ABSTRACT

This article examines several genres of role-playing games in terms of their procedural logics of racial management as an attempt to understand how game logics can express varying and often contentious ways of enacting “diversity.” It argues that games themselves can help answer one of the most persistent questions about games today: “how do we make games more diverse?” We proceed by defining the racial logics—the “diversity rules”—structuring the Mass Effect series (BioWare, 2007–), Genshin Impact (miHoYo, 2020), and Divinity: Original Sin 2 (Larian Studios, 2017). These games respectively place the player in the role of multicultural manager, racial empath, and divine avatar. These games show us the many logics, strategies, and appropriations that can occur when diversity itself is treated not as a complex process toward building social justice, but as an obtainable asset, and as the sole win condition in making and selling a game. Attending to these racial logics can open paths to new disciplinary directions in game studies by pushing beyond established domestic boundaries, liberal multiculturalist definitions of diversity, and ultimately into revealing our regional attitudes and particular ways of defining and practicing “diversity.”

摘要

本文从种族管理的程序逻辑角度审视了几种角色扮演游戏类型，试图了解游戏逻辑如何表达不同且经常有争议的“多样性”方式。它认为游戏本身可以帮助回答当今关于游戏的最持久的问题之一：“我们如何让游戏更加多样化？” 我们继续定义种族逻辑——“多样性规则”——构建质量效应系列 (BioWare, 2007–)、Genshin Impact (miHoYo, 2020) 和神界：原罪 2 (Larian Studios, 2017)。这些游戏分别将玩家置于多元文化管理者、种族同理心和神圣化身的角色中。这些游戏向我们展示了当多样性本身不被视为建立社会正义的复杂过程时可能发生的许多逻辑、策略和拨款，但作为一种可获得的资产，以及作为制作和销售游戏的唯一获胜条件。关注这些种族逻辑可以通过超越既定的国内界限、自由的多元文化主义对多样性的定义，并最终揭示我们的区域态度以及定义和实践“多样性”的特定方式，从而为博弈研究中的新学科方向开辟道路。