mysterious” boring white guy and actually try to make a game that other players of their the gamer demographic can play.
I mean, yeah, making white people mad for making a game about killing Nazis that’s always been about killing Nazis is funny and all, but the real good side busting laughs come from making white people yell about Black people killing the KKK at they own rally.
Def Jam: Fight for NY is the only game I can think of that is unapologetically Black and that game came out in 2004. It’s bittersweet, really, because the game did really well and yet there hasn’t been another game like it since.
An Unapologetically Black game would mean having to allow ourselves to be just that. Any game and music genre, Black people can make it Black. Especially as Black people of the Diaspora.
My only hope for this genre is that person who does it will be hailed like Rihanna with Fenty Beauty, with bigger gaming companies suddenly going “YA KNOW WHAT, MAYBE THERE IS A MARKET FOR BLACK PEOPLE AFTER ALL.”
It’s been 50-11 years of gaming, there only a handful of games that star Black women/girls as a main character. It’s been 50-11 years of gaming and there’s still little to no Black main characters in gaming award categories.
Let’s just make our own, then.
Robin's Writings 