Riot lacks Age, Race, and Physical Diversity among the champion roster

Quantitative·1/26/2016, 3:57:05 PM·4 votes·6,145 views

TL;DR, so the title says it all, but I'll show some statistics.

After going through all 129 champions (including Jhin), I took off the "monsters" who didn't really have any humanoid features. So some examples would be Rengar (he's a cat), Zac (a big blob), Xerath (a big stick of energy), and etc. and narrowed it down to 87 champions. Now you might get a higher number, you might get a lower number shouldn't be a big deal.

I then divided the champions by gender, because there is a lack of diversity in both genders.

We will start by looking at the females first. There are 43 females. All the females besides Poppy , Tristana , Lulu , and Annie appear to be teenage age, or twenties. Now I know Lissandra is older than 20 that is the frost queen or whatever, but she has the body of a twenty year old. Or Kayle is an angel, does she have an age? No. But she looks twenty-ish to me, Regarding diversity, Not all of the female champions have a race (Elise , Evelynn , Soraka etc.). But 28 have an identifiable skin color. 2 of the 28 are black. Out the 26 rest of the champions, two are Asian (Ahri and Irelia ?), and one is Egyptian'ish (Nidalee ). See how I have to question that? And the physical aspect, well besides the ones younger than 20, Illaoi is the only one that has a non-model esque body or super skinny. What kind of image does that put on females who play this game? Or what type of expectations guys should have for girls out there? To answer you guys, a very sexualized one. For the boys. We see the same trend. The age distribution is a little more focused on a middle aged man type of look like Darius Jayce Draven , though there are champions like Ekko Corki , so props to you guys. Race wise there are 29 champions with kind of identifiable skin tone. 2/29 are black. LeeSin , and XinZhao are Asian, and the rest Caucasian. "What about Shen ". There isn't any skins that show his ethnicity. Physique-wise, I will have to say there is a bigger range than the females, besides the Yordles and Corki, most are very muscular or lean. Then there is Gragas . So Riot did a little bigger job with the guys.

I want to end off with, even if you don't agree with some of my points or choosing. It is easy to see that the champion diversity isn't that big. On the female side, they are overly sexualized. On the men's side, there is a big promotion on being buff, and lean. On both sides there is a HUGE problem with racial diversity. I know Riot is doing a good job to fill those gaps with releases like Illaoi, and Jhin (body image). But there has to be a bigger change. I think one thing you can do is with the masked champions like Azir, Jax, Shen, make a skin illustrating different races.

One little critic is that if you do search some champions and put "human", or "unmasked", their preset is white (Zed, Heimerdinger, etc.), So designers, prove that there is some diversity even if it is masked.

55 Comments

Lauchmelder1/26/2016, 7:33:55 PM5 votes

If I don't care, does it make me racist? No. No it doesn't. I enjoy the game and as such I enjoy all (or most) playable champions the same.

If I care, does it make me racist? Yes. Because I am actively trying to find something I can be offended over even though the majority doesn't care. Because, you know, it's a freaking game.

Should I be offended about me never being as sexy as Urgot? Should I call Gragas a "fat blob" because I am skinny myself?


Damn, people these days get offended by everything, just let them look for a reason. I'm only 20 years old, but even in that short timeframe there was a time where people didn't complain and just played the game they enjoyed. The racists bring racism into gaming, not the developers.

HigeR1/26/2016, 8:55:42 PM5 votes

Look, I'm hispanic, all of my life I've been "bombarded" with the white stereotype of lean girls and buff dudes...

I

Don't

Care

Honestly, and never did, nor did it made my life a living hell or made me confused and made me hate my body or my looks, none of that, the silver lining here is that americans are WAY too sensitive about this issue, most of the people from other races or body types don't care either, it's a game, if missfortune was black, no one would care one bit, yet she's redhead because she bathed on her mother's blood, now tell me, would dark hair get colored blood red given the case? I have dark hair and I can tell you that it wouldn't.

As a matter of fact, you can tell that while League's rooster has a variety of white people we barely have any blondes aside from EzrealLux Janna Olaf and arguably Kayle OMG FIVE BLONDES OUT OF 140??? RACISM!!

Now take a look at this: Draven Ekko Illaoi Karma Lucian Nidalee TryndamereRiven EIGHT champions who are dark skinned, yes you may not be able to see the dark skin on Draven or Riven but me, as hispanic, can tell the difference from white skin and brown.

Not only that but in reality skin has also undertone, and league has a variety of this as well, Singed Diana Leblanc SwainYasuo Varus have darker undertone than: MissFortune Leona LeeSin JarvanIV Fiora Graves

So as you can see, racial disparity is only in your head, mostly because you think that human race is composed of 2 and only 2 races, black and white, when the reality is that we are a great mixture of features which are already represented in-game.

Now body shape is another issue and yeah Riot has agreed already that they want to do better on this front and we have champions like Kalista Jinx Illaoi of course they have just been released and we can hope that for future updates some of the females get a distinct body shape, for example Karma used to be very lean, now she has some badonkadonk and Sejuani used to be a toothpick.

Age, for some reason you seem to be very biased as well, Lissandra doesn't look 20 by any means to me she looks at least 40-ish, in this category we find: Darius Diana Sejuani Vladimir FioraBraum Gangplank Cassiopeia Graves Morgana of course, all of them are athletic because they are on a fighting grounds, no flabs here unless they come to your advantage (Gragas )

Sarutobi1/26/2016, 4:16:26 PM5 votes

Why do people make such a big deal out of stuff like this, and not to sound rude but you contradict yourself a lot. You can't say they don't have diversity then lost champs who are diverse then claim it doesn't count because you said so. They don't need to have more of any race just because it's lacking, especially when you try to put real world culture in this. This is Runeterra not Earth, there aren't going to be "African Amercians" because there is neither Africa or America in this game. If they are going to release champions like that they'll get a huge backlash because they are only releasing the champion for the sake of releasing a champion of that race/age/skin color and that is never ok.

ModWulf Helhammer1/26/2016, 4:33:10 PM5 votes

Didn't you post this yesterday?

And still: Who the hell cares?

Ebonmaw Dragon1/26/2016, 4:36:02 PM5 votes

{quoted}

TL;DR, so the title says it all, but I'll show some statistics.

After going through all 129 champions (including Jhin), I took off the "monsters" who didn't really have any humanoid features.

So, just because someone doesnt "have any humanoid feature" do you put them aside?

That sir, is racist.

The league have a massive diversity of races in the champion rooster:

Humans, Yordles, Half Dragons, Undead, Rats, Angels Robots, Monoliths, Trolls, Plants, Spiders, Scorpions, Birds, Gargolyes, Fox, Wolf, Fishes, Darkins, Mermans, Minotaurs, Cyborgs, Elementals, Octopus, Nightmares, Demons, Armordillos, Crocodile, Dogs, Bears, Celestials and blobs.

That is way more diversity in comparison with games that only have humans.

DeloricVI1/26/2016, 5:26:03 PM4 votes

Well, I guess it was too good to be true, when you see a thread about female armor that's just a joke, and think maybe people will stop this idiotic "diversity" nonsense. No such luck, I'm afraid.

First, who cares? It's not like Runeterra is confirmed to be Earth in any form; did it occur to you that this was just something uncommon in this setting? Do you see people complaining that there are no albino characters, even though such kinds of people exist in the real world?

Also, I hope you're not counting Illaoi as "Black;" she clearly is much more identifiable as the natives to some islands in the Pacific, most notably Hawaii, often referred to as Polynesian. Her accent, somewhat stocky body type, and slightly darker skin color, and dark hair color are very consistent with traits that people of Polynesian descent tend to inherit.

I think it's already been well-established at this point that games do not need to be all-inclusive and not all design choices in games spread ideas like sexism. The United States would be absolute chaos if people were right about Grand Theft Auto making people violent; you may argue that violence is much more intense than sexism, but it's the same argument on a smaller scale. The only people impressionable enough for this to turn them into sexists are young children, who really shouldn't be playing League of Legends. I'd estimate that 95% of League's player base is far too old for this to make a difference.

Just because some larger women may be insecure about how there are no fat women in the media they consume, does not mean that the media must change to accommodate them. I don't complain about a series when I'm too large to look like any of the leads, but too lean to look like larger side characters (see yasuo vs gragas). Should I be complaining about how there are no chubby characters in league of legends? How there's no guys that don't look particularly fit, but don't look like Gragas? No, because I'm not insecure, and there's a reason that characters don't have that look. I'm sure you can find a lot of things in lore that explain things, or just look at the main demographic.

Also, contrary to popular relief, while I do acknowledge that hardcore female gamers do exist, most of the statistics that say the audience in gaming is about 50:50 male to female count girls that play almost exclusively candy crush on their phones as gamers, and even if they were 50:50 the hardcore gamers don't mind set dressing. I mean, have you seen Yasuo? He's fucking ripped and goes into battle without a shirt!? I know Sion is undead, but have you see how much he looks like a body builder? Still shirtless. Did we mention that Ezreal looks like he was shat out of a boy band from an MMO? Look, I know they're not as common as "hot girls," but I love how they're always ignored in this kind of discussion.

Boulderox1/26/2016, 4:59:26 PM3 votes

well look at it this way, females are kinda strict when it comes to model design, too much wrinkles and they look like a man, and they have to be specific in there proportions to have the silhouette of a female, which game devs usually start with. From the character silloette, choices are made so they fill in the blanks. Females can't be covered with beards and mustaches, which is why the guys are variable in looks, simple hair changes can make an enitirely new character theme. Picture Ekko with clean cut combed back hair instead of the Mohawk, totally different feel if you haven't touched the kit yet. The fact of the matter is the "Monsters" you took out can be attributed to some that you hav still... I would clasify Soraka a humanoid creature as Rengar, he might be a cat, but walks on two legs, has full range of motion any human has or more, and talks like a humanoid... so "monster" is a tad bias state by state. Evelynn is a monster? Cassiopeia Shyvana are monsters even if they were human once or part human? The fact is that PURE human characters (2 arms, legs, a head, and has a skin color that is in the real world) are entirely outweighed by nonhuman. Poppy Tristana are nonhumans as well so adding them to the statistic is offputting in the original idea you are trying to say.

But in the matter of diversity, I always will say this: If something is forced to do something, it won't be genuine. Ekko ,Illaoi ,Karma ,Lucian , ALL VERY different characters, vs Garen Lux JarvanIV soldiers 1,2, and 3 complex... And being the most popular game currently, any smudge can cause waves of hate. Why hasn't there been a female Gragas champ? Because that'd be sexist... But if there all hourglass toned, that's sexist too... The female form is such a sensitive topic anything outside of boundaries can get flagged as sexist. Over muscled... There aren't even that many overly ripped guys... Tryndamere Draven Udyr LeeSin DrMundo (if he even counts) are a few examples of this where they are visually ripped in one aspect or another (skins included). Because thematically there is no need for female characters to be overly ripped when there aren't even that many overly ripped guys...

I discourage these kinds of discussions because some people (NOT ALL) want things to pander to there needs, and that is not what a game has to or should feel it needs to, if people don't like the content DON'T PLAY IT, instead of getting upset over what color the pixels on the screen are.... character and backstory is what makes characters great, and shows that they are different.

Twiggles1/27/2016, 4:23:28 AM3 votes

But there's plenty of racial/ethnic diversity in League.

Ashe Freljordian Darius Noxian Sivir Shuriman Soraka Celestial Leona Solari/Targon LeeSin Ionian Khazix Voidborn Poppy Yordle Garen Demacian Gangplank Bilgewater Taric Extradimensional (at least until his rework) Morgana Angelic Teemo Demonic MasterYi A literal bag of dicks

They're all unique, and they don't need varying skin tones or body types to represent it.

You can't bring Earth races into Runeterra and expect them to be relevant. It would be like if we found life on mars and thought they didn't conform well enough to human appearance standards. Fight for racial diversity on Earth. Fight for the enemy's nexus on Runeterra.

Dominick Destine1/28/2016, 3:08:28 PM2 votes

I really hope this is a troll thread.

If not, please, go back to Tumblr and keep that racist nonsense to yourself please.... judge people, judge champions based on the content of their character, not on their skin color, age or sex.

trash sion1/26/2016, 4:35:22 PM2 votes

You already posted this and got downvoted, don't know why you expected differently.

It's a video game, and it's made for fun. No need to make it a race/gender issue. Just play the fucking game lol.

If you want diversity in a video game, why don't you make one yourself?

Sinister Anubis1/26/2016, 5:30:19 PM2 votes

Not another one of these threads. 1st it was champions are too sexy now its champions show too much clevage then it was their isn't a manly female champion thus vi and illaoi and rek'sai then there isn't enough black champions when we already had nidalee karma and taric.(Yes i know some people wont say their black but a lot of my friends who played league back in season 1 when we had the old splash arts they very much looked black.)Thus riot made lucian and ekko. NOW you bring this up for the love of god let riot make their game the way they want to and stop forcing them to do things out of DIVERSITY. Its not always the right answer like holy hell.

GreenLore1/26/2016, 6:26:10 PM2 votes

You mention Azir as one of the masked champions,but you know Azirs head IS a bird head,as he is a big bird man(likewise we see jaxs skin which is some shade of blue or purple)

We also saw an image of Azir when he was human and he does seem to be rather dark skinned(most likely egyptian) https://31.media.tumblr.com/b7e2d19bbcb93285b326efbadd2a3c30/tumblr_inline_nc04fbYKpZ1t01pb2.jpg

And overall I always think it is usually hard to differentiate asian characters from the others in games with a comic/anime-look,I mean Lee sin could just as well be european,the only thing that makes him asian looking are his clothes and his hair-style.

However I think that riot is aware of this issue,I mean lets take a look at the human champs of the last 2 years. 2015 we only got 2 human champs with Ekko and Illaoi,both are dark skinned and Illaoi has probably the most outstanding body type of all the female champs. 2014 had Braum and Kalista(and Azir whose human form was egyptian).And honestly I think Kalista looks like she is in her early thirties and her body type doesn't scream "sexy" either.

Arakadia1/27/2016, 2:35:23 AM2 votes

The reason they don't have more diversity is because, as you see in many movies, people don't find old people, fat girls, ugly people, and non-funny and dumb people badass or entertaining.

Weathered1/28/2016, 12:11:05 PM1 votes

Annie is not in her 20s. The whole point is that she is a kid. Wat

Disneylord1/27/2016, 4:15:41 AM1 votes

Wtf man its a Moba game you are lucky that it even has lore unlike other mobas