Jimquisition: Diversity? LIEversity!

[Neverhoodian]

Meanwhile in Nintendoland...

*Palutina revealed for Super Smash Bros.. Also create-your-own fighter with Miis.

*Playable female characters in Splatoon.

*Peach a playable character in Mario Party 10 (along with all the other Mario Party games before it).

*Four confirmed playable characters in Zelda: Hyrule Warriors, THREE of whom are female.

All this from a company that less than a year ago people were prophesizing doom for. How hard can it be, Ubisoft?

 

[Thanatos2k]

As usual, Ubisoft's only mistake here was screwing up their response.

The actual response is: "There are not 4 protagonists. There is 1. He is male, just like most, but not all, of our other AC games. When you play co-op, on their own screen, they are controlling that one protagonist. We will not be changing the gender or race of our 1 protagonist at this time."

They should be ashamed of their feeble lie responses, but they should not be shamed by people claiming they had to have a woman protagonist.

Instead of making a knee jerk ass-pull response when someone asks these kind of stupid questions of them, they need to take a bit, get the facts from their own dev team, then respond with the truth.

I think Jim jumped the gun on this episode because he clearly made it before Ubisoft clarified themselves:
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/e3-2014-ubisoft-clarifies-assassin-s-creed-unity-s-lack-of-playable-female-leads/1100-6420397/

 

[Floppertje]

So Child of Light and Beyond Good and Evil and Assassin's Creed: Liberation and its HD remastering never occurred, then?

I don't think this reaction is teaching game companies to be more inclusive; I think its teaching game companies not to respond when people complain.

Look, I agree that Unity might have done well to include a female character, especially in multiplayer, where they've demonstrated an ability to do so in the past. And I agree that their response was probably ill-stated at best.

But the fact that the visible assassins are four re-skinned versions of the same model makes me wonder if we might not be willing to consider taking them at their word, at least in as much as adding another character model would have its own set of difficulties and costs? If nothing else, this "oh, we could have done it in a couple of days" thing is as much bullshit as any of the claims it's addressing. No one follows up to ask Naughty Dog if they really could have whipped up a character like Ellie in a couple of days. No one asks if maybe a character who only has to react to getting shot or run through scripted cut-scenes might present different obstacles than one that has to move smoothly through crowds of other characters and interact with all of their models without clipping. No one even seems to say, "Gee, y'know what, all those games we're comparing AC: Unity to were last generation, and aren't we noticing how much the costs inherent to producing things on every new generation seem to be skyrocketing?"

So, yeah, they should have included a female character. Maybe Jim's even right that the budget is bloated and inefficient. But maybe we could stop all the armchair quarterbacking about the alleged triviality of coordinating the interactions of different skeletons, keyframing hundreds of different animations, lipsyncing a new model with a new vocal track, and so on? The willingness to pile on to the topic says more to me about the enthusiasm to seem self-righteous than a careful examination of the realities.

Armchair quarterbacking pretty much sums it up. I think Jim jumped the gun here without knowing enough about the dev cycle to make the call. He's going entirely off the casual estimate of one animator.

nonsense. Ubisoft is rich enough to take the hit on that. this is a BILLION dollar company. you're not telling me that it's too expensive to take some extra time and effort to add female animations and voice acting. And even if it was, Ubisoft should just be open and say 'look, here's our budget, here's what we're doing with the money, here's how much it would cost and as you can see, it's prohibitively expensive for us.' except they don't, because it isn't. They are the ones with the problem and they are the ones who are refusing to give a proper answer when they're asked to explain themselves, so they have no right to complain when people start speculating.

 

[Frission]

It's France in 1790. Well of course you're not going to get a 'diverse group of people that are apparently super necessary for a game's story.'

Revolutionary France had alot of women take an active role in history. Besides there was an actual women who assassinated Marat, so that excuse doesn't really hold.

 

[timeformime]

So Child of Light and Beyond Good and Evil and Assassin's Creed: Liberation and its HD remastering never occurred, then?

I don't think this reaction is teaching game companies to be more inclusive; I think its teaching game companies not to respond when people complain.

Look, I agree that Unity might have done well to include a female character, especially in multiplayer, where they've demonstrated an ability to do so in the past. And I agree that their response was probably ill-stated at best.

But the fact that the visible assassins are four re-skinned versions of the same model makes me wonder if we might not be willing to consider taking them at their word, at least in as much as adding another character model would have its own set of difficulties and costs? If nothing else, this "oh, we could have done it in a couple of days" thing is as much bullshit as any of the claims it's addressing. No one follows up to ask Naughty Dog if they really could have whipped up a character like Ellie in a couple of days. No one asks if maybe a character who only has to react to getting shot or run through scripted cut-scenes might present different obstacles than one that has to move smoothly through crowds of other characters and interact with all of their models without clipping. No one even seems to say, "Gee, y'know what, all those games we're comparing AC: Unity to were last generation, and aren't we noticing how much the costs inherent to producing things on every new generation seem to be skyrocketing?"

So, yeah, they should have included a female character. Maybe Jim's even right that the budget is bloated and inefficient. But maybe we could stop all the armchair quarterbacking about the alleged triviality of coordinating the interactions of different skeletons, keyframing hundreds of different animations, lipsyncing a new model with a new vocal track, and so on? The willingness to pile on to the topic says more to me about the enthusiasm to seem self-righteous than a careful examination of the realities.

Armchair quarterbacking pretty much sums it up. I think Jim jumped the gun here without knowing enough about the dev cycle to make the call. He's going entirely off the casual estimate of one animator.

nonsense. Ubisoft is rich enough to take the hit on that. this is a BILLION dollar company. you're not telling me that it's too expensive to take some extra time and effort to add female animations and voice acting. And even if it was, Ubisoft should just be open and say 'look, here's our budget, here's what we're doing with the money, here's how much it would cost and as you can see, it's prohibitively expensive for us.' except they don't, because it isn't. They are the ones with the problem and they are the ones who are refusing to give a proper answer when they're asked to explain themselves, so they have no right to complain when people start speculating.

I'm sorry, but you're arguing from a position of ignorance - that ship date that's been set for a year or more is not nonsense. Take a look at the dev process for a 1000 strong team, then tell me it's a piece of cake to include females with a snap of your fingers.

 

[DrOswald]

So Child of Light and Beyond Good and Evil and Assassin's Creed: Liberation and its HD remastering never occurred, then?

I don't think this reaction is teaching game companies to be more inclusive; I think its teaching game companies not to respond when people complain.

Look, I agree that Unity might have done well to include a female character, especially in multiplayer, where they've demonstrated an ability to do so in the past. And I agree that their response was probably ill-stated at best.

But the fact that the visible assassins are four re-skinned versions of the same model makes me wonder if we might not be willing to consider taking them at their word, at least in as much as adding another character model would have its own set of difficulties and costs? If nothing else, this "oh, we could have done it in a couple of days" thing is as much bullshit as any of the claims it's addressing. No one follows up to ask Naughty Dog if they really could have whipped up a character like Ellie in a couple of days. No one asks if maybe a character who only has to react to getting shot or run through scripted cut-scenes might present different obstacles than one that has to move smoothly through crowds of other characters and interact with all of their models without clipping. No one even seems to say, "Gee, y'know what, all those games we're comparing AC: Unity to were last generation, and aren't we noticing how much the costs inherent to producing things on every new generation seem to be skyrocketing?"

So, yeah, they should have included a female character. Maybe Jim's even right that the budget is bloated and inefficient. But maybe we could stop all the armchair quarterbacking about the alleged triviality of coordinating the interactions of different skeletons, keyframing hundreds of different animations, lipsyncing a new model with a new vocal track, and so on? The willingness to pile on to the topic says more to me about the enthusiasm to seem self-righteous than a careful examination of the realities.

Armchair quarterbacking pretty much sums it up. I think Jim jumped the gun here without knowing enough about the dev cycle to make the call. He's going entirely off the casual estimate of one animator.

nonsense. Ubisoft is rich enough to take the hit on that. this is a BILLION dollar company. you're not telling me that it's too expensive to take some extra time and effort to add female animations and voice acting. And even if it was, Ubisoft should just be open and say 'look, here's our budget, here's what we're doing with the money, here's how much it would cost and as you can see, it's prohibitively expensive for us.' except they don't, because it isn't. They are the ones with the problem and they are the ones who are refusing to give a proper answer when they're asked to explain themselves, so they have no right to complain when people start speculating.

They did give a proper answer. It costs to much. Your response has, essentially, been "But you have infinity dollars! Prove me wrong or your are sexist!"

 

[SilverUchiha]

While I was hoping this "controversy" was self-explanatory and didn't need a full episode to really jump into, I'm happy that you, Jim, get it and are willing to call out the bullshit Ubisoft thinks it can get away with. They've made some great games that I do like, but the minute this controversy game up, i immediately pointed to Saints Row games and stated if they can do it without bleeding money for the past three games, surely Ubisoft's "lack of resources" are indicative of another problem since Volition isn't anywhere near as big as Ubisoft and I doubt Saints Row is anywhere near as big as Assassin's Creed (sadly).

 

[WildFire15]

Way I see it is they're trying to cover up a bit of laziness on their part. They've said there's only 1 actual playable protagonist, Arno, and whenever you're in co-op, you see the other players are different to you, which really translates as the protagonist in a different colour coat.
It's a rather cack-handed way of diverting the question and makes everyone look stupid, especially those hoping we believe it's the actual reason they've not done it.

 

[Necromancer1991]

Animating and finding VAs for female characters is too much work?

Oh, so that's why Beyond Good & Evil still doesn't have a sequel! It all makes sense now!

If only I could thumb up this comment!

Really I covered this in my facebook comment on the issue, the supposed cost of animating women has never stopped them from including them in the Assassin's Creed Multiplayer in the past or from including one in Far Cry 3's co-op mode. Is animating women on the next gen systems really that expensive? Is that where all of Destiny's ridiculous budget went, into animating female PCs on next gen consoles?

Way I see it is they're trying to cover up a bit of laziness on their part. They've said there's only 1 actual playable protagonist, Arno, and whenever you're in co-op, you see the other players are different to you, which really translates as the protagonist in a different colour coat.
It's a rather cack-handed way of diverting the question and makes everyone look stupid, especially those hoping we believe it's the actual reason they've not done it.

That's my biggest problem with the response, no matter how you look at it like Jim said it just makes Ubisoft look incompetent.

 

[Reasonable Atheist]

The worst thing about all this, is there are real feminist issues in the world, and reasonable feminist activists trying to make real progress, and all this manufactured controversy serves to do is paint them with a broad stroke as silly, and ridiculously demanding.

Does the word Feminazi sound familiar? because this kinda crap is the reason that degrading term exists.

 

[moggett88]

In Ubisofts' defence, women and men do move completely differently. If I recall, it's something as small as 7 MoCap points that are needed to recognise the motion of a human walking, and even with so few you can tell if the model was male or female, even if it's presented upside down. Considering how different the motion is between genders, I can imagine there is a cost involved in programming a female character to move realistically, which would make Ubisofts' statement valid.


...Except they ALREADY HAVE FEMALE CHARACTERS IN THE GAME! They have playable female characters in the older games, they've already done the lion's share of the work! Dunces.

 

[Thanatos2k]

The worst thing about all this, is there are real feminist issues in the world, and reasonable feminist activists trying to make real progress, and all this manufactured controversy serves to do is paint them with a broad stroke as silly, and ridiculously demanding.

Does the word Feminazi sound familiar? because this kinda crap is the reason that degrading term exists.

I agree. Like I said with the Tomodachi Life nonsense, you should be celebrating games that offer these options, NOT condemning those that don't. The former gets people to support you, the latter gets them to hate you, even if your cause is just.

Coincidentally, I don't see any controversy that the next Zelda game yet again features a lone male protagonist. Where's the outage?

 

[Floppertje]

snip

They did give a proper answer. It costs to much. Your response has, essentially, been "But you have infinity dollars! Prove me wrong or your are sexist!"

Well... yeah. they claim something, about half their customers say 'we don't believe you', so their next step should be to back up their statement with some proof. if they don't, people will speculate. If ubi doesn't like that, that's their problem, and it's one they can solve with a little transparency.

captcha: industrial revolution. no captcha, that's for the next AC game. don't get ahead of yourself.

 

[lord.jeff]

If they waste resources on things people want like female protagonist or an interesting character they wont have any to make crappy tower defense games that no one really wants to play.

 

[wooty]

As long as the game play and story are interesting, I couldn't care less about what I play as. Man, woman, girl, boy, blue hedgehog, elf, stange cat person.......JUST ENTERTAIN ME DAMMIT!!!

 

[Floppertje]

snip

I'm sorry, but you're arguing from a position of ignorance - that ship date that's been set for a year or more is not nonsense. Take a look at the dev process for a 1000 strong team, then tell me it's a piece of cake to include females with a snap of your fingers.

EVERYONE is arguing from a position of ignorance because ubisoft doesn't tell us a bloody thing. there's no transparency at all. I'm not saying that including women in the game at this point is a snap of the fingers, but I think they can and should do it. I also think it would get them a lot of positive press, and possibly more sales. We're not asking them to rewrite the entire story, it's just the coop. Although If they want to do it properly, they'll make the next AAA AC with a female protagonist. It's about time.

 

[Necromancer1991]

This seems to be the consensus view unless the discussion is about absolutely anything other than representation. It's weird how the "make whatever art they want" thing never gets pulled out when people complain about lame stories, or brown-grey environments, or lighting effects, or gunplay style etc.

And the thing is, from what Ubisoft's reps said the "artists" behind Far Cry 4 and Assassin's Creed actually really wanted to include female playable characters but were told that they weren't allowed to because of the precious budget. Funny how the "leave the game makers aloooone" crowd aren't at all mad about that.

They could have easily done it too, they managed it in both Assasin's Creed 4's multiplayer mode (And in the previous games featuring multiplayer) and Far Cry 3's co-op mode. It's not like we're asking them to do something they've never done before, they've demonstrated that they can do it without gutting their precious budgets. When most of the devs in question are all sying that they wanted to do it (And have done it in the past) BUT weren't allowed due to "budget constraints" (Which is a really vague and weak excuse) the whole thing stinks of publisher interference.

 

[Goliath100]

But it does have a fixed linear narrative. The game has a main character, the main character has a name and a personality, specific events happen, specific words are said by the player character. They player does not change these things in any way. Just because the exact method of how you get from cutscene A to cutscene B isn't set in stone does not mean the narrative is not set in stone. It is a fixed narrative.

You do realise that there is quirks of the medium that can't be escaped? No matter how much a developer try to.

 

[bigfatcarp93]

They couldn't get female voice actors?

So... they don't have female voice actors?

The fuck?

 

[Reasonable Atheist]

ug.... just ug....

Games are art, they can make whatever art they want

This seems to be the consensus view unless the discussion is about absolutely anything other than representation. It's weird how the "make whatever art they want" thing never gets pulled out when people complain about lame stories, or brown-grey environments, or lighting effects, or gunplay style etc.

And the thing is, from what Ubisoft's reps said the "artists" behind Far Cry 4 and Assassin's Creed actually really wanted to include female playable characters but were told that they weren't allowed to because of the precious budget. Funny how the "leave the game makers aloooone" crowd aren't at all mad about that.

Holy crap a reasonably well thought out and concise response, my hat is off to you sir(or madam), you are a breath of fresh air. However, I would consider the people in charge of making decisions such as this on game projects to also themselves be "game makers"