Publishers Wanted Life is Strange Devs to Make Leads Male
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It's because marketers are programmed to slavishly chase the teen-boy-with-spending-money demographic in the hopes of making something the next Call of Duty, no matter what.
"A modest success" is a verbal slap in the face of a marketer.
"A modest success" is a verbal slap in the face of a marketer.
I completely agree with you. the industry from test groups to produces are biased towards the ol' straight white guy main character.Aiddon said:
Even with women being a minority in the industry, it's not an excuse to me. Nearly every last female lead in video game history, from Samus to Bayonetta was more than likely created by a guy.
Nevermind videogames, it applies largely to movies, tv, comics, books, theater, etc. From action flicks to chick flicks, nearly everything was penned by guys.
That said, i'd like to see more women in the industry at all levels, but we also need a free industry that isn't forced to cater to the whims of others instead of doing as they please. All the women in the world won't mean much if the industry forces them to keep making male leads, and they bow to that.
It's nice knowing there's people out there that aren't naive enough to believe the industry is free to create characters as they please.
Well, you've also got to see it from the publishers pov too. Say what you will about them being evil money grubbing bastards. It's not a solely bad trait. Remember Me didn't do that well, and this dev lobbied so hard for a female protagonist, and that was honestly the only bit of marketing I saw for it, that it had a female protagonist and that it was a cyberpunk setting, nothing else.Bat Vader said:
And as we all know, it basically bombed. It had a few nuggets of cool design, but was mostly squandered potential.
And now a year later, here they are again, the majority of their next game marketing being that they have a female protagonist and, as one poster up above put it, quick load(a pc staple since the beginning of time) being a central game mechanic.
There's nothing wrong with female protagonists, I welcome them when they're done and aren't the central reason presented for someone to buy said game(Mirror's Edge, for all its flaws, doesn't shove it in your face that you're not playing a white guy), and I'll believe that publishers said to change the gender, but can you completely blame the publishers for not wanting a repeat of the last time around with this dev?
I'm sorry and annoyed that it happens, but in this particular instance, I don't care. They were given a chance, and the game failed.
With all do respect I believe you've jumped to conclusions. I'm one of those people who say that developers creative freedom should be priority weather they want to go male, female, animal or whatever.Rebel_Raven said:
However even I am looking at this, where the dev has called wolf twice with almost identical stories, and wondered if it's a bit of a marketing ploy. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, I'm sure they have run into the issue, I just suspect their using it to drum up some interest in their game (taking advantage of the situation).
That said I'd like to see more games beyond "straight white 30 year old war veteran/criminal/someone tough save the world", that includes more women in games and other's too. Heck I grabbed Tomb Raider reboot, The Last of us and Beyond Two Souls because they looked new and different and enjoyed all 3 as a result.
The real issue I see here is this part:
Progress is progress, but I ain't planting a flag and shouting victory just yet.
This isn't a war, thinking of it as such is only going to cause a cycle of nothing being good enough. Vote with your wallet and show that you want more than generic game #483 and let the market decide.
Sorry to butt in, but Remember Me didn't bomb because of Nilin's gender. It was the squandered gameplay elements more than anything.Redryhno said:
There's absolutely no reason to ask for a gender change, IMO in either Remember Me, or Strange Life. Either a game is good enough to stand on it's own (remember me wasn't quite, but it seems Strange Life is bypassing the issues of Remember Me in a game play change) or it'll bomb.
Remember Me wouldn't have likely done any better if Nilin were a guy. It would've just joined the dozens of other male lead games that bombed that year.
No one's saying "buy it because you can play as a woman," as far as I can tell in either of the games. Honestly, with the low amount of press Remember Me got, there was't much attempt to get people to buy it. Something kinda notorious for games with women leads, lacking in marketing like TV ads, and magazine ads.
The way you word things, it doesn't explain why they made the request for Remember Me since there was nothing to base it on, really, aside from female protagonists in general.
The fact it's even in the realm of possibility that this happens, even to people that don't believe the validity of this case, should speak volumes, IMO.RicoADF said:
It's not a war, it's an obstacle course where the obstacles are sacks of manure that people use as excuses for the industry to keep denying females starring roles in things.
A long, hard obstacle course.
I'm able to accept "good enough," and I'd like to think I'm pretty reasonable, but I don't have an exact goal. it's not 50/50, or anything it's just a higher frequency of known games with female leads. Thing is, I can't pretend the industry's made near enough progress.
I kinda have a problem with the whole voting with one's wallet tactic. Well, a list of them, really:
1: We can't vote if there's not many games to support, really.
2: It's hard to vote if the games themselves aren't good. We need games good enough for people to take notice, and buy, even if they have to overlook that they don't want to play as women.
3: It's hard to vote if we don't even know the games exist. Few games with female leads get real marketing like male lead games oft do to become the successes they are.
4: In the face of people wanting to be as successful as CoD, MW, and GTA, it's virtually impossible to make that sort of impact. the industry uses them as the bar to strive towards. We've gotten once promising games screwed up in that pursuit, like Fuse.
That includes indie games. I mean minecraft's stupidly successful, yet I see no major companies trying to cash in on the formula by making a bigger, better game out of it. Microsoft may have bought it, but I don't see anyone major trying to mimic it's success with that formula in another game. Nor with Portal. If those once indie games can't shake the pillars of the industry, what will it take?
Oh, no, go ahead, butt in. But make sure you read what I said and not what makes sense for your own posts to make sense.Rebel_Raven said:
I never said that it bombed because she was a she and not a he. I said that it bombed because of the wasted potential and her being a she was literally the only thing I ever saw about it in terms of what the game was about. And when the only thing you hear about the game from the dev is that they shopped around for a publisher that would take them on without changing the character's gender/sex/jiggly bits and that it's cyberpunk, there's a problem on both ends.
And you're right, there's no reason to ask for one, except in this case, and I hate repeating myself multiple times, the last time this particular dev got publicity, it was for the exact same reason, and the game did not do well despite the hordes of people saying they were going to buy it to spit in the eye of the system. Same thing here, the only bit of marketing we've gotten for it is they had to shop around again. Not to mention they may have been barred simply because they pitched Remember Me and nobody's gonna touch them again until they prove themselves because of how bad it ended up being when they come around with the same kinda thing.
I'm sorry if my words are scrambled, I'm really tired, I haven't slept in two days(stupid seeing as today is my day off), and I have to get back up in six hours to go back to work.
Why? Their last publisher was Capcom, and they may have dropped them/been turned off to female characters after the last game. If other publishers said no the first time, it makes sense they might say no again for the same reasons. I just don't see the logic of "they had the same problem twice, that's unlikely." In fact, it's quite likely.Vigormortis said:
I did say recent, and most of the examples from years past have been blank slates. Aside from Lara Croft in Tomb Raider, Faith from Mirror's Edge is really the last example of a major game release with a unique female lead with her own personality that wasn't very poorly handled in some way (like Other M) was the last one who really fit the bill. Chell had some more personality traits assigned to her
Note that I didn't necessarily say they were universally great at it, only that they are comparatively better over the full course of their catalog, stretching back to the 90s. Lightning, for all her faults, is still a mile ahead of anything in say, the GTA series or really any non-RPG released by a major studio.
It's prolly a miscommunication, then. Sorry if I took it the wrong way.Redryhno said:
I'd say it was a general marketing problem. The fact all we really heard was the scandal in being told to change the gender is problematic, I agree.
Remember Me wasn't that terrible of a game. At least by my standards. It just wasn't polished enough. Considering it's the first game I've ever heard of from Dontnod it's not a bad first game. They are trying to prove themselves, but the catch 22 is they can't if they aren't allowed to. SE seems to be willing to give them a chance, and I hope it bears fruit.
A game is going to be hard pressed to do well if it isn't marketed. Another catch 22. People generally won't buy a game they know nothing about, and not much word of the game got out, period.
All those people who bought it just to spit in the eye of the system prolly wasn't that much in the long run. And even less than the people who said they would. It's not good marketing, but it does generate some publicity.
thing is, Remember Me was in the exact same situation, though Dontnod was newer to the scene, and it seems to me history just repeated itself. The industry seemed as willing to touch Remember Me as they are Strange Life. It doesn't add up to me.
And I sincerely hope you get sleep, and feel better. Being deprived of it sucks immensely.
So, the exact same thing that happened with their previous game?
I doubt it, it probably went something more like this:
CAPCOM: Your last game we published didn't sell enough, sorry.
UBISOFT: Sorry, this isn't a yearly franchise. Where are your microtransactions? Also, wtf, this game actually works.
EA: This isn't a sport, we can't have that.
DEEP SILVER: This is not Saints Row, no deal.
KONAMI: -licks rocks-
SQUARE ENIX: GIMME GIMME! WE HAVEN'T ANNOUNCED ENOUGH GAMES YET!
I was going to make a joke about Bethesda complaining the game isn't broken enough but that distinction now belongs to UBI, it seems.
I doubt it, it probably went something more like this:
CAPCOM: Your last game we published didn't sell enough, sorry.
UBISOFT: Sorry, this isn't a yearly franchise. Where are your microtransactions? Also, wtf, this game actually works.
EA: This isn't a sport, we can't have that.
DEEP SILVER: This is not Saints Row, no deal.
KONAMI: -licks rocks-
SQUARE ENIX: GIMME GIMME! WE HAVEN'T ANNOUNCED ENOUGH GAMES YET!
I was going to make a joke about Bethesda complaining the game isn't broken enough but that distinction now belongs to UBI, it seems.
I'm not interested in this game since it just doesn't tickle my interest, but since you insist starting out with a completely not snide and generalized comment like that...Phasmal said:Hmm, where's all the outrage from the people who insist we protect `creative freedom`?
How strange.
Anyway, that's fucked up. Games industry/publishing needs to get the fuck over itself and just let people make games.
reporting for duty.
I don't grab my pitchfork and torch, but I do believe pubs should generally fuck off and let dev's go with their "creative freedom" to steal your phrase. Not that they are completely comparable, but I do think publishers do mess with movie scripts/scenes and books sometimes, so I think alot of industries do have their fault with messing with products and it's not unique to gaming.
I'd have to know more about the game to have a strong opinion on the gender of the protagonists. For all I know the devs telling them to change the gender had reasons other than "men sell better".
To be kind of honest, if they had make the leads in this game guys it might have helped it stick out and perhaps contributed to diversifying this particular video game sub-genera. The whole "graphic adventure" genera which includes things like hidden object games and point and click adventures seems to be heavily dominated by women and female protagonists, not exclusively mind you, but it's pretty noticeable. Those that follow video games and know what they are talking about oftentimes mock the gaming media and crusading liberals who talk about gender discrepancy in video games without a clue. Basically to those people gaming only includes specific generes like action games, shooters, RPGs, etc... with rare exceptions like the telltale series "Graphic Adventure" games generally are treated like they don't exist, so nobody pays attention to the sheer number of hidden object and "point and click" games out there making scads of money in their own little world. While not entirely accurate those could be considered "girl space" within gaming since those are the games a lot of girls design and play. The meat and potatoes of the "gaming gender war" tries to say there isn't much attention paid to girls in gaming but largely because you don't see a lot of girls in the kinds of games girls haven't been fueling or supporting to begin with.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that this entire thing seems like the stereotypical girl game. A "Graphic Adventure" game based on a friendship where weirdness and mystery (time travel) ensues? All it needs is one of the girls to be a psychic detective. The whole thing looks and sounds like something you'd expect to be lurking invisible to male gamers in a Jewel Case, or to be mentally filtered out with other graphic adventures on STEAM. While there are male leads in these games, let's just say this one screams "girl" in both protagonist and in the likely audience they were targeting. I would have been more surprised if they intended it for a guy... and with a big budget it might have caused some of these invisible games to become a lot less invisible.
To be kind of honest, if they had make the leads in this game guys it might have helped it stick out and perhaps contributed to diversifying this particular video game sub-genera. The whole "graphic adventure" genera which includes things like hidden object games and point and click adventures seems to be heavily dominated by women and female protagonists, not exclusively mind you, but it's pretty noticeable. Those that follow video games and know what they are talking about oftentimes mock the gaming media and crusading liberals who talk about gender discrepancy in video games without a clue. Basically to those people gaming only includes specific generes like action games, shooters, RPGs, etc... with rare exceptions like the telltale series "Graphic Adventure" games generally are treated like they don't exist, so nobody pays attention to the sheer number of hidden object and "point and click" games out there making scads of money in their own little world. While not entirely accurate those could be considered "girl space" within gaming since those are the games a lot of girls design and play. The meat and potatoes of the "gaming gender war" tries to say there isn't much attention paid to girls in gaming but largely because you don't see a lot of girls in the kinds of games girls haven't been fueling or supporting to begin with.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that this entire thing seems like the stereotypical girl game. A "Graphic Adventure" game based on a friendship where weirdness and mystery (time travel) ensues? All it needs is one of the girls to be a psychic detective. The whole thing looks and sounds like something you'd expect to be lurking invisible to male gamers in a Jewel Case, or to be mentally filtered out with other graphic adventures on STEAM. While there are male leads in these games, let's just say this one screams "girl" in both protagonist and in the likely audience they were targeting. I would have been more surprised if they intended it for a guy... and with a big budget it might have caused some of these invisible games to become a lot less invisible.
I'm always annoyed by the idea of publishers enforcing homogeneity on the behalf of the consumers. but let's be honest here remember me was awful for alot of reasons but the main character wasn't one of them. the supporting cast struck me as uber hipster and that put me off the game pretty quickly but add to it the "memory manipulation" mechanic that attracted me to it was used like 2 times in the whole game it boiled down to a linear version of assasin's creed with a much slower paced more clumsy combat system and no likable characters for me at least.
While I agree it's kinda odd to see this same claim from the same company close to release but meh, that's how PR works in games I suppose, as long as there's something to get pissed about and makes gamers look bad then it get's attention. look i'm all for a business using metrics and market data to better serve it's consumer but what we're seeing here is an interpretation of that data making an assumption that isn't necessarily accurate. it is possible that male lead games sell better, and there's nothing wrong with that, really there isn't, if the consumer wants that then it's totally fine for a business to not want to "take that gamble". I would disagree that this is the case. I would say consumers want female leads in GOOD games, and if the game is not really great on it's own a female lead can hurt sales.
While I agree it's kinda odd to see this same claim from the same company close to release but meh, that's how PR works in games I suppose, as long as there's something to get pissed about and makes gamers look bad then it get's attention. look i'm all for a business using metrics and market data to better serve it's consumer but what we're seeing here is an interpretation of that data making an assumption that isn't necessarily accurate. it is possible that male lead games sell better, and there's nothing wrong with that, really there isn't, if the consumer wants that then it's totally fine for a business to not want to "take that gamble". I would disagree that this is the case. I would say consumers want female leads in GOOD games, and if the game is not really great on it's own a female lead can hurt sales.
I call BS. So you kill two birds with one stone by kissing your publishers ass and simultaneously scoring free press and good will for your game by those who are willing to jump at even the spectre of sexism. And while its just their word against their invisible foe because the called no one out in particular we'll buy it hook line and sinker because questioning any part of sexism pretty much makes you hitler leading an Isis style terrorist group against 3 women who are trying to tell you that all men are like that.
Anyway that rant is falling apart but still. Bullshit. I'm sick of being exploited.
Anyway that rant is falling apart but still. Bullshit. I'm sick of being exploited.
I blame the publishers that think that Remember Me didn't sell all that well because of the main character being female. The ones that that looked at the bigger picture and focused on the parts that weren't good I can respect but the ones that just focus on the character's gender I have no respect for. I bought and I enjoyed Remember Me. I can understand what people dislike about it too.Redryhno said:
See also, previous comments by others in the thread about female-led properties getting less advertisement. While I suspect the announcement is decidedly calculated, I can't say I can really blame them.Baresark said:
All it would take is one publisher they approached saying "we didn't do that" for free publicity. One.Kameburger said: