Jimquisition: Diversity? LIEversity!

[MEsoJD]

I rarely if ever log in and comment, but sometimes I disagree with Jim. This is one of those times... We don't know for sure if the real reason the developers didn't put a female character was because of lack of resources... The main thing is that the developers should be able to make whatever they want without so much bitching or should I say criticism? Artist' should create whatever they want and let people decide/vote with their wallets. They'll start listening if sales aren't to their satisfaction, but the fact remains that this is a male driven industry whose majority of customers are also male and the sales aren't slowing. That said, there have been games with female protagonist... and while they are not as plentiful as male, is that really a surprise?

 

[Rebel_Raven]

I rarely if ever log in and comment, but sometimes I disagree with Jim. This is one of those times... We don't know for sure if the real reason the developers didn't put a female character was because of lack of resources... The main thing is that the developers should be able to make whatever they want without so much bitching or should I say criticism? Artist' should create whatever they want and let people decide/vote with their wallets. They'll start listening if sales aren't to their satisfaction, but the fact remains that this is a male driven industry whose majority of customers are also male and the sales aren't slowing. That said, there have been games with female protagonist... and while they are not as plentiful as male, is that really a surprise?

Going by what they've told us, yes, lack of resources was the real reason. That and it was "Too hard."
The developers weren't allowed to make what they wanted, a game with playable females, because of a lack of resources. Odds are good they weren't entirely in charge of their resource allotment, so that means someone prevented the devs from making the games they wanted, and I seriously doubt it was the consumer in this case. The argument of "Let the devs make the game they want" isn't a one way street. It can mean that the Devs -wanted- diversity, but were not allowed to have it, too.

The problem with voting with one's wallet is despite it all, they make enough money to stay afloat with the targets they generally keep targeting. Not necessarily all they money they want, or anything, but they make enough for what ever goal, I guess. The non-target demographics probably can't generate enough loss for Ubisoft for them to care.
You basically said as much just after suggesting we vote with our wallets, kinda sinking the whole suggestion you made, IMO.

I'm not really surprised most games are male dominated because the industry is male dominated (not necessarily for all the right reasons, but that's another can of worms), but that does mean anyone has to sit down, and like it.

captcha: Oh Hai.

 

[endplanets]

Its always odd ad annoying when a problem boils down to "they are liars" or "they are idiots" (or both).

Another variant is "they are in on it" or "they are incompetent".

 

[endplanets]

Out of all the games to remove females it is bizarre that AC would do it.
Women seem to make up a large chunk of their fans (all my female friends dig it) and you could just recycle previous game's female animates and assets.
And they already have female voice actors what with the women civilians running around.

 

[endplanets]

I rarely if ever log in and comment, but sometimes I disagree with Jim. This is one of those times... We don't know for sure if the real reason the developers didn't put a female character was because of lack of resources... The main thing is that the developers should be able to make whatever they want without so much bitching or should I say criticism? Artist' should create whatever they want and let people decide/vote with their wallets. They'll start listening if sales aren't to their satisfaction, but the fact remains that this is a male driven industry whose majority of customers are also male and the sales aren't slowing. That said, there have been games with female protagonist... and while they are not as plentiful as male, is that really a surprise?

Alright, so there are two possibilities there. Either they don't have the resources (and are massively incompetent) or they are straight up lying to your face. Or both. Take your pick. Either way Jim's complaint's are valid in that regard.

I agree with "vote with your wallet" but I always find it a bit untenable overall and it only works with huge game elements and long term trends rather than small elements. If sales are good/bad there are too many variables to come up with a good correlation. After all, one could say that since Mass Effect 3 had good sales people must have loved the ending.
General criticism is a better way to make developers listen rather than just looking at sales about (let's make up a number) 70% of the time.

 

[Nion]

I demand gender and race options for Jimquisition. Forcing everyone to watch Jim be a white male every week is offensive.

 

[Apl_J]

This whole thing has been incredibly confusing to me to the point where I think something else must be going on. Not even a few titles ago, the main character of an AC game was not only female, but nonwhite. Every multiplayer AC game has featured female avatars as far as I know (I only played one). The series in general is all about inequality and oppressive powers. So naturally, I'm going to think something else is going on with Ubisoft. Yep, I'm calling benefit of the doubt: we don't know anything about the game besides French Revolution and 4 person co-op. It is 100% possible that women will feature prominently in the narrative.

And as to Ubisoft's PR? Well, I don't expect any game company's PR to give a straight answer. Video Game PR has proven, at least to me, that it is focused on the casual consumer and the layman, not the people who read forums in their free time, know about the 'biz', or what actually goes into making a game. The response they gave to this whole issue says to me that they're placating. 11 pages will tell you their response is bull, but that's their right. I reserve judgement until the game actually releases.

 

[Abnaxis]

So in other words, you won't actually specifically address any points in my argument, you'll just chalk it up as the same tautological category of "feelings," which applies just as much to every statement you have made as mine, because "feelings" are unavoidable when talking about human behavior (like say, the behavior of buying stuff).

Yeah, sure, I'm glad we did this too. Always fun to tousle with a hypocrite with no understanding of reason.

Of course not, it's the same argument with different wording, it's more "I know this is true because feelings". I specifically told you that I would be ignoring arguments that could be summed up as "feelings".
I'm not sure why this has surprised you, but I'm certain that our discourse has come to an end.
I'm not going to stoop to calling you names, that'd be beneath me

Yes, you specifically told me that you would ignore "any argument that could be summed up as 'feelings,'" which is an arbitrary distinction that applies to every statement that could possibly be made pertaining to the subject in this thread, because the thread concerns consumer behavior that is, by definition, "feelings."

Then you set more standards for the only argument you will accept as valid, which are impossible to obtain from a systematic standpoint, before you will budge from your own position, which is just as impossible to justify.

Your arguments are rife with double standards, and whenever I try to point out your hypocrisy and push you to consider my point from an angle that might actually produce some useful debate, you blithely ignore the point I am making. What you call "name calling" is my summary of this behavior. I would actually love it if you returned in kind, because that would mean I might actually be able to see what your actual problem is with my statements, because as it stands your criticisms are impenetrable to me.

 

[Abnaxis]

When have politicians ever said that all games should be banned in response to a shooting?

Also censoring something often isn't always better than not banning it. Especially if something is heavily censored.

My argument is that politicians don't blame all games for shootings, they blame specific types of games for shootings; just like they blame specific types of music for crimes. As a result trying to make other types of games more popular won't stop this.

In terms of tanks you're trying to claim that one type of tank doesn't have a problem by talking about how other tanks don't have this problem. No one is claiming that games such as Skyrim are causing mass shootings, so trying to make Skyrim more popular won't stop people believing that GTA might be causing mass shootings.

ALL games? Never. Blanket bans on sales or financial penalties for "violent" video games, which includes roughly quite often, and quite recently [http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2014.pdf].

Incidentally, Skyrim, as a rated-M game, is one of the games that would be targeted by legislation seeking to tax or to restrict sales on "violent" games.

Games like CoD and Starcraft might be the go-to scapegoats for politicians and "family friendly" interest groups, but when it comes to actual action, their salvos do damage on a much wider scale, and that's when people who think GTA is worthless get involved, because now they're being hurt in the crossfire.

Are you seriously claiming that all the adults who played games as children and teenagers think that video games are just children's toys? Are you also going to claim that these adults will believe that rock and roll causes violence if politicians say that it does?

You're also repeating the false claim that politicians blame all video games for violence. I can't recall anyone politician ever claiming that playing Mario games makes children into psychopaths. Politicians target specific games or genres because it's easier to scapegoat them.

One last thing: Atari started making consoles in 1971, so we can assume that many people who are under the age of 43 knows what video games are.

I'm saying that, by and large, people who are outsiders of the gaming community view gaming enthusiasts and gaming activity in general as immature and shallow. That's why the "video games as art" thing is a debate. That's why I don't share my video gaming hobby with anyone else I work with--because I know (from experience) that people take me less seriously if they know I play games in my off time.

This isn't about knowing what video games are it's about a shared understanding of what video games mean to the people who enjoy them. As far as outsiders are concerned, games are just pretty lights and fun diversions, that nobody but outcasts should take seriously. Of course they know, in a literal sense, what games are, but they are clueless as to the figurative meaning of games.

Rap is a good metaphor for this phenomenon. To outsiders, rap artists are miscreants, glorifying violence, drugs, and anarchy and coaxing their audience into social delinquency. The actual meaning to people listening to rap is wildly different from this perception, however. The vast majority of the rap audience will never fire a gun and never deal drugs, but the songs represent a power fantasy whereby they can imagine themselves defying established norms and constraints they perceive as placed on them by their social context, so they enjoy rap.

Kinda like how most players of GTA are never going to steal a car, shoot cops, or go cruising for whores, but GTA provides them with a power fantasy wherein they do these things. To an outsider, who knows what a game is in a physical sense, but doesn't understand how video-game power fantasies work because they aren't a gamer, it looks like GTA encourages violence.

Just because more men like shooters, doesn't mean that being a man directly causes your enjoyment while playing a shooter.

I did not mean to suggest that you did. I was trying to put "correlation does not mean causation" into layman's terms. Apologies, for being unclear.

You seem to have no understanding of science. Scientific investigation has found that people with low levels of dopamine are more prone to being thrill seekers because it's they only way they can stimulate dopamine production. It's entirely possible that men enjoy playing shooters or hunting for a similar reason.

You ignored that people who enjoy shooters could have their DNA tested to see if there's a genetic reason why some people prefer shooters to RPGs.

You also ignored that more men enjoy hunting that women because it doesn't fit with your argument that marketing is the sole reason why women don't buy as many shooters as men.

Maybe what actually helps you enjoy it is some other factor, that is also highly correlated with being male--like, from a purely numerical, scientific perspective it would be almost valid for me to say a regular regimen of peeing while standing up increases enjoyment while playing shooters. Maybe peeing standing up from an early age exercises the pre-frontal cortex in a way that makes it more susceptible the the stimulation provided by shooters, and that why all the pee-standers enjoy shooters while the squatters don't?

This statement shows that you have no understanding of science and lack an ability to reason. You've provided no evidence to back up your claim, failed to explain why all men who pee standing up don't enjoy shooters, and you've also shown that you don't understand how the brain works.

You've also ignored that the pre-frontal cortex in men and women is different because of the hormones they're exposed to while in the womb, not because of how they urinate. When you actually do real research, rather than make things up, you learn many useful things.

Just because you don't understand how science works doesn't make this unanswerable. The number of causes is not limitless and the laws of biology allow scientists to narrow it down to a specific gene. That's why scientists are able to create mice that are scared of heights.

Also in what way would the laws of physics be involved in trying to determine why more men than women prefer shooters?

Genetics is based on biology, which is based in chemistry, which is based in physics. For me, "laws of physics" is short hand for "any knowledge we have managed to derive from physical science" because everything traces back to physics.

On topic, I assume you're talking about the number of recent studies, like the one cited in this article [http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/neurophilosophy/201305/criminal-genes-and-criminal-brains], that have shown correlations between certain behavior, pre-frontal cortex structure, and genetics?

Unlike the popular conception of genetics, your genetics are not solely determined at birth. For one, only even your base pair sequences do not remain static after birth [http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/epigenetics/epi_learns/], sometimes mutating according to influence from outside environmental factors that are far from fully understood. This is why, say, repeated smoke inhalation (a factor in the environment) causes cancer (a genetic defect).

Every scholar who has released a study similar to the one cited has done so with the caveat that you cannot use their results to predict future behavior of any individual based on a blood test. You don't know what, if any, factors caused a somatic mutation or an epigenomic trigger, or if the genetics associated with pre-frontal structure presented before or after birth. Unless there's a study somewhere I haven't read that delves into this (which I highly doubt, because it would cost a fortune, requiring decades worth of longitudinal data collected under an exceptionally wide berth of conditions), the causal link is not there.

So, in fewer words, "correlation does not equal causation."

As for the mice study, you might be able to point to the study of mice to give evidence of causal effect (in fact, controlled experiments are the only mechanism by which you can show evidence of causality), but now you're running afoul of problems with external validity [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_validity]. You can say, with a high degree of certainty, that mice engineered with allele structure A expressed different brain and behavioral patterns under tightly controlled conditions when compared to mice engineered with allele structure B exposed to the same conditions, but that's a far cry from saying that the video game preference of people under ever-shifting uncontrolled set of influences--which can affect genetic sequences and genetic expression--can be linked to inherited genomic factors.

So you're saying that Firefly failed because it was marketed to an action audience when it wasn't an action series, yet you want shooters to be made more diverse in order to appeal to an audience that doesn't like shooters. Can you not see the contradiction in your reasoning? The fact that shooters are making billions indicates that they're being marketed to the right audience.

Regarding Planescape: Torment I didn't buy it because I heard that you had to be online in order to play it. The box art wasn't a major factor because it was made by a company that had produced other games I liked (such as Baldur's Gate).

Your argument only explains why specific TV series and games failed. If someone is interested in a genre of games, such as RPGs or war games, while bad marketing may put them off some games it won't put they off all games. If women want to play shooters they'll buy the one that looks the least bad, not buy a game from a different genre.

Are you serious asking me how I know the preferences of people I know in real life? I asked them what sort of games they liked and they told me. One woman I know has a DS yet she uses it for simple games such as Scribblenauts and struggles with things such as Bowser's Inside Story. She will never enjoy a triple A game because she doesn't like games where you constantly have to press buttons in a short period time.

I'm trying to illustrate the point that there exist conditions under which people who would truly enjoy a work of art will not buy it because of ill-conceived demographic targeting. This is in direct response to the notion that "as long as females will enjoy a game, the way it's targeted doesn't matter." I'm not trying to say that marketing is the only thing that matters, just that there is empirical evidence that it *could* matter, and so we can't dismiss the notion that current marketing is having an effect out-of-hand. Further, we can't can we say, with certainty, that women categorically do not want to play shooters as much as men on the basis that there are few women buying shooters (anecdotal evidence notwithstanding).

Why do you believe that triple A games are the biggest point of contact with outsiders? Wouldn't outsiders, especially adult outsiders, be more likely to shun triple A games which require a large capital investment (such as a console and games) in favour of free games available on Facebook?

My definition for "point of contact" is "structure which enables an outsider to come in contact with gaming media, members of the gaming community, or presentations representative of the gaming hobby." That includes trying MafiaWars on Facebook, but that also includes listening to a radio host talk about gaming in relation to mass shootings, or seeing a commercial for a game on television. Basically, anything that gives an individual outside of the gaming community a basis to form an opinion about gaming.

From this perspective, I think AAA publishers are the biggest point of contact that the gaming community commands. They are the only ones releasing commercials on conventional media like television, which has a much higher penetration than Facebook. They are the ones with brick and mortar storefront advertising in shopping centers where gaming outsiders can walk past. They are the ones that receive the most attention from journalists off all ilks. You might be right, that economics might make it so that free Facebook games are more influential in converting non-gamers to gamers, but when it comes to forming public opinion at large about gaming, AAA publishers seem to wield much more power in my eyes.

 

[hydrolythe]

I do quite understand Ubisoft though.

It is true that it is a huge AAA developer and can develop lots of content, but when I hear about how expensive the game engines (They have the Mango engine, an engine which costs around 16 million US$. Since Ubisoft did not have enough money to buy those engines they had to use bank money and now they are in deep debts.) are they rely on I do not find their statements all that suprizing. Imagine just you being a game developer which has one of the world's moist developed game engines but has to pay ridiculously expensive fees in order to continue utilize it and let your industry keep being a game industry. I am pretty sure that most would want to market the game for the audiences that are the widest and already established and market the game by saying that your game engine is so powerful that it allows for a huger high-quality experience than the other games on the market and shy away from anything risky (like making a game in any genre that is not an FPS, TPS, Action-Adventure, WRPG, sports game or racing game in the Western world or anything that is not a JRPG, 2D-shooter, Visual Novel, baseball game or racing game in Japan for instance). The fact that that particular audience does not allow stuff like sponsorship (Do you as a gamer want advertising in your game?) and that there is a huge amount of competition for having the game with 'the highest sales' only helps the matter.

AAA developers have it hard these days. The best thing we can do for them is saying that their games do not need to have a powerful physics engine behind them in order to be great so that they can keep with the engines they already have and actually regain what they lost on game engines that they thought would make us happy (which will, thanks to the cool engine demo's engine creators unleash upon the mass market, never happen. As a lot of people (or at least that is what the people who make those engines want the AAA market to believe) will look at them and say: "Now every game I will buy will be made by this game engine. Any game made with another engine is crap that I should stay well away from."

This is why I think that it is a terrible idea to force the AAA industry to do something that will cost them extra money on top of the ultra-expensive games they already make, as it will eventually backfire with an even more restraint view of thinking.

 

[Abnaxis]

Strictly speaking someone could simply say they find option A easier (men find it easier to write male characters than female ones) and will only do option B if there's evidence that it will make more money. In this case you would need to prove that B was more profitable.

Using logic I could say that movies, TV shows, books, and games into his genre tend to use option A because option A is better than option B. In this case you'd need to explain why option A is so much more prevalent if option B is just as good.

See? This, right here, is what I'm asking for. A concise argument, with basis on actual reasoning and logic, with which I can engage. This can actually be the basis of productive debate.

Regarding the actual point you bring up, the problem I see is that we are not talking about pushing a single artist out of their comfort zone by making them create content for option B versus option A, we are talking about presenting either option A or option B to multiple teams consisting of tens to hundreds of artists, and requiring that they conform to whichever option is chosen. Regardless of which option you pick, those artists are collectively going to have to make thousands of compromises and create content outside of the scope of what individuals within the collective consider "easy," and in terms of actual cost involved, you are not going to see a significant difference between option A or option B in terms of return on investment.

There certainly WILL be a cost increase--this is part of the reason why having more diversity among developers would be beneficial, because it would decrease cost differentials like these and increase developer flexibility--but compared to say, the cost of full motion capture or quality control testing (i.e. fixed costs), we're talking about very different orders of magnitude in terms of price.

This is, of course, up for debate either way whether that is enough justification, but I don't think there is compelling evidence to show that option B is "harder" enough to accept A as the default course of action.

 

[Mathalor]

I rather like the social justice episodes, especially anything dealing with gender issues. I don't really follow the internet jabber that follows them. Do these apologies and assurances that this isn't a social justice episode mean that there will be no more of these episodes that I like?