Imp Emissary said:
First: As I said before, people don't want sexy characters to go away. They just want different kinds of sexy characters, not just the same old same old.
If you genuinely think that all people want that, then I believe you are mistaken. There are many people such as myself who would like more variety of characters. But the people who look at characters such as Bayonetta/The Sorceress and so on and don't complain that that they are sexual, but that they are sex
ist are not the kind of people who merely want more variety. They are saying there is something wrong with the characters themselves, not the trend they are a part of.
Sexism is bad.
Saying something is sexist is saying that it is bad.
I sincerely doubt that anybody who thinks games are sexist think "It's okay if some games are, as long as it is not all of them".
Second: BioWare didn't make the ending the complainers wanted. They changed their ending, on their terms.
People wanted Shep. to be able to live. They didn't get that(I still say that one end where we see Shep. breathing is just bull to be ignored).
People wanted a way to beat the Reapers with out the Star child's help. Those that took that path(shot him) got a continued Reaper cycle.
I once had a short talk with Grey about that in the comments of his comic. And he explained exactly what they needed to do, and what they did eventually, and then some.
They just had to explain the ending more to the audience. ME2 starts with Shep. dying in the most extreme way they could think of. Shep should not have survived. But soon after, we get him/her right back. Why wasn't there THAT much hate for this? Because they took their time to explain it, and that it wasn't easy or simple. That is what they do with the changes to the end of ME3.
The major parts of it stay the same(with a few exceptions like the relays not being destroyed completely), and adding extra scenes in that gave us more information about what was going on.
Even after all that it's still a bit unclear completely what the end means, but most people found it to be enough.
I am with Jim 100% on his side of the ME3 end altering. In the end everyone could complain all they want, but Bioware had the final call. They heard what people were saying, and chose to change the end a bit because they wanted to. They looked at their work, and decided that they could deal with changing their artistic vision.
IF they really had faith in the ending, and had no doubts that it was the was it was meant to be. They would have stuck with it.
They didn't give in because "the fans forced them". They did it because the fans convinced them that they had a point. And in the end I think they found a good middle way to improve the work without changing it into something completely different.
I am almost entirely in agreement with this. You are correct in saying that they did not change the games to pander to complaints, and I was wrong when I said that. They did not "change" the ending so much as expand upon it, as you said.
However the point I was really getting at as that they changed their product in response to complainers. Not by retconning the ending, but by releasing the Extended Cut they still did not stick with their "artistic vision", they decided to alter it to please some people.
You are correct in saying that it was their decision to do so, if they felt strongly enough they could have stuck to their guns. But when it comes to a company owned by EA, then I sincerely doubt "Sticking to your principles and losing money" is what they would consider "acceptable".
People accuse Microsoft of not having faith in their vision for the Xbox One, but I genuinely think they believed it was a good idea. But faced with the fact that seemingly the entire online gaming community despised it, they chose to backtrack because they would have lost millions if they hadn't.
That is still their fault rather than the consumers I guess, but for those who were happy with the original design, I think it is understandable that they were upset by the decision, and the principle is the same for game design. People who like something don't want the developers to take it away due to complaints, and I think that is a reasonable belief.
As for the complaint about sexism in The Last of Us and Bioshock? I never really heard of such complaints until the article on the escapist about Naughty Dogs response to it. And I don't think you can argue(well) that asking for more types of female characters has lost us more creative things that the current precedent that women characters that aren't sexualized can't sell games.
Heck, look at the games you brought up. Bioshock Infinite couldn't have Elisabeth on the front cover, The Last of Us had to fight to get Ellie on the front, and to get women in to test out the game. There is no need to worry about a terrible precedent being put in the industry because there already is one.
This one I cannot agree with. They
could have had Elizabeth on the front cover, but they made the cover to appeal to the COD crowd. Before the Jim mentioned it in his video, nobody based the cover on a gender issue, it was about trying to appeal to the shooter crowd.
Nobody working on the game mentioned gender at all.
The Last of Us is one of the few games in recent years to make a female central character. They also released the game amongst a huge debate over gender in video games. They claimed an unnamed publisher objected to her being prominent on the cover (not on there at all) and they claimed they had to
specifically request female game testers, not fight for them.
It was a fantastic PR move when you think about it. It has an underdog kind of ring to it. The developer standing up against the evil publisher and fighting for the right to have women in their games. The amount of people who posted in the news stories saying they were going to buy the game just to support them shows what an excellent idea that announcement was.
Look. There is something I want to make clear to both of you.
I like you two. You're cool people, and I enjoy seeing you around the Escapist.
Well then you have lost all credibility, because you are quite clearly insane.
That said, while I can understand what it is you're worried about, and I agree if the change were to come the way you're afraid it will, it would be bad.
However, from my perspective it just seems very less than likely, and hard to even say possible. I just don't see these fears ever coming true.
For the benefit of the doubt though; lets say that we start seeing the jiggle physics "go away"(even in the doom of doom results I don't think it would go away completely).
To paraphrase MoveiBob, who was always and still is on the side that the ME3 ending shouldn't have been changed; "If these things we are trying to keep can be lost, by just having a reasoned discussion about them. What is the real value of what we are trying to protect?"
Would keeping the abundance of Jiggle Physics, be worth not seeing different types of sexy characters more often, if that really was the sacrifice we would have to make?
Again, I don't even think we have to lose the Jiggle to gain the other types. We won't be seeing less of it. We would be seeing more of other things.
Well you are right and wrong with this.
You are right in the point you are making.
You are wrong in suggesting I am in any shape or form worried about it, because I genuinely don't care if they do disappear. I only own two games that have sexually designed characters and neither of them have the sexiness as the main selling point (BloodRayne and Skullgirls). I don't really care for sexualised characters and I certainly don't lose any sleep over the idea that games might not have them. I don't like "fan service" in general, I at best can tolerate it.
I wasn't making my point because I think it would happen.
My issue is with people complaining non-stop about not getting the games that they want. Games are an optional form of entertainment, not a right. People have the right to complain yes, and they have the right to want developers to do different things, but the way many people act it comes across as a demand, not a request. As if game developers
owe different demographics games that suit their wishes.
That goes for all debates, not just gender, but we very rarely hear anybody claim about the lack of homosexual, black, hispanic or non-English protagonists, which is why it probably seems that my opinion is limited to the gender discussion. If people behaved the way they do in regards to gender in gaming with other aspects, my attitude would remain the same. And I don't like the stereotypical "grissly, white male protagonist" either. I much prefer playing as female characters.
It's why I stopped visiting the Bioware forums. Every other thread was demanding changes in one way or another or accusing them of being various nasty things just because they decided to do something in
their game that some fans didn't like.
Game developers spend thousands of hours and millions of dollars making games. Nobody has the right to tell them what they "should" be making or that they are "wrong" for making something if they don't like it. Games are a luxury item, not a requirement, so the idea that they "should" cater to all tastes is just childishly naive.
Sorry to be so long. I hope you both have good days, and better weeks.
=w= b
Pffft, don't apologise. I much prefer being responded to by people who actually think their posts through no matter how long they are, over those who make a quick snarky remark and move on.
That said, I won't be continuing this discussion any further. Nothing against you, I enjoyed reading your response, but I have generally speaking been trying to avoid gender related topics (I don't even know what Part 3 of Tropes vs Women is about), and coming into this one has simply reminded me why. I find them quite tiresome overall and I was pretty idiotic joining this one in the first place.
Amen
