Jimquisition: Diversity? LIEversity!

[Floppertje]

You honestly think they can't do an estimate of how much hours it costs to animate a character? how many hours of work it takes to record more lines for voice actors?

You forgot about concept art, making the model, writing the script, making cut scenes, and all the testing associated with these.

It's their JOB to know. they keep records of these things, it's how you keep your finances in order.

They won't have one person solely working on the main character, they'll have a bunch of people making all the characters and weapons. So unless this person's time sheet is specifically marked as making the main character, rather than simply modelling or animating, it will be difficult to determine how long it took to make the main character.

Companies know how long all the modelling and animating took but they usually don't know how long each part took.

Besides, according to them they DO know how expensive it is because they claim to know it costs too much.

To a developer cost doesn't just refer to money but also time. So according to their estimates a female character may cost too much, take too longer to implement, or cost too much to implement in the amount of time they have left.

How is it unreasonable for me to ask them to explain an answer that cites a reason that a lot of their customers and pretty much all gaming press have called unacceptable?

Because this company is free to chose what goes into this game and you have no right to demand they add anything. Also the people who are calling this unacceptable have never made a game and have no idea how long adding new animations will take, so they're hardly the best people to judge how long things take.

An honestly, if Mass Effect 3 has a multiplayer that not only allows male and female characters, but characters from about 10 different races, you're not going to convince me that adding one set of animations is too expensive or hard for ubisoft.

Dis Mass Effect have longer than one year to make a new game for a next gen console? If they did have more time then you have your answer as to why they were able to add more animations.

Why do you people always make me repeat myself? fine.

1. you're missing the point, they know how much time it costs, they know what they'd have to do to put it in, they can do the math. man-hours x salary x operating budget, or however they calculate it. They know this, they said so themselves!

2. I'm not demanding they change it, I'm demanding an explanation. I can't force them to put in female co-op characters, but I can not buy the game if I think their business practices are crap. And how is it this never comes up when we're talking about other things? It's ok to demand less brown shooters, but when it comes to women it's all 'it's art, bro'
Speaking of which, where's my female lead in Call of Duty? It's about time they changed that one up...
Also, yes. these are EXACTLY the people to judge that. They're the gaming press, it's their job to report on the games industry and to call out bullshit when they see it.

3. well whose fault is that? we're not forcing them to release a new one every year. and since when does this industry have a problem with delays?

 

[PainInTheAssInternet]

Just one problem, the female NPCs have far fewer animations than playable characters because they don't need to sneak around or fight. So you'd still need to do a lot of work to add a playable female character.

Have you played Uncharted 1 or 2? There's an option where you can cycle amongst the characters and use them as your skin. Women are amongst those choices, but most notable for me is an obese version of the main character. Minor clipping issues aside, it fits perfectly.

I also feel that I should note that all characters, including a man in his 50s or 60s, move the exact same way. This is because they all access the same movement codes. Coding separate movements for each character when they will move the same way would be phenomenally wasteful.

So your solution is to use the same animations, even if it results in the characters moving weirdly based on their age, weight, and gender. Some people find that immersion breaking, which is why developers code different characters to move differently.

My radical, nonsensical solution is to do what the industry has been doing for quite some time? You honestly think there are more than 3 sets of movement coding (Assassin, not-as-able-as-assassin combatant and civilian) beyond cutscenes in the entirety of the Assassins Creed series? Those 3 sets are all they work with and the AI will go between them as necessary. It's not merely efficient but rather effective.

Uncharted, the series well-known for going haywire with it's attention to detail, managed to do it with women, enemies, old and obese alike. They're even included in the cutscenes and have the appropriate audio to match (not dialogue, but grunts). All that effort on a mere bit of fun.

 

[Abnaxis]

I'm not sure what response you are looking for. Do you want us to collectively look into our crystal balls, and tell you, without a shadow of a doubt, that hypothetical games with under-represented protagonists will make money?

Nobody knows what would happen if Assassin's Creed Unity had a woman protagonist, instead of Arno. Even after it is released, no one can say how many customers will give it a "meh" because they see the same trite protagonist on the cover. Nor can we tell how many gamers will pick it up and play on, without a care for Arno's demographic. No matter what you do--spend as much money as you want, distribute as many surveys as you want, you cannot answer the question without a shadow of a doubt.

Given this, what exactly are you wanting the other side to provide? There's no hard data out there that can back up anyone's claims--yours or theirs. It's all just hypotheticals. The best anyone can do here is provide their own perspective.

What I want you to do, collectively, is accept that your personal preferences are not reasonable justification to demand that developers change the games that they make, and that if you cannot provide any hard data that will make a business case for those changes, you have no right to demand that developers make them anyway because of your feels.
What I want you to do is accept that if you cannot make a compelling case for specific changes, then you have no more right to demand them than others do to resist them, and that they carry no more weight than any individuals personal preferences should.
Trying to harangue developers to make these changes to align with your personal likes or dislikes by calling them racist or sexist or whateverthefuck-ist is dishonest and logically invalid, and trying to call individuals the same when they disagree with you is just a cheap tactic to silence opposition.

Apologies, had to snip.

I can sum this up with reference to my previous post.
I had no difficulty identifying with Lee or Clementine from The Walking Dead, Lara Croft, or any other character for that matter, and I feel that this is simply a ridiculous extension of identity politics. Am I supposed to complain that I couldn't identify with the protagonist from Outlast because I'm not a journalist? Seems to me that this complaint would carry exactly the same weight, as an Englishman surely I can complain that most protagonists are American?
The failure here seems to be in the imagination of the individual, and the sense of entitlement that leads people to complain that the character does not resemble them enough.
Guess what, games are not tailor-made for you! (general you) they are made for a wider audience, and sometimes that means they won't resemble you, and as an adult you are supposed to be able to deal with that.
It strikes me that if somebody is unable to identify with a character purely because they are a different race, it is most likely that they are simply a racist, that's their perogative I suppose, but I don't think we should force developers to cater to it, even if it means having to deal with the (seemingly) uncomfortable reality that members of minority groups can be racist too.

You can correct me if I've overlooked it, but I've read the entire thread, and I haven't seen the first poster accuse anyone of being a bigot in an attempt to shame them into changing their opinion. Further, nobody is "demanding" anything, other than a few people who feel Ubisoft was dishonest in their justifications for why there isn't a female option in their game. They're certainly saying "I want this, and it doesn't seem hard," but that's a far cry from beating down the doors and holding devs hostage.

"Making a compelling case for change," is kind of a silly demand, considering there is no way to make a compelling case either way. There are facts that can be brought up either way, but at the end of the day it is all up to personal opinion whether you think a change is needed or not. In fact, personal opinion is the only valid thing anyone, including the publishers, care about. Ideally, whatever game gets made will earn high opinions from the most people possible--and those people include women and minorities too.

As far as your specific arguments are concerned, I differ from you, because I don't think you are well-enough considering the context in which these games are released. You made the case that either 1) race doesn't make any difference, or 2) it does, and including a wider variety of demographics among protagonists will just turn the problem on its head, alienating the white gamers instead of minority ones. Both assertions are wrong, because no matter what white male gamers will have another game to turn to. You aren't going to be upset that you play as Lara Croft, because you can always quit and play as Adam Jensen, or Nathan Drake, or Booker, or...well, probably fifty different white male action heroes, all in slightly different action games, one of which will probably scratch your itch. Women don't have that option.

Incidentally, that's why you have no problem playing the Walking Dead, or any problem choosing a different-gendered race in any game that gives you the choice (though I would argue that if the choice didn't matter in the story or the mechanics, it's not that big of a deal to begin with; we aren't just talking bout palette swaps here, at least I'm not). It's easy to play as someone else, when that's not the only de-facto choice you have. When you're forced to do it for a while, it grates.

67% of US households have video game systems. Now, the might sound like a lot, but consider that 1) that's households, the actual percentage of people are playing video games is less, 2) 50% of those people are probably just playing Angry Bird, or its ilk, and 3) 15 years after the invention of television, 90% of households had a TV. The adoption numbers for games is abysmal for how long they've been around.

I would posit, that this is in no small part due to the fact that gaming media is not a welcoming place. The big name publishers care about one demographic, and anyone else that derives enjoyment of their product is just a happy coincidence. That's not to say all gamers or all developers are racists, but this is an endemic problem in the culture, and every Lee, every Avelline, every instance where we can make the hobby more welcoming to a wider variety people is better for everybody, for reasons I outlined in my earlier post. And I don't just count women in this either--we would be much, much better off with not only more women, but also more minorities, more old people, and more people of varying political and religious contexts, than is currently the norm in gaming.

 

[Abnaxis]

Forum needs a delete button...

 

[JimB]

Bad writing? Really? If that's not grasping for straws, I don't know what is.

Then I am kind of forced to conclude you don't know what grasping for straws is. As best I can tell, your position is that including token female characters where there otherwise would have been some pointless male character means the female character will be written badly, as if it's some function of the character's existence rather than the writer's competence that will determine how bad the character is. If I've misunderstood why you think adding female charbits to a game will make it bad, then I invite you to explain why,

I singled them out because that's the topic of the thread and video.

Maybe this is just a function of my egotistical need to run my mouth off at whatever length pleases me, but the idea of cutting your own point in half despite the danger of it seeming to misrepresent your opinion seems weird to me.

Let's not forget that you singled out one phrase out of my entire post and took it out of context, which is that games should have higher quality overall, so there's no evidence that I approve of the current state of things.

That really does not seem to be the point of the original post I quoted. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/6.852866-Jimquisition-Diversity-LIEversity?page=7#21097862] That post seems to have nothing to say about general quality and everything about excusing the current state of affairs because companies should play to their strengths.

As for your question, ask the industry.

No. You are the one who made the suggestion. I am asking you about the implications of your suggestion. I will not ask someone who's never heard of you what he thinks you think the endgame of your plan that he doesn't know is.

I hope that's a PC enough answer for you and that I don't appear as the average white male gamer to you so much that nothing I say has any impact.

I don't care about your skin color or penis/vagina. I'm considerably more annoyed by the attempt to claim persecuted martyr status with that "I hope that's PC enough for you" crack than I am about your relative level of melanin and whether your bits dangle below hip level or are nestled slightly above.

 

[Floppertje]

Right, so...
1) Although you completely missed the fact that they don't know how much it costs they may be able to guess, but the costs involved are complex and not easily quantified. Even if they did know, you'd still be trying to argue that even though they think it'll cost too much to be worthwhile, you magically know better than them because feelings.

2) They don't owe you an explanation at all, it's their game! They can make any game they want, and you can buy or not buy it as you see fit, you can even insist that you won't buy it unless they do X. What you can't do is demand an explanation for their choices, they owe you nothing.

3) So what? Their release schedule is their business, not yours. You are free to say that it impacts on the game in a way you dislike, and even refuse to buy the games because of it, but they are free to, and certainly will ignore you.

At this point I really wish the game industry would collectively say what they're thinking, which is as follows:
"Stop expecting us to treat your trifling concerns and petty whining as if the Supreme Deity has spoken. There are a lot of you, all saying contradictory things, and we'd be able to make games a lot more easily if you'd stop hysterically crying every time we release a game that doesn't advance your concern du jour. Every time you do this we take you less seriously and more like children."

1. If they're saying it costs too much, they're saying that they know how much it costs. If they didn't know, they wouldn't say that. Unless they're talking out of their asses of course. I'm not saying I know better than they do, I just spent 2 posts explaining that I don't know better because they never tell their customers anything, so everyone has to speculate. What I'm saying is that I'll eat my hat if it would cost them more than they could afford or would make in profit.

2. Like I said, if they don't want to explain, fine. But then they don't have any right to complain when people speculate and call them out on their bullshit on basis of that speculation.

3. Yeah, it's their business, but you can hardly say you don't have time if you regularly push back deadlines. Why can't they do that here?
All of this points to one thing: Ubisoft doesn't care enough about women to take the trouble to put them in the game as playable co-op characters. and apparently you share that sentiment. If they did care, they'd take the trouble, and more importantly, they would've from the start and they wouldn't be in this situation to begin with.

 

[CloudAtlas]

I had no difficulty identifying with Lee or Clementine from The Walking Dead, Lara Croft, or any other character for that matter, and I feel that this is simply a ridiculous extension of identity politics.

Good for you. However, as long as the vast majority of protagonists are characters that do resemble you, you do not know how it feels like to be rarely represented at all. Neither do I, for that matter, but apparently in contrast to you, I don't believe that when people who happen to be not white guys tell me they feel kinda excluded sometimes they are lying to me.

Guess what, games are not tailor-made for you! (general you) they are made for a wider audience, and sometimes that means they won't resemble you, and as an adult you are supposed to be able to deal with that.

People are not unhappy because they "sometimes" cannot play as a character that resembles them. They are unhappy because they can rarely play a single player game that stars a character that resembles them.
And many people who belong to the group that is always catered to - the white guys - are unhappy too, because they are bored of having to play as the ever same white guy.
Many white guy gamers, on the other hand, are, one way or another, very vocal in their attempts to silence anyone who wishes to play as someone who is not a white guy.

And you know what? I just love it when people who are basically just wishing for more diverse, interesting stories and characters are being shouted down because apparently that's somehow a bad thing that needs to be opposed.

 

[CloudAtlas]

At this point I really wish the game industry would collectively say what they're thinking, which is as follows:
"Stop expecting us to treat your trifling concerns and petty whining as if the Supreme Deity has spoken. There are a lot of you, all saying contradictory things, and we'd be able to make games a lot more easily if you'd stop hysterically crying every time we release a game that doesn't advance your concern du jour. Every time you do this we take you less seriously and more like children."

Right... Because one publisher basically implying that women aren't worth the effort to them, and the public backlash this statement generated, is not enough for you.
No, you want every publisher stating that they don't care about women and just about anyone else who isn't a straight white dude. That they regard all wishes for greater inclusivity, any complaints about sexism and racism, and just wishes for less stereotypical characters and stories in general as "petty whining". That anyone who cares about any of that stuff as whining crybaby.

Yea I'm sure that would go down really well. Man, I'm wondering why UbiSoft, EA and Co. aren't hiring you as their chief PR strategist... oh right, because however stupid they might be, they are not THAT stupid.

Now, to be fair, I don't assume you mean that entirely seriously. At least I hope you don't. But all you're doing here is just to dress up your apparent desire for everyone to just shut up, for everyone to just stop caring about stuff you don't care about in different words.
And, sorry bro, that's not going to happen, that's not how this works.

 

[JimB]

You've contributed nothing to the conversation, so I'm ditching it.

...said the guy who, when explicitly asked and invited to explain where my misconceptions lie, thought it would be more fun to insult me and attach to me the sort of self-centered motivations he half accused me of previously. You'll forgive me if, in light of this, I find your attempt to claim the high ground here more than a little disingenuous.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

Chalk me up with another one of those under represented numbers. Better than most, being a black male.

My issue wasn't about diversity. I'm not chomping at the bit with frothing anger because they didn't put a black guy in the French Revolution. I'm not seething that they ignored women's role in one of the most important social occurrences in recorded history.

It's that the reason was stupid. It was a stupid reason spat out to shut people up. It's like catching your girl (or guy, however you are happy) in your bed with someone who isn't you and quickly saying such wonders as "It's not what it looks like!" "I'm so drunk, baby, I don't know what I'm doing" or something else that suggests that not only did they want to break your trust... but they think you're so stupid that you might actually believe these things.

You did something displeasing. Own up to it. Ok. We'll all do something displeasing. I might have displeased a few just writing these words. I own up to it. It doesn't change my decision to do so. You might not respect me for it, but at least I have the courage to say and do what I want and be ok with the backlash.

And to those complaining about how they are tired of diversity and everyone whining? The most important thing to take out of it is that they also lied to you. It might matter to you as little as shoe horning diversity. That's completely fine. But they also thought you were stupid enough to buy that lie. That ain't good, guys.

 

[CloudAtlas]

This response was unnecessarily rude, and makes me regret taking the effort to politely shred your horribly bad argument, I am further disappointed.

Just one post above you were calling people like me "self-important whiners who should not be listened to under any circumstances" and you think that you are "polite", and now YOU are telling ME that I'm "unnecessarily rude"? Don't make me laugh.

No, I'm done here. Suggesting that all women or minorities who wish for a character that look like them to be the hero more often are "self-important whiners who should not be listened to under any circumstances", that tells me all I need to know about you and your attitude. That's really ugly man.

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

Just look at Laura Croft; having her be the stalwart heroine of the game wasn't good enough. She had to be God, unblemished and unbreakable because having her seem vulnerable or human was considered a slur against all women.

Remember the time Marcus Fenix was borderline gangraped in that one Gears of War cutscene?

Yeah. Me neither.

A strong character can go through turmoil, a strong character can be human; resorting to the "woman is beaten and abused" trope was cowardly and attention-grabbing. If you think men are being written well (which they aren't because writing in games is awful on almost every conceivable level but let's run with it) then women need to be written the same. There shouldn't have to be any more concessions in making Lara Croft a "human" than Master Chief or Duke Nukem.

So you're saying bad people should never do bad things to women because women can't defend themselves? That's kinda' sexist of you!

Yes, she was almost raped. And you know what I say? SO F*CKING WHAT?!
That's real! That happens! Bad people rape. Those dudes on the island were bad people, they almost raped Laura, and she escaped and killed them all. Forgive me for my ignorance, but isn't that half the plot of all LifeTime movies? Isn't that suppossed to be empowering?! She killed ALL of them! Violently!
Remember the time Laura jumped out of burning spaceship and fell through earth's atmosphere? No? Yeah, me neither. I think that was Noble 6.
Remember the time Laura was on a transport and a giant alien spider blew it up, hurling her through a building? No? Me neither.
Comparing the difficulties of a realist game like Tomb Raider and the action set pieces of a sci-fi shooter like Duke or Halo is simply weak. They're not the same genre, not the same gameplay. You're not supposed to feel the same! Laura is supposed to be scared because there's a large stealth element. Why is Laura stealthing? Because these guys want to rape her! I suppose they could have gone with 'they have guns' but oh wait, they did.
Does Master Chief stealth? No? Why is that? BECAUSE ITS AN ACTION GAME!

But if we're comparing genres blindly, then all video games are sexist against men because of the Amnesia series. You're a man, you're scared and you hide and you can't fight back. As a man, and the protagonist being a man, I find that sexist. Laura is CLEARLY shown to be the superior gender.

Her name is Lara Croft, and you're an idiot. You don't have to listen to what I'm saying but don't make it up as you go along, either, please.