Will people really not buy Brink because there are no females?

[penguindude42]

Three words:

TITS.
OR.
GTFO.

We wanna see boobies jigglin' around while we shoot stuff, dammit!

-TOM

 

[Furioso]

Nah I wont be getting it because the reviews are SEVERELY mixed, no way I'm sinking money into something that is that much of a risk

Edit: I must have glanced over your point of NOT answering in the way I just did, but I think it's a dumb move to not include females for this very reason, if you do something like this someone will always complain, no matter how little the problem actually matters, I personally don't really care, there's no females in Team Fortress either as far as we know (verdicts still out on the pyro) and I don't remember anyone complaining about that

That game wasn't spewing about how awesomely costumizable it was.

TF2: No choices.
Brink: Basically unlimited choices, unless you want to be a woman. I think that's ridiculous.

Yea you have a very valid point there, I do think its ridiculous, I just don't think it is so ridiculous that people wouldn't buy it even if it was a good game, but apparently its not, so its a wash

Oh and purely for the sake of argument, TF2 is customizable, with all sorts of fancy hats!

 

[Furioso]

Nah I wont be getting it because the reviews are SEVERELY mixed, no way I'm sinking money into something that is that much of a risk

Edit: I must have glanced over your point of NOT answering in the way I just did, but I think it's a dumb move to not include females for this very reason, if you do something like this someone will always complain, no matter how little the problem actually matters, I personally don't really care, there's no females in Team Fortress either as far as we know (verdicts still out on the pyro) and I don't remember anyone complaining about that

That game wasn't spewing about how awesomely costumizable it was.

TF2: No choices.
Brink: Basically unlimited choices, unless you want to be a woman. I think that's ridiculous.

Yea you have a very valid point there, I do think its ridiculous, I just don't think it is so ridiculous that people wouldn't buy it even if it was a good game, but apparently its not, so its a wash

Oh and purely for the sake of argument, TF2 is customizable, with all sorts of fancy hats!

 

[Danceofmasks]

I heard some people saying they're not buying the new Mount and Blade 'cos you can't play a woman.
I'm personally not playing it 'cos being randomly one-shotted by a rifle, which the vast majority of armies have, is ridiculous.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

Honestly, you can't even see it. Its in first person.

So is Fallout 3.

If a game has a static main character, like Just Cause 2, God of War, Halo, or whatever, then it's fine to not have a female playable character - that's just who the game is about.

If a game has a customization system, there is no excuse. They have been bragging about how many characters you can create, and it's some ridiculous number. If you have time to do all of those, you have time for a female model.

When I play games with customizable characters, I always play female. Always. There aren't enough female characters, but I suck it up most days - not in a customizable game. Those are the few times I can actually have a female lead. If a game with a customizable MC has no female option, I'm not buying it. End of story.

 

[gigastrike]

Name one woman in Modern Warfare 2...exactly.

 

[Biodeamon]

Yes, they probably will. Females can get really peeved when they feel they`re being offended. Why do you think they bothered to have a female charecter like Rochelle in L4D2?

Personally, i'm not buying it. I'm not quite intrested in every single game that tries to one up their predecesors by tweaking combat a little more.

 

[Chemical Alia]

Yes, they probably will. Females can get really peeved when they feel they`re being offended. Why do you think they bothered to have a female charecter like Rochelle in L4D2?

Personally, i'm not buying it. I'm not quite intrested in every single game that tries to one up their predecesors by tweaking combat a little more.

As opposed to everyone else, who don't mind at all when offended by something, lmao.

Personally, I'm not buying it either. Because my arm is in a cast for the next three months.

 

[powell86]

If they're marketing their game not around how good it is but how customisable your character is, then they don't include one of the two genders on Earth, I am not convinced to open my wallet.

I really have to quote this part and just say this is the bulk of the argument for the notion of not buying Brink and, to be honest, it's a reasonable conclusion. You could argue until your face turns blue that they would of had to rebuild the game to include females and blah blah blah, but for the developers to forget roughly 50% of the human population in one fell swoop is an insane idea, especially if you do it by limiting the customisation option to not allow it. It shouldn't be rebuilt to accommodate this option, it should of been there in the first place.

Honestly, I do not think there are many girls crying that they cannot choose female characters in Brink. Rather, it seems to me that the people whining about lack of female custom-ability are male players wanting to cross-dress.

The more I look at it, the sicker the thought sound. Seriously? Guys? Why are you crying cuz you can't dress like a girl now? Goodness...

 

[OManoghue]

There are no females in TF2 either, well playable ones. I personally won't be picking it up just because nothing tickled my fancy.

 

[MAUSZX]

I'm not buying it because i just don't want to. It doesn't get to me

 

[Riobux]

Honestly, I do not think there are many girls crying that they cannot choose female characters in Brink. Rather, it seems to me that the people whining about lack of female custom-ability are male players wanting to cross-dress.

The more I look at it, the sicker the thought sound. Seriously? Guys? Why are you crying cuz you can't dress like a girl now? Goodness...

It's a little more complicated than that to be honest. You have to keep in mind that the majority of gamers are males, and they're usually the ones yelling. However, there are quite a few female gamers that are actually put off buying Brink just because of the lack of a female option. I ended up finding out about the lack of an option to be female due to a female gamer I know on another forum. You also have to remember that cross dressing and making a female character are completely different. One is a perceptional choice of their own gender identity, and the other is the wish to have an alternative persona. After all, I doubt you're going to make a character that looks exactly like you are. One of the major appeals of gaming generally (not just computer gaming, but also other types like table-top gaming) is escapism, and creating a persona is one major way people achieve this.

 

[KiraTaureLor]

If they're marketing their game not around how good it is but how customisable your character is, then they don't include one of the two genders on Earth, I am not convinced to open my wallet.

I really have to quote this part and just say this is the bulk of the argument for the notion of not buying Brink and, to be honest, it's a reasonable conclusion. You could argue until your face turns blue that they would of had to rebuild the game to include females and blah blah blah, but for the developers to forget roughly 50% of the human population in one fell swoop is an insane idea, especially if you do it by limiting the customisation option to not allow it. It shouldn't be rebuilt to accommodate this option, it should of been there in the first place.

You could then argue that Call Of Duty allows you to customise your character, but there is no female option, however there is a very fundamental difference between Brink and the Call Of Duty series: Customisation. The former is incredibly big on the idea of being able to customise your person and your guns to a stupid extent, and the later just has bare-bones load-out options where your only option is to choose guns and perks. If you want to compare Brink to another game which has a very similar marketing point, feel free to compare it to All Points Bulletin. Imagine APB with only male characters. Notice how the exclusion of female characters from APB would not only cause major criticisms of the game, but also undermine all the marketing for it's very nice, but heavy, character creation tool.

I'll also mention this: This is a game where you can customise your guns including a lot of skins and physical modifications (with one pre-order bonus pack allowing you to put a coke can silencer on), but you can't be a female character. This is like, using the APB example from before, removing the female character option but allowing you to customise the physical appearance of your jeep so it can have racist, homophobic and sexist language all over it in a multi-coloured rainbow font (which was very much possible and happened a lot). It still astounds me that Brink got past the ideas phase without anyone mentioning "wait, what about females". More likely, it happened on a coffee break with one of the higher ups saying in response "what about them?" before going off to steal the last doughnut and putting the rest of the coffee into a flask for himself. Maybe there was some high-fiving as well among the company elite, and series of events occurred which sounds almost like a Mad Men episode.

However, back to the topic. To not acknowledge a female audience (which is clear) in a game that encourages customisability is forgetful at best and sexist at worse. It just seems amateurish and I can't help but feel that it's really one small thing (and yes it is before anyone chirps in) that could of avoided all this drama. I'm also willing to bet some reviewers would of been a bit more lenient.

Both of these comments are right, and also to note that in COD you are playing a defined character, the ones in the story mode.

Honestly, you can't even see it. Its in first person.

Probably not a good idea to market it based off how customizable your character is, then.

Yeah, if you can't see the character, then why customize it in the first place?

 

[Ninjat_126]

Brink hasn't got female characters because...

1. Most multiplayer FPS gamers are guys. (Don't flame, it's true in most cases.)
2. Adding female customisation options would extend the production time by ages and possibly mean that some other features (like gameplay) would have to be cut to keep it under budget.

Everyone saying "Armour is unisex, you don't need to make female armour skins" has completely missed the point. If you give the female body models male armour models, they will look like guys with female faces. So yes, you do need to change the clothing models as well as the character models.


I believe they said somewhere that they were going to put female models in from the start, but cut them out when they realised that that would extend the dev time and be really hard and expensive.

Also, remember Spore? That game was entirely based around character customisation. In fact, that was the only good thing about it. Did you hear anyone whining about the lack of female character models?

tl;dr: Brink not having girls is lazy, but so is not building a skyscraper out of toothpicks. You can do them both, it's just hard, takes ages, and won't really effect the majority.

 

[loodmoney]

Oh hey, another Brink/sexism thread that directs a question mainly at the people on the huge Brink/sexism thread yet does not link itself to said Brink/sexism thread. I suppose you could head over there and see why people think it is wrong that the game excludes women, so I won't repeat that argument here.

I'll keep it simple, and just answer the title question. I am a man. I will not be buying Brink, because there are no females. I do not like the men's club mentality of games in general, FPSs in particular, because that is embarrassing. That is sexist. That is shit.

That is all. Good day.

 

[Watchmacallit]

There's a perfectly good reason why women weren't inserted. Did people realise there's a Tank class? I have never seen a woman that looked like that.

If they did insert females it would become one of those games where the light class has to be female, medium would be both and tank could only be male.

Also, if they did put them in they would probably be called sexists for having them wear small amounts of clothing just like the guys you can customise.

*I assume that since half the guys wear not tops the women wouldn't be walking around in winter clothing*

 

[powell86]

*snip

And thats exactly what I think is wrong. E.g. why is creating a FEMALE persona such a big motivation for these group of male gamers? If these gamers refuse to buy the game due to the fact that they cannot be a girl in game, then the corollary is true. E.g. they will buy the game becuz they can be a virtual girl.

I mean, yeah escapism is good, and I do have female characters in WOW and other rpg games, but having a girl skin is not my primary motivation. If it is the primary motivation for these people, imo they haf issues.

 

[ILTE7]

Whereas not buying the game purely due to the lack of a female character option is not the greatest reason to opt out of something, people do need to vote with their wallets when they feel strongly about things.

The lack of women as characters is a huge oversite by the devs on a game that prides character customisation.

Hmmm, guess folk gotta do what they feel they must. Devs will only learn if their poor decisions affect sales.

 

[ILTE7]

*snip

And thats exactly what I think is wrong. E.g. why is creating a FEMALE persona such a big motivation for these group of male gamers? If these gamers refuse to buy the game due to the fact that they cannot be a girl in game, then the corollary is true. E.g. they will buy the game becuz they can be a virtual girl.

I mean, yeah escapism is good, and I do have female characters in WOW and other rpg games, but having a girl skin is not my primary motivation. If it is the primary motivation for these people, imo they haf issues.

I agree, they need to provide an argument for why playing as a girl compells them, beyond any appeal to voyerism or the perverse.

T & A is all good I guess, but chosing to rock a female avatar has to be grounded in more IMO.

I will always play as a girl. I have many reasons of which it would be too long to expound upon here. lol

 

[Riobux]

And thats exactly what I think is wrong. E.g. why is creating a FEMALE persona such a big motivation for these group of male gamers? If these gamers refuse to buy the game due to the fact that they cannot be a girl in game, then the corollary is true. E.g. they will buy the game becuz they can be a virtual girl.

I mean, yeah escapism is good, and I do have female characters in WOW and other rpg games, but having a girl skin is not my primary motivation. If it is the primary motivation for these people, imo they haf issues.

Who is to say that the primary motivation of these people is the ability to be a female? Not to mention, some of said gamers who are not buying the game are actually female, so that needs to be recognised. There are also a group of people who likely believe in equality to the point where the inability to make a female is off-putting just because it's generally unfair. To compare it to another game, I admit I was very put off Bayonetta due to what I thought was needless sexualisation. You're really asking someone who is planning to get the game, but acknowledges there are some serious issues for the developer to ignore an entire sex, to tell you the mind-set of other males who plan not to get the game due to this issue. In other words, you expect mind-reading. You also seem to make a bizarre judgement on males which the ability to make a female characters matters to, which is a mass generalisation at best and a mindless stab in the dark based on your own personal views on what persona people should be at worst.