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Gender of a protagonist
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I don't careIn the aftermath of E3 2015 there were plenty of articles about this year being a breakthrough year. There were brief moments where I wondered to myself whether I am seriously biased or suffering from a severely faulty memory because, to me at least, 2015 didn’t seem to represent any real change from 2014 (even some of the vidya getting praised are sequels whose previous version had the choice of women charaters). Orubiru posted an article earlier in the thread that did a comparison between 2014 and 2015. But, and this is puzzling to me, why is this narrative so prevalent when (at least to anyone who actually follows vidya) it is so obviously bull****? To go back full circle in this thought – why has this (imo blatantly) false meme spread like wildfire?
It seems to me that there is a large amount of narrative being synthesised by the media ‘reporting’ on this. Taking Polygon as an example since it was linked in the OP, that magazine published article after article pushing the “gamerz h8 wimminz”. If you grant the (not unreasonable imo) premise that the Sony executives were influenced by such articles then you reach a fascinating conclusion: that magazines like Polygon are essentially reporting on a controversy that they played a small role in creating.
And all the while these memes spread in spite of the real attitudes espoused by this thread’s (admittedly highly unscientific) poll. I really don’t get it at all. Any takers on offering a working hypothesis? Because I’ve got nothing.
'This woman played a game. What happened next will surprise and inspire you!' or 'Clickbait articles: if you write them they will, em, click…'
Obviously the likes of Polygon were getting enough clicks on their articles to justify continually posting them up on their site and youtubers were getting enough subscriptions for their polemics from either side of the gamergate divide to carry on beating it to death while those in the middle scratched their heads and wondered what was actually going on.0 -
Atari JaguarApparently last year's E3 had more games with playable female characters.
I think ths years E3 definitely had a lot more focus on the games with female playable characters because of the **** companies like Ubisoft got since last E3 about the lack of female playable characters in their games.0 -
I don't care
The above is an utterly false premise unfortunately. Publishers have always relied upon the input of marketing and, when available, internal focusing testing when making the kinds of calls we're dealing with in this context. A number of articles on Polygon or any other gaming-orientated website isn't going to even register on their radar when it comes to making decisions on multi-million dollar projects.If you grant the (not unreasonable imo) premise that the Sony executives were influenced by such articles then you reach a fascinating conclusion: that magazines like Polygon are essentially reporting on a controversy that they played a small role in creating.
And all the while these memes spread in spite of the real attitudes espoused by this thread’s (admittedly highly unscientific) poll. I really don’t get it at all. Any takers on offering a working hypothesis? Because I’ve got nothing.
On that note, however, things have started noticeably improving over the last number of years when it comes to more diverse characters. This is around the same period that articles on the subject starting appearing more regularly across a variety of publications. In light of this, it would be a logical fallacy to conclude that they helped create or even perpetuate the problem.
As to why there was a discrepancy in the numbers you're seeing above? Probably because most of the major games on show last year featuring female protagonists haven't been released yet so when it came to this year, we were shown all of last years again on top of the new batch, thus giving the impression there were even more this year when, as the figures above show, there weren't. On top of that, and probably of equal importance, I don't believe we had any shrieking women in any major trailer for people to latch onto, unlike last year with the Rainbow Six: Siege example.0 -
Atari JaguarI can't take any of this shíte on "diversity" seriously when they lump The Witcher (a series based on Eastern European/Slavic fantasy & folklore) in as "problematic White-centric gaming".0
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I don't care
Your mistake is linking the rather reasonable desire for more diverse protagonists in games to the opinion of someone who uses "very japanese" in the pejorative sense when describing a video game such as Vanquish.I can't take any of this shíte on "diversity" seriously when they lump The Witcher (a series based on Eastern European/Slavic fantasy & folklore) in as "problematic White-centric gaming".
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I don't care
I still don't think you can dismiss it so easily, or at least not without some more argumentation and certainly not without a better answer as to where the concerns of the development team actually came from. The development team in question did do focus testing and, in a completely unsurprising turn of events, the results were positive - there wasn't anything to indicate a female protagonist would be badly received. Sony have been marketing games now at least two decades, so when you consider the many games with female protagonists that had great success I find it very difficult to believe the marketing department would have had any of these concerns. Earlier in the thread you stated* "Personal feelings on the subject aside, the decision to make the lead character in a big budget AAA game a woman will raise eyebrows at a publisher (and marketing) level." Given the history of games that Sony have published, and how they have been received, what makes you so sure about this? Beyond: Two Souls, for example, was one of the most pre-ordered games they ever released.The above is an utterly false premise unfortunately. Publishers have always relied upon the input of marketing and, when available, internal focusing testing when making the kinds of calls we're dealing with in this context.
* I underlined 'will' in order to preserve the original emphasis that is otherwise lost when the quote is italicised.
The question I see is this: If these concerns did not stem from the marketing department, did not stem from the focus testing and did not stem from the gaming community, then from whence did they originate? The idea that such a large corporation could be influenced by such articles should be ridiculous, on that we agree - but then how else can you explain just how utterly wrong Sony's perception of gamers was?
Your comments did make me think of another alternative - that the marketing departments are influencing the gaming magazines. But that requires an answer to an even more difficult question: how stupid does a marketer have to be to think portraying its industry and target market in this manner would help vidya sales???
I don't follow. Can you unpack this a little more? I just don't seem to be able to grasp what you are trying to say here.In light of this, it would be a logical fallacy to conclude that they helped create or even perpetuate the problem.
One thing that does have to be acknowledged is that graphical limitations are not what they once were. Mario wasn't the result of artistic vision, rather he was the result of an extremely limited graphical platform. Many games in older times had you play as either an object or an otherwise genderless creature/thing. Better technology and better graphics mean that developers can tell stories in ways they previously could not. I would posit that this is what leads to greater diversity, but even then I'm not convinced that the current day diversity is really much of a step up from previous. Remember the 10-in-1 set you get for the MegaDrive? 3 involved playing as an animal or object (Sonic, Columns, Flicky), 3 involved only male characters (Sega Soccer, MotoGP, Revenge of Shinobi) and 4 involved both male and female (Super Hang On, California Games, Streets of Rage, Golden Axe). Does E3 2015 really represent a leap forward from this? Admittedly this is just off the top of my head, but the foot of the article that orubiru linked to earlier in the thread had an impressive collection from 1999-2000 that really emphasises this point.
This simply doesn't make sense given the same 'problem' also encumbered E3 2014, not to mention the sort of evidence the 1999-2000 compilation represents.As to why there was a discrepancy in the numbers you're seeing above? Probably because most of the major games on show last year featuring female protagonists haven't been released yet so when it came to this year, we were shown all of last years again on top of the new batch, thus giving the impression there were even more this year when, as the figures above show, there weren't.
Doesn't this emphasise that much of the 'reporting' on E3 is utterly devoid of empiricism and disconnected from reality? It was shameful watching article after article line up to condemn that. Probably committing the no true Scotsman fallacy here, but if your reaction to that trailer is one of "look at the oppressed woman" instead of "that looks cool, can't wait to play that with my online mates" then maybe, just maybe, you're not really into vidya (or, at least, not into the FPS genre).On top of that, and probably of equal importance, I don't believe we had any shrieking women in any major trailer for people to latch onto, unlike last year with the Rainbow Six: Siege example.
Wonder how those same people would react when they see the movie 'Hostel'?0 -
I don't care
Doing a quick google search and reading the articles that come up spouting some serious rubbish makes me question whether K.O.Kiki really did make a mistake. Polygon have an opinion piece where the author, with a straight face, makes the claim that because there are no PoC's in the game that "This is literal dehumanizing of people of color." If the author had flat out called the game racist it would have been more honest than the confused cavalcade of insinuations dripping from the article, something that is a far cry from being a mere "rather reasonable desire for more diverse protagonists".Your mistake is linking the rather reasonable desire for more diverse protagonists in games to the opinion of someone who uses "very japanese" in the pejorative sense when describing a video game such as Vanquish.0 -
I don't careTotally and utterly off-topic, but I'm reading through the comments on Polygon's Witcher opinion piece and feeling a desire to bang my head off the wall. You have a Pole, a Palestinian, and a relative of a Syrian explaining that the peoples of the Levant and bordering Western regions are not recognisable as "non-white". These are people who live in the regions, or are related to those who do, describing what they observe in the region. And these folks are being, what I can only describe as, condescended to and told that they are wrong about their experiences????
Wow. Just wow.0 -
I don't care
No, the development team didn't have any concerns, the publisher did. Guerilla were the ones that wanted a female protagonist and, one assumes, built their story, world and game around one. It was Sony who had qualms about it and it was they who would have turned to focus testing to allay those fears. The fact that a content creator is now free to make the game they want without irrational fears from a publisher getting in the way is something which should most certainly be welcomed.I still don't think you can dismiss it so easily, or at least not without some more argumentation and certainly not without a better answer as to where the concerns of the development team actually came from. The development team in question did do focus testing and, in a completely unsurprising turn of events, the results were positive - there wasn't anything to indicate a female protagonist would be badly received. Sony have been marketing games now at least two decades, so when you consider the many games with female protagonists that had great success I find it very difficult to believe the marketing department would have had any of these concerns.
As for the result of the focus testing, I wouldn't say they're surprising but more indicative of a general shift in gaming audiences to include both a more varied demographic but also diverse opinions on the gender of the leads.
In the case of Sony? The mere fact that their head of Worldwide Studios was nervous about it is a reasonable indication. Beyond: Two Souls isn't the best example as its pre-order numbers are more indicative of a very successful (and expensive) marketing campaign than anything else, its post release sales were certainly nothing to write home about. As for pointing to the success of Tomb Raider, it will be seen as an aberration rather than something to bet on.Earlier in the thread you stated* "Personal feelings on the subject aside, the decision to make the lead character in a big budget AAA game a woman will raise eyebrows at a publisher (and marketing) level." Given the history of games that Sony have published, and how they have been received, what makes you so sure about this? Beyond: Two Souls, for example, was one of the most pre-ordered games they ever released.
Outside of Sony there have been a couple of similar higher profile examples in the past. The one which comes to mind immediately is Remember Me.
I believe there's enough evidence, both empirical and anecdotal to show the problem did stem from the first examples.The question I see is this: If these concerns did not stem from the marketing department, did not stem from the focus testing and did not stem from the gaming community, then from whence did they originate? The idea that such a large corporation could be influenced by such articles should be ridiculous, on that we agree - but then how else can you explain just how utterly wrong Sony's perception of gamers was?
You were suggesting that the positions taken more recently by Polygon and similar sites, as well as the content they're generating, is somehow responsible for the lack of female leads due to the perceived negativity towards females they tended to generate. I'm pointing out that this is chronologically impossible on the basis that there has been a large imbalance in the sex of leads for years and both the publications in question, as well as the more "progressive" stance, is a considerably newer phenomena.I don't follow. Can you unpack this a little more? I just don't seem to be able to grasp what you are trying to say here.
I was referring to Arthur Gies with that quote, the Reviews Editor at Polygon, who also handled their review of The Witcher 3 in which he made similar remarks regarding race and gender.Doing a quick google search and reading the articles that come up spouting some serious rubbish makes me question whether K.O.Kiki really did make a mistake. Polygon have an opinion piece where the author, with a straight face, makes the claim that because there are no PoC's in the game that "This is literal dehumanizing of people of color." If the author had flat out called the game racist it would have been more honest than the confused cavalcade of insinuations dripping from the article, something that is a far cry from being a mere "rather reasonable desire for more diverse protagonists".
Regardless, it was more of a light hearted joke poking fun at the idea that calls for more diverse protagonists are the sole preserve of those people who make such ridiculous points when it comes to certain titles or characters.0 -
I don't careDoing a quick google search and reading the articles that come up spouting some serious rubbish makes me question whether K.O.Kiki really did make a mistake. Polygon have an opinion piece where the author, with a straight face, makes the claim that because there are no PoC's in the game that "This is literal dehumanizing of people of color." If the author had flat out called the game racist it would have been more honest than the confused cavalcade of insinuations dripping from the article, something that is a far cry from being a mere "rather reasonable desire for more diverse protagonists".
You know, I didn't bother to read any of that stuff about The Witcher 3 because I haven't got the game yet, but after this I took the time to go read the Polygon article that started this whole thing, and found it actually not all that bad and pretty reasonable. I don't really agree with the article, but it's nothing really objectionable and was alright food for thought.0 -
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NoApparently last year's E3 had more games with playable female characters.
I think ths years E3 definitely had a lot more focus on the games with female playable characters because of the **** companies like Ubisoft got since last E3 about the lack of female playable characters in their games.
Those labels "Slammed as not diverse" and "Praised as diverse"...0 -
You know, I didn't bother to read any of that stuff about The Witcher 3 because I haven't got the game yet, but after this I took the time to go read the Polygon article that started this whole thing, and found it actually not all that bad and pretty reasonable. I don't really agree with the article, but it's nothing really objectionable and was alright food for thought.
The big complaint about that article, and similar, is that it is written from a very American point of view and completely ignores the setting of the game and where it was developed.
We're talking about a Polish game, written by a Polish man in good ol' days of communism based on Polish mythology and lore.
To complain about a lack of people of other races is akin to me making a game about the Irish mytg of the Fianna and being told I need more minorities in it.
Diversity for the sake of diversity in a game is just sloppy. The characters chosen and used should fit the setting and not be put in just to appease people.0 -
Totally and utterly off-topic, but I'm reading through the comments on Polygon's Witcher opinion piece and feeling a desire to bang my head off the wall. You have a Pole, a Palestinian, and a relative of a Syrian explaining that the peoples of the Levant and bordering Western regions are not recognisable as "non-white". These are people who live in the regions, or are related to those who do, describing what they observe in the region. And these folks are being, what I can only describe as, condescended to and told that they are wrong about their experiences????
Wow. Just wow.
Your first mistake was reading polygon at all.0 -
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I don't careYou know, I didn't bother to read any of that stuff about The Witcher 3 because I haven't got the game yet, but after this I took the time to go read the Polygon article that started this whole thing, and found it actually not all that bad and pretty reasonable. I don't really agree with the article, but it's nothing really objectionable and was alright food for thought.
The way the article starts with with the notion that many white players expressed concern at not being able to pick the colour of their skin in the game Rust. Considering the game has sold seven million copies, are the opinions of a handful of people (seven or eight quoted at the most) really indicative of the views of the majority of the millions of white players who bought the game?0 -
I don't care
The problem with that particular section is the "Many white gamers" remark which should have been "Some gamers" in order to be factually correct. It's arguably indicative of a slant present throughout, however, it's clearly marked as an opinion piece so I wouldn't get worked up about it. As for whether the point applies to the majority of the millions of people who bought the game, of course it doesn't.kunst nugget wrote: »The way the article starts with with the notion that many white players expressed concern at not being able to pick the colour of their skin in the game Rust. Considering the game has sold seven million copies, are the opinions of a handful of people (seven or eight quoted at the most) really indicative of the views of the majority of the millions of white players who bought the game?
The rest of the piece on The Witcher 3 misses the mark somewhat. I would have preferred actually looking at the situation from the position of the source material rather than the general "slavic mythology" one. Zerrikania is mentioned, for instance, yet not the fact that Azar Javed doesn't actually feature in Sapkowski's novels. So perhaps CDPR could have chosen another Zerrikanian to feature in TW3? But it's also been established in the lore that Zerrikanians have little to do with the region the games take place in so forcing them in that way may have been something CDPR weren't comfortable with? In cases like this I'd much prefer to see developers stick to the material they're working with or, generally speaking, their own feelings on what works best in their games. As has been pointed out before, shoehorning in diversity for the sake of it is utterly counter productive.0 -
I don't careThe big complaint about that article...
Yeah, I understood the complaints before reading it, and I would agree. But my point is, the actual content of the article hardly justifies the backlash against it, he doesn't call the game racist and only provides his perspective, which was a very interesting read. One thing that stood out was where he had said that the Witcher 3 was one of the best games he's ever played and has sank 170 hours into it, he's not bashing it at all, but it seems like any criticism or opinion is taken as extreme. There's no nuance.kunst nugget wrote: »The way the article starts with with the notion that many white players expressed concern at not being able to pick the colour of their skin in the game Rust. Considering the game has sold seven million copies, are the opinions of a handful of people (seven or eight quoted at the most) really indicative of the views of the majority of the millions of white players who bought the game?
Nowhere did he claim that that was indicative of the majority. Like, I've posted about how some of the Payday 2 community reacted when they added two female playable characters... Now, is pointing this out indicative of the majority of Payday players? Absolutely not.0 -
I don't careNowhere did he claim that that was indicative of the majority. Like, I've posted about how some of the Payday 2 community reacted when they added two female playable characters... Now, is pointing this out indicative of the majority of Payday players? Absolutely not.
The article stating that 'many white players expressed concern' would suggest that it's a big issue. It's very poorly written in that regard imo.0 -
I don't care
Sorry, I’m confused by this whole paragraph. I don’t believe I ever stated or implied otherwise than this, nor do I understand what restating something we all already knew has to do with what we were discussing….!?? For me the central issue is trying to tease out why Sony had concerns. Since I have (although you may disagree) ruled out the gaming community, the history of their titles, etc., I can only speculate that the source for those concerns is from the only place I see them being replicated – the gaming media.No, the development team didn't have any concerns, the publisher did.
This is the sort of statement that makes me scratch my head in complete confusion. I’m going to ignore the changes in audience demographics since that is a whole other topic, and I’d like to focus on audience attitudes. I totally accept the premise that a changing audience demographic will feed into changing audience attitudes, but I don’t think this will change the point I want to explore regarding audience attitudes towards female protagonists in vidya.As for the result of the focus testing, I wouldn't say they're surprising but more indicative of a general shift in gaming audiences to include both a more varied demographic but also diverse opinions on the gender of the leads.
Based upon my own experiences and from talking to fellow gamers I cannot see any evidence whatsoever that the gaming community ever had an issue with female character protagonists. Nobody freaked out over Samus. When having vidya fests I don’t remember Cammy or Chun-Li being avoided in SF while Blaze was the most played character in SoR. How many rereleases of FF6 have been now?
In order to state that there is a shift in audience attitudes over this issue there must have been some reason/evidence to believe that gamers, at one point, had a negative attitude towards female protagonists. What is that evidence? What are those reasons? This assumption that the gaming community ever harboured ill feelings towards female protagonists, given my own experiences and the total absence of contradictory evidence, just baffles me. I just don’t get
This looks like mere handwaving to me. That such numbers in the gaming community would pre-order a game featuring a female protagonist is the sort of empirical evidence that strongly challenges Sony’s concerns. If a person is forced to resort to the sort of handwaving you do here, and to label the massive success that was Tomb Raider as an aberration, then…well…it doesn’t inspire confidence in those ‘concerns’.Beyond: Two Souls isn't the best example as its pre-order numbers are more indicative of a very successful (and expensive) marketing campaign than anything else…..
Why, after release, TR was a roaring success and why B:TS wasn’t is fairly simple to understand. One was great fun and brilliant to play while the other wasn’t. That the lead was a certain gender never entered into it.
Can you share some of this empirical evidence? The Eurogamer article referenced an article by Penny Arcade, which had this:I believe there's enough evidence, both empirical and anecdotal to show the problem did stem from the first examples.
“Games with only female heroes are given half the marketing budget as games with male heroes. That’s an enormous handicap that cripples their ability to sell well. “Games with a female only protagonist, got half the spending of female optional, and only 40 percent of the marketing budget of male-led games. Less than that, actually,” Zatkin said.”
That’s terrific evidence showing what the publishers think, but poor evidence if you are trying to claim that female leads affect the buying habits of the gaming community. In your comments it seems as if you regard the claim “gamers have an issue with female protagonists” as being obvious. Why?
?? I do not know how you got that from my comments, I really don’t. Let me break it down:You were suggesting that the positions taken more recently by Polygon and similar sites, as well as the content they're generating, is somehow responsible for the lack of female leads due to the perceived negativity towards females they tended to generate.
- Sony had concerns that gamers would not be receptive to a female protagonist.
- I can find no compelling evidence to suggest gamers have any issues with respect to female protagonists (this thread’s poll suggests the exact opposite).
I am thus asking the question of why Sony had those concerns and from where such concerns originated. The only source I can see peddling that gamers have a ‘hate on’ for female protagonists is the gaming media (and the mainstream that recycle such stories), hence my raising whether it influence Sony’s concerns.
Personally I think you are being WAYYY too generous here. Let’s look the journey the article makes in getting to the Witcher 3:But my point is, the actual content of the article hardly justifies the backlash against it, he doesn't call the game racist and only provides his perspective, which was a very interesting read. One thing that stood out was where he had said that the Witcher 3 was one of the best games he's ever played and has sank 170 hours into it, he's not bashing it at all, but it seems like any criticism or opinion is taken as extreme. There's no nuance.
- The headline sets the tone with the phrase “gaming's race problem”.
- This ‘problem’ is deceptively given deceptive quantification with the phrase “Many white gamers expressed concern”.
- Taking a comment from a blatant trollbait thread (OP’s profile isn’t even subtle) and using it to follow his “Many white gamers expressed concern” paragraph.
The Witcher piece finally reaches the punchline “Again: This is literal dehumanizing of people of color.”.
Sure, you can technically claim that he didn’t call the Witcher 3 racist but think this defence is (slightly ironically) lacking in nuance. It reminds of ‘some-people-say journalism.
Mar shampla: “Many people say Links234 is a bigot and have decried their use of racial epitaphs.” Then, when you complain about my piece, I can go “But I never called you a bigot!”.
That whole thread on Steam was pure trollbait. It did have this gem though:
“You should all be more sensitive about these things!My grandfather died in Auschwitz during the holocaust in 1944!
He fell off a guard tower.”0 -
The protagonist is generally male because the audience is. I think people generally don't mind a whole lot but saying there is a problem is like saying there are not enough male leads in sex and the city.
Look at the wii sales, they aimed for the casual market, sold loads of consoles but not many games. It was a fad for people that didnt make them return customers.0 -
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I don't carePersonally I think you are being WAYYY too generous here. Let’s look the journey the article makes in getting to the Witcher 3:
- The headline sets the tone with the phrase “gaming's race problem”.
- This ‘problem’ is deceptively given deceptive quantification with the phrase “Many white gamers expressed concern”.
- Taking a comment from a blatant trollbait thread (OP’s profile isn’t even subtle) and using it to follow his “Many white gamers expressed concern” paragraph.
The Witcher piece finally reaches the punchline “Again: This is literal dehumanizing of people of color.”.
Sure, you can technically claim that he didn’t call the Witcher 3 racist but think this defence is (slightly ironically) lacking in nuance. It reminds of ‘some-people-say journalism.
It's an opinion piece, he's offering his perspective on race, and how games have made him feel. I mean, lets look at the "This is literal dehumanizing" quote in the proper context, shall we?It should be mentioned that The Witcher 3 deals with "racism," but other "races" literally refers to different species: Elves, dwarves and other non-humans face bigotry.
Indeed, it shows again that humans are white humans and everyone else is non-human and oppressed. I'm not against racism being depicted; the game actually portrays racism and bigotry as bad. But even elves have the opportunity to exist. People of color don't.
Again: This is literal dehumanizing of people of color. We are relegated to non-human species, whose treatment is supposed to mimic real-world racist policies. This sci-fi/fantasy trope of dealing with racism by showing inter-species treatment could work — if all the humans weren't white.
Now that is an interesting point. Fantasy is often going to make allegory to racial prejudice, it can be a way of conceptualizing prejudice detatched from the real world, and if you're going to have elves and other fantasy races as stand-ins for other human races, then it's interesting to see a perspective on this from someone who is actually affected by racial prejudce. But in a way, he's right! If you're commenting on race and your stand-in for a different race is non-human, then that is, in a very literal sense dehumanizing. And I think that's the point he's making.
But what you're doing here is picking out things that seem to say something else when divorced from all context. On the whole it's a reasonable opinion piece, and the over the top reaction to it is OTT histrionics.Mar shampla: “Many people say Links234 is a bigot and have decried their use of racial epitaphs.” Then, when you complain about my piece, I can go “But I never called you a bigot!”.
People call me a bigot all the time, it's hardly anything new. People take so much offense to being called bigotted it's hilarious, but really, nothing happens if you're called a bigot. Look, you're a bigot! See? Nothing happened.0 -
I don't care
You specifically said the development team had concerns. I pointed out they did not, the publishers did. It's an important distinction because every time these issues seem to arise, the source of the concern is always at the publisher level. It's here where focus testing is done, sales figures are examined and marketing research is carried out. If you've read the Eurogamer article on Remember Me, you'll see the CEO of EEDAR quoted as saying that games with female-only leads - where you couldn't choose any other option - did sell significantly less than others. They're the kinds of stats which will be a cause of concern for a publisher and raise the proverbial eyebrow I mentioned earlier.Sorry, I’m confused by this whole paragraph. I don’t believe I ever stated or implied otherwise than this, nor do I understand what restating something we all already knew has to do with what we were discussing….!?? For me the central issue is trying to tease out why Sony had concerns. Since I have (although you may disagree) ruled out the gaming community, the history of their titles, etc., I can only speculate that the source for those concerns is from the only place I see them being replicated – the gaming media.
Preferring a male lead is absolutely no indication that one harbors ill will towards female protagonists though, it's simply a preference towards a particular sex. As for your anecdotal evidence, I completely agree, I've never met anyone who had a problem with female characters either. However, I've also never met anyone who buys large quantities of DLC and/or Premium Passes to major FPS franchises. Looking at the monumental sales numbers for that kind of content, my peers evidently aren't a particularly accurate sample group to gauge how popular they are. Similarly, we have no idea what kind of gamers publishers or third party marketing agencies would have been carrying out focus testing on and so we have no idea what opinions they would have been basing their actions on in the past.Based upon my own experiences and from talking to fellow gamers I cannot see any evidence whatsoever that the gaming community ever had an issue with female character protagonists. Nobody freaked out over Samus. When having vidya fests I don’t remember Cammy or Chun-Li being avoided in SF while Blaze was the most played character in SoR. How many rereleases of FF6 have been now?
In order to state that there is a shift in audience attitudes over this issue there must have been some reason/evidence to believe that gamers, at one point, had a negative attitude towards female protagonists. What is that evidence? What are those reasons? This assumption that the gaming community ever harboured ill feelings towards female protagonists, given my own experiences and the total absence of contradictory evidence, just baffles me. I just don’t get
You used Beyond Two Souls as an example of why Sony shouldn't fear a female lead, I simply countered that it wasn't a particularly good example. As for my Tomb Raider comment, I have no idea why you think I'm dismissing its success. My point was that it is like Minecraft, Angry Birds and Candy Crush in their respective areas, it should not be used as a measure of how successful a title can be given a set of factors, whether it's a feature set or visual style. To put it another way, Tomb Raider is massively successful because it's Tomb Raider, not because it has a female lead.This looks like mere handwaving to me. That such numbers in the gaming community would pre-order a game featuring a female protagonist is the sort of empirical evidence that strongly challenges Sony’s concerns. If a person is forced to resort to the sort of handwaving you do here, and to label the massive success that was Tomb Raider as an aberration, then…well…it doesn’t inspire confidence in those ‘concerns’.
As I said above, the quotes are coming from EEDAR, a research firm who specialise in video games. Their reports are for commercial use and are generally commissioned by publishers themselves. I referred to the quote above which specifically dealt with how sales are supposedly affected by having a female protagonist. To clarify again, I'm not saying this is indicative of people having an issue with female protagonists, merely that this is the information that publishers will be using to make their decisions.Can you share some of this empirical evidence? The Eurogamer article referenced an article by Penny Arcade, which had this:
“Games with only female heroes are given half the marketing budget as games with male heroes. That’s an enormous handicap that cripples their ability to sell well. “Games with a female only protagonist, got half the spending of female optional, and only 40 percent of the marketing budget of male-led games. Less than that, actually,” Zatkin said.”
That’s terrific evidence showing what the publishers think, but poor evidence if you are trying to claim that female leads affect the buying habits of the gaming community. In your comments it seems as if you regard the claim “gamers have an issue with female protagonists” as being obvious. Why?
Again, you're jumping to an odd conclusion here. Sony weren't concerned about having a female protagonist because they felt that gamers have a hate on for them. They were concerned because of the potential effect on sales based on statistics and marketing research that would have been gathered from a particular gaming demographic, similar to the one EEDAR conducted in 2012. The devs over at Dontnod came across the exact same attitudes at the publisher level when shopping around Remember Me to potential partners a few years before that. As it happens, when looking for a publisher for their more recent title, Life Is Strange, they had similar problems.I am thus asking the question of why Sony had those concerns and from where such concerns originated. The only source I can see peddling that gamers have a ‘hate on’ for female protagonists is the gaming media (and the mainstream that recycle such stories), hence my raising whether it influence Sony’s concerns.
So, on the face of it, we're dealing with a problem that has been around for considerably longer than the far more recent shift to "progressive" games journalism from certain outlets such as Polygon a site which, it should be pointed out, only went live itself around the end of 2012.0 -
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I don't care
Quite true however the solid average of 70 it received (if you want to use Metacritic) was definitely worth more than the meagre support Capcom put behind the title.kunst nugget wrote: »Tbf, it didn't set the world alight in terms of the reviews it got either.
If you'd prefer to focus on higher quality games which had to deal with some bizarre requests from marketing, I guess the case of the Last of Us cover is a good one too?0 -
I don't careRemember Me is actually one I'm sorry I didn't get during the Steam sale. I think come Christmas, that and Styx are top of my list to grab.0
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Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 29,382 CMod ✭✭✭✭
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Yeah I reckon Remember Me's commercial failure was much more influenced by it not being particularly good as opposed to any mass market fear of women (imagined, theoretical or actual). I think a metacritic average will have a far more significant impact on sales than the gender of the character on the cover.
Will be fascinated to see if Life is Strange is ultimately deemed a success. It's a much braver and interesting game that offers characters, settings and themes that are legitimately off kilter and 'grown up' as far as video games go (albeit arguably a bit behind other mediums). The digital space certainly affords opportunities that would not be there for a full retail, AAA title.0 -
I don't careYa I was actually interested in Remember me until the reviews hit and even after getting it free on PS+ I could only stomach an hour or two.0
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I don't careFull disclosure: I support #GamerGate. I do not want this to turn into a discussion about #GamerGate, lets stick to the topic.
Now I'm gonna throw in my 2 cents on this discussion.
I've read this whole thread and I don't care about the gender of a character in games when I buy them I care if it's a good game or not .
However I don't want game dev's to shoehorn a female into a game just to fill some gender quota and appease SJW's, if the game calls for a female character make it that way. If the games calls for a Cis White Male then don't throw a hissy fit about representation in the video games industry.
Lots of games nowadays have a character creation option so you can create a character that you want to play.0 -
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I don't careIt'd bother me if it "broke the world." A female American Marine platoon fighting the Pacific Theater of WWII in something *not* intended as alternate reality social commentary or satire or whatever.
Most of the "gender problem" in AAA gaming seems to my eyes to be the settings and stories of those games just being white American male power fantasies for the most part. Shoehorning in female characters into those doesn't work and shouldn't be done, but it begs the question as to whether different settings and stories should be being used.
Mostly this has discussion just been ruined by being turned into grist for the Twitter outrage mill on both sides though.0
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