Rumor: Activision Doesn't Think Female Leads Can Sell Games

[FieryTrainwreck]

I can't believe people are even entertaining the notion of doubting these "rumors". There's so much smoke surrounding Activision at this point that they're either running a smoke machine 24/7 or are, in fact, on fire. It's very clearly a horrible company for seasoned gamers and a terrific company for stockholders. I hate them, and I feel quite justified in doing so.

 

[Bloodstain]

Have they ever heard of the following characters?

Samus Aran, Lara Croft, Chell?

Personally, I love games with female protagonists. It's a nice change.

 

[Kollega]

...but honestly expecting to see tons of women in games based around real-life militarys with extremly restrictive combat roles available to women is perplexing especially in a series with a pretence to realism.

I understand that, but not every game should specifically be about today's military. In science fiction, the powered armour and extensive use of vehicles in combat reduces the gender barrier to basically nothing, and in fantasy with all it's magic... yeah. Just say that "a wizard did it". Not to mention the strategy genre. You see what i mean here, right?

 

[Ldude893]

Spoiler: Excuse me for a second

Can the people running Activision be any more sexist than this?

 

[Decabo]

Uhh... Tomb Raider? Bayonetta? Final Fantasy XIII? Mirror's Edge? I'd love to see more games with female protagonists. Anything is better than the white short-brown-haired men that are flooding the industry.

 

[Etab]

I think battlefield would be cool if it had some female character models.
They'd be so covered in body armour, you could probably only tell by the face, so why on earth not??

The main reason real military restricts female officers in combat is because they might get raped by team-members, considering the extremes that soldiers have to go through, it's far easier to deal with male-male rape so they leave it at that. But why should any online sim reflect that? It's irrelevant to combat, only relevant to politics and military PR.
Can't stop females playing the game, so let the avatars reflect the players.


Starship Troopers had a female infantry soldier, and that sold well.

Let us not forget Lara Croft from tomb raider, that was so successful it spawned 2 hollywood movies.

Not to mention the success of the Broken Sword franchise, which often shared the lead between a male and female character.

So there you go, based on this stupid observationally-selective reasoning (counting the hits, excluding the misses) it is now proved that female leads in games will be successful.

 

[RaziTheRed]

Saint's Row 2 allows the player to use a female character and it doesn't seem unfitting in the slightest what with the customization available.

And uh... I don't think the Mass Effect series wouldn't sell any worse if Commander Shephard HAD to be female (it would still be just as awesome if you ask me)

So ultimately I just see Activision as overanalyzing the concept because as long as the character is interesting and unique in their own special way it really doesn't matter to me what their gender is.

 

[martin's a madman]

Well, if they think a game with the view behind an attractive woman in tight (or very little) clothing won't sell, then they don't understand who they are marketing to.

 

[Gindil]

It's because every time there is a female lead in games the cutscenes have to show off their massive rack and make them wear enough clothes to wrap a sandwich in. This gets annoying and you can't just rely on sex appeal, get a game designed from a womans perspective, and a REAL woman for a lead and you will see something refreshing.

...

Really? You've never heard of Beyond Good and Evil, Portal, or Half Life 2, where Alyx isn't there for sex appeal but as a believable character in a resistance movement?

 

[Locko96]

Oh Activision...what happened to you? I remember when the epitome of you were such a nice, aware and intelligent gaming company (Soldiers of Fortune was intelligent). I remember when you were a nice shining example of a company while EA prostituted itself outside of your home. Now you're some pompous, obnoxious and ignorant cash whore while EA has died down...sorta.

 

[Charli]

In a funny kind of way, I see what they mean.

In another, I want them to shut up and really think about what they're saying. People freakin loved Bayonetta, I dunno about you lot, but no one I seem to talk to has a bad word for it.

 

[Canid117]

Activision, what results do you expect when you bring in thirteen year olds for your focus groups? This is why I hate the Activision side of Activision Blizzard. The guys with all the power are not devs and they are not gamers so they don't really understand the market. They think they do but they only understand the fragment of it that screams racial epithets into their mics when you end their killstreak. They do not seem to realize that this group can only carry their products for so long before all the insane shit they pull alienates the rest of the market enough for their product line to collapse entirely. Screaming tweens can make up a core of your market just fine until all the adult players leave because of stagnation and discontent.

EA now is losing its battle crown for being the most evil game publisher in the world... Congratulations Activision!

EA lost that crown to Activision and Bobby Kotick somewhere in 2008 or so.

 

[Kavonde]

Hey, Activision.

C'mere, I've got something to tell you.

Closer, closer.

Ready?

Fuck you.

That is all.

 

[Trogdor1138]

It's because every time there is a female lead in games the cutscenes have to show off their massive rack and make them wear enough clothes to wrap a sandwich in. This gets annoying and you can't just rely on sex appeal, get a game designed from a womans perspective, and a REAL woman for a lead and you will see something refreshing.

...

Really? You've never heard of Beyond Good and Evil, Portal, or Half Life 2, where Alyx isn't there for sex appeal but as a believable character in a resistance movement?

All 3 of those are among my favourite games of all time, I was speaking of the majority.

 

[Trogdor1138]

It's because every time there is a female lead in games the cutscenes have to show off their massive rack and make them wear enough clothes to wrap a sandwich in. This gets annoying and you can't just rely on sex appeal, get a game designed from a womans perspective, and a REAL woman for a lead and you will see something refreshing.

What like Bayonetta

Or ladies man Ezio auditori

Women either create hyper sexualised fantasys or pretty boy lust objects


A woman wrote twilight but that didn't stop Bellas only character trait from being Edwards girlfriend

True that, touche. I'm just not a fan of woman being really typecast as these things all the time, I like it when I see a game where they haven't gone "ZOMG SHES A GURL HURRDUURP"

And lol, twilight.

 

[WolfThomas]

Not to be picky, but Nick Kang in the original True Crime was Chinese-American. Not sure what percent what, but definitely quite Asian.

 

[Ghostkai]

Sarah Kerrigan, Lightning, Lara Croft, Joanna Dark, Kate Archer, Alyx Vance, Samus, Jill Valent-

You know what, fuck it. I could go on naming others, but Activision doesn't care, they just like making stupid statements.

 

[Carlston]

Any proof?

Or just a angry gaming dev who didn't get their game put out?

Wow lot of people jumping the gun saying this is Activisions policy, I love how the giant word "RUMOR" doesn't set off alarms to some.

And honestly, what I read is "There is no market for a Hong Kong game in America."
But that's fine, everyone needs to have rumors to gossip about. Now if you set the game in LA i bet they would be all over it.

What I read and which is the most popular big corp idea is "Americans don't care about anything outside America unless it has American teams, troops or the like."

So a good game was being made just wrong global market?

So look at the line "Activision has no room for 'we are making an open-world game with a Hong Kong action movie feel with a female lead."

This is what we call corp speak. When you pitch a game it basicly sums up like this. Lead, game type, location. So open world... Activision doesn't pull off many of those well. Sorry, as a gamer my view. And no don't care to hear your 1 in 10,000 examples to prove me wrong. It gets old.

Hong Honk. OK amazingly small minority there. See location bias ect. And after Resident Evil 5 whine fest of Africa, I wouldn't want the Asians popping down my throat about genocide like they think they will get a buck like the last PR nightmare.

Hong Kong action movie feel.... QTE, bullet time... but damn lot of good material if done right. If done wrong, turd burger al'a mode.

Lead, a female. Yeah so what. And the reason I would call it BS again that with Movies like Salt and the like in the spotlight, it would be a good push. So I see no reason to not, and if anything we 14-40 year old men proved. If we play a game staring at a woman's ass for days on end, it could be crap like Tomb Raider but loved by millions all for bouncing set. So the Eidos equation is another plus for the idea.
(we are simple creatures)
So yaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwnnnnnnnn.

Sexism no.

Pissed off Dev, yeah.

Welcome to a global market, your gonna have to change LOCATIONS and prove you can make the mechanics work.

It's not the fact the main is a female, that's nothing but jiggly gold in most games. So I wonder what's the REAL reason.

Beside no company tends to be that careless, this is 2010 people not 1950's Activison wouldn't say that no matter how much they thought it if you tied them up and drugged them to save PR face.


In this day and age, games seem to be safe off a based formula. And if Activision doesn't want it, it's their call.

But till such time, unless I see a offical statement I call BS.

As for the Dev, hundreds of thousands of games get canceled and never made.
You seriously that special the ONLY reason your turned down is because of a female lead?

Really.... right....