311 réponses à ce sujet

[UndercoverDoctor]

Isabelle Mortello wrote...

night0205 wrote...

Guys if you have a girl (shephard) and a guy (shephard) in the same exact picture... People WILL get confused. They will play the game, and say, "hey where is the girl along with my guy on the main cover?" or "hey where is the guy along with my girl on the main cover?" Yes, that is exactly what will happen to people who just casually play video games.

Yeah.....because we are five years old.....

He's talking about the average consumer who is picking up a Mass Effect game for the first time. Don't play stupid.

[HoonDing]

[syllogi]

Box art isn't really the important thing here, at least to me. Personally, I prefer figurative illustrations, so even if Glowy-Eyed Tattoo-Faced Alpha Male Warden was the focal point of a cover for DA:O, I would have liked it, as long as the other party members, like Alistair and Zevran had been included.

At this point, I'm not asking for equality or parity in representing Female Hawke in marketing. I'm asking that she be seen AT ALL. I'm asking that once in a while, you throw fans of female player characters a bone, and put out a trailer focusing on Female Hawke. I'm asking that you give us information on her voice actor, let us see her animations and customization options, and tell us who her love interests are, and let them appear in advertising for the game also.

We are going to be sitting in this forum, soaking up any information put out by Bioware for months, if not years, while waiting for DA2. Why not appease some of your biggest fans, by acknowledging that we're here, and we matter too?

Modifié par TeenZombie, 08 juillet 2010 - 07:33 .

[crusader8463]

I too hope they go with a girl. Every time I see a Mass Effect promo with that dumb ass guy on it I need to stop and think to remember it's Mass Effect. I ALWAYS play a female character in my games and wish there were more female leads. It's never going to happen, but I wish they would.

[Dick Delaware]

TeenZombie wrote...

Based on the new Dragon Age 2 website and the upcoming Game Informer cover, we can already gather that Beard Guy is the new "cover model" for DA2.  After all this time, and all the patience that Bioware's fans who enjoy playing female characters have exhibited, are we going to have to go through this again?

Mass Effect fans who play female Shepards already have resigned themselves to never seeing anything but Male Default Shepard in marketing.  Those who followed Dragon Age: Origins before the game came out only saw female characters represented in a few pieces of concept art or posters, while the poster boy was a tough looking male character.

Along with not having a female protagonist represented in most of the marketing, I expect from past experience that any female-only love interests, or male party members in general, will also be minimized in videos or commercials, while at least one love interest for the guys will be featured prominently.  Am I way off base here?

Having a female player character be featured prominently in marketing won't change the content of the game when it comes out, but it would please those of us who play female characters extremely happy.  We usually hang around these forums looking for any tiny scraps of information about what to expect for our female PCs, and get very little, it would be so refreshing and gratifying to have a different experience this time around.

Honestly, I had hopes for more DA2, perhaps naively.  And please, before anyone accuses me of "whining", I guess I'm just an idealist who hopes that the powers that be might actually listen if we let them know that we notice these things and want a change.

That's pretty much it. You're an idealist. People who buy video games are mostly guys, so the marketing is naturally going to try and target that demographic. I'm an adult male and I personally don't give a sh*t or pay attention to this sort of stuff, but marketing works. The only way they'd feature a female protagonist prominently is if she had a ton of T & A. Otherwise, they'd just yet feature another dark and brooding male protagonist that looks badass / stoic. The game industry is incredibly risk-averse, so I wouldn't count on things changing any time soon. The only cover art I can think of with a female protagonist presented in a subdued manner without blatantly showing off her body a la Lara Croft, is The Longest Journey - that's pretty much it. Can't really think of anything else.

Hey, I'm with you, I really am. But the games industry is incredibly risk-averse and they spend a lot of resources marketing products to morons, so they aren't gonna suddenly going to change things up. Expect to see a lot more guys covered in shadows with tough expressions on their faces in the future. 

Although, I must say, I find the lumberjack beard on Hawke to be quite awesome.

Modifié par Dick Delaware, 08 juillet 2010 - 07:36 .

[night0205]

Back then, sometimes I think people put women on the front cover of fantasy games just for the breasts.

[n2nw]

Liso66 wrote...As for the cover art....  Really.. I do not care all that much!!! 

I agree, but I don't want it to totally suck.  I keep my games longterm and who wants to look at ugly/dorky covers?

That said, this pic rocks:

Ildaron wrote...

Created by Louvette.

Kewl.

[Liso66]

Isabelle Mortello wrote...

Liso66 wrote...

night0205 wrote...

Picky... Buying games base on story content... "Man am I a woman?"

Are you not certain? There are ways.... to check that is...  "chuckles"  Just teasing..

As for the cover art....  Really.. I do not care all that much!!!  Give me good gaming.. You can put the cooklie monster on the cover for all I care...

I understand......it's just the principle of it. Think of the Principle!!!!

There is that... I rather secure that we have more recognition with the story and dialogue though. We have to chose our battles aye?

Men face a lot of battles regarding women. We really are not the easiest to please.  

I call for a truce?

[UndercoverDoctor]

ReinaHW wrote...

I thought the covers for Mass Effect 1 and 2 were terrible, by having Sheperd as Generio Male on the cover it was a little offputting, if they had just placed the Citadel, the Normandy and some character outlines, then that would have been fine.

I loved the Jade Empire cover, it was beautiful and gave the Asian/Eastern feeling when looking at it, same with the KOTOR covers, they were very nice. And Dragon Age's red dragon on a white background was very striking, much nicer than the one shown for DA2.

Because it has a male on the cover? If that's your reason for thinking I see this thread isn't going anywhere.

[Atomic Space Vixen]

Chris Priestly wrote...

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

Those are the only options? Disappointing.

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.

You already have a recognizable image. The Blood Dragon. Heck, as I write
this, there's an image of it just to the left of the text window. When
I see that image, I think of Dragon Age. That's the connection that's
been made.
Having yet another version of "Iconic" Shepard is just... bleh.

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.

I'm sorry, but I see this as circular reasoning. "The largest audience is male, so we market a male character. We market a male character because the largest audience is male." I made this argument back with ME1, but unless the company markets to women, the ratio of men to women playing isn't going to change all that much. Instead of this route, however, Bioware seems to be insistent on growing its male player base instead of expanding by trying to attract more female players.

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.

Despite the ego-stroking, I can't and won't begrudgingly accept it. Begrudgingly accepting things isn't how social progress is made.

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.

After all my criticism, I'll end this post with an honest thank you for this.

[spottyblanket]

Speaking as a female gamer. I don't mind the poster being a dude. I really don't think it matters.

[mopotter]

night0205 wrote...

Did you guys know, that many women buy games because there is a sexy strong man on the cover? Ever think of that?

what game is this?  I may want to check it out.

[Malsumis]

Mystranna Kelteel wrote...
If he stopped reading after the first word then he should not be the community coordinator. Does he have such a delicate sensibility that one person accusing his prepackaged, trite, excuses of being horsecrap makes him so angry that he can't read on? And I'm pretty sure he did read the rest, as he felt the need to insult me by writing "blah blah blah" as a summation of my post.

And, yes, my post did have a lot more to it than saying "Horsecrap", though his post was horsecrap. All my points were valid, yet they were ignored, and on top of that he insulted me in the process.

His response to the OP made no sense and I provided the reasons why.

Use your head. Despite the tone of my post it was still providing valid criticism. I'm sick of their attitude and I'm not afraid to make that known.

Presentation is the key. You came off as an angry fangirl flaming his post. Don't be surprised when it get no response.

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.

Nothing 'horsecarp' about that post, if you know anything about marketing, you would know that what he said is true. Use your head, he wasn't talking about the DA franchise as a whole, but DA2. You know this.

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.

Again true, you might like to throw some numbers from random sites/or make up random numbers, but do you seriously think the marketers at EA a stupid enough to not know what the real numbers are?

Again I don't know what the fuss is all about. If bio continually showed female characters over male, I would not care in the slightest. As long as they made a male PC possible.

[Atomic Space Vixen]

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.

How did sales of Jade Empire go, and did follow-up research determine if those sales were a result of the cover or the game itself?

[zazei]

It's not just about who is on the cover. Really one major issue I have with this is that the only way we know for sure we can even play as a women in many cases is because we have played earlier Bioware games and even then in some cases there been serious doubt. As I recall none knew for sure if we had that option until the day of release for Mass effect 1.

Also while making the boxes the draw in other fans might work it's also true that same thing they use to attact people might put others who would be interested in the game off as well. Just look at the Dragon age trailers. I honestly had no intention of going anywhere near that game until well after the game was released and videos started popping up on youtube. If they marketed the game like it accually was instead of releasing action packed meaningless trash I would have brought it on day one.

Anyway I do get their point about marketing but not everything has to be released on a huge press conferance or exculsive in a video magazine. Sometimes if a dev could just give a quick overview on the forum and if there was 1-2 screenshots among the rest for us that would be enough for me.

[Mystranna Kelteel]

Malsumis wrote...

A) Presentation is the key. You came off as an angry fangirl flaming his post. Don't be surprised when it get no response.

Nothing 'horsecarp' about that post, if you know anything about marketing, you would know that what he said is true. Use your head, he wasn't talking about the DA franchise as a whole, but DA2. You know this.

C) Again true, you might like to throw some numbers from random sites/or make up random numbers, but do you seriously think the marketers at EA a stupid enough to not know what the real numbers are?

Again I don't know what the fuss is all about. If bio continually showed female characters over male, I would not care in the slightest. As long as they made a male PC possible.

A) Yep, presentation is key. That's exactly why I made it known that I was annoyed by this constant repetition of garbage excuses.

If they want an icon for DragonAge then they should use something that represents Dragon Age as a whole. They have the Blood Dragon, the title font, etc. Hawke is not an icon for the series. The excuse given for Sheploo was that they needed an icon for the series. Dragon Age Origins did not have this kind of icon either. They had different wardens for the CGI trailers and in-game footage, and the box art had a solitary figure in full armor. There's no reason some grizzled white-dude Hawke has to be the icon for DA2.

C) The fuss is that BioWare does not advertise their games for what they are, and their excuses for doing so are horsecrap. Not advertising what your game is causes confusion, as we've plainly seen many times over, yet they still claim shoving one single advertising character down everybody's throats avoids confusion.

If you don't care, fine. Step aside. Let those who do care discuss it and point out the nonsense in these prepackaged excuses.

Modifié par Mystranna Kelteel, 08 juillet 2010 - 07:52 .

[crusader8463]

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.

How did sales of Jade Empire went? And to save you some time you can't just blame having a female on the cover as the reason why the game did badly. It was a bad game that didn't look too interesting from the get go. I bought it and enjoyed it myself, but coming off the heels of something like KOTOR, and having played BG2 to death as a kid, I could hardly believe that Jade Empire was made by the same developers. I think Bioware tried something different and it didn't work out. Blaming it on having a female on the box is kind of silly when the game itself had so many problems.

As for the marketing mumbo-jumbo it's just that. I know all the reasons you guys justify doing what you do but it doesn’t make it any less infuriating for those of us who like female characters. Did you ever stop to think that if more companies tried to make females on their covers instead of males that over time people would become accustomed to it? I realize no one wants’ to be the first ones to stick their head out the gate and see what happens but there are ways to do it. Have a limited supply of boxes with alternate covers. Every time you release a screen of a guy release the same one with the female model. I understand that you’re trying to build an image in people’s minds but you can release both and let people choose which one they gravitate towards.

As for your comment about why dev's don't tell the truth, **** immature ass hat's like him. No matter what you say you're going to get retards like that who will **** about it no matter what you say. Just remember that for every one of them there are dozens if not hundreds of others that are grateful for the honesty. Having Developers that are open and honest about the game that I'm devoting hours of my life and tons of my hard earned money on make me want to keep buying their games and being a part of their communities. That's the reason I kept playing City of Heroes for over five years. Because I knew that if I went into the forums that I would actually find real information about the game and know what to expect and not this hiding behind marketing crap that everyone does in this day and age.

[wrexingcrew]

Atomic Space Vixen wrote...
I'm sorry, but I see this as circular reasoning. "The largest audience is male, so we market a male character. We market a male character because the largest audience is male." I made this argument back with ME1, but unless the company markets to women, the ratio of men to women playing isn't going to change all that much. Instead of this route, however, Bioware seems to be insistent on growing its male player base instead of expanding by trying to attract more female players.

Perfectly put. You'd think that part of the market - that is definitely playing games already, by the way - would be an appealing area for growth for Bio, especially since the sales data for the ME series shows that BioWare isn't breaking out into the current console market (those standard "male gamers" I assume Chris is talking about*) in a huge way. Maybe it's time to rethink the strategy of pursuing so-called "hardcore" male gamers at the active expensive of other demos. I certainly don't know, but I'm not convinced that it has to be a zero-sum game.

*In anecdotal evidence land, I will mention that I'm a console-owning male gamer that has zero problem with female protagonists, on covers or otherwise.

[250poundbeefcake]

In this thread: Feminists getting angry their not being equally represented on the cover art of a video game. LOL.

[Dreadstruck]

250poundbeefcake wrote...

In this thread: Feminists getting angry their not being equally represented on the cover art of a video game. LOL.

My advice?

[Mystranna Kelteel]

250poundbeefcake wrote...

In this thread: Feminists getting angry their not being equally represented on the cover art of a video game. LOL.

In this thread: people don't read the posts actually put forth and make ignorant claims as to what their content is.

[ReinaHW]

UndercoverDoctor wrote...

ReinaHW wrote...

I thought the covers for Mass Effect 1 and 2 were terrible, by having Sheperd as Generio Male on the cover it was a little offputting, if they had just placed the Citadel, the Normandy and some character outlines, then that would have been fine.

I loved the Jade Empire cover, it was beautiful and gave the Asian/Eastern feeling when looking at it, same with the KOTOR covers, they were very nice. And Dragon Age's red dragon on a white background was very striking, much nicer than the one shown for DA2.

Because it has a male on the cover? If that's your reason for thinking I see this thread isn't going anywhere.

No, it was just an ugly cover, for both games.  Just showing some generic male look to Shepard made the game look like yet another mindless shooter with a male only character and didn't show that the game was an RPG/shooter mix with a choice of gender and the chance to create the facial appearance of Shepard.
It's why just showing the Citadel, Normandy and character outlines would have looked nicer, made it look like less of another mindless shooter.