Am I A Terrible Person For Not Caring?

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Furthermore, from a business point of view this article [http://www.themarysue.com/why-games-with-female-protagonists-dont-sell-and-what-it-says-about-the-industry/] details stats on the subject of female protagonists in games.

From the article, it says:
- "games with only a male hero sold around 25 percent better than games with an optional female hero."
- "Games with exclusively male heroes sold around 75 percent better than games with only female heroes."

So if any one of the people ranting on about this were the exec at the publisher in control of the purse strings, faced with the choice of funding a game led by a male or a female and statistics show the above, which would they sink money into?

 

[Savryc]

I wouldn't say you're a bad person. Hell the reasons I want more diverse characters is simply out of boredom. I'm sick to the back teeth of playing Mr. Short Haired Middle Aged W.A.S.P Guy.

It's entirely self serving and I don't care, I don't owe the code monkeys making games anything. Gimme some fresh, new character and perspective and I'll give them my money.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I never really understood why the issue of making a character X for the sake of it only ever comes up when suggestions for a character deviate from the white dude template.

Suddenly, you need all kinds of elaborate justifications and if you you don't have any, it's automatically "shoe-horning" and pandering.

I don't know, it might stem from when the debate was all about proper representation of character X. Where a female character seemingly had to be handled with kid gloves, and had to have some deeper meaning to her presence for fear of otherwise ending up as just eye candy.

Right now it's like women/gays/etc in games are "special", and so there needs to be a "special" purpose behind their presence. Apparently the only options for women characters are either 'deep and meaningful' or 'shallow sex appeal'. We can't get non-dudes that are just... there. That would be shoe-horning, right?

 

[norashepard]

Snip.

You do realize we are talking about businesses here? Unless we are talking about just throwing in male/female character models, which is obviously not the case if you're looking to have everybody from the LGBTQQIAAP community represented (since we're talking more than outward appearance), you're talking about increasing game production budgets. Is budget ever a 100% legitimate excuse? Probably not. But if I'm making a game and need to worry about just getting my vision done and into stores, trying to add in things like making a story line both male/female compatible (let alone LGBTQQIAAP compatible), you're talking about significant cost increases.

Vote with your wallet - if you feel your sexuality/gender isn't represented enough, don't buy those games. If you're a game developer, make those games and include those orientations.

First off, there ARE no games to buy that don't have those characters. I have never played a game with a character like me, ever. There are no options. I cannot vote with my wallet. Also telling people to make something that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars themselves is no solution at all.

Secondly, it wouldn't increase the production costs to replace the white male types with black women or Latinx Intersex people or whatever other combination you'd want. So there's the solution! Just don't have white dudes in every single freaking game. It would increase it, a bit, to include all of them at once, but as Jim said in his most recent video, these things CAN be done without huge hits to budget. Particularly race, which literally constitutes ONE texture change, and maybe ONE model reformation per addition. For storylines, most are already male/female compatible (see any game with a nameless voiceless protagonist), and those that aren't usually only aren't because of a few select lines and scenes which would not be anything near a huge financial burden.

 

[Ikasury]

i suppose its not 'bad' that you don't care, i find most people don't, and the only reason i give a damn is because a monotonous cast is rather boring...

it probably is a gender thing, i like being able to play as a woman (as a woman) but more often then not said females are either unbelievable or poorly written and really only there for tits... its gotten better but meh... yes there is a level of suspended belief, and since most games deal with a kind of 'military blah blah blah' vibe i get there's a general ratio of 30 guys to 1 woman (i was in the military, that's pretty much how it was ._.) so i can 'get' having less women per men in games, this doesn't really bother me as generally the 'type' of woman that would be involved in these storylines actively beyond typical romance fodder would be a bit of a minority of the female populace...

but to be honest, its not about having 'more women in games' to me, its having a freakin' cast that is BLOODY INTERESTING!! and if you look at any JRPG (i know, they're terrible... but addicting) especially the older/90s ones you find the 'cast' to be diverse (most often including some kind of 'animal'-person, woo!!) and while individually said characters might not be all that interesting, in the context of the group it is paramount for this differences as its the interactions that make them all interesting... having them all be generic-white-man of pottentially varrying ages is... not interesting at all ._. there is no dynamic as generally there's probably very little they don't agree on on some level...

in my short foray into helping a buddy of mine and his 'crew' with their 'making a vidja game about werewolves' they brought me in as i'm rather experienced with writing... the first thing i said after reading their scripts/character portrayals/and basic outline was 'so where's the woman?' they looked at me like i was crazy, their thing was generally a racapping of their time in the field as combat veterans with werewolves and they went at length 'there's no women in combat' i just nodded and proceeded to explain 'that's true, but this isn't in a combat zone, its in a modern city, and the only thing remotely not white-male in this story is the MC's dead girlfriend...' i tried explaining to them, as they brought me on just for the task of 'making the story more interesting' and they didn't want to listen to me at all, that this is a 'game' yes it can be based on their views of 'what happens in war' as vetrans but that without some interesting interaction between character, playable or not, and some diversity whatever story they pull out of their asses wouldn't be compelling at all... just because you give everyone different mystic super-powers with some wangsty brooding background does not make them interesting characters, there has to be that ability to interact, to have potential of 'something' and blah blah blah...

they offered to make one of the characters 'gay'... i flatly stared at them and said it was already the gayest thing i've ever read as there was nothing but dicks involved...

i like to imagine this small paradigm of my experience, on a cosmic scale, is how most game development goes... it certainly explains a lot... especially in the games i've played recently... even as a writer, and female, i find i have a larger amount of 'males' in my stories simply because 'male' is default gender for 'i don't care' when making OCs, but my primary cast of characters-i-give-a-fuck-about is generally 50/50 in the gender margin with all manner of races, looks, attitudes, ages, orientations, etc. dynamic makes things interesting and spurns the desire to keep reading/writing...

as someone that just wants to play a game, i doubt most people notice all this that goes into it, as someone that likes to 'create' things myself i can't help BUT notice it... but usually i don't let it be a detriment, i've never seen a female-heavy cast outside a harem game and the only time the hero/villain were female and freakin' AWESOME were in Parasite Eve even if a majority of the supporting cast was male (except maybe one or two chicks that ended up being more useful as either a source of information or shop in the second one making them more memorable then the other npcs) so its not like i go into a game expecting 'women' to do anything important... its nice, it really is, when i get the chance to play a female PC because i can connect to it easier and i don't squick as much when my only romance options are other women...

plus as i said... when i see nothing but 'dudes' in the cast/only playable characters, all i can think is 'gay'... i believe that was the first word i said when my hubby tried to get me to play GTA5 and it did pretty much turn out to be one of the gayest-bromance-male-whinging stories i'd ever played... just saying...

 

[sageoftruth]

Welcome to humanity! Where nobody is good, and everybody is just a different flavour of terrible... From a less cynical perspective, I say there's nothing particularly negative about being apathetic. Especially when it concerns what is essentially a luxury product.

The world is constantly crying out "CARE ABOUT THIS" be it products, social issues, legal issues, and more. Humans do not have the energy (much less the emotional fortitude) to care about EVERY SINGLE THING, especially when issues dont have any foreseeable resolution. It is extremely easy to become jaded (which I became in adolescence as a psychological coping mechanism, trying to care about everything drives you insane), and considering how little a single person can actually do, the demands on us simply arent reasonable. The best is to choose something that is close to you, and work on that (Me it's science education). Expecting someone to care about something they have little to no emotional investment in is unreasonable. The problem being, people who have an emotional investment in something tend to forget others do not. Which leads to the WONDER that is internet arguments.

TDLR: You're only as bad as anyone else who isnt emotionally invested in someone else's cause. So pretty much every human living today.

Well-said. Lots of people would stand to benefit a lot from this kind of information (myself included). Of course, knowing it and getting your mind to wholeheartedly accept it are two different things, but knowing it definitely an important start.

 

[sageoftruth]

Snip.

You do realize we are talking about businesses here? Unless we are talking about just throwing in male/female character models, which is obviously not the case if you're looking to have everybody from the LGBTQQIAAP community represented (since we're talking more than outward appearance), you're talking about increasing game production budgets. Is budget ever a 100% legitimate excuse? Probably not. But if I'm making a game and need to worry about just getting my vision done and into stores, trying to add in things like making a story line both male/female compatible (let alone LGBTQQIAAP compatible), you're talking about significant cost increases.

Vote with your wallet - if you feel your sexuality/gender isn't represented enough, don't buy those games. If you're a game developer, make those games and include those orientations.

First off, there ARE no games to buy that don't have those characters. I have never played a game with a character like me, ever. There are no options. I cannot vote with my wallet. Also telling people to make something that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars themselves is no solution at all.

Secondly, it wouldn't increase the production costs to replace the white male types with black women or Latinx Intersex people or whatever other combination you'd want. So there's the solution! Just don't have white dudes in every single freaking game. It would increase it, a bit, to include all of them at once, but as Jim said in his most recent video, these things CAN be done without huge hits to budget. Particularly race, which literally constitutes ONE texture change, and maybe ONE model reformation per addition. For storylines, most are already male/female compatible (see any game with a nameless voiceless protagonist), and those that aren't usually only aren't because of a few select lines and scenes which would not be anything near a huge financial burden.

About that, I've been wondering why this happens in the first place. There's certainly the worst case of publishers outright forbidding diversity (ugh!), but as you (or maybe someone else) said, sometimes there is diversity, but the characters who aren't white males are often horribly developed.
I'm wondering if we have the right people to create a bunch of AAA games with a diverse cast of well-written characters. Do we have enough game developers who know how to create characters who aren't white or who aren't male, but are also convincing characters in more than a few rare gems? If not, I don't see any solution other than to ignore the present and focus on the future. Letting go of the baggage you were fed in the past is a hard thing to do after all, and I expect it will be less of an issue when the kids of today become game developers themselves.

 

[DarthSka]

I really don't think you are. Honestly, I lean more to the "I don't care" side of the issue as well. Now, I would definitely like it better if there was more variety and improved characterization overall in games. But if things stayed the way they have been for the past couple of years, it wouldn't really bother me and I'd still be gaming happily. It probably helps that I play a wide range of titles and haven't been stuck with the '30-ish white protagonist' for a while. A lot of people just treat games, movies, shows, etc. as what they are on the surface, fiction that is meant to entertain us and help us unwind. Now they can prompt discussion on various issues and should be open to criticism, but sometimes you just want to play/watch and have a good time, and there's nothing wrong with that.

 

[norashepard]

About that, I've been wondering why this happens in the first place. There's certainly the worst case of publishers outright forbidding diversity (ugh!), but as you (or maybe someone else) said, sometimes there is diversity, but the characters who aren't white males are often horribly developed.
I'm wondering if we have the right people to create a bunch of AAA games with a diverse cast of well-written characters. Do we have enough game developers who know how to create characters who aren't white or who aren't male, but are also convincing characters in more than a few rare gems? If not, I don't see any solution other than to ignore the present and focus on the future. Letting go of the baggage you were fed in the past is a hard thing to do after all, and I expect it will be less of an issue when the kids of today become game developers themselves.

I definitely have seen my share of terribly developed minority characters (especially Trans characters, ick), and I think you're right that perhaps we don't have the right developers at this moment in time. We do have people like David Gaider at Bioware, who (most of the time) writes women well, but unfortunately, he is still under the thumb of EA in the end, and has actually said before that a lot of what he wants to do, he can't.

I bring that up because I'm not sure just waiting the problem out is a viable option, unless those kids of the future break the chain and create their own publishers that can compete with the juggernauts of today. If they don't, the biggest, most popular games are still going to be AAA titles made by EA and Ubisoft, with their restrictions, and will still be the gold standard that all other games follow, for good and bad. Unless, somehow, those publishers miraculously reversed their protocols on these things, more diverse games are going to continue being relegated to indie titles and RPG Maker experiments and the like. Still, the future is a lot brighter than it has been, so I hope you're right about the kids coming up now.

 

[Amir Kondori]

You shouldn't feel bad at all! I don't think it is gamer's job hand wring about gender equality in video games. In fact if you really look at it I think video games have more strong female characters than ever before. You have characters like Elly from The Last of Us, Elizabeth in Bioshock, the latest Tomb Raider, Borderlands 2 has some great female characters, Bioware has games out with good female characters and same sex relationship options. I could name a bunch more games with strong female characters, some playable, but I don't want to bore people.
Basically compared to even just 10 years ago it is a different world in video games. I don't think individual players like us have to sit around feeling bad, in fact I think there is a lot to feel good about.

 

[DementedSheep]

Simply adding in females for the point of garnering sales, that's what you want?

No it's adding females for the sake of garnering variety. What's happening now is simply adding 'regular dude man' for the sake of garnering sales, or should I say, for the sake of avoiding any controversy in order to garner sales.

I never really understood why the issue of making a character X for the sake of it only ever comes up when suggestions for a character deviate from the white dude template.

Suddenly, you need all kinds of elaborate justifications and if you you don't have any, it's automatically "shoe-horning" and pandering.

Yeah, when a character is male we don't say he's "there for the sake of it", the plot doesn't have to revolve around his experience having a dick or being white but for everyone else even women who over 50% of the population you can't just exist you have to have justification and your existence is automatically part of a "quota" or "social justice commentary".
Unless their a screaming useless victim or the prostitutes from the brothel the plot just so happens to require you to go through of course.

 

[nmalthus]

Should there be more female protagonists in games? Absolutely. Is it that big a deal? Not really. Should always have the option to choose male or female where the story allows for it imo.

 

[sageoftruth]

About that, I've been wondering why this happens in the first place. There's certainly the worst case of publishers outright forbidding diversity (ugh!), but as you (or maybe someone else) said, sometimes there is diversity, but the characters who aren't white males are often horribly developed.
I'm wondering if we have the right people to create a bunch of AAA games with a diverse cast of well-written characters. Do we have enough game developers who know how to create characters who aren't white or who aren't male, but are also convincing characters in more than a few rare gems? If not, I don't see any solution other than to ignore the present and focus on the future. Letting go of the baggage you were fed in the past is a hard thing to do after all, and I expect it will be less of an issue when the kids of today become game developers themselves.

I definitely have seen my share of terribly developed minority characters (especially Trans characters, ick), and I think you're right that perhaps we don't have the right developers at this moment in time. We do have people like David Gaider at Bioware, who (most of the time) writes women well, but unfortunately, he is still under the thumb of EA in the end, and has actually said before that a lot of what he wants to do, he can't.

I bring that up because I'm not sure just waiting the problem out is a viable option, unless those kids of the future break the chain and create their own publishers that can compete with the juggernauts of today. If they don't, the biggest, most popular games are still going to be AAA titles made by EA and Ubisoft, with their restrictions, and will still be the gold standard that all other games follow, for good and bad. Unless, somehow, those publishers miraculously reversed their protocols on these things, more diverse games are going to continue being relegated to indie titles and RPG Maker experiments and the like. Still, the future is a lot brighter than it has been, so I hope you're right about the kids coming up now.

If it's any encouragement, those kids will also be the publishers, with their own ideas as to how the world works and what people want. Right now, the publishers are all old (middle aged?) men with their old-fashioned ways of thinking and the notion that games are still toys for kids and adolescent boys to play. That may or may not be completely correct, but I remain hopeful.

 

[Darren716]

You're not a terrible person, I feel that instead of worrying what sex a character is we should be worried more about making well written and memorable characters.

 

[Something Amyss]

ak93] Do we really need a quota for either?

Has anyone suggested we do?

Anyway, brief aside: you say that you're not a girl, so maybe you don't notice as much or you'd notice more if you were. Fair enough, I think this is a visibility issue. I mean, people have been demanding more customisation options since it started becoming a thing in gaming. Now, not everyone wants customisation, but you don't see people shouting down customisation desires because "I play games for the games, not for the characters!" You rarely see it get much notice in the first place. Demanding customisation options is normalised and few people give it a second thought. But if one of those customisation options is breasts, suddenly it's a "political" or "Social Justice Warrior" or "feminist" issue.

I mean, the thing is, a good chunk of male gamers like to customise the characters they play. And I'm not saying you are one, because I seriously don't know. But it's not unreasonable for female gamers to want the same.

And more to the point, wanting female options doesn't make for demanding a "quota."

Assassin's Creed: Unisex is apparently not above a custom main character, for example.

To answer the question, the long way round: No, it's not bad, you're not an inherently terrible person for not giving a damn. But I have to ask: if you really don't care, why does your opening volley start to downtalk those who do?

I dunno. Guys have told me that they find playing as female characters off-putting, and judging from the developers reluctance to put women in games, seems that they think guys would find it off-putting too. So, is it so crazy to imagine that girls would find playing as men (like almost all the time) off-putting?

On a similar note to above, I find it somewhat amazing the standard there. I've seen guys complain about being forced to play a female character (Tomb Raider, for example) and then turn around and tell women that if they don't like playing as a dude, they can always not play video games. I don't think there's even a hint of self awareness there.

Don't give me any "I don't see color" stuff - that is bullshit.

Only if taken in a Stephen Colbert-esque, literalist sense.

I never really understood why the issue of making a character X for the sake of it only ever comes up when suggestions for a character deviate from the white dude template.

Suddenly, you need all kinds of elaborate justifications and if you you don't have any, it's automatically "shoe-horning" and pandering.

It's always struck me as working backwards to justify your feelings. Oh, hey, I don't want this, what excuse can I come up with?

 

[softclocks]

I've never been bothered by the lack of female characters, but I'm more often than not bothered by the way they're portrayed.

Does this make you terrible?

I've never seen anything suffer from a distinct absence of women, aside from porn and political processes.

 

[mecegirl]

Further, if women want to see more women in the games industry then they should apply for jobs within it. Every single woman who studied literature, journalism, psychology, sociology, or another of the Humanities is the problem, not the men who did study science, engineering, maths and computer science. There's nothing to stop any woman achieving academic success in a computer science, game design, programming or 3D modelling subject.

Why should women apply for jobs in the industry? If a woman is already college aged or over she probably already has her career path set. Why should she change that? You don't have to switch your day job to get the games you want. So why should she?

The problem is that the way things are now little girls won't be inspired to want to make games. They will grow up with games that look exclusionary or boring, and not have an interest in becoming the next generation of programers. People tend to stay away from places where they are not wanted.