Should Every Game Allow You to Choose Your Gender?

Squintsalot

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I'm surprised Yahtzee didn't bring up Deus Ex: Invisible War, with the most bizarre and unnecessary gender split ever.
 

gargantual

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Vault101 said:
upon a second reading this isn't quite as agreeable as I thought it was


[quote/]Specifically I don't agree that video games are misogynistic just because there are certain tropes they tend to fall back on a lot. It is true that there are an awful lot of game stories where the protagonist is male and the female character exists either to be rescued or to die and give the protagonist motivation. We'll call that the hero-damsel narrative. I don't think that hero-damsel enforces misogyny. After all, the protagonist, the male, is the one who has it worst. He's the one who has to put himself at pain, and even die, over and over again, in an endless cycle of torment, for the benefit of the women.
Yahtzee this sounds like an MRA rant against "the draught" I'd expect better from you

EDIT:I mean seriously! has anyone ever actually asked a woman if that's how they read it? if they enjoy this kind of shit?

[quote/]But I digress. Okay then - let's say that every game should let you pick your gender as long as their gender isn't hugely central to the plot. Wait, that sounded weird. Games in which gender doesn't matter should let you choose your gender? If the gender doesn't matter, why should we care? Maybe the game developer just wants a character to be a generic cipher, so they make them a white male, because that's what they themselves are, and it's what generic means to them. To demand diversity for characters that are essentially blank placeholders is to put way more thought into it than the creator did.[/quote]

if it "doesn't matter" then give me a fucking choice...YOU said yourself that there was nothing to be gained by having Korvo blank

if I have to play as a cipher then let me be female, I don't need justification for it, if you can't do then then [b/]don't make them ciphers[/b][/quote]

Vault. Hey whoa. Easy. He agrees that you should have a place. That we all should have a place in populated digital worlds. Before the social impact of WoW and the Sims where games werent so heavily about reflected self ( in the West of course ) we used to not care so deeply. We were just having fun. Its just coming from the perspective of creators not all of them are under the same level of ignorant aesthetic hampering from disillusioned marketers, theres probably some variation in between.

What you should champion is more TFYC, more voices, less oversaturation of games in the industry so stuff stands out, because all that has a domino effect on whose voices are leading design decisions. If you scream for more females the AAA response will be shallow and not genuine enough when they already microtransaction our games and shift audiences instead of giving us better gameplay, that shows how much the big suits really care about you or me. If something has a massive audience like Titanfall then OF COURSE its understandable that type of game should open up its doors for people to reflect themselves in that world from the outset. But it should also be normal that some people are going to create biased exploitative worlds that appeal to their sensibilities and a lot of straight white coders will end up creating these types of narratives. Even if things were free from megapublisher shackles, that narrative and aesthetic would still exist. we can decide how tolerant we are of them or to not engage. The social contract that artist makes what they want and marketplace decides how relevant it is shouldn't be picked at I think. Itll become about what cultural line everyone should be burdened with towing rather than what they're burning to create.

I KNOW were just talking about opening more stories up to common female representation, agency and power is good and noble. Yahtzee did kinda answer your question. Its about whats normal to the creator and reciever. Its relative, not about broad generalizations of whats acceptable. Theres bound to be conflict cause were different. Often times we as ppl are attracted to those contrasts in each other, and only appreciate similarities for awhile and comfortably forget them, or take them forgranted.

Remember the max payne quote. "Nothing's a cliche when its happening to you"
 

Veldel

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No because that would be stupid. I could not look at Metriod the same way if you played a guy for example.

Unless its written and made to be a creation of character then the whole choice of gender is dumb.
 

Squintsalot

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Ronack said:
Though, we should complain when that grizzled, thirty year old man is there simply to appeal to a market.
When is that not the case? All protagonists of AAA games are created to appeal to a perceived market.
 

Opellulo

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The question is wrong put.

The core of the matter isn't choosing your avatar's gender, but how gender differences are portrayed; even sandbox or female lead games fall deep into lazy stereotype territory. While it's true that you can gender-swap Lara, no amount of scenes from "The Descent" or repetitions of "You can do it, Lara" can override the characterization of Sam: annoying, powerless damsel in distress that works as goal to reach for most of the game. Even Mass Effect does a very poor job in characterizing genders: it makes EVERY female character a "princess" (a character whole main conflict is tied to her fatherly figure) heck even most of the male characters fall in the same pattern; the whole Mass Effect World seems based on daddy issues... And using the same trick again and again isn't to me a sign of good writing, or a good example of videogame maturity.

Lazy storytelling is a problem because it reiterates false ideas and creates dangerous associations: take for example every modern military shooter; where the fun of playing squirt guns is delivered in the same package of much more troublesome themes like militarism, jingoism and "war on everyone who isn't us".

Videogames have still a long road to do until they can reach cultural maturity, too bad they are already a major cultural force so the things can get very messy very quickly...
 
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I would say no, not EVERY game.

Some stories work best with a dedicated gender for the main character.

For example, I'm making an RPG right now where the whole thing only works because all 4 main characters are female.

It's NICE to be able to choose your gender in a game, but it shouldn't be required of all games.
 

gargantual

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Opellulo said:
The question is wrong put.

The core of the matter isn't choosing your avatar's gender, but how gender differences are portrayed; even sandbox or female lead games fall deep into lazy stereotype territory. While it's true that you can gender-swap Lara, no amount of scenes from "The Descent" or repetitions of "You can do it, Lara" can override the characterization of Sam: annoying, powerless damsel in distress that works as goal to reach for most of the game. Even Mass Effect does a very poor job in characterizing genders: it makes EVERY female character a "princess" (a character whole main conflict is tied to her fatherly figure) heck even most of the male characters fall in the same pattern; the whole Mass Effect World seems based on daddy issues... And using the same trick again and again isn't to me a sign of good writing, or a good example of videogame maturity.

Lazy storytelling is a problem because it reiterates false ideas and creates dangerous associations: take for example every modern military shooter; where the fun of playing squirt guns is delivered in the same package of much more troublesome themes like militarism, jingoism and "war on everyone who isn't us".

Videogames have still a long road to do until they can reach cultural maturity, too bad they are already a major cultural force so the things can get very messy very quickly...
Right but what are they morally obligated to reinforce or echo? Our world and demands for validation. Thats our job as people of this era. Just like it was Id Software's inclination to reflect all the "aliens", heavy metal, and HR geiger and cultural nihilist interests that were in their hearts to give us DOOM. Nobody's going to on a cultural level say 'SURE! Thats perfectly okay.' Only open minds and early adopters, or viewers looking for something to be angered at WANT to feel offended. They couldnt send an open letter and expect somebody to make that game. They took initiative to build that vision, the rest of the industry didnt agree with at the time. Some of us care, some only want the gameplay to be solid. All these considerations have to be balanced in the communication value of a game. I expect the news and documentaries or stuff based on a true story to get the story and atmosphere straight. A leisurely play engine while certainly can improve itself to open up to more people is a social contract of whatever somebody wants to express and whos willing to bite. Not a national anchor with the full burden and weight of reflecting special interests. I know its rough but thats how it is. Id rather semi to non serious fiction overlap too greatly with the responsibilities of journalism and authoritative speech to speak the truth to modern society.
 

DrOswald

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Aaron Sylvester said:
Rebel_Raven said:
Like Yahtzee says, there's almost no games out there where being a woman is relevant. Males get treated better than that.
But how does one make a female's gender specifically relevant to a game in the fps/action/adventure/rpg/etc genres that dominate the industry?
Mother rescuing her children? But if you threw that idea at a publisher they'd just convert it to father rescuing his children since male protagonists sell better and make for slightly more convincing men-of-action.

Rebel_Raven said:
But if there's no point in the gender one way, or the other, then why not have both genders be available? Make your work a bit more welcoming in exchange for it being shallow? Of course its optional, but expecting people to like it when you only pick one gender when the plot doesn't call for gender, is not going to go well.
Because designing, coding and animating an extra gender isn't free and effortless. "Why not just have optional stuff catering to EVERYONE?" is a very easy question to ask when you're not the one having to create all that. At that rate people will start asking every game two have multiple genders and at least 4 races (of all those genders) because it's apparently just so easy. Where does it end?

Sure if we're talking about an indie game using basic sprites/models then having tons of inclusive options isn't an issue, but the cost skyrockets if we're talking about AAA games using current/next-gen graphics. I mean when looking at something like The Witcher, a female option would involve cost/effort that I can't even begin to imagine. When you're sitting there as a dev for the 100th hour animating the woman's cheekbones (or something) you begin to wonder "exactly how many people are even going to play as her? Is this worth it?". If a dev doesn't ask that question, the publisher certainly will.

After Mass Effect had only something like ~18% playing as female Shepherd I think Bioware had to stay pretty damn determined to keep offering full-fledged female options. But not every dev is Bioware, not every dev has a corporate monster like EA backing them. They either have to create something that sells or shoot their own profits in the foot.

I don't fault you for wanting more female protagonists/options, it's perfectly understandable. But you'll having to keep putting up with this for a very long time to come :p
I would just like to add that even in the case of a simple indie game using sprites gender swapping is not a trivial thing. Most indie game developers are working on a shoe string budget. They have to be really clever about how they spend that budget. Creating an extra 30 protagonist sprites for a male version of the main character means they lose 30 sprites from the rest of their game. That might be 10 enemies or 2 boss fights that the developer is losing.
 

white_wolf

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At least 70 - 80% of games could offer the gender choice and it would do nothing or only change things by 2 - 5%. Many games say you need to be male for reasons the game will lay out those games tend to do nothing with the male factor save give him an LI, make him a walking emotional brick, or make him blow up things and kill tons of people so inserting a woman doesn't change anything save LI becomes male unless she is so unchangeable then she becomes best friend to heroine. Many devs like to sight masculinity as a reason but is there no women who have masculine emotional control or wants revenge for dead insert important person? using the same plot line to give a new spin on masculinity as a concept is one I don't think has ever been done and there is no reason save lack of imagination or willingness to think of anything other then male is default and cool while woman is other and what is a woman? that it isn't being done.

More to other things in the article women characters that can't be separated from their plots would actually be Jodi from Beyond 2 Souls and Haunting Grounds you can't change these women to be men without serious overhauls to the plots. Velvet Assassin was based off a real war story (save they added in some fan service) so you can't changer Violet. TR can always become Rick Croft or any of the fatal frame girls could become men but the change here would be less shaking in your boots protagonists as they like to pass around the myth men just aren't scared of ghosts. AC can have hero options, COD, battlefield, Half life, Dishonored, Allan Wake, and more with little to no changes.

" To demand diversity for characters that are essentially blank placeholders is to put way more thought into it than the creator did." So you're saying that they lack imagination when you change the gender and their sound effects so all players who don't want to play generic male but would rather play generic plot as generic female get to suffer for their failure of imagination? Right....sounds very similar to the excuse used in FC4 as they were "inches away" from having a fem co-op option but just were to lazy to get a woman to read the lines on a character they supposedly wanted alot, it was just too much effort to find anyone to read and get into the recording studio so that option and enjoyment is gone for people who appreciate that sort of thing...odd how that keeps happening over the years.

"I don't buy the argument that biological similarities like race or gender strongly affect whether or not the player identifies with a character" You don't really need to buy it because you get to live it. Studies have proven males get more gameplay satisfaction when playing male and women receive less for play a male. Studies show women identify and are more immersed in stories that let them play as women in the worlds they've chosen to enter and men do likewise with men. Studies show men who make women characters do so for a variety of reasons making them an extension of themselves, just to look at their ass, or to add variety to a stale gaming industry so its ok if you don't get it or buy into it many other people don't buy into the idea you need a guy in order to enjoy a world and by not including women option in game after game after game it becomes exclusion on an industry wide scale that is hurting sales and player emotional, psychological, and game world immersion into the titles they play or would've liked to play but didn't due to not having the choice.
 

eberhart

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XDSkyFreak said:
Actualy there is ONE case of a female witcher. Well, a partial female witcher. She has the training of a witcher, but she could not go through the mutations. Her name is Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon (Ciri for short), and she is going to be the crux of the story in witcher 3 due to her connection with both Geralt, Yennefer and the Wild Hunt (hell she even shows up in the trailer), as well as her unique nature in the witcher universe.
Meh, not really. Being "partially witcher" is something like being "partially pregnant" :) If brutal, but still very limited physical training applied to a kid could suddenly get such kid anywhere near that, said world would be full of half-witchers. Those guys in the Kaer Morhen were not miracle makers and it''s not like they had a lot of time anyway. Whatever happens post-Thanedd could be simply attributed to an advantage *anyone* could be getting with any proper combat training. This is a world dominated by dirty peasants and unskilled vagrants after all. I mean, it *should* be attributed to that or "consistency" of the author would have to be challenged:) Or we can simply explain everything with "omfg powers" - but then witcher-y part gets even less relevant.

Doesn't matter anyway - unless she gets a significant overhaul, you might as well be looking at another Bioshock girl, perhaps upgraded with a foul language. Passable for a non-playable character, but I am already unimpressed with what a possible spin-off could ever offer. If anything, her straight-from-the-last-book version would probably fit in a Bioware kind of story instead.
 

white_wolf

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Aaron Sylvester said:
After Mass Effect had only something like ~18% playing as female Shepherd I think Bioware had to stay pretty damn determined to keep offering full-fledged female options. But not every dev is Bioware, not every dev has a corporate monster like EA backing them. They either have to create something that sells or shoot their own profits in the foot.
That 18% is gimped by BW's own admission they only took XBgold and PS+ member numbers those who had the free versions, no internet, or played on PC didn't get counted for their playthroughs.

Some more interesting numbers to the whole Mass Effect 3 where that % is from: players customized their Sheps alot 80% customized Fshep while only 42% customized Mshep. And from the BSN open to all players of the 5512 responders 27% always played as Fshep compared to 22% who always played as Mshep, and 25% usually play as Fshep but have played Mshep atleast once compared to the identical number for the reverse. BW devs have been quoted as saying Fshep being added was worth it and GS emplyees have been quoted as being able to sell ME easier to female customers when Fshep was on the cover. Fans constantly sight Fshep's VA as more popular then Mshep's

In a Swedish study that polled 91 male only participates aged 18+ using the Mass Effect M/F covers side by side asked which cover based on the hero would they prefer to play 16% chose Fshep, 10% chose Mshep and a huge base of 74% didn't go either way they weren't repulsed to play and would play the game with either cover that would be presented to them.
 

Aaron Sylvester

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white_wolf said:
Aaron Sylvester said:
After Mass Effect had only something like ~18% playing as female Shepherd I think Bioware had to stay pretty damn determined to keep offering full-fledged female options. But not every dev is Bioware, not every dev has a corporate monster like EA backing them. They either have to create something that sells or shoot their own profits in the foot.
That 18% is gimped by BW's own admission they only took XBgold and PS+ member numbers those who had the free versions, no internet, or played on PC didn't get counted for their playthroughs.

Some more interesting numbers to the whole Mass Effect 3 where that % is from: players customized their Sheps alot 80% customized Fshep while only 42% customized Mshep. And from the BSN open to all players of the 5512 responders 27% always played as Fshep compared to 22% who always played as Mshep, and 25% usually play as Fshep but have played Mshep atleast once compared to the identical number for the reverse. BW devs have been quoted as saying Fshep being added was worth it and GS emplyees have been quoted as being able to sell ME easier to female customers when Fshep was on the cover. Fans constantly sight Fshep's VA as more popular then Mshep's
Agreed. Although I will say that a notable % of those people playing femshep were doing it not because of "wooo empowered female!" but because they would rather be staring at a female ass/figure than a male ass/figure in a 3rd person shooter they were playing for 20+ hours. I know that was certainly my reason for always picking femshep.
Further proof of this was sheer amount of MODDING options available for femshep, like 10x more expansive than what people created for male shep. Entire sites dedicated themselves to face mods + hairstyles to make the hottest femshep possible.

I like to call it Skyrim syndrome :D
 

white_wolf

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Aaron Sylvester said:
white_wolf said:
Aaron Sylvester said:
After Mass Effect had only something like ~18% playing as female Shepherd I think Bioware had to stay pretty damn determined to keep offering full-fledged female options. But not every dev is Bioware, not every dev has a corporate monster like EA backing them. They either have to create something that sells or shoot their own profits in the foot.
That 18% is gimped by BW's own admission they only took XBgold and PS+ member numbers those who had the free versions, no internet, or played on PC didn't get counted for their playthroughs.

Some more interesting numbers to the whole Mass Effect 3 where that % is from: players customized their Sheps alot 80% customized Fshep while only 42% customized Mshep. And from the BSN open to all players of the 5512 responders 27% always played as Fshep compared to 22% who always played as Mshep, and 25% usually play as Fshep but have played Mshep atleast once compared to the identical number for the reverse. BW devs have been quoted as saying Fshep being added was worth it and GS emplyees have been quoted as being able to sell ME easier to female customers when Fshep was on the cover. Fans constantly sight Fshep's VA as more popular then Mshep's
Agreed. Although I will say that a notable % of those people playing femshep were doing it because if they're going to play an RPG for 20+ hours they'd rather be staring at a female ass than a male one, since ME has always been a 3rd person shooter. I know that was certainly my reason for always picking femshep (besides the slightly better VA).
It's also why the sheer amount of MODDING options available for femshep were like 10x more than male shep, entire sites dedicated thmselves to face mods + hairstyles to make the hottest femshep possible.

I call it Skyrim syndrome :p
I loved some of the mods they did for shep giving her glowing eyes or unique hair we begged BW to implement some of those with DLCs but nope. I played fshep because I foundout by accident in ME I could be her and thought, " Awesome! A woman space marine!" then she blew me away with her performance and I love just being her her attitude and not caring about how society views her for her looks or job choice really is spectacular.
 

JimB

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slo said:
Rutskarn said:
Unfortunately--and I refuse to ignore this part--the system as it is constructed hurts women a fuck of a lot more than it hurts men.
No. Just no. [snipped facts about murder, suicide, and homelessness]
Uh, which system are we talking about that's responsible for men being killed and kicked out of their homes? Was that addressed?
 

kickyourass

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Thanatos2k said:
Geralt could not have the same personality as a female, or it simply wouldn't fit. The relationships with other characters and the relationship dynamics and motivations wouldn't be the same, unless you're going the Dragon Age 2 route and making every character inexplicably bisexual. Come to think of it, use Dragon Age 2 as another example.
Forgive me any possible ignorance of the lore of The Witcher, but aside from the specific fact of him being a Witcher (Something only possible with males for reasons I'm sure are well explained somewhere), exactly what parts of those games or Geralt's personality are male exclusive?

And even if they are, I'd propose that the changes that would take place due to a change in gender would be interesting enough to look into it. Part of diversity is (Or at least is supposed to be) seeing differences like that and exploring them. Isn't it?
 

JimB

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slo said:
I believe we are talking about the current social system, that Rutskarn called "patriarchy" in his post a couple of lines above the quote.
Hm. Okay.

slo said:
The numbers don't exactly show that women are hurt more by it, or that it benefits men in general.
Eh. Depends how you measure "hurt," which is a wasted conversation if there ever was one since the standard is entirely subjective. You seem to think death is the worst hurt anyone can suffer (my apologies if I misunderstand you), whereas I think death is the end of all hurts and the lifetime of hurt a person has to endure is the greater pain. I don't say that to try to change your mind or anything, but just to illustrate how much this discussion relies on individual perspective.