Hello. Sorry if this is the wrong topic. We are working on a tycoon game where you become a tribe chief and grow your civilization with NPC tribe members, here’s the link. Our beta got released and we reached at 1M plays just a few days ago. We are constantly checking feedbacks everywhere to make game better. In community wall, social platforms and videos etc.
The problem is, we got a lot of racism blames in all platforms. Normally tribe member NPCs were dark skinned closer to dark orange than brown (Just like my own) so we thought maybe it made people think of shameful ages so we changed skin colors to random colors. It now includes many colors but we’re still encountering those comments.
As a person who never had to deal with skin color racism (In my country, it works way different), I don’t know what to do. I want to provide a safe environment where everyone just enjoys the gameplay.
It seems that way, yet it’s getting out of private feedbacks. I am kind of getting harassed. Yesterday someone joined our discord server just to type “Racists” and left. I don’t really think I am doing something racist, yet I’d like to know if there is anything I can… “Fix”?
Oh and I can resist to random trolls but this feedback is more than a few.
Maybe try to ask people how the game is racist. Maybe doing so more privately, mind you professionally, would help. Understanding their thinking can help you on how to move forward.
As a potential issue, the game has AI-generated art for thumbnails and some badge icons. The thing with racist depiction or not is intent and control. You, the OP, don’t seem to intend to make racist content, but the AI doesn’t have that. You’re not the one really in control, like an artist would be.
One backlash would be the use of AI in and of itself, but another would be the depiction it represents. You could research tribes and use real artists to maybe catch things in concept art phases to be more accurate.
There’s blatant, intentional racism, and then there’s the non-intentional, less obvious kind. I question the genre of tribal games generally, but this is all a fine line and can lead to a slippery slope. I’m cautious of the topic at hand.
If you show your intention to improve the game, learn, and listen to your audience, I think that’s what matters.
One thing is that there are workers in the game who take breaks/naps, and you have to beat them to make them continue working. You can also hire someone to beat/hit them for you.
I think making villager cycles would fix this and add a lot of realism. Have two villagers for the same task, but have one during the day and one at night. Have a transition where they switch by going to their respective huts. Now, at the moment, there is no day-night cycle, so you’d need that.
See this might cause some uprising conflict. That animation goes crazy
No but in serious terms you should do whatever is said above. First change the name, thumbnail, and some game core. See people just will get infuriated by the skin even though it probably wasn’t mean to harm or insult anyone in any shape or form. The problem is that this is Roblox. Anything can happen and all sorts of people play the game. I legit have my own friends take racism as their top level insult which is crazy in terms of a GAME. I mean a developer wouldnt really mean to harm anyone (unless they evil )
What’s the matter? If you’re basing the NPCs off of Indigenous people, they typically have darker skin. As long as you’re not mocking their customs or insulting them for their race, then it’s not racist.
Next time someone accuses you of being racist, ask them, “how is this racist?” Representation is not racist.
Hey, thanks for answers again. Sorry to answer late and bump this post but the racism comments have reduced since I made sure workers and managers mostly aren’t certain colors.
As for asking people what’s racist about it, apparently they don’t like to answer… Really weird this world is.
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