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

[jamesworkshop]

what part of the name "modern warfare" suggests future space combat to you

Modern Warfare is a near future game. It does not cover historical events. I am not talking about space combat at all.

I also said that you don't always get the impression that women are well enough represented not that they never have any roles.

The USA isn't going to start putting women in the Navy seal or Army Rangers anytime soon
MW2 dealt with a single squads from Task force 141 not the entire military where you would encounter HQ, clerks, Military police, IT & Communications, Troop Commander, Gunner UAV operators, Electronics/Avionics Technicians, Signaller, Ammunition Technicians, Gunner Light Gun, Gunner Special Observer

all of which are roles that are performed by female military personnel

FPS games simply do not have a large enough scope they either deal with a frontline squad or a single member of such a unit, females are always going to be under represnted because they make up so few of the numbers

If however a game was based on the USMC or USAF and had no women performing Combat duties then a lack of females should be unusual

 

[rookie.of.the.year]

So the feminists out there can shoot me... I don't think female leads sell games either. Even as a girl I hate female lead characters, and I am looking forward to FF Versus XIII than i did FF XIII, purely because of the lead characters gender.

But I don't think anyone in the gaming industry really knows how to handle a lead female character, and since3 my boyfriend is playing Bayonetta as i type, she is my example. Female lead, who has the 'sexy secretary' glasses thing going on, and has a special move that takes all her clothes off. The only way games know how to sell females is through sex appeal, and that still doesn't really work. I say this since I have never heard anyone rave about Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom or Golden Axe: Beast Rider... irrelevant of the quality of game, which both feature semi-clad women on the cover.

Even Lara croft was about BREASTS.

 

[znix]

The only way games know how to sell females is through sex appeal, and that still doesn't really work.

Beyond Good and Evil had nothing to do with sex appeal, and everything to do with a cool chick.
How about Oni? No particular T&A there, still a very cool game.

That said, why should sex appeal have no room in a game? It's part of everything else in real life.

 

[rookie.of.the.year]

The only way games know how to sell females is through sex appeal, and that still doesn't really work.

Beyond Good and Evil had nothing to do with sex appeal, and everything to do with a cool chick.
How about Oni? No particular T&A there, still a very cool game.

That said, why should sex appeal have no room in a game? It's part of everything else in real life.

Ah you speak of games that I have no experience of

But there is no sex appeal directed towards women, is there?

I think marketing is still stuck a bit in the 'gamers are all lonely men who only have their hands for company' sort of thing, and characters are targeted at them the either be sexy, or idealistic, like Chris in RE5, big beefy man. Like... the Nier character had to be beefed up for western audiences, and less feminine... because it wouldn't sell

 

[Dr. Paine]

Final Fantasy XIII had a female lead? I can never tell genders in that series.

Tell by the voice acting she was Liara from Mass Effect.

Voice acting doesn't always help, just listen to Tidus. /shot

 

[FloodOne]

Big boobs. they must have them. Or they are from a well established franchise. new franchises with female leads that dont have big bust lines and are "badass" don't sell well.

Final Fantasy XIII would like to say hello.

None of the girls are frames with boobs attached. in fact, all three female characters are proportioned like a woman should be.

The fact that it sold over 5 million copies settles this argument.

 

[DTWolfwood]

Big boobs. they must have them. Or they are from a well established franchise. new franchises with female leads that dont have big bust lines and are "badass" don't sell well.

Final Fantasy XIII would like to say hello.

None of the girls are frames with boobs attached. in fact, all three female characters are proportioned like a woman should be.

The fact that it sold over 5 million copies settles this argument.

please read the bold.

 

[Pearwood]

Voice acting doesn't always help, just listen to Tidus. /shot

I'd rather not actually...

 

[pyrus7]

The only way games know how to sell females is through sex appeal, and that still doesn't really work.

Beyond Good and Evil had nothing to do with sex appeal, and everything to do with a cool chick.
How about Oni? No particular T&A there, still a very cool game.

That said, why should sex appeal have no room in a game? It's part of everything else in real life.

Here's the thing, Beyond Good and Evil sold very poorly. Just maybe indicating that there is merit to the assumption that female leads cannot sell games.

The oft quoted examples in this thread are Metroid, Lara Croft and FF6 and FF13. All being long runners and well established franchises. Yet one of the more popular complaints about Activision is that they like to milk their franchises.

It also irks me that we are blaming Activision for sexism while promoting Lara Croft and Bayonetta as good examples of female leads.

 

[antipunt]

OK uhm...normally I'd say 'cue the feminist attack', but in this case, it's simply ridiculous. What an unfounded notion, female leads are -absolutely fine-. I have no idea where they're getting this crazed idea.

 

[jamesworkshop]

It's a rumor because their is no proof without names we don't even know if they talking to anyone let alone talked to anyone who makes games or even work for activision in particular.
It makes even less sence when the article recognises that female characters don't prevent games from selling something that would doubley be apparent to people on the money side that even the escapist forum posters with no working knowledge of how to run a busniess can prove the idea false even without hard numbers.

A friend of a friend telling me that Elvis is still alive is a rumor


Originally released in 1996, the Tomb Raider series has racked up over 30 million unit sales, spawned two motion pictures starring Academy Award winner Angelina Jolie and introduced British archaeologist Lara Croft to popular culture.

http://www.tombraiderchronicles.com/headlines3266.html

Female leads have been in gaming since gaming went mass market with the release of the 100 million plus unit sales of the playstation.

It's not a rumor, it's a story with anonymous sources by a credible publication, they even named some of the people like "Manveer Heir" (who was a designer at RavenSoft and is now working for Bioware), they also talked to a few Treyarch employees who obviously (d'uh) don't want to be named when talking bad about their (ex?)-employer, but also insinuated one of them might be "Chris Archer". Another one they named was a writer named "Tom Abernathy", who apparently wrote stories for Activision.

As long as they didn't make it up to get more traffic it has nothing of what makes a "rumor".

stories with annomous sources are rumors

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

Rumor was both used in the title and the article

 

[Blueruler182]

I've kept a steady answer whenever someone asks me what gender I want to play. I play women. Because if I have to look at an ass throughout the whole game it might as well be a nice one.

Seriously, I'm pretty sure nobody will care what gender the lead is so long as it's a good story and good gameplay. Saying that gamers don't want women is just... moronic, really.

I grew up in the age of Buffy and Xena, no wonder I still find it hot/awesome to see a woman kicking ass.
So when I play videogames, I much prefer seeing that.
I can imagine that if you grew up in the 80s with more badass male characters you would want to be a badass male character.

Yeah, I grew up in the 90s. I just like seeing a woman kick ass. Much more aesthetically appealing than a man doing it. At least, for my gender, but I know a lot of women who agree with me.

 

[MongoBaer]

Here's a thought.

Maybe it's not so much the sex in question but the genre?

Look at the line about changing the while male to a black male in one of the games. It could be as simple as their following the leader.

And concider this: Dead Space with Lisa Clarke verses Issac Clarke. How many of you would have said: "It's resident evil in space."?

 

[captain underpants]

"does not have a policy of telling its studios what game content they can develop..."

"uses market research in order to better understand [what] gamers are looking for"

I call bullshit on that one. Why do focus testing if you're not going to use the data?

 

[mjc0961]

1. True Crime: New York City was never going to sell well. You can put whatever main character you want in that and it won't really sell considering that the game is a buggy glitchy mess.

2. Using FF13 as an example doesn't really count. There are plenty of games where female leads do sell, but I wouldn't count FF13 as one of them when every piece of promotional art I saw for the game featured what was supposed to be a woman but really looked like a very ugly man with big boobs. I mean, just go look at post #30 in this thread. Open the spoiler tag and bam, there's a dude with boobs inside. That is not a female face.

But yeah, if true, Activision is still pretty silly, as if they already weren't anyway.

 

[Omnific One]

I've kept a steady answer whenever someone asks me what gender I want to play. I play women. Because if I have to look at an ass throughout the whole game it might as well be a nice one.

Seriously, I'm pretty sure nobody will care what gender the lead is so long as it's a good story and good gameplay. Saying that gamers don't want women is just... moronic, really.

Precisely. When I used to play MMO's, I'd always play as a woman as a rule. Hell, with third person games, a female lead could sell even more copies than a game with a male lead to male players, if you see what I mean. The lead character's gender is not nearly as important as the gameplay and story.

 

[tsb247]

I'm not surprised. This does sound like trademark, "Activision stupidity."

I would point out the success of other games with female leads, but that's been done to death by now.

 

[KingTiger]

I actually agree with this.

I would never play a game where I have to be a female...it just doesnt feel right. I am a guy, I should only play a male character.