Arabs in video games often out of step with times
Popular video games often depict minorities as exaggerated stereotypes restricted to predictable roles, but game developers in the Middle East could help break that mold for Arab characters.
While the gaming world experiences an explosion of popularity and success, a closer look reveals stereotypes and caricatures that seem stuck in the past, especially with regard to Arabs.
If I want to find out more about, say, the Okami clan or shinobis video game characters to write about them, the only way to begin is to log into the games themselves. And what I learned is some creators have over-generalized beliefs about particular categories of people, which is the definition of stereotyping.
Take a look at Khaled al-Asad in the picture below. Asad is a military commander and an antagonist in one of the best-selling and most popular video games in the last 20 years, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. He is the typical throwback representation of Arab characters in video games: He is the source of all evil and, most importantly, he should be killed to bring an end to the conflict in the game’s story.
