Shale becomes a party member if you do a quest and you can take direct control of her during combat. She is basically a walking tank as all golems are and can absolutely murder just about anything the game throws at her. Once I get her she's in my party about 90% of the time.franksands said:
Jimquisition: Vertigo
- Thread starter Jimothy Sterling
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You're answer for Jim is Sonya?Depulcator said:
Sonya? From Mortal Kombat?
You're joking, right?
As for DOTA and LOL, aren't the characters in those designed by the players, and not the developers?
I've wanted to play as her since Captain N.DVS BSTrD said:
The major difference and the reason this comparison fails is that how a controller looks actually impacts how it plays.Monxeroth said:
I think the problem here is that for Jim to list it, he'd have to have played Darkspore. The odds on that are about a billion to one against.Weresquirrel said:
Well, no. she hates the tropes associated with it. There's a difference. A pretty large one. On that folks should be capable of muddling through just by reading/watching/listening to the things she's said on the matter.Metalix Knightmare said:
but then, I'm still at a loss as to why it even matters what she does think.
Except you have older women, women of colour, women who aren't "traditionally attractive" in advertisements. I mean, perhaps you can add a couple more examples, but if you want to pretend advertising is an equivalence, you're just wrong. Not only that, but why is that only an issue for women? Shouldn't there be parity on the male side, too, if this is just a general thing, not a gaming one?SonOfVoorhees said:
That kind of fits almost perfectly with Jim's point - you have to look for things like lizards, rats, aliens, and geometric objects to find "female" characters that are outside the norm. If you look at more humanoid characters, the numbers go way down. I'm sure there are people out there who get aroused by quadrilaterals, but it's the exception that proves the rule.DataSnake said:
As for Season Passes, I liked them better when it was the Rockstar Pass for LA Noire, they told you everything you were going to get before you bought it, and it was a reasonable price offering a reasonable savings.
Now they don't tell you what you're getting before you buy it (they don't even tell you after, they tell you MONTHS later), the prices are insane, and the savings are abysmal. $30 for content I don't even know what it is or if it's good? That's half the game's price and also a savings of what, $5? Fuck off with that nonsense.
Now they don't tell you what you're getting before you buy it (they don't even tell you after, they tell you MONTHS later), the prices are insane, and the savings are abysmal. $30 for content I don't even know what it is or if it's good? That's half the game's price and also a savings of what, $5? Fuck off with that nonsense.
I know you don't know me, you haven't been here long enough to know me, But I facepalmed.uanime5 said:
It takes quite a few years to make even a basic game, but you presumed quite wrong here. VERY wrong.
I'm not one of those pissant loud mouth nazi-feminists who sit in front of a computer all day proclaiming what needs to change loudly and aggressively and yet doing 0 things to change it. I AM contributing in my own way, but this battle is more complex and more time consuming than you know and your ignorance towards what I do is fair enough but I am correcting you here.
I am learning to program (better than the basics I alredy know), and have actually programmed a fairly in depth combat system that I am trying to now apply to very basic stock model type 'game'. And put it through it's paces and have designed several interesting un conventional female characters for my project. Sadly it's not yet ready for prime time on Kick-starter and/or Greenlight or the like, not for quite some time and I have many things to accomplish outside of this pet project, so it will likely be on the back burner for years or until I find interested parties who won't meddle with the formula but will contribute to it in good ways.
IN THE MEANTIME HOWEVER. I will prod others to follow suit who already HAVE the resources, time, man power and connections that I am not blessed with. So don't pull this on me. I am one voice, this battle needs many, I can do, but I cannot lead, that is up to those already with the power and responsibility, If I claw my way up and still nothing has changed, then I will be all too happy to oblige you and lead this crusade of representing female ability and variety in the games industry. All too happy.
I absolutely disagree with this attitude of 'it's not affecting me so it's not my problem'. Well okay then, please continue to think that way, but one day when everyone who isn't affected has been silenced and something comes along that is a serious detriment to the way a majority perceives you, none of those you snubbed will be around to care.
The last person who quoted me before you isn't even dignified an answer, that's the highest grade of self absorption and doesn't need pandering to.
I honestly don't know why people care so much about this gender "issue". I don't even think it is an issue. People who claim that it's an issue don't know anything about men or women. They're the ones who think that women are too fragile and pathetic and that men understand them well enough to make good female video game characters. And also, come on. Who makes video games? GEEKS! Who's clueless about women? GEEKS!
I am not entierly sure why you think Vertigo isn't trying to be sexy. Come on Jim, I've never seen a girl in a video game so blatantly advertise that she swallows.
She's also walking around completely naked. That doesn't make any sense because she is going into battle. Someone cover her sexy ass in giant mech armor already!
She's also walking around completely naked. That doesn't make any sense because she is going into battle. Someone cover her sexy ass in giant mech armor already!
Women play video games, a great many of them infact, so representing women as protagonists in such a narrow space makes it an incredible disservice to the gaming community as a whole. The market is there since I for one play story driven games for the story and not empowerment fantasies. So a protagonist being fat, white, black, male, female, hetero or gay doesn't matter to me. But what does matter is that the overwhelming majority of video game protagonists are male, white, hetero, and of medium to lean build, it gets old and boring after a while. There is a rainbow of stories to tell and they're not being told because we're only being forced to play one very specific type of character.ccdohl said:
((Also White male medium to lean is also considered the normal American which is also bullshit, so this shit does matter, since it reflects wider attitudes outside of the gaming sphere.))
Oh, I absolutely agree that any kind of character can be well-written. Hell, in Thomas was Alone I played as a rectangle that could move and jump and loved it. Scott being what he was really lent itself to the nature of those old gumshoe stories. I'm not saying that unattractive individuals can't make vibrant stories worth remembering, just that I don't sit around wishing my avatar could be even more unattractive. I remember playing Fable and being disappointed with permanent scars.clinicalPsychologist said:
I agree that the assumption is sexist. However, sex does sell. It's easy and I think it's a copout just like you probably do, but I'm not going to claim that it's a baseless assumption. The characters in The Last of Us weren't particularly attractive and you felt like Ellie's father at most. Those characters stuck with me FAR more than the generic boobs and ass that we usually get. However, I also think about games like Mass Effect with attractive characters that I did very much appreciate were mostly attractive. But the intention of that game WAS attraction and so it makes sense.
Do you assume that people in general don't prefer attractive individuals over unattractive individuals? Do you believe that I can't find any number of studies to attest to that statement? Movies and marketing have practically built their house on this concept. Nations have fallen because of it. It's a tricky thing when assuming that men want sex is sexist but assuming that they don't is naive. A healthy medium is that given several studies it is likely that attractive characters sell more copies of things than ugly characters on average. Would Heavy Rain have sold better were he attractive? An avatar looking like people wish they looked like? I don't know. Like you, I felt like his appearance added to the story.
No, an ESA study came out that said that 47% of gamers were female with the other 53% being male. This was the year they included mobile gaming. That's why the number jumped from 40/60 in only two years. Did you know that less than half of the respondents of that survey were even considering buying one game in 2012? Just one. If that doesn't make you question how they defined gamer then I don't know what would. AAA developers aren't selling their AAA games on android/iPhone devices. Not unless it's easy to scale down that far. They certainly aren't selling their games to people who aren't buying.WhiteTigerShiro said:
What we saw in 2010 was that 80% of those women had a Wii as their primary console. Unless you're Nintendo, that meant 80% of the female demographic of gamers weren't on a console that you developed your game for. The other 20% who owned a 360 or ps3 may have also expressed different buying habbits. Like just dance/zumba/etc, and not COD or Mass Effect or any other such title.
Here, this is the math:
2012 gaming statistics [http://kotaku.com/5448703/video-game-statistics-at-a-glance?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+kotaku%2Ffull+%28Kotaku%29&utm_content=Google+Reader]
Let's assume that the total population of gamers in 2010 was 100. This is for easy math and since we're working with percentages this will scale just fine.
There was a 40/60 (male/female) ratio. 80% of females owned a wii as their primary console. (that's 32 out of every 40 female gamers). 9% owned a ps3 and 11% owned a 360 for a combined 8 out of every 40 female gamers or 8 female x60/ps3 gamers out of every 100 gamers.
Now, males also owned Wiis as their primary consoles but at half the rate. So it wouldn't be fair to say it's 8 females out of 100 gamers. You have to drop off the male Wii primary console owners too. 41% of males owned a Wii (24.6 out of every 60). 21% owned a ps3 (12.6 out of every 60). 38% owned a 360 (22.8 out of every 60). That means 35.4 out of every 60 male gamers owned one of those consoles.
The new total demographic of the AAA consoles of ps3/360 is a total of 43.4.
The 8 women in that number equals 18.4% of the total AAA consumer market for both consoles combined.
The 35.4 men in that number equals 81.6% of the total AAA consumer market for both consoles combined.
This doesn't even touch on which games each gender prefers. I mean, in movies guys have action and horror movies moreso than females. What if guys have FPS titles more than women in gaming? That'd really change the dynamics of the customer base.
Summary, out of all gamers in 2010, only 18.4% of the combined ps3/360 market was female and 81.6% were male. This is why Wii games were largely a lot more female friendly or at least what publishers on the system considered to be female friendly, whether right or wrong. Considering the number of female gamers who owned a Wii as their primary, I'd say they mostly weren't wrong (56.5% of all console owners who considered the Wii their primary system were female)
There is no evidence to show that between 2010 and 2012 that there was any real change in female gaming behaviors. That is to say, there's no reason to believe that 80% of female console owners wouldn't still own a Wii. Since the increase from 40% to 47% is largely credited to the inclusion of mobile gaming in the 2012 survey, we can also state that the biggest reason for the increase does not concern the big money AAA games. I do fully expect mobile games to continue exploding in numbers but as people are not willing to pop out $50+ bucks for mobile games we shouldn't see huge investments on the development side. We also do see a lot of female friendly mobile games though. Interestingly enough, mobile gaming may further reduce the number of women who may otherwise have purchased a WiiU or some other such console.
It is disappointing that the 2012 study and others like it did not delve into gender differences like last time. A huge gap in knowledge in my opinion.
I don't think Lucca's the example you guys are looking for either, since she is conventionally attractive when she takes off the helmet and changes clothes. You can see her normal appearance in a bunch of the art.
Plus her motivations are indeed driven by personal trauma, given the backstory you uncover regarding her mother....
Plus her motivations are indeed driven by personal trauma, given the backstory you uncover regarding her mother....
You know I always found the "What the market wants" argument to be really flimsy. According to 2K, the market wanted shooters and that strategy games were dead. A few years later, X-COM Enemy Unknown is loved and X-COM declassified is hated. The market operates on stereotypes. And a question. How can the market know that gamers only want attractive female characters if they barely release anything outside of their comfort zone. Because that's what this is. It isn't catering to market demands, it's a comfort zone. I'm pretty sure no one said they wanted a bureaucracy simulator, but I imagine plenty of people are very happy papers please got made, a game that never would've seen the light of day if the developer had stuck to safe and familiar games.Magenera said:
But that's true of male characters too. The vast majority are handsome or every guy's dream of being a muscled pile of destruction. Plain individuals are rare on both front just like in other media like movies.Aardvaarkman said:
The question is who Jim considers attractive. Mortal kombat had a few uglies. Ever looked under the mouth cover on that one princess? Sheeva may have breasts but... ugly.
Who are the noteable male uglies?
That's a very backwards business model. Some of the most successful companies have been those who create new markets, or cater to untapped ones.uanime5 said:
As Henry Ford said, ?If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." but instead of selling horses, he created an automobile market. Or consider the iPhone - when it was announced, it was almost universally derided for not having a physical keyboard - who would buy a phone that used a touch-screen and virtual keyboard? And yet today, the majority of phones follow the iPhone's touchscreen model and Apple became one of the world's most powerful companies. Similarly, there was no market for computers, before computers existed. And when the early computers were created, they were restricted to number-crunching by large companies and the military, etc. It wasn't until the idea of the user-friendly home computer was envisioned, that the market developed. And those companies stuck in the old thinking of the mainframe computer went they way of the dodo.
Think of a business that sells shit sandwiches, but is not forward-thinking. They would say "all our customers buy shit sandwiches, so why should we make a sandwich with nice ingredients?" All the time missing the point that they are not getting more customers, because of all the people who decide they don't want shit sandwiches and go elsewhere looking for alternatives.
Markets don't exist in a vacuum. They are generally created by innovation.
Well, market demands do need to be considered, but the problem is that most focus groups don't exactly focus on potential customers who'll have the good sense to say something along the lines of "You know, I'd like a female character who isn't traditionally pretty, who doesn't need to rely on a masculine authority and who isn't being put through the wringer to generate pathos".
Shooters are as shooters do, and the focus groups for this type of game tend to contain shooter fans. They'll focus on the gameplay first, and when asked about character potentials, their age range might drive them to focus on hot chicks. Most of us wouldn't have minded a female protagonist in GTA V, for instance, but I'm fairly certain the focus groups didn't even once question the concept of the three leads being male.
Three objectionable characters doing despicable shit? Can't be female, they just can't be. It's part of the Western social doctrine: men are jerks and saints, and women are supposed to be saints, pure and simple.
We can harp about the games industry's lack of ambition or general sense of daring, but the fact is society is generally afraid of things that rock the boat. It's silly and unfounded, but a lot of guys *might* have rejected the potential BioShock Infinite covers in their Sans Booker form.
"Dude, what's this game with the Victorian Disney chick? You turning into a ****** or something?"
Of course, nobody would react like this upon seeing the Elizabeth-only covers. The sad truth is that some guys are still really insecure, sometimes well into adulthood.
Shooters are as shooters do, and the focus groups for this type of game tend to contain shooter fans. They'll focus on the gameplay first, and when asked about character potentials, their age range might drive them to focus on hot chicks. Most of us wouldn't have minded a female protagonist in GTA V, for instance, but I'm fairly certain the focus groups didn't even once question the concept of the three leads being male.
Three objectionable characters doing despicable shit? Can't be female, they just can't be. It's part of the Western social doctrine: men are jerks and saints, and women are supposed to be saints, pure and simple.
We can harp about the games industry's lack of ambition or general sense of daring, but the fact is society is generally afraid of things that rock the boat. It's silly and unfounded, but a lot of guys *might* have rejected the potential BioShock Infinite covers in their Sans Booker form.
"Dude, what's this game with the Victorian Disney chick? You turning into a ****** or something?"
Of course, nobody would react like this upon seeing the Elizabeth-only covers. The sad truth is that some guys are still really insecure, sometimes well into adulthood.
X_XLunar Templar said:You just described Pain Wheel.Not G. Ivingname said:Fits perfectly. Hooray for murderous cartoons.
This may or may not count, depending on what Jim meant by "doing it for a man." Could easily be a deconstruction of this motivation, since she really, REALLY hates being mind @#$^ed into doing what Brain Drain wants.
Double seeks only to find a 'suitable' candidate for the Skull Heart, and by suitable I mean some one who is perfectly fine with killing every one, to which Marie is to busy trying to wipe out the mob to do.
My bad.
Yeah, the elderich, twisted horror of Double fits perfectly.