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

[wulf3n]

Then, there is a fact that every AAA game with female protagonist that didnt have option for male protagonist is a financial failure.

Except for the new Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XIII-2 and to an extent Bayonetta to name just a few.

 

[Sutter Cane]

So, based on what I've been reading about development, catering to these interests is probably just going to make games suck more as devs will be given less time to make what matters: better games.

I swear, I saw this coming when that Anita chick started running her mouth off.

So trying to actually, you know, be inclusive is a bad thing now? Having a diverse cast of playable characters in a series means the games will be shitty? I'm not sure how to even respond to this post other than a facepalm

 

[Strazdas]

Then, there is a fact that every AAA game with female protagonist that didnt have option for male protagonist is a financial failure.

Except for the new Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XIII-2 and to an extent Bayonetta to name just a few.

Ok, ill give you Tomb Raider, though it seems to be more fanservice sexualization than female protagonist.
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.
Baynetta isnt AAA.

So trying to actually, you know, be inclusive is a bad thing now? Having a diverse cast of playable characters in a series means the games will be shitty? I'm not sure how to even respond to this post other than a facepalm

Ok, lets say you have X time to spend on a game. lets say its 100 (%?).
Now, to create a single protagonist, with its animations, cutscenes, ect takes, lets say, 20 time. 80 time is left for everything else in game desing.
Now lets say we create 2 protagonists. some things can be reused, so lets say every sequential protagonist takes only 15 time. this means that at:
2 we have 35 for protagonist, 65 for the rest of the game
3 we have 50 for protagonist, 50 for the rest of the game
4 we have 65 for protagonist, 35 for the rest of the game
ect


im sure you can see how increasing number of protagonist can decrease the quality of the game due to limited time/funding in market.

 

[CloudAtlas]

creating a protagonist of two different sexes means you need to:
create two different hit detection models

Wrong. Not if the female character model is similar enough to the male.

create two different animation sets

Wrong. You can re-use many of the male animations, many of the animations from other female characters that are already in the game, and many of the female animations from other games.

create two different cutscene sets (unless you like your character clipping through other characters)

Wrong. If the female model is similar enough to the male one, at most you may have to create two versions of some cutscenes.

create two different soundbases for each character

Having a single voice actor more record a couple of sounds and lines and put that in the game is not that much work.

create two different models that work with animations

Creating a model (mesh) is not that much work, and as for animations... your list doesn't become more impressive if you repeat one point.

create two animation sets for each weapon (unless you like clipping)

Wrong. Not if the female character model is similar enough to the male.

You know, I get the feeling that you labour under the illusion that all male characters are big, massive hunks, and all female characters models have the size of the former, but with gargantuan breasts instead.

Why can't female assassins (or soldiers or whatever) have roughly the same outline as their male counterparts? Are you telling me you'd different hitboxes if the hips of a female character are a few pixels wider, the waits a few pixels narrower, and the arms a few pixels thinner?

many many more things.

Such as?

Then, there is a fact that every AAA game with female protagonist that didnt have option for male protagonist is a financial failure. so they tried, failed, went back to what actually sells.

Wrong... like, even more wrong, undeniably wrong. Tomb Raider (2013) met SquareEnix's (very high) sales expectations (eventually). You see, the problem with making a claim like including words like "every" or "none" can be proven wrong with a single counter-example... and I suspect that the respective publishers weren't greenlighting sequels to Metroid or Final Fantasy XIII purely because of the kindness of their hearts?

 

[CloudAtlas]

Except for the new Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XIII-2 and to an extent Bayonetta to name just a few.

Ok, ill give you Tomb Raider, though it seems to be more fanservice sexualization than female protagonist.

Not anymore.

Baynetta isnt AAA.

What else? An indie game? Bayonetta has all the trappings of an AAA game, the spectacle, polish, scope, etc. You just can't draw the line anywhere you please just because an example doesn't fit to your argument.

So trying to actually, you know, be inclusive is a bad thing now? Having a diverse cast of playable characters in a series means the games will be shitty? I'm not sure how to even respond to this post other than a facepalm

Ok, lets say you have X time to spend on a game. lets say its 100 (%?).
Now, to create a single protagonist, with its animations, cutscenes, ect takes, lets say, 20 time. 80 time is left for everything else in game desing.
Now lets say we create 2 protagonists. some things can be reused, so lets say every sequential protagonist takes only 15 time. this means that at:
2 we have 35 for protagonist, 65 for the rest of the game
3 we have 50 for protagonist, 50 for the rest of the game
4 we have 65 for protagonist, 35 for the rest of the game
ect

im sure you can see how increasing number of protagonist can decrease the quality of the game due to limited time/funding in market.

Again, you overestimate the amount of time and effort that is necessary to design, animate and implement additional characters massively. Sure, drawing, animating, voicing and implementing a female protagonist model might take some effort, not as much as you seem to believe, but still. But after that, after your 2nd protagonist, your "calculation" above becomes even more nonsensical.
We're talking about inclusivity here. So, like, why would adding (or giving the player the customization option) as a black character be anywhere close to 75% of the workload of creating your first character? It's just different skin texture, somewhat different face mashes (if you want to be fancy), and, depending on the setting of the game, a number of references to her skin colour.

 

[Strazdas]

This is going to be a long one isnt it. Especially since i did not differntiate genres intentionally (as this apply whether you add a female or male as a second protagonist) and you immediately jumped the gun.

Wrong. Not if the female character model is similar enough to the male.

they are not. This would work if your using power suit fighters like in Halo. wont work in heavily realistically modelled games like AC.

Wrong. You can re-use many of the male animations, many of the animations from other female characters that are already in the game, and many of the female animations from other games.

No. You cant or your just making a reskinned male character, which is not what is asked when asked to create female character.
Using animations from other games go both ways, so its no point in your favor, rather a "less work either way" deal. and evne then you still got to code those animations in for that character model, as in tell it to use it.

Wrong. If the female model is similar enough to the male one, at most you may have to create two versions of some cutscenes.

No, its not. unless you like your female floating above ground and parts clipping through other people. not to mention the hair physics needed (as in, im personally tired of having long hair only it to be clipped inside my armor anyway)

Having a single voice actor more record a couple of sounds and lines and put that in the game is not that much work.

not sure i understand. you want a male voice actor to act the female protagonist voices?
and its not couple of sounds and lines. there is a lot of soundtrack going into protagonists, they are the most noisy characters in game.
A good voice actor for lead character (whether male or female) will cost a lot.

Creating a model (mesh) is not that much work, and as for animations... your list doesn't become more impressive if you repeat one point.

if creating models and animations arent much work maybe you would like to donate them? for me personally it would be a lot of work, and professionals seem to agree with me. Remmeber the story how a single ship model for Star Citizen took days to make and cost 20.000 or something?

Wrong. Not if the female character model is similar enough to the male.

Its not.

You know, I get the feeling that you labour under the illusion that all male characters are big, massive hunks, and all female characters models have the size of the former, but with gargantuan breasts instead.

no, i labour under the "illusion" that males and females have differen phisionomies, for example height. because, you know, they do in real life. there is more difference than sexual organs between sexes.

Why can't female assassins (or soldiers or whatever) have roughly the same outline as their male counterparts?

because that would look unrealistic and comical. Its good enough for games that dont try to represent realistic figures and go for approximations. this isnt that kind of game though.

Are you telling me you'd different hitboxes if the hips of a female character are a few pixels wider, the waits a few pixels narrower, and the arms a few pixels thinner?

dont remember the game name, but in one game female character in multiplayer was couple centimters shorter and thus her headshot box was shorter. EVERYONE played that character because it was massive advantage. Hitboxes matter, A LOT. Hitboxes is a game-changer.

Such as?

i was illustrating the point and didnt want to bother listing further. do you seriuosly inquitre in more costs or just trying to deny everything regardless?

 

[Strazdas]

Not anymore.

Yes, more.
Oversexulized outfit, female dominance, rape themes (granted cut out for australia because censorship). very much sexualized. Not to mention they went for reboot because the previuos one was getting too old to be sexy.

Again, you overestimate the amount of time and effort that is necessary to design, animate and implement additional characters massively. Sure, drawing, animating, voicing and implementing a female protagonist model might take some effort, not as much as you seem to believe, but still. But after that, after your 2nd protagonist, your "calculation" above becomes even more nonsensical.
We're talking about inclusivity here. So, like, why would adding (or giving the player the customization option) as a black character be anywhere close to 75% of the workload of creating your first character? It's just different skin texture, somewhat different face mashes (if you want to be fancy), and, depending on the setting of the game, a number of references to her skin colour.

you severely underestimate them, as you have proven in the post above. i never implied that it takes 20% of games resources to create a protagonist. it varies from game to game. the point was how in limited resource extra work will equally decrease work done in other areas, thus more protagonists lowering quality of toher aspects of the game.

Yes, you can reskin characters (as in use different texture, not alluring to skin colour). but i was talking about unique characters - which is what we actually want as gamers. not same average character with different skins on it - we can have 100s of these with mods on first week.

As you notice, games that give player costumization option very rarely refer to anything the player can choose and have very few cutscenes that is either prerendered or very safe enviroment bubble. this is to avoid the problems of not having differnt animations. and yet they still run into ton of problems of people clipping through walls and eachother while also being immune to weapons due to static hitboxes being smaller than them. they also tend to be games where you dont need precision (thus you can just slash sword at one large hitbox regardless of character), ect. and yet most of the time problems start the moment you decide t wear unmatching armor set. items clippnig through eachother and whatnot. to remove that - the idea scenario - would mean costum animation set for every choice. and thats A LOT of work.

 

[SecondPrize]

Reward the people who get it right with your custom and your money. Don't buy from the ones you don't agree with, and keep your controversy for the ones who really deserve it. If enough consumers do this, we'll get the games industry that we want. If not, we'll get the one we deserve instead.

There's a flaw with voting with one's wallet, IMO. In theory it should work, but there's people that hate Pepsi, and won't drink it. That said, Pepsi's still thriving.

Basically, voting with one's wallet won't make a dang if the industry can stay afloat with it's existing customers. the game industry likely feels they can, despite though with the bankruptcies, layoffs, etc.

Provided you have multiple systems, you might be able to get by with a decent variety as far as modern releases go.
If you just have one system, though? Good luck getting a steady supply of games with female protagonists, and get comfy buying old games, and playing the heck out of the ones you can get.

Still, We're getting a decent surge lately, but I'm looking at it through the lenses of someone who's been pretty well starved of the games I want, has multiple systems, and researches.

Frankly, I don't believe people should have to own a dozen systems, or have to research heavily just to find the games with female playable characters in a variety of games.

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.

 

[CloudAtlas]

This is going to be a long one isnt it. Especially since i did not differntiate genres intentionally (as this apply whether you add a female or male as a second protagonist) and you immediately jumped the gun.

Wrong. Not if the female character model is similar enough to the male.

they are not. This would work if your using power suit fighters like in Halo. wont work in heavily realistically modelled games like AC.

Again: How different do you think men and women are exactly?

Wrong. You can re-use many of the male animations, many of the animations from other female characters that are already in the game, and many of the female animations from other games.

No. You cant or your just making a reskinned male character, which is not what is asked when asked to create female character.
Using animations from other games go both ways, so its no point in your favor, rather a "less work either way" deal. and evne then you still got to code those animations in for that character model, as in tell it to use it.

No. I didn't say it is no work at all, just that it is not as much work as you believe it to be.

Wrong. If the female model is similar enough to the male one, at most you may have to create two versions of some cutscenes.

No, its not. unless you like your female floating above ground and parts clipping through other people. not to mention the hair physics needed (as in, im personally tired of having long hair only it to be clipped inside my armor anyway)

What part of "if the female model is similar enough to the male one" don't you get? Same height, similar stature -> no floating, minimal clipping.
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.

Having a single voice actor more record a couple of sounds and lines and put that in the game is not that much work.

not sure i understand. you want a male voice actor to act the female protagonist voices? and its not couple of sounds and lines. there is a lot of soundtrack going into protagonists, they are the most noisy characters in game.
A good voice actor for lead character (whether male or female) will cost a lot.

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.

Creating a model (mesh) is not that much work, and as for animations... your list doesn't become more impressive if you repeat one point.

if creating models and animations arent much work maybe you would like to donate them? for me personally it would be a lot of work, and professionals seem to agree with me.

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.

Remmeber the story how a single ship model for Star Citizen took days to make and cost 20.000 or something?

I thought we are talking about human character models here. In games that already have plenty of other, very similar human character models anyway.

Wrong. Not if the female character model is similar enough to the male.

Its not.

You know, I get the feeling that you labour under the illusion that all male characters are big, massive hunks, and all female characters models have the size of the former, but with gargantuan breasts instead.

no, i labour under the "illusion" that males and females have differen phisionomies, for example height. because, you know, they do in real life. there is more difference than sexual organs between sexes.

Are you telling me you'd different hitboxes if the hips of a female character are a few pixels wider, the waits a few pixels narrower, and the arms a few pixels thinner?

dont remember the game name, but in one game female character in multiplayer was couple centimters shorter and thus her headshot box was shorter. EVERYONE played that character because it was massive advantage. Hitboxes matter, A LOT. Hitboxes is a game-changer.

And why does the female protagonist have to be smaller than the male protagonist exactly? Just because women are smaller on average then men? Well, I didn't know games are only allowed to have the average of everything in them. It certainly doesn't apply to breast sizes...
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?

Such as?

i was illustrating the point and didnt want to bother listing further. do you seriuosly inquitre in more costs or just trying to deny everything regardless?

That depends on how much substance your other arguments have. Judging by what you already provided... I doubt it's worth the effort.

 

[spartan231490]

Oh great, more cries of sexism over a company making a purely business decision. Is animating female characters more difficult than men? No. But it does still take time and effort to create the animations, which means money, and the simple fact is that the number of people who will buy a game just because it has playable female characters isn't enough to justify that expense, in this case. That's a purely business decision, it's not driven by latent sexism, it's driven by the market. If you don't like it, don't buy the games, that's how you will change these things. Not by putting on your fedora and whining on the internet.

 

[gamegod25]

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.

 

[Reasonable Atheist]

I am getting so sick of hearing people demand that others including something in their own creation. I don't care what it is, if you make some art you can make WHATEVER YOU WANT, and you nor anyone else has ANY right to tell them their work is unacceptable. What you have the right to do is not buy it or not play it, that is all. If you want to make a game with a female protagonist go do it, nobody is required to tailor their creations to anyone's aesthetic or political tastes.

As far as I am concerned they don't even owe you an excuse, i do not demand an excuse why "i am alone" is such a waste of time, i simply do not buy it.

Fuck off already

 

[nevarran]

Ubi takes the same approach to PC optimization: "It's too much work, let's not do it."

p.s. Just to be clear - the guy from Ubi is saying that adding another gender to the game would double the efforts, because they'll have two body types to work with. He's not saying females are twice as difficult to animate than males.

 

[Kilo24]

You are right that the scope of the work would increase dramatically with a gender selection for a single-player protagonist, but you are underestimating the amount of work it takes to create a female mesh and animate it to the AAA standards of the Assassin's Creed series for even just co-op multiplayer. Melee combat with other models that need to react to your individual animations (unlike Mass Effect or Tomb Raider) introduce a large amount of clipping issues and - though you do definitely have a point that Ubisoft could do something similar - there is still enough work added that
it's still a considerable amount. It may or may not be a good enough reason, but it is very far from "bullshit".

That raises a couple of questions however:

a) so the problem, as you perceive it, lies in the melee nature of the combat? Well, right off the bat I can think of at least one series going on its third installment (the souls games) where melee combat is pretty much the bulk of the game, and where the online component is strong. Yet it allows for melee combat just fine, even though there are about 16 different physical builds a character can have (8 per gender)

The problem, as I perceive it, is the intricacy of the animations for executions, parkour, melee combat exchanges and the like. The Souls series are designed for a much more freeform combat system than the Assassin's Creed games are, without requiring fixed positions for animating each individual move. Their style is designed for being able to fight a wide variety of creatures at the expense of animation intricacy. There's maybe like 5-10 individual moves for each class of weapon, and the only ones that require any animation from the enemy are the backstab moves (which are significantly less fluid than the other moves and can't even be used on the non-humanoid enemies). Assassin's Creed's melee combat is much more stylish than those games, and puts a hell of a lot of effort into animating catapulting over, backstabbing and throat-slitting humans in a way that the Souls games don't. Poor animation would be a lot more noticeable in Assassin's Creed than in the Souls games because the standards are much higher.

That's not to say that I think Assassin's Creed's combat is better than the combat in the Souls series. It trades off a great deal of combat flexibility and spends a great deal of animation effort for its intricate animations, and I don't value the cosmetic gains that highly. That doesn't mean that the developers/publishers have the same values, however - and I can respect it if they want a more "cinematic" experience.

b) this was achieved by a studio without the GDP of a small country to be made. A game with a quarter billion budget should be able to acommodate. Again, and I can't stress this enough, it's not like they have to rebuild a female protagonist for the entire main campaign, only include those (triggered) animations against AI opponents.

c) This is actually something Ubisoft has done before. Assassin's creed: Brotherhood and revelations ( and likely the others as well) not only had female characters for the multiplayer; they had about 20 or so character models and templates each with their own specific kill animations. Why isn't the same being done here when it was done in the past?

d) Even admitting that the adding of adding those features poses logistical problems, why not include them from scratch?

e) Cynically, they don't have the resources to animate a female, but they have resources for four different special editions with nearly an hour of extra content, and some specific skins and gear to each edition. Yet they can't take the days to animate a female template and add some executions. Hmmm.

f)Even looking past all that, AC:U is not the only culprit. Far Cry 4 also said the exact same thing, and on this situation, we're talking about a shooter, and as such, the "specific melee interaction" doesn't apply half as much when it comes to animations. FC3 also has one female co-op character. And yet, it's somehow too hard to repeat that in this gen?

g) On both cases, despite all of the above, despite the shitload of "special content" in the form of preorders with exclusive skins, at their best the argument is "you actually started developing women characters, but saw it was expensive, so we thought it wasn't worth it. Were I a woman, I'd probably get rattled by that assessment of worthlessness.

As I said before, you do have a point. And I do think that they should have been included for many of the reasons you do specify here. But I do think that you (and many others) are overestimating the flexibility of developing large software projects.

It may very well be that they had enough raw money and man-hours to spare to implement the change, but that doesn't mean much if the animators were already swamped with work from when they could start working on animating the models to when other people needed the animations to be final. That's a very specific period of time, and the people making the models, and the texture artists all have their own version of that critical period. If they work before or after that time, then they run a very high risk of wasting their own or other people's work.

There's also the time cost of decisions going up and down the chain of command, which increases quite a bit as you get a bigger project. Add that to the fact that large software development is notoriously hard to predict good time estimates on and that taking people on and off parts of a project is very expensive (see The Mythical Man-Month), and the potential cost of the decision increases dramatically. Given Assassin's Creed's ambitious release schedule and the armada of studios working on it, Ubisoft probably has a rigid schedule that shouldn't be tampered with.

Could they have fit it in without much additional work if they knew that they were going to do it from the beginning of the project? Probably. But they didn't know, and the amount of work it takes to make a change increases the further you get into a large software project. It may very well have been prohibitively expensive to do so at the point in time when they made the decision.

Now, I don't work at Ubisoft, so I'm guessing here. What I do know is that relatively few people commenting on this work at Ubisoft either, that it's very easy to underestimate the amount of work software development takes (especially on a large scale), and that it's very easy to underestimate the amount of work when someone else is doing it. That gives me enough doubt to indicate that it may very well be a valid reason, and as such just flat-out insulting people who made that claim is uncalled for.

In any case, my opposition to this article is because it completely disregards the reason that the developer gave for not including female co-op characters and instead just ranted. I agree with her overall position, but I find the lack of a coherent argument insulting to the readers and insulting to the developer who did give a reason for the decision - not a transparent excuse. It's worse than useless as a persuasive piece because anybody who holds an opposite opinion would be insulted, not convinced.

I won't speak for the author of the editorial, who has her own reasons, but I can speak for myself. And I did come to the same conclusion she did: Ubisoft's rationale is anything but, and falls firmly into the bulshit category. And calling out bulshit for what it is... well, I am quite ok with that.

But I doubt that persuasion or providing facts was the aim in the first place. If she wanted to rant with everyone else and feel righteous fury at the evil lying big publisher who's conspiring to keep women away from games because they cost too much, it's a great editorial. That type of editorial certainly provokes more reactions than a reasonable argument does, after all.

Again, won't presume to speak for the author, but won't deny the right to genuine outrage either. I'm a male, last time I checked, and I can see pretty much where this rant comes from. And she's right, it's time devs do their jobs and allocate resources properly if that is even the case, here.

Because what's worse here ends up being the fact that Ubi actually has dealt with the issue quite properly in the past. I don't much care to paint them as downright malicious when doing this, but damn, that was some sad excuse for public relations which is inexcusable from "ethical" (for lack of a better word) and economical perspectives (I mean, if publishers really can't see the enormous untapped potential of the female market and how fast it is growing, then they do suck at their jobs). With insult added to injury by the fact Ubisoft has done it before.

This wasn't public relations. It was a candid off-the-cuff remark from a developer that turned into a massive media frenzy and got the PR people involved. And once that happened, the developers were no longer allowed to say anything about females in their game. That is the worst consequence of this controversy: that developers have learned to not be candid and open with their design decisions, because they'll be too afraid to say anything about important issues for fear of sparking a media firestorm. Even if the reasoning was "bullshit", as long as the people in the company believed it and it wasn't just a transparent excuse it should be discussed candidly and non-insultingly. Otherwise, they'll just refuse to discuss their reasons but still keep following them.

 

[Legion]

Oh great, more cries of sexism over a company making a purely business decision. Is animating female characters more difficult than men? No. But it does still take time and effort to create the animations, which means money, and the simple fact is that the number of people who will buy a game just because it has playable female characters isn't enough to justify that expense, in this case. That's a purely business decision, it's not driven by latent sexism, it's driven by the market. If you don't like it, don't buy the games, that's how you will change these things. Not by putting on your fedora and whining on the internet.

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.

 

[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]

 

[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.