A Male on Females on Female Characters

[phoenix352]

i dont see what the fuss is about ....
who cares what you play as ,gender means nothing.

look at valve for an example, portal features a woman lead along with a female antagonist (thats the word for villain right?) both doing a great job at conveying the story of the game.

no one on earth seemed to care that you played as a silent female with hooks on her legs,
and every one and their grandmas loved portal ....

Team fortress 2 also a good example , all the characters are male yet theres no outcry for female characters simply because they do their job well at displaying that specific type of class.

instead of saying we need more female leads , we just need better placement for them and at least some kind of interaction or dialog and not just a thing you look at.

 

[Dhatz]

I once read some developer stated that games dont have characters period. We can't expect any with that attitude. For those not reading Cracked: Ripley was to be male untill they flipped the switch last minute.

One of my latest awesome concepts is to make racing game with interesting racers(indestructible cars raging from classics to scifi, maybe with mmo component, definitely with realistic driving model) where (coverart)protagonists are non-white not too young(at least one is not 30 anymore) male and female and you can play their careers independently and have em in same race(coop or AI) as well. characteristics: world similiar to TDU2 but much more fantastic, at least 8 racers every time, trippy elements when using drugs, graphics at least like GRID, interactions when not in race close to ME/DA cutscenes(without any restrictive system), cutscene camera only on demand, characters behave close to mmo players meaning the game is not the only concern, "story" is completely decided by player, multiplayer includes async race mode and race where 2 teams race in opposite direction at once(=oppositive race?).

 

[beefpelican]

Mass Effect's box art is meant to tell you about the game inside. Look at the box for the first game. You can see just from looking at it that mass effect is a grand sweeping space drama, that the main character is military, that the dude with the glowing blue eyes is evil, and that other aliens and a lady in a tight space jumpsuit will be involved. Granted, they could have had female Shepard on the cover, or black Shepard, or black female Shepard, but they had to pick something.

What they should have done was make the orange light behind Shepherd's head obscure his face.

That's...actually a really good idea. It would certainly drive the point home about how you can make choices and stuff.

Basically? Look to Portal.

This was the standout example of how to do marketing without a centralised figure. (Oddly enough, it's also cause for some despair, but for different reasons; namely, that in such a profoundly female game with an easily depicted central character, they decided to keep her hidden.) Abstract it. Dragon Age 1 used the blood dragon as its symbol. For Dragon Age 2, I'd have gone with that weird symbol thing of Kirkwall's. Or maybe the silhouette of the Kirkwall skyline? After all, Kirkwall is, in many ways, the star of DA2. Moreso than Hawke.

Trailers are, I grant, a little trickier. But again, look at Portal. There they used a clever device to convey the humour and nature of the gameplay without really using much gameplay footage. I don't believe for a second they couldn't have done something similar with Dragon Age 2. Use Varric, talking. (Hell, it's what he does.) Perhaps something about the mystery of 'The Champion of Kirkwall':

"Who is the champion? Heh. Nobody can agree. I've heard stories about how he's eight feet tall and wields a sword as long as himself; I've heard she's beautiful as a flame and wields magic just as deadly. The champion is the rebel lord of the resistance; or the tyrant's right hand. Born into power and destiny; or a Fereldan refugee caught up in the winds of chance. And y'know, the champion is all of these things, and none of them. But that's not the point. The point is, the champion changed the world. And I know the Champion's story..."

Use the images of the game. Show the setting, show the gameplay. Build intrigue and mystery.

Would that be better from a diversity standpoint? Absolutely. Anything to dilute the endless range of gruff men in the marketing. From a marketing/sales perspective in the short term? Probably not. The fact is, it's a way of signalling to the male fanbase, "Hey, this is for you. You wanna be this guy, right?"

But it's being done at the expense of the mid-to-long term. We can only grow this industry so much without getting women involved. They're half the population, and we're doing a crappy job of growing the market to them. In the end, gaming is caught in a Prisoner's Dilemma. Everyone's defecting ("just keep on using gruff men, it sells") because in the short-term it's always a better strategy than co-operating ("let's try and expand the market") even though it's limiting future growth.

That's also a good idea. Dang you guys, all manner of good ideas happening up in this forum.

The one quibble I have with both of these is something BlindChance pointed out. Mass Effect and Dragon Age, being RPGs, are about wanting to become the character, whereas Portal was really about the puzzles and GlaDOS. It was cool to play a woman, but it didn't make much of a difference in the game. Dragon Age's trailers were, as BlindChance mentioned, showing the fanbase (regardless of gender) an awesome person that they would want to be. The Legend of the Champion trailer idea is really cool, but it would mean they couldn't have any of the awesome fight trailers, which would be a lot to lose.

 

[teknoarcanist]

I think most of my chick friends are more irritated by bland non-characters like Vanille from FFXIII and Ashley from ME1 than anything else. They're shrill, irritating, and completely pointless other than to check 'the girl' off the party checklist.

For my part, I'm damn glad to hear Shamus point out that cardboard women are just as offensive to men. I'm so damn tired of being pandered to like I'm the beer-guzzling, ass-chasing, single-minded patriarch of a sitcom.

Damn your jiggle physics, and just give me a character that doesn't make me grind my teeth in frustration every time she comes on screen.

 

[Mutak]

Maybe a party of "player characters" would be referred to as "your party"? I mean really, if you were the GM (that's Game Master, or DM if you're the Dungeon Master) would you really even say "A group of Smurfs ambushes your party of Player Characters! What do your Player Characters do?" Doubtful.

This is a deeply pointless and off-topic argument, but for the sake of trying to get it over with...

Speaking from something close to 30 years of experience, PC is a very common term in the larger PnP RPG community. If your primary interaction is as a casual player, i can sort of understand how you might miss it if you weren't paying much attention. It's primarily used when a GM talks to someone who is not in their game. "The PCs did X and then..." If you're talking to people who are actually in the game, you would usually just say "you," "your character," "the party," or something similar.

The fact that you weren't familiar with it is kind of odd, but oh well - now you are.

 

[daftalchemist]

I think female gamers are more bothered by obvious sexualization than they let on. I think we've just come to terms with the fact that, at this point in time anyway, that won't change. Game developers still think all men have the attention span of a thirteen year old boy, and they will pander to that misinformed notion for a good while longer. So we've switched to bargaining. Instead of "put a shirt on" we're at "you can keep the shirt off if you like, just stop acting like a moron and do something useful". It's more important that we're able to play as strong female leads, or alongside strong female backups, than it is to tone down the jiggle physics and get a lot more diversity in cup size.

Hell, even when a game has a "useful" female sidekick, chances are the AI is making her seem like a complete retard anyway. It's a losing battle. :/

 

[RA92]

Funny. Weren't a ton of guys offended by Lisa Foiles' attire when she started off - because they felt that kind of objectification is usually reserved for frat boys and doesn't suit their demography?

Of course, Lisa then later goes wearing a shirt that made everyone want to do the Konami code. Oh, the cheek of that girl... &nbsp

I actually didn't originally watch the show cause I thought it would be retarded pandering and frankly there is plenty of porn in the sea.

Then I finally watched it and was pleasantly surprised at how funny I found her and how much I enjoyed the series. It's a great show, and thankfully she tells you just who the hell she is (which made it even MORE enjoyable because I realized they didn't just hire her because she's attractive).

She was always great. It's just that the level of insecurity of some folks are unimaginable...

 

[Zom-B]

The term player character came from the original Dungeons and Dragons. It's as close to an official term as you'll get.

I won't dispute that, but it's also a term not widely used, even within the PnP roleplaying community.

Let's agree that it's not widely used within your experience of the PnP RP community, and a commonly accepted term in mine.

Sure, I'm reasonable enough to do that.

 

[BlindChance]

The one quibble I have with both of these is something BlindChance pointed out. Mass Effect and Dragon Age, being RPGs, are about wanting to become the character, whereas Portal was really about the puzzles and GlaDOS. It was cool to play a woman, but it didn't make much of a difference in the game. Dragon Age's trailers were, as BlindChance mentioned, showing the fanbase (regardless of gender) an awesome person that they would want to be. The Legend of the Champion trailer idea is really cool, but it would mean they couldn't have any of the awesome fight trailers, which would be a lot to lose.

What about using different characters each time? A male mage, a female warrior, a male rogue, whatever. Show off the new combat system by visualizing it in CGI. Similar to the 'classes' trailers they did make. Make the game's tagline, "Is this the Champion?"

Maybe that would have worked, maybe not. It's hard to tell if mystery and intrigue would have worked better than balls-out excitement. But they could have done it.

 

[sheic99]

You know the reason you see this guy all the time?

He's a Hollywood leading man. 20-40 years old, white, brownish hair, good looking. He's your Tom Cruise, Kevin Costner, Christian Bale, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Harrison Ford, et-motherfucking-cetera, but unlike the real hollywood male he won't get old and go nuts from drugs.

He's pretty enough that you can put him on a poster, but generic enough that you can throw him into just about any story in any genre and no-one thinks he's out of place.

If you look carefully, there's about 3 maybe 4 facial expressions between them.

 

[RonHiler]

I think Volition in particular should get some points on this one. Granted in Saints Row 1, you had the typical male stereotypical protagonist (available in a variety of ethnicities, but basically the standard male character).

But in Saints Row 2, you could play a male, a female, and anything in between (transexual? Check. Transvestite? Check). The character customization in that game was really quite amazing.

I found subduing the rival gangs as a tough-as-nails female protagonist to be quite enjoyable. And since she did all the same things (with all the same lines) as her male counterparts, it didn't play like a female role or a male role. It was just a role that happened to be female in my particular case.

 

[danhere]

Mass Effect and Dragon Age give you a default character because it gives people a person to get attached to when they cannot properly emulate themselves to a self-made character. I know I appreciate this feature, as I was definitely not into Dragon Age: Origins when I realized that I was more attached to Morrigan and Alistair than my own character, and that I actually saw him as more of a liability than anything. This is also why the only thing that ever kept me attached to my main WoW character was achievement points.

It's true that the default does not have to be the white male, though. At least some companies have enough foresight to provide alternatives within the game. Don't expect this to change anytime soon, because the development of video games only exhibits extensions of cultural norms that have deeply rooted social origins.

I once read an article about institutionalized racial discrimination in public elementary schools (I believe it was by Jonathan Kozol, but I'm not 100%), where black children would be labeled as blacks stereotypically are (read: going to end up in jail or on the streets). They would act in conjunction with these views and end up straying toward such detrimental lifestyles. When the author was asked what could be done to fix the situation, his reply was essentially that anything that is done will only serve as a band-aid for much larger issues.

The same is true for video games. The proper way to change video games isn't through pressuring game developers to broaden their character variety. The proper way to change video games is by addressing the social context within which they are created.

 

[RevRaptor]

So A party of Pc's is a party of my characters? That really doesn't roll of the tongue to well.

Uh, no. You're just taking the piss. Language is fluid, especially english. If you want to try and say that what you just said would logically follow what I said, I'd have to ask if english was your first language.

Honestly, if you're not just being pedantic for the sake of trolling me this doesn't even deserve an answer. But just for the sake of it...

Maybe a party of "player characters" would be referred to as "your party"? I mean really, if you were the GM (that's Game Master, or DM if you're the Dungeon Master) would you really even say "A group of Smurfs ambushes your party of Player Characters! What do your Player Characters do?" Doubtful.

You would most likely say something along the lines of "A group of Care Bears ambushes your Party/Group/Posse (or even in a pinch Characters)! What do you do? Roll for initiative!"

Are you picking up what I'm putting down here?

ps- it's "...doesn't roll of the tongue too well.", not "to".

Dude we don't call it a party of player characters we call it a party of pc's. Saying pc is short and easy and very widely used in my circles. I'm surprised you have never come across it.

Also the reason my typing is sometimes bad is because I'm chronicly ill so I can't type too well and I'm often too tired/ in too much pain or doped up on my meds to spot all my mistakes. so yea thanks for making fun of that.

 

[Zom-B]

Also the reason my typing is sometimes bad is because I'm chronicly ill so I can't type too well and I'm often too tired/ in too much pain or doped up on my meds to spot all my mistakes. so yea thanks for making fun of that.

That's right, because I can tell that you're chronically ill, just from the way you type. Don't give me that boohoo stuff. Like, should we start comparing medical problems? Should I tell you about my catheter and how it makes it hard for me to type well?

And I guarantee you that only the most pedantic, anal GM/DM would insist on calling it a "party of PCs". I didn't say I never came across it, it's just not in wide use in my circles. And again, for you and everyone else that didn't get it, for the vast majority of internet users, a "PC" is that thing sitting on your desk that has the keyboard and mouse attached to it.

This is my very last response on this abso-fucking-lutely ridiculous topic.

 

[RevRaptor]

So what because you are too dumb to figure it out, we can't use the term?
and how is using the term pc a pedantic thing its a very easy short thing to say and anyway if you have come across it why did it confuse you so much in your first post. I call bullshit. You are just back tracking now.

You have lost this argument and just don't want to admit it. several people have already responded that they know and use the term player character. Hell DnD came up with the term. So it's totally ok to call your characters pc's.

 

[jamesworkshop]

Sarah kerrigan
Jill Valentine
Nina Williams
Ada Wong
Taki (Soulcalibur)
Talim
Tira (Soulcalibur)
Samus Aran
Rayne (BloodRayne)
Claire Redfield
Morrigan Aensland
Mileena (Mortal Kombat)
Lightning (Final Fantasy)
Lulu (Final Fantasy)
Kasumi (Dead or Alive)
Kitana (Mortal Kombat)
Ivy Valentine
Chun-Li
Cammy
Bayonetta (character)
Alyx Vance
Mona Sax
Sheva alomar
Lara Croft
Rubi malone
Cate Archer

Still not completly buying this line of thinking complain about characters being poorly realised but stop pretending that women are useless, practically every video game character is a badass.

"Strong" is quite literal in this medium when do you ever see lara croft pause because of humans strong liking for filling their lungs with oxygen.

 

[teknoarcanist]

Here's a rule of thumb for devs: If you couldn't have this character fit anywhere into your game world, and you're not trying to make something cartoony like Ratchet and Clank, you need to reconsider your characterization.

Spoiler

Its not about diversity, its about having real people, rather than stereotypes and charactures. Diversity would follow suit.

Well said. Better yet: if you're incapable of conceiving a game in which that character could be the lead, you need to take a hard look inward, and ask why that is.