Internet drama is not exactly a rare thing to find, especially on a platform as divisive as Twitter. What is rare, however, is when those in a public position, such as game developers, find themselves responding to random Twitter users slinging mud their way. Rarer still is when a Japanese developer does this, but as we saw last week such things do happen when the executive producer of Bandai Namco’s Tekken 8, Katsuhiro Harada, responded to allegations of the fighting game’s roster choice being racist for lack of black representation.
Harada, famous for not taking much guff from those who try to confront him, fired back in kind, delivering a verbal beatdown that saw the community almost universally clap for the response.
Harada’s tweet was met with almost universal praise by fans, commending that he didn’t lie down and just take the written abuse and slander to his brand. Indeed, Tekken 8 does have black representation with Leroy and Raven, two extremely popular characters, making their return in Tekken 8 alongside a bevy of other characters representing their own nationalities and ethnicities, with a variety of skin tones as is Tekken’s legacy as a fighting game representing people from around the world. Tekken even goes the extra step of making the characters speak their native language, something other fighting games never try to do, and Bandai has been doing this ever since Tekken featured voice acting.
Now, it goes without saying that the account Harada responded to is talking bad faith at best and is absolutely insane at worst. The TimTiger16 account is almost certainly trolling and trying to elicit a response, which they received at the cost of having the entire Tekken community, and video game community as a whole, come down on their head. Though their tantrum does raise a few interesting questions, namely: why isn’t Eddy Gordo in Tekken 8?
There’s no water in the argument that Eddy was left off the roster because of his skin tone. In fact, there is a chance Eddy was left off the roster because of precisely how popular he with everyone in both the fanbase and the production. Eddy has been a beloved character in the Tekken franchise since his debut in Tekken 3, yet it really feels as though he’s been slowly pushed out of the franchise as the years go on. Originally replaced in Tekken 4 and 5 by Christie Montiero and featuring as a bonus unlockable “costume” of sorts for her. He was then absent from the base roster of Tekken 7, in a way replaced by the kind-of capoeira using Lucky Chloe, before being featured in the console release (where his endings are joke oriented, ditching the serious tone his storyline had taken up to that point).
Indeed, Eddy’s history in the series is tumultuous at best, with a surprisingly shaky roster position despite his popularity and, as noted, he’s again been left off of Tekken 8’s base roster. Many are assuming that Eddy will feature as DLC, sold in addition to the game, though this will likely be a long while in to the game’s lifespan seeing as the first of the Tekken 8 DLC characters have been allegedy leaked with Eddy nowhere to be found, though the leak hasn’t been confirmed.
Eddy being left off the roster does raise interesting questions the fighting game community should consider, primarily: is it right to hold beloved characters hostage as potential DLC in exchange for a few more dollars? That’s the nature of business, but one has to wonder when a community will finally put their foot down and say enough is enough.
What questions this debacle doesn’t raise, however, is anything regarding race. Harada was well within his rights to shut the troll down, Tekken’s roster has been a celebration of diversity since its inception and its identity is tied to that celebration, to presume otherwise is doing a disservice to the community and disrespectful to the creators.