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

[Erttheking]

Snip

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]

Snip

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]

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]

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.

~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.

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]

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.

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.

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

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.

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]

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.

 

[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.