I wish there were more Arabs as playable characters in games, and not just ambiguously Middle Eastern but with the same attention to detail to our cultures as is put into others.

It feels like the industry definition of 'diversity' is still limited when there are so many of us that haven't seen ourselves represented in media, especially as so much of it depicts Arabs and Muslims as terrorists and criminals.

Maybe I'm not articulating this correctly but it seems to me as if the industry in general is scared, either of us, or to get something wrong, or to receive a bad reaction because of stereotypes of our countries and people.

But honestly touting diversity in games means nothing if your characters and worlds and settings aren't truly inclusive of every, and even less so if they're only included to fill the criteria of this definition of 'diversity'.

This doesn't just apply to video games by the way, but to everything. I've spoken about it in this context because I've been thinking about it in relation to my studies.

Me making this thread does nothing in the grand scheme of things and I know that, but maybe if even a few more people are thinking about it then we can collectively start actually widening our views of the world and the way we present this in our personal works!