805 réponses à ce sujet

[Lyssistr]

SebastianDA wrote...

I'm a gay male and I'm drawn to covers with scantily clad women on them, like the EverQuest elf in 1999, and Antonia Bayle for EQ2. *shrug* I enjoy female characters that can be sexy and bad ass, and metro guys that are more demure and helpless like Alistair. lol

Also, vanilla WoW's front cover, a little ugly he-dwarf and a big big she-elf.

[Ziggy]

Guns3 wrote...

How do you think when I see a Metroid or Laura Croft game? I'm deeply offended and find it extremely sexist there is no male counterpart.

I know, right? Why can't we have a game where we get to stare at a really hunky guy's body while he does suggestive acrobatics?

[erilben]

How does these generic white males make good logos? They said that Sheploo is like Mario, but that doesn't make much sense. Sheploo is generic bald space marine that could belong to any FPS. Mario is unique and is harder to be confused on who he is.

[iTomes]

"don't tell me people will demand me to get banned because anime support too"



well when im thinking about what already happened in this forum....^^

[Hawksblud]

Saibh wrote...

Hawksblud wrote...
To all those asking, why does representation matter? I would direct you here:
http://yuki-onna.liv...com/450101.html
She puts it far better than I could.

I think she's being just a teensy bit melodramatic. /runhides

...

I think that some of her points go a long way to word something I struggle to, but at the same time, I think she's taking some things just a little too harshly, and seeing them from only one angle--that not being represented means that the developers hate us, and for no other reason. Some of what she says is I'm so pleased to read, since she puts it in a much more eloquent, well-thought out fashion than I ever could, but I still think that any guy reading that would sort of roll his eyes. I know I did.

Oh, undoubtedly it's somewhat melodramatic, not to mention it was written in response to a different issue which had little to do with the gaming medium. (No need to hide! This is an open discussion, after all.) However, I think it goes towards expressing the frustration that is common to women or other minorities facing this kind of issue. Personally, I do not believe the devs are doing this intentionally, so to speak (though they are ultimately still responsible for their actions). As I said earlier, it's part of a larger problem, which is common perception of female characters versus male characters. And I believe that it would be relatively easy for the devs to release one or two screenshots of a non-white female Hawke, which could go a long way towards combating the invisibility fans feel when they are not represented.

Otherwise it is easy to feel that you are not 'good' enough to be a Warden/Hawke/Hero/Etc. That somehow, women/ minorities/ GBLT cannot be heroes, cannot be strong self-assured characters who kick ass, save the world, and look good doing it. Or simply, that the majority of gamers do not want to be represented as a woman or as a minority or as a homosexual, because there is something intrinsically wrong or uncool or weak or whatever in being in one of these categories. That it is vastly preferable to be white, straight, and most importantly, male.

THIS is what we have a problem with.

Modifié par Hawksblud, 22 juillet 2010 - 05:09 .

[Guns3]

Javierbegazo is pretty much the best mod.

Modifié par javierabegazo, 22 juillet 2010 - 05:12 .

[javierabegazo]

Nice post Hawksblud

[Guns3]

Em23 wrote...

Guns3 wrote...
How do you think when I see a Metroid or Laura Croft game? I'm deeply offended and find it extremely sexist there is no male counterpart.

I know, right? Why can't we have a game where we get to stare at a really hunky guy's body while he does suggestive acrobatics?

We should've seen this coming. It all started when they took out Captain Falcon's nipple spikes in brawl

[Lyssistr]

javierabegazo wrote...

It's because they feel they are not 'acknowledged'.   But the hard facts are that male gamers are simply a larger crowd than female gamers and as such, is mainly going to marketed to them. I don't see why there's any reason to take offense

Honestly, I'd be interested to hear if Bio has done a survey on what the dominant crowd wants, while the result can be opposite to what I think it would, I'd expect a female character to prevail. I know it does when I play computer games and similarly it does when people I know in person play.

Modifié par Lyssistr, 22 juillet 2010 - 05:14 .

[javierabegazo]

Lyssistr wrote...

javierabegazo wrote...

It's because they feel they are not 'acknowledged'.   But the hard facts are that male gamers are simply a larger crowd than female gamers and as such, is mainly going to marketed to them. I don't see why there's any reason to take offense

Honestly, I'd be interested to hear if Bio has done a survey on what the dominant crowd wants, while the result can be opposite to what I think it would, I'd expect a female character to be prevail. I know it does when I play computer games and similarly it does when people I know in person play.

I personally would rather want a Female character. Even with Mass Effect, my canon shepard is female, I consider her to be Commander Shepard, the rest are just clones to see the rest of the dialog/ silly sheploo animations

[Hawksblud]

javierabegazo wrote...
Nice post Hawksblud

Thank you.  I have to admit that I've seen this issue be debated over and over again, in many different forms, and it never seems to get any easier.

[The Hardest Thing In The World]

Sensationalism, this is what this thread is all about. I can't really believe you're bothered by just a few pictures of a male warrior.

[Riona45]

The Hardest Thing In The World wrote...

Sensationalism, this is what this thread is all about. I can't really believe you're bothered by just a few pictures of a male warrior.

I guess you didn't actually read anyone's posts?

[Ziggy]

Lyssistr wrote...

javierabegazo wrote...

It's because they feel they are not 'acknowledged'. But the hard facts are that male gamers are simply a larger crowd than female gamers and as such, is mainly going to marketed to them. I don't see why there's any reason to take offense

Honestly, I'd be interested to hear if Bio has done a survey on what the dominant crowd wants, while the result can be opposite to what I think it would, I'd expect a female character to prevail. I know it does when I play computer games and similarly it does when people I know in person play.

Also most data on the net says the male/female gamer ratio is around 60/40. That's not an insignificant minority I would have thought.

[Hawksblud]

The Hardest Thing In The World wrote...

Sensationalism, this is what this thread is all about. I can't really believe you're bothered by just a few pictures of a male warrior.

The heart of the issue is not that we are bothered by the pictures of the male warrior, nor that we are trying to encroach upon male representation. What bothers me, at least, is the omission, the lack of a female counterpart. It is the empty space which I find dissuading. We are not asking that the man on the advertising be replaced with a woman, but that he be joined by a woman.

[Chairon de Celeste]

If it wasn't for this 1 and the older thread I wouldn't remember by
now if  if there was a male Hawke on the pre-alpha box-art
or a genlock  performing  a tribal darkspawn dance.

The dragon with the human(oid) shapes is significant
enough to stay in mind - as is the properly steamed
up Lady Hawke on our community'artist's officially
unofficiual alternate cover concept art and her excellent
armor (no longer a female R2 D2 without the soup bowl
helmet would be something for heavy armor in DA2)

[GodWood]

I'll throw in my quick 2 cents.
I absolutely despise the standard generic male most companies tend to market their games with (I look at Sheploo and I want to smash his face in with a shovel).
However what I hate more is games with a female lead who is rediculously over sexed (skin tight/no clothes, G-cup breasts, pouty lips etc) and that is more than likely what would be markerted if they had Hawke marketed as female.

In all honesty though, I don't mind the default Hawke.

Modifié par GodWood, 22 juillet 2010 - 05:28 .

[Hawksblud]

Em23 wrote...
Also most data on the net says the male/female gamer ratio is around 60/40. That's not an insignificant minority I would have thought.

I would add that even if women made up a scant 10% of the gamers, it would still make sense that one or two screenshots be catered exclusively to them-- far less than 10% of promotional material. If a game sells a million copies, and one hundred thousand of them are sold to women... well, that's enough revenue to justify a couple screenshots, eh?

[London]

I'm in the middle of the road on this issue.



1. Recent survey studies published usually show that the number of women gamers are on the rise. I think I googled "number of women gamers" and saw that for some types of games, women gamers make up 2/3rds of the gaming population for easier online games. As far as PC/console games, women are more represented as consumers than in other genres. So, while I'm about to go to bed and will not research this, I do know that there are more women followers of RPGs than other genres like Shooters or Fighting. I'd be curious how that breaks down.



So, while males are probably still a majority, I'd question by how much. My Dragon Age/Alistair fan club of a few thousand members on Facebook is almost all women. I'm surprised to read that these real life women also play "manly" games that I have no interest in at all. There were also a large number of women in all of the MMO's I've played. Roleplay MMO guilds were sometimes 75% women (who even got on vent, etc.)



So, I think even if they are still a minority of sorts, they aren't such an unimportant demographic that RPG's shouldn't want their attention.



2. A lot of RPG's tended to have gender-neutral marketing and logos. Final Fantasy just usually has some sort of crystal logo. The heros of the games were typically male with weaker female support characters, but in the last decade, this has shifted towards alternating between male and female protagonists. Well, even Terra and Celes were really the main protagonists of FFVI and that came out way in back in the 90's and that game did exceptionally well for its time.



I think while the game is in development, they are just using the same generic Hawke both because it's avaialble and because they are trying to be consistent so people know in any given marketing photo it's "Hawke" we are looking at. I'm not really put off by this - I don't really find this vision of Hawke to be appealing at all. He's not the metrosexual Hawke I plan on making. But, I'm not going to rally for different Hawkes because I'm interested in the game either way.



3. Other characters/companions will be revealed in time. Right now a lot of attention is being given to Cassandra/Bethany/Flemeth, all female. I'm not even aware of any male characters in the game except male-optional Hawke. I'm sure something was posted about them, like the "Dwarf Narrator", but nothing compelling enough that resonates in my memory. Only women. I do think women ARE being represented in the marketing campaign so far. Even if it's not female-Hawke.

[David Gaider]

Hawksblud wrote...
Oh, undoubtedly it's somewhat melodramatic, not to mention it was written in response to a different issue which had little to do with the gaming medium. (No need to hide! This is an open discussion, after all.) However, I think it goes towards expressing the frustration that is common to women or other minorities facing this kind of issue. Personally, I do not believe the devs are doing this intentionally, so to speak (though they are ultimately still responsible for their actions). As I said earlier, it's part of a larger problem, which is common perception of female characters versus male characters. And I believe that it would be relatively easy for the devs to release one or two screenshots of a non-white female Hawke, which could go a long way towards combating the invisibility fans feel when they are not represented.

Otherwise it is easy to feel that you are not 'good' enough to be a Warden/Hawke/Hero/Etc. That somehow, women/ minorities/ GBLT cannot be heroes, cannot be strong self-assured characters who kick ass, save the world, and look good doing it. Or simply, that the majority of gamers do not want to be represented as a woman or as a minority or as a homosexual, because there is something intrinsically wrong or uncool or weak or whatever in being in one of these categories. That it is vastly preferable to be white, straight, and most importantly, male.

THIS is what we have a problem with.

I'm trying to picture what a single character would look like which would be politically neutral enough to be representative of everyone playing the game, appeasing those who feel the character should be female yet also attractive enough without being exploitive to appeal to the male audience and of a race that doesn't make anyone feel left out. It's not easy.

Not that I think there isn't a point here-- certainly these things deserve to be considered, as the issue of privilege is a touchy one (I think I just used that word in the same-sex romance thread... I have to be hitting my limit by now) but at some point trying to construct a character based primarily on minority profiling seems a bit futile to me. I don't doubt some amount of marketing went into the image you see-- they wanted a single recognizeable "face" that a player could identify with-- but I also suspect that the largest part is simply that the artists wanted to create someone they thought was cool.

A femHawke would be nice to see, though, and I doubt there's any harm in asking for one.

Modifié par David Gaider, 22 juillet 2010 - 05:28 .

[javierabegazo]

Hawksblud wrote...

The Hardest Thing In The World wrote...

Sensationalism, this is what this thread is all about. I can't really believe you're bothered by just a few pictures of a male warrior.

The heart of the issue is not that we are bothered by the pictures of the male warrior, nor that we are trying to encroach upon male representation. What bothers me, at least, is the omission, the lack of a female counterpart. It is the empty space which I find dissuading. We are not asking that the man on the advertising be replaced with a woman, but that he be joined by a woman.

I see what you mean, but it creates a more concrete image by having a single face of a game, rather than two halves.

[Deviija]

Hawksblud wrote...
Definitely. Discussion raises awareness, which hopefully in turn will cause action. I think visibility is very important when it comes to changing perceptions. If a thing cannot be ignored, well, then you actually have to think and do something about it.

Absolutely.  And this is the main reason why I joined the BioForums all those years ago and began posting daily, to give (another) voice and name on matters of concern.  Visibility matters and it goes a long way in changing perceptions.  These things do matter.

[Lyssistr]

javierabegazo wrote...

I personally would rather want a Female character. Even with Mass Effect, my canon shepard is female, I consider her to be Commander Shepard, the rest are just clones to see the rest of the dialog/ silly sheploo animations

Only Bioware games I played as male were the BG series but again, you can barely see your character in BG. In the wow server I was playing like 90% of toons were female and my guess is that most players were male.

 I see this Megan Fawkes protagonist campaign gathering momentum!

 

[Ziggy]

GodWood wrote...
In all honesty though, I don't mind the default Hawke.

Neither do I. I do mind that we haven't seen default Lady Hawke yet though.