I’m actually of the argument/stance that games are being manufactured based off a specific age demographic and not based off a person’s race, sex or religious belief.
So, is the argument here that:
TMNT
Stranger Things
Star Wars
Elvira
Jurassic Park
Iron Maiden
DeadPool
Munsters
Beatles
Black Knight SOR
etc are inherently racist or are tailored to people of a specific race? I’d say that those titles are all tailored towards a specific age group and not a specific race. Out of that list (and I know it’s not a full list) all I could think of if I really tried to support that argument of games being tailored towards white men is:
Elvira - Feels kind of sexist to me. A girl flaunting her figure and not exactly speaking in a form of intelligence. I can’t imagine that is inviting towards women. Why was it celebrated so much by the same community that says we need to do something about sexism in the sport?
Black Knight SOR - Really stretching here but why is he the “black” knight?
I know the history and nostalgia behind those themes which is why I don’t feel people (in general) show any sort of offense towards them but that just leaves a bunch of games that were built with the mindset of middle aged men and women of all backgrounds trying to relive their childhood.
I know one point of the argument would be to focus on a game with the main characters as people of color but then that is judging a theme based off a stance of race which is inherently part of the separation and segmentation that we are inherently saying is bad. I.E. it can’t be OK to say you can’t use race as a reason to build something but at the same time it is OK to look specifically for race to build something.
If you notice in my comment I specifically started off with “belief”. That is because tend to feel pinball companies tend to market towards a particular type of person which is the group of middle aged people looking to relive their childhood through a pinball machine. I would honestly like to know what is inherently racist or sexist about the other themes that I mentioned that was made to support only white players. That would be posing the argument that people of color or women are offended by those themes.
I don’t think the choice of themes by pinball companies is racist. I think any pinball company would license or make ANY theme that they thought would sell thousands of games. The problem is that the market has shown that there is demand for only a small subset of themes, and that has nothing to do with race. Look at Wheel of Fortune… whatever demographic that game was designed for failed to materialize as buyers. There are no games based on philosophy, poetry, religion, etc. There are no more games based on nature, playing cards, pool or any other of the themes we used to get. Meanwhile people are falling over themselves to buy a game about a puking, drunk-ass dimension-traveling grandpa. We created our own market and it is… unusual
If we want games with BIPOC themes, we need to show the manufacturers there’s a market for them. Chicken and egg problem however… how do we show there’s a market when there’s no product to buy in the first place?
Solution is to try to get more BIPOC into pinball using the games we have, which should eventually generate the demand for a better variety of licenses and themes. I wouldn’t focus on the manufacturers just yet until we can show there’s a better market for the product you’re asking them to make.
What about the latest pinball themes makes them directed at a “white audience?” Is it just that they lack black characters? or am I missing something about how black people have a common set of interests?
Something I think I’ve mentioned prior but I don’t think I did so in this topic: For some reason, 82 in Los Angeles is right next to the Little Tokyo district, yet very few people from Little Tokyo or visiting it go over to 82. I know it’s part of the Arts District, but it’s right at the borderline between them–Little Tokyo Market Place is right across the street from it. The inverse is true too: I’ve visited 82 many times, and for some reason, people are confused when I speak of going to eat at Kouraku or Shin-Sen-Gumi despite it being 10 minutes of walking at most. I love 82, how it’s run, and the people there, but I just always found this little quirk puzzling. It’s like they don’t even know Little Tokyo is right out the window.
it’s really more of an issue of cultural interconnectivity and the odd lack thereof, but I always felt it odd there’s so little intermingling. It speaks of a larger issue in that I live in one of the “melting pot” metropolises, but there are comparatively few locations on Pinball Map in non-white communities. (AYCE Gogi is a major exception though, being a large public collection in a Korean restaurant in an ethnically mixed neighborhood–there is a middle eastern supermarket at the same intersection as it, and grocery shoppers there DO cross over to go eat and play pinball there.)
I feel like if there’s going to be a new competitor into the market when we get some sense of normalcy again, that might be a good untapped set of audiences. We’ve had precedence in the past, such as BET becoming the huge success it is now because they found an underserved audience. Various streaming services have also found themselves able to hold up against Hulu, Netflix, and the like by showing things the big streamers don’t deem worth keeping around. Crunchyroll is a good example, showing a large amount of anime at a time when Hulu dropped most of it, and it became a property hot enough for AT&T to acquire (and now Amazon Prime is building up an anime collection).
A new company will be in a better position to do this than established companies because they’re goiong in with 1) a different line of thinking with fewer established rules and 2) a lot less at stake than an established company. One can also assemble an entire development team focused on serving these audiences. That’s exactly what those above examples did, having been built from the ground up for the audiences they have.
I recently finished White Fragility (linked above), and it very clearly highlights the problems with comments like “just treat everyone the same!” And “white supremecist = kkk”. And when White people basically shut down when they read “polarizing” comments. It’s good, quick read!
Meanwhile at deeproot headquarters, quoted from TWIP:
After an image of designer Barry Oursler in a Halloween black face costume made the rounds last week, This Week in Pinball reached out to deeproot for comment. Robert Mueller, Principal of the deeproot Family of Companies, shared the following:
“We have been made aware of an old photo of a deeproot employee in a Halloween costume that could be considered offensive. deeproot is proud to employ a diverse and colorful team of employees from all backgrounds who enjoy a safe and non-discriminatory work environment. The recent discovery of this photo has not changed anything about that and we continue to work together towards redefining the next century of pinball.”
It’s a basically non-statement. It’s boils down to “We’ve been made aware of this problematic thing one of our well-known employees did. Anyway, rest assured that business will continue as usual.”
More specifically, describing blackface as “could be considered offensive” is a big yikes and signals that they don’t really think it’s a big deal. Even if it happened X decades ago, it’s important to make it clear that they condemn that sort of behavior and they will not tolerate employees that engage in racist acts. That being said, I do think that firing him over an old photo would be an overreaction (Assuming it didn’t happen while he was actually working at deeproot and assuming he hasn’t displayed other problematic behavior).
Yeah, they can at least say something like, “The connotations of this photograph do not reflect us as a company,” “Mr. Oursler deeply regrets having dressed up like this and says he will not make this mistake again,” or “As a company in 2020, we will not tolerate this sort of display today.” These are the sort of disclaimers used in the Looney Tunes home video collections, whose shorts are completely uncensored but give you a heads-up that they were from many decades ago and don’t reflect Warner Bros. in the present.
That being said, I have been in some rather…toxic (for a lack of a better word) communities that would prefer the sort of response they give out, since to them, to do so otherwise is deemed “giving in” or “chickening out.” But to my knowledge, Deeproot doesn’t intend to be seen as the sort of company that digs in its heels when called out on.
I agree and I think that’s an appropriate response to a photo from years ago when Barry didn’t even work for Deeproot.
When I see someone in blackface I don’t get the joke but I recognize it’s an attempt at humor. I don’t believe it makes a statement about them being superior. What do you think when you see it?
I just want to make it clear before this line of commenting goes any farther that blackface is, in fact, racist and offensive. Period. If people want to debate how Deeproot responded to the behavior of one of its employees then that is fine. However, we are not going to debate whether or not blackface is racist or how offensive it is or isn’t. There’s plenty of resources out there everyone can use to educate themselves on this topic. Thank you.
You have to approach the machine and put money in before you learn that Ernie is your guide though. Obviously, he is on the backglass but is not the prominent character.
I agree on your point about these pins focusing on marketing to ages, not race. People of any race or background can and did enjoy most franchises on this list.
Agreed on Elvira. Black Knight because it’s the first thing Steve Ritchie thought of as cool?
I guess the difference for me is that most of these properties have white characters as the protagonists. Obviously, there are exceptions here with turtles and whatever EDDIE is. So even though race may not be considered in the choice, the theme is #sowhite.
I think it would make a difference to see a Black Panther or Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse (Myles Morales) pin. Spiderverse has a second movie being written. Maybe that one is realistic for Stern? The soundtrack would be amazing. Would a petition for a theme like Spiderverse be a realistic way to show manufacturers that there is interest?
I don’t want to derail the conversation but I want to make a quick note re: Elvira.
I can see how people who may not be familiar with Elvira would think women may find anything Elvira-related to be sexist, however there’s more to her than you may realize at first glance. Cassandra Peterson created (and still owns right to everything) Elvira as a woman who isn’t sexualized for the audience, male gaze, etc, but for herself. The Elvira persona proposes that women can exist in a world and be goofy, odd, self-empowered, and different.
Would be happy to continue the Elvira convo in another post or thread if necessary so as to not take away from this original topic.
I think these would both be so awesome. I am curious how expensive licensing would be for either of these (likely astronomical), and while I’m sure any license is a pretty big risk especially in a time where on-location games aren’t being handled as much, I strongly feel both of these should be scoped out and maybe floated around as possible ideas for upcoming games or some other research done if they’re a huge financial risk.
I also do not work in pinball, so everything I’m saying could be wrong! But I do work in marketing and have been a project manager, and who doesn’t love some doing a little cost risk analysis for funsies?
It definitely is now, but it wasn’t considered racist or offensive not long ago. Because I don’t know the context of the pic, I won’t judge Ousler. He could’ve dressed up as Eddie Murphy or Michael Jackson for Halloween 40 years ago. Lots of people did that back then.
To me, race will always be fair game when it comes to comedy. The skit below is racist AF, but does anybody consider it offensive? Far and away my favorite Chappelle Show episode because it takes legit shots at both black and white people. If we declare all blackface racist and offensive, should we do the same for whiteface?
@gdd just made it clear that this thread isn’t for debating the clearly racist nature of the photo in question, but really cool opinions that you just couldn’t resist sharing anyway. Way to miss his entire point.
This thread could use some housekeeping so it can continue as something of value.
Whether or not you or the general public “considered” it racist and offensive long ago doesn’t change the fact that it WAS racist and offensive long ago and forever will be. Lot’s of people having dressed that way doesn’t make it ok. There’s a big problem with not owning up to the actions and apologizing for it now and growing as a person. By not making a statement like this he’s making it seem like he’s not ashamed of it and hasn’t learned from it. That chapelle’s show skit feels like it’s just being brought up to be like “well black people do it to so white people can do it!”. That logic is total garbage and that skit isn’t racist. Race is fair game in comedy NOT racism.
Have you seen the photo? Do you know for a fact Ousler is a racist? I don’t think it’s fair to call a photo you haven’t seen or know the context of racist. Context is important.
I know he wore a racist costume and hasn’t spoken out about his shame in doing so, or that he has learned anything from it.
Again, this has gone way off from the purpose of this thread. Maybe try reading some of the books suggested above instead of turning to extremely dated comedy bits to support your views on race.
