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

[Stewie Plisken]

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.

 

[Callate]

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.

 

[Nazulu]

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.

 

[Pseudonym]

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.

 

[lionsprey]

i would avoid such a game like the plague. changing a characters gender for the sake of it is dumb. leave the pointless gender bending to fanfic writers and deviant art. you want more characters of (insert gender or sexuality) make a new one.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

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.

 

[BarkBarker]

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.

 

[ThatOtherGirl]

Male Bayonetta.... oh that is something I want to see.

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.

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.

 

[DefunctTheory]

Male Bayonetta.... oh that is something I want to see.

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.

Uh...

Isn't the male Bayonetta just Dante?

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Bayonetta is a genderswapped Dante, yes. That was like the whole joke back then when she was new XD.


Also, since she wasn't the protag of DMC5 but of her own game, which in many ways surpasses dmc btw, nobody had any issue with her being that, as she wasn't seen as REPLACING the original char. We know who did replace him, and he got all the hate in the world, despite being male too.

It's almost as if gender doesn't matter and people just don't want their chars replaced for no reason or something!

 

[Zhukov]

Depends.

If they were to reboot a series or make a spiritual sequel then I'd be fine with it. So for example if the new Mirror's Edge (a reboot) had made Faith a male I'd still have bought it. Y'know, assuming the gameplay and whatnot was still appealing.

However, if they were to have a sequel that continued the story of a previous game but have the hero switch genders without in-universe explanation then I'd be left scratching my head. Like if they were to make a Last of Us 2 and Joel is suddenly Joanna that'd be pretty bizarre. Still, if I liked the series enough and the new game looked appealing I reckon I'd still buy it. I'd grumble a bit, but I'd still end up coughing up the cash for more brutal, gritty Last of Us action.

If they were to have a hero switch genders mid series with an explanation, like have the new Deus Ex come out and the opening cutscene introduces Amanda Jensen who just got a sex change operation, well... actually, fuck it, I'd want to see that happen just so I could dance among the flames and falling ashes of the resulting firestorm and sup from the fount of sweet, fermented tears.

That'd be a right fucking hoot. Not that it'll happen any time soon.

 

[Leg End]

If it's just to genderswap? I'd be pissed.
If it was say, Kojima making another Metal Gear and it was a genderbent Snake, that would be interesting as hell and would only reinforce my decision to buy it.

Diversity for the sake of checking off a list is stupid.

 

[DementedSheep]

Maybe, depends on how they do it. Most of the time people don't just a genderswap someone. If you want to see just how sexist people are have them gender swap a character.
That and it would only make sense if it's not in the same continuity (or it's established they aren't really the same person like Link)

 

[ThePurpleStuff]

My sister and I rented Saints row 1, but, we ended up not liking it and finding out about Saints row 2 instead. So we switched them. Why? Because we could only play as a male and she wanted to make a female too, we didn't get far into the story either. Lol, we completely forgot about the first game since the second was so good. It was a better decision to take in that one scenario.

But not all games let you choose gender which is fine. Some stories are just told with males as the leads, or females as the leads. In my opinion a story where your main character could be anything, isn't a bad thing, but not much for story telling. The story in Zelda is, "Zelda's kidnapped again by Ganon, go kick his ass." Thats it. Link isn't a character in any of the games except for Wind Waker, where hes actually emotive, we feel anger when the giant bird flies by and kidnaps our little sister, we feel sad when we find our grandmother sick and depressed from missing her grandchildren Link reacts the same way. What sibling wouldn't want to rescue their brother/sister or save their beloved parental figure? Twilight princess is kind of close in the same way, since he cares and works to rescue the village children and his friends along the way.

If a story is written with a main character who is a character, instead of a blank slate for the player to place themselves in that roll, gender shouldn't be changed or even matter. But a game like skyrim, its designed for blank slates for us to shape how we like, thats where such options should be.

 

[Veldel]

I don't understand what the point of these threads are its a game who cares if your male or female if it helps the narrative then fuck the gender

 

[LawAndChaos]

I don't understand what the point of these threads are its a game who cares if your male or female if it helps the narrative then fuck the gender

In this modern age, diversity, gender, and representation are all that matter now.
Welcome to this brave new era in gaming.

 

[BX3]

Depends on the game.

Female Link - "Yeah, I'm down to clown"
Female Kratos - "Man, I don't know."
Male Faith (Mirror's Edge) - "Hell yeah, hardcore parkour"
Male Shantea - "*confused squint*"

Ultimately, I'll say what a lot of people in the thread have probably already said (haven't read it, I'm kinda scared) in that the game's quality is what will get me to eventually buy it, but what draws me to it is who the characters are, why they are and their character design. Gender swapping can be really easy or really hard depending on how the character functions, and there's just some characters where you'd have to change a fair bit about them to make 'em work. Conventionally, anyway.

There's just some swaps I'd probably think are silly. It wouldn't completely deter me from buying it, but for me as a consumer, the first thing I eye up are the characters. If I do sometime in the future see a Nintendo game with a lady Mario on the cover, my first thought would probably be "lol" before walking to the next aisle to buy Uncharted 36: The Chartening ["They came for her charts. She gave them bullets"].

 

[9tailedflame]

I mean if the game is still good I'll still buy it, i do find the practice irritating overall, but I'm not gonna let it ruin an otherwise good game for me. Also context matters a bit here, if it makes sense for the character to be gender-swapped, or there's a point beyond pandering, I'm more inclined to enjoy it.

To be honest though, a lot, perhaps even most, of characters' genders barely matter. Link is already androgynous as anything, a character that wears a bodysuit all the time like Doom guy or Samus you'd never even notice 99% of the time, and characters like kirby it seems bizarre to even attempt apply our mortal genders too.

Some games though it wouldn't make sense at all, especially in narrative-driven games where characterization is key. It would be pretty jarring for instance for them to have changed lee's gender in the walking dead between episodes, and the more you've developed the character, the less wiggle room there is i think.

 

[09philj]

Depends how blatantly cynical a marketing ploy/genuine attempt to reinvigorate series it is.