No. There was no surprise as a result of reading the selected writings. I personally have seen this issue covered on the Dr. Phil show, as well as in various other news and media outlets. I suppose what is surprising is how people are handling each situation. Some are more active in their response, be it designing or testing new skins or fighting for their right (so to speak) using the game as their means to do so. 

From my own experiences in online gaming, this also comes as no surprise. Racial slurs are at times tossed around regardless of who is receiving the derogatory comment. On various forums, one can find racial jokes at others expenses in the form of "memes". Not to say that this sort of thing is a natural occurrence on the Internet, but rather to reinforce the fact that it is nor surprising.

What is happening here is a number of things. One of the female authors had  somewhat level headed response by stating that the industry is not reacting to the audience fast enough. There is difficulty in producing skin tones of all sorts, however white people have had more development time put into their creation as opposed to other races. But why?

Some of the authors state that the audience is smaller and thus why waste time pandering to your smallest market? This is where the social responsibility of companies comes into the spotlight. It is impossible to draw a line for all companies to adhere to that would ensure the proper treatment of all races and ethnicities. Each company must learn to do so on their own accord with the possibility of enforcement from third party committees.

We cannon say that the changing depictions are enough. They have the colours all wrong, the depictions largely stereotyped and seriously lacking. The way we are allowed to play as racially diverse characters is also not acceptable.

 I do not think the solution is a character of indistinguishable race. Although people do perform their own readings of characters and in turn apply their own assumptions on the character, corporate responsibility is something that is lacking in the industry with regard to racial representation.

The only answer thus far is to ensure a new level of corporate responsibility. If a corporation is multinational then it must cater to it's audience. If it's product is multinational then it must cater to it's audience. Broad and far reaching rules but simple in nature.