Publishers Wanted Life is Strange Devs to Make Leads Male

[Kameburger]

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.

So here you are, calling them liars for no other reason than you want them to be liars and you want to feel like they're trying to exploit you. And yet, no one's called you ISIS Hitler or whatever, it's just me, pointing out how you've decided a developer saying publishers told them to make their protagonist male is a liar for no other reason than because them saying it gives them some publicity. Because, as we all know, Publishers are wise, benevolent angels who would never do something like this, despite all the times they've done it.

You're sick of being exploited, I'm sick of people making things up so they can complain about the thing they just made up.

Look, what they're saying may be true, it may not be true. But this is the first I am hearing of this game in an article basically saying "OMG the game industry is so horrible but this one publisher saved us!" So yeah while I don't doubt that these kind of things happened, cause they absolutely do happen, I'm saying if they aren't going to call out who did it and how, they are just using the spectre of sexism in a scheme that is essentially balance of probabilities.

Of course there is a certain amount of convenience here. I'm willing to bet all of the conversations they claim to refer to are covered by mutually beneficial NDA's that will provent the truth from ever seeing the light of day. Additionally no publisher is going to want to come forward and say yeah we met with them. How do we know square enix wasn't the first place they went too? How do we know that his even happened? We don't. We just believe it because it sounds right in today's climate. Am I calling them liars? Not so much as I am saying this story lacks so much substance with so much force that is sounds like PR. What does this accomplish aside from good PR for this game and Square Enix? So yeah, for me to get all outraged and say "I'll show you game industry, I'm going to buy this game to fight the patriarchy!" does feel a bit like exploitation.

Am I being hyperbolic about what discussions about sexism degenerate into on the internet? Yes absolutely, that was my fault, probably the hitler Isis comment isn't doing anyone any favors. But honestly, I wouldn't mind being proven wrong here, but it's a "he said she said" situation where the "she said" is actively trying to sell you something and the "he said" only exists as an ambiguous "they." No one gets hurt and everyone wins? look you can tell me I'm making something up but the reality is I'm just suspicious of this. It stinks to high heaven of some calculated marketing tactics.

 

[wulf3n]

I wonder where all the people crowing about "artistic integrity" and "allowing the creators to make the characters they want to make" people are on this...

Probably out somewhere arguing actual cases of artistic integrity being violated, i.e. not here.

Hmm, where's all the outrage from the people who insist we protect `creative freedom`?

What creative freedom has been violated? The developers found a publisher that didn't make them change a thing. What is there to be outraged about?

 

[hentropy]

I wonder where all the people crowing about "artistic integrity" and "allowing the creators to make the characters they want to make" people are on this...

Probably out somewhere arguing actual cases of artistic integrity being violated, i.e. not here.

Hmm, where's all the outrage from the people who insist we protect `creative freedom`?

What creative freedom has been violated? The developers found a publisher that didn't make them change a thing. What is there to be outraged about?

The point is that whenever someone suggests "hey, maybe they should make more lead female characters..." suddenly all the lambs start bleating about "artistic integrity". "Let developers make the characters they want to make!" they say, as if any publisher ever has pressured a studio to make a character female.

We have pretty clear evidence that publishers routinely put pressure on studios to make characters not just male, but certain appearances, not based on anything a writer wants, but based on market testing. The idea of creative freedom and artistic integrity in the AAA games industry is a farce from the very beginning, developers are completely creatively hamstrung by metrics and market data and yet people want to pretend like integrity is being "violated" because people on the internet suggest that not every male protagonist needs to be a grizzled brown-haired white guy in their 20s-30s.

This particular case is not especially outrageous. It's just another piece of evidence on top of a pile of evidence that expose something objectionable about the games industry. Yes, they found a (non-American) publisher to publish their game. Yes, it's possible that there were more factors at play than just the lead's gender, but it was probably brought up as a reason more than once.

 

[wulf3n]

I wonder where all the people crowing about "artistic integrity" and "allowing the creators to make the characters they want to make" people are on this...

Probably out somewhere arguing actual cases of artistic integrity being violated, i.e. not here.

Hmm, where's all the outrage from the people who insist we protect `creative freedom`?

What creative freedom has been violated? The developers found a publisher that didn't make them change a thing. What is there to be outraged about?

The point is that whenever someone suggests "hey, maybe they should make more lead female characters..." suddenly all the lambs start bleating about "artistic integrity". "Let developers make the characters they want to make!" they say, as if any publisher ever has pressured a studio to make a character female.

We have pretty clear evidence that publishers routinely put pressure on studios to make characters not just male, but certain appearances, not based on anything a writer wants, but based on market testing. The idea of creative freedom and artistic integrity in the AAA games industry is a farce from the very beginning, developers are completely creatively hamstrung by metrics and market data and yet people want to pretend like integrity is being "violated" because people on the internet suggest that not every male protagonist needs to be a grizzled brown-haired white guy in their 20s-30s.

This particular case is not especially outrageous. It's just another piece of evidence on top of a pile of evidence that expose something objectionable about the games industry. Yes, they found a (non-American) publisher to publish their game. Yes, it's possible that there were more factors at play than just the lead's gender, but it was probably brought up as a reason more than once.

I understand what you were trying to say, just that this was probably not far off the worst example to try and use to say it, given that the developers were able to make the character they wanted to make.

Had the situation been slightly different, perhaps if Square-Enix hadn't picked up the game, the argument could have had some weight, but as it stands this is pretty much the ideal situation those who usually call for artistic integrity are looking for.

 

[MetalMagpie]

According to Dontnod's co-founder Jean-Maxime Moris, Square Enix was the only publisher that didn't question Life is Strange's female characters.

...

"Square was basically the only publisher that didn't want us to change a single thing about the game," Dontnod co-founder Jean-Maxime Moris says in a new developer diary. "We had other publishers telling us, 'Make it a male lead character' and Square didn't even question that."

So, they did not say that all publishers they approached apart from Square Enix wanted the lead to be male. Just that all other publishers they approached wanted at least one change to the game, and that some of those publishers wanted the lead to be male.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

I completely agree with you. the industry from test groups to produces are biased towards the ol' straight white guy main character.

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, the thing is though, I'm really starting to wonder what is UP with the lack of women characters in gaming. They don't even try to use the admittedly exploitative adage of sex sells to try and justify them (well, except Bayonetta). It's like the second THAT comes up, everyone in the development team breaks out into a rash for fear of cooties. And that's before we get into how "16-30 heterosexual white males" as an audience are remaining static at best while women are only growing. You'd think SOMEONE would bring up the obvious financial benefits, but they refuse to do so. Again, I don't know what it is, but I'm starting to believe that the industry has a serious fear of women.

 

[klaynexas3]

Wasn't it exactly the same with Remember Me? Which was kinda ironic since I always thought the protagonist from Remember Me looked pretty similar in many ways to Faith from Mirror's Edge, which is getting a big budget sequel. If EA are OK with a female protagonist then it really puts other publishers to shame.

It makes me seriously question the legitimacy of their claim that all other publishers demanded the leads be changed to male. Or, in the very least, it makes me question just how many (or rather, how few) publishers they approached.

I know we're all quick to negatively judge publishers for anything, especially in light of the supposed "overt sexism" that "permeates all aspects of the industry", but with the recent shift towards inclusiveness in the industry I'm finding it hard to believe that no other publisher but SqueEnix was okay with the female leads.

I'm sure some insisted on the change, but ALL but SqueEnix insisted? Don't buy it.

This reeks more of PR finagling than it does of artistic differences between developer and publisher.

The quote itself says Square was the only one to not want changes. It then says other publishers wanted a male lead. Not that all the other publishers wanted that, just other publishers, meaning that it could have been a few other publishers wanted changes, just not necessarily the female lead made male.

 

[WindKnight]

And the the quality of the game and the gender of the main character is connected how?

Never implied it was.

Remember me would have been bad regardless of the gender of the main character.

However games with female leads don't sell as well, according to marketing departments anyway.

And said marketing departments will give female led games significantly less marketing budgets. Its a chicken-and-the-egg situation that ultimately becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

 

[Vigormortis]

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.

All we have to go on is the word of the company. And given that this story is coming out so close to release, is strikingly similar to what they claimed happened with their last game, and is being used as a "selling point", so-to-speak, by the dev and publisher, all I said was I was skeptical.

But let's say your assumption is true. Then, at best, the dev is run by idiots who didn't learn their lesson the last time and are exploiting a terrible trend in the industry for their own gains.

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

Lara and Faith may be the only examples you can think of, but that doesn't discount all others.

And "poorly handled" is subjective. One could say the same thing with most male leads in video games.

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.

This is still debatable. "Comparatively better" is entirely subjective in this context, unless you want to provide quantifiable examples.

And then there's shit like this. [http://kotaku.com/once-again-some-japanese-gamers-dislike-the-look-of-mi-512420010] Which shows the markets are different, but not necessarily in a "better or worse" fashion.

Regardless, as I said before, that's an extensive conversation best left for a different topic.

Still, thank you for your insights.

 

[StatusNil]

Good for them to release the game they want to. But then, Remember Me is kinda notorious for the way in which the game as it was first pitched to the audience ("Mess with people's memories to produce different outcomes!") mutated into an uninspired-sounding combo slapfighter, with the memory rejiggering thing reduced to insignificance. It was definitely on my radar the first time I heard of it, but it became apparent that the finished game was going to be nowhere as interesting, so I never bothered with it. The gaming journalism crew of course chose to interpret this as "Bad gamers don't buy game with a gurl in it!", seeing as that's the larger narrative that makes them feel they're Fighting the Good Fight against those all-powerful teenage boys who run the world in their fantasies. Whose fault is it if the notoriously incompetent marketing drones at publishing companies believe these stories? Oh, right. The "misogynist gaming culture" is to blame!

 

[hentropy]

All we have to go on is the word of the company. And given that this story is coming out so close to release, is strikingly similar to what they claimed happened with their last game, and is being used as a "selling point", so-to-speak, by the dev and publisher, all I said was I was skeptical.

But let's say your assumption is true. Then, at best, the dev is run by idiots who didn't learn their lesson the last time and are exploiting a terrible trend in the industry for their own gains.

If you want to be skeptical simply because their claims can't be independently verified, that's fine, though I hardly see such scrutiny and disbelief on most topics. It's just on hot-button issues that otherwise entirely believable claims are put under a microscope, because an ulterior or sinister motive must be found!

If you want to criticize the timing, then that is fair I suppose, though a company talking about their game closer to its release is hardly something something so terrible. It's hard to get publicity for games sometimes, and talking about the development of the game is a popular way to gain publicity, again, unless you hit on "controversial" topic that people take offense to whenever it's brought up, then it's just a stunt and everyone is bad and lying. You're only allowed to talk about these things when they happen, and only when you've assembled a long report meticulously detailing everything about the encounters with the publishers, including the names of everyone involved. Of course, the timing and content would still be criticized no matter when they did it, because it would be seen by some as just a way to raise the profile of a game you're making.

With all that, I'm still confused as to why something happening twice under nearly identical circumstances means that it is less likely to be true. Just because they ran into the same problem twice doesn't mean they're lying about it.

Lara and Faith may be the only examples you can think of, but that doesn't discount all others.

And "poorly handled" is subjective. One could say the same thing with most male leads in video games.

Of course it's subjective but I'm not a robot who only speaks in objective truth. You can draw the "major publisher/release" line all sorts of ways, but I pay attention to what games are and aren't released, both indie and major. There just aren't many western "AAA" games that 1)have a female lead who 2) is not a silent/blank RPG character. There are precious few that fit that definition, and I don't think I'm drawing the target around the bullet holes. There might be someone else I'm not thinking of, I'd welcome an actual refutation beyond "you're wrong", but Lara Croft, the protagonist from Remember Me (and this new game I guess) seem to be the only ones that fit that criteria in the 2010s, the rest of the examples being from either Japanese games or indies. Even Samus from Other M is Japanese, not western. There has been some encouraging progress with recent games have really good female secondary/sidekick characters, but publishers seem unwilling to make the leap. Of course if you go over the entire history of gaming you can comprise a fair list of characters, but compared to the males over that same time it's pitiful. And that's not necessarily because devs just wanna make male characters, but because publishers demand them.

This is still debatable. "Comparatively better" is entirely subjective in this context, unless you want to provide quantifiable examples.

And then there's shit like this. [http://kotaku.com/once-again-some-japanese-gamers-dislike-the-look-of-mi-512420010] Which shows the markets are different, but not necessarily in a "better or worse" fashion.

Regardless, as I said before, that's an extensive conversation best left for a different topic.

Still, thank you for your insights.

Well it is subjective, but I don't think it's a leap. The article is quite sensationalist in its portrayal of the issue, to us Faith seems like a great and interesting character, to Japanese living in Japan, she just looks painfully plain, ordinary, even stereotypical. It's just a different in tastes at a macro level, where we prefer things gritty and as realistic as possible they don't mind the fantastical over-designs. Not one of the Japanese people are saying that she should be a "12 year old with implants", and even then it's hard to know exactly how big this vaguely defined "group" of Japanese gamers are.

 

[Paradoxrifts]

Oh look! It's the company that cried wolf! Again. Have you succeeded in making a decent game this time round?

It'd probably help your case.

 

[Karadalis]

Hell, it took until Mass Effect 3 to even get BestShep on the cover [http://kotaku.com/5812762/female-shepard-finally-gets-cover-girl-glory-in-mass-effect-3]

Aaaaand it turned out that Femsheps made up about 20 to 22 % of all shephards created according to bioware themselves... so a big whoo de do for that.

So yeah.. companies DO have a reason to advertise male over female characters in AAA projects, especialy in certain genres like car racing, shooters or high sci fi/fantasy RPGs. When 80% of your customers play as male characters when given the choice.. why should you make the minority the main focus of advertisement? So in the end having femshep on the cover did diddly squad. For all intents and purposes they could have made the whole cover black with a ME3 logo on it. Same effect.

Now there is a difference when the main protagonist is supposed to be female from the get go and the game is written with a female character in mind.

HOWEVER: the thing with games with female leads is... they are most often not that good.. because the Devs make such a big whooping deal about having a female protagonist that they forget to make a good game for said protagonist.

When a game with a female lead fails it has most often nothing to do with the gender of the protagonist... most often game mechanics, bugs or boring gameplay are the reason. However the big companies only see that another game with a female protagonist wasnt successfull so it has to be the gender of the main protagonist right?

Nope...

If Devs would actually deliver good games with kickass female characters... you know.. like most metroid games till another M... people would still buy it.

Heck make a female Link and Zelda fans will still buy that shit up. You wont notice the difference in gameplay anyways...

In the end it boils down to that Publishers ARE NOT SEXIST... they are just afraid of loosing out on money. They work with numbers, statistics. Not with whats PC at the moment like shoehorning diversity into anything.

This is an industry after all and jobs depend on sales numbers. And publishers do have the right to ask for changes, after all they are funding the bill.

Thats what you have to realize when youre selling your soul to the devil. You might get alot of money.. but youll be damned to do as the devil pleases.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

I completely agree with you. the industry from test groups to produces are biased towards the ol' straight white guy main character.

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, the thing is though, I'm really starting to wonder what is UP with the lack of women characters in gaming. They don't even try to use the admittedly exploitative adage of sex sells to try and justify them (well, except Bayonetta). It's like the second THAT comes up, everyone in the development team breaks out into a rash for fear of cooties. And that's before we get into how "16-30 heterosexual white males" as an audience are remaining static at best while women are only growing. You'd think SOMEONE would bring up the obvious financial benefits, but they refuse to do so. Again, I don't know what it is, but I'm starting to believe that the industry has a serious fear of women.

Some crappy notion that female characters damage a game.
Same crap that makes game companies try to have the next CoD, or GTA, and get all that cash.
Same crap that happened to Legos, really. They were gender neutral decades ago, but suddenly it became boy-centric, and then a great divide happened where girls got doll houses, and figs largely incompatible with boy legos.
Same crap that has girl characters in shows aimed for boys largely absent from marketing, especially in toys.
Same crap that got Young Justice cancelled (And likely GLA, and who knows howmany other shows) in that the suits don't want there to be female fans.
I agree with you. The current demographics are pretty stable, but the industry's afraid to branch out to get more money.

I'd say there's a good chance that there is a fear of women out there. Something's very wrong. It doesn't make a ton of sense to me.

 

[Redryhno]

Some crappy notion that female characters damage a game.
Same crap that makes game companies try to have the next CoD, or GTA, and get all that cash.
Same crap that happened to Legos, really. They were gender neutral decades ago, but suddenly it became boy-centric, and then a great divide happened where girls got doll houses, and figs largely incompatible with boy legos.
Same crap that has girl characters in shows aimed for boys largely absent from marketing, especially in toys.
Same crap that got Young Justice cancelled (And likely GLA, and who knows howmany other shows) in that the suits don't want there to be female fans.
I agree with you. The current demographics are pretty stable, but the industry's afraid to branch out to get more money.

I'd say there's a good chance that there is a fear of women out there. Something's very wrong. It doesn't make a ton of sense to me.

I'm going to go in order of the paragraphs here so:

To a point in a specific situation, yes. Because as Karadlis said above, most of the western devs that make games with female protags focus so much on that they're female that they forget to polish and make everything else worth playing. Say what you will about eastern devs, they don't get bogged down in the same bull we do here and just make the games they wanna make, some are bad, most are good. Too bad most of the good ones don't want to have to go through the hassle of localization because they have people complaining about a panty shot in six frames of a fifty hour game.

Well, CoD, GTA, Madden, they all make money hand over fist, so what big company wouldn't want to have that? They sell well because they're decent games and you know exactly what you're buying, since the gameplay will be pretty much the same and if anything, slightly better than the last installment in some way. It's guaranteed money for a guaranteed product.

It became boy-centric, if it ever really was, where I grew up nobody really cared about them boy or girl, out of parents that were buying them primarily for their sons, not their daughters. Toys have been roughly the same for the better part of a century, both get blocks as toddlers, then girls grow up and get dollhouses, boys get to stick with blocks. I seriously see nothing wrong with it, since kids don't care about the implications of their playthings, so long as they enjoy them. There will always be exceptions to the norm, but that doesn't make them better or worse.

And seriously, c'mon, they're kids shows, it's much easier as kids to identify with someone like yourself than it is to see it as someone else.

Young Justice got cancelled for bullshit reasons,I'll admit, it was popular with alot of people. Problem was that none of them watched it on tv(so very little ad revenue generated) and weren't going to shill out 50 bucks for a subpar figurine when you can get a more detailed depiction for slightly more that can survive being dropped four feet(so selling toys really won't be a revenue generator either).

The industry is not afraid to branch out to get more money, problem is that at the moment, there are an appalingly low number of western(mostly American) devs that can pull their heads out of their asses long enough to make a good game that happens to have a female main. So much effort is dropped into the character that, again, they forget to make a good game. As a result, it becomes a "Is it worth the extra risk and effort for a few bucks more?". Unfortunately, the few publishers that do pick up female characters are often burned by the project and decide the money is not worth the backlash of the bad game.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Some crappy notion that female characters damage a game.
Same crap that makes game companies try to have the next CoD, or GTA, and get all that cash.
Same crap that happened to Legos, really. They were gender neutral decades ago, but suddenly it became boy-centric, and then a great divide happened where girls got doll houses, and figs largely incompatible with boy legos.
Same crap that has girl characters in shows aimed for boys largely absent from marketing, especially in toys.
Same crap that got Young Justice cancelled (And likely GLA, and who knows howmany other shows) in that the suits don't want there to be female fans.
I agree with you. The current demographics are pretty stable, but the industry's afraid to branch out to get more money.

I'd say there's a good chance that there is a fear of women out there. Something's very wrong. It doesn't make a ton of sense to me.

I'm going to go in order of the paragraphs here so:

To a point in a specific situation, yes. Because as Karadlis said above, most of the western devs that make games with female protags focus so much on that they're female that they forget to polish and make everything else worth playing. Say what you will about eastern devs, they don't get bogged down in the same bull we do here and just make the games they wanna make, some are bad, most are good. Too bad most of the good ones don't want to have to go through the hassle of localization because they have people complaining about a panty shot in six frames of a fifty hour game.

Well, CoD, GTA, Madden, they all make money hand over fist, so what big company wouldn't want to have that? They sell well because they're decent games and you know exactly what you're buying, since the gameplay will be pretty much the same and if anything, slightly better than the last installment in some way. It's guaranteed money for a guaranteed product.

It became boy-centric, if it ever really was, where I grew up nobody really cared about them boy or girl, out of parents that were buying them primarily for their sons, not their daughters. Toys have been roughly the same for the better part of a century, both get blocks as toddlers, then girls grow up and get dollhouses, boys get to stick with blocks. I seriously see nothing wrong with it, since kids don't care about the implications of their playthings, so long as they enjoy them. There will always be exceptions to the norm, but that doesn't make them better or worse.

And seriously, c'mon, they're kids shows, it's much easier as kids to identify with someone like yourself than it is to see it as someone else.

Young Justice got cancelled for bullshit reasons,I'll admit, it was popular with alot of people. Problem was that none of them watched it on tv(so very little ad revenue generated) and weren't going to shill out 50 bucks for a subpar figurine when you can get a more detailed depiction for slightly more that can survive being dropped four feet(so selling toys really won't be a revenue generator either).

The industry is not afraid to branch out to get more money, problem is that at the moment, there are an appalingly low number of western(mostly American) devs that can pull their heads out of their asses long enough to make a good game that happens to have a female main. So much effort is dropped into the character that, again, they forget to make a good game. As a result, it becomes a "Is it worth the extra risk and effort for a few bucks more?". Unfortunately, the few publishers that do pick up female characters are often burned by the project and decide the money is not worth the backlash of the bad game.

Actually, it's the opposite with focusing on women, kinda, IMO. Sure they focus on trying to make the woman look like a woman, but that's as far as it often gets. Women rarely get the opportunities male protags get in games. Laid, love, life. That sort of thing.

And I agree with your views on eastern devs. They aughta just get over themselves, IMO. Ever hear of Senran Kagura?
Bayonetta doesn't get hit that hard.

Sure they can try for GTA/CoD cash, but reality needs to kick in sooner or later so thy can realize it's just not happening. They'd be better off trying to get their share of the pie, and make money in other genres of videogames.

Lego totally became boy centric. They used to advertise boys and girls playing with it. Now? Just boys, save for the girl centric doll houses. Who are most of the lego figures? Guys.
Ok, think about this. Who buys them the toys? Have you seen parents shop for children, or with children? See them wrangle kids into aisles dedicated to their gender? Ever notice kids teasing one another if they do anything out of the norm? And who teaches kids the norm?
Kids do pick up on the implications.

.. Yeah? They're kid shows? Where do you think video games are aimed? Kids! And with most games featuring boys, where do you see girls seeing themselves if it's easier to relate to like persons?

I can't comment on the validity of internet viewing killing the series, but:
http://io9.com/paul-dini-superhero-cartoon-execs-dont-want-largely-f-1483758317
If toys weren't good revenue, they'd have stopped long ago, ya think? But they keep going with it. They gotta be doing something right.
Comicbook shops couldn't last selling $50 dollar toys by your line of thought, but they do. I know of several. Nostalgia's a hell of a drug.

The industry totally does fear expanding. That's why they don't make a stellar game with a female lead. How is making a game with a female lead extra work? Especially when they're often relegated to mid budget, and indie level games?
You buying Ubisoft's "It's too hard" excuse, or something?
It helps if a game gets advertised so people know it exists.

They wouldn't have the backlash of a bad game if they didn't make a bad game.

Considering all the bad backlash going around, I'm not sure the industry cares that much, or else I'd imagine there'd be more change than there is.

 

[Redryhno]

Actually, it's the opposite with focusing on women, kinda, IMO. Sure they focus on trying to make the woman look like a woman, but that's as far as it often gets. Women rarely get the opportunities male protags get in games. Laid, love, life. That sort of thing.

And I agree with your views on eastern devs. They aughta just get over themselves, IMO. Ever hear of Senran Kagura?
Bayonetta doesn't get hit that hard.

Sure they can try for GTA/CoD cash, but reality needs to kick in sooner or later so thy can realize it's just not happening. They'd be better off trying to get their share of the pie, and make money in other genres of videogames.

Lego totally became boy centric. They used to advertise boys and girls playing with it. Now? Just boys, save for the girl centric doll houses. Who are most of the lego figures? Guys.
Ok, think about this. Who buys them the toys? Have you seen parents shop for children, or with children? See them wrangle kids into aisles dedicated to their gender? Ever notice kids teasing one another if they do anything out of the norm? And who teaches kids the norm?
Kids do pick up on the implications.

.. Yeah? They're kid shows? Where do you think video games are aimed? Kids! And with most games featuring boys, where do you see girls seeing themselves if it's easier to relate to like persons?

I can't comment on the validity of internet viewing killing the series, but:
http://io9.com/paul-dini-superhero-cartoon-execs-dont-want-largely-f-1483758317
If toys weren't good revenue, they'd have stopped long ago, ya think? But they keep going with it. They gotta be doing something right.
Comicbook shops couldn't last selling $50 dollar toys by your line of thought, but they do. I know of several. Nostalgia's a hell of a drug.

The industry totally does fear expanding. That's why they don't make a stellar game with a female lead. How is making a game with a female lead extra work? Especially when they're often relegated to mid budget, and indie level games?
You buying Ubisoft's "It's too hard" excuse, or something?
It helps if a game gets advertised so people know it exists.

They wouldn't have the backlash of a bad game if they didn't make a bad game.

Considering all the bad backlash going around, I'm not sure the industry cares that much, or else I'd imagine there'd be more change than there is.

Male protags, if you haven't noticed, are also in a pretty bad spot right now. Sure, you can say they've got more time in the spotlight, but when that spotlight basically only has 2 settings and nothing between the extremes, you honestly can't tell me they have it better.

And you seem to be placing the blame solely on Eastern devs saying "Fuck that" to localization. The western critics and devs are dismissive and outright rude about how they treat these products. Sure, there's some that are every bit of shit and full of crap nobody but the more depraved of all societies want to see, but we've got that too and it sells and there's only a few voices that rise up against it before they're drowned out by everyone else. But when you've got a game that's all about over-the-top and stupidly proportioned characters being touted out as some teenager's sex fantasy(Dragon's Crown) and Bayonetta getting raked over the coals because she's a sexy woman that knows it and kicks ass(Designed by a woman mind you, your earlier claim of her being made by a man is unequivocally false), can you really not understand why it's too much of a hassle for them to release a game outside of their area? You've got Fire Emblem being labelled a rape simulator for crissakes by western critics who barely look at the game mechanics past the shipping.

I don't know much about advertising, I never saw them all that much and the few I do see now have both boys and girls on them, outside of the specifically marketed boy and girl sets. However, legos figures have pretty much always been pretty gender-neutral, sure, you could make the argument that there weren't any obviously female figures, but when a scientific girl set was released that was designed to have obviously female figures, you then had the same people crying about there not being obvious females now crying about how impractical it was to have the features they did on the figures. There is no way to win and I never saw lego figures as male or female, and I don't know anyone who did, or still does. They're lego figures, not characters beyond their job archetypes.

I'll have to tell everyone that TLoU, Spec Ops, Dragon Age, ME, etc. are all totally aimed at kids! That snark aside, I never said games couldn't cater to one gender over another.

Reading that interview is all kinds of...confusion however. I agree that it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, but again, it says in that thing that boys action figures are a little under half what the doll companies make per year. As I said, nobody really wants to buy the stuff that's released from shows when you can get better made figurines with more detail from those comic shops that order from companies that release specifically for that audience. Say what you want about Todd McFarlane, the guy's a douche and "IMA TAKE YOUR BALL THAT I'M CLAIMING IS MINE AND GO HOME" type, but his company and the others like it have been making amazing statues and figures for years that people continue to buy because they're of such high-quality of their favorite characters. That's what's in comic shops for the most part, those kind of things, not so much these show-inspired action figures except as counter top impulse buys.

They're extra effort because, as I said, they would have to find a dev that doesn't spend so much time on making the character obviously female that they forget to make a good game. It's not that it takes extra effort to make a female protag, it's that it takes extra effort for a dev to not make that the defining point of the game.

Yes, in a way I am buying Ubisoft's "excuse". It was very poorly worded and should never have been a big deal(seriously, it doesn't change ANYTHING about the game that there's not female assassin pc models in it and even then, you're all the same character no matter what, not to mention they've been pushing Rogue for quite a bit, but nobody wants to remember that, not outragey enough.)

Exactly though, they need to make a good game first and stop caring about where to shove in a girl or how to cut, primp, and snip the game for it to fit with what they want from the female protag. There's not many good video game characters anyways. You take a piece of the pie and apply the same rules you do when you have a full pie and you're going to find a larger percentage of what you don't want.

Of course it doesn't care, the games people play and enjoy don't give a damn what jiggly bits their characters have, which is part of why I think they sell as well. Nobody wants to be lectured to, and that's what this kind of claim starts to sound like.

 

[Vigormortis]

If you want to be skeptical simply because their claims can't be independently verified, that's fine, though I hardly see such scrutiny and disbelief on most topics. It's just on hot-button issues that otherwise entirely believable claims are put under a microscope, because an ulterior or sinister motive must be found!

I never said we MUST find an ulterior motive. I was simply skeptical of their claim given the context under which it was made and the history of their previous, similar claim.

Skepticism in response to unsubstantiated claims is a good thing. Don't know why we had to argue over it.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Male protags, if you haven't noticed, are also in a pretty bad spot right now. Sure, you can say they've got more time in the spotlight, but when that spotlight basically only has 2 settings and nothing between the extremes, you honestly can't tell me they have it better.

And you seem to be placing the blame solely on Eastern devs saying "Fuck that" to localization. The western critics and devs are dismissive and outright rude about how they treat these products. Sure, there's some that are every bit of shit and full of crap nobody but the more depraved of all societies want to see, but we've got that too and it sells and there's only a few voices that rise up against it before they're drowned out by everyone else. But when you've got a game that's all about over-the-top and stupidly proportioned characters being touted out as some teenager's sex fantasy(Dragon's Crown) and Bayonetta getting raked over the coals because she's a sexy woman that knows it and kicks ass(Designed by a woman mind you, your earlier claim of her being made by a man is unequivocally false), can you really not understand why it's too much of a hassle for them to release a game outside of their area? You've got Fire Emblem being labelled a rape simulator for crissakes by western critics who barely look at the game mechanics past the shipping.

I don't know much about advertising, I never saw them all that much and the few I do see now have both boys and girls on them, outside of the specifically marketed boy and girl sets. However, legos figures have pretty much always been pretty gender-neutral, sure, you could make the argument that there weren't any obviously female figures, but when a scientific girl set was released that was designed to have obviously female figures, you then had the same people crying about there not being obvious females now crying about how impractical it was to have the features they did on the figures. There is no way to win and I never saw lego figures as male or female, and I don't know anyone who did, or still does. They're lego figures, not characters beyond their job archetypes.

I'll have to tell everyone that TLoU, Spec Ops, Dragon Age, ME, etc. are all totally aimed at kids! That snark aside, I never said games couldn't cater to one gender over another.

Reading that interview is all kinds of...confusion however. I agree that it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, but again, it says in that thing that boys action figures are a little under half what the doll companies make per year. As I said, nobody really wants to buy the stuff that's released from shows when you can get better made figurines with more detail from those comic shops that order from companies that release specifically for that audience. Say what you want about Todd McFarlane, the guy's a douche and "IMA TAKE YOUR BALL THAT I'M CLAIMING IS MINE AND GO HOME" type, but his company and the others like it have been making amazing statues and figures for years that people continue to buy because they're of such high-quality of their favorite characters. That's what's in comic shops for the most part, those kind of things, not so much these show-inspired action figures except as counter top impulse buys.

They're extra effort because, as I said, they would have to find a dev that doesn't spend so much time on making the character obviously female that they forget to make a good game. It's not that it takes extra effort to make a female protag, it's that it takes extra effort for a dev to not make that the defining point of the game.

Yes, in a way I am buying Ubisoft's "excuse". It was very poorly worded and should never have been a big deal(seriously, it doesn't change ANYTHING about the game that there's not female assassin pc models in it and even then, you're all the same character no matter what, not to mention they've been pushing Rogue for quite a bit, but nobody wants to remember that, not outragey enough.)

Exactly though, they need to make a good game first and stop caring about where to shove in a girl or how to cut, primp, and snip the game for it to fit with what they want from the female protag. There's not many good video game characters anyways. You take a piece of the pie and apply the same rules you do when you have a full pie and you're going to find a larger percentage of what you don't want.

Of course it doesn't care, the games people play and enjoy don't give a damn what jiggly bits their characters have, which is part of why I think they sell as well. Nobody wants to be lectured to, and that's what this kind of claim starts to sound like.

I do think male protags do have it better, though.
They get better development as characters, and are in well funded, well marketed, hotly anticipated games, AAA or not. Aside from being teased about being straight white and male (which they are most of the time), they get varied representation across multiple personality types. Look at the 3 main guys in GTA5, for instance.
They appear in a variety of game genres every year, and can vary wildly in assorted ways in terms of appearance, temperament, and personality. It's really common that they get love interests, options in love interests, and arguably many more better games. That's par for the course every year.
Guys don't get cut from games while women were cut from being playable in FC4, and Assassin's Creed Unity, and removed from create a wrestler in wwe 15, just for instance.
The industry hasn't, to my knowing, told a developer to change a guy into a woman.

The only real gripes I see about male protags is that thy're too common, and I don't expect to see that going away any time soon, and that they're a bit too similar when it's the straight white guy lead.

Heck, even in games with a male, and female character playable, it's not uncommon that guys get the spotlight. You either have to beat the game as a guy to unlock women (Resident evil 5, Transformers Fall of Cybertron, one of the Earth Defense force games, etc.), or you play most of the game as guys (Batman: Arkham City). Even in some of my favorite series like Dynasty Warriors, story mode is almost entirely playing as guys to unlock stuff despite having a respectable roster of women. WWE games despite having created female wrestlers, when they have them *Eyes WWE 15 which cut them* aren't allowed a story mode, aren't allowed in certain matches, and so forth.

What ever complaints are lodged against male protagonists, I think the good far outweighs the bad.

Don't get me wrong, I hate the industry in general, east, west, north, south and central. There's bright spots here, and there, but they're few, and far in between. Well, I take that back, I hate the BS the industry does, which almost all the industry does.

I admit I was wrong about Bayonetta being created by a guy, but I'd like to think that you still get my point that a vast majority of female characters had no women playing a role in their creation, yeah? Inspiration, aside, anyhow.

Heck, it's not just Eastern games that get screwed over by critics, Bioware's Mass Effect took a beating, too. That, and saints Row 4 were both banned in some areas. Saints Row 3 censored in Japan of all places thanks to the penetrator, then 4 got hammered in Australia.
But games do slide under the radar. I think I made my point in Senran Kagura. A game that you don't seem to have heard of. A game that includes school girl kunoichi with jiggle physics, proportions that make DoA look modest, has a system where their clothes can get blasted off via forceful attacks, contains a large cast where you only play as women, includes lesbians, and has released numerous games in the series in the west, including 3ds.
And I'm not against any of it, honestly. I'm not the sort of person to yell over design choices, just what comes with those design choices. Bayonetta's a stellar example of balance, IMO. Senran Kagura has a pretty decent story despite the boobs. Even Dragon's Crown is ok with me. I'm just saying, is all.

Playing that damned if they do, damned if they don't card doesn't work well with me, coz thy usually stick to the safer notion in aiming it towards guys, not just in legos, but in other things, and won't often take steps towards branching out. It doesn't really change anything, it just gives industries an excuse to maintain a status quo instead of breaking loose from that status Quo. That keeps people irritated.

I played with legos as a youth. I have experience with them from long ago (the 90's.). When a lego figure has 2d cleavage, a princess hat, and her legs are a triangular lego piece instead of legs representing a dress, and a makeup covered face it's pretty obvious it's a woman.
Lipstick, beards, and gender specific traits have been applies to lego people for ages. They aren't all the simple faces they're known for, and female traits are rare. Gender does play a role in Lego, and like you've said before, people want some familiarity with the media they take part in, which I agree completely. I don't believe legos are as gender neutral as you think.

I never intended to say that you said games couldn't be aimed at women, or both genders. Thing is, they often aren't, rather aimed at guys. It's a bit old, but the whole Bioshck Infinite, and TLOU cover incidents come to mind.
Lots of games aren't necessarily aimed at youths, but the 12 year old boy playing CoD, or GTA being offensive as all get out stereotype exists for a reason.

Toys do well. They may not do super well, but they still do well. I can't claim to know the breakdown on how well toys do. I'm not a great example, I imagine, because I prefer articulation over most everything else. I'd rather (and do) have Play Arts Kai figures over statues. I'd rather collect cheap action figures of arguable durability over statues. I just admire the skills in well done articulation as I feel they need more sculptural skill to make articulated figures look good.

In my experience, it's not the case that comicbook stores specialize in statues over figures. They do more in vintage figures, special editions, figures you can't get anymore, an so forth over statues. The toys far outnumber the statues.
More than a bit of it strikes a happy balance between statue, and action figure (I.E. Play Arts Kai figures, repackaged nostalgia, and so forth) while maintaining the price tag you'd expect from collectibles.
A lot of the merchandise I saw was inspired by shows like Transformers, Star Wars, TMNT, power rangers, transformers, Adam west era batman, TAS Batman, etc.
Videogames like Arkham City, too.
I won't deny the presence of inspiration outside of shows. Transformers and GI Joe would be middle ground, I guess.
Then there's definitely figures of characters I've never seen outside of comic books like X-23, Hush, Pandora, darkest night figures, and so forth.
There's a healthy blend, but not a reliance on statues, in other words. At least from my experience.

I can see your point in people working more to make a female character female over everything else, but it's largely because, as you said, they aren't terribly interested in making a good character, just the female form. They make very shallow women that don't really have lives. They're just female forms moving around.

Humor me, though. I keep my ear to the ground when it comes to concerns about being told they can't make a female character. That concern comes up, as does incidents where a female character just isn't allowed, kinda often.
What if you're wrong? What if there are many developers looking to make more fleshed out, quality female figures, but the industry suppresses it? Denies production of these games, demands gender changes, etc. You'd think that it'd surface more, and maybe it will, but this sort of thing has been happening for decades, but isn't often dragged out into the light.

Yes, in a way I am buying Ubisoft's "excuse". It was very poorly worded and should never have been a big deal(seriously, it doesn't change ANYTHING about the game that there's not female assassin pc models in it and even then, you're all the same character no matter what, not to mention they've been pushing Rogue for quite a bit, but nobody wants to remember that, not outragey enough.)

Maybe I'm taking it out of context, but you recognize that people want to interact with what they relate to, (Guys want to play as guys, gals as gals) yet you're saying depriving gals of the opportunity to do just that isn't a big deal?
As far as Ubisoft goes, they initially planed playable women in ACU, and FC4. They weren't worried about where to stick them because they already had plans for where they go. Then the women got cut out of those plans.

In other words, it's not so much that guys get games aimed at them, it's that games aimed at others get tampered with so they aim squarely at guys instead of trying to appeal to more than just guys.
There's some cases like Rockstar seeming to have no ability to do a female protagonist, I'll admit.
Yes, there's the argument that there aren't enough female protags, but that'd likely be less common if the industry would stop tampering with games aimed at a more diverse market.

There's a far sight more memorable guys than women. And there's always more being added.
Honestly, I'd be okay with more less than memorable women as playable characters. Waiting for masterpieces is a bad idea to me since the industry obviously doesn't want those games to exist. I'd rather have gamers more open to playing as women in general (Or the industry starts believing that) so that, hopefully the industry decides that the protagonist being male or female doesn't always make or break a game.
I'm of the mind that if we didn't have so few female characters, there'd be more that appeal to assorted people. The few we have wouldn't be such lightning rods for criticism because abundance should lead to some variety. Critics would be more likely to find characters they don't intensely disagree with, so they wouldn't be so nasty to the the ones they do disagree with.
This, IMO, would be similar to male characters occasionally coming under fire for being straight white dudes, yet there's enough variety, and numbers that it doesn't glare as much.

This lecturing isn't likely to go away until the industry stops preventing female characters from happening, bluntly. They keep churning the waters giving reason for this to go on. Keeping people upset won't make them stop being upset.
Damned if they do, and damned if they don't won't work if they unanimously go with don't as far as offering up female characters, IMO.

 

[Schadrach]

-[snip]-
I'm sure some insisted on the change, but ALL but SqueEnix insisted? Don't buy it. This reeks more of PR finagling than it does of artistic differences between developer and publisher.

I'll have to agree with you on that one, games with only female leads (i.e. not just where the player can choose) are more rare than males, but they're certainly not impossible to find. This wouldn't be the first time when truths are somewhat embellished in order to make news or publicise something.

I wonder about that too. Especially given that their previous game (which was unfortunately average-ish) they started making basically the same claims that publishers were trying to force them to make their protagonist male. At a certain point you have to wonder if it's just a PR move to get the attention of the social-justice types.

That said, if it's not just a PR stunt exaggeration, good for them for finding a publisher that would let them create the game they wanted to create. Every dev should be so lucky.

I usually like this type of game, but since their previous title was the game that made me all but give up on preorders (either you have to have some kind of truly awesome preorder bonus or be someone I already really trust [like CD Projekt RED or Ice Pick Lodge] or preferably both).