324 réponses à ce sujet

[Jexx21]

MaynPayn wrote...

Nyoka wrote...

MaynPayn wrote...

before I comment on your comment here I need to know where you have gotten the 2.4m and the 0.6m from?

Yes, I edited that part out (8 minutes before you posted, I should add--I'm not editing posts retroactively) but the forum won't update my post until two hours later or something xD It's something that happens in these forums, dunno why. I was making a what I think it's a reasonable supposition based on who posts in the Manshep and Femshep threads predominantly. I don't think it's too far-fetched to guesstimate that Manshep would be played mostly by men and Femshep by women. NOW NOW I KNOW THIS IS NOT ABSOLUTE. You don't need to tell me about that Femshep you have, I know, believe me. But to think that there is no correlation men/Manshep and women/Femshep whatsoever would be a contradiction to what we see in both Sheps' threads. There is a correlation, that can't be disputed. How strong is that correlation however is something we can't know, and that's why I edited that part out. I don't want you to respond to that part. I will stick to the percentages given by the ESA and the ME2 statistics.

I'm sorry, but I cant help myself to give you another generic response and say that the precentage might count really casual gamers as gamers, I mean like Angry birds casual or they they are playing WoW or a jrpg. I know lotsa female gamers that play WoW or some jrpg and that's as far as they immerse themselves into the world of gaming. I dont know. There's either something wrong with the numbers or there are something wrong with 50% of female gamers 

Or ya know, like CGG (CultureGeekGirl) and Shimmer Gloom have been pointing out, there's something wrong with the marketing.

I'm a straight 16-year old male. I play mostly femshep (I have multiple characters), and I normally play 50/50 male/female characters in other games if there is the option. Bur before I get in the game, I hardly even know if there is an option. There's a problem with that. You need more marketing for customization of your character, and you need to make your women/girls in games less of a sexual object. Hell, I don't really know any female gamers at my school. I sit with my friends who are mostly all gamers, and I hear crap about the latest generic shooter (I do play some admitedly, but it's useless when they all focus on MP, killstreaks, and K/D ratio. I focus on the SP (which most shooters suck with) and the teamwork of MP), the closest thing that I came to something reasonable was them talking about Fallout: New Vegas and Portal 2.  

I just feel that there would be a bigger diversity of gamers if we got some good marketing in there that's directed to both genders.

[MaynPayn]

It's nice to see you responding with a "Hey, your opinion sucks" instead of offering your own opinion on the matter :/

[MaynPayn]

Jexx21 wrote...

MaynPayn wrote...

Nyoka wrote...

MaynPayn wrote...

before I comment on your comment here I need to know where you have gotten the 2.4m and the 0.6m from?

Yes, I edited that part out (8 minutes before you posted, I should add--I'm not editing posts retroactively) but the forum won't update my post until two hours later or something xD It's something that happens in these forums, dunno why. I was making a what I think it's a reasonable supposition based on who posts in the Manshep and Femshep threads predominantly. I don't think it's too far-fetched to guesstimate that Manshep would be played mostly by men and Femshep by women. NOW NOW I KNOW THIS IS NOT ABSOLUTE. You don't need to tell me about that Femshep you have, I know, believe me. But to think that there is no correlation men/Manshep and women/Femshep whatsoever would be a contradiction to what we see in both Sheps' threads. There is a correlation, that can't be disputed. How strong is that correlation however is something we can't know, and that's why I edited that part out. I don't want you to respond to that part. I will stick to the percentages given by the ESA and the ME2 statistics.

I'm sorry, but I cant help myself to give you another generic response and say that the precentage might count really casual gamers as gamers, I mean like Angry birds casual or they they are playing WoW or a jrpg. I know lotsa female gamers that play WoW or some jrpg and that's as far as they immerse themselves into the world of gaming. I dont know. There's either something wrong with the numbers or there are something wrong with 50% of female gamers 

Or ya know, like CGG (CultureGeekGirl) and Shimmer Gloom have been pointing out, there's something wrong with the marketing.

I'm a straight 16-year old male. I play mostly femshep (I have multiple characters), and I normally play 50/50 male/female characters in other games if there is the option. Bur before I get in the game, I hardly even know if there is an option. There's a problem with that. You need more marketing for customization of your character, and you need to make your women/girls in games less of a sexual object. Hell, I don't really know any female gamers at my school. I sit with my friends who are mostly all gamers, and I hear crap about the latest generic shooter (I do play some admitedly, but it's useless when they all focus on MP, killstreaks, and K/D ratio. I focus on the SP (which most shooters suck with) and the teamwork of MP), the closest thing that I came to something reasonable was them talking about Fallout: New Vegas and Portal 2.  

I just feel that there would be a bigger diversity of gamers if we got some good marketing in there that's directed to both genders.

I'm sorry, but I knew she/he was going to dismiss any other opinion I had so I tried another one. I have already come to an conclusion for my own opinion on what should be done with the marketing even though there isn't alot of money to get out of a female centered marketing strategy.
Also about 90% of the reviews of ME2 showed some variation of a customized Shepard and I'll bet ya that a review with a very good score(like ME2) is going to pull more heads then a 90 sec customazation centered trailer.

So basically 100% of the gamers in your class are boys. Thank you for demonstrating precentages at it's finest.

Modifié par MaynPayn, 29 avril 2011 - 01:53 .

[Collider]

I don't think it would hurt sales if they would simply put "play as male or female" on the box. Who is going to be deterred by that?

I think it's perhaps a bit much to expect them to put female Shepard in the CG trailers now so far into the series, but some bits in the gameplay trailers/etc would seem plausible.
When they showed DA2 live to fans, they used female Hawke.

[MaynPayn]

I totally agree with Collider, the only thing I was against was an entire marketing campaign.

So can we put this to rest and scream at the developers for these simple things? I wanna pick up some chicks with ME3

[MGIII]

Shimmer_Gloom wrote...

Mass Effect needs to apeal to more than just the hardcore RPG crowd and they have been pretty successful in doing so so far. Its just that they can do better. I know they can.

What can you really do? No matter how you slice it, being able to choose a gender is bulletpoint material at most. It's a matter of where ME falls in the conciousness of the female gaming demographic.

Bioware is better off marketing the epic story, as they've been doing. And save niche interests like gender options for the back cover.

I cannot see any feasible way of marketing that option beyond the aforementioned without confusing people.

Modifié par MGIII, 29 avril 2011 - 02:46 .

[Aggie Punbot]

Collider wrote...

I don't think it would hurt sales if they would simply put "play as male or female" on the box. Who is going to be deterred by that?

Two problems with that:

1). That's not all that is being asked for.
2). Even if it was written in large bold text on the back of the box, people wouldn't see it unless that was the first thing mentioned, and being the first sentence on the box is not reasonasble. The first part of the description needs to be about the story itself and not the features of the game (which should be mentioned later).

If that was the only thing being asked for, I doubt anyone would have any issue with it at all. But what is being requested is a marketing strategy that has a very real chance of not only not attracting new gamers but actively turning them off. I suggest that people start pestering Bioware and EA Games about promoting a female playable character for any future IPs they choose to create (if playing as a female is even an option) but leave it alone for Mass Effect 3.

[CulturalGeekGirl]

TS2Aggie wrote...

Collider wrote...

I don't think it would hurt sales if they would simply put "play as male or female" on the box. Who is going to be deterred by that?

Two problems with that:

1). That's not all that is being asked for.
2). Even if it was written in large bold text on the back of the box, people wouldn't see it unless that was the first thing mentioned, and being the first sentence on the box is not reasonasble. The first part of the description needs to be about the story itself and not the features of the game (which should be mentioned later).

If that was the only thing being asked for, I doubt anyone would have any issue with it at all. But what is being requested is a marketing strategy that has a very real chance of not only not attracting new gamers but actively turning them off. I suggest that people start pestering Bioware and EA Games about promoting a female playable character for any future IPs they choose to create (if playing as a female is even an option) but leave it alone for Mass Effect 3.

Where do you get the impression that we are asking for more than this? The OP literally says 'I think letting new gamers know that there is a Fem!shep option, through a blurb on the back of the box or through marketing (like youtube videos and etc) can only help the franchise." Those are the only concrete suggestions in the OP.

ME1 had a picture of Femshep on the back of the box. There were also videos of a female Shepard if you can manage to find the horribly outdated ME1 website and click through to the gameplay videos section. But all of a sudden showing a picture of her on the back of the box and featuring her in gameplay videos, things that did not cause confusion when used in ME1 marketing, are a bad idea? Why are they confusing now, when they weren't in ME1?

I've added a few suggestions of my own I'll admit - I've suggested a very small scale webcomic banner ad campaign aimed exclusively at websites where the main character of the comic is a strong female and the readership is nerdy or gamerish. I'm not suggesting a major change in direction for marketing. I am suggesting a very minor push to specific markets, markets where the group of gamers who would likely be confused by a message of gender equality are very unlikely to be exposed to that push. I've designed this theoretical campaign very carefully, to avoid that specifically. Or do you think that ads running on Girl Genius and Johnny Wander for two weeks will pollute the message? If you sincerely believe that, I'm willing to concede... Just do the blurb, mention it on the website. Bring Female Shepard back to the level of presence on the box she had in ME1, and then simply mention her in one line of text on the box and on the website.

If I go to the Mass Effect 2 homepage right now, there is no indication that I can play as a female, or even that traditional RPG dialogue is part of the gameplay. If I click on "game info" the features list doesn't even reference character customization at all, not even a bullet point. There's not even a reference to "gender' or "female" in the FAQ. ME1's Game Information page is better at explaining the kind of roleplaying options available, but even it does not mention anywhere that you can play as a female. So one "easy way to fix all this" is to have a picture somewhere on the website front page that has a big, easily visible picture of Sheploo and then a smaller picture of a femshep with the caption "customize your character" or "play as male or female." There could also be a bullet point under Game Info that says "Customize your class, gender, and background!"

There's an assumption here that information about female Shepard is out there, but it took me over 20 minutes of searching the game's official website to find any evidence of her whatsoever. I had to go to ME1 to find even that, there is absolutely no evidence of her existence on the ME2 website. That is bad marketing, plain and simple.

Sure there has been a bit of pipe dream talk here and there about possibly getting a single-page ad in a shojou manga that features both male and female shepard, but we're not expecting that. Just a tiny picture, much smaller than ManShep somewhere on the website, or a line of text in the Game information section, or a blurb on the back of the box. All that stuff would help.

We're asking for 1-2% of the marketing to be directed toward a feature enjoyed by more than 15% of the fanbase, and the ways we've suggested would leave the main marketing approach largely unmuddied. Why is that unreasonable?

{A brief aside: I find it disturbing that the only line on the ME2 front page that shows any evidence of dialogue based roleplaying is this: "Control your conversation with physical moments of intense action." which just sounds like quicktime events, not like an awesome dialogue tree system.}

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 29 avril 2011 - 04:19 .

[JeffZero]

Control! *hic* Physical! *hic* Intense! *hic* Action! *grabs another beer from the fridge*

Now if only we could get rid o' them nancy words like 'moments'. *hic*

[Fiery Phoenix]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

MaynPayn wrote...

I see you guys really wanting this, but it seems more like if it were to be done, it would be to please 30-70 people. I could see it done as a cool gesture, but not a full marketing strategy.

I honestly don't care if they please me. They already have me. I already believe that Mass Effect 1 & 2 are, collectively, the best game ever made.

We don't want an ad campaign that shows a female Shepard to feed our egos, or validate us in some way. We want it to reach people like us, who are, as yet, unreached. I am being totally, straighfacedly serious when I say that I am saddened by the fact that I spent three  years of my life not knowing the wonder that is Mass Effect, when I could have been playing it. I'm not freaking kidding, here. I wish I had $1000 to spend on N7 Hoodies right now, to prove my point. I would have a wardrobe composed entirely of Mass Effect merchandise, if I had known about the game two years ago. I have never loved any game as much as I love this one. I have never fanned this hard over ANYTHING, in the history of me.

I'm saying there are probably thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of girls out there who play RPGs, but don't realize that Mass Effect is a heavily story-and-character-based RPG where you can play as a female commander who saves the universe (with optional romantic adventures). And yes there's some shooting in there, but it's actually not-that-scary. It's totally do-able, even if you've never played a shooter before. I used to be an anime fan. i'm not really one anymore, but having that background... helps. I've been in a convention center with 10,000 other girls, most of whom play games. I've seen them with my own eyes. talked with them. So I have evidence of their existence. I've been on a panel where two girls and a guy teach a mix-gendered room about the history of the Megami-tensei series. I've seen a girl spend hundreds of hours on a fan translation of a falcom RPG. These girls are hungry for stories.  They are hungry for heroes.

And they don't know about Mass Effect.

And that makes me SAD.

CGG speaks words of wisdom. I wish BioWare would look at it that way themselves.

[Xaijin]

MaynPayn wrote...

so that's what a marketing strategy/campaign is?!

People in marketing are morons, ranking up there with degrees in "modern pop literature analysis", you think I'm exaggerating, and I'm not.

[JeffZero]

I didn't pin CGG for some of the things she mentioned having been a part of. I'm not sure why, either -- it just hadn't clicked as a possible, er, 'backstory'.

Sounds eerily similar to some things I've been involved with, come to think of it. And you know... she's absolutely frelling right. There are a lot of them out there. And they have no idea.

[jakal66]

The problem is that you have to see this as the big picture...that yes a lot of women/girls/teens play this game and will play ME3 for sure,but if you could compare the number of men who play then yes, you would be surpeosed as to how many women play but still the male gamer would surpass them by a huge number.

That's why although they would benefit from more female players they're more worried about catching the average casual gamer because there is where the real difference is,I think we can agree that ME2(and I love this game a lot) was in a way changed to please that crowd to a certain degree adn probably succeeded.

At least you can be happy with the fact that they created a game(so did DA O) where the lead character can be a woman and have the same or for some people more impact and thus bring joy to that group.
So it would be strange to see the female advertised as strongly as Sheploo,although I agree that they could do it in a minor form that would be inexpensive but effective..but I don't see it happening

Modifié par jakal66, 29 avril 2011 - 04:42 .

[Hyper_gateway]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

I honestly don't care if they please me. They already have me. I already believe that Mass Effect 1 & 2 are, collectively, the best game ever made.

We don't want an ad campaign that shows a female Shepard to feed our egos, or validate us in some way. We want it to reach people like us, who are, as yet, unreached. I am being totally, straighfacedly serious when I say that I am saddened by the fact that I spent three  years of my life not knowing the wonder that is Mass Effect, when I could have been playing it. I'm not freaking kidding, here. I wish I had $1000 to spend on N7 Hoodies right now, to prove my point. I would have a wardrobe composed entirely of Mass Effect merchandise, if I had known about the game two years ago. I have never loved any game as much as I love this one. I have never fanned this hard over ANYTHING, in the history of me.

I'm saying there are probably thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of girls out there who play RPGs, but don't realize that Mass Effect is a heavily story-and-character-based RPG where you can play as a female commander who saves the universe (with optional romantic adventures). And yes there's some shooting in there, but it's actually not-that-scary. It's totally do-able, even if you've never played a shooter before. I used to be an anime fan. i'm not really one anymore, but having that background... helps. I've been in a convention center with 10,000 other girls, most of whom play games. I've seen them with my own eyes. talked with them. So I have evidence of their existence. I've been on a panel where two girls and a guy teach a mix-gendered room about the history of the Megami-tensei series. I've seen a girl spend hundreds of hours on a fan translation of a falcom RPG. These girls are hungry for stories.  They are hungry for heroes.

And they don't know about Mass Effect.

And that makes me SAD.

Well said CGG, well said~

Modifié par Hyper_gateway, 29 avril 2011 - 05:41 .

[lolwut666]

As long as it's not actually on the cover and just on the back, that's fine.

Imagine how dumb it'd look if that cover with Miranda, Thane and Shepard, for example, had a little FemShep head drawn on the corner, like those old comic book panels that were like "Also featuring..."

[Shimmer_Gloom]

lolwut666 wrote...

As long as it's not actually on the cover and just on the back, that's fine.

Imagine how dumb it'd look if that cover with Miranda, Thane and Shepard, for example, had a little FemShep head drawn on the corner, like those old comic book panels that were like "Also featuring..."

I can't decide if this is a dorky idea, 'the best idea ever,' or really insulting.  Good chance its all three.

Modifié par Shimmer_Gloom, 29 avril 2011 - 06:13 .

[Inspectre]

Nyoka wrote...

... Something isn't working here. Where are the rest of the women? Why aren't they buying this game, even when Femshep is, in terms of gameplay, animations, voice, and overall polishing, at the same level as Manshep?

Actually, the only similarity is gameplay.  Femshep's armor/cloth textures are much smaller (according to this man), and Hale outclasses Meer (250+ vs 25+ works)

Here's a couple comps,




Also, I don't think maleshep has this animation problem.

[mangiraffedog 000]

I've come to warn you about MAN-GIRAFFE-DOG!! It's the single greatest threat to humanity!! RUN AWAY!!

I'm still more Serial than ever guys.

[Captain Crash]

Its clear femshep has a massive fanbase and Bioware have created a great protagonist. It is a shame they have decided not to show her off as she is one the best ever in gaming because she is just that.

I feel sad Bioware have gone for this "Iconic" Shepard and have thrown her on the side. Although I understand why they went that direction I don't feel it was the right decision. Especially since so many people aren't aware that you can even play female till they get the game. Additionally all this male marketing makes people thing the way to play first is male. Which isn't the case. I played a male Shepard once then tried femshep. Everything about her was so much better in my opinion and just cant bring myself to play him again.


Anyway its clear that this thread has become more then just Marketing with animation (ect) being discussed. Anyway bit of a plug, but those wanting to help support femshep I have a thread below with listed improvements which a couple of the devs are currently looking at. Hope we get some answers to these other issues being asked:

http://social.biowar...5/index/7187121

[mangiraffedog000]

OK, there seems to be some confusion about Man-Giraffe-Dog on the forums, notably that it just looks like a Giraffe-Dog. Well... that's the POINT. Why do you think I'm the only one warning you. It's disguised as a Giraffe-Dog until it's ready to take over the world.
OK this is how Man-Giraffe-Dog came to be:


While growing up it was spotted in the wild (but the team was all killed by it and the photos were recovered afterwards)


After which it began its infiltration of humanity, disguised as Giraffe-Dog:


Which leaves us here. Man-Giraffe-Dog is poised to attack and destroy humanity and I'm trying to warn everyone before it's too late. This is totally serial guys. You need to prepare.

Excelsior!

[MaynPayn]

This sounds more and more like a "we want" thread camouflaged in a crusade for ME awareness.
Do you honestly think that we will be able to sway millions of girls with a face?

[CroGamer002]

With exception of maybe DLC screenshots you won't get FemShep in marketing because Bioware payed a lot for Sheploo face.

Modifié par Mesina2, 29 avril 2011 - 11:18 .

[lolwut666]

@FemShep fans

It's not a competition, yo.

[Shimmer_Gloom]

MaynPayn wrote...

This sounds more and more like a "we want" thread camouflaged in a crusade for ME awareness.
Do you honestly think that we will be able to sway millions of girls with a face?

Maybe.  I think it's worth a shot.  The fact that it's such a secret sure doesn't help at all.  And I betting you'll get more than just girls by letting people know there is an option.