311 réponses à ce sujet

[syllogi]

night0205 wrote...

Wow, you people are hostile. Males are the target audience. If you want to change that you'll have to start convincing more girls to care about deep, detailed fantasy video games... I know a few, but the majority HATE video games period, not to mention long rpgs.

Smart advertising does not alienate groups outside of the target demographic.  I'm not saying that if I see an ad for a game with an icky boy as the cover model, I will never, ever buy it.  I'm saying that if I saw advertising for a game that managed to include female characters...without making those female characters obvious objects of sexual desire for the consumer...I would be highly impressed, and more interested in checking that game out.

As far as females who enjoy RPGs, look around these forums.  Female RPG fans are well represented here, and they are usually like me, diehard fans who are interested in the things I mentioned, like customization, voice acting, and possible love interests. 

The complete blackout on all Female Shepard related information before ME2 was released was very disheartening.  I made this topic so we could address the issue in regards to DA2 as soon as possible, so that even if nothing changes, at least I can feel like I got a chance to speak up about it.

[Kreid]

kraidy1117 wrote...

Isabelle Mortello wrote...

Kraidy advised Male Shep and Fem Shep making out on the cover? Anyone Agree?

Can I approve my idea?

Yes, you can, only Shepard is on Shepard's level

[Ecael]

Mystranna Kelteel wrote...

Chris Priestly wrote...

You can play as a human male or human female character in Dragon Age 2.

Will you only see the human male in the marketing? I am not sure (we have many months to go yet) but I would guess that, yes, we will mostly use the male character for marketing. Why? Well, there are a lot of marketing reasons for this.

It is important to lock a recognizeable image into the mind of consumers. This is why companys create logos and create brand recognition. You see the goldern arches, you know it is McDonalds. The instant recognition that the image represents the product is very important. Changing the image causes confusion in the mind of advertisers, retailers and potential customers.

Another reason is that males are still the largest target audience for our type of video game. It is also proven data that males predominantly play or associate with a male character first. Hence, the male image. This does not mean that female gamers or male gamers who prefer to play female characters are less important, but they are a smaller consumer group. All marketing is always about attracting the largest group available.

There are a bunch of reasons why we do this in marketing and I know that it annoys some of our fans and I am sorry for this, but it likely won't change. I am confidant that our fans, being imo smarter than the average gamers, realize this and begrudgingly accept this. Evey game I do push to release female character images, screens, videos etc as BioWare does greatly value our "female PC first" audience and I plan to keep doing this for DA2.

Horsecrap.

This is exactly the same as with Mass Effect. You're going to be throwing this "iconic Hawke" down everybody's throats and it's going to cause more confusion than anything else. Hell, I've already seen a topic thinking Hawke is a male character only.

As much as I'd like to see the female protagonist on the cover (or both possible protagonists), your post isn't really isn't helping.

If you're going to respond like that, then it would probably be better if BioWare just ignores fan feedback entirely.

[Layn]

Isabelle Mortello wrote...

Kraidy advised Male Shep and Fem Shep making out on the cover? Anyone Agree?

isn't that sorta worse than incest?

[HoonDing]

Lord_Saulot wrote...

Personally, I would not mind buying a game with a female on the cover.  I don't think it is even that uncommon to have females on the covers of fantasy games (Dungeon Siege is an example of the top of my head).

Not when there is a fixed female protagonist : Beyond good & evil, Syberia, The longest journey, No one lives forever, Tomb Raider, Venetica... 

And plenty of those games didn't scare away male gamers, rather the reverse. 

[InvaderErl]

I just want to point out that the majority of that 40% of gamers are female figure that always gets posted around is made up of CASUAL gamers, things like the Sims.

What we do is considered hardcore gaming and the figure skews much more heavily male after that.

Modifié par InvaderErl, 08 juillet 2010 - 06:40 .

[Melra]

Quite large number of people buy the game in virtual form anyway, I haven't seen the cover nor do I care. Doesn't matter who is the front gal/guy of the game, as long as she/he kicks bottoms!

[Layn]

Melrache wrote...

Quite large number of people buy the game in virtual form anyway, I haven't seen the cover nor do I care. Doesn't matter who is the front gal/guy of the game, as long as she/he kicks bottoms!

it's not only about the cover. it's actually mosty about that all advertising and released info is directed at people who mainly play male characters

[tmp7704]

Chris Priestly wrote...

Shavon wrote...
Ok, so why not just use both versions of the default PC?  You guys did it for JE, why not ME, and DA?. . .

Now ask me how sales of Jade Empire went.

While at is, can i ask if the size of sales couldn't have anything to do with the game being quite widely criticized for being short, easy and with arcade'y combat which deviated quite a lot from what the RPG fans were used to and expected?

I mean, there must be some reasons why JE is very rarely mentioned compared to KotOR, Baldur's Gate and such (and when it is, it seems to be in context of "the combat sucked") and i somehow doubt this is all because of female character on the game cover...

For the record, i personally liked JE and adore the music it had. But the way you use it as argument seems bit disingenous here.

Modifié par tmp7704, 08 juillet 2010 - 06:46 .

[kraidy1117]

Isabelle Mortello wrote...

Crrash wrote...

Isabelle Mortello wrote...

Kraidy advised Male Shep and Fem Shep making out on the cover? Anyone Agree?

isn't that sorta worse than incest?

Hot, hot irony......I wouldn't say incest. 

[night0205]

People, with advertisement, buying a game is not just a conscious decision, it's a subconscious one as well. Having a single image of a character will make the game recognizable, and that consistency can be very attractive, because it will tempt you to maybe buying the game after you see the title a couple times, or if you see it at your friends house, or if you see the image on amazon. If they change between a couple images then it does confuse you, whether you think about it at all, it's all about recognizing what you're looking at, and what you are looking at reminds you of what you've looked at before. And guys are the major target audience, so the character will be a male. It's that simple. This is how advertisement works, some commercials try and being annoying so that you'll remember the name, some trailers try and be exciting so you'll think the movie is good, and the poster or cover is a single image that has to reach out to the general audience telling you a glimpse of what the game is about. I think, there is a hard core warrior guy, and a huge dragon, and it's called Dragon Age... so It's probably a fantasy rpg about this human guy fighting this huge dragon.

[Suron]

Maviarab wrote...

Suron wrote...

DraCZeQQ wrote...

/agree ... why its always a poster dude :F

because the majority of gamers are male.

while males like females...men protagonists are far more popular in our culture.

/thread

seriously.../thread..anything else said is tripe.

Ummm...wrong actually.....the split is almost more female gamers than male now, you know you really should keep up. Half of this site is female gamers for christ sake.....idiots...everywhere...I really must stay out of the main forums *slaps himself*

half of this site maybe.  it's a forum...here's a clue, moron, most people dont' bother with forums.

the majority of gamers are male..and what I said is factual...

what you're typing is idiotic.

but nice try ******

[Valmy]

Look it has nothing to do with women not being valued as customers or anything like that. Market research simply suggests having an iconic character is better and it is better if said iconic character is male. Bioware wants to sell games so they go with that research.



Market research does not suggest that having a male iconic character will in fact alienate the female market. If it had a large negative effect on a part of their market they probably would not do it but from what I can tell Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 were bought and enjoyed by women as well as men.



There is no reason to be insulted. Bioware is doing what is best for their sales. Now I do think that the website for the game and other promotional literature SHOULD make it clear to customers that you have the option to be both genders. That would just be in their best interests.



But in the end game is the real art here and that is what should be judged. If going for this iconic character look is what generates more sales without hurting the quality of the product I am in favor of it even if I am not the biggest fan of alot of Bioware marketing. It works though and I cannot argue with success.

[Behindyounow]

Isabelle Mortello wrote...

Guys won't buy a game because a female is on the cover?

Well looking at all the complaining in this thread it seems that Women won't buy this became because a man is on the cover.

Modifié par Behindyounow, 08 juillet 2010 - 06:44 .

[Damsel of Distress]

Behindyounow wrote...

Isabelle Mortello wrote...

Guys won't buy a game because a female is on the cover?

Well looking at all the complaining in this thread it seems that Women won't buy this became because a man is on the cover.

Nobody has said that.

[kraidy1117]

Shavon wrote...

And the trolls show up, Sorry TZ. I'm done unless it gets back to intelligence [cue for Suron to fawk off]

Calm down Shav!

[Mystranna Kelteel]

Ecael wrote...
As much as I'd like to see the female protagonist on the cover (or both possible protagonists), your post isn't really isn't helping.

If you're going to respond like that, then it would probably be better if BioWare just ignores fan feedback entirely.

My post isn't helping? I'm giving him valid criticism. And he's ignoring me already.

He likely won't respond to my thoughts at all because his 3 prepackaged lines of "having an icon", "avoiding confusion", and "lulz, males are teh moar numerous" have ben called into question and he doesn't have anymore prepackaged lines with which to counter these questions.

His reply here is virtually identical to his reply back in ME1 days. Except now half of his "points" don't make any sense, as I already pointed out.

[Finiffa]

Valmy wrote...
Market research does not suggest that having a male iconic character will in fact alienate the female market.

We women usually don't have much choice do we? Because 90% of those are male......so we have to suck it up or quit playing games.