As a woman, I would say I'm pretty conditioned to accept male leads without question. For the simple fact that if I ignored all media except that which has a female lead, I would consume next to no media. Thinking of the movies and shows I've watched in the last year or so, the only ones which would fall into that category are Beauty and the Beast, Ghost in the Shell, Moana, Finding Dory, Zootopia, Storks, and Rogue One. And that's actually a very unusual number of female leads in such a short period of time--and note that most of those are children's movies and from Disney alone. For TV shows with female leads, I've watched RWBY and Your Lie in April.The Lunatic said:If women don't buy games featuring male leads, and thus we need to add more female leads, would it be all that surprising if men didn't buy games featuring female leads?
I can't say I'm really bothered myself, I played Nier, and enjoyed it, the fact that 2B is (One of) the playable protagonists didn't affect my decision to buy it in any way.
However, if we're going to argue that games need more female representation, as playing male characters isn't something they want to do, we have to accept the inverse is true too.
I haven't actually played many games in the last year, mostly just Overwatch and Undertale (mostly because I have a youtube channel where most of my content is Undertale-based right now). Both of those are pretty middle ground as far as genders are concerned. Overwatch has many great female heroes, and Undertale's lead has no specified gender. I have played but not yet finished the new King's Quest by Telltale Games, so I suppose that's one point to the male side.
The other films I've watched in the last year that don't have female leads (that is as the MAIN lead) are Captain America Civil War, The Jungle Book, Deadpool, Kubo and the Two Strings, The Secret Life of Pets, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find them, Star Trek Beyond, Doctor Strange, and Jason Bourne. As far as TV shows, we're looking at Wolf's Rain, Baccano!, Overlord, Darker Than Black, Stranger Things, and Sherlock. I also watch a lot of Game Grumps and Good Mythical Morning on YouTube, both of which are hosted by men.
Is anybody forcing me to watch these things? No. Do I necessarily think those films or shows with male leads would be better with female leads? No. My point is that men who steer clear of media that predominantly features women are missing a hell of a lot less than women who steer clear of media that predominantly features women. I never consider whether or not the lead is male or female when first considering something to watch, because if I made a habit of dumping everything with a male lead, I'd end up watching mostly cartoons and rom coms.
I also don't think it's really a conscious thing. JK Rowling put her name that way on the Harry Potter books because it's an unwritten rule in book publishing that men and boys are less likely to take a book off the shelf if they are aware it was written female author. Young boys were an important demographic for Harry Potter, so she did everything she could to make sure her books took off. I don't think men and boys are going down the line consciously thinking "Ew, a girl, I'm not reading what SHE'S written."
But I think when you have the luxury of choice, you naturally go for what you feel you'll most relate to. Men simply have the luxury of choice because most media features and is created by men. Women have to either isolate themselves to a few select genres, or broaden their personal definition of characters they relate to.