EA on women in Battlefield V; "If you don't like it, don't buy it"

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

I'll say this every time a person complains about women in world war 2.

The two thousand snipers that the Russians trained. The Untold numbers of Dutch and Parisian women who picked up guns and defended the only homes they had along other freedom fighters.

Can anyone put a number to the uncounted?

 

[ex951753]

I applaud EA for sticking with their guns as long as they don't pull a Ghostbusters/Oceans 8 after the fact(blaming low sales on trolls/russian bots/GG/"latest-nefarious-internets-organization"). Who knows, maybe there is a huge untapped consumer base for first person shooters. The only way that we'd find out is by voting with our wallets.

 

[Satinavian]

Though I don't believe there was any attempt at tactical use of the V-1.

Well, they planned those for the manned Version Fi-103R. Which coincidently had a female testpilot, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanna_Reitsch
Which was as close as women were allowed to get to actual fighting. It was also her idea to develop this piloted suicide bomb and after the war she stated she really regretted was not having been allowed to die for the Fuehrer.

The prototypes didn't work that well and Fi-103R was abandoned in favor of project Mistel.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

which means that a game featuring a Victorian Gentlemen Thief, a gunslinging cowboy, a disgraced Samurai ronin, and a French Pirate would be 100% historically plausible

God damn I want to see this asymmetric 4 player co-op now. I envision something like Monaco.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

which means that a game featuring a Victorian Gentlemen Thief, a gunslinging cowboy, a disgraced Samurai ronin, and a French Pirate would be 100% historically plausible

God damn I want to see this asymmetric 4 player co-op now. I envision something like Monaco.

Me too. This sounds beyond awesome.

Hell, even if it was just an RPG or something, I would be all over this. XD

 

[the December King]

I'm not really into multiplayer games like this much, so it doesn't really impact me- I was never going to buy this game. But it seems to me that choice is always a nice option in character creation. Just because I don't enjoy playing female characters in games, doesn't mean that I don't want to see others able to choose their own avatars.

As to historical accuracy, it seems like this game would be a fictional take on WW2 from the outset, so I don't really care about having female front-line combatants being a normal occurrence, as opposed to the realities of the various campaigns - it's already 'inaccurate'. It's also a game, with game mechanics and rules, that, if one steps back and takes it all in, already separate the experience from faithful re-enactments, let alone historical accuracy.

 

[CritialGaming]

Why was this even a discussion for five fucking pages? What difference does it make? They put a crippled woman on the box art as she is clearly a main character in the story portion of the game. So?

I don't get it, people complain about not having enough minority representation in video games, then complain when they do get a character because it's either pandering, or not good enough.

If it bothers you, then just don't play it. It's Battlefield, you wont miss anything by not playing it.

 

[CritialGaming]

Why was this even a discussion for five fucking pages? What difference does it make? They put a crippled woman on the box art as she is clearly a main character in the story portion of the game. So?

I don't get it, people complain about not having enough minority representation in video games, then complain when they do get a character because it's either pandering, or not good enough.

If it bothers you, then just don't play it. It's Battlefield, you wont miss anything by not playing it.

To some people, they still need to vent about the so called forced diversity and pandering. It's quite silly really.

Yeah but is it really forced? Is it even pandering?

Because honestly we are approaching the point that if any sort of minority appears in the game it's "pandering" or "forced" by default. Which is fucking dumb.

Look we are about the get the fifth or sixth battlefield game, and in the effort to try something interesting they created a female character.

I've always always always said, that once video games start writing good characters then the ever precious diversity the SJW's want will happen naturally. The nature of good character writing is having all kinds of different characters. Beyond Good and Evil 2 has a good chance at being a case study of natural diversity, we know it features a black chick and a monkey which could both be great examples of good diverse characterization if done well.

If done poorly people will call it racist as fuck.

 

[Hawki]

where a ninja, a cowboy, a ghost and a literal wizard fought the illuminati

I get that Genji's the ninja, and McCree's the cowboy, but ghost and wizard? That's a, ah, interesting description of Reaper and Moira (assuming that's who you're referring to).

They put a crippled woman on the box art

Fun fact, she isn't the cripple. The cripple sounds British, whereas the woman on the front, assuming she's from the story mode, is Norweigen.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

where a ninja, a cowboy, a ghost and a literal wizard fought the illuminati

I get that Genji's the ninja, and McCree's the cowboy, but ghost and wizard? That's a, ah, interesting description of Reaper and Moira (assuming that's who you're referring to).

Reaper turns into spooky smoke = ghost.

Moira has magic hands that shoot healing and harming beams = Wizard.

While not totally accurate, it makes enough sense. XD

 

[Squilookle]

From what I can tell, I share some of your preferences in maintaining my feeling of setting authenticity, if I could get them to make battlefield for me, that would be nice, but I understand that that isn't the case and I'm not going to complain that they didn't. But at the same time, that's not going to stop me pointing out the things that I don't like and that I might change my mind about buying it if it were different. It's when you start telling people what it should or shouldn't be that you get the most pushback.

That is always a given.

But i am starting to get curious about how many people discussing here actually played and liked the earlier entries in this series and if we can find anyone complaining about V who is ok with the others.

That'd be me. I still see 1942 as the best, biggest and most varied entry in the series, and from Bad Company 2 onwards the series just moved away from its potential towards being a COD wannabe with vehicles.

To be perfectly clear (because people have difficulty telling the difference), I don't like the look of BF:V, and it's not because of women. When BF1 was announced, I was overjoyed that the series was finally returning to a real conflict, and the singleplayer trailer made it look like they were actually trying to show what it was like to be a part of that conflict. Then BF1 came out and it was just a fast-paces, squad spawn-a-thon pile of rubbish with overpowered infantry completely wrecking the rock-scissors-paper dynamic the series was initially based around. It's image of WW1 as a whole was a complete joke. I wasn't expecting Verdun, but I did expect a game that was closer to WW1 than Codename Eagle- not even further than it.

Now that BF:V has been shown, it looks like it's doing the same damn thing. Pretending to immerse us in war stories of those caught up in mankind's greatest struggle... and then also blinging up your soldier like it's a goddamned carnival. You can't have it both ways. Battlefield 1942 at least tried to properly evoke the war it portrayed even if its ability to do so was limited. Battlefield Heroes never pretended to be anything other than a whimsical cartoon shooter with WW2 kits. Both of those were fine. BF:V has the ability to do so much more than either of those earlier games and they're going to throw it away by not simply committing to one style or the other? They're trying to appease too many crowds, and the end result is something that's just diluted and crap.

Put women in Battlefield. Have combat soldiers with period-specific prosthetics if you like. But do them properly- show us how these incredible people actually lived and fought. Don't crap all over them by making them into the bloody Fantastic 4 with guns and then pretend we're getting an 'immersive' insight into the war.

 

[Avnger]

Why was this even a discussion for five fucking pages? What difference does it make? They put a crippled woman on the box art as she is clearly a main character in the story portion of the game. So?

I don't get it, people complain about not having enough minority representation in video games, then complain when they do get a character because it's either pandering, or not good enough.

If it bothers you, then just don't play it. It's Battlefield, you wont miss anything by not playing it.

You do realize the ones complaining are not the "SJWs" right? The "SJWs" (ie: "people [who] complain about not having enough minority representation in video games") are the ones defending EA's "if you don't like it, don't buy it" statement.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

It's as unusual as finding a cowboy in ancient egypt or an eskimo in Braveheart.

I don't really care about this horse race, but I do want to share some fun historical facts

Victorian England lasted from 1837-1901
The American Old West lasted 1803-1912, and the cowboy era specifically started in the 1860s
The Meiji Restoration (the time period where Japanese Samurai lost their rights and many became wandering ronin and mercenaries) lasted 1868-1912
And french "privateering" lasted in the Caribbean till about 1830ish

which means that a game featuring a Victorian Gentlemen Thief, a gunslinging cowboy, a disgraced Samurai ronin, and a French Pirate would be 100% historically plausible

history isn't as cut and dry as history books and reddit threads make it out to be

on top of history being recorded by winners with an agenda

if you don't want women in your games just say it, don't hide behind misaimed historical accuracy cries

They could meet up in Mexico City's Chinatown and go on pulp adventures.

History is wild.

 

[Satinavian]

which means that a game featuring a Victorian Gentlemen Thief, a gunslinging cowboy, a disgraced Samurai ronin, and a French Pirate would be 100% historically plausible

I am not sure why you think that this is particularly surprising. People know that timeline and genre are different things. Also stuff like that is actually pretty common in fiction as it allows to combine audience favorites with culture clash and fish-out-of-the-water storylines. Even if it is uncommon to mix participants of four genres.

if you don't want women in your games just say it, don't hide behind misaimed historical accuracy cries

But most people complaining about historical accuracy do want women in their games.

It is too easy to dismiss all the critique as reactionary anti-SJW crap when the game is an unimmersive mess (for many other reasons too).

 

[CritialGaming]

Why was this even a discussion for five fucking pages? What difference does it make? They put a crippled woman on the box art as she is clearly a main character in the story portion of the game. So?

I don't get it, people complain about not having enough minority representation in video games, then complain when they do get a character because it's either pandering, or not good enough.

If it bothers you, then just don't play it. It's Battlefield, you wont miss anything by not playing it.

You do realize the ones complaining are not the "SJWs" right? The "SJWs" (ie: "people [who] complain about not having enough minority representation in video games") are the ones defending EA's "if you don't like it, don't buy it" statement.

No I don't realize that, because both sides of this particular fence are stupid. Either for or against, both side's arguments are both pointless driveling nonsense that signify outrage for the sake of outrage and not for the sake of anything valid.

It's like the E3 panel I saw with Laura Bailey, Andrea Rene, and some other lady from Blizzard. They sat around talking about how super cool it would be if more women got into video game development, and appeared as big bad main characters in video games more. The whole time they had the Battlefield V cover art behind them and it all stank of disingenuous bullshit. Even the women in the panel came across like they didn't really believe the nonsense they were brought up to talk about. As if they were smart enough to know that the reason why you don't see many women in the tech industry, is because they don't fucking care about being IN the tech industry.

By the same token of talking about female characters in gaming, they didn't call for more female characters at all, instead they merely asked for female characters to be there when it made sense. Laura Bailey even said that she didn't want them forced into a game for the sake of it. Which speaks volumes considering the more female characters they put into games, the more work she gets. Which means she doesn't even want forced inclusion even if it would result in more job stability for her. Bravo Laura seriously.

Frankly, I think people arguing about this issue on both sides are dumb. Historical accuracy? Really? That's your big thing? I seriously doubt 99.9% of anybody playing a CoD, or Battlefield game, give to shakes of a hampster dick about historical anything. And you are just bitching about this for the sake of having a soapbox to stand on, even if it is made of rat shit.

To the folks clapping their hands and cheering for this random lady in the game like it is some kind of huge leap towards progress, shut the fuck up. Seriously why is this a victory for you? Where were you at the Square-Enix and Microsoft presentation when Laura Croft was fucking being a badass in the jungle like a Predator? Where were you when Super Ginger Aloy was taking down robot T-rexes? What about Gears of War 4 or the new 5? Or what about the return of Jade in Beyond Good and Evil 2? Or the black girl in the trailer?

They clamor about females in gaming, but if you just look the fuck around you would see that female characters (even main characters) are fucking everywhere. They only choose to celebrate it when it is convenient to do so, or when it will cause the most reaction. It's fake, because the inconsistency shows you that they don't really give two fucks about actually having female characters around, they only care about creating noise and buzz-worthy hit pieces.

 

[xorinite]

The article linked to looks like paid for apologetics for EA's cynical attempt to cash in on fortnite/PUBG royale battle games while using existing branding, I mean it's not like EA has a comprehensive history of doing exactly this sort of thing.

It still amazes me that some people will fall for these apologetics if they give them a vague veil of political progressivism, it's like everyone forgets what animal they are dealing with. This corporate Freddy Kruger pulls on a human face stitched together by their marketing groups and analysts and people actually praise them.

"My word EA that is a beautiful human skin suit you're wearing, what kind of lotion do you use?"

The same thing happened with the Ghostbusters remake. A poor product where all criticism is deflected in advance by claiming any criticism must be because of misogyny.

On to the actual product:

I doubt I'll be playing Battlefield V. Battlefield 1 squandered the unique setting what could have been a emotional character driven story instead delivered genericism with a world war one skin.

When I see a major conflict between a brand identity and its product from a big corporate entity, I usually assume this means they have gone through significant employee churn.
EA has a history of doing exactly this and it is the source of every dead studio they have ever killed. They buy the brand but don't care about the employees who they treat as disposable and replace them, essentially hollowing out the company.

So with that perspective in mind I look at Battlefield V. I see a serious brand set in WW2 now with royale, cybernetic arms, cricket bats covered in barbed wire, and an emphasis on customizable micro-transactions. Then I see the like dislike rating on the trailer and the apologetics for this marketed in the same damage control pattern I saw with ghostbusters remake.

Looks like PapEA is about to dig another grave in the basement. Then again perhaps I am simply too cynical, it would be nice to be wrong on this, but who really thinks I am?