516 réponses à ce sujet

[Vicious]

The origin system didn't do jack for me, all it did was give me a bunch of different tutorials, some excellent, [dwarf noble] some utterly crappy [dalish elf]



I'm glad they CUT THE ORIGIN SYSTEM, because it means the MAIN GAME will be longer. woot woot

[syllogi]

Brass_Buckles wrote...

I'm not even arguing equality of marketing, just some representation, some acknowledgment that not all of the fans are male and, you know, those of us who are going to play the female character would probably like to know what she'll look and sound like before we buy the game.  We know it's probably going to be great, and we know that we most likely won't have a horrible in-game experience, but that isn't the point.  I've already said that I'll buy the game regardless, but I think a lot more female gamers could be brought in through advertising, and I'd also like to know a bit about that character that I'm going to be playing the most (you know, the curvy one who doesn't have a beard?)--like how her voice acting's going to be and who's going to be performing her voice, for instance--before the release date.

/Applause

I really wish anyone posting negatively about this topic would read statements like this one before posting. 

But I also wish that DA2 would have rideable horses and cloaks.

[zahra]

The last pile of statistics I read basically stated that females make up about 40 percent of the demographic. Thats a big chunk. If it was 15 % or 20 % I would understand this whole "We NEED to get the boys interested" thing, but since its a pretty significant amount perhaps a little fan service wouldn't be too much to ask for?

[ejoslin]

ReconTeam wrote...

Back in MY day there were only male player characters!

Hah, I remember the first console game I played with a female protagonist -- Phantasy Star with Alys circa 1987.  Before that, some computer games you could make your characters female, but they were such that it didn't really matter as you never saw your characters anyway.. 

[Onyx Jaguar]

I played Wizardry from 1981, you could havea n all female cast



ReconTeam must be talking about Space War!

[DespiertaLosNinos]

TeenZombie wrote...

But I also wish that DA2 would have rideable horses and cloaks.

Rideable cloaks?

[Eternal Dust]

troyk890 wrote...

I don't think the fact that its not a shooter makes the idea of an iconic character implausible. I think the problem is they're trying to make a normal looking guy an icon.

Look at all the icons in video games so far Master cheif has a shiny green suit, Kratos has his crazy red full body tatoo thing, Link has his green tunic ...Shepard is just some random normal looking dude.

Also, the game was announced today, there could very well be a femhawke trailer in the next few months.

Those "icons" come from games that are hardly RPG to begin with. The problem is not in trying to establish a "normal" looking icon. It's in trying to establish an icon in a game that doesn't need one because there are so many different possibilities for what the PC can be. You can't customize Master Chief, Kratos, or Link. Shepard is a sore topic because you CAN customize him/her. We're just hoping DA2 doesn't follow in ME's footsteps. And I personally hope that the DA team is more receptive to the community's concerns than the ME team was.

[ejoslin]

Onyx Jaguar wrote...

I played Wizardry from 1981, you could havea n all female cast

ReconTeam must be talking about Space War!

Wizardry was the game I had in mind when I said that.  Hah, IIRC, the only difference was you had an F next to your names rather than an M.  Gah, now I'm feeling old!

Modifié par ejoslin, 09 juillet 2010 - 03:11 .

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

ejoslin wrote...

Onyx Jaguar wrote...

I played Wizardry from 1981, you could havea n all female cast

ReconTeam must be talking about Space War!

Wizardry was the game I had in mind when I said that.  Hah, IIRC, the only difference was you had an F next to your names rather than an M.  Gah, now I'm feeling old!

Wow...those were the days. Nothing to tell what gender you were except for a little letter or symbol on your character page. *reminiscent sigh*

[Suron]

psssst...males are the core audience...pssst..males are the majority of gamers...psssst having a female protag as the emphasis of the advertising won't be as productive as using a male....



sorry not gonna happen...why would they do this when it'll make it appeal to LESS PEOPLE?

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

Didn't seem to hurt Tomb Raider's sales, Suron. It'd probably pull in even more male gamers.

[Brass_Buckles]

Suron wrote...

psssst...males are the core audience...pssst..males are the majority of gamers...psssst having a female protag as the emphasis of the advertising won't be as productive as using a male....

sorry not gonna happen...why would they do this when it'll make it appeal to LESS PEOPLE?

In my experience, guys like to look at pretty girls, even when the pretty girls aren't overly endowed in the chest and buttocks regions.  Besides this, no one in this thread (or at least not me) has suggested replacing all advertising using the male version with a female version.  We would merely like to include the female protagonist in marketing so that we, and other potential female gamers, aren't left in the dark.

I should also note that it appears Bioware has a higher than average number of female gamers in their community.  It is therefore not unreasonable to expect that they might want to advertise toward women.  Even given the notion that there are more male gamers than female, the female gamer market is also pretty much the fastest-growing gaming demographic.  (Don't believe me?  How many women do you know of who played games ten years ago?  I'd almost bet, not as many as you know of now.  And trust me, not all of them are casual or moderate gamers.)  It's also been said in one thread or another--and I have no means of checking the data--that about 40% of the gamers are female.  That's not really a huge gap.

You'd probably feel the same way if the situation were reversed.

[Uzzy]

It certainly didn't hurt FFXIII to have Lightning front and centre in the advertising, and on the cover.

[Asher Delampyr]

The marketing has just started, where does it say that furryHawke is going to be the only one advertised?

[Tootles FTW]

I don't mind them focusing on the male default Hawke, I just wish they would spend time on the default female's appearance. In ME the level of time they spent making default Shep (aka Sheploo) look unique/nice is miles above what they spent on default FemShep...who, in my opinion, looks like thrown-together crap.

[Wrathra]

I had no idea you could play a femshep in ME1, so I didn't get it til the end of 2008.  I didn't follow the forums and didn't read much on it because sci fi games aren't really my thing.  Everything I saw about ME1 was innundated with Sheploo and I won't buy a game where I can't play a female character on principal. 

My point is this marketing strategy can backfire.  I doubt they were hurting over my money, but I'm sure I'm not the only one that did this.

As an aside, didn't Jade Empire have a couple of the main characters on the cover, including Wu the Lotus Blossom and Furious Ming? I can't remember, but I seem to recall Wu being pretty prominent. 


edit: blah blah clarifying blah blah

edit #2: I see someone mentioned Jade Empire already.  Sorry.

Modifié par Wrathra, 09 juillet 2010 - 04:20 .

[Jimmy Fury]

David Gaider wrote...

octoberfire wrote...
You did fine with DAO's blood spatter dragon shape. Why have an iconic character at all on the cover, then?

I imagine it's considered beneficial to have a "face" for the game that is identifiable, part of the branding in the same way that a logo would be. The people who come here certainly don't need any help identifying what Dragon Age is-- naturally-- but then again they don't particularly need marketing in the first place. All you guys want is information.

meh stopped reading after this because I lack patience.

In that same identifiable train of logic wouldn't it therefore be more appropriate to stick with the blood-dragon design so as to continue the existing market face established with Origins and Awakenings? Suddenly going to a single-character cover would leave the drooling masses completely unaware of it's relation to
dem dere udder games what had dat big red dragin thingy on em.

Incidentally redneck looks a lot like german when you type it out... huh.

[Aroihkin]

DespiertaLosNinos wrote...

TeenZombie wrote...

But I also wish that DA2 would have rideable horses and cloaks.

Rideable cloaks?

Feck yeah, sign me up for that!

[M45t3R El1T3]

i think the best solution would be to put a sillouette on the box art of the main character not hinting towards either sexe while also including the rest of the characters.

[Felinu]

Wrathra wrote...

I had no idea you could play a femshep in ME1, so I didn't get it til the end of 2008.  I didn't follow the forums and didn't read much on it because sci fi games aren't really my thing.  Everything I saw about ME1 was innundated with Sheploo and I won't buy a game where I can't play a female character on principal. 

My point is this marketing strategy can backfire.  I doubt they were hurting over my money, but I'm sure I'm not the only one that did this.

As an aside, didn't Jade Empire have a couple of the main characters on the cover, including Wu the Lotus Blossom and Furious Ming? I can't remember, but I seem to recall Wu being pretty prominent. 


edit: blah blah clarifying blah blah

edit #2: I see someone mentioned Jade Empire already.  Sorry.

Right there with you.  I didn't pick up ME1 until after I'd played through DAO 5 or 6 times, and the male asked "wouldn't you like to try ME?"  I told him that my MMO experience has spoiled me, and I can't stand *having* to play a guy anymore.  "Uh, there's a female Shepard..."  Heh, barely managed to finish my first playthrough before ME2 came out.

The point of letting people outside the forums know that you play either gender is to *add* players.  I'd have picked up ME alot sooner if there had been a blurb on the back of the box that said somthing like "you can customize your character, including gender."  Maybe a screenshot?  Is this really so much to ask?

Do I already know I can play a female?  Of course I do, but this would be more for those that aren't already fans and don't already know.  New fans are good, yes?

[Savey Anchev]

Uzzy wrote...

It certainly didn't hurt FFXIII to have Lightning front and centre in the advertising, and on the cover.

Its a Final Fantasy game, it'd sell with a homeless man on the cover.

On topic. I really couldn't care less, because if their's one thing I've learnt from Bioware marketing over the last few years, is that they give WAY to many spoilers during their marketing campaign, after the first trailer I'm not watching anything else till I play the game. I want to enjoy it fresh for once!

[sidion77]

I'm a dude but I support the whole marketing of female characters. Obviously males make up a larger demographic in the gaming community but I couldn't see marketing a female presence detracting from sales to said demographic (except for those damn misogynists!). Anything that encourages female gamers is awesome in my book.

[joriandrake]

David Gaider wrote...

There's already a thread on this very subject, but I'll respond to it with my thoughts:

I'd love to see a female iconic character. I adore female action heroines-- maybe it's a Ripley fixation from watching Alien/Aliens when I was much younger, I don't know.

That said, I can kind of get why we might choose an iconic male character. For an RPG we're talking about putting forward a character that you'd like to be... and as much as a female player says that they can't identify with a male iconic character, if that's true it would also be true in reverse with a female iconic character for a much larger portion of the fanbase, no? You can't have it both ways and say that male players will enjoy looking at a female player character and don't need to identify with her.

I also suspect that if we did put forward a female iconic character (a la Aribeth) the response could easily be that we made her too sexy. A bit of "damned if you do, damned if you don't", perhaps. Hard to say, but we're going to always have to pick one, and the idea is to be eye-catching and sexy-- as opposed to politically correct. I'm no marketing guy, but that seems to be pretty much a given.

That said, I hope you enjoy the character and the game for what it is, rather than dwelling on what you perceive it might have been. You do get to play a female character, and as always we make plenty of options to accomodate female players in the game.

Hope that helps. Cheers!

as a male longterm rpg player I have to say I don't mind a girl on the cover, actually most of my main characters are female in rpg-s, so I would actually prefer a girl on the cover


but to be fair I know not everyone would like that, so Bioware, why not do as many others before you, and release a game with atleast 2 different covers?

[joriandrake]

Elithranduil wrote...

There you go. Pretty much confirmation that the only customisation will be determining his/her class and perhaps fine-tuning their human appearance. But even then I'm unsure how much Bioware will allow us to deviate from their poster boy/girl template.

actually it got fully confirmed that only human is an "option"



anyway, if we go out of Alpha Protocol, then the main character will have costumization option of eye and skin color, plus facial hair and hairstyle


also, I very much doubt we will have shades as option in this fantasy theme