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

[CloudAtlas]

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.

I'm not denying biological differences. I'm just denying your ludicrous claims. Like, do you really think that just because some character's hips may be a few centimeters wider or what not that you really really need to construct an entirely new skeleton for animations, and mocap all these animations, even if the difference in results is so minuscule that nobody will notice it? And that you need to make sweeping changes if some character has somewhat longer arms or shorter legs or whatever? You're just overestimating the effort that goes into animating stuff in your average video game massively.

And don't complain if someone doesn't take you quite seriously when you bring up height differences as reason why female characters are such a big issue that much.

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.....

For single player games, hitbox sizes and possible associated minuscule balance changes don't matter at all. If a developer makes female avatars smaller than males in a competitive multiplayer game, he is just stupid. Hardly a good example. That said, at least you're not going on about height differences anymore, so I guess that's some progress.

 

[Strazdas]

I'm not denying biological differences. I'm just denying your ludicrous claims. Like, do you really think that just because some character's hips may be a few centimeters wider or what not that you really really need to construct an entirely new skeleton for animations, and mocap all these animations, even if the difference in results is so minuscule that nobody will notice it? And that you need to make sweeping changes if some character has somewhat longer arms or shorter legs or whatever? You're just overestimating the effort that goes into animating stuff in your average video game massively.

And don't complain if someone doesn't take you quite seriously when you bring up height differences as reason why female characters are such a big issue that much.

Different hips are just one of many biological differences that exist and effect people movement. new skeleton construction is necessary for females either way, im sure even you can see obviuos physical differences in skeletal structure.
No, i brought reasons why it is expensive to have two unique chracters, regardless of sex. both of them can be male or female, or differen sexes, same thing aplies for my initial list. you however went to attack my post as if i was somehow stating that females are difficult to animate opposed to males. you brought gender into this. i never claimed that height difference is why female characters are an issue, in fact i alluded to whole different reasons in my initial post (audience).

For single player games, hitbox sizes and possible associated minuscule balance changes don't matter at all. If a developer makes female avatars smaller than males in a competitive multiplayer game, he is just stupid. Hardly a good example. That said, at least you're not going on about height differences anymore, so I guess that's some progress.

Hitboxes very much matter in singleplayer games. when the enemy hits you far less game becomes easier, ect. Of course some games can be excemt from this where hitting somewhere in that direction passes for hit detection. Ubisoft franchises arent those games though.

 

[spartandude]

sniped the argument.

I agree with CloudAtlas here. You dont need to do that much work, you dont need to create a new skeleton or drastically different animations (although it would be nice if they did it anyway for the different male leads for some variety). You can use the same skeleton, ya know why? Because not everywomen is shorter, medium-large boobs, narrow waiste to large hips with slim shoulders, you can have a female character with the same rough skeleton build of any of the other male characters. This is also ignoring that they HAVE DONE THIS BEFORE IN PREVIOUS ASSASSIN CREED GAMES!
Now in terms of hit boxes, why are you two even arguaing about this? Its Assassins Creed. You can two similar (but different skeletons) but still have the same hitbox in this game, for example look at the multiplayer or killing random civillians. Heck lets look at Halo Reach, you can choose male/female Spartans and they have slightly different builds.... with the same animations and hitboxes.

 

[mecegirl]

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.

If the chracter looks distinctly different then that's generally enough for them to be considered a different protagonist in a co-op mode. You are probably the only one who believes that they would be the same thing. They are all assassins still, so there is gonna be some similarities in play style anyway. But all of the characters in Black Flag's multi-player mode have slight differences when you start out because in general they use different weapons. Some to my knowledge can blend in with the crowd better as well. The differences are not drawn along gender lines.

The hitbox thing is just you being both paranoid and anal. But either way why would it be any different from the slight differences between characters in a fighting game? There are two possibilities. Say the characters are just reskins. Well, I don't remember any complaints from folks that played with the Black Flag multiplayer. The only complaint I can think of is that ship battles were not included for multiplayer mode. And honestly, if anyone in this thread had any complaints or negative experience with it I wish they would speak up. I found that it worked just fine. Relatively fine I should say, there is always something off in these games now, part of why I don't pre-order. But I don't remember a wealth of glitches specific to the multiplayer characters like what you have described. So the whole animation not matching up thing is a moot point. And then maybe...just maybe, they didn't reskin the characters. So that's why there were not a whole lot of glitches. Did you watch the video I posted? They at least(the women I should say. The men were more static) all have different resting poses(fighting generally deepened on what weapon your chracter uses). So maybe they did do all the unnecessary work to make the male and female models distinct. Either way they have had a prior success so anything less feels like a step backwards.

 

[Something Amyss]

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.

I honestly don't know where this decision comes from, so I can't say they're sexist, either. I mean, maybe they are? But the fact that asking for diversity is now immediately portrayed as calling someone sexist/racists is really disturbing.

And I would rather have playable women as an option. That doesn't make them sexist or even my preference automatically correct. But now it's got to the point where even asking is apparently a bad thing.

Or, in Jim Sterling's case, making a crack about Assassin's Creed: The Clone Wars.

 

[Atmos Duality]

This problem reeks of a self-destruction pattern...
Consumers are yelling at Ubisoft, who is in turn yelling past them.

"Public: Why not female protagonists in your assassin game? It's the French Revolution. The definitive period of historical female assassins."
"Ubisoft: Not worth the time and money."
"Public: But we're telling you we would buy that..."
"Ubisoft: None of our market data supports it. For all we know you're the vocal minority."
"Public: You don't have all the market data either."
"Ubisoft: No, but what we've done with AssCreed so far has made us rich so we're unconvinced anyway."

"Tim Schaefer: Hey guys, look what I did!"
"Ubisoft:..."

 

[KissingSunlight]

I think most of us can agree that Ubisoft told a stupid lie. Would you have been happier if they told the truth? The fact that anytime game developers put breasts on a videogame character. They open themselves up to a big can of criticism. Too sexy or too ugly. Too skinny or too fat. "Sure her goal is to kill all the bad guys. Yet, why can't she have a rich story filled with emotional moments? Therefore, it's a bad representation of women."

The biggest reason why there are less female characters in games is because too many people are trying to enforce their exacting standards on them. Even though I don't think there should be, but why aren't there people screaming for exacting standards of how men are represented in videogames?

I think you should either buy and enjoy these games or don't. What people have accomplished with their repeated complaints about sexism is to scare game developers from even attempting to create female characters. Once we finally scare game developers from creating male characters, we will finally achieve equality.

 

[Gerardo Vazquez]

Well, I'm not too familiar with game design, so I am not sure what it would mean to add a female protagonist. I would venture to say that resources and time are limited, and if there is a business decision to put work in to a female protagonist, then that decision will be made based on whether or not it will increase or decrease sales.

My understanding is that female protagonists decrease sales, so I'd assume that devoting resources to making a female variant on the main character is something that they may not want to devote resources to.

Ubisoft is a multi-millions dollar gaming company that puts multiple development teams of Assasin's Creed projects every single year. Resources and time are most certainly not limited. Especially when a previous AC director was quoted as saying adding a female protagonist would take roughly two days time. It hardly seems like Herculean task.

The idea that games with female protagonist don't sell well is similarly unfounded. People will tell you this is the case, but their examples will all be new IP with no niche fanbases, and almost no money put into advertisement, so it's not like a female protagonist stops games in their tracks. If you added a playable female to a game with a huge established fanbase that releases a new installment every year like say Call Of Duty, or Assasin's Creed it wouldn't affect sales at all, so I don't think Ubisoft has much to lose by adding playable females. If anything they have something to gain from adding female assasins, since if they had done so in the first place they would have branded as progressive, garnering good PR, as opposed to their ineffectual attempts to stave off bad PR.

 

[beastro]

I just find it amusing that as a product people are whining about it and as a work of art they're doing the same.

You'll have to elaborate on that.

As a work of art it's up the makers to add or remove features. It's their baby.

As a product, it's their choice to add or remove things and benefit or suffer in sales as a result, it's their property.

Regardless, they should listen to potential customers and adapt as necessary, it's good business, but why should they give into such demands that are rooted in a social agenda?

Critical response, response from the masses, has long been a viable deal. It's not as though it's a novel idea.

Further, your concept only truly works if there's already diversity in a marketplace. Otherwise, there would be no problem with internet service in the US, for example.

Critical response is. The issue here is the cries sound more like demands from people to put in things into a game they feel should be there. It reeks of the whining around Mass Effect 3.

If there's a lack of diversity in a market then I'm all for encouraging others to fill in the gaps, not tell others what they should and shouldn't do with their property.

This all ties into the decay of modern gaming today. People whine so much about the state its in, but they keep buying the products acting as if they're powerless. People make crappy games profitable and they make adding a female model in this game not an important issue, but if sales dropped that will change.

Coerce them with money, not with social crusading.

 

[beastro]

Ubisoft is a multi-millions dollar gaming company that puts multiple development teams of Assasin's Creed projects every single year. Resources and time are most certainly not limited. Especially when a previous AC director was quoted as saying adding a female protagonist would take roughly two days time. It hardly seems like Herculean task.

Regardless of how much time and effort would be required, they decided it wasn't worth bothering with.

The idea that games with female protagonist don't sell well is similarly unfounded.

I agree, but then I'm one who doesn't give a damn about what my little pixal puppet looks like. I've never based a game purchase on an in game model let alone the models genders beyond if they graphics suited me or not as a whole (And I'm ok with the old Everquest models and Mount and Blades)

Whether of not female protagonists sell well the goal of the people behind this outrage should be encouraging female protagonists to help games sell better, not get their fingers out and start poking people telling them what they should and shouldn't do.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

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.

I honestly don't know where this decision comes from, so I can't say they're sexist, either. I mean, maybe they are? But the fact that asking for diversity is now immediately portrayed as calling someone sexist/racists is really disturbing.

And I would rather have playable women as an option. That doesn't make them sexist or even my preference automatically correct. But now it's got to the point where even asking is apparently a bad thing.

Or, in Jim Sterling's case, making a crack about Assassin's Creed: The Clone Wars.

I agree completely. It's annoying seeing a humble request, not a call for quotas, and check marks be clubbed to death (And I don't mean the tune from Matrix) just on impulse alone, not just by people who actually believe it's wrong for some reason, but by bandwagon jumpers.
At least one good thing, IMO, comes from it. If we all just said "I agree" these threads wouldn't be as long, or as common, I guess. This needs to be talked about, and hopefully the game industry'll catch on, and get their heads out of their butts.

 

[Elberik]

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.

It's cute to see someone who has no idea how game development works talk as if they're an expert.

 

[Strazdas]

I agree with CloudAtlas here. You dont need to do that much work, you dont need to create a new skeleton or drastically different animations (although it would be nice if they did it anyway for the different male leads for some variety). You can use the same skeleton, ya know why? Because not everywomen is shorter, medium-large boobs, narrow waiste to large hips with slim shoulders, you can have a female character with the same rough skeleton build of any of the other male characters. This is also ignoring that they HAVE DONE THIS BEFORE IN PREVIOUS ASSASSIN CREED GAMES!
Now in terms of hit boxes, why are you two even arguaing about this? Its Assassins Creed. You can two similar (but different skeletons) but still have the same hitbox in this game, for example look at the multiplayer or killing random civillians. Heck lets look at Halo Reach, you can choose male/female Spartans and they have slightly different builds.... with the same animations and hitboxes.

You need a lot of work to make unique characters. you dont need that much to make a copy-paste ones. having skinner box characters isnt any better than those 30 minute mods though and isnt good enough to make two protagonists.

The female character in AC game was on iOS. significantly lower fidelity even in its HD version, hence also significantly less work required. Also it was nowhere as close narative driven as the other AC games.

I already pointed out that in Halo its easier to get away with same model just different texture for face because they all wear power armor that shapes them and not their actual shape, and why it wouldnt work in AC game. Altrough you do have a point that hitting precise locations arent important in AC due to game simply warping you to the place you need to be to do the animation regardless where you aim.

If the chracter looks distinctly different then that's generally enough for them to be considered a different protagonist in a co-op mode. You are probably the only one who believes that they would be the same thing. They are all assassins still, so there is gonna be some similarities in play style anyway. But all of the characters in Black Flag's multi-player mode have slight differences when you start out because in general they use different weapons. Some to my knowledge can blend in with the crowd better as well. The differences are not drawn along gender lines.

The hitbox thing is just you being both paranoid and anal. But either way why would it be any different from the slight differences between characters in a fighting game? There are two possibilities. Say the characters are just reskins. Well, I don't remember any complaints from folks that played with the Black Flag multiplayer. The only complaint I can think of is that ship battles were not included for multiplayer mode. And honestly, if anyone in this thread had any complaints or negative experience with it I wish they would speak up. I found that it worked just fine. Relatively fine I should say, there is always something off in these games now, part of why I don't pre-order. But I don't remember a wealth of glitches specific to the multiplayer characters like what you have described. So the whole animation not matching up thing is a moot point. And then maybe...just maybe, they didn't reskin the characters. So that's why there were not a whole lot of glitches. Did you watch the video I posted? They at least(the women I should say. The men were more static) all have different resting poses(fighting generally deepened on what weapon your chracter uses). So maybe they did do all the unnecessary work to make the male and female models distinct. Either way they have had a prior success so anything less feels like a step backwards.

I never said that differences are drawn along gender lines, that was CloudAtlas. what i said is that differences exist in 2 unique protagonists, regardles of their sex. in fact i stated that multiple times in this thread already so not sure why you still keep ignoring it.

The way new Coop is suppsed to work is that no matter which of the players you are, you see yourself as the main protagonist and others as generic spies with cloned bodies. the animation is identical as the other players also see themselves as protagonists. Its like having 4 identical characters with a skin mod.

Reskins for multiplayer do not garner much complaint because multiplayer players know that unique characters often bring inbalance and the less useful ones are going to be dropped anyway. meanwhile in singleplayer these things matter much more because singleplayer players arent alawys going for 100% efficiency.

When it comes to gliches, how many cinematics are there in multiplayer? i doubt there are even 10% of what is in singleplayer. not to mention that you wont see these problems when your just using a reskin. but you also wont have unique characters either.

I didnt watch the video because i dont really do youtube at work for obviuos reasons, well if resting poses were unique then they really put at least some effort in it it seems.

Ubisoft Resources and time are most certainly not limited.

thanks for a good laugh. unless Ubisoft invented a time machine and can print thier own currency, it most certainly is limited.

If you added a playable female to a game with a huge established fanbase that releases a new installment every year like say Call Of Duty, or Assasin's Creed it wouldn't affect sales at all, so I don't think Ubisoft has much to lose by adding playable females. If anything they have something to gain from adding female assasins, since if they had done so in the first place they would have branded as progressive, garnering good PR, as opposed to their ineffectual attempts to stave off bad PR.

thats kinda the point here isnt it. sex of the protagonist does not really matter in term of sales, so its going to sell just as well with what they are doing now than if they changed things. the ONLY reason ubisoft is ever going to add anything to their games if if they believe it would increase sales.

 

[Something Amyss]

As a work of art it's up the makers to add or remove features. It's their baby.

As a product, it's their choice to add or remove things and benefit or suffer in sales as a result, it's their property.

It's something they're selling to the masses. It's something commissioned by another body. It's not their baby nor their property. This was not an artistic decision made by the makers of the game[footnote]I suspect crab people[/footnote].

Regardless, they should listen to potential customers and adapt as necessary, it's good business, but why should they give into such demands that are rooted in a social agenda?

Suddenly, wanting things is social agenda. I wish we had these silly buzzwords back when everyone and their grandma was demanding online multiplayer in everything[footnote]Online Multiplayer leading to online content locks, a sign of the end times[/footnote]. It seems they only come in to play when we don't want something, though[footnote]Or when our crab overlords are displeased[/footnote].

Critical response is. The issue here is the cries sound more like demands from people to put in things into a game they feel should be there. It reeks of the whining around Mass Effect 3.

The distinction is an artificial one. Sort of along the lines of saying "I don't have a problem with lesbians, it's just all those women who want to have sex with other women I have a problem with."

If there's a lack of diversity in a market then I'm all for encouraging others to fill in the gaps, not tell others what they should and shouldn't do with their property.

That's a reskin of the "do it yourself" argument. Unless there's something about wanting something that immediately gives you the time, toolkit, and resources to do it, it's still inane[footnote]One method to gain such abilities is a pact with the crab people[/footnote].

People whine so much about the state its in, but they keep buying the products acting as if they're powerless.

Well, I would partially agree there. The problem is, you can't generally draw a line between the people complaining and the purchasers. I mean, if this game sees a decline in sales, would you attribute it to gender issues? I wouldn't. In fact, I'm betting that this sees weaker sales, as this is the trend in recent AC games. Oh, they still sell well, and AC is still one of the big franchises, but I'd be shocked if co-op brought enough people back into the fold to offset AC fatigue. But, you see, there's no one single point of causation for sales.

I mean, CoD: Ghosts had female avatars in it. Did it sell worse because of that? Well, I doubt it but can't preclude it. Was it gameplay? Eh, I thought it was shittier, but that doesn't mean it turned off fans. Was it more of the same? I would guess at this, but I don't rightly know. I think people are just tiring of the CoD machine to an extent[footnote]But in the end, aren't we all just cods in the machine of the crab people?[/footnote].

Coerce them with money, not with social crusading.

Except when games don't sell, they blame piracy or close up shop. Have you ever read a fiscal report from a company with a bad product? A game could literally cause the gates of Hell to open, causing Armageddon, and you'd still have excuses made during the financial reports about how the market was shifting, or they didn't advertise right[footnote]It's a certainty that business meetings will continue well into the unholy reign of Sistiggaroth, our great crustacean overlord[/footnote] Not to mention, "voting with your wallet" is pointless unless you can pinpoint why it didn't sell. I wonder how they would know why that's an issue. To again use the CoD argument, Activision's answer to a decline in sales is to continue making the same games, but to add another developer to the cycle. Probably the least liked developer to have touched the franchise. Does it really sound like they're listening?

EA/Bioware did listen with Mass Effect. Nintendo did listen with Tomodachi Life. The only time Valve listens is when people get all "social crusadey[footnote]What? That's a totally cromulent word![/footnote].

I actually don't buy into the notion that it's ineffective. I completely don't buy into the notion that "voting with your wallet" is.

 

[Gerardo Vazquez]

Ubisoft Resources and time are most certainly not limited.

thanks for a good laugh. unless Ubisoft invented a time machine and can print thier own currency, it most certainly is limited.

If you added a playable female to a game with a huge established fanbase that releases a new installment every year like say Call Of Duty, or Assasin's Creed it wouldn't affect sales at all, so I don't think Ubisoft has much to lose by adding playable females. If anything they have something to gain from adding female assasins, since if they had done so in the first place they would have branded as progressive, garnering good PR, as opposed to their ineffectual attempts to stave off bad PR.

thats kinda the point here isnt it. sex of the protagonist does not really matter in term of sales, so its going to sell just as well with what they are doing now than if they changed things. the ONLY reason ubisoft is ever going to add anything to their games if if they believe it would increase sales.

They could make their own time machine with the cash they put into these babies on a yearly basis, but when it comes to for playable females "Guys do you think we're made of money? It's not like we're some sort of big successful company in one of the most profitable industries in the modern world.", but hey, to be honest I'm not really interested in the new Assasin's Creed so I'm probably gonna skip out on the lates- OH MY GOD! Citizens eat glistening HD Baguettes in real time! Now I'm sold on this baby. It's a good thing Ubisoft doesn't waste resources, and ONLY puts things into their games that increase sales. Ubisoft, you just one yourself a costumer.

 

[mecegirl]

If the chracter looks distinctly different then that's generally enough for them to be considered a different protagonist in a co-op mode. You are probably the only one who believes that they would be the same thing. They are all assassins still, so there is gonna be some similarities in play style anyway. But all of the characters in Black Flag's multi-player mode have slight differences when you start out because in general they use different weapons. Some to my knowledge can blend in with the crowd better as well. The differences are not drawn along gender lines.

The hitbox thing is just you being both paranoid and anal. But either way why would it be any different from the slight differences between characters in a fighting game? There are two possibilities. Say the characters are just reskins. Well, I don't remember any complaints from folks that played with the Black Flag multiplayer. The only complaint I can think of is that ship battles were not included for multiplayer mode. And honestly, if anyone in this thread had any complaints or negative experience with it I wish they would speak up. I found that it worked just fine. Relatively fine I should say, there is always something off in these games now, part of why I don't pre-order. But I don't remember a wealth of glitches specific to the multiplayer characters like what you have described. So the whole animation not matching up thing is a moot point. And then maybe...just maybe, they didn't reskin the characters. So that's why there were not a whole lot of glitches. Did you watch the video I posted? They at least(the women I should say. The men were more static) all have different resting poses(fighting generally deepened on what weapon your chracter uses). So maybe they did do all the unnecessary work to make the male and female models distinct. Either way they have had a prior success so anything less feels like a step backwards.

I never said that differences are drawn along gender lines, that was CloudAtlas. what i said is that differences exist in 2 unique protagonists, regardles of their sex. in fact i stated that multiple times in this thread already so not sure why you still keep ignoring it.

I mentioned differences along gender lines because of your random talk about advantages and male characters being abandoned for the female ones.

The way new Coop is suppsed to work is that no matter which of the players you are, you see yourself as the main protagonist and others as generic spies with cloned bodies. the animation is identical as the other players also see themselves as protagonists. Its like having 4 identical characters with a skin mod.

It's not like having 4 identical characters with a skin mod. It is four identical characters with a skin mod. That's part of the point. The players are just supposed to play as their own customized version of Arno Dorian. the only thing that makes them look like random assassins is the assumption that most people would have customized their version of Arno differently.

Reskins for multiplayer do not garner much complaint because multiplayer players know that unique characters often bring inbalance and the less useful ones are going to be dropped anyway. meanwhile in singleplayer these things matter much more because singleplayer players arent alawys going for 100% efficiency.

When it comes to gliches, how many cinematics are there in multiplayer? i doubt there are even 10% of what is in singleplayer. not to mention that you wont see these problems when your just using a reskin. but you also wont have unique characters either.

Considering that all this talk is ONLY about the new multiplayer mode for Assassins Creed Unity what's the problem then? No one is even concerned with inserting a female option in the single player mode. They are just wondering why it can't be an option for the multiplayer mode. I believe that the desire for a female chracter would exist regardless. But remember, it was the a representative from the company that said that they wanted a playable female but couldn't have one because of the amount of work it would take. Which is what is making people feel that they are lazy. I don't think most assume that the process is a piece of cake. but they have had female characters in the multiplayer mode in previous games (not just in Black Flag. But in AC III and Brotherhood as well). This will be a deviation to what they have done before. And any issues with programing surely would have encountered in the creation of previous games? Would they not now have the knowledge to make the processes smoother?

I didnt watch the video because i dont really do youtube at work for obviuos reasons, well if resting poses were unique then they really put at least some effort in it it seems.

I don't think they built every chracter from the ground up, but I think they at least did more than just reskin them.

 

[Strazdas]

They could make their own time machine with the cash they put into these babies on a yearly basis, but when it comes to for playable females "Guys do you think we're made of money? It's not like we're some sort of big successful company in one of the most profitable industries in the modern world.", but hey, to be honest I'm not really interested in the new Assasin's Creed so I'm probably gonna skip out on the lates- OH MY GOD! Citizens eat glistening HD Baguettes in real time! Now I'm sold on this baby. It's a good thing Ubisoft doesn't waste resources, and ONLY puts things into their games that increase sales. Ubisoft, you just one yourself a costumer.

your FUD and non-arguments are not impressive. you keep creating strawmen and think their made of iron. People buy what they like. Since AC sells well, obviuosly there are enough people that like it.

Considering that all this talk is ONLY about the new multiplayer mode for Assassins Creed Unity what's the problem then? No one is even concerned with inserting a female option in the single player mode. They are just wondering why it can't be an option for the multiplayer mode. I believe that the desire for a female chracter would exist regardless. But remember, it was the a representative from the company that said that they wanted a playable female but couldn't have one because of the amount of work it would take. Which is what is making people feel that they are lazy. I don't think most assume that the process is a piece of cake. but they have had female characters in the multiplayer mode in previous games (not just in Black Flag. But in AC III and Brotherhood as well). This will be a deviation to what they have done before. And any issues with programing surely would have encountered in the creation of previous games? Would they not now have the knowledge to make the processes smoother?

erm, so people demanding that ubisoft makes a female protagonist is only about multiplayer? i dont think you understand what the article said.

 

[Otakun]

We have a bunch of armchair game devs complaining that a big name company didn't want to add a "feature" they wanted and assume they know the actual time and money it takes to add such thing when the company says "it's too time consuming and expensive." Who cares what they say cause they have money to do so, right? Why? Adding a female model and animating it takes time and money (feel free to take classes on it like I have to prove me wrong) which in the end will result in no extra money being made on the game. Ubisoft adding female models may not hurt sales but it wont increase them to make up the cost in development. You can call them greedy and money grubby all you want but business is business, no other company would go out of their way to spend more money for no gain.