I think it would blow your mind if you knew just how much money it costs Ubisoft to do anything. A corporation that big? Just the meeting alone to consider something costs 1000s.
Jimquisition: Diversity? LIEversity!
- Thread starter Jimothy Sterling
- Start date
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Maybe it's just not as common outside the US. But here, yeah. This is kind of a big thing. And things like "Social Justice Warrior" are just terms used to shut down the conversation. "You people are bad because you're like these other people who are bad!"Halyah said:
This is a country where "equality" has become a slur.
I look forward to Ubisoft releasing a selectable female assassin model for multiplayer as paid DLC (probably part of a number of new models, but still) in 3-4 months.
"They wouldn't do that! The multiplayer is supposed to be seamless!" except for the part where you walk into a bar, see another version of you sitting at the table and then teleport to the middle of the mission this other you is doing. Adding a character select screen in between that won't break immersion cause immersion's already in pieces all over the floor.
"They wouldn't do that! The multiplayer is supposed to be seamless!" except for the part where you walk into a bar, see another version of you sitting at the table and then teleport to the middle of the mission this other you is doing. Adding a character select screen in between that won't break immersion cause immersion's already in pieces all over the floor.
Then why didn't they just say that? Why didn't they just say that instead of pulling out these half assed excuses about how programing a female character is too hard?Weaver said:
And Ubisoft is supposed to give us an interesting character? The same people that stuck us with Connor for 3 and Desmond for five games?
Yeah but that was Jim's point. These guys have a ton of capital and they are always interested in expanding their customer base. They spend thousands on meetings alone and somehow the idea that making female protagonists an option for gamers is dismissed. This is a point of conflict for a lot of gamers and game journalists. Ubisoft (and a lot of other big developers for that matter) hasn't/haven't really tried to appeal to female gamers in a significant way so there's no way to tell if there's a viable market for them.Rabidkitten said:
Well, this is sad when I feel I have to go to Ubisoft's defense when I don't care either for the company (not until they give us that sequel to BG&E anyway) nor the Assassin's Creed series.
But here is my pick on it : From What I've played (mainly the first two, though I haven't finished either), that series has always been mainly story driven.
So the way I see it, they started writing a story with one character in mind (I suppose I could be completely wrong about the quality of the writing but we won't know until it comes out). That character being a white male dude, Arno. Since each game seems to focus of one set of ancestral memories, I can totally see them not going the mass effect route where you create your own character (which isn't really the point of the game). So the whole production team would concentrate on making the character work and so on.
Now people complain about the lack of choice in co-op mode, But from how that co-op mode seems to work, each player plays as the main character and sees the other one on his screen as someone else. People can't choose what they will look like and wouldn't even see it anyway, so I can totally see why the developers didn't think it would be that big of a deal not to implement "playable" female characters (I put the quotation marks there because players wouldn't even actually play them, since to them, they would be playing the main dude, it's only on the others' screen that they would show as female).
So for once, I think this is one of the very rare times where the developers have actually been honest as to why they didn't put the feature in the game instead of having some PR statement that doesn't say anything (like most of what came after it, including the PR rep always present to shut the dev down whenever they're asked about the issue). And the actual bullcrap thing that has been said is the stupid quote from that Jonathan Cooper about it being a two-day work. That thing has our entire animation department climbing the curtains because it makes it sound like everything can be done with the snap of a finger when it actually takes hours upon hours of work (and it certainly isn't just about animating the damn thing anyway).
They never said anything about it being just a money issue, it's all about workload and time frame, here.
So yes, they could totally have planned it better from the beginning or written the story from a female character's point of view but I can see why it all happened that way. I haven't heard anyone complaining about Liberation not giving the opportunity to play as a dude and I assume that's because the story is about Aveline, not some random character created by the player.
And comparing that to any open world game with character creation features and where it's more about the sandbox than the story (or where the gender doesn't matter, I guess, which is why that whole argument could fall flat right on its face when we finally get to know the story) seems a bit unfair to me.
I am totally all for more diversity in playable characters, but I still want it where it makes sense and to be about strong and interesting characters more than just generic blank skins so some people can feel better about it.
Anyway, just my two cents. But it happens so often that stuff need to be cut from development for purely logistical reasons and then they're called racist/sexist etc...
Mow don't get me wrong, I completely agree that there is something wrong with female representation in the game industry (the whole story about Dontnod trying to sell their Remember Me pitch is quite a good illustration of that) but I don't think this particular issue is the best place to fight for it. It reeks more to me about escalation due to misquote and PR fuck up than actual sexism on Ubisoft's part.
At least now I know why developers can't be honest about why they don't include some features. But then, I shouldn't be surprised, after all, this is the internet...
And to conclude, I'm going to repost that quote that was mentioned in the editorial discussion because that guy deserves a high five:
http://www.reddit.com/r/assassinscreed/comments/27ut97/distinct_lack_of_female_characters_due_to/ci5z8i7
But here is my pick on it : From What I've played (mainly the first two, though I haven't finished either), that series has always been mainly story driven.
So the way I see it, they started writing a story with one character in mind (I suppose I could be completely wrong about the quality of the writing but we won't know until it comes out). That character being a white male dude, Arno. Since each game seems to focus of one set of ancestral memories, I can totally see them not going the mass effect route where you create your own character (which isn't really the point of the game). So the whole production team would concentrate on making the character work and so on.
Now people complain about the lack of choice in co-op mode, But from how that co-op mode seems to work, each player plays as the main character and sees the other one on his screen as someone else. People can't choose what they will look like and wouldn't even see it anyway, so I can totally see why the developers didn't think it would be that big of a deal not to implement "playable" female characters (I put the quotation marks there because players wouldn't even actually play them, since to them, they would be playing the main dude, it's only on the others' screen that they would show as female).
So for once, I think this is one of the very rare times where the developers have actually been honest as to why they didn't put the feature in the game instead of having some PR statement that doesn't say anything (like most of what came after it, including the PR rep always present to shut the dev down whenever they're asked about the issue). And the actual bullcrap thing that has been said is the stupid quote from that Jonathan Cooper about it being a two-day work. That thing has our entire animation department climbing the curtains because it makes it sound like everything can be done with the snap of a finger when it actually takes hours upon hours of work (and it certainly isn't just about animating the damn thing anyway).
They never said anything about it being just a money issue, it's all about workload and time frame, here.
So yes, they could totally have planned it better from the beginning or written the story from a female character's point of view but I can see why it all happened that way. I haven't heard anyone complaining about Liberation not giving the opportunity to play as a dude and I assume that's because the story is about Aveline, not some random character created by the player.
And comparing that to any open world game with character creation features and where it's more about the sandbox than the story (or where the gender doesn't matter, I guess, which is why that whole argument could fall flat right on its face when we finally get to know the story) seems a bit unfair to me.
I am totally all for more diversity in playable characters, but I still want it where it makes sense and to be about strong and interesting characters more than just generic blank skins so some people can feel better about it.
Anyway, just my two cents. But it happens so often that stuff need to be cut from development for purely logistical reasons and then they're called racist/sexist etc...
Mow don't get me wrong, I completely agree that there is something wrong with female representation in the game industry (the whole story about Dontnod trying to sell their Remember Me pitch is quite a good illustration of that) but I don't think this particular issue is the best place to fight for it. It reeks more to me about escalation due to misquote and PR fuck up than actual sexism on Ubisoft's part.
At least now I know why developers can't be honest about why they don't include some features. But then, I shouldn't be surprised, after all, this is the internet...
And to conclude, I'm going to repost that quote that was mentioned in the editorial discussion because that guy deserves a high five:
http://www.reddit.com/r/assassinscreed/comments/27ut97/distinct_lack_of_female_characters_due_to/ci5z8i7
And if they did that, we'd miss out on the amazing depth of characters like....NuclearKangaroo said:
Ummmm....
Oh, I'm sure there was at least one character in the Assassin's Creed series who actually had some depth....
Honestly, your rationalisation isn't any better than the one you're saying is a bad excuse.
Hell, it costs them about 60 grand in caviar alone just to run the planning meeting to decide which endangered whale's blubber they should use to fuel the fires that light power their development castle.Rabidkitten said:
Well, yeah, but the three identical dudes is perfectly normal. It's the idea that one of them might be a chick that breaks my immersion.Jupiter065 said:
So why is anyone excited for this game? the hand to hand combat still looks boring as hell. It looks like the same invincible parry system they've had since forever?
At the least 4 had the naval stuff, whats Unity got? besides the lack of female assassins?
At the least 4 had the naval stuff, whats Unity got? besides the lack of female assassins?
Well it's not exactly unique to the US. It's actually really common for countries with creeping oligarch control of the news (Hai there Murdoch, Kochs) to turn the public against equality by framing it as an attack against the people already with a more than fair shake.Zachary Amaranth said:
We're talking everywhere since ancient slave abuse to modern Russia/Middle East.
It's actually... pretty frightening that it's happening here again. Although you can say it never ended, due to the current sociopolitical conservative movement being largely created through the "Southern Strategy", which, quite frankly, was and is racist.
Please take the time to read this. I'm really tired of non-developers telling everyone how they're so lazy and sexist and don't know how to do their job from people who have never written a line of code in their life.Zachary Amaranth said:
http://www.reddit.com/r/assassinscreed/comments/27ut97/distinct_lack_of_female_characters_due_to/ci5z8i7
Long story short "I could animate a character in a few days" does not mean "I can ship the game with that character in it in a few days". We're talking like 25 - 30 days to add a character like this.
And by "interesting design" I mean artistically interesting, I avoided writing all together.
What are you talking about? I am not defending ubisoft, my entire standpoint is that they do not need to explain their artistic decisions to anyone, including myself. No defense necessary, they can make WHATEVER THEY WANT.Zachary Amaranth said:
The idea that they need to explain why their creation does not cater to someone's aesthetic or political taste, is completely ridiculous in my opinion.
I wont be buying the game, but that is because of uplay, not the characters involved in the game. I would not mind female assassins or anything like that, in fact even if i found the game deeply offensive on some level, i would make the same point.
I mean interesting as the character should look cool. Why would the art team, which is a team that creates concept art, be writing a script for a co-op character?erttheking said:
They don't try to tell people for the same reason you thought an art team was writing a character: people just don't get it. This includes the PR people who are talking to everyone. so they tried to encapsulate their argument with "It's too hard to program" which was likely some poor person who has no idea what goes on, really, on the ground floor being told to perform damage control.
First off, some really interesting responses here.
To play devil's advocate for a bit, I completely understand the outrage, but, before we criticize let's walk a mile in their shoes. If any studio has the right to make this claim, it's the studios behind a behemoth like AC. They're on a yearly release schedule and that shit needs to be done, polished, and as bug-free as possible. Above all they have to make sure the thing's finished first, and, all things considered, playable females are just extra animations and voices.
Literally every game ever made has to cut some feature for lack of time and resources even though everyone has been pushing for it, and, even though it would be the right thing to do, a great inclusive feature, and win them some good PR, it's not an unreasonable call to cut the female characters because they couldn't spare the extra weeks (thanks for that reddit thread that helped clear up how much time it takes for development). It's easy for Jim to fall back on his rhetoric of "they think we're fucking stupid", which is definitely part of his outrage shtick, but the fact is that the publishers know that the general public IS absolutely ignorant of these issues. They simply won't notice, and drawing a few days of heat from us gaming enthusiasts is a small price to pay. They WILL notice if Unity is a broken, buggy mess like AC3 was.
Assuming it would actually make the overall game experience worse (and whether or not it does we will never know), I choose polish over crowd-pleasing inclusiveness, though it may not be popular to say. It's why I've spent so much more time with GTA than Saints Row. Instead of seeing females added into AC Unity at the last minute, I'd prefer another really fantastic, well thought out AAA game with a fleshed-out female main character to pick up the torch from Bioshock Infinite and Last of Us. It would be more meaningful than slapping boobs on a hooded assassin you'll never get to know anyway.
To play devil's advocate for a bit, I completely understand the outrage, but, before we criticize let's walk a mile in their shoes. If any studio has the right to make this claim, it's the studios behind a behemoth like AC. They're on a yearly release schedule and that shit needs to be done, polished, and as bug-free as possible. Above all they have to make sure the thing's finished first, and, all things considered, playable females are just extra animations and voices.
Literally every game ever made has to cut some feature for lack of time and resources even though everyone has been pushing for it, and, even though it would be the right thing to do, a great inclusive feature, and win them some good PR, it's not an unreasonable call to cut the female characters because they couldn't spare the extra weeks (thanks for that reddit thread that helped clear up how much time it takes for development). It's easy for Jim to fall back on his rhetoric of "they think we're fucking stupid", which is definitely part of his outrage shtick, but the fact is that the publishers know that the general public IS absolutely ignorant of these issues. They simply won't notice, and drawing a few days of heat from us gaming enthusiasts is a small price to pay. They WILL notice if Unity is a broken, buggy mess like AC3 was.
Assuming it would actually make the overall game experience worse (and whether or not it does we will never know), I choose polish over crowd-pleasing inclusiveness, though it may not be popular to say. It's why I've spent so much more time with GTA than Saints Row. Instead of seeing females added into AC Unity at the last minute, I'd prefer another really fantastic, well thought out AAA game with a fleshed-out female main character to pick up the torch from Bioshock Infinite and Last of Us. It would be more meaningful than slapping boobs on a hooded assassin you'll never get to know anyway.
Well, the co-op game play i think would be the biggest draw? In a perfect world i would hope for some kind of Monaco style infiltration missions, where you need to coordinate with your companions to be successful.DTWolfwood said:
I really think people are blowing this out of proportions given another ubisoft game, the division, does have a playable female model. Take a good long look at AcU for a moment. Everyone in the co-op plays the same guy with varying levels of customizability. Yes being a female character at start would have been an interesting thing but given that at this point it would require a total overhaul of the game's story, player model, cut scenes, voice overs, etc etc it is just not viable.
I do not wish to defend their choices in the early stages of development, they could have easily gone with a female assassin for the main basis of the story, but to look at it from a marketing standpoint. Assassins Creed Liberation did not sell nearly as well as the other assassins creeds. Yes it was not as good of a game but large companies tend to go with the 'safe bet' on things and female characters proved to not be a safe bet in past experience. It is not good logic, and it is harmful in the long run but it at least comprehensible.
Yes they made the poor choice with not having a female pro-tag, but people demonizing a company for not deciding this at the start of the development cycle is really not something people should do. Assassins Creed is still after all one of the few games that continues to explore new and interesting environments with a, i think, still truly unique setting and story.
TL
R Every character in co-op is just a variation of the same guy, decided early in the dev cycle, replacing them all with female really IS too much work at this stage.
I do not wish to defend their choices in the early stages of development, they could have easily gone with a female assassin for the main basis of the story, but to look at it from a marketing standpoint. Assassins Creed Liberation did not sell nearly as well as the other assassins creeds. Yes it was not as good of a game but large companies tend to go with the 'safe bet' on things and female characters proved to not be a safe bet in past experience. It is not good logic, and it is harmful in the long run but it at least comprehensible.
Yes they made the poor choice with not having a female pro-tag, but people demonizing a company for not deciding this at the start of the development cycle is really not something people should do. Assassins Creed is still after all one of the few games that continues to explore new and interesting environments with a, i think, still truly unique setting and story.
TL
R Every character in co-op is just a variation of the same guy, decided early in the dev cycle, replacing them all with female really IS too much work at this stage.
snake, adam jensen, etcZachary Amaranth said:
i havent played any AC game so i cant comment on them, i dont have anything agaisnt a good character, i dont care if its male, female, white, black, hispanic, asian, gay, straight, etc
but i dont want male, female, white, black, hispanic, asian, gay and straight to exist simply to not offend anybody, is freakin' stupid in my opiniona dn it can end up affecting the quality of the characters in a game
I don't think my problem is the lack of a female protagonist if that was the story they wanted to tell, for they have the Vita/PC game Liberation and the Assassin's Creed 4 DLC Freedom Cry featuring Aveline. Its how they decided to justify it to us, that I find to be what frustrates me.