Namco excluded most Asian ethnicities from Tekken

Digital Apartheid?
After 20 years of Tekken the makers have totally ignored the most populous nations and created characters only from a small part of the world. Are certain people not welcome to the party? Are some ethnicities being censored on purpose?

Amazingly Namco Games has published a MARTIAL ARTS game that has NO CHARACTERS from several countries that are globally recognised if not famous for their martial arts.

Not 1 character from Thailand. Not 1 character from Indonesia or Malaysia. Not 1 character from the Philippines. Tekken has not featured a single South-East Asian character, not ever....

I just had to speak out. No offense meant but it's hard to stay silent while the crowd cheers for Pokkén.

It seems Namco is more likely to add new animals or digimon to Tekken than Thais, Filipinos, Indians or Indonesians. Yes, according to the makers of Tekken all Asia and it's martial heritage is represented only by Japan, China and Korea. The rest of you don't exist in the Tekken universe. (for 20 years)

I'm urging Tekken fans to urge Namco and Katsuhiro Harada to make Tekken more ethnically diverse.

You can read my full post here on my blog. It's a loooong text, so i only posted the opening.

Want to take action? #HelpHarada

Game designers should be allowed to make the games they want, the way they want to make them. Their is no connection between a lack of characters from those regions, and a purposeful/racially motivated exclusion of them. The lack of presence of characters from that region also does not mean that the makers of the game believe "all Asia and it's martial heritage is represented only by Japan, China and Korea". Your entire post is baseless speculation mixed with a dash of hyperbole and topped off with a thick and ripe smelling helping of steamy hot pseudo intellectual keyboard diarrhea.

In short, this is a bad post, and you should feel bad for making it.

The problem with creating a new character with a select ethnicity is you tend to be locked into the type of character you can make by styles local to the region of the character, and the philosophies behind them (dictating personality to an extent).

In other words, you end up creating shallow, gaudy characters that some may find offensive. Take a look at people's not so enthused response to the inclusion of the Turkish Wrestling Hakan in Super Street Fighter IV - he's no less steeped in tropes than karate-kid Ryu, but people look the other way towards Japanese stereotypes when the developers themselves are Japanese.

Gaudy, one-dimensional characters (which can be seen as caricature in how they reduce a person to a few recognisable traits) are particularly prevalant in fighting games where characters wear their "character" on their sleeves (well, all over them) in an obvious way; something necessitated by the fact that fighting games only give characters 60 seconds (sometimes less) to convey themselves to the audience against an orgy of noise and violence.

Though last I checked I seem to remember Harada was still trying to diversify, looking at the inclusion of an Arab character.

@Randolph:

Forum Posters should be allowed to make the posts they want, the way they want to make them. Your entire reply is baseless speculation mixed with a dash of hyperbole and topped off with a thick and ripe smelling helping of steamy hot pseudo intellectual keyboard diarrhea.

In short, this is a bad reply, and you should feel bad for making it.

Manny "Pacman" Pacquiao for Tekken 7! 9 years of Steve Fox as the only boxer is a joke!

@tekkenvsracism: You are absolutely right, If you want to make fact free assumptions and paranoid baseless claims, you have the right to make them. We then have the right to say your post is stupid and laugh at you. Feel free to actually prove a connection between a lack of people from those regions on these games with a racially motivated agenda or purposeful exclusion of any kind any time you want.

@Randolph: Sorry Randolph, but i did not make that statement. I did ask the question if it was on purpose, but 20 years is a long enough time to at least ask the question. Tekken is not a new series.

You might read my full text or my other posts. But please don't make it seem as if i have deposited any claims that i did not.

I have merely stated FACTS about Namco's roster of the past 20 years. Maybe you're 50 years old and 20 years doesn't seem long to you. In that case ... i apologise. I'm in my 30s and 20 years is a big amount of time to me. If it's all coincidental i still want it to change and even though "game designers can make the game they want.... I STILL don't have to play the happy silent consumer.

If you must laugh and ridicule all you want. I'm not bothered at all. For i have a goal. Don't need approval, just need to urge the publisher to action. So i will campaign on.

Sorry, don't pay attention to me.

This. A lack of a character of a particular ethnicity is a far cry from any sort of racism against that race. There are more ethnic backgrounds in the world than there are characters in the Tekken roster. Is every game racist if it doesn't have at least one character from every ethnic background?

But more importantly, why is the ethnicity of the characters even important in a fighting game? I'm more interested in the marial arts styles for diverse play rather than getting hung up on race in a genre of game that has nothing to do with race.

"Sorry Randolph, but i did not make that statement. I did ask the question if it was on purpose, but 20 years is a long enough time to at least ask the question."

I have to call bullshit on this one. You asked a loaded question with an bundled ssumption that nobody agrees with. If I ask you "how often do you beat your wife" then I've already established with the question that you're a wife beater and it's just a question of how often. You didn't ask "is Tekken racist", you asked "is Tekken's racism deliberate" even though it hasn't been established that Tekken is in any way racist.

You talk about countries that are famous for their martial arts, but outside of people who study martial arts I don't know anyone who knows what Silat or Escrima who don't live in those respective countries. Muay Thai is widely known, but Tekken does have a Muay Thai character (who is black, just like in DOA). Although I'm sure it may exist out there somewhere in something like one of the KOFs, but I've never seen a fighting game that had a Silat character.

Finally, why single out Tekken with your ridiculous accusation? DOA has no Thai character, nor does Virtua Fighter (although both games have Muay Thai style fighters). What fighting game has a character who's specifically identified as Indonesian or Malaysian for that matter? It really seems like you haven't done your homework on this. Maybe there was more info in your blog, but you fail at linking so I can't even read it if I wanted to.

-Byshop

Here we go again representation..first ask yourself represent who exactly:

• Many Asians don't support Tekken not even Japan.
• Greater than 80% of Tekken sales come from Europe/ Amurica
• In general Japan and Asians detest fighters and prefer Arcades, Internet Cafes, or handhelds (yep that's right consoles not even popular over there anymore)

The main character is from Japan and Tekken is largely influenced by Asian culture (Alisa). You don't don't need anymore OP as they are literally represented enough. Historically, NA and EU gamers have an unexplained extreme bias against Asian characters in certain genres. This also leads to more westernization of many Asian games aka Street Fighter, DmC, Kingdom Hearts, list goes on. If you want to see more Asian faces, tell all your Asian buddies to support their company and quit buying pokemon.

Why are your links to www.gamespot.com when they are not related?

So basically, "Their game isn't politically correct enough, and they must change it because I say so"?

This thread is a proof why political correctness and "gamers delusions" about a perceived ownership has gone way out over the last line , in fact its way past the "you should return now" mark and not even Cameron would be able to be indy enough to find these people and get them back on track.

Clearly the developers who´s game it is, think that leaving them out is a good idea and thats all that matters, if you dont like that there isent Bruce Lee types or Chan´s then dont buy it, speak with your wallet instead of thinking you have some right to demand change.

Do we really need 2 PC centered threads on the front page? Serously this is a video game forum, why not talk about things that are fun and leave this PC nonsense to another forum.

people will complain about anything these days wont they.

Eh? this is Games Discussion and is about any game no matter what platform. So no we cant just go somewhere else.

@tekkenvsracism said:

Digital Apartheid?

After 20 years of Tekken the makers have totally ignored the most populous nations and created characters only from a small part of the world. Are certain people not welcome to the party? Are some ethnicities being censored on purpose?

Amazingly Namco Games has published a MARTIAL ARTS game that has NO CHARACTERS from several countries that are globally recognised if not famous for their martial arts.

Not 1 character from Thailand. Not 1 character from Indonesia or Malaysia. Not 1 character from the Philippines. Tekken has not featured a single South-East Asian character, not ever....

I just had to speak out. No offense meant but it's hard to stay silent while the crowd cheers for Pokkén.

It seems Namco is more likely to add new animals or digimon to Tekken than Thais, Filipinos, Indians or Indonesians. Yes, according to the makers of Tekken all Asia and it's martial heritage is represented only by Japan, China and Korea. The rest of you don't exist in the Tekken universe. (for 20 years)

I'm urging Tekken fans to urge Namco and Katsuhiro Harada to make Tekken more ethnically diverse.

You can read my full post here on my blog. It's a loooong text, so i only posted the opening.

Want to take action? #HelpHarada

Why?...because you only recently caught on to Ong-Bak & Serbuan Maut/The Raid (west) movies? ...now Harada has to include it? :P

I think in this case PC == Politically correct... unless that is sarcasm on your part?

Problem with the written word is that you cannot easily convey sarcasm, unless you make it too obvious, So good catch.

If you want to use really dumb labels I am a huge "SJW" but this....

Uhm... TEKKEN SUCKS so.... Theres that.

Ok I'll bite. I'm Southeast Asian and I honestly don't care either way.

There are rumors that Jollibee would be added in Tekken 7, so you may just get your wish.

Seriously though, Tekken is fine as it is. But addition of a kickboxer probably wouldn't hurt, and would be easy enough to implement.

Also, we do have M Bison, Sagat and that other kickboxer in street fighter, so we outnumber South Asians in fighting games because all they've got is Dhalsim. And I don't think I've seen any Australian continent fighters...

Every game sucks for you Lulu :D

But no Tekken is actually the best fighting game out there.

@Jacanuk

Dead or Alive is the Best.... :p plus DoA comes with Co-Op straight from the get go.

So does Tekken :) and nope DOA is ok but Tekken rules the henhouse.

@Jacanuk

You know what I meant.

And Tekken can rule all the Henhouses it wants, DoA just rules... :p

@Jacanuk: I think we are going beyond talking about the actual content of the game to political issues and "non-content". It's true that there's no place for discussing wider issues in the industry. But maybe there should be?

I think a sub-forum of some kind needs to be made as these topics strike me as being tangetially related to games rather than actually about them (and the content of them) but not so off-topic that they belong on the OT. At the moment a huge bulk of the games discussion board isn't to do with the games themselves but the games industry in general. I dunno about you, but when I click on the "Games Discussion" board I expect to find people talking about, you know, games.

Wow. Nice logic you have! Care to explain WHY you feel that way instead of saying "Tekken sucks"?

So very true. I guess I could have asked Siri to read it to me, but she's always complaining when I ask her stuff. lol.

@Metamania: Sure I'll do it for you:

Netcode

Its funny how deeply offended some folks get about others mentioning or questioning possible prejudice in gaming. Are gamers still in the cave with regards to gaming social relevance? It definitely seem that way from the majority of the responses. You can complain about anything with regards to a game except things that are socially related, a rather silly and sheltered notion to say the least especially since the bulk of modern day games try extra hard to push some social agenda.

@Metamania

Duh.... No Combo Interrupting Counter Moves ! :)

@Lulu_Lulu: Tekken does have combo breaker moves...

-Byshop

Yeah, that's not a good reason to say Tekken sucks. The netcode isn't bad for me and I've haven't had any issues with it. Nice try though!

I haven't spent a ton of time online with every installment of Tekken, but the netcode for TTT2 and the F2P version are both solid.

-Byshop

Sure there is room but there is also a limit to what needs to be debated, like this thread its just a big joke and most likely just put here to troll.

There is a forum for these kinds of topics, its call off-topic and yes even though that this kinda relates to a game, its still more about some percived notion that developers dont have a right to create what they want and have to have a PC checklist.

Pedro you know whats more funny. Its you jumping into a thread and clearly showing that you have absolute no clue what this is even about and just come in because you want to "troll" abit as this white knight of the Social Justice order.

Because if you knew anything about Tekken you would know that 90% of the characters are asian, they might not be from Thailand and who gives a f about that, they have tons of other asian characters and after all the devs are not from Thailand they are from Japan and if they want to make every single character japanese who are you or TS to even begin to claim Prejudice or that they should include asian people from Thailand. They are all from the god darn same region

@tekkenvsracism: agreed. and yes gamers should be able to make the games they want...but if your making a martial arts game, dont be surprised when people post things like this because martial arts fans will be pissed off when you totally ignore major aspects of the art

Oh, and when have Japen become a nobody in martial arts?

oh Japan is a big somebody of course. I want to see more Chinese Shaolin

Ya Shaolin but i think they had that, its been awhile since i played Tekken.

They also in Tekken 7 have chosen a arab character this time.

@Metamania: it was a joke, but at launch (surprise no not really) and a year later people were constantly complaining about online

@Jacanuk:

uh no more like 13-14 were Asian. Technically its less as one abandoned nationality and another identified as American so yeah not even 90%

Actually it all depends on what game you look at, but ok lets just say that a majority was asian and i counted 22 who were directly linked to Asia, not to mention the ones who were descended from asia but picked as another nationality.

Also you won't find a more inclusive game then Tekken, characters all over the world, tons of females and even a few gay characters