Editorial: Omitting Women From Games Because "It's Too Hard" is Unacceptable

[Reasonable Atheist]

Oh
Imagine this. Everybody who is not happy with this decision doesn't complain and instead decides not to buy the game.

Do you genuinely believe that Ubisoft are going to instantly go to "The game must not have sold due to a lack of a female protagonist" as a reason for the lack of sales?

Of course they wouldn't. If people don't say why they are unhappy with the game and why they aren't willing to buy it then developers are never going to understand why people don't like them. This doesn't just apply to this subject, it goes for all complaints about games. They aren't psychic.

I agree that people often blow these things out of proportion and are often far too demanding in regards to this. I also believe that they'd be better off taking their complaints to the developers forums so the companies actually see them.

But to suggest people shouldn't say anything at all and simply not buy the games doesn't make any sense. People are giving feedback of why they dislike a game and have every right to do so. Do people have the right to demand changes to suit their wishes? No. Do the developers have to listen to it or care? No.

Oh please, they are spending literal tonnes of money painstakingly compiling data from a myriad of games to determine what features sell and what do not. Are you suggesting market research is some kind of farce?

 

[Lightknight]

In a game with stable voice acting and stable characters, you really have to pick and choose the protagonist. Character modeling and voice acting as well as any kind of relationships written on the story rely on that.

Bullying a company into diversifying the main character roster in games with a stable main character (aka, not Skyrim) is as ridiculous as demanding movies to allow us to swap out Brad Pitt for Angelina Jollie as the main character.

Vicious circle or not, until the average consumer of AAA games is female then it isn't in their best interest to make the main character female. That ESA 47/53% female/male ratio is cute if you want to know who has ever looked at solitaire even once, but the real AAA consumer market is still FAR more male. In 2010 when the ESA study was 40/60% female/male we saw that 80% of female console owners owned a Wii as their primary console. Men were split three ways relatively easily. This meant that AAA games being released for the PS3 and 360 saw less than 20% of their audience being female. That's an extreme minority in their target market. If you're only going to develop one game, are you going to cater to the largest market possible or go niche?

 

[Lightknight]

Oh please, they are spending literal tonnes of money painstakingly compiling data from a myriad of games to determine what features sell and what do not. Are you suggesting market research is some kind of farce?

A lot of market research is a farce, yes. Mostly studies that fail to randomize the study group or take advice from the wrong people. For example, what good is it to randomize a focus group for a video game if you don't get gamers? Or they fail to account for bias (think of the coffee example Jim Sterling uses so often).

A lot of studies are just statisticians getting paid without working hard.

Oh look, more bandwagoning from the Escapist. I really need to find someplace on the internet for gaming news that isn't in it for the mouse clicks.

Is there some kind of contribution or point you're making in this post? Sounds like you're just complaining that people don't agree with something without offering up any relevant information as to why your side is right. Whether or not that post was directed at me, this does not aid in any discussion.

 

[Reasonable Atheist]

Oh please, they are spending literal tonnes of money painstakingly compiling data from a myriad of games to determine what features sell and what do not. Are you suggesting market research is some kind of farce?

A lot of market research is a farce, yes. Mostly studies that fail to randomize the study group or take advice from the wrong people. For example, what good is it to randomize a focus group for a video game if you don't get gamers? Or they fail to account for bias (think of the coffee example Jim Sterling uses so often).

A lot of studies are just statisticians getting paid without working hard.

Now i amm not exactly a fan of ubisoft myself, i have not bought a ubisoft game for my pc in quite some time due to the ridiculous demand that i install uplay. However, why should study groups be random? that seems like a way to get a lot of really pointless data, ubisoft solicits people age 6 and older who are interested in games. You know, doing research into the market for their games.... not random people.

 

[shadowmagus]

Oh look, more bandwagoning from the Escapist. I really need to find someplace on the internet for gaming news that isn't in it for the mouse clicks.

Is there some kind of contribution or point you're making in this post? Sounds like you're just complaining that people don't agree with something without offering up any relevant information as to why your side is right. Whether or not that post was directed at me, this does not aid in any discussion.[/quote]

It's more a observation of the quality of the discussion then of the article itself. This is called click-bait where I'm from. A hot button issue (non-issue imo) that is mostly placed to get people to click on it, and respond. I'm merely making an observation that it's sad to see the Escapist running things like this rather that reporting on actual gaming news that's important.

Though, I suppose I should understand. It's not E3 if someone doesn't create a non-argument from nothing about "gender discrepancies"

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Yeah when my friend brought this to my attention during E3, before even thinking the first words out of my mouth were "oh fuck off" at Ubisoft and that lame excuse. And it really is a lame excuse that reeks of laziness and apathy towards their own product. It didn't help that I saw at least one person (i forget what media outlet there were with) actually defended that half assed line. Even if it weren't total bullshit then fucking do what you have to to make it work. I'm sure you can spare a few bucks from your bloated marketing budgets to do a few extra frames of animation, guys.

Not every game HAS to cater to everyone and having specifically male/female characters if it fits the story then that's fine. If thats what works and what you want for the game that's perfectly reasonable, but don't throw that lame excuse in my face and expect me to buy it.

If you don't care enough about your game to put in the effort then why should I care about it either? And if its a matter of money well then that's your fault for not budgeting properly and spending more on marketing than you should.

That's pretty much how I feel about it. If they just didn't want a female character in the story then whatever. But what is the point of saying that they wanted one, but couldn't because of "insert bullshit here"? Did they think that just saying that they wanted a female chracter would make them look more egalitarian or something? It is their game, if they really wanted a female protagonist then they should do the work for it. Especially since they are now a company large enough to pull it off, and because they have put female characters in their multiplayer modes before. But now it's too hard?

[img]http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-J2t0KDnNHlE/Ul6sJEOEMfI/AAAAAAAAAc4/HHAE-9oL3gw/s1600/15.jpg[/img]

It's not the same multiplayer. Multiplayer is triggered by entering a tavern within the singleplayer where you can apparently join in with missions that friends are already doing. It's supposed to be seamless. There is no character creation in the game, only a limited set of customisation options. Which I think means you can choose the colour of the guys robes and whether he has facial hair...

If I were a game dev I wouldn't talk to the press.

Oh please, they are spending literal tonnes of money painstakingly compiling data from a myriad of games to determine what features sell and what do not. Are you suggesting market research is some kind of farce?

A lot of market research is a farce, yes. Mostly studies that fail to randomize the study group or take advice from the wrong people. For example, what good is it to randomize a focus group for a video game if you don't get gamers? Or they fail to account for bias (think of the coffee example Jim Sterling uses so often).

A lot of studies are just statisticians getting paid without working hard.

Oh look, more bandwagoning from the Escapist. I really need to find someplace on the internet for gaming news that isn't in it for the mouse clicks.

Is there some kind of contribution or point you're making in this post? Sounds like you're just complaining that people don't agree with something without offering up any relevant information as to why your side is right. Whether or not that post was directed at me, this does not aid in any discussion.

He's taking a jab at what he believes is the intention of the article, and the quality of the content on the site in general. Seems legit to me.

 

[mecegirl]

Yeah when my friend brought this to my attention during E3, before even thinking the first words out of my mouth were "oh fuck off" at Ubisoft and that lame excuse. And it really is a lame excuse that reeks of laziness and apathy towards their own product. It didn't help that I saw at least one person (i forget what media outlet there were with) actually defended that half assed line. Even if it weren't total bullshit then fucking do what you have to to make it work. I'm sure you can spare a few bucks from your bloated marketing budgets to do a few extra frames of animation, guys.

Not every game HAS to cater to everyone and having specifically male/female characters if it fits the story then that's fine. If thats what works and what you want for the game that's perfectly reasonable, but don't throw that lame excuse in my face and expect me to buy it.

If you don't care enough about your game to put in the effort then why should I care about it either? And if its a matter of money well then that's your fault for not budgeting properly and spending more on marketing than you should.

That's pretty much how I feel about it. If they just didn't want a female character in the story then whatever. But what is the point of saying that they wanted one, but couldn't because of "insert bullshit here"? Did they think that just saying that they wanted a female chracter would make them look more egalitarian or something? It is their game, if they really wanted a female protagonist then they should do the work for it. Especially since they are now a company large enough to pull it off, and because they have put female characters in their multiplayer modes before. But now it's too hard?

[img]http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-J2t0KDnNHlE/Ul6sJEOEMfI/AAAAAAAAAc4/HHAE-9oL3gw/s1600/15.jpg[/img]

It's not the same multiplayer. Multiplayer is triggered by entering a tavern within the singleplayer where you can apparently join in with missions that friends are already doing. It's supposed to be seamless. There is no character creation in the game, only a limited set of customisation options. Which I think means you can choose the colour of the guys robes and whether he has facial hair...

I'm aware that the multiplayer modes are not the same. But I don't see why they would just copy what they have already done. I don't see why they wouldn't build upon what they have already programed and up the ante by making everything customizable. They have taken the first step, hell the first three steps, they can move onwards from there.

 

[Lightknight]

Oh please, they are spending literal tonnes of money painstakingly compiling data from a myriad of games to determine what features sell and what do not. Are you suggesting market research is some kind of farce?

A lot of market research is a farce, yes. Mostly studies that fail to randomize the study group or take advice from the wrong people. For example, what good is it to randomize a focus group for a video game if you don't get gamers? Or they fail to account for bias (think of the coffee example Jim Sterling uses so often).

A lot of studies are just statisticians getting paid without working hard.

Now i amm not exactly a fan of ubisoft myself, i have not bought a ubisoft game for my pc in quite some time due to the ridiculous demand that i install uplay. However, why should study groups be random? that seems like a way to get a lot of really pointless data, ubisoft solicits people age 6 and older who are interested in games. You know, doing research into the market for their games.... not random people.

For any study or statistical results to be valid, you have to randomize the participants or you ruin the data with various bias. You can make your study group a little more defined, like saying they need to be gamers between a certain age group. But even that, your results are only valid for gamers between that age group in that example. As long as that group is your target market, then great.

 

[Lightknight]

Oh please, they are spending literal tonnes of money painstakingly compiling data from a myriad of games to determine what features sell and what do not. Are you suggesting market research is some kind of farce?

A lot of market research is a farce, yes. Mostly studies that fail to randomize the study group or take advice from the wrong people. For example, what good is it to randomize a focus group for a video game if you don't get gamers? Or they fail to account for bias (think of the coffee example Jim Sterling uses so often).

A lot of studies are just statisticians getting paid without working hard.

Oh look, more bandwagoning from the Escapist. I really need to find someplace on the internet for gaming news that isn't in it for the mouse clicks.

Is there some kind of contribution or point you're making in this post? Sounds like you're just complaining that people don't agree with something without offering up any relevant information as to why your side is right. Whether or not that post was directed at me, this does not aid in any discussion.

He's taking a jab at what he believes is the intention of the article, and the quality of the content on the site in general. Seems legit to me.

He(she) was ambiguous about what he(she) was referring to and did not provide any additional content or reason for the statement.

If I say, "You're just repeating what other people say" then that's not establishing that what other people are saying is wrong or why that may be. It's just making a meaningless comment that doesn't achieve anything.

 

[DrOswald]

There was an interesting post on Reddit about this that TotalBiscuit Tweeted about recently: http://www.reddit.com/r/assassinscreed/comments/27ut97/distinct_lack_of_female_characters_due_to/ci5z8i7

...

Creating female playable characters is a lot of work, and when you're on a very tight schedule you have to consider what to prioritise. When only a small segment of your target audience is going to care about not being able to play as a female character, it makes more sense to focus on something else.

This is all a bit of a moot point, though, isn't it? The argument isn't "they should shoehorn girls in afterwards", the argument is "why didn't they think about female characters and models during the planning phase?".

Because you only usually have 1 main character in a narrative focused on 1 character? This is not Saints Row or Skyrim where nothing about the main character actually matters to the story. Assassins Creed has always been a static narrative, as opposed to the mad lib western RPG approach to story telling. You get one story from Assassins Creed.

I find this entire conversation bizarre. I can understand why the thing first kicked up. I, like everyone else, assumed you just picked a avatar for the co-op from a list. If that was the case then a female avatar would certainly be called for and the rage would be justified.

But Ubisoft decided to be clever, taking advantage of their unique medium to make it so each avatar is the custom version of Arno, the main character. Each person sees the other guys as generic assassins while seeing themselves as Arno. This is clever and good game design, maximizing development resource utility to bring us a huge value add. In the current AAA environment of stupidly overblown budgets and insane sales expectations, it is good to see a developer being smart about how they make their game, saving money and time where they can so they can deliver us a better game for less development dollars.

I also thought this would end the controversy. They had a good reason all the assassins were men and almost identical, they all represent the same man. It would be very strange to have a woman avatar representing a male character which the controlling player sees as male. It also would not address the core problem of exclusivity because female players would still be unable to play as a female assassin. I mean, if they wanted to include a female assassin they would have to create a second protagonist in a single protagonist story. Perhaps they should have made the main character female from the start, but it would be unreasonable to demand that they make a second redundant protagonist in a static narrative.

Boy was I wrong. People started to demand just that. Why didn't they think about female characters and models during the planning phase? Because why in the world would you create a redundant main character? The fact that they even considered it is bizarre.

Imagine if this sort of logic was applied to any other types of fixed narrative:

J.K. Rowling is so sexist. Why didn't she consider inclusivity from the start? Clearly she should have written a second version of the Harry Potter series, "Harrina Potter", so her female readers could read about a witch instead of a wizard. What? That would be too much work? What a lazy writer. #womenaretoohardtowrite

Or what about movies? Why couldn't they have made a female version of Django in Django Unchained? Too much work? So lazy! #womenaretoohardtofilm

Or what animation? Why couldn't they have created a female version of Hiccup for little girls in How to Train Your Dragon? #womenaretoohardtoanimate

I just don't get it. Is there something I am missing? How is demanding genderswapable protagonists in a fixed narrative in any way reasonable?

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Yeah when my friend brought this to my attention during E3, before even thinking the first words out of my mouth were "oh fuck off" at Ubisoft and that lame excuse. And it really is a lame excuse that reeks of laziness and apathy towards their own product. It didn't help that I saw at least one person (i forget what media outlet there were with) actually defended that half assed line. Even if it weren't total bullshit then fucking do what you have to to make it work. I'm sure you can spare a few bucks from your bloated marketing budgets to do a few extra frames of animation, guys.

Not every game HAS to cater to everyone and having specifically male/female characters if it fits the story then that's fine. If thats what works and what you want for the game that's perfectly reasonable, but don't throw that lame excuse in my face and expect me to buy it.

If you don't care enough about your game to put in the effort then why should I care about it either? And if its a matter of money well then that's your fault for not budgeting properly and spending more on marketing than you should.

That's pretty much how I feel about it. If they just didn't want a female character in the story then whatever. But what is the point of saying that they wanted one, but couldn't because of "insert bullshit here"? Did they think that just saying that they wanted a female chracter would make them look more egalitarian or something? It is their game, if they really wanted a female protagonist then they should do the work for it. Especially since they are now a company large enough to pull it off, and because they have put female characters in their multiplayer modes before. But now it's too hard?

[img]http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-J2t0KDnNHlE/Ul6sJEOEMfI/AAAAAAAAAc4/HHAE-9oL3gw/s1600/15.jpg[/img]

It's not the same multiplayer. Multiplayer is triggered by entering a tavern within the singleplayer where you can apparently join in with missions that friends are already doing. It's supposed to be seamless. There is no character creation in the game, only a limited set of customisation options. Which I think means you can choose the colour of the guys robes and whether he has facial hair...

I'm aware that the multiplayer modes are not the same. But I don't see why they would just copy what they have already done. I don't see why they wouldn't build upon what they have already programed and up the ante by making everything customizable. They have taken the first step, hell the first three steps, they can move onwards from there.

Has their current multiplayer set-up been much of a success?

I've played all the AC games and barely touched the MP portion of it. Integration within the campaign genuinely might be a good thing. Obviously, I reserve judgement for when I've played the damn thing, but I think this sounds pretty cool.

 

[Reasonable Atheist]

Oh please, they are spending literal tonnes of money painstakingly compiling data from a myriad of games to determine what features sell and what do not. Are you suggesting market research is some kind of farce?

A lot of market research is a farce, yes. Mostly studies that fail to randomize the study group or take advice from the wrong people. For example, what good is it to randomize a focus group for a video game if you don't get gamers? Or they fail to account for bias (think of the coffee example Jim Sterling uses so often).

A lot of studies are just statisticians getting paid without working hard.

Now i amm not exactly a fan of ubisoft myself, i have not bought a ubisoft game for my pc in quite some time due to the ridiculous demand that i install uplay. However, why should study groups be random? that seems like a way to get a lot of really pointless data, ubisoft solicits people age 6 and older who are interested in games. You know, doing research into the market for their games.... not random people.

For any study or statistical results to be valid, you have to randomize the participants or you ruin the data with various bias. You can make your study group a little more defined, like saying they need to be gamers between a certain age group. But even that, your results are only valid for gamers between that age group in that example. As long as that group is your target market, then great.

But statistics data for everyone on earth would be totally useless, why even bother? the only data they need is for people interested in the type of media they produce, so they base their studies on consumers of that media. If you are doing a study on the effects of diabetes medication, you get a group of people with diabetes to study and seperate them into a med group, and a control group. It would make no sense at all to test the effectiveness of medications on a cross section of all people, and it makes no sense to do market research for "stealth" third person action games on people who do not want to buy them in the first place. Earth is not the market, the market is. Am i just crazy here?

 

[mecegirl]

Has their current multiplayer set-up been much of a success?

I've played all the AC games and barely touched the MP portion of it. Integration within the campaign genuinely might be a good thing. Obviously, I reserve judgement for when I've played the damn thing, but I think this sounds pretty cool.

I couldn't even tell ya why they have chosen to push a new multiplayer mode for Unity. I know that people played around with the one in Black Flag. I haven't really heard much of a consensus that it was good. I also haven't heard that it sucked. It played well enough for me though. :/

But basically I'm of the mind that sequels should improve upon what sucks, and make what was awesome, more awesome.

So disregarding the female chracter issue, the fact that there is only one dude feels like a let down in and of itself. Its not even four distinct guys, but just one in four different cloaks. Like, I get that they just want folks to use their customized Arno, but it feels a bit weak when you put that in multiplayer mode. Like it was cool back in the day to have four color coded characters. Now...they have the technology to make some really cool shit. Even Halo moved on from multiple Master Cheifs to letting you use alien races in co-op.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Has their current multiplayer set-up been much of a success?

I've played all the AC games and barely touched the MP portion of it. Integration within the campaign genuinely might be a good thing. Obviously, I reserve judgement for when I've played the damn thing, but I think this sounds pretty cool.

I couldn't even tell ya why they have chosen to push a new multiplayer mode for Unity. I know that people played around with the one in Black Flag. I haven't really heard much of a consensus that it was good. I also haven't heard that it sucked. It played well enough for me though. :/

But basically I'm of the mind that sequels should improve upon what sucks, and make what was awesome, more awesome.

So disregarding the female chracter issue, the fact that there is only one dude feels like a let down in and of itself. Its not even four distinct guys, but just one in four different cloaks. Like, I get that they just want folks to use their customized Arno, but it feels a bit weak when you put that in multiplayer mode. Like it was cool back in the day to have four color coded characters. Now...they have the technology to make some really cool shit. Even Halo moved on from multiple Master Cheifs to letting you use alien races in co-op.

I think it sounds cool.

You're playing singleplayer, you go to a tavern and learn that friend x is doing mission x in place x... You get into their game, you go to that place and you get involved. The potential for awesome there is high, to my mind. It's much cooler than the deathmatch that they already have. Ideally there would be more customisation, but this sounds good regardless, and I could completely believe it would take a lot of work to make that a reality.

Hopefully it will be a reality in future incarnations.

 

[mecegirl]

I think it sounds cool.

You're playing singleplayer, you go to a tavern and learn that friend x is doing mission x in place x... You get into their game, you go to that place and you get involved. The potential for awesome there is high, to my mind. It's much cooler than the deathmatch that they already have. Ideally there would be more customisation, but this sounds good regardless, and I could completely believe it would take a lot of work to make that a reality.

Hopefully it will be a reality in future incarnations.

I think they have just dropped the player vs player mode all together for a straight up cooperative mode. Which doesn't bother me, but I'm sure some will miss it.

 

[Lightknight]

Oh please, they are spending literal tonnes of money painstakingly compiling data from a myriad of games to determine what features sell and what do not. Are you suggesting market research is some kind of farce?

A lot of market research is a farce, yes. Mostly studies that fail to randomize the study group or take advice from the wrong people. For example, what good is it to randomize a focus group for a video game if you don't get gamers? Or they fail to account for bias (think of the coffee example Jim Sterling uses so often).

A lot of studies are just statisticians getting paid without working hard.

Now i amm not exactly a fan of ubisoft myself, i have not bought a ubisoft game for my pc in quite some time due to the ridiculous demand that i install uplay. However, why should study groups be random? that seems like a way to get a lot of really pointless data, ubisoft solicits people age 6 and older who are interested in games. You know, doing research into the market for their games.... not random people.

For any study or statistical results to be valid, you have to randomize the participants or you ruin the data with various bias. You can make your study group a little more defined, like saying they need to be gamers between a certain age group. But even that, your results are only valid for gamers between that age group in that example. As long as that group is your target market, then great.

But statistics data for everyone on earth would be totally useless, why even bother? the only data they need is for people interested in the type of media they produce, so they base their studies on consumers of that media. If you are doing a study on the effects of diabetes medication, you get a group of people with diabetes to study and seperate them into a med group, and a control group. It would make no sense at all to test the effectiveness of medications on a cross section of all people, and it makes no sense to do market research for "stealth" third person action games on people who do not want to buy them in the first place. Earth is not the market, the market is. Am i just crazy here?

No, you're just misunderstanding.

You come up with a group that fits your target market that you want to learn more about. Like above, that'd be gamers of a certain age range. What needs to be random is how you select voters out of that demographic. You have to randomize it or you ruin the data. For example, if you're an assassin's creed developer and you only select the group from an assassin's creed convention then you've limited the range of the study.

You have to come up with a larger pool that fits into your target demographic and randomize the people in that pool to select. People get randomization wrong all the time.

 

[Elberik]

I always feel sorry for studios when they're asked the loaded question "why didn't you include women in your game?" because there's no good way to answer it. No matter what they say someone will get mad/offended. AAA games are the products of countless programmers, artists, and writer plus a few people who only care about getting a return on their investment. Every year the exact same complaints are logged, maybe it's time to stop looking for fruit in a barren field.