Poll: Would you not buy a game, if they gender swapped your hero?
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Other than that, since my "hero" is Rayman... *thinks* Could I care any less if it's still a platformer?
- Apr 1, 2009
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There hasn't been but the gender is completely incidental to the character. Really link has very little personality and hes almost always a new link in each game. Ehh, there isn't really any love interest in Zelda, sometimes there is something hinted at or a character like Ruto who decides Links dick is hers, but that's pretty uncommon, really at most the dialog just turns kinda flirty, there is nothing solid.Lufia Erim said:
They could make Zelda the lead, but then what would they do with Link? That's not actually my question, that's what nintendo asked when they were thinking of making Zelda a lead. I makes me wonder if Link not talking is really important to his character, in which case this question would matter since its hard to make an npc that doesn't talk, and link is rather important to the series.
I am only looking for one thing... Good game.
Exception goes for the game series. Now that's BS, HERESY.
Exception goes for the game series. Now that's BS, HERESY.
Depends on whether the I play the game because of the Mechanics of the Story. For example something like Serious Sam I wouldn't care because the reason I play, to kill hordes of aliens, is still there. In fact changing up the characters gender can cause a change in mechanics for example Social Stealth games like Hitman or Assassins Creed would suddenly now have new opportunities and limitations because the gender has changed.
But if I'm invested in a specific character's story, for example John Marsden from Red Dead Redemption, and you flip a switch to make them the other gender, I'd probably ending up skipping the next title, as it shows the developer has no respect for the character and doesn't treat them like a unique special character. Games with blank slate characters may be able to get away with this, for example Corvo from Dishonored or Adam Jensen from Deus Ex, simply because these characters don't have a unique personality to kill, but if its a character with a unique personality then I'd skip the game.
That can't exactly fit into a nice poll option, but that's my two cents on the matter.
But if I'm invested in a specific character's story, for example John Marsden from Red Dead Redemption, and you flip a switch to make them the other gender, I'd probably ending up skipping the next title, as it shows the developer has no respect for the character and doesn't treat them like a unique special character. Games with blank slate characters may be able to get away with this, for example Corvo from Dishonored or Adam Jensen from Deus Ex, simply because these characters don't have a unique personality to kill, but if its a character with a unique personality then I'd skip the game.
That can't exactly fit into a nice poll option, but that's my two cents on the matter.
I don't think this is much of a problem unless the story really depends on gender. Even then, I think it would just be a change and not a question of whether I'd buy it or not. The only scenario in which I'd be completely against genderswapping would be if it was a reboot for a series whose sequel I'd been waiting for.
Yeah John's a bad example, it would actually be cool to play a Female Gunslinger in the West through, wouldn't mind a female protagonist in the next Red Read Game.Ezekiel said:
But I honestly can't think of many series where I play a predetermined character over a series of games whom I'm really invested in, the games I play for the story mostly have characters whom Gender I pick at the start and make choices, for example Mass Effect. I better example would be Geralt from Witcher or Gordon Freeman from Halflife, but since I haven't played Witcher or Half Life so I didn't want to mention that.
Now that I think about it, Clementine from the Walking Dead would fit my example. Just replace John with Clementine.
Balance in this cotext is the lack of parity. It is imbalaced to have equal numbers of male and female protagonists because if it were the natural balance it would alredy have been the case at one point and then offset into what we have today. That didn't happen. and if you need to genderswap male chars to achieve that it shows how antithetical to the concelt of balance it is.2HF said:
Also, I don't think there's ever gonna be "enough" in this context. Even if there were only men in videogames from now on I doubt we would all collectively stop playing videogames cause we hit the quota on men.
And finally, wanting more women is fine, but what is wrong is not paying a game cause they swapped the female char but not doing so when they swap a male char. wantin more female chars in new IPs is great and I'm all for that too but you gotta treat both swap situations fairly. While there may be more "men" there only ever is one of each specific character you see, the fans of that one swapped character aren't gonna be consoled by the fact that other chars who are not him are still male, especially if they're purists who don't give a damn about gender like me and only want things to not get arbitrarily changed with no lore explanation.
Depends.
Gender-swapped Tomb Raider? Ugh.
Gender-swapped Mirror's Edge? That's fine.
I'll let you draw your conclusions on where the difference is.
Gender-swapped Tomb Raider? Ugh.
Gender-swapped Mirror's Edge? That's fine.
I'll let you draw your conclusions on where the difference is.
God, honestly it'd depend on so many more things than just 'lol swapped!'. What's the marketing? What's the justification? Whose doing the swapping, and why? Does the gender swap fuck with any established lore (not in the sense of 'Link must always be a girl!' but in the sense of 'Let's introduce this thing that we've already established doesn't exist to justify the swap!')? How gross is the pandering? Hell, was it done from a place of good intentions or solely FOR pandering? I don't trust the games industry as far as I could through them, so these are all important questions for me to ask.
So, you know, I'd be down for a female link but not a 'Suddenly female Master Chief' kinda deal. Unless, you know, John 117 becoming Jane 117 is one of those things explored in the game. THAT'd be something I could get behind.
...same thing with 'Male Samus' and 'Female Mario'. Just saying, if you're gender swapping established characters in universes where reincarnation isn't a thing (and where there's already male/female characters that can serve the same role *cough* Super Princess Peach *cough*), then there'd better be some discussion about transitioning somewhere in there.
So, you know, I'd be down for a female link but not a 'Suddenly female Master Chief' kinda deal. Unless, you know, John 117 becoming Jane 117 is one of those things explored in the game. THAT'd be something I could get behind.
...same thing with 'Male Samus' and 'Female Mario'. Just saying, if you're gender swapping established characters in universes where reincarnation isn't a thing (and where there's already male/female characters that can serve the same role *cough* Super Princess Peach *cough*), then there'd better be some discussion about transitioning somewhere in there.
The poll is too open-ended with inadequate options to choose from. Is this a game where people invest in the characters or not? What is the reason behind the gender swap? Does the gender swap radically change things or is it irrelevant?
Depends on the character. I wouldn't care if they gender swapped Ramirez from MW2, but I would be pretty annoyed if they made Nathan Drake or Snake women.
Loaded question. Why the gender-swap? What's the point? Is there a story there? Are we talking about gender-swap or replacement? These two aren't the same thing.
In the end, if the game's good, I'll probably play it; but if you get to the point that you gender-swap just to gender-swap, you may as well just drop the pretense and add a character creation system instead, to facilitate player choice and agency. I honestly don't know why LoZ still hasn't gone that route, but I'm not a fan, so I'm not qualified to make that statement.
In the end, if the game's good, I'll probably play it; but if you get to the point that you gender-swap just to gender-swap, you may as well just drop the pretense and add a character creation system instead, to facilitate player choice and agency. I honestly don't know why LoZ still hasn't gone that route, but I'm not a fan, so I'm not qualified to make that statement.
I guess for me, it depends in part on why I feel that they did it.
Did they have something interesting to say? Some story that they felt would be more relatable, told from a feminine perspective? (Because, let's face it... We're all but inevitably talking about a male-to-female switch, here.) Does it serve what has come before it, offer a new shading on the stories and themes we're revisiting?
Basically, was this done thoughtfully?
Or was it basically just done because they were tired of getting nattered at every time they went to a press event, expo, or conference?
If it was the former- if it was truly something the developers embraced, a choice made with respectful consideration of the character and franchise with an eye towards expanding its world and reach, that's grand.
If it's the latter... It had better be a damn good game. The knee-jerk assumption that anything with a female character is automatically superior than if it had featured a male character in the same role (bonus points if a male character was removed in the process) is as wrong-headed and intolerant as any other shallow bigotry.
I wouldn't disregard any game out of hand for gender-switching its protagonist. But for a game to have been swayed from its outset by a kind of external committee whose goal is something other than make a good game is rarely a good sign.
Did they have something interesting to say? Some story that they felt would be more relatable, told from a feminine perspective? (Because, let's face it... We're all but inevitably talking about a male-to-female switch, here.) Does it serve what has come before it, offer a new shading on the stories and themes we're revisiting?
Basically, was this done thoughtfully?
Or was it basically just done because they were tired of getting nattered at every time they went to a press event, expo, or conference?
If it was the former- if it was truly something the developers embraced, a choice made with respectful consideration of the character and franchise with an eye towards expanding its world and reach, that's grand.
If it's the latter... It had better be a damn good game. The knee-jerk assumption that anything with a female character is automatically superior than if it had featured a male character in the same role (bonus points if a male character was removed in the process) is as wrong-headed and intolerant as any other shallow bigotry.
I wouldn't disregard any game out of hand for gender-switching its protagonist. But for a game to have been swayed from its outset by a kind of external committee whose goal is something other than make a good game is rarely a good sign.
I wouldn't buy it if they changed the classic games, but if it is a new game they change their gender in, then I will decide by the quality of the game as usual. Though making Samus a boy will annoy me greatly, because the name doesn't fucking fit! Have to change the name, and not something fucking idiotic like Linkle.
Wouldn't mind if they changed the gender in Undertale, hur hur hur.
As for the whole Zelda fiasco, I would prefer to play as Zelda or Sheik. Definitely prefer to play as Ganondorf.
Wouldn't mind if they changed the gender in Undertale, hur hur hur.
As for the whole Zelda fiasco, I would prefer to play as Zelda or Sheik. Definitely prefer to play as Ganondorf.
Most games I play have more of a gameplayfocus anyway. Many of them have very indistinct main charactars or no main charactar at all. I didn't lose any sleep when I played as different charactars from masterchunk in halo odst and reach. Even of the RPG's and storydriven games I have played, many of them have charactar creators.
If a charactar is suddenly rewritten for the worse in a storyfocussed game, I might dislike that, but merely genderswapping them wouldn't be much of an issue for me.
If a charactar is suddenly rewritten for the worse in a storyfocussed game, I might dislike that, but merely genderswapping them wouldn't be much of an issue for me.
I wouldn't mind playing a game like Deus Ex: HR with a female protagonist. Cyberpunk is a setting I'm fond of, it's why I also bought Remember Me. Thankfully the indie space is providing me some stuff but I won't deny the appeal of a full AAA title in the setting with a female protagonist. Hell they could even use that British lady that Jensen has a brief affair with in the comic, make a game about her.
I don't buy gender swaps, on the principle of you don't need to have an established character and flip gender to make a good character of that gender. Make your own damn character worth a damn, I know it isn't the rule but I feel a lot of people who'd try a genderswap wanna ride on the curtails of established successful characters. Don't sell me a female Link, sell me a brand new character worth their own fucking salt.
Absolutely, 100% agree. Especially if they kept all the ridiculous sexuality of Bayonetta in play, and in the same style, with the skin tight leather and super long legs and hair outfits. But that is because there is a serious lack of that type of male sexy in the world.WinterWyvern said:
OT: Depending on the game, yes or no. Samus being swapped would be a big problem for me. Link being swapped would not. Zelda or Peach being swapped would not. Lara croft being swapped would not.
In general I am more ok with swapping male characters, because of the excess of male characters that are all so samey. I don't know if any of the problems I have would prevent me from buying the game, but I would not like it sometimes.