Diversty in GTA

[Easton Dark]

Do these people ever stop and think about what they're asking for? The protagonists in GTA V are irredeemable psychopaths. Call me crazy, but I think people would be more upset if Rockstar did make a female protagonist that performed similar depraved acts as the characters currently in the game.

The most psychotic character in all of the GTA series is a woman. Catalina. Would making someone like her the protagonist really change anything?

You'll probably never see a female lead in an GTA game, maybe a DLC, if they wanted to it'll get shot down by the investors for gambling or just not trying to give them the biggest return on their investments.

After this you think any investor is going to say no to Rockstar?

They'll be groveling at their feet for anything.

 

[kilenem]

Yo first of all CJ >>>>> Franklin.

Second, while they are 'diverse' there are still pretty bad at actually having diverse characters. Every Italian is a mob type, every black person is a gangsta with a crew, all the asians are Yakuza, etc. White ladies are always shrill bimbos, and WoC are all hookers, illegals, or addicted to drugs. Clearly, just because there are diverse races, that does not automatically lead to diverse characters. All Rockstar seems to do is mix up the usual stereotypes in pretty ways.

Why not have a Latino (or even a Latina) try to build their own crime empire (like Elizabeta Torres in GTAIV), independent of the already existing criminal stereotypes? Or have an Italian who isn't part of the mob, and is instead a dirty cop or a meth cook or something? What if, hear me out here, there was a Native American character? In any game! Literally any game! And I am waiting for the day that a game has an honest to fucking god second generation Asian American protagonist who doesn't go on about fucking honor or the mother country or whatever. They exist! Really!

Its only a problem when you do stereotypes and don't have social commentary. GTA has stereotypes in 5 but Lammar gets mad at Micheal kid for using the N-word in car dealer ship and Micheal's kid who says I never use the N-word but when you go to repo the Hummer as Franklin you here him using the N-word while Playing a video game. Trevor gets mad at a Cop because Franklin has a arrest on his record for no reason other then him being a African American. Which breaks away from Trevor's character because why would Trevor care because he is a psychopath and it breaks away from Franklin's character because you've committed many crimes as Franklin.It also would make sense for him to have priors specially sense Micheal and Trevor have been arrested previously.

 

[Lucane]

Not that I have the answer exactly but maybe with the mechanic of having sex with someone you can get your health restored by a hooker and/or a "hook-up" on a date having a female lead would either need to have her have male hookers be a lesbian or some new kind of counterpart and with the way all of the random encounters work it might of been to aid in simplifying there responses when it comes to the more talkative ones If there are no women of the night he the online mode that you can have relations with ,then that might of been a possible factor as to why they didn't go with a female lead among other things along with preventing her from having a series of questions why the other 2 can't "hook-up" with her to regain health out in the field or on a mission.

Though the more likely events for the decision was more likely design choice instead of being we wanted to use have at least one female lead but couldn't make it work in our established kind of universe without unbalancing expected features or removing several.

 

[Citizen Snips]

How about this:ATLEAST 90 PERCENTIL OF GAMERS ARE MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALE!
Atracted to females,the majority.

It would ruin the imersion of the game,the obligation to play as a oposite gender.

Maybe if your inbeetween genders or something of that sort of situations or OPTIONAL.

And final,its a GTA game,k?
GTA,grand theft auto,caricature of gangs,society in general,etc.
Having a female protagonist would be way off the beat and track.
You cant just run to a absteimic city and sell booze.
You introduce orange juice mixed with gasoline to try and make hen drunk first,THEN sell cheep booze infused with gasoline.

...Where the hell do I get these analogies?

I try to stay out of these discussions, but this is blatantly false and drives the conversation in a very bad direction.
The truth is that it's almost evenly split between male and female gamers, and in the next 10 years women might become the leader of gamers.

"According to a study conducted by the Entertainment Software Association in 2012, "Forty-seven percent of all game players are women. In fact, women over the age of 18 represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (30 percent) than boys age 17 or younger (18 percent)."

GTA V sold over a billion dollars worth of games, and the base of 18 to 35 males simply is not big enough to encompass all of those sales. Women are playing GTA V, and it's not wrong to expect them to be able to relate to the game's characters.

A woman's perspective could have been really well done in GTA V, just thinking about Tonya looking after her boyfriend's towing service so he's not fired, or SPOILER Amanda abandoning Michael when he gets back into the life of crime. Even Tracey's obvious ploys for materialism and fame could be better flesched out by trying to explain what living in Los Angeles is like for a teenage girl surrounded by such a plastic society. Would Franklin's struggle as an inner city black kid growing up in the shadow of one of the wealthiest places on earth be any less compelling if that was a woman?

Imagine if instead of trying to save his friend Lamar from getting out of the gang banging scene, "Frankie" was trying to get out a life where her two options were to be mother at 17 and working the pole at the Velvet Unicorn, or turning tricks on the corner in Vinewood Hills. So instead she becomes a criminal, maybe a hacker like Paige Harris, or a femme fatale robbing the back accounts of people just like Devin, Michael, or Martin. These stories could be compelling, and I for one would love to play a bad ass rebel without a cause kind of woman.

 

[Tayh]

-snip-

Thanks.
I was hoping that someone more eloquent than me would come by and offer a counter-point to the male-exclusive GTA club.

 

[Citizen Snips]

-snip-

Thanks.
I was hoping that someone more eloquent than me would come by and offer a counter-point to the male-exclusive GTA club.

As a fellow old Escapist member, I understand the feeling.

 

[Dr. Dice Lord]

I hate that this is even an issue for Rockstar. They made the game they wanted to make, a satire of current society, a slice of exaggerated, sarcastic US life. They didn't exclude a female lead because they want to marginalize female gamers, they did it simply because GTAV was designed to tell the story they wanted to tell. They had a vision, and they executed it. Just because it doesn't have a female lead doesn't mean there's some secret sinister agenda at work.

What do people who decry it as sexist or closed-minded want from Rockstar? Do you want all game developers to have checklists and quotas of sexes, creeds, and religions that all have to be equally represented for a game to be "acceptable?" That sounds like an excellent way to hamper creativity, homogenize and water-down the industry even more than it already is.

Lets say for the fact of argument there was a female lead. We would be trading this "outrage" for another turd turbine. Lets look at two possible examples:
#1: Female lead is added that is as morally bankrupt and vile as the current selection of characters. People would decry it as "demonizing women," "encouraging violence towards women," and last but not least it would get flak for being an "unbelievable character" or "breaking immersion."
#2 Female lead is added that has some moral compass and is distressed by the other two character's actions. Throughout the game she tries to dissuade them from committing crimes or from hurting/killing people. In this situation, they'd get hammered for creating a "stereotypical weak female character lacking in any agency." Not to mention the fact that would totally throw a wrench into the rest of the game, creating an awkward experience. Causing a disconnect when you make her do terrible things, and hamstringing the story that rockstar wanted to tell in the first place.

Game designers shouldn't be expected to cater to everyone all at once. This is how shotgun mass-appeal games are created, and I think we all know how awful and bland those are. Rockstar, traditionally, creates games that are more in-line with what male gamer's want to experience. Now I know there are plenty of women who play GTAV and have been GTA fans, but the numbers don't lie. Rockstar targets GTA at a male audience, and this shouldn't be scrutinized or second-guessed. Its simply what they want to make, their creative vision.

If you absolutely require a female character, then GTA Online or Saints Row can help you out. Nothing but male leads does not a sexist game make.

 

[Tayh]

Rockstar targets GTA at a male audience, and this shouldn't be scrutinized or second-guessed.

No shit? Don't you think this could be because Rockstar never allowed women a chance to immerse into or connect to a female character in the game?
GTA is a pretty unique game. There's really nothing else out there like it, at least not if you're looking for a more serious experience.
Yet you support alienating half of the population to dissuade them from playing GTA because of... ???... Reasons? Girls are icky?
I'm not saying that all women are boycotting it because they're forced to play male characters. Evidently not, if the statistics are anything to go by. I'm only saying that it wouldn't harm anyone to offer characters that would appeal to women as well.

Oh yeah, don't start with that "the story demanded 3 male characters!". Bullshit. The story demands what Rockstar wants it to.

 

[Relish in Chaos]

The Grand Theft Auto series is marketed towards adult males, who want to play as other adult males they can identify with while playing the role of gangsters, a ?career? mainly inhabited by males. That?s why we?ve never seen a female GTA protagonist, but we have seen more than non-white GTA protagonist.

Why would a company that only puts out a game about every year take that risk of putting a female character in a game they market and make for adult males?

You'll probably never see a female lead in an GTA game, maybe a DLC, if they wanted to it'll get shot down by the investors for gambling or just not trying to give them the biggest return on their investments.

That is a bad argument because we wouldn't have charterers like samaus For the most part Meteoroid games sell well. Mrs Pac Man was made for women but I think everyone knows how to play Mrs.Pac Man.

No-one even knew who or what Samus Aran was (either an android, cyborg, or a man in armour) until the end of Metroid. Not to mention, even after the "big reveal" that Samus was a girl, it was undeniable that Metroid was a popular game. Plus, in most of the Metroid games, Samus is essentially a running sprite in armour, with no real signs of femininity other than, perhaps, voice (in the 3D games) or certain padding on the armour.

And Ms. Pacman is the same as Pacman, just with the added gimmick of making Pacman wear lipstick with a bow on his head. I doubt gender was ever important in a simple, story-less arcade game where you control a yellow sphere to eat dots and run away from ghosts, unlike the hyper-realistic, plot-driven, almost film-like sandbox games of GTA.

 

[Blunderboy]

Even better than this [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b6/Lee_Everett.jpg] guy?

I was thinking about characters based in a original story. He is still based in the walking dead comic series. Storm from marvel comics in any video game is my favorite black character.

Lee isn't the the Walking Dead comics. So he's as original as Franklin is.

OT - It's never really bothered me. Though I might be making a lady for GTA online.

 

[kilenem]

I hate that this is even an issue for Rockstar. They made the game they wanted to make, a satire of current society, a slice of exaggerated, sarcastic US life. They didn't exclude a female lead because they want to marginalize female gamers, they did it simply because GTAV was designed to tell the story they wanted to tell. They had a vision, and they executed it. Just because it doesn't have a female lead doesn't mean there's some secret sinister agenda at work.

What do people who decry it as sexist or closed-minded want from Rockstar? Do you want all game developers to have checklists and quotas of sexes, creeds, and religions that all have to be equally represented for a game to be "acceptable?" That sounds like an excellent way to hamper creativity, homogenize and water-down the industry even more than it already is.

Lets say for the fact of argument there was a female lead. We would be trading this "outrage" for another turd turbine. Lets look at two possible examples:
#1: Female lead is added that is as morally bankrupt and vile as the current selection of characters. People would decry it as "demonizing women," "encouraging violence towards women," and last but not least it would get flak for being an "unbelievable character" or "breaking immersion."
#2 Female lead is added that has some moral compass and is distressed by the other two character's actions. Throughout the game she tries to dissuade them from committing crimes or from hurting/killing people. In this situation, they'd get hammered for creating a "stereotypical weak female character lacking in any agency." Not to mention the fact that would totally throw a wrench into the rest of the game, creating an awkward experience. Causing a disconnect when you make her do terrible things, and hamstringing the story that rockstar wanted to tell in the first place.

Game designers shouldn't be expected to cater to everyone all at once. This is how shotgun mass-appeal games are created, and I think we all know how awful and bland those are. Rockstar, traditionally, creates games that are more in-line with what male gamer's want to experience. Now I know there are plenty of women who play GTAV and have been GTA fans, but the numbers don't lie. Rockstar targets GTA at a male audience, and this shouldn't be scrutinized or second-guessed. Its simply what they want to make, their creative vision.

If you absolutely require a female character, then GTA Online or Saints Row can help you out. Nothing but male leads does not a sexist game make.

I do agree with you that people would just find something else to complain about. When San Andreas came out my teacher who was Black got mad because the Main character was black and thought the game was racist. The class had to correct him and tell him in the previous games the characters were white. I know my teacher never played the game so he wouldn't even know if the game was racist.

 

[kilenem]

Even better than this [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b6/Lee_Everett.jpg] guy?

I was thinking about characters based in a original story. He is still based in the walking dead comic series. Storm from marvel comics in any video game is my favorite black character.

Lee isn't the the Walking Dead comics. So he's as original as Franklin is.

OT - It's never really bothered me. Though I might be making a lady for GTA online.

Oh OK when I googled it it said the telletale games were based on the walking dead comics. I need to go and play that game to compare the characters. I also have a bias because I'm from Detroit and I grew up wanting to get out of my neighborhood or least changing it.

 

[Dr. Dice Lord]

The story demands what Rockstar wants it to.

Looks like you missed my point entirely. You said it there, the story demands what Rockstar wants. Rockstar wanted three male leads. It's no more or less complex than that. Also, I never said "the story DEMANDED three males" I said it DEMANDED what Rockstar wanted. Rockstar tells stories about violent, sociopath career criminals. Last time I checked thats a male-dominated field.

They wanted to make this game, this way, and they did. Also, good job responding in a dismissive, disrespectful, angry manner and resorting to foul-language to try and get your point across.

 

[kilenem]

The Grand Theft Auto series is marketed towards adult males, who want to play as other adult males they can identify with while playing the role of gangsters, a ?career? mainly inhabited by males. That?s why we?ve never seen a female GTA protagonist, but we have seen more than non-white GTA protagonist.

Why would a company that only puts out a game about every year take that risk of putting a female character in a game they market and make for adult males?

You'll probably never see a female lead in an GTA game, maybe a DLC, if they wanted to it'll get shot down by the investors for gambling or just not trying to give them the biggest return on their investments.

That is a bad argument because we wouldn't have charterers like samaus For the most part Meteoroid games sell well. Mrs Pac Man was made for women but I think everyone knows how to play Mrs.Pac Man.

No-one even knew who or what Samus Aran was (either an android, cyborg, or a man in armour) until the end of Metroid. Not to mention, even after the "big reveal" that Samus was a girl, it was undeniable that Metroid was a popular game. Plus, in most of the Metroid games, Samus is essentially a running sprite in armour, with no real signs of femininity other than, perhaps, voice (in the 3D games) or certain padding on the armour.

And Ms. Pacman is the same as Pacman, just with the added gimmick of making Pacman wear lipstick with a bow on his head. I doubt gender was ever important in a simple, story-less arcade game where you control a yellow sphere to eat dots and run away from ghosts, unlike the hyper-realistic, plot-driven, almost film-like sandbox games of GTA.

The first Metroid you weren't able to tale she was a woman but in the current Metroid's it is a lot more evident. They actually designed the Mrs. Pac Man game for women because the idea of you eating fruits during the level was for women on diets. A little bit more of video game trivia Mrs. Pac Man's level are from a Pac Man clone that Namco bought the rites too.

 

[Dr. Dice Lord]

Again look up female criminals like Griselda Blanco.There are plenty of women in the criminal world who engage in violent acts, so the whole "women can't be violent criminals" argument does'nt hold water,

I never said "women can't be violent criminals." I know it happens every day, I in no way claim otherwise. However, I do hold that there's more incidence of such violent, antisocial, and destructive actions in males than females. That's a fact of life, for better or worse. I'm not saying I'm against a female lead in a GTA game, I just don't think it would have meshed well in the story GTAV wanted to tell. I think Rockstar had a vision, and they followed it closely. I support them in that, and I don't think the lack of a female lead was an intentional jab at females.

 

[Kingjackl]

I don't really fall on either side of the whole female protagonist thing. On the one hand, saying that the three guys had to be male because that would sell better or because that's more 'realistic' for a crime game is rubbish. It's GTA, they can do with it what they like and I seriously don't think adding a woman would affect the games gigantic sales. Plus, we can always use more strong female protagonists now that Samus has been 'Other M'd', FemShep and the Female Boss' series are over and Jade, Faith and Alyx Vance are still on the horizon.

On the other hand, this is the story the writers wanted to tell and the characters they wanted to tell it with. I would prefer a (relatively) undiverse character set that's written well and written with integrity over something the writers felt obligated to throw in. I like Michael, Franklin & Trevor (though I wish Mike would get over himself once in a while), and am happy enough with them as protagonists that I don't think they needed a fourth member, however diverse he or she may be.

 

[Sampler]

I always see the same response on these threads - there's no female playable character therefore the game's sexist.

That isn't necessarily true, but to be put another way is there a single female depiction in the game that isn't sexist? Not one of the peripheral characters are reflected in a good light and mostly boiled down to sexist stereotypes.

So, if we're going to blame the game for being sexist, why don't we aim those cross-hairs where they're completely legitimate, not in a vague area that could be argued out.

In saying that, are men any better depicted in the game - and not just the three playable characters who, given the roles they have to play for the story line are necessary shysters, is it right to rip on a game for having poor depictions of women if they have equally poor depictions of men? A black mirror of society.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

The most psychotic character in all of the GTA series is a woman. Catalina. Would making someone like her the protagonist really change anything?

Dragon's Crown says hi. Vanillaware had had characters in their series with exaggerated proportions throughout their games but people only raised a fuss over it when one of those characters with exaggerated proportions became one of the playable characters, thus putting them more in the public eye.

 

[scorn the biomage]

That is all I get from the forums as of late. I agree completely with you, but many seem so insistent that a game has to have a playable ugly gay female character they are sexist. I really do hate this trend and hope it dies off quickly

To be fair, if they can't even include one female playable character out of their three protagonists, in a long series of games(at least since the series went 3D) with only male playable characters, then this "trend" just might have a point.

No, they don't. If you truly want to play a female, then you can! It is called the Online Mode which seems to have its own set of missions. The story was planned with Male Characters in mind. It was the story they wanted to portray. It isn't as simple as gender-swapping them at all (don't even try to persuade otherwise because you would be proven wrong).

I think the online protagonist is going to more like Claude a blank slate with no real personality

 

[Easton Dark]

The most psychotic character in all of the GTA series is a woman. Catalina. Would making someone like her the protagonist really change anything?

Dragon's Crown says hi. Vanillaware had had characters in their series with exaggerated proportions throughout their games but people only raised a fuss over it when one of those characters with exaggerated proportions became one of the playable characters, thus putting them more in the public eye.

Two responses:

1. The timing of Dragon's Crown in the feminism debate cycle, something this industry hasn't had previously, I would assume it'd be talked about more than previous games because of it.

2. Those are physical exaggerations. This'd be all in the character's head. No one but Tito seems to mind playing as Trevor the psycho in GTA5, would making it a woman doing the maiming and senseless murder really upset people? You can already be a woman in multiplayer if you so choose, so I dunno man.