Petition Demands Female Jarheads in Aliens: Colonial Marines

[Andy Chalk]

Petition Demands Female Jarheads in Aliens: Colonial Marines

The absence of playable females in Aliens: Colonial Marines has at least one gamer very unhappy.

Vasquez, Ferro and Dietrich were all state of the badass art in the 1986 flick Aliens [http://www.amazon.com/Aliens-Blu-ray-Sigourney-Weaver/dp/B004RE29PO/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1341507828&sr=8-8&keywords=Aliens], my favorite of the Alien franchise, but you won't be able to play anyone quite like them in the upcoming Aliens: Colonial Marines. Gearbox has apparently decided to make all playable characters exclusively male, and that just doesn't sit right with a gamer by the name of Melissa K. So she did what people do when they're aggrieved on the internet: she started a petition.

"While we fully support Gearbox, we would like to request the inclusion of playable females. The Aliens franchise is dominated by strong females such as Ripley, Vasquez, Ferro, Dietrich and most importantly, The Queen," the petition says. "There is roughly 5-6 months before the game goes Gold and releases February 12th, 2013. We believe Aliens is the perfect starting point for developers to start including playable females in more multiplayer shooters."

"There are many females that enjoy playing video games and are fans of the films who are tired of playing as a male all the time," it continues. "Let's let Gearbox Software see how important this is to the Aliens franchise."

I'm not generally a fan of making demands of game developers (or of internet petitions, for that matter) but if the plan is to make customizable characters for online play, then why not include women too? It seems like kind of a no-brainer given the subject material, and it actually has me wondering if maybe there was a misunderstanding somewhere along the line. After all, if females were rocking smartguns and driving dropships 25 years ago, why would Gearbox exclude them now?

The petition is already well over its goal of 1000 signatures, but if you want to add your voice to the choir of people who only need to know one thing, you may do so at ipetitions.com [http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/include-playable-females-in-aliens-colonial/].


Permalink

 

[Worgen]

Unfortunately by this point its probably too late to add something like that, at least for the release. Still though, its strange they didn't add female marines. At least for the multi, though I suppose its possible they might do the same thing the last avp did... well a similar thing. Not have your char talk at all and at the end you find out your a women or a black dude.

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

I would sign it if I could ever be arsed signing petitions. There is no reason why there should not be any playable female characters, but at the same time, I won't really care if there isn't.

 

[IceStar100]

I don't care I think I've become burned out on sexist stuff. I just really don't care anymore. It sad becuase I use to belivie men and women deserved equal rights not I really just tired of hearing about it.

 

[LazyAza]

5 months until release is definitely too soon to add new characters sadly, at least based off my knowledge about how video game production works. They could certainly patch them in post launch however.

That said yes it is pretty odd they omitted them to begin with, if their aren't any in the campaign I will be downright shocked as some of the most iconic characters of the Aliens franchise are certainly female.

 

[LTK_70]

Signed. You see, unlike many other initiatives towards gender equality in video games, this is something that Gearbox can do right now to advance the medium. There's no downside to including female playable characters in the game. There's no downside to signing this petition. So why don't you go sign it as well?

 

[TilMorrow]

That said yes it is pretty odd they omitted them to begin with, if their aren't any in the campaign I will be downright shocked as some of the most iconic characters of the Aliens franchise are certainly female.

Yes they have the obligatory Alien's female marine in the single and 4 player co-op campaign which is playable. The complaints are over the competitive multiplayer not having a female marine choice.

Though I wonder if there is even any character customization in the mp anyway. And even then the competitive multiplayer is hardly making any difference to the story and infact pretty much is showing the usual Marine vs Alien fight where men are usually the casualties. I don't mean to sound nit-picky but in most of the Aliens films don't all the men die and the main female marine survives? There's hardly any complaints about that.

 

[itsthesheppy]

It's definitely a very odd omission. The female marines from Aliens were freaking badass.

 

[toomuchnothing]

That said yes it is pretty odd they omitted them to begin with, if their aren't any in the campaign I will be downright shocked as some of the most iconic characters of the Aliens franchise are certainly female.

I agree with this statement. They can keep remaking games with Marines like those from Aliens but it takes a lot more than pulse rifles, smart guns, clunky computer consoles and cursing to emulate what made that film one of my favorites since I was a kid.

 

[teebeeohh]

aside form the fact that every game should have female avatars for MP, this is especially bad since this franchise did a good job in having strong females.

 

[TConti]

Talk about crappy reporting and stupid people in general. Go to the Aliens Colonial Marines website (http://www.sega.com/alienscolonialmarines/) and scroll down there will be a picture of 4 marines available for preorder one of them is distinctly FEMALE. This is not new, its been up for months now, instead of accusing a company of sexism do some research and find true answers.

 

[MammothBlade]

Don't worry about it, you'll get a playable female in day 1 DLC or something.

 

[Namulith]

I don't see anything on Gearbox's website that shows any of the MP avatars, much less anything that would indicate that there are only male choices.

 

[toomuchnothing]

Talk about crappy reporting and stupid people in general. Go to the Aliens Colonial Marines website (http://www.sega.com/alienscolonialmarines/) and scroll down there will be a picture of 4 marines available for preorder one of them is distinctly FEMALE. This is not new, its been up for months now, instead of accusing a company of sexism do some research and find true answers.

Sorry to tell you but this complaint comes from a video posted almost a month ago during a Live Chat with Brian Burleson, Producer at GBX, during which he was asked will there be an option to play as a FEMALE MARINE to which he responds no you won't (although he responds there will be female characters in the game).

http://www.livestream.com/electronicarts/video?clipId=pla_a70e0295-f084-46c5-9106-0ad601d63104

Question is at 28:35.

 

[jollybarracuda]

I don't care I think I've become burned out on sexist stuff. I just really don't care anymore. It sad becuase I use to belivie men and women deserved equal rights not I really just tired of hearing about it.

I'm right there with you. It's become less gender equality and more gender pandering at this point. No one can lift a finger anymore without the sexism debate going off, and even if it is justified (though this doesn't seem all that big of a deal. They're marines, marines are mostly guys. Chill) it just happens so much that it's turning into a repetitious cycle.

All the more power to them if they get girls in their game, though. I'm not against that. Just seems silly to have a petition over is all.

 

[Waaghpowa]

In my experience, majority of people who want to play a female character are generally male. Which is part of the reason why whenever I see gender equality arguments for things like this I can't help but feel that it's a tad silly.

 

[Namulith]

Talk about crappy reporting and stupid people in general. Go to the Aliens Colonial Marines website (http://www.sega.com/alienscolonialmarines/) and scroll down there will be a picture of 4 marines available for preorder one of them is distinctly FEMALE. This is not new, its been up for months now, instead of accusing a company of sexism do some research and find true answers.

Sorry to tell you but this complaint comes from a video posted almost a month ago during a Live Chat with Brian Burleson, Producer at GBX, during which he was asked will there be an option to play as a FEMALE MARINE to which he responds no you won't (although he responds there will be female characters in the game).

http://www.livestream.com/electronicarts/video?clipId=pla_a70e0295-f084-46c5-9106-0ad601d63104

Question is at 28:35.

I dunno, neither the question nor Burleson's answer specifically refer to the MP. He could've been talking about the SP campaign, which has a male protagonist.