Controversial game concept (not serious)

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A while ago I had a game idea that would be extremely controversial and would, in all likelihood, never see the light of day!

Nevertheless, I present Stereotype All-Stars! A fighting game of similar design to Street Fighter 5 (graphics wise anyway). The character roster is filled with many common stereotypes, which I won't list here for two reasons; it'd get me banned from the forums, and we all know what they are anyway.

Now even though I think the concept is interesting, even I wouldn't condone such a blatant display of offensive stereotyping. I want to make that absolutely clear here! That being said, I'm curious how others around the world would react to such a game. The media would have a field day with this title, for sure!!

Well, why not? On the Simpsons there is a bowling team called The Stereotypes. The players include Groundskeeper Willie, Chef Luigi, Cletus The Slack-jawed Yokel, and the Sea Captain. Apu had begged to be on their team, but ended up on Homer's instead.

In the Simpsons Bowling arcade game Willie, one of the playable characters, had The Stereotypes written on the back of his bowling shirt.

Actually, a lot of video games already have stereotypes, including the more family-friendly ones. The most famous game character is an Italian plumber. Punch-out has a Canadian lumberjack, a stoic Japanese martial arts master, a cowardly Frenchman, a violent Irishman, and a Russian drunkard (Soda Popinski was originally called Vodka Drunkinski in the original arcade but they changed it to the more family-friendly Soda Popinski when the game was made for the NES).

The roster of Stereotype All-Stars would be big, because there are so many stereotypes out there.

- a gay man who uses slapping attacks, rainbow powers, and squeals when hit
- a black-faced black man who uses watermelon-based and fried-chicken-based weapons
- an Irish character who throws bottles of alcohol and uses some weird drunk-based fighting art
- a masked Muslim character whose most powerful attack is blowing himself up
- a lesbian character who is brutally strong up close and can summon a motorcycle
- a blonde woman who is, deliberately, the stupidest character on the roster
- a white American character with a cowboy hat, assault rifle, and can summon a drone strike
- an Asian character who knows all Asian martial arts and can call in a bombing run

So yeah, controversial to the extreme!

Actually that *is* pretty bad, even if it's played for laughs and not hate.

I didn't leave it out on purpose. It just didn't occur to me at the time.I'm not even sure how it would translate to a fighting game.

lostonearth35 you're spot on. It would never see the light of day, let alone get to development status. People all over would be in an uproar, and for good reason.

I have other game concepts that are nowhere near this level of controversy, and would (I hope) be fun to play.

I find this idea amazing and dumb at the same time... I have no idea why. Either way, I'd play it for a good laugh once in a while.

That said, as stated above, it wouldn't be received very positively. I don't condone stereotyping, but I can laugh at streotypes if they're used for comedic purposes. Alas, some people just insist on taking even the most light-hearted joke all too seriously.

What happened to people's sense of humor?