ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ส.ค. 2024
- Seeing things from all sides, I understand the frustration, but I also understand the apathy. Genshin Impact has always had this problem, and Hoyoverse will continue this trend forever.
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I do also believe that this is a colorism/racism issue. Just moreso a xenophobia issue regarding culture, which I felt was not being addressed.
The point about the culture issue is mostly that I feel no one would really bring this up if it weren’t for the culture stealing, as many gacha games have representation issues, esp Hoyo, and it’s rarely brought up.
I think this whole situation is just kinda dumb in general, bc why are people mad now that some platform in a game based on a irl location isn’t completely represented culturally? Fontaine is supposed to be based off France but I don’t see people crying that there isn’t a clock tower in game, or that none of the npcs have a French dialect
i was just waiting for the so called nation of war that neuvillette said .
instead of that we got pokemon like dragons and bright looking places .
its feels like nation is never seen a war i just disappointed about this.
Why is it so hard to understand that these games characters do not represent any ethnicity or country in real life.
@hexjuice This is a western issue. Hoyo and a majority of the Asian community does not care about this....at all. China's pretty well known for copying and completely ignoring trademarks, so stealing from other cultures is pretty on brand.
@yaemiko9969 it's does represent that. Where do you think the source material comes from. There's no way your that dense....
Vote w/ your wallet. It's that simple. If a product doesn't appeal to you anymore or crosses a line you've set yourself you'd never cross, time to leave.
True. It's better for your mental health, too.
Genshin fans have time sunk fallacy, they'll riot about this and have the update predownloaded as soon as its available
Vote with your time spent, stop giving Hoyo your time if this issue bothers you, not you OP necessarily, but anyone that's reading this and feels like this is a real huge problem. Stop playing Genshin, HSR and other Hoyo games if you TRULY think this is a problem, otherwise you're just wasting time saying a whole lot of things without really meaning it.
@@roxas327 I don't think it's even cost/time sunk fallacy, I think some of these people are just addicted that they are willing to give up on certain values that they have in order to justify their time spent on this game.
1% whale generate more revenue than 99% of others. That's the truth of every gacha game. They will only listen if the whales stop spending.
I think it is both a culture and a race issue, and even more grotesque considering the amount of resource tapping China is doing across Africa.
This issue is a fantastic litmus test for Genshin CCs who like to virtue signal, and we should (as a community) present it this back in their faces when they continue to play the game and virtue signal.
China's tapping as much resources here in Africa as the Russians, French, British and Americans are.
All I'm going to say is good luck trying to cancel a massive Chinese company over this... 💀
Vocal minority of screeching man childs on twitter always does this and their voices to billion dollar company is 0 to nothing.
Indeed even as a black person myself when was the Chinese not wo finding of my kind
(It's not like they literally did it to Sumeru before and got away with it)
I mean to be honest its not a matter of `canceling it`, its more of them chipping at the foundation as the controversies keep stacking up till its `too beeg to fail logic` comes crumbling down.
-Alot of Mihoyo games had its high lights being the first to a particular genre or the one to be the first in its genre, Honkai impact 3rd and Genshin impact certainly have that. Which is kind of why something like Maplestory was also such a long time popular game.
-If the VAs are gonna get repeatedly in trouble, its gonna just keep leading into baggage that smirches the company especially if they were using that VA extensively. Even more so a problem if the VAs are calling out the company for things even if its not true, its usually still potential smoke they are `quite upset` with said company.
-We literally had a massive controversy with a particular company wanting to make a `Cleopatra Documentary` and literally besmirch it so much, egypt itself basically sued said company. Now we got Japan doing a very sizable boycott against Ubisoft for besmirching not only japanese history, but also Yasuke when they wanted to push an Assassin`s creed game finally in japan but made a mockery of things...
If Gen`stingie is gonna `borrow names/culture` for its inspirations, it better be faithful, otherwise they need to come up with thar own stuff to get past said accurations and continuously doing this is gonna just piss off plenty of people and piss off other people that other people are getting pissed off because of said shenigan.
So as the `problems stack up`, its gonna just keep pissing people off to where they rather just go with games that do take cultural aspects to use in thar game and keep faithful to it, which just happen to also be under the same game genre.
Moral of the story: Mihoyo is basically having the sins it piled up from lethargy to many particular elements finally catching up to them and they could make rather simple changes to appease said problems...which we already have loads of games that proven said things can be done.
Anyway, this is why i havent played any mihoyo games for basically over a year since even attempting to force myself to play genshin back during the sumeru arc proved just how much i didnt like it, meanwhile despite Wuthering waves also being a open world game that followed many of the same beats as genshin, i actually dont mind prying open wallet-kun cause i dont feel the same terrible FOMO i had back during my days with honkai impact 3rd especially before i left it in 6.4.
All the yapp and what I see here is that you are a loor human and cant spend a dime in a game. We spenders doesnt care about rewards we care about quality. Gen stingie or not doesnt matter we spend if we feel the quality. Not some dev listened game that have been bugged since the begining up to this moment. Lmao@@BladeSerph
Knowing Hoyo. They won't change a fk..
They didn't even listen to genuine criticism about their stingy behavior
The only time they listened was recasting tighnari
@@LUCAS420BLZ Tignari crime far worse than colorism🤣
@@YappingPaimon absolutely but people also voiced their concerns against them, they just ignore anything else
@@LUCAS420BLZThey would lose money if they didnt recast Tighnari's VA over what happened
And I dont think they should in this situation
As a Hispanic myself I would love to see some more darker skinned characters in game, but I also know that China in general is a racist country. They covered the face of the MC of the Black Panther poster and removed Fin from the poster of the first Star Wars sequel. The way they do things you would think that they think people with darker skin are something that needs to be censored. So was I expecting a darker skin tone of characters? No, because I know how Hoyo works. Sexy white female characters and cute white boy twinks is their style.
Your sinophobia is just as racist
No, actually. China didn't do it, Disney did.
That's right, your woke companies don't actually believe this stuff, what a shock.
Nobody in the world believes this stuff outside of a vocal political minority.
And yes, chinese people find lighter color skins more appealing, so what? how about we respect their culture, uh?
Well, that's a bit much to ask of an american... how about we start by realizing that skin color doesn't mean the same thing in China and in the USA, and that it doesn't have the same type of importance?
The USA enslaved and segragated Black people on a massive scale, other countries did not, and especially not China. Remember that, the next time you think skin color should be a global topic all over the world, maybe that's a good start too.
Literally, I do not understand making something inspired by and based on different real cultures and then refusing to actually create characters inspired by the people IN those cultures. No one forced Hoyo to make regions based on Africans and Latin/South Americans. No one held them at gunpoint to make a character based on the Kandake. So WHY, if you're so scared of the color brown, are you using inspiration from predominately brown nations?! Damn, at this point you should've just stuck to Northeast Asia and Europe.
I AGREEE
my god mihoyo is doing it again (the enemy mobs in natlan have darker skin tones while the playable characters have lighter ones)
Nah wtf this is just blatant racism and colorism. Ik they are pixels and IK that there are darker skinned characters in Genshin (like Kaeya) BUT IDK WHY TF THEY DO THIS?? like girlies made Kaeya the darkest one and then went "oops that's enough melanin", all other POCs ARE NOW MOBS YOU GOTTA KILL 😭😭 i don't wanna kill em.
As much as Genshin Impact characters are just pixels, representation does matter, especially if it's such a big game
For some reason people don't seem to get this. I don't think people would mind so much if it was just a game full of lighter skinned characters. When you monetize cultures and then give the impression that you think their people are too unmarketable to use their correct skin tones though, that's when the problem comes in. Don't sit there and think I'm too ugly for you to consider me marketable, but then think my culture is cool enough to market. That's the equivalent of saying "Well, at least you're beautiful on the inside!". Only worse because you monetize what's on the inside as well.
I agree (3). With all the volcanic stuff in the region, if they based Natlan off Iceland, this wouldn't be an issue. Hell, Iceland plus some Pokemon doesn't sound like a bad idea. Not to mention Iceland got some famous volcanoes like Eyjafjalla. But no, it HAS to be Africa/LATAM.
Candace is not based on Kandake. She is adorned with many Egyptian motifs, including the Eye of Horus, an ankh, and an eagle on her shield, referring to how Horus’s form had the head of a bird. In the game she is referred to as a true descendant of King Deshret, whose name means “King of the Red Sea” or “King with the Red Crown” referring to the Nile River and the Lower Crown of Egypt. The golden eye she has also refers to the Eye of Horus. She is basically based off of Horus or rather, Egyptian culture, much like Cyno.
while i do agree w the points, i think it’s colorism issue ALONG WITH culture issue since there has been a pattern w how hoyo handles non-paper white skin though:
-dark skin and features only reserved for enemies (eremites and the natlan ones in the trailer) in regions where they could do darker playables
-darker skinned NPCs in sumeru world quests are portrayed as deceitful (desert leader(?) of that one religion, jett’s friend)
-scholars are white and laborers are dark (sumeru)
-the VERY FEW non-white characters mostly have underwhelming/clunky kits (dehya, xinyan)
-kaeya in that one anniversary poster that suddenly turned pale and ashy
-tanned characters getting lighter in their birthday art
-that one character in honkai that dislikes and bleaches her skin
i do agree tho that doing the callout strictly in the twitter echo chamber will do little to nothing if they will still support the game in any way
even if they do not spend, their fanarts, their memes, their genshin fan accounts, their any consumption and reproduction of genshin will still benefit hoyo and perpetuate their actions.
If that was the case they wouldn't have made "the superior whites" of the akademiya fall from grace by the "inferior blacks" .
If what you're implying is that they see the melanated characters as inferior then they would've made the white characters/npcs always on top .
And Azar was a despicable and hated person despite being white .
Let's not forget the names for Arlan's kit 💀
The character in Honkai Impact you are referring to is actually told by the player that her dark skin is beautiful. It is a wholesome scene that makes her feel better about herself. A dark skinned CC also liked the scene as she also felt herself relating to the character in the game.
Who the heck bleaches her skin 🗿
I don’t like what you’re implying as it’s not true. Every single class of NPC in Genshin Impact has hostile & friendly NPCs belonging to the same class you can do quests with and talk to. Eremites are not an exception to this. They are treated the same as every other NPC type. Before Sumeru, the vast majority of human enemies were inspired by Chinese and Russian people. Most of the Treasure Hoarders, the Chinese inspired, were almost always hostile. Hoyoverse has ya mugging their own cultural inspiration’s people in the game. So this assumption makes absolutely no sense to me because it’s applied evenly across the board.
Dislyte is good example of using cultures correctly and including all types of cultures
Very true.
That community is just as bad tho
@@Shinigami-gk2mr Not popular but the devs are same as Genshin's.. Doesn't listen to the community at all
I think a better one is reverse 1999.
@@imtco3925 Yep. And Arknights.
There’s also this level of hypocrisy from Hoyo when it comes to representing their own culture versus representing literally anybody else. They made a whole mini-documentary about the importance of ACCURATE portrayal of Chinese culture with Yunjin in Genshin Impact. So they’ve admitted how important it is for cultures to be accurately represented in video games. But it really only applied to theirs, I guess.
A reminder that Pixar’s Coco was made by a bunch of white guys and was one of the most successful movies in Mexico’s box office history. As a Mexican, I can say I fucking loved that movie. The ability to accurately portray a culture that’s not their own is absolutely possible. They just don’t care.
Its funny how people can't see that
They made a what? fr??? I didnt know, this just makes it worst
They also made a behind the scenes for Gaming, which included another Chinese culture (Lion Dancing).
I love Wuthering Waves, that is all.
I hope they don't neglect other cultures, I'm guessing black shore would be a more accurate presentation of UK, a desolate shithole.
@@TheWindsofWonder The hypocrisy is definitely not from Hoyo, because exact same people who started this boycott have cheered on ugly Hestia, samurai Yasuke and black Cleopatra.
They don't want accurate representation, nor care about "cultural application".
They just want the least white and asian characters possible.
Actually fgo a 8th Yr old game gives justice to culture like the Hindu chapter with characters with many hands or London with Jack the ripper
Lmao, you did not just use FGO as an example 😂
Genderbent kjng Arthur, justice my ass
As a hispanic, i dont care. A lot of us dont care. But to be fair, there is a large amount of colorism in Mexico, South America and Central America. Light skin is seen as beautiful in these countries, similarly to Asian countries. But, again, i dont care. We welcome everyone from different cultures and races when they want to participate in our festivities and a lot of us love to see our culture portrayed and shared by other people. Its a game, that uses real world influences to create a fictional world of fictional people.
My biggest problem is the fact that genshin team seems to avoid using different skin tones, even fictional ones like fucking red/blue/green. Like c'mon add some fantasy to your fantasy game, not to mention the lack of different types of models.
@EmperorMist Yeah, all the characters are kinda starting to look like the same 4-5 models with different outfits. They don't even need to look at fantasy. We live in a whole world of different features people have that they just completely ignore.
In ZZZ they have that one oni girl with blue skin, so they are capable, but just don't want to do it in Genshin xD They could have done that with Itto too.
@@globax4208 ZZZ also has a whole ass grizzly bear with a cinder block for a weapon. I have a lot of issues with that game, but the character designs isn't one of them.
Star Rail "aliens" are just pale-skinned people with animal ears. We aren't getting any diverse character designs.
They do though but only for Npcs
It's kinda funny that the Gacha game that's probably the most diverse with its characters is Fgo which is one of the oldest Gacha games😂
I'm Mexican and I'm just use to it at this point. I don't care it's just a game😅, if every day media gets away with always using the lighter skinned Latino in everything then I'm not expecting much from a Chinese game when we ourselves (latino media)do the same thing
Up to the CN Bros to be mad about this. From what I’ve they’re just making fun of Hoyo for not including Dark-Skinned characters.
Lol it's so little compared to people who dont care about this issue.
@@randykennardi8136
Agreed
No the chinese players are also very much upset, they've gone & got rid of Hoyoverse from trending on every social media platform & are going to blacklight them until they listen
@@Neo-Queenserenityt2l
Now that’s some good news
@@Neo-Queenserenityt2l I’ve seen some CN players upset, but not for skin color. It’s about how some of the Natlan designs look too modern for Genshin Impact.
I never saw GI characters as "white". I always saw them as Asian, specifically South East Asian (Chinese, Korean, Japanese).
It's kinda annoying when white people assume mostly all anime characters are white just because they don't have typical "Asian eyes". Anime eyes are a style, and don't really link to any standout ethnic trait. But that's just my opinion.
Genshins colorism is the last of my problems with it, my first problem is how they've been decreasing the rewards every patch from 70 to 55
If I were to speak about Hoyos use of culture it would be better for architecture rather than actual characters based on deities
Natlan feels so directionless, it looks like a mishmash of Hawaii and Australia when it's supposed to be based on Latin America
I mean look at mondstadt people say it's Germany but it has the cliche outfits and people are alcoholics.
The regions characters don't even have accents, they never cared
Besides it's fictional
Funny that they care about the color of the skins as "representation" but they are fine with Hoyo treating Japan, Germany and Northern Europe as stereotypical af
I was skeptical about Natlan's directionlessness until I saw the Pyro Archon. Why is she is a modern biker outfit? Nothing about her convey's Natlan nor Teyvat. She look like a Star Rail character who got lost.
This is even worse so because she is an Archon, who usually are the representative of a Country of Teyvat.
What
They only know China and Japan... and only the weeb aspects of Japan.
@@motivateddadShe's a Pokemon gym leader it all makes sense.
Just think it like this. If Jesus is depicted as a Jewish man base on the bible and you put him on a game as a Black African Man would Catholics and Christians be happy about it?
Just google "Jesus was black" they already trying to create Jusus 2
As a white catholic person, I wouldn't care at all.
But this situation is different. Jesus probably was a real existing person, while Genshin characters are fictional, original, created by Hoyoverse.
I believe everyone should create their own stories and characters freely, the way they want them.
You can accept it or boycott it, but forcing them to change because you disagree with their choices is kinda ridiculous.
@@karst1559 oh then your not a hardcore devotee. Well it's your opinion and I respect that however, I think you really missing the point.
You're correct that Genshin characters are fictional but they try to create it based on real life deities. If a nation believes that their Deity have color then you should respect that and maintain its original form or at least some of the most important part.
But I do get you that we can't force the developers to make those changes. It's their game after all and you guys are just their customers probably paying? Spending your precious time and effort to play.
@@equinox2909 in honkai star rail they made a slavic god, Svarog, look like a robot. No one complained about him not looking slav enough. I'm sure not many slavs have metal blue skin.
Except the bible doesn't mention how Jesus looks, all God says is Jesus will look like a male and walk amongst the humans on earth. All claims of his looks was made up years later, the Romans didn't make a note of jesus appearance due to him just looking like an average male for the time/area most modern depictions of Jesus comes from the renaissance or later when people tried to make more personal human art of their beliefs and this included Jesus, some like a church in my hometown believes Jesus was the most attractive man alive with radiating magical energy that would lure everyone in to see his beauty but this is not in the bible, just something the church made up in the last 20 years of being an official church.
It's a cultural issue 100%. When westerners have a problem with representation it's because people care about this. That's also why the discussion is a mess lately.
China doesn't care but it's safer to make white characters I guess... As a black person I don't either but it shouldn't be an issue to begin with since at the end of the day it's just fiction. However when you want to say you are inspired from the real world you only have one job : Make it right
You know, I see a lot of people refer to anime characters as white, aren't they Asian? I mean, when I see an anime character going to a Japanese school, speaking Japanese, and everything else, I assume they're Japanese, same thing with Chinese gatcha games. And if it's just referring to the actual color of their skin, don't Asians get mad when they get referred to as white people because of a similar skin tone, I mean they get mad if you accidentally call them the wrong asian.
@@LuckyUnlucky2 They all just see skin color. They will say white because the majority of the time in fiction unless you really push stereotypes, they look white. I agree this is a stretch but it's something more common. We talk more about fictional characters than real people because your point is 100% valid otherwise
This is a reason I personally don't care because since it's an Asian market and something made by Asian people, since they aren't Caucasian but white skinned regardless for a good majority of them, I don't expect to see a black character. However they specifically said it was inspired by real cultures around the world and this is the core of the debate right now
@@LuckyUnlucky2 Chinese people hate people of the colour and the majority playerbase is easy asian so they gotta listen to the demand.
westerners care about the most useless stuff, instead of championing actual causes, they're championing skin colors in anime video games.....
@@LuckyUnlucky2 the people who refer to anime characters as white are stupid, period.
Genshin chose to have a international audiance. They can't pick and choose without representing culutures respektfully. If they have nuances and knowledge with the diffrences for French culture and German culture they have the ability to do so. Will they do? Probably not, glad it's still talked about tho.
Cancelling genshin? Kinda based tbh. Deserved for genshining the impact
5:16
I think is because WuWa doesn't actually want to elaborate on real world cultures
The only places you can feel regionalsim is in the village and the city but even then, is just a sprite because is very much techno-futuristic except for Mt. Firmament for vireue of being a place outside of time
Beside we are in China and the People from the New Federation have next to none elements that reflect them being from Europe/NA because this world is a Post-Post Apocalypse that has ro find its footing before delving back into culture
The whole game is china wdym
@@mistro504 There are rumors from Beta testing that New Federation is based off US/Europe. Mortefi and Calcharo doesn't sound like a chinese name, does it?
@@doedoel035 i mean most of the game is just 1 city and jinshi is the president of this city so what i can see it's only china not like hsr or genshine hsr got ice place looks like (Russia or England ) or loufo looks like china or peanacony looks like America
@@mistro504There's Huanglong where Jinzhou is the border region. New Federation hasn't been shown yet but there are people from there in the game like Calcharo and Verina.
@@Shoujo_o ok
My theory is that hoyo is being held by a leash by the government or ccp, iirc and cmiiw isnt the ceo is a member of ccp so they need to be following them? Genshin is freaking popular global and importantly cn, you know how restricted the government in cn to younger audiences and knowing a complex they are(the old people in the government) any dark colored skin (heck even being effeminate liek venti reached as an issue to them) being popular probably is a hated idea by them, still dont forgive giving them dehya a shitty kit, hoyo even show scenarios on how bad the "culture" is there like carole pepper from hi3 she has brown skin and want to be whiter coz of people or her environment
They copied Zelda at everything, but not at racial diversity 😂
China is known for not really getting along with the western "racial diversity" stuff. Remember the Star Wars Covers they "censored" so a male poc protagonist is not as featured? A chinese company like hoyo does not give a shit about some randos on Twitter... China gives a shit about racial diversity... they would be too afraid to anger their chinese customers and/or simply dont want to.
Very Chinese 😂😂
@@Casual233 Yeah, Gerudo Valley in Ocarina of Time even had that flamenco guitar, such and iconic track. And good gawd the thighs on those women 🤤
And Zelda copied other games like ArcheAge
@JiraiyaSennin hoyo shill spotted
This in not exclusive from Mihoyo or Chinese companies but everyone freaking developer starting from the US and exploding in Japan always use buts a pieces of every culture to make their games because profit comes always first but we ignore that because is Evil Mihoyo...
I don’t think that’s the reason more popular games have wider base of players mihoyo also takes a lot and very obviously from cultures and real places which a lot of games don’t do and I am guessing this is part of the reason they don’t I think people careless if it’s all fictional which a lot of games lean towards tho you probably are right for some people who just never liked them in the first place but this doesn’t seem to be the main case it’s just people loving a game that uses their cultures and we’re expecting to be included in there own culture
The american games' industry was notorious for looking down on Japanese games. They still do, mind you, just in a different way. But hoyoverse invented racism or whatever
I saw a trend on Twitter focused on boycotting Hoyoverse.
Joke’s on Twitter. *I have no money.*
we get to passively join the boycott wahoo
The thing is theres a flaw for this boycott. People actually boycotting hyv and still play the games, which is so dumb to do. Even f2p will contribute traffic to hyv and the more traffic it got, the more clicks it got, the more money investors gonna invest in hyv
Some of them even said, "I won't play genshin, I'm gonna stick to hsr and zzz" which kinda stupid for me to comprehend 😭😭
You don’t need money to boycott Hoyo. If you stop giving them player numbers then they’ll still feel and see the impact
@@mammonsimp6973 no fr. I dont think any boycott for hoyo has worked, ever lmao
Again, I Cant stress this enough, THEY DONT CARE, ITS A BUSINESS. Just because The company does something that benefits you (OR in this case does not) does not mean it was For you. if you want change vote with your wallet. But you wont, no self control. (This is not aimed at hex or anyone who makes a living doing CC for gatcha games).
Ps. Great vid Hex
I mean peo0le have the right to be upset about their culture not being represented correctly.
They care when their Chinese playerbase gets upset, & that's exactly what happened, the chinese players are upset
@@Neo-Queenserenityt2l And if they make changes guess what its not because they want to do the right thing and genuinely represent the cultures they are taking inspiration from, No it will be to protect their bottom line and social credit score. but hey thats china for ya.
I mean the game isnt made to be historically or culturally accurate. Plus from what you mentioned they are incorporating different aspects of real world culture into the game but not outright have it be like a 1:1 ratio of the culture. Now granted i also saw some twitter post showing like the skin color comparison with other games. You mentioned the upcoming content has some filipino culture in it? I'm filipino myself and honestly i didn't really think about the skin color at all. The characters are from Natlan not from the Phillippines or other places that it was based on.
But that's just me, I don't know many things if i'm missing details that makes it about racism do let me know
humans, demons, neko is friends. what racism ?
To me, Hex's opinions isn't any type of new or nuanced. If anything, I expected it to be the general consensus, being "Yeah it sucks but what're you gonna do about it?" Lets be real: Its *China* we're talking about here. Maybe there are a few outliers that try to respect different cultures, but this is what they do across the whole industry.
Doesn't matter what culture, setting, or time frame their games are in, everyone is going to have porcelain skin and slender body types (unless they're non-human). Best I've seen them do by skin color is the black NPC in ZZZ in the music store, but of course: she's a robot 😂. Her "hair" even kinda looks like a traditional African headdress!
We already know how averse they are to anything that doesn't adhere to their exact beauty standards, and that's just WITHIN China. At best we get 1-2 darker-toned playable characters per game, but they're still heavily geared towards a Chinese-centric market. I've just accepted thats the way their market is.
I've decided to enjoy the games for what they are, and make it a mission to get any melanated characters in the game, no matter how good or bad they are. I'd have even gone for Dehya if I still played Genshin, but I quit before she existed.
Lmao it isn't racism. It's their fantasy world to do with as they see fit. The same arguments came up during Sumeru and guess what? Ppl got over it.
ayy man, taking an entire culture and slapping it on someone who doesn't represent the people is disrespectful and racist. Maybe when a bunch of people are saying there is racism and colorism, it is in fact, racist and colorist
@@tiredmexirican or it is, in fact, people complaining and moaning about nothing because victimhood culture has run rampant over the internet, and people seem to think they can demand game companies to change to DEI narratives
@@tiredmexirican It only becomes an issue for minority of people in twitter when its non white culture.
@@zalla00 China is notorious for its racism and colorism and mihoyo regularly mistreats their characters with darker complexions. I don't get how you're saying it's isn't, either youre trolling or just naive on the topic.
@@tiredmexirican No I'm saying it doesn't matter. Racism or not, it's their world to craft so moaning and crying about how dark the characters are, or aren't, is pointless. They can do with the chars as they so please. either ppl can get over it and move on, or REEE their poor little hearts away into the void
To be honest, in my view I really do not care much about skin colour I follow a three set of rules
Story
personality
skill
These three are all that matter which is why when Sumeru came out I hava darker skin but not once have I thought about the skin colour or anything all I could think about was how beautiful the place was andhonestly with the current game companies attempting to force multiculturalism into games when they shouldn't be necessary has really numb my belief in doing this thing which is why when Natlan came out I had zero thoughts on the skin colour all I could think about what will Natlan give us what type of fascinating stories it will bring onto the table and what will we see as we journey into the mysterious lands
I think more people should keep complaining about everything that hoyoverse does. Whether its the colorism, culture vulture to content, rewards, and odd end game decisions. Lol its not just genshin its HSR and ZZZ they just snatch cool themes and forget where it came from. What type of activism is suppose to be done ? Burn the company down, threaten the artist/designers or spread awareness of Hoyos' colorism and culture stealing practices?
Marvel and FGO got a pass and not Genshin?
For us Asians, we don't really care much about diversity, inclusion and representation. We're just not as sensitive about it as other races. Hoyo can release a character inspired by South East Asia and have them be white and given a westernized name, and we'd still throw them our money.
By the way, I am not a Genshin player, I've quit the game in 2022. I'm not trying to defend Hoyo at all. I only want to say that it is useless to complain about these things because Hoyo will never change their practices. Folks on Twitter can do a protest and call for a boycott, but Hoyo will NOT listen. They are notorious for never listening to player feedback, so I don't know why these folks act so surprised about Hoyo's design choices. And if they ever decide one day to lend an ear, they will only do it for their local player base.
I agree, as half african half asian that grew up in asia, I have a very asian view of diversity, inclusion and representation, I find it weird that north americans are so obsessed with having fictional fantasy characters be of certain skin color, sounds like norht american anti-racists are the real racists since they focus too much on skin.
Bish really out here trying to "represent" the whole asian community as if everyone agrees with you.
@@jessquiatchon2204 most asians are like that, you're just the twitter type outcast.
@@f.b.l.9813 Oh yeah because I'd LOVE a very inaccurate representation of my own culture. Maybe that's why Japan LOVES ubisoft right now?
@@jessquiatchon2204 Because Ubisoft is pushing their game as "historical" that's the problem, if they say is just a fantasy etc not many will find it a problem heck some JP comments were saying that, and im not defending Mihoyo here not even a fan to begin with, not once they pushed their game as "historical".
FGO been doing this for almost 10 years😂
I don't find it offensive. I found it boring
100% my take
The new characers just feel like scrapped concept art from previous nations tbh
I appreciate the inspiration. They go out of their way to learn about the countries they want to represent. What I do not like is that they are too afraid to attempt to at least make one good dark-skinned character. It almost feels as if it's a curse to even attempt it.
My biggest fear is actually cosplaying one of my favorite characters, who happens to be Eula, and getting attacked at a convention because I don't share the same skin color as her. But I enjoy the character just as much as other people do.
@@rod8355 it does get talked about but it was dismissed with the "hilichurl are also indiggenous" argument by some weirdo(s) who didn't play the chasm quest.
@@rod8355 sorry, I didn't read your whole message and missed the "read more" part. Let that poor take be a reminder to read things entirely.
Colourism is the least of the problems this game's got. Of course I feel slightly troubled when they only respect my culture and not my race. But I don't care cause this game is a work of fiction. Also, I am an Indian, and Indians expect this behaviour of the Chinese, considering how pathetic and racist their government is, causing petty scuffles at the border which cause loss of life, just because that Xing Pong guy wantec to shift political focus onto anything but themselves when questioned for their corruption.
All in all, Genshin's devs are nasty people overall. Even WuWa's release only brought about some QoL changes that should have been made 3 years ago, that's all. They are still going to give 3 wishes, they are still gonna held contempt for their playerbase and they are still going to be stingy just because they think they are the only developers who should receive all the praise in the world.
Ah yes, let's say that all Chinese are racist and homophobic because of what their government did, that doesn't sound racist at all.......
Criticising the government is one thing, but I don't think it's entirely fair to consider the hoyo devs themselves or regular Chinese citizens as just as horrible. Even if hoyo wanted to increase diversity at the cost of some of their local playerbase, they wouldn't be able to go against the government if it decided to bring down the hammer on them, they're literally just video game devs at the end of the day. Not saying they should be worshipped or anything, personally I'd also like a little more diversity in skin tones and for the PoC characters to actually be competitive in terms of gameplay, but we can still recognise the government oversight that probably affects their decisions.
I dont necessarily think a lot will change in Hoyos case but i'm confused by people feeling annoyed that others are unhappy with these recent events. I think its okay for people to point out multiple problems with a game idk where this 'this is the least important problem this game has' view is coming from. Obviously the game is plagued by 50 other issues completely unrelated to this but why are people suddenly tunneling their vision when this colorism stuff starts blowing up again?
Personally i liked all the designs and im excited for Natlan but I'll admit it IS pretty sus how they will take names from deities and cultural figures but then not represent their appearances in any way that isn't enemy npcs lol. It feels like a lot of these issues could've mostly been avoided if Hoyoverse stopped picking names from IRL cultures and just invented their own
simple, if anyone care about it just vote with your moneys by not spending it on the game or just didnt play it at all. its just stupid how some ppl complaint about the game while still giving these companies your moneys.
it's a fictional character...
Characters with darker skin don’t attract as much attention and money from their biggest money makers (Asian servers), and you know Hoyoverse is all about their money🤷🏻
a business acting like a business 🤷
Then don't make Natlan or Sumeru , it's that simple .
No one forced them to take those inspirations, make Genshin full China + Europe , it would have been better tbh .
@@harrysliyoko8809 "don't make"
he has spoken! random internet user has decreed that only he can say what kind of video games can and can't be made!
@@f.b.l.9813 No i don't have such a pretentious belief and i'm far from being the only one who harbor such belief .
My culture isn't the toy of some foreign company to play with it as they please , therefore I have the right to express my dissatisfaction.
You can't separate a culture from its people , only the most soulless of scum can believe that cultures are born out of thin air and therefore can be treated as expandables , African or from anywhere else .
ngl, If Genshin care about these in the first place, they wont make Lieyue any white in the beginning
Well i think western players are the only one that has this colorism problem good thing here in Eastern are kinda chill.
I am serious, those characters look more like pokemon gym leaders than Genshin's characters.
Like the archon, dude...she's clothed like a biker...
I like it personally but man...how can this be related to this region at all?
And tbh, I stopped caring after Sumeru.
I mean, if it's for getting another Dehya, it'd better if nothing is dark-skinned...(you can see a pattern with dark-skinned characters)
I noticed that too especially the poses but they had an event like that in HSR so maybe it made so much money they made a region based on it? Also I agree it’s pretty disappointing even Pokémon has dark skinned characters but I know if it wasn’t based on real cultures and places way less people would care and I would have never given it a second thought tho even hsr has the same issue with its only darker skin character but to be fair he is that darkest character they made that is playable which was pretty cool the attack names may have been a mistake for him tho *edit Arlen also has a bad kit
Controversial take, but to me, crying over representation in media seems like something people that have no real problems would do. I say this as an individual who belongs to a "minority group". Representation or the lack thereof has never really bothered me.
I think that's fair, but it's mainly the combination of specifically taking aspects of a culture without respect to it. Smite in particular is very careful about this when it comes to Gods. Different culture in China though, they could care less.
No sh. Whenever I see the colour bs and stuff about race they be dropping all I can say is woke.
Crying over criticism of representation is something people with no understanding of politics, culture and historical injustice, do.
I agree being a black person myself even though i get where this is coming from.
Knowing how Hoyo AND China are, i don't expect them to have people of color in their game.
@@Zer0Perplexity Smite is a bad comparison here. Same with what Hex showed about the god Olorun. Smite's entire game premise revolves around these historical gods, not just a reference.
did everyone forget that Hoyo is in the pocket of the CCP? they have been using game such as Genshin to limit test their culture push for years
They do be trying to convince Hoyo for cancelling not knowing how long this company never listened anyways
one word.....CHINA
My thing is, can’t we just enjoy the things we like and not worry about stuff like this? Not according to Twitter
This is why twitter has no brain. It’s just mob mentality. This why I love CC like you, gacha smack and tectone. You all gather facts first then form your opinions. Much respect!
Twitter's gonna cry for a while and then go back to playing the game
I personally think it's a lot more nuanced.
I mean, Is there a problem with drawing inspiration from other cultures? No.
Is there a problem with those characters being all white? Not really.
The actual problems comes when you slap names of actual cultural/focloric/religious figures onto those characters like Yansam (Yansã), Olorum (Olorum) Yoruba (Iorubá).
But we also have to keep in mind that the game isn't proposed to be historically/culturally accurate. It's a fantasy game with some loose inspiration on real world cultures.
That said, the way they did it is, in some way, disrespectful. but as you said, it isn't the first time they did that, and it certainly won't be the last.
Other topic i want to bring out is that Chinese culture is very xenophobic, and that comes even from their government (The censorship on the black panther posters speaks for itself). So, it always has the possibility that they've been doing things that way to avoid censorship, which is kinda likely given the fact that Hoyo is a part of the Chinese Government.
That said, as a latinoamerican myself i do feel some level of disrespect towards my own culture coming from this, but i also don't play Genshin so there is that. I just don't think virtue signalling on Twitter will do sh*t, especially when those same people ARE STILL PLAYING THE GAME AND SPENDING.
This effects nothing since their biggest money making region is their home country.
I think people are most certainly focusing on the color their skin rathen than the miss representation of their culture. Other wise they would be photoshoppinh traditional clothing or tattooss which i have seen a couple of. And yet i havent seen any edits with pendants or clothing i havent seen any of the mexican inspired character with a poncho and eating tacos. So yes people are just angry they are not black
For me it’s a fantasy world in which the author can be inspired by real things but should be able to change it the way he thinks is fit for the universe that was created. Also, if it is what sells the best, well might as well make money out of it otherwise the adventure won’t even be able to continue.
In the real world, we also don’t have any ancient dragon ruling a city or magical living teddy bear that can shoot fire from its mouth while someone summons a fire tornado around them creating havoc.
Even in anime, you often see Japan or China inspired stories and most of the characters feel more caucasian than anything.
Let fantasy be fantasy, real world already have enough problems as is.
Also, am I the only one that finds the word “race” used for a human being awful?
We are all of the human race and what differs is mainly culture and ethnicity. Using the term “race” I think is the best way to keep something alive that shouldn’t be.
If anything sounds off, sorry English is my second language 😅
Also, always glad to watch your videos HexJuice. You do an awesome job and I’m glad I got to discover your channel 🤘 hope to catch you on twitch soon, it’s always a pleasure listening to your channel 💥👌
I wish there was more diversity in these games, not for any noble social reason but because variety is the spice of life, at the end of the day they are digital characters and race doesn't really matter but.. all cultures and skin colours are beautiful, so why not bring that beauty into the game?
The genshin community is going to c6 them regardless so hoyo doesn't really care as long as they make bank
I think you did a great job covering this I agree I had no idea people were upset while still spending cash tho I thought at most people were going f2p but this is an awesome point when anyone boycotts anything you stop spending money on it otherwise what kinda message is that I don’t think they will change the characters but maybe going forward they may add more different skin tones likely not but who knows I guess
As someone from México the important parts about culture that I want to see have nothing to do with the color of the skin of the characters, I just want to see the inspiration and the way they use all of the mesoamerican cultures and the others to make more intresting characters, its like in the anime series Fate, in there Quetzalcóatl is a blonde woman and I love that character, its nothing new and in my humble opinion its not important
OMG that scene where Quetz attacked Tiamat. I got chills!
If you want to talk about skin that is not the same as their culture... Let's talk about raiden shogun!! Turn him into a man! Shogun in japan mostly male-!
Who cares? It's just pixels on screen.
Its all slacktivisism; as soon as 5.0 comes out, everyone will go check it out, they'll pull on banners to try out their kits and use Natlan as a slot for their boredom because most of these people are bored, causal players and most only play genshin out of their lives
Genshin doesnt care because ppl are still gonna spend money on the game regardless
So far I was simply "what else do you expect from a Chinese company?" But sure I was bothered. But when I got to know they had the audacity to WhiteWash religious figures I was flabbergasted at so much disrespect.
Truth is, even if oversea sales plummet over this, if the majority of their revenue still comes from CN, things will not change.
Regarding whether or not this is a skin tone issue or cultural issue, in my opinion - it is both, where they are intertwined with each other. What I mean by that is that it's fundamentally a modern cultural phenomenon in China, and one way said phenomenon manifests is through colorism.
One of the myriad of reasons why colorism works the way it does in China is their modern beauty standard, where the whiter your skin looks, the more beautiful the society generally deems you. This partly comes from the continuous, thousands years old agrarian societal legacy, where if your skins appeared tanned or dark, you likely came from a rural background and were constantly out in the fields under the sun 24/7, where if your skin was whiter, that implied you were either: wealthy, from a bureaucrat family or royalty, because most of your work could be done indoors, and therefore less tanned on average.
This is more or less the same line of reason why tanning is much more popular in western beauty standards: you need to be financially well off enough to have enough free time dedicated to tanning; the athleticism associated with tanned skins does not have strong connections to rural poverty here, but rather signifies robust physical health that is directly linked to time spent working out outside, or time spent on the beach, both seen as positive, or at least neutral in the west.
Note that I choose to use the word "colorism" to call the phenomenon, not "racism", or at least not in the same lens/context as western colonial racism. Chinese "colorism" and western "racism" have overlaps, yes: in the past, white = good, dark = bad. That is essentially where the similarity between the two ends. Both are incredibly nuanced and complex societal topics, I'd love to see more nuanced and intelligent discussions with this issue.
I don't have anything, been inactive for 5 months now after playing the game since launch without missing a day. Feels good tbh.
The best reputation of a black character in anime was kuroko no basket
i think The Boondocks cartoon is the best representation of black people
@@apokarin427I meant cartoons made non-black writers. Boondocks does better repersenting black perspective , becuase it was made by black producer. I am not saying kuroko no basket is a high bar. They just made black people look good in Japanese anime form.
Dude its only just 1 black characters and thats it?
@@xaq039 I am assuming you did not watch the show and look it up. Yes in main show only one black character shows up, but even tho it was only one 1 black character was in the main show. He was african my point is still vaild
Last game the kuroko no basket movie. Half of the opponent team were actually black people from america. They did not look india or egyptian like some anime portray black people as
It’s about money. That’s literally it. Hoyo making them white is going t make them millions more than if they made them dark skinned. That’s just the reality. Hoyo doesn’t care about anything but money.
Wow China being racist, the country that forced Marvel to cover Black Panther on the poster of the movie just because he's a black character, what a surprise.
1000% understand feeling like a product instead of a creative
On the one hand, if a creative wants to borrow bits and pieces and loosely draw inspiration from real world places, I think they should be free to create the thing however they want, as long as they're not being blatantly disrespectful (such as drawing clear inspiration from a culture, and then adding negative traits to those people just to be insulting). However, as you start to cross from vague inspiration to borrowing specific things like names of deities and historical figures, naming conventions, obvious location and/or object references, and going to a more direct parallel, then there is something of an expectation and responsibility to borrow from that culture and those people more respectfully.
For example, if you want to have a place that has a food that looks like a taco, that's fine. If that's the extent to which you borrow from that culture, you can leave it at that and I don't think it's being disrespectful IMO. But if you decide to also have them all wear sombreros, wear colorful clothes, throw in a mariachi band, and have them celebrate the 5th of May for unspecified reasons, then you set yourself up for criticism from the people of the culture you so clearly took from IF you also make no effort to make the characters look and sound similar to the culture you so heavily borrowed from.
That said, HoYo cares WAY more about what their home audience thinks than the global audience and/or Twitter. And it being a Chinese game, with the majority of it's base being from that country, and them having different cultural views, they're not going to do anything about it unless their base decided they want to see more characters look different. And since the global community has demonstrated they're incapable of not spending money on the game if the devs do something they dislike, nothing will ever change. Personally, from some of the fan images I've seen, I think some of the designs look objectively better with a darker skin tone simply from an aesthetic standpoint, cultural appropriation notwithstanding. But I'm not HoYo's target audience, so my opinion wouldn't matter even if I DID still play Genshin.
Thats why they never reconstruct real world in a game.
The only similarity between mondstadt and germany is archetecture of the city
Liyue and inazuma archetecture and clothes
Sumeru... I dont even know... Academia? Dont tell me Indian people live on the trees 😅
Fontain just only clothes.
I dont know why people expect Natlan to be 1:1 representation out of sudden
Make meta dark skin character than come to me say they don't sell will this people use that excuses make no sense but again agree they never gone changed they Chinese but ask people stop talking about it same as side with them let people complaining even of it not change anything
I think everyone that plays HoYo games know that the Honkai character Expy's in this case Himiko was not going to get darker skin to match a region. Venti/Wendi, Nahida'/Theresa Apocalypse , Yae and Raiden also got the same treament.
What I find interesting is Kaeya still the darkest skintones in the game, everyone else is lighter by comparison to him. Natlan character are looking just tan at this point. There's 1 we know of that hasn't been revealed yet (probably a 5 star due to LORE releavance) but this is the cast for Natlan outside of probably a few more 4-star units to back fill options in the region.
Does this feel like whitewashing for those cultures they pulled from when still a praticing, adsolutluy. But "brownwashing" isn't the answer either. We would point out if a Viking god was tan. Point out what they pulling from which can be done because most nations in the world has not been exposed to other cultures in local media we can educate them and ourselves.
I feel like Genshin could have been a bit more obvious that the characters are not the historical people/deities they are named after for the twitter brain rot. Dislyte did by saying the powers are from the Gods but they are their own people.
MiHoYo been trying the balance anime/manga aesthetics (where all the chataers skin tones are shade of pastel for contrast against clothes and hair) while trying to show some diversity instead of all being pastel "white" and I think they are afraid to alienate the east asain market like most gacha games fallow this anime aesthetic. Has anime shown darker skin tones absolutely but it's usually set in America. And don't think MiHoYo is brave enough to do that without a direct connect to a current nation setting.
So many people complain and say "Vote with your wallet and stop spending" or "Boycot genshin" Which does nothing because people can do whatever they want with their money and time.
Instead of saying that and getting nowhere, Just stop playing and move on?
I don't really care about this issue so ima just keep grinding for my red head
As a black/Puerto Rican man, I personally don't care about my culture being represented at all. Especially in a Chinese gacha game. My culture is always with me, I take it with me everywhere I go, and I see it in my family. That's all I need. I personally think its cringe that people feel like they need the media to validate their culture. That being said, it is their prerogative to make their voices heard. I can respect that much, despite my personal feelings. I just wish people learned to disassociate themselves more with the media they consume. Because at the end of the day, Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, Zenless Zone Zero, Wuthering Waves, etc. are all works of fiction. They are under no obligation to accurately depict their inspirations, regardless how much they heavily draw from them. It's all up to their own interpretation. People may not like it, but that is the fact. They really should just stop playing the game if people feel this strongly. That is the only form of protest that has a chance of working.
And to all the Content Creators that say, "I can't quit, it's my job", I say bullshit. Yes you can. Yes, you're taking a huge risk by giving up your income, but if this topic means as much to you as you claim, then quit. Focus on another game. People love to TALK about it, but never want to BE about it. If you want to make a strong stand on a topic you care about then you need to have something to lose. That's what makes it courageous and meaningful. Otherwise, you're just yapping for PR points. Either quit and focus your brand elsewhere or make it clear that you don't care enough to quit. The latter option at least allows you to keep the audience that wants to enjoy the games for what actually matters, the gameplay.
Nicely said, I agree completely
And people seem to forget culture is not just skin colour.... I.e .. food, music, traditional attire, dance, instruments and so on.
Am I upset about this? No. Genshin is just a Chinese gacha video game. Their game doesn't represent the real world, it's just pure fiction and I expect it to be treated as fiction. I wouldn't recommend looking to their game for cultural significance. If I were to learn about another culture, I'd recommend looking up actual resources to learn from.
Mexican here just to add there are still maya communities that still practice their religion as far as I'm aware (Though I do believe it's been mixed with some christianity practices)
Me personally, I’m voting with my wallet, I will not be playing any of the Hoyo games until I see meaningful action to resolve the issues that people have. I will no longer be consuming any Hoyo related content and will not be watching any of the big Hoyo streamers either. I morally can’t do it
Why you uploafing at 5 am 💀
Timezones
the small bits i know of each of the cultures, it does feel like there are some people who do take these cultures at face value and try and portray them right. but because of the entire insanity and bullshit asociated with the company/country and shear amount of influence of people who definintely shouldnt have creative influence causes a tone of the things to completely break anything that could even be close to proper representation of these things. its one thing ive noticed when a company doesnt have full creative control, these things become far to noticable.
I see hoyo drama, I click.
I remember when Sumeru came out the same situation happened, but the people who were claiming to be fighting racism tried to dictate who was "allowed" to speak on the matter by the color of their skin. When natives from the countries that Sumeru was based on threw in their hats and said that the community were basically out of line, the goalpost was moved again to attack said natives. Needless to say, I have no respect for the Genshin community or their cause. If it were me, I'd quit the game.
Ps I was unsubbed? I don't recall doing that. Well, have a sub again. TH-cam probably acted up.
People are named after religious figures and pagans gods all the time in the real world... you name your kid that way so they take after good traits of that figure or god. Do they think if you're pale/dark enough to fit that name? I dont think so. So if they take that angle, i think it would make some sense. I do think they could at least try to emulate the appearance of people from the regions they take inspiration from.
EDIT: also, if you want a great diversity of characters in a gacha? Play FGO (quality characters but crappy gameplay)
i feel like its a culture issue but also feel like in reality its not a big deal imo, i seen way more "disrespectful" things in games and they get off Scott free and its honestly a nothing burger to begin with
I agree that this is a culture issue first and a colourism issue second in the sense that the darkest they'd dare go is barely tan, yet for the enemies they seem to be able to make them quite dark. I'd also find issue in the lack of variety in character design (facial features and body) and was hoping natlan would be an opportunity for them to showcase something really unique, fun and beautiful. I personally have stopped playing since sumeru, and have slowly gone off hsr. I dont think anything will change at all, but I won't play something I don't find entertaining anymore. Agree that twitter (and tiktok) have absolutely no nuance and are either virtue signalling or excusing hoyo's racist choices in not making melanated characters/making 1 or 2 that are never meta, never get support characters and overall would make less money, feeding into the excuse that they shouldn't bother bc they don't perform as well. Love these opinion videos, please keep them coming! ❤
I just really hope that voice actors don’t lose their jobs over this nonsense
China doesn’t have the same views on identity politics as Western nations… It’s annoying the west always acts shocked when other cultures interpretations are completely different.
As a Black man I’m never going expect accurate interpretation of my culture from other communities as they don’t have a stake in the game. Not saying it’s alright but this isn’t new, their vast majority of their income doesn’t come from the West so they don’t have to be very specific. Either play or don’t play but stop being pretend surprised.
White skin has social,economic and political standing n status in eastern countries such as China. They legit have a skin bleaching problem.
Identity politics? Dood they have a character called olorun that's a deity in Yoruba religion look like sasuke
Interpretation is weird way of saying straight up ignoring the origin and cultural meaning behind the character. Like I guess we should just take their historical figures or dieties and make them dark skin and give them cornrows . 😂 you think they would be mad? It's fantasy right?
funny how north americans care so much about cultural representation yet they're usually narrow minded and think their view is the only way to go, getting offended when other cultures handle things differently.
@@Syxs08 Its totally fine, anything take from any culture is totally fine. As long as its done without malicious, mocking or harmful intent.
If you straight up take something from other cultures with the intent to mock or ridicule then its whole other case.
When so many companies and games force diversity, DEI and woke propaganda down our throats, it feels nice not having to worry about it in these games. I wouldn't mind more diverse characters (I'm one of the few Dehya fans) but I won't make it an issue. I'm Greek, and they've changed and appropriated my culture so many damn times. I'm not gonna make it an issue that they made Achilles black in a film, that the Rock played Hercules and that they didn't cast a Greek actress for Wonder Woman. Who cares?
i am south american myself, never really had any particular wish to be 'represented' by a country outside of my own and this particular situation seem to be missing the core point. the game is a chinese game, their HQ is in china, they make the most money in china, chinese gacha players, are in their vast majority, absolutely awful human beings. it may suck but they wouldn't really pull for black characters, if anything there has been many instances of them being openly against it and when they boycott something, they actually do it. hoyo doesn't want to take that chance, so it's highly unlikely that anything will be changed.
as for hoyo: it's hoyo. hoyoverse is the most 'powerful' gacha company and the most unapologetically awful in their practices. the choice to use real like elements was theirs, butjust like all the issues prior it will likely fall in deaf years and forgotten for the next 2 years again, until it resurges and dies again in the same manner.
Personally, I don't play GI that much, and this already happened in the past, it is just no surprised seeing ppl getting mad now. It just so funny seeing ppl on X "We have to boycott Hoyo" but still play, buy, speed money, and put their fav character pfp. It's not wrong but I just don't understand why they want to boycott the game so bad but still decide to play them? boycott but still play? it's like you boycott your friend but still talk and exchange stuff
I will say
If a company wanted to cater to multiple nations and use the history of those nations for its content, creating manifest destiny in their game is quite literally the stupidest thing to do (even denying a very good PoC va for a role), when other companies have no problem putting in the effort
put it like this:
"The god for this South-Eastern nation will just be the British Emperor with a different name"
I think it’s terrible and like you said kind of just par for the course sadly. Even if people vote with their wallets, other countries’ player bases will keep spending. It’s a tough situation that you can only take a personal moral stance with.
Speaking as a Persian, and being of the culture Sumeru took inspiration from, let me tell you hoyo certainly knows very well the history and background and how to implement it into the game properly, with many small details with characters like nilou and places in desert literally named the same as real life places I’ve visited back in Iran, despite being a Chinese company they very well have a good enough access to the culture to be so accurate, yet they somehow majestically dodge being able to physically represent and pay respect to the people who make these cultures? Girl bye, and even the whole editting the characters’ skin colours tbh feels more insulting than resolving.
Especially when you take MULTIPLE cultures and throw it into a mixing pot, unless you have people working at hoyo HQ closely tied or from said cultures working together then 9.9 times out of ten it’ll be done wrong and horribly like it has been.
Like Kaeya a character from MONDSTAT, Germany inspired reps POC better than the damn respective poc inspired regions themselves. 😭😭
TLDR; hoyo do better
I dont think its a "Hoyo" issues but more of a "gacha game issues". Like when was the last time you pulled on a black character ?😂 I never did and Im sure a did pull on more than 1 character inspired by culture of the same region Natlan and Sumeru are represantation of. I just think Hoyo is having the same problem that most gacha game has .It never bothered anyone then I dont see why now people are upset now... But good on them if they finally want to change it.
Genshin was the first gacha to become so mainstream that it attracted people even outside of the typical anime and gacha spheres who aren't used to how homogenous anime is when it comes to race and ehtnicity. It makes sense there are a lot more people raising these concerns in the Genshin fanbase than, for example, Priconne or Arknights - both still huge in their own right, but still quite niche within gaming as a whole.
I said this once and ill say it again, barbatos/venti, forcalors/furina and buer/nahida are all arcs goetia demons in real life. It should have been clear on day one they aren't representing cultures the moment you saw venti being cute looking. Genshin is just taking inspiration from different cultures but is not meant to be taken as an accurate representation of real world cultures. Just like how Goku was inspired from Sun wukong but is not an accurate representation of Sun wukong.
They already did it with Sumeru, what make twitter think Hoyo will change it lol
Hoyoverse never addresses feedback unless they're forced to or it's an insignificant bug that nobody knows about. The only major thing I can think of Genshin changing due to feedback is Zhongli getting buffed because a lot of Chinese players called Hoyo traitors for being disrespectful to a character that's supposed to represent China. Unless Chinese players find a proper way to accuse them of treason and pressure them to change, nothing will happen. Realistically, we will most likely not get too many more melanated characters in Genshin because Hoyo believes that they don't sell well. This is more of my own personal speculation, but it feels like they sabotage dark skinned characters by making their kits worse and using their low banner sales as a result of that as a reason to give their playable characters less melanin. I know this theory sounds a bit out there and full of shit, but when wasn't Hoyoverse full of shit? This is the same company that justifies the lack of endgame content with saying that they don't want to give the players anxiety.