Deep Thoughts: Why Are Latino Videogame Characters MIA?

In our latest installment of Deep Thoughts, Blogamole contributor and gamer Michael Lopez makes a great case for a "Machete" first-person shooter spin-off. Help us out, Robert Rodriguez!

By Michael Lopez

Remember a few months back when everyone was talking about the 2010 Census? We're all about empowering our comunidad by tracking data, but the survey only covered the living population! Shouldn't us gamers have a virtual census for the characters who inhabit our consoles?

Thankfully, NewScientist.com did something like that — complete with pie charts, detailed statistics, and colorful graphs. So, how do Latino characters measure up in the world of videogames?

Spanish warrior Vega in Super Street Fighter II

Based on 150 of the top selling games, the study concluded that roughly 80% of all main characters were white, followed by 10.7% African-American and a mere 2.7% Latino! Additionally only 10% of playable characters were female (time to crank out more Princess Peach games, Nintendo!).

Good luck trying to find any elderly peeps in the virtual world…Only 1.7% of main characters are of senior citizen age (not much company for that old guy from Tekken).

Even though we won’t get the 2010 Census results until the end of the year (which we’re pretty sure it will show a major spike of Latinos in this country), the previous one speaks volumes. When analyzed with 2000 Census data, Latinos made up more than 12% of the entire US population.

To be represented by only 2.5% of videogame characters seems WAY too disproportionate.

And who do we even have to work with right now? Samba de Amigo’s maraca-shaking monkey, that freaky masked guy from Street Fighter, and Mexican banditos in Red Dead Redemption?

C’mon, videogame designers… Show us some love and let’s start cranking out spell-casting, princess saving, alien-blasting Latino characters ASAP!

Source: [PopSci]

Which videogame series need more Latino main characters? Sound off in the comments or @MTV3!

Tags Deep Thoughts, Latinos, videogames