Alien's Sigourney Weaver Hopes to See More Women in Games

[Hairless Mammoth]

Hey, since Sega just killed and immediately brought the interactive part of the Alien franchise back from the grave, with great success. How about they, with Weaver's voice and the Ripley character model someone spent a lot of time on but won't be seen by many Isolation players, help fix the post-Aliens story. I'd preorder(and with my hatred of preorders, beckon the Four Horsemen) a game were you play as Ripley right after the events of Aliens, protecting Newt and the injured Hicks while trying to get the out of whatever xenomorphic mess the writers can come up with. I want the true Alien 3, and here's a chance to make it.

Does she know that her character influenced Samus Aran, the one of the first female leads in games? If so, please don't let anyone tell her about Aran's latest story, that one kinda went in the opposite direction for representing women in games.

 

[Grumman]

As if ripley having a daughter in the movies ever played any role whatsoever kept for a small mention in ALIENS at the beginning.

Actually if you think about it.. it's a pretty major thing in Aliens.... see.. that's why she formed such an attachment to Newt. Newt was about the age of Ripley's own daughter before she set into space. She didn't comback until like 40 years later...

Agreed. Family is a huge part of Ripley's story in Aliens, and a huge part of why Alien3 is much worse than it might otherwise have been.

 

[Something Amyss]

If all that makes sense. I just want a story that I look back on and go... "You know what? I want to play that again."

It makes sense, but you added that in Skyrim, and you added it in the cardboard worlds of Mass Effect. It almost seems like good writing is superfluous to what you're talking about. And actually, that's one of the benefits of Skyrim. The game's so sandboxy the main quest is almost completely superfluous. But that in itself isn't a function of good writing, it's a function of bland, vague writing and a world that invites you to play with its toys.

 

[Diana Kingston-Gabai]

And when we do get a great game with a leading lady, like Lara Croft, we see these insane controversies that don't make a lick of sense. Like the "rape scene" in the latest Tomb Raider title.

The best way to think about why that controversy makes sense is to ask yourself whether Nathan Drake would ever be threatened with rape.

 

[Strazdas]

And with the demands for 4 thousand ps and 9 million fps per second, I somehow doubt we'll see more progress for a while.

You do know that people who write game story and gameplay are different than those who code the graphics and optimization, right? While it is true that often gameplay is made and then writers have to write story around it, this is not true for graphics or optimization. for example same machine will run Metro games over twice as well than Watch Dogs simply based on Metro being better optimized. here you just doubled the framerate or resolution by actually optimizing your game. and you didnt take anything from "Story" of the game either. the two do not compete.

also not sure what is "4 thousand ps". if you meant 4 thousand px as in pixels then 4megapixels is actually a small resolution, you probably refer to 4k, or as properly should be called 2160p (4 times the pixels of 1080p). Do note that most people are looking at 1080p or 1440p and not 2160p yet. The framerate of a minimum of 60 is demanded though. the higher framerate monitors/tvs are also getting more popular but people are mostly saying that 30 fps lock is unacceptable, whitch we still see on console games sadly. Im sure most would be satisfied with 1080p@60fps native.

You're missing the point completely. It's not about a quota to be filled. Or about "good characters, bad characters". It's about a bad way of thinking that's making it so that making the main character of Remember Me a woman ends up being a fight. It's about a bad way of thinking that makes the generic main character only a "stubble bearded, middle-aged white man" and never a "middle-aged white woman". The reason being that female-led games supposedly don't sell or something. Or that male gamers (which they believe to be the dominant demographic) don't want to play as a woman.

And about representation: It matters. It matters a lot. Couldn't exactly find it, but there's a post on Tumblr where the societal roles of men and women were reversed. And the last image was GIF of a young boy looking at a plaque with pictures of all the American presidents and they were all women. Before that we had a GIF where a couple wanted to watch The Avengers, but all of them were female except for a token man. And do you remember that one kid from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.? All he asked was this: "Why are none of them black?" when looking at a toy line of The Avengers. You know what happened? Mike Peterson wanted to be that black hero for his son, so that he could have someone to look up to. To show that black people could be heroes too.

Equal representation shouldn't be a quota. It should be the standard and accepted way of thinking. Though, it shouldn't be like "oh, we've got two more white male characters! Let's double up on white female characters!" No, not like that. Obviously.

Why do people want female protagonists? most common answer i hear is so they could relate, meaning they are females themselves and want to relate to character they are playing (well there could also be males identifying as females but i doubt its a significant portion).

As you claimed, evidently female led games do not sell well. why they do not sell well is debatable (in my opinion Remmeber Me was just a bad game for example). but it is important to remmeber demographics of your audience. while ESA tout that half gamers are female, a closer studies seem to reveal that vast majority (think over 80%) of genres such as FPS, RTS, fighters, and other so called "Hardcore" genres gamers are male (interestingly, there seems to be around equal amounts of females and males among RPG players). which means you are marketing to dominantly male audience. if the genre matter for a sake of ability to relate, you have to choose between 80% of your audience able to relate and 20% of your audience able to relate. whitch one do you think will be more profitable?

If there is a choice in the game, i always choose male. I am a male and thus i choose to play as one. i cant speak for others, but given a choice i prefer not to play as a woman.

Representation is important, but it is important not solely for representation sake. its supposed to be reflective of reality, not be some creation to fill a quota. Representation should not be "Equal", it should be fair. which is to say it should fairly represent the demographic your showing, not have equal amounts of each.

It is also important to understand that a game is also a piece of creation. an author may have a vision of something and it is unfair to ask him to chance such vision. instead go and buy from an author that has vision more to your liking.

The best way to think about why that controversy makes sense is to ask yourself whether Nathan Drake would ever be threatened with rape.

Are you implying that males cannot be raped?

Mothers and fathers are the most important people in the world

[citation needed]?

 

[Grumman]

And when we do get a great game with a leading lady, like Lara Croft, we see these insane controversies that don't make a lick of sense. Like the "rape scene" in the latest Tomb Raider title.

The best way to think about why that controversy makes sense is to ask yourself whether Nathan Drake would ever be threatened with rape.

No, that's just stupid. One, you're suggesting that the creators of Tomb Raider should be constrained by the choices of tone and story made by an entirely different studio. It's like saying that Spec Ops: The Line isn't allowed to show the horrific aftereffects of a white phosphorous attack because a broshooter wouldn't. Two, Lara Croft /would/ be more likely to be targeted by a would-be rapist than Nathan Drake. That is not a justification for rape, it is an acknowledgement that evil people are not always equal-opportunity persecutors.

 

[Strazdas]

The Tomb Raider reboot was a fantastic game with a great reception and equally good sales figures. It's sold around 6.5 million units so far. If your game is good, it's going to sell. Regardless of what gender your main character is going to be. Beyond Good & Evil 2 is still highly anticipated by a lot of people, because the first game was so good. Mirror's Edge was received a short, but well made and fun to play game. It's sold about 2.5 million copies so far. The sequel is also highly anticipated.

Almost as many women play games as men do. The majority of men are fine with playing as a woman. Many men even prefer playing as a woman, just look at Jack from Achievement Hunter. The audience is there. The audience is asking. Devs aren't listening. And when they do put in an effort, like with Remember Me, they shoot themselves in the foot when it turns out the game isn't all that stellar. "Oh look, a female led game doesn't sell well. We told you so!"

It's not about filling a quota. The fact that CoD Ghosts finally had female soldiers was a big deal because they finally realized we weren't in the dark ages anymore. Women can be soldiers, OMG. Maybe they finally saw G.I. Jane or something, I don't know.

And when you as a creator don't even bother distinguishing your character beyond the "Rough, stubble-bearded middle-aged white man whose either witty or brooding" archetype, then the whole "artistic freedom" excuse doesn't work.

And how many Tomb Raiders are there? How many games did it took this franchise to achieve that? Why was out outdone by a much younger Uncharted franchise?

Mirrors edge has only gone profitable years after release and in fact at first it was deemed a failure untill ME2 eventually got picked up. It also benefited from being the only decent parkour game ever.

I cant comment on good and evil but what im getting at is your cherrypicking examples and even those examples fail to deliver.

Also id like your research on where majority of men are fine with playing as a woman wheras majority of woman arent fine with playing as man. ANd as i stated already, as many woman play games, but different sex tends to dominate different genres. And if you want to include everything from match3 phone games to GTA5 (fastest selling and one of the most expensive games of all time) then felames are not udnerrepresented. they are only underrepresented if we look at AAA industry, and AAA tend to stick to certain genres. Once again, cherry picking a single youtuber does not prove a rule.

Devs dont have to be listening. Devs should be making what they think is a great game and its for audience to buy or not buy it. since the game is bought, it turns out that the audience DOES like it and only some loudmouths were shouting about it.

You do realize that in most countries in the world Females are not allowed into active combat, and most of them into military at all? and even in those few countries where they are this is a VERY new developement? id say its representative to have all male squad in military operations when 99.99% of them actually are all male.

SO artistic freedom only exists if we make characters you like?

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Too bad her performance is only available on pre-order.

 

[Nowhere Man]

Too bad her performance is only available on pre-order.

And as an Alien fan that really pisses me off. Ugh the whole pre-order bonus thing in general makes me angry. I avoid buying games on day one for many obvious reasons. It's also not worth it when you can get the game for half price on Steam months down the line. I used to be the day one/pre-order kind of person. But I knocked that off about a year ago.

Any chance of her performance being available on dlc? (ugh dlc)

Just checked Steam. So I guess she's on the Crew Expendable dlc? $3.99's not bad I guess depending on the content.