Poll: Would you not buy a game, if they gender swapped your hero?

[bartholen_v1legacy]

I would love to see what would happen if Kratos, Nathan, Master Chief, Link, and all of my favorite protagonists switch gender and how they act

I would love to see a gender swapped Kratos, or at least a similar character that is female. If only to see the reaction of the crowd when a woman is being as heinous, vicious, spiteful, petty and unsympathetic as Kratos. And the shift to it actually being a mother who unwittingly kills her family could potentially make the character even more tragic. Dude, now I actually want to see it so bad!

Other than that though, no. Not necessarily because I think one or two ways about it, but simply because the vast majority of games I play either have character creation (Dark Souls, Torchlight, any Bethesda RPG), equal gender representation (XCOM, Darkest Dungeon), or the gender of the protagonist makes absolutely no difference (Undertale, System Shock 2, Half-Life).

 

[hermes]

Sure, that doesn't care to me at all. In fact, if a stagnant and old established series decided to change its protagonist, I would pay more attention to it than if they were following with the same sacrosanct formula that worked before.

So, bring it on, Female Kratos. Learn about it, GTA... Saints Row did it better, and it was mostly just a flag.

 

[Pyrolithic]

Honestly, gender swapping can offer different ways on how your character interacts with npcs of the world and how they react to you. I would love to see what would happen if Kratos, Nathan, Master Chief, Link, and all of my favorite protagonists switch gender and how they act

Eh, unless the protagonist's gender is a salient point of the series or game, it shouldn't really have an impact on how they act or interact with the world. This is especially true in the case of silent protagonists, which are typically completely blank slates completely devoid of anything you might consider a personality.

I mean, would Half-Life be any different if NPCs referred to the player character as Georgia instead of Gordon?

If the protagonist's gender is an important part of the game, then yeah, I could see an objection being raised if you were to gender-swap them, but in how many games is that the case?

 

[MrHide-Patten]

I'm all for more female characters and I think the whole "LoZ protagonist can never be female because girlz can't be courageous" (paraphrasing), but in most cases it doesn't make sense. The only reason it would make sense in LoZ is because Link is new person every time, like Thor, Link is a title.

There would even be some nice story to tell in the LoZ universe in the populace doubting a female link, possibly favoring a male foil under the assumption that it has to be Link because he's a boy and getting all the credit. Cut to the end and it's Gannon, dun dun dun.

Just gender flipping a character for "reasons" just makes fans arngy because it's fucking with the cannon. If it's a passing along the torch kind of thing, fans can be more receptive. See Thor vs Ghost Busters.

 

[Souplex]

Gender swapping Link would be very different from swapping Mario or Samus.
Link is a perpetually reincarnated hero who lives many lives.
Mario and Samus are pretty iconic as themselves.
Gender swapping Samus would be even worse, because she's considered the iconic female character.

 

[Gamerpalooza]

Most likely not. I don't see why I would bother on a game that's literally an imitation and the difference is simply gender.

Why would I play Super Maria Sisters where I go save Prince Pancho and I go through various castles and the Prince is always on a separate one? Just because it's a rule 63 of the iconic Mario game? Nah, no thanks.

I'd rather have a game that despite being similar to an iconic game it is still distinctive game that is good with its own world, lore, and gameplay.

I'd support a game that's different in a sense to how Bayonetta is different from DMC.

I've always been okay with products taking inspiration and creating diversity and overall expanding the genre by doing so. Yet blatant rule 63...I don't see the point. Sounds lazy.

I've been used to that and okay with it since that's the approach games took in the SNES era.