The real significance of female protagonists

[hermes]

Anyone else find it kinda weird that Ubisoft say it's too expensive to make playable female characters in Assassins Creed when Ubisoft had playable female characters in Rainbow Six: Vegas games that didn't seem to change anything? I would think the Creed games are more profitable and could indulge in spending a bit more.

I am getting tired of people missrepresenting the issue just to have something to hate on Ubisoft.

They don't think having female characters in AC is "too expensive" or "too hard", but having the option is. If the game was built from the ground up to have a female protagonist it would have costed the same, but then people that wanted to play a male character would found the same response: to allow for people to play the entire campaign as a different character would amount to writing and voice acting an entirely new script, 4 months before the game is released...

 

[Thyunda]

-snip-

Since when has customisation been about what other players see?

 

[Savo]

Question for anyone who might know??has there been any kind of research into the number of female "hardcore" gamers? There is that often quoted statistic that women make up 50% of the gaming population, but I believe that research covered all kinds of games, including phone and mobile games, which makes that statistic misleading in a discussion of AAA games. Publishers need a tangible audience that will run out and buy and pre-order their lavishly budgeted games for $60 to justify making more female-led AAA games. I've looked for this information myself, but haven't had much luck, outside of a few vague and debatable statistics like the number of players who chose Femshep in Mass Effect.

I'd feel a lot better condemning or alternately supporting Ubisoft and other companies in situations like these if I knew for sure whether or not the hardcore video-game audience is as male-dominated as it often seems like.

 

[hermes]

-snip-

Since when has customisation been about what other players see?

since it is online. What is the point of customizing how your character looks and fights if everyone will be seeing the same default skin?

 

[Thyunda]

-snip-

Since when has customisation been about what other players see?

since it is online. What is the point of customizing how your character looks and fights if everyone will be seeing the same default skin?

I dunno, what's the point in customising how your character looks and fights if everyone's the same guy anyway?

 

[DaWaffledude]

Personally, I can live with or without, but I recognise what it means to other people, and there really isn't any good reason not to have more.

 

[[Kira Must Die]]

]Just... let people make the game they wanna make. If someone feels like their story should have a male protagonist, then let them go. I rather them have four male characters than for them to shoehorn in a female character just for the sake of having a female character. It's like when people complain about too much white characters and want an ethnic one. It simply feels like they want an ethnic character simply for the sake of it rather than if or if not it'll work with the story/setting.

Why is it only okay to have an ethnic character if it "works with the story"? Why cant a person just be black, or asain, or native american? Why is having a white character unquestioned, but when it's of a different race, you need a reason or an excuse?

Like I mentioned several times in previous posts, I didn't think that post through very well.

I would change it, but I'm too lazy to do so.

I don't have a problem with whatever ethnicity a character it, I have a problem with people who make it out like it's a big deal when really it's not. I just want a character to be seen as a character instead of being seen as just "the black guy" or just simply "the girl", at least that's what I think I was trying to say with that post.

 

[Schadrach]

Frankly I think everyone has a right to complain that Assassin's Creed doesn't have a female main character if the best excuse that the developer can come up with is "It's too hard".

It's certainly harder than recoloring a single model with a single set of animations and voice acting, which is what they are doing. I don't think it's actually "too hard" but that "too hard" sounds better than "too lazy/too cheap."

And this concept that if you didn't buy remember me or didn't buy the latest tomb raider makes you unable to complain about the representation of female main characters, it just infuriates me.

Who said that? All I said is that I probably own more games with female main characters than most of the folks complaining about it, without main protagonist gender being something that I consider when purchasing. What I'm saying is n't that you aren't allowed to complain because you didn't buy Remember Me, or Tomb Raider, or Broken Age, or Lily Looking Through, or any of Atelier series, or Reccetear, or the Walking Dead (Season 2), etc, etc, etc -- but rather that if you can't find games with female main characters, you simply aren't looking for them.

It's because whenever there's a game with a female main character, they get the shaft when it comes to budgets and as an extension, advertisement.

http://www.themarysue.com/why-games-with-female-protagonists-dont-sell-and-what-it-says-about-the-industry/

http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/article/games-with-female-heroes-dont-sell-because-publishers-dont-support-them

So, are you claiming that advertising budget directly correlates to sales, or that there's some magic number that you have to cross, or what?

Because I can readily name games with little to no advertising budget that have been successful (literally any successful and/or highly praised indie game, Minecraft being the largest example), and there are others that do terribly despite lots of advertising.

Because games with female characters can sometimes be messy hack jobs or unstable experiments.

Wait, are you now suggesting that games with female characters don't sell because they are bad games? Which is it, because they don't buy enough advertising that people actively try to ignore or because they are poor quality products?

Let me make a better comparison, at least I hope you will think it's better.

There's a very odd, very niche puzzle game called Antichamber, which is only out for PC. The best way I could describe it is to say it's a game about navigating a non-euclidean labyrinth. It's sold ~2/3 as many copies as Remember Me did across all platforms (>0.25M vs 0.39M), more than Remember Me did on any single platform (highest for Remember Me was PS3, where it sold 0.23M), 5 times as many as Remember Me sold on PC (0.04M). Essentially no advertising. Made by an indie dev as opposed to Capcom.

Is that a more reasonable comparison for you? Game in major genre by major publisher with medium development budget and modest advertising budget available on all major platforms only moderately outsells bizarre niche game in comparatively small genre by unknown indie with zero advertising budget. Could it be that there's more to it than advertising? Is that better than comparing to a game widely considered rubbish?

Yeah, but men have no shortage of main characters in video games, while the reverse can't be said for women.

I disagree. If you don't go putting arbitrary limits on what games "count" as games, then there are tons of examples. There just aren't tons of examples in a tiny handful of franchises that people making that argument generally pretend are all that count.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I think this is one of those things most people only care in principle. There're a bunch of games with playable female characters in them if you're that invested on your avatar's gender.

 

[1066]

Question for anyone who might know??has there been any kind of research into the number of female "hardcore" gamers? There is that often quoted statistic that women make up 50% of the gaming population, but I believe that research covered all kinds of games, including phone and mobile games, which makes that statistic misleading in a discussion of AAA games. Publishers need a tangible audience that will run out and buy and pre-order their lavishly budgeted games for $60 to justify making more female-led AAA games. I've looked for this information myself, but haven't had much luck, outside of a few vague and debatable statistics like the number of players who chose Femshep in Mass Effect.

I'd feel a lot better condemning or alternately supporting Ubisoft and other companies in situations like these if I knew for sure whether or not the hardcore video-game audience is as male-dominated as it often seems like.

short answer: Not that I know of. Longer answer: Kinda.

I have no idea what the actual metric used for the ESA number is; Ie. Hours per week, dollars per year, etc. and without a genre breakdown it's effectively useless data for companies to use to even begin marketing or prototyping for the market. That said, there was a spike some years back from an average in the high 30s to about 45% when mobile/phone games were added to the list, though I still don't know exactly what metric is used.

That said, the Neilson ratings do have some answers.

Unfortunately, the answer appears to be that its all useless. In the one I've seen, Minesweeper, solitaire and, I believe, spider made up more than the rest of the top ten. So, three free games that come with windows made up the bulk of all listed games played.

Actually, the top spot alone made up more that the rest of the top ten, if you ignore the other two. Sadly, this means that most of the ESA data is useless if it draws from the same method (and the numbers line up enough that it might) since, while it does draw a picture of who plays some games, the actual value to the publishers is useless as it doesn't say anything about who is willing to pay what. And, again, issues of not addressing the genres being played by who.

If you ask the question of what do women tend to play, then every focus group I've ever even heard of has found that women, as a demographic (obviously as a demographic. People like what they like, but as a marketing whole) enjoy simpler (both in narrative and control), easier to understand, easier to pick up and put down games. Some even suggest that not having a player avatar, but instead a mascot/guide is a plus.

That's not a shot, that's just the 'easy to learn, hard to master' little gem that's been sought after since Tetris. You could also argue 'Casual Games' and be fairly accurate. Myself, I don't see that as bad because, again, you like what you like.

Couple that finding with the spike when mobile games were allowed into the ESA (a 5% shift in a two-party breakdown is massive) and it would seem to agree with that assessment.

So, final analysis, you wind up with Popcap or Zynga-type games dominating the female market place. MMOs tend to fare pretty well too, for similar reasons. Downside, such as it is, is that those games (not the MMOs) can be produced for literally around 1% of what the AAA games can take to create.

My take-away is that, whatever you want to say say about representation, I see it as both sides of gaming (again, as demographics) are getting the games they actually want to play, as opposed to the games they, or others, feel they should want to play. With the market seeming to work this way, I've found no real evidence that women, as a demographic, are really a viable market for the AAA industry.

There are good arguments for having more options for different experiences within the industry, and storylines centered around female protagonists would be an excellent way to achieve this. Myself, yes, I'd like to see more that way too. I just have to admit that I've seen little evidence of 'women as a market option for higher-end games' being viable, especially when they're already being catered to by an existing market.

 

[Ikaruga33]

Supply and demand.
Video games are a business.
People should make games that they want to make, whether for money or for their own personal satisfaction.

If you don't like it, don't buy it, or make your own game.

 

[VVThoughtBox]

I don't think that there's any real significance of female protagonist. So ,what if the main character of the game is a woman? It doesn't change the plot, or game play mechanics in any shape or form.

 

[Mr.Squishy]

It doesn't work that way. These people spend years of blood sweat and tears. Then get shat on because they missed up that person with a vagina. And potentially lose money. Yeah, not worth it.

then they are in the wrong buisness...

its funny how people will get angry and even volitile towards developers (see Bioware) but as soon as its in regards to a female issue its all Sympathy...

hoesntly have you ever criticsed a work to the point where you used words like "fucking" or "bullshit"? many of us have

when you create a thing and send it out into the world it is open to criticism, thats a fact of life and it is the right of the audience to critue art, its a FUNDAMENTAL part of art, you can and will get criticied for EVERYTHING

now as a creator what criticism you take on board or dismiss is based on a number of things, weather the crtiic has good points, weather they understand your work or missed something, your own values, how open you are to criticism

ultimatly [b/]what you decide to take on board or discard is up to YOU first and foremost[/b] Ubisoft can take the recent outcry and act on it, justify it...or do nothing, this is not the same as rape or violence threats eather

I wrote a story that had a trans person charachter ,no ones read it obviously as its in my notebook, but lets say it had an audience and somone had issues with my portraly of Trans people, not being a Trans person myself and not knowing any I should be open to what they say, I don't HAVE to agree with everything but if they have a point I can't refute then I'd change it...because then I LEANRED something and as I creator I'd be better for it...but aparently thats an awful thing for the poor developers

Would it kill you to not come across as though you're lashing out at others? It does nothing to support your position in the debate, and frankly makes you look like a bit of a jerk.
Now, that said, I see where you're coming from, but if I may bring up a tired old argument: video games are a business, made to sell units and rake in the dough, at the behest of suits in corporate boardrooms, and of course somewhat from the developers who need money to you know, eat.
I'm not necessarily defending what Ubisoft did, but people are likely to stick to stuff that works reliably, rather than chancing, even if there's a possibility of getting a higher reward out of it. And looking at franchises like CoDFieldofHonor, it would seem that homogenous games about growly-throated white men do quite well.
Now, listen, I'm just as fucking sick of playing generic teen-to-adult-brown-haired-white-male as anyone else, believe you me, especially if they're also the generic 'hero' type of character and especially if they're 'da chosun wan'. It's my #1 hated cliche character archetype.
I wouldn't mind more diversity in gaming.
That being said, I can't help but feel the movement for diversity seems to be going about things in a way I do not personally agree with, i.e., harassing content creators (Remember Puppeteer?), and advocating for changing established characters for the sake of tokenistic diversity, to the point of bordering on cultural appropriation (remember the Thor movie and how they cast Heimdall - described in legend as "The Whitest God" - as black? That offended a lot of people who believe in Åsatru/worship the norse gods).
Do you know what I would like to see instead?
FRESH IPs made with diversity in mind - original content, so to speak - not only because diversity would be great, but also because franchising has become frankly ridiculous these days.
I find that to be an appealing thought - instead of having to piggyback on pre-existing franchises, one could create new classic games to spawn sequels of, tailored to one's own liking.
Indie devs are already doing a lot of stuff like this, of course, but imagine having the full force of a larger team behind it. I suppose Kickstarter is a good way to fund this sort of stuff, given that that way publishers won't be hoovering up the profits and meddling with the product to make it 'appeal to a wider audience'.
I'm of course hoping AAA companies in the mainstream will do something like this sometime, but the world is yet to change that far, but I'm not disheartened - my impression is that the world is already changing at an amazing pace.
Given that, I'm wondering if constantly shouting at people that their vision doesn't have enough diversity is hurting more than helping, and making people resist if only because they don't want to be told what to do.

I'm really hoping that made sense, if not, I guess I'll blame the fact it's 6AM

 

[Riotguards]

the only real significance any protagonists gender plays in any form of media is who the media is aimed at, if it was for children you'd most likely get a female, if it was aimed at men you'd get a male

i feel its necessary to remember that a company should not be forced into providing a role for all forms of life i.e. white / black, female / male, gay / straight / lesbian, etc, etc, etc

if we accompany every group we'll have a mess of a game which would have a higher focus on a check-list than actual gameplay

 

[Lovely Mixture]

Ubisoft is a shitty company and they make shitty excuses for their incompetence, but SJW bullshit is retarded.

Rust's creator commented on this. People criticized Gary Neuman for saying he wouldn't include female avatars, they accuse him of excluding female players. In a game where all the characters are near naked, does one not see the potential controversy? I personally would be fine with it, but if he doesn't want to deal with the bullshit then fine.

Creators shouldn't be strong armed. But they should be called out on weak excuses like "too much work."