Participate in a Survey About Gender Diversity in Video Games
- Thread starter roseofbattle
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I responded to the survey but found it lacking in some parts, I don't know if the person who wrote it is reading this but regardless, I tend to always give feedback when I find a survey lacking. The question of how much time I spend on games every week varies a lot, too much to put down as a single number. And I wasn't really clear on what I was supposed to specify when it came to which platform I preferr.
Also I answered the question "How important is it to be able to relate to your avatar" based on other things than race/sex/gender/class/physical limitations. It's very important to me to be able to relate to the character I'm playing, but race, gender and sexuality aren't necessarily barriers in that regard, a lot of other things are though. One of the games that I was most put off by because I couldn't relate to the main character was God of War (mainly 2, but the first one as well), even though Kratos and I share both gender and sexuality.
Also, I found it interesting that the survey brought up physical limitations, but didn't seem to ask if I had any..
Also I answered the question "How important is it to be able to relate to your avatar" based on other things than race/sex/gender/class/physical limitations. It's very important to me to be able to relate to the character I'm playing, but race, gender and sexuality aren't necessarily barriers in that regard, a lot of other things are though. One of the games that I was most put off by because I couldn't relate to the main character was God of War (mainly 2, but the first one as well), even though Kratos and I share both gender and sexuality.
Also, I found it interesting that the survey brought up physical limitations, but didn't seem to ask if I had any..
Yeah i can see where you are comming from, but that is not the position of the people who had screamed the loudest when this whole thing about assasins creed blew up.Hoplon said:
They didnt wanted a better written character.. they wanted the same angry white dude just... not a white dude... how about a black dude? Or better yet.. a female angry dude. See this isnt diversity this is tokenism.
Colored characters for example? I do not think there where that many people of color in france during the french revolution and the knights templar (wich i think are still the main baddies) would simply hunt down any person of color once they find out that the top assasin is a black guy.. cause hey... thats the simplest and easiest solution and an obvious identifier. I mean it was even possible to lock away all the japanese during WW2 and no one said anything.
On the other hand having a dry as stale bread angry grizzled dude number 21145 is bad... especialy if you have a series that has been going on for so long you would expect the character cast to be more interesting and well written, and as you said its not a case of "not being able to" heck this is activision we are talking about.. they have enough money around to hire some decent writers... i think its lazyness on activisions part and trying to save some money. However misoginy? Nah... thats not it. Mysoginy doesnt even come into their business decisions.
Many surveys will ask for your gender rather than your sex because they're interested in what you identify as rather than whether you're biologically male or female. By asking for someone's gender identity, that leaves it open for you to answer whatever way you see fit. Some people identify as male, some identify as female, some identify as a mix or more masculine some days and more feminine other days, some identify as no gender, etc. Sexual orientation is separate from gender identity.Mezahmay said:
I can understand how that might be confusing for someone who hasn't been involved in conversations about nonbinary genders and people who are transgender.
Heh, my answer was pretty much worthless because of that. It's pretty unimportant. Wait, but it *can* be important. I relate to a character through some mutation of DnD morality chart warped by Warhammer and peppered with various ethical stances that feel relevant to the particular world. Assuming that particular world is realized enough to merit a thought on the subject and that choices in-game are more than "fight or sneak". Exhibited character traits are useful as well, with many protagonists being set in stone.Littaly said:
Character creation games? Survey stuff gets even less relevant. The more options you have, the shallower differences your choices can bring. Which is rather realistic, money being finite etc. Am I supposed to relate to some crap from embedded date simulator minigames or a bunch of extra "flavor" dialogue options? Yeah... no. "Relate to a different texture" then, because this is what it gives for 99% of the time? Does not compute.
Same with sexual orientation, I guess only gender identity and "racial background" is deemed important enough, I wonder whyLittaly said:
As for socio-economic background, I find it funny that it seems to stand for "racial" label from the beginning, given how nobody even asked what part of the world are we from. Did I miss "Murica survey" disclaimer somewhere?
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No idea what useful 20 and 21 can bring in their current form. I don't feel adequately represented - but for a number of reasons that have nothing to do with the ones survey is focusing on. I wouldn't even feel represented using that PoV, because:
a."character creation games" - it's mostly a texture with some tiny additions that rarely affect anything outside of minigames.
b."protagonist set in stone" - mostly unimportant, character traits & morality etc take precedence.
21 is even emptier without clarification. I believe developers are doing enough. More than enough actually. Not because of some great results, but because it's hardly their job in the first place. There's another group that should do far more - customers. "How much more"? How about supporting indie-like studios for years and bringing them to AAA level with a pile of money? You know, the same thing that was done a while ago to many current AAA studios - by a certain demographic that *could* fund unimpressive infancy period and the one that *could* wait rather than latch on established franchises.
Not a well though-out survey. Filled it anyway. The "genres" category needs to be much much clearer. No "Adventure" category. Unclear on the difference between "Action" vs "Arcade". No Platforming category? No flight category? Seems like a "horror" or "survival/horror" category would make sense, too, although I guess you can file those under "narrative" maybe. It's also not clear whether "Shooter" refers to something like Doom, Gradius, Binding of Isaac, or all three. I probably play Minecraft more than any other game and I have no idea which genre it would go into. RPG sandbox I guess?
This.kaocrat said:
I know that you can put three gamers in a room and wait for two eternities until they agree on how to properly divide genres, but with so much stuff either missed or given unclear names this survey feels like created in a hurry. As if there was an urgent need to "prove" something.
There are a lot of problems with this survey, half the types of games I play are missing, some questions don't make sense, the numbers on the agree/disagree scale go from 1-6, meaning there is no middle, i.e. "indifferent" option. There are no clear definitions presented, as it should be in a proper survey, the respondent is free to use his/her own definitions, which muddies the results.
Plus it's a web-based survey, meaning it's not a controlled one(although it if the results are pleasing to some, it will probably be touted as if the Psychology Institute made it), and is not in any way indicative of people in general, it's merely indicative of the people generally interested in these discussions.
Then there is the greatest issue with it, that there is no nuance in it. All the questions ask if the respondent agrees with a particular bias or not, and all of them lack nuance in disagreement.
Oh, but why do I even bother. It will be touted as a scientific survey by whichever bias the results agree with anyway.
Plus it's a web-based survey, meaning it's not a controlled one(although it if the results are pleasing to some, it will probably be touted as if the Psychology Institute made it), and is not in any way indicative of people in general, it's merely indicative of the people generally interested in these discussions.
Then there is the greatest issue with it, that there is no nuance in it. All the questions ask if the respondent agrees with a particular bias or not, and all of them lack nuance in disagreement.
Oh, but why do I even bother. It will be touted as a scientific survey by whichever bias the results agree with anyway.
*chuckles*roseofbattle said:
So I guess the newest games journalist guidelines includes an automatic Find-Replace of 'gamer' -> 'player'.
That must have been some damn good kool-aid Ms. Leigh made.
What a difference one month makes.
Captcha: "We go forwards"
How unintentionally charming.
I gave that one a "1", be I very absolutely do not buy games with "diverse" characters over those that do not, because it is not a factor in my choice of purchase. At. All.FFMaster said:
I get that it's meant to be a leading question, to make you not want to give it a "1" even if you don't consider it a factor at all, because it's phrased to make you feel like you are admitting to being a racist or sexist and actively not buying games with those options. But that isn't what the question asks, however it will be how the question is interpreted because there's very likely an intended narrative that this survey is being made to support so the results (whatever they might be) need to be able to be phrased to support that narrative no matter what.FFMaster said:
Like certain surveys on domestic violence that showed that only men do it to only women, by only asking women questions about victimhood and only asking men questions about perpetration.
You make it sound like the woman who made the survey wrote the questions such that she can spin any results into the narrative she desires or something. Who wants to bet she went 1-6 instead of 1-5, so that she can count 3s and 4s as "agree" (4-6) or "disagree" (1-3), and she'll present the results solely in terms of those two categories. she'll literally exclude the middle.weirdee said:
My personal position is that whoever is creating the game should be able to create it with whatever characters and whatever narrative they desire, and it's fundamentally wrong to try to shame them for telling the stories they want to tell with the characters they want to tell them with. It's an entirely different thing for it to have been executed poorly, or for someone to subjectively not like certain narratives.
For a movie analogy, it's entirely possible for a horror movie to be well written and interesting, but for the actual movie-making to have been done poorly (cinematography, set design, costuming, actor performance, that sort of thing) just like it's possible to have an utterly generic horror movie that does all of those things fantastically. Hell, I'm sure Bob "Subhuman. Vermin." Chipman could name examples of both cases offhand. Arguing that a given horror movie was poorly made, or that you personally aren't fond of horror is one thing. Arguing that you are wrong, it's bad, and you should feel ashamed for making or liking horror movies at all, because instead we need more rom-coms is something entirely different.
Did the survey. The questions need work. Some felt like they were leading. Some felt shallow. Needs to explain if diverse meant the character was essentially the same as all the current brand of protagonist with just a reskin or if they meant more character depth.
Being honest in such a survey is actually quite eye-opening.
I never realised (m/m here) that I would actually prefer to play someone of my own gender - but basically couldn't give a tinkers toss about everything else. I've never even thought of it before. Not that I mind playing, say Lara Croft in the latest game, but I prefer when I can relate (ie. the more the better) to the character I'm playing. I'm guessing this comes from my strong affiliation with RPGs were I like to try and reflect, either myself or someone I know, onto whatever character I'm playing.
Very interesting to fill out and really *think* about the answers I'm giving. I'll be very interested to see the results of the survey.
Although of course (ya know this being the internet an all) nothing that such a survey could produce can really be called "definitive". Will still be interesting none the less.
I never realised (m/m here) that I would actually prefer to play someone of my own gender - but basically couldn't give a tinkers toss about everything else. I've never even thought of it before. Not that I mind playing, say Lara Croft in the latest game, but I prefer when I can relate (ie. the more the better) to the character I'm playing. I'm guessing this comes from my strong affiliation with RPGs were I like to try and reflect, either myself or someone I know, onto whatever character I'm playing.
Very interesting to fill out and really *think* about the answers I'm giving. I'll be very interested to see the results of the survey.
Although of course (ya know this being the internet an all) nothing that such a survey could produce can really be called "definitive". Will still be interesting none the less.
I think the case of shepards would be a bit biased to look at. a much better case would be a character in Saints Row. This is because there already were two previuos games in Mass Effect universe that featured the SAME protagonist, and in both cases it was a white male, thus people who want to continue that storyline is likely to pick same features to cintinue with. i know i would. Saints Row is a much better example due to the protagonist not being already established in a singular way in previuos games. Alas, i got no data for what people pick in, say, Saints Row other than i know that Jim Sterling plays his Jimquisition character.J Tyran said:
The biggest flaw I found in the survey was that it never actually asked for my sexuality?
Me being gay is going to be a pretty important factor when it later asks how I feel about playing avatars with a different sexuality to my own or whether or not i feel represented in games. I basically had to answer these questions as a straight person who really likes gay people which seems like a really huge oversight for a survey about diversity...
Me being gay is going to be a pretty important factor when it later asks how I feel about playing avatars with a different sexuality to my own or whether or not i feel represented in games. I basically had to answer these questions as a straight person who really likes gay people which seems like a really huge oversight for a survey about diversity...
I filled out the survey. I too was confused by the "different physical limitations". I presume they meant physically disabled characters, but if anything I think most gamers, myself included, would prefer to play characters with LESS physical limitations than themselves.
That said, despite being a white male myself, I like to play as a black female character in any game that allows customization of character appearance. I also prefer to play as African or other non-European nations in strategy games like Civilization, Total War, or Age of Empires. Honestly those have the special appeal of the "exotic" (for lack of a less potentially offensive word) that I don't see with the standard lily-white European fare, and then there's the social justice angle. So yeah, I'm all for greater racial and gender diversity in games.
That said, despite being a white male myself, I like to play as a black female character in any game that allows customization of character appearance. I also prefer to play as African or other non-European nations in strategy games like Civilization, Total War, or Age of Empires. Honestly those have the special appeal of the "exotic" (for lack of a less potentially offensive word) that I don't see with the standard lily-white European fare, and then there's the social justice angle. So yeah, I'm all for greater racial and gender diversity in games.
It will be interesting but the fact that it is all numbers without explanations makes me worry about interpretation.
For example, are they going to tally that "I believe gaming caters to my needs" with the questions that state I am a white, straight male, (of course it caters to his needs), or with the questions that relate to me not caring about race, gender and so forth?
For example, are they going to tally that "I believe gaming caters to my needs" with the questions that state I am a white, straight male, (of course it caters to his needs), or with the questions that relate to me not caring about race, gender and so forth?