Race with non-human characters

In video games, humans who represent certain races often follow a set of racial stereotypes. This includes characters like the philosphical Asian Mei Ling in Metal Gear Solid, the Hispanic and African-American gangsters in the Grand Theft Auto series or even the video game versions of African-American NFL players in NFL Street.

However, racial representation in video games isn't just limited to human characters. In many games such as those that are aimed at a younger demographic, there are a number of non-human characters who appear to be assigned a particular race. The default race in most games appears to be Caucasian-American, as shown by a number of video game heroes like Ratchet or Spyro, probably because that is where many of the games are developed.

Speaking of Spyro, the shift in race of the non-playable character Moneybags is an interesting case. In the first four games, he is portrayed as a pompous British bear who sells valuable, obligatory items. His British identity is reinforced by his accent and the suit that he wears. However in the fifth game, "A Hero's Tail", Moneybags is now portrayed as an Arab merchant, who sells various goods out of stalls, like those you'd see in movies set in the Middle East. His costume and his accent both change in order to display new cultural stereotypes. Clearly the creators of both games had different interpretations of the stereotypical greedy salesman. Before you have the wealthy British collector who only sells very valuable items. But then he becomes an almost racist representation of the Arab merchant, which, by my understanding through watching film, normally represents rip-off artists.

Other anthropomorphic characters in the series fit into other cultural stereotypes. Examples that I remember from Year of the Dragon include the Hawaiian Tiki, the Chinese pandas and the Japanese fireflies who only speak in Haiku. Some are more obvious than others. Many are identified just by their accents, others have some sort of stereotypical costume. These demonstrate that video game developers seem to have an understanding of various races and cultures based on their cultural stereotypes.