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

Delance

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It seems to me that "Why did you excluide XXX from your game?" is a tricky question. There's no right way to answer it and regardless of what the company says it may cause an uproar. Since no narrative-driven game can be completely inclusive, in theory every company out there could be on Ubisoft's place right now.
 

Erttheking

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Chaosritter said:
Bully? Bully. Really? That's the word we're going with? Devs complaining about being "bullied" sounds a lot like how the one percenters complain about how cruel society is to them. IE, it's a load of hot air. And you're missing my point, the point is that you're not using the word right. If you're going to insult a group of people that disagree with you, at least use the right word.

Because those are stupid reasons. "We're not comfortable with it"? "We didn't see the necessity"? Devs being "uncomfortable" with making any main characters that aren't brown haired heterosexual white men in their mid thirties is one of the main problems with the industry. And as a writer, I have to say that one of the big things about being a writer is getting OUT of your comfort zone. If you don't, you never grow as a writer. "We didn't see the necessity?" What's the necessity they see in their army of generic white heterosexual men then? Yes, they do have reasons. It's just that nine times out of ten they're stupid corporate pandering reasons.

1. My point still stands. And here's the thing, I don't care if they had "the right" to pull it, "their right" to pull it does not mean I can't call them out on their bullshit. For some reason you're acting like devs having "the right" to do something makes them immune to call criticism. I could walk into the middle of a town meeting, take a turn up at the podium to say my piece, and then call every last person in the audience every last foul word I could think of. I had the right to do that, but people are still gonna be pissed at me and call me out on my bullshit. These people who complain about there not being enough DLC? They're idiots. Just like the people who wanted the Xbox One original DRM back. I know it's just "their opinion" but their opinion is uneducated.

2. What does that have to do with anything? They're very legitimate criticisms.

Samus whining was far from the only thing wrong with that game. The shoe horned in mother symbolism that was completely OOC (If she thought that Metroid was her child, she gave it up to be experimented on remarkably quick) the fact that she was completely subservient to a jackass commander who literally shoots her in the back with her being so subservient to him that she didn't turn on her Varia suit in a room where she needed it to survive because he didn't give her the green light. Oh, and you're missing the entire point of why people think Other M was sexist. Samus was the only female character in a game filled with big burly marines. She was the sole female presence, which is why the gross mishandling of her character was such a punch in the face. Dom was in a game filled with other big burly marines who were constantly kicking ass and taking names, so it was hardly the insult Samus in Other M was. Also his whining was in character considering the fact that finding his wife was his sole purpose in life and with her passing he really didn't have much going. Also let's be honest, he was ALWAYS a whiny *****. Stoic characters don't refuse to shut their mouths about their missing wives. Samus was whiny because...Hell if I know. Her daddy figure didn't love her?

No, you use words like entitled and SJW, which really aren't that different because they're designed to insult the other party. Don't act like you're above the influence, because you're not.

Which begs the question, if there are so many female gamers, how come the industry is obsessed with it's generic cookie cutter protagonists? And I find it ironic that you're using that article to prove that the industry isn't that sexist when the article is complaining about how sexist the industry is. Kinda shot yourself in the foot there. And your link between the population of female gamers and the complainers only being a vocal minority needs a citation of its own.

No, it's not. In fact, it's pretty damn sexist that the industry thinks so lowly of men that they think I can't handle playing outside my gender. The whole point of that statement is that I want variety. If there was nothing but black people in gaming, and I mean like 95%, I'd want white people to balance it out. But that's not the case, heterosexual white men dominate everything, and it's like eating the same meal over and over again for a month. I'm sick of it and I want something different.

Always comes back to "the game sells" doesn't it? Frankly I find that argument is just a cheep ploy to avoid talking about the issue in the first place, basically coming down to "It's popular, so shut up." Funny, because I don't think that excuse would fly when it comes to criticizing Micheal Bay or Stephine Meyer, but then again the gaming community pulls out all kinds of excuses that wouldn't fly anywhere else.
 

GalanDun

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Aaron Sylvester said:
GalanDun said:
I'd like to draw everyone's attention to Yahtzee's weekly podcast/hour long gameplay sample that he posted this week.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=pukzwCC4xkc
Contained within, he and his friend Gabriel Morton talk about this issue. I feel it could give rise to some excellent discussion. I like the way they pose this in a way that I as a games designer can sympathize with.
Could you please say roughly what time in that video Yahtzee starts talking about it? Sorry but it's over an hour long :S
Uhhhh....... I know it's somewhere towards the beginning. Hold on, lemme check. Okay, I was wrong. It's after the 30 minute mark. Okay, the discussion about the new Assassin's Creed game starts at about 33:30
 

Lightknight

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Elberik said:
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.
If they were smart, they would say, "Money. Next question please." Vague enough to mean multiple things (development time, voice acting, etc) , clear enough to be a good reason.
 

Eryc Duhart

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Lightknight said:
Elberik said:
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.
If they were smart, they would say, "Money. Next question please." Vague enough to mean multiple things (development time, voice acting, etc) , clear enough to be a good reason.
It's not a good reason, but it's an honest answer that most will "accept"
 

wulf3n

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Strazdas said:
Didnt final fantasy 13 went into negative to the point where SE had to rethink their strategy? didnt play it thought not sure about its characters, was never attracted to FF franchise.
Well the FF13 shipped sold 6.6 million copies world wide, with FF13-2 selling around half that. Not exactly what I'd call a failure.

Strazdas said:
Baynetta isnt AAA.
That's even more impressive then. I was going to exclude it given that it's sales figures were somewhat lower than the others I pointed out, it was still on par with most other AAA "successes".
 

Amir Kondori

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Ubisoft shows their contempt for their customers over and over again. The "double the work" line is such an obvious lie, designed to give them an acceptable out because their marketing department thinks a game with a female lead won't sell.
 

Erttheking

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Chaosritter said:
No not really. There's a difference between sticking to your artistic vision and cowering in the same corner that you've never left in your artistic career. A big difference. And that's if this decision was even an artistic choice and not a result of corporate pandering, which I doubt. See my comments on MLP towards the end for more.

No, because that still would've been spitting in the face of literally every single Metroid game that came before it. The Samus Aran in Metroid Fusion gave the middle finger to her superiors when she didn't like what they had to say and did the right thing even if she was ordered not to. She was not a whiny submissive little *****. Everything in that game was OOC for the Metroid franchise.

Here's a question though, is there anything out there that works better? We have no idea because the industry is terrified of doing things differently.

Why not? People act like this is a zero sum system. That if you appeal to women, you lose the male audience. How about you make games that appeal to both genders and get both audiences? This whole "Don't fix what isn't broken" argument only works if the thing in question isn't actually broken, and there is what too much crap going on in the gaming industry for that to be the case. I find it fascinating how willing people are to talk shit about developers for lack of ports, buggy games, DRM, DLC and the game just not being that good, but the second gender gets brought up these same people defending the industry. It baffles me.

Because here's a question. If games aimed at men can be liked by women, why can't the inverse be true? Why can't men enjoy something that was designed to be enjoyed by women? MLP showed that that's very possible. And here's the thing, while some women enjoy games designed for men, it's not exactly rocket science to say that the amount of female gamers would increase if the industry acknowledged they existed every once in awhile. And you know what? I'm tired of the business point of view, because the business point of view says that Day One DLC is good, and so is DRM and online passes and all the other BS the industry tries to shove down our throat. Why the Hell are we defending this? Why are we defending publishers trying to maximize profits when we look at all the damage that attitude has done to the industry? Syndicate being turned into a first person shooter, Theif being turned into a faint shadow of what it once was, all the cash in sequels, we should NOT be defending this!

I never said I was uncomfortable playing as a man, I said that it has gotten boring and repetitive. Then maybe publishers should stop treating games with female leads like they're doomed from the beginning, because that's kind of a self fulfilling prophecy.

And that's a bad thing.

And what the ruddy Hell would I want to be invested in gaming if that is the state of the industry? A bunch of cowards producing the same shlock every year so that they can rake in more money from the same people who buy the same thing over and over again and the industry homogenizes even more and the spark of uniqueness and creativity that made me love gaming in the first place gets dimmer and dimmer as games stop being viewed as art and more products to be sold.

Then why are you defending it?

Yes it was well crafted to target it's demographic and yes it made a lot of money, but that doesn't change the fact that it fucking sucks. Oh really? Make games for women that will most likely end in tears or women should just shut up and realize that they're a second concern when it comes to the heterosexual white men? Let me tell you something, I love gaming, I got into it because I loved the endless possibilities that it could create. If all of that takes a backseat to making money and endless pandering to a shallow demographic with the same shallow shit, what is left for me? Why the Hell should I just sit by as my favorite hobby is turned into Twilight, a pathetic offensive shallow mess designed to sell itself to a demographic that will only talk about how much they love it until something else catches their eye and they forget it ever happened. Is that what we really want from gaming? A realm that prides itself on the fantastic and amazing yet can't even make a game with a female lead? That's pretty fucking pathetic on the industries part. It can sell a game about a man going into berserker rages every night and killing every last person he sees while attempting to confront his inner demons, but we can't make him a woman, because otherwise it might not sell. What the fuck happened to the game industry? How did it become so fucking pathetic?

See, here's the thing in MLP. It's smartly written, easy to get into, and the creators of the show constantly listen to feedback from the Bronies and take that into account and put in hundreds of little nods to bronies (Derpy) so that they feel welcome. Why? Because Hasbrio decided "why stick with just one audience when we can have two?" Gaming does NONE of that. Please don't compare the two, becaues MLP is doing exactly what I want gaming to do. Acknowledge that alternative audiences despite the main one they're desperately milking for money exists and making them feel welcome. They're sticking to their artistic vision while also growing out of their comfort zone and making a new audience feel welcome. This is why I like MLP, because the creators behind it care about it and put effort in. And it's why all of my interest in Assassin's creed unity is circling the drain, because they're doing the opposite.

And FYI, there are bronies who act like MLP was made specifically for them and that all the little girls should piss off. So yeah, let's try not to make too many comparisons here, especially ones that aren't 100% accurate.
 

Erttheking

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Chaosritter said:
Your opening statement is very confusing. They like to pretend that way? Who's they, women? And why? And maybe they haven't always been ignored...they sure as Hell are now though. Then again the industry used to be about creativity and not money, so it's safe to say we've gone backwards quite a bit.

I'm friends with quite a few female gamers and they don't own a single one of those games. They like JRPGs. They go crazy over Kingdom Hearts. One of them says that Rockstar's Bully is her favorite game. These are shallow games design to appeal to women the same way that Twilight does, there's no effort and they're the female equivalent of COD. And I think it's well established that male gamers are not satisfied with just COD. So why should women be satisfied with just this?

Transistor and the Walking Dead Season 2.

Multi-million dollar projects...this is gonna be like a bubble you know. With every rise, there's a crash because people are more concerned about making as much money as possible as opposed to forming a stable fanbase. Even COD is slowly starting to lose steam. Ghosts received reviews that weren't terrible but were noticeably lower than the last game and even fans said it wasn't as good and sales were overall down.

Yes they do. But you're mistaking corralation for causation. They don't suck because they're aimed at women. They suck because they're made by a male dominated industry whose leaders don't know the first thing about women or video games. The industry is in a sorry sorry state.

I think we both know that I can't reform the entire industry. But let me ask something. How long do you think this model will be able to keep the industry going?
 

The Material Sheep

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Amir Kondori said:
Ubisoft shows their contempt for their customers over and over again. The "double the work" line is such an obvious lie, designed to give them an acceptable out because their marketing department thinks a game with a female lead won't sell.
I mean their excuse is retarded... in some degrees. The work they already have done is done, and it'd be retarded to completely rework plot aspects at this point for the sake of a kneejerk reaction. Perhaps they should own up to that fact instead of giving a response trying to make everyone happy but that's a different question entirely.

I'm personally not a fan of the assassins creed series, however I do have one question. Why does this story that they want to tell need a female lead?
 

Rebel_Raven

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Zachary Amaranth said:
Rebel_Raven said:
People can't really mention the lack of gender in a game without getting mauled by a bunch of people defending the game industry. If a reviewer marked a game down because of lack of inclusiveness, then they'll be screamed at, called bias, called an "SJW" and other stuff.
Not just "mark down," but "even mention."

And, of course, mentioning diversity is now the same as calling a company a racist/sexist.
I'd say you're right on that. I mean, hey, I'm not calling ubisoft sexist, or anything, I'm just saying I hate their decision.

Not sure if a game review would even matter short of giving the vehement defenders of the status quo ammo. That'd pretty much be akin to Ubisoft's excuse, IMO.

Honestly, when I hear a game has character creation, I don't bother with the reviews, I just try and find footage of it on youtube. Saved me some hassle with the Dragon ball game with create a warrior, among other games.

Aaron Sylvester said:
~snip for space~
Is it really the right kind of hype to generate, the intense hatred and loathing from some of the gaming community? It seems to spur a lot of hate, and several lost sales. I won't be buying it, that's for sure. I won't be recommending it, either. I'd think offering up some art of a female assassin, but not mentioning she's playable would generate a positive mystique. Hell, something like that worked for the open world Zelda game with just one frame of animaton. People were wondering "Girl link?" "Is that link?" etc, etc.

While controversy dies down, there's people that don't want to see it happen again. For several reasons, infact.
Some people are all irritated because they see these discussions cropping up all the time.
Some people want to keep women out of the spotlight for some reason.
Some people like the status quo.
Some people don't want to see this controversy again because what fuels it stops happening.

I disagree with the notion that it depends on how it's worded, the idea of seeing more women in a game. People flip out on pretty much anyone that dares mention it nine times out of ten regardless of it.
Kicking Ubisoft in the pants about the matter sure isn't safe. Look at some of these replies in this thread defending Ubisoft's decision, after all.

I don't disagree with you about RPGs.

Yeah, that whole "we'll add it as DLC" excuse isn't really going to fly with me. Heck, I'm still waiting for the female robber(s) in Payday 2. I hope there's 2, anyhow so I don't have to fight as much as to who gets to play as the girl. I have friends who gravitate towards playing as women, too.
The problem, at least as far as I am concerned, waiting as long as I have for people to drop the BS, nearly any excuse won't fly with me coz I've heard them all enough.
I guess it's like watching horror movies. Sooner or later, after watching enough of them, you're familiar with all the cliches to the point that you can see what's coming even though you've never seen the movie before, meanwhile people watching their first horror movie will likely be constantly surprised by even the most dated horror movie cliches.

SecondPrize said:
Rebel_Raven said:
Why should those strange fuckers who drink pepsi not be able to? You're looking at it in the negative, as in not buying this game because of Ubi's statments so they get less sales and come to their senses. That's not going to work, because plenty of other people will buy this pepsi. What you need to do is prove that a market exists for games with female characters through buying those.
Same difference to me. There's likely enough people buying the game that it doesn't matter either way how one looks at it. I've been buying games with playable women, and recommending them for a long time. There's been something of a surge of playable women lately, but I'm certainly not so egotistical as to say I did that.
Saying the glass is half full, or half empty is kinda meaningless here, it's still got half it's volume of mass.
 

Strazdas

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CloudAtlas said:
Again: How different do you think men and women are exactly?
fizionomy is different.
gestures are different.
height are different most of the time (statistically women are shorter).
women are very different from men. that is not to say they are better or worse, just different. this however means that to make a genuine female protagonist you cant just reskin a male protagonist. unless you like to see bugs on the level of steam early access. (or if you keep proportions identical, prepare your shields for female rage of potrayed them wrong).

What part of "if the female model is similar enough to the male one" don't you get?
the part where its not similar, contrary to your claim.

And who said that all female characters need to wear long, open hair, thus making hair physics necessary? In fact, long, open hair is pretty much the last thing you would want to have as assassin or soldier or what not.
i can see how you could misuderstand that, sorry. i meant i was making long haired male characters and they were already experiencing clipping bugs, its going to be even worse with females if all we do is reskin the character.

For multiplayer, it is just a couple of lines. For a flexible gender protagonist, it would obviously be a lot more, yes. Still, you just need to have one more actor, and the other actors reading different lines in a couple of instances.
the problem here is your use of word "just". Its like as if you dont understand what kind of endavour that is and bruss it off as easy stuff.

If modders can make high-quality models in their freetime without having access to all the tools a developer has, then no it cannot be too much work for a developer. Especially since the base body model will likely already exist in the game, and maybe even clothes similar to the one you have in mind, so you can just use all of that and work from there.
Ech, but modders dont. they dont recreate the mesh models, they use existing ones and just reskin them. or use the games costumization engine to change the meshes where it exists. also worth noting that modders have FAR MORE time than developers have at it. a modder can work for a year on a single model every weekend. developer has deadlines. modders are in thousands, hundreds of thousands for some games. delopers dont have that advantage either. i can understand blaming developer for not fixing 1 line in the .ini file that locks your reoslution or selling what ammounts to 5 hours of modding as a DLC, but creating whole new high polygon models is not that.

I thought we are talking about human character models here. In games that already have plenty of other, very similar human character models anyway.
3D mesh models are 3D mesh models, humans or spaceships, in fact humans often require more work since they dont have single-texture layers like they used to 10 years ago. you have bitmaps to make skin look like skin instead of a plastic sticker, ect. creating characters are quite expensive and this is why you see many cloned models in games. theres going to be 3-4 types of peasants because each one of them cost a lot. it would cost even more for a protagonist.

Like, I'm really starting to wonder what's going through your mind right now. Are you aware that there are tons of singleplayer and multiplayer games that feature male and female avatars that are exactly the same height... for good reason?
you also should be aware that these female avatars are just male avatars with changed face texture. as in, not actual unique chracters, just a reskin. This is not what we want. we want unique characters. having identical characters with different faces is pointless.





Legion said:
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.
If people who not buy this game because it lacks female protagonist would all buy games with female protagonist, yes, ubisoft will get the message or retreat to obscurity like every other company that didnt get its market.

But that wont happen. you know why? because sex of protagonist isnt a sale or break factor for majority. they are more interested in other parts of the game, and knowing that ubisoft instead spend more time on those parts rather than ones minority wants. Market already stated that it LIKES male protagonists. multiple times. when sex of protagonist becomes a factor people base thier buying decisions on, it will become something companies start caring about. till then, you can complain all you want, wont do you no good.

Giving feedback is fine, raging about things you dont understand like latest Jimquisition isnt.

mecegirl said:
But now it's too hard?

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-J2t0KDnNHlE/Ul6sJEOEMfI/AAAAAAAAAc4/HHAE-9oL3gw/s1600/15.jpg
ech, at least dont duplicate female characters if your trying to argue theres a lot of them. we actually notice that.

also id love to see the advantage those thin waists give and how male characters would be instnatly abandoned the moment this went competetive. that is, unless its nothing but a reskin in which case its completely useless to the point your making.
 

mecegirl

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Strazdas said:
ech, at least dont duplicate female characters if your trying to argue theres a lot of them. we actually notice that.

also id love to see the advantage those thin waists give and how male characters would be instnatly abandoned the moment this went competetive. that is, unless its nothing but a reskin in which case its completely useless to the point your making.
It is a composite image that I found on Google of some of the co-op characters. And only one chracter on that composite image is duplicated. So stop whining.


They start you off with quite a few, but of course there are expansion sets with even more characters to download later.

My point is pretty simple. That they have made female characters for their co-op modes before. There are no distinct advantages with the female models. Why would there be an advantage? No really? What are you going on about? There are a few minor differences with all the characters, but its really about having options. You just pick the chracter that you think looks cool and fits your play style.

You are going to actually have to explain how any of them possibly being a reskin works against my point. Because if the female characters are just reskins of male characters then that means that Ubisoft has even less creditability. Assuming that it is a reskin, no one seemed to have a problem with that in Black Flag. So why would they have a problem with a reskin in Unity? There is no reason why the male and female characters need to have dramatically different movements. Anyone thrown out of a game because a female option doesn't have an exaggerated hip sway while walking is just easily distracted(and some of them even looked to have that in Black flag). It's not as if that would matter while she's busy air assassinating guards.
 

CloudAtlas

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Strazdas said:
CloudAtlas said:
Again: How different do you think men and women are exactly?
fizionomy is different.
gestures are different.
height are different most of the time (statistically women are shorter).
women are very different from men. that is not to say they are better or worse, just different. this however means that to make a genuine female protagonist you cant just reskin a male protagonist.
Yea, sure, the gestures of a female soldier on the battlefield will be totally different from a male one. And she'll move totally differently too, presumably because she's wearing high heels... and just generally moves in dictinctly female, suggestive ways to make their male comrades fall for her, because she clearly has nothing else on her mind right now.
And who cares about the fact that many games do, in fact, recycle most animations for their female characters. Sure, it's totally evident when you play these games, and pay attention, and no one has ever complained about it, but don't let facts get in your way, Strazdas. Just keep swallowing the lies UbiSoft feeds you.

I'm really tired of this. Like, the fact alone that you come with different average heights again. This is such an incredibly stupid argument that it beggars belief. It genuinely baffles me how anyone, really anyone in their right mind could make it.
Yes, women are shorter on average then men. But why, for God's sake, should that matter in any way? Why can't one particular woman - the protagonist - not be a little taller than the average? Like, do you even understand how averages work... that some people BY NECESSITY have to be below the average, but some above?
And, equally important, have you ever played a game with flexible gender protagonists / avatars before? Have you noticed that the female versions are usually just as tall as the male ones? And did it bother you? Probably not.

Then why the hell do you insinst on making this ridiculously stupid argument over and over again?
 

CloudAtlas

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mecegirl said:
There are no distinct advantages with the female models. Why would there be an advantage? No really? What are you going on about? There are a few minor differences with all the characters, but its really about having options. You just pick the chracter that you think looks cool and fits your play style.
He seems to believe that, since women are shorter on average, every female character MUST be shorter than every male character, and also that women have narrower frames in general, both of which would make their hitboxes smaller, thus choosing a female avatar inherently advantageous.

And the fact that many multiplayer shooters actually do feature male and female avatars and actually don't have these problems doesn't stop him from making this argument over and over again.
 

Strazdas

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mecegirl said:
My point is pretty simple. That they have made female characters for their co-op modes before. There are no distinct advantages with the female models. Why would there be an advantage? No really? What are you going on about? There are a few minor differences with all the characters, but its really about having options. You just pick the chracter that you think looks cool and fits your play style.

You are going to actually have to explain how any of them possibly being a reskin works against my point. Because if the female characters are just reskins of male characters then that means that Ubisoft has even less creditability. Assuming that it is a reskin, no one seemed to have a problem with that in Black Flag. So why would they have a problem with a reskin in Unity? There is no reason why the male and female characters need to have dramatically different movements. Anyone thrown out of a game because a female option doesn't have an exaggerated hip sway while walking is just easily distracted(and some of them even looked to have that in Black flag). It's not as if that would matter while she's busy air assassinating guards.
And i already explained why reskinned multiplayer characters isnt the same thing as multiple protagonists. and if the characters are unique, advantages are going to be had in form of hitboxes and movement. even things like position of weapon starting point matter when we go competetive. now i havent played BF multiplayer so i dont know how much precision you need, but if they got modes such as deathmatch there is some precision requited.

Noone cares.... except people who care about gameplay more than what skin your imaginary character is. And the movement will matter once your air assasination of guards end up with the characters hand going though his head because animations doesnt match anymore and noone had the time to redo them.

CloudAtlas said:
Yea, sure, the gestures of a female soldier on the battlefield will be totally different from a male one. And she'll move totally differently too, presumably because she's wearing high heels... and just generally moves in dictinctly female, suggestive ways to make their male comrades fall for her, because she clearly has nothing else on her mind right now.
And who cares about the fact that many games do, in fact, recycle most animations for their female characters. Sure, it's totally evident when you play these games, and pay attention, and no one has ever complained about it, but don't let facts get in your way, Strazdas. Just keep swallowing the lies UbiSoft feeds you.

I'm really tired of this. Like, the fact alone that you come with different average heights again. This is such an incredibly stupid argument that it beggars belief. It genuinely baffles me how anyone, really anyone in their right mind could make it.
Yes, women are shorter on average then men. But why, for God's sake, should that matter in any way? Why can't one particular woman - the protagonist - not be a little taller than the average? Like, do you even understand how averages work... that some people BY NECESSITY have to be below the average, but some above?
And, equally important, have you ever played a game with flexible gender protagonists / avatars before? Have you noticed that the female versions are usually just as tall as the male ones? And did it bother you? Probably not.

Then why the hell do you insinst on making this ridiculously stupid argument over and over again?
Yes, the gestures will be different. because her body structure is different. and her movement will be too. not because of heels though. because hips of females are differently places tham males (and move even further apart during pregnancy) to help with childbirth. im talking about legit biological differences, meanwhile you seem to try your best to paint me as a mysogynist just so you could feel superior in an argument.
People that want unique characters instead of skinner boxes (you know, the 30 minute mods you mentioned) care about recycled animations and character design. heck, thats the reason we invented using motion capture in games so we could make animations for each character.

Im not swallowing Ubisfot lies, i just seem to know game design better than you, which would be completely fine if you wouldnt insist to know it better while spouting bad game design as good examples.

We are talking about making unique characters. cahracter height is likely to change due to that. it is possible to make them the same height, true, but just like in real life you would rarely find two people of identical height, just so you would in games that want to look realistic. and AC franchise is one of those games.

Also nice that you know how i play games better than me. next time im playing a game im going to consult you on how i feel about it.

CloudAtlas said:
And the fact that many multiplayer shooters actually do feature male and female avatars and actually don't have these problems doesn't stop him from making this argument over and over again.
despite me pointing out multiple examples of where multiplayer games DO have these problems and why that wouldnt even begin to cover the problems for narrative driven singleplayer games.... right.....
 

spartandude

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Here's my two pennies. They arn't required to make a female lead, but it would be nice for them to do and this is the setting for them to do it in this series. It's also just another game in which women dont have a lead role, and i can imagine that it must be pretty annoying for women to keep being pushed out of this.

Now on to their excuse... Its complete and utter bullshit. Ok yes it would be NOW too much effort to add female characters but they could have done it ages ago, they have the resorces to do it, and the fact that they have done it in the past. I swear i should be part of a PR team, when faced with this question i would have said something like "When writing we decided to make a male lead character, we had no intention to offend anyone and we are sorry if we have.". Im pretty sure that would have gone down much better than this bull shit excuse.

Now on to the fact that the multiplayer is just the each person's avatar of the main character as they've customized him. Ok.... still a little lasy and confusing from a story/ immersion stand point. They should have had random assassins, some of which could be female. So on your screen youd still be the main character but on my screen you would be Assassin avatar #2 or something like that and cut scenes could still play out normally.