173 réponses à ce sujet

[Clonedzero]

Boiny Bunny wrote...

Surely such information comes from the in-game data collection. Gender would probably be THE most significant thing it would pick up right away - along with major choices made, backgrounds selected, classes selected, etc.

Furthermore, I would think the statement is worrying more than offensive.

Bioware picked up stats that in DA:O only something like 12% of players played as a dwarf.  Guess what got cut in DA2 as a result?  (Amongst many other things - they apparantly also figured out that a massive percentage of players never got past Ostagar even once).

thats not hte reason dwarves were cut as playable characters...
correlation is not causation.

the statement makes sense, its buisness, they're making the game to make money. if femshep is a money sink and only brings in a small amount of players and costs far more than its worth, then it'd be practical to drop it.

people freaking out about this, are well...stupid.

him simply stating that they are losing money with femshep is fine, because its true.
the fact is, their dedication to the fanbase is actually making them work on MORE femshep stuff, they're producing a femshep trailer and putting her on the cover of the collectors edition, ect. proves they're not cutting her.

stating a finnancial fact is fine, stop getting offended over him talking buisness, jeesh.

[Clonedzero]

100k wrote...

Your preaching to the choir. I'm so sick of gaming being saturated with douche bag dude bros that demand more of this:



Fortunately though, gaming is getting much better when it comes to handling female characters, both in appearances and as human beings. The problem is that the genres these apply to are already so saturated with decades of sexism, that women rarely are drawn to them.
<_<<_<<_<

you realize duke nukem was a complete failure right? and got absolutely horrible reviews. people dont want games like that, hence why it did so badly.

i honestly can't think of a single big name title that got good reviews that has female characters such as the ones you're speaking of.

[The Twilight God]

Mr.Kusy wrote...

99% of female characters in MMO games are played by men. Why would you think it's diffrent with single player games?

The vast majority of men play male characters because they want to identify with the protagonist.  In the case of ME, I suspect more than 1% of the 18% who make up the femsheps are female players. Do you honestly think female players make up only 0.18% of players?

[100k]

Clonedzero wrote...

100k wrote...

Your preaching to the choir. I'm so sick of gaming being saturated with douche bag dude bros that demand more of this:



Fortunately though, gaming is getting much better when it comes to handling female characters, both in appearances and as human beings. The problem is that the genres these apply to are already so saturated with decades of sexism, that women rarely are drawn to them.
<_<<_<<_<

you realize duke nukem was a complete failure right? and got absolutely horrible reviews. people dont want games like that, hence why it did so badly.

i honestly can't think of a single big name title that got good reviews that has female characters such as the ones you're speaking of.

Naturally. But what about Bulletstorm? Or COD6? Or the over sexualized Bayonetta? 

[AmyMac]

Mr.Kusy wrote...

99% of female characters in MMO games are played by men. Why would you think it's diffrent with single player games?

Because lots of men who play female characters in MMO's do so out of some creepy fetishism or something. Single player RPG's have a different player demographic than MMO's.

[Clonedzero]

[quote]100k wrote...

[
<_<<_<<_<[/quote]you realize duke nukem was a complete failure right? and got absolutely horrible reviews. people dont want games like that, hence why it did so badly.

i honestly can't think of a single big name title that got good reviews that has female characters such as the ones you're speaking of.

[/quote]

Naturally. But what about Bulletstorm? Or COD6? Or the over sexualized Bayonetta? 
[/quote]bulletstorm also failed pretty hard, it had horrible sales numbers. a majority of its sales was to get into the gears 3 beta lol.

CoD games are about modern day military people, so yeah, they're marines in that, because, GASP, its about god damn marines.....

whats wrong with a couple games having oversexualization?  a majority dont, a VAST majority doesnt actually.

also, the most popular TV show among my female friends is Trublood, that show is boarderline softcore porn lol, does that make it bad? absolutely not.

also when you try and claim characters are generic "space marines" please have actually played the game before making that judgement.

also again, its disgustingly hypocritical for female players to call maleshepard a generic male spacemarine, yet in the same post talk about femshep as if she was a unique character concept. THEY ARE THE SAME CHARACTER. they just happen to have different gentials is all.

[Boiny Bunny]

Clonedzero wrote...

Boiny Bunny wrote...

Surely such information comes from the in-game data collection. Gender would probably be THE most significant thing it would pick up right away - along with major choices made, backgrounds selected, classes selected, etc.

Furthermore, I would think the statement is worrying more than offensive.

Bioware picked up stats that in DA:O only something like 12% of players played as a dwarf.  Guess what got cut in DA2 as a result?  (Amongst many other things - they apparantly also figured out that a massive percentage of players never got past Ostagar even once).

thats not hte reason dwarves were cut as playable characters...
correlation is not causation.

Well, you are right, and you are wrong.  We don't know the actual reason that Dwarves are not playable in DA2 - other than usual BS marketing pitches.  I've suggested what is, in my opinion, the most likely explanation.

the statement makes sense, its buisness, they're making the game to make money. if femshep is a money sink and only brings in a small amount of players and costs far more than its worth, then it'd be practical to drop it.

people freaking out about this, are well...stupid.

him simply stating that they are losing money with femshep is fine, because its true.
the fact is, their dedication to the fanbase is actually making them work on MORE femshep stuff, they're producing a femshep trailer and putting her on the cover of the collectors edition, ect. proves they're not cutting her.

stating a finnancial fact is fine, stop getting offended over him talking buisness, jeesh.

Indeed - they are not cutting femShep for ME3.  That would cause a massive flurry of bad publicity and kick up a real storm amongst the fanbase.

But, these kind of statistics do play into decisions on what to include in future titles.  Back in the day, it cost Bioware virtually nothing to include both genders - all they had was a few battle cries in male and female voices, and made some very minor changes to dialogue of other characters based on your gender.  If the cost is virtually nothing, and you're making a role playing game, you'll include it almost without question, as you want as many reasonable role playing options in the game as possible.

If the cost is very high (as it is for femShep, and of much more relevance, it is for creating a separate female PC in any IP, with full VO/romances/world responses/marketing etc.) - and it's not adding much in terms of users who actually pursue that content, then it's on the potential chopping board.

I'm not, and I doubt anybody else, is taking the comment to mean femShep may be cut from ME3.  As I said, it's more about future Bioware IPs.

[Clonedzero]

well if female gamers dont buy the game and play it in significant numbers, than they shouldnt cater to them. it makes sense. remember, they are a buisness.

[Travie]

I don't see what OP is getting worked up about.

He specifically states that they put a lot of effort into providing that experience, even if he tacitly implies that it is 'extra'.

[Boiny Bunny]

Clonedzero wrote...

well if female gamers dont buy the game and play it in significant numbers, than they shouldnt cater to them. it makes sense. remember, they are a buisness.

Well, indeed.  That's exactly right.  They are a business, and from a business perspective, absolutely should not put content in the game that costs them a significant amount if it is not being pursued by many players.

Which is good reason for female players to be concerned.

That's all that my point was.  Perhaps in the next Bioware IP (if they move onto a new one after ME3) there will be no female option.

[KBomb]

Hurt by it? Oh ffs. When did every single aspect of a female character or female gamer become a feminist movement?

[CaptREDKangaroo]

The Twilight God wrote...

Mr.Kusy wrote...

99% of female characters in MMO games are played by men. Why would you think it's diffrent with single player games?

The vast majority of men play male characters because they want to identify with the protagonist.  In the case of ME, I suspect more than 1% of the 18% who make up the femsheps are female players. Do you honestly think female players make up only 0.18% of players?

I've seen numbers and that's flat out untrue what Twilight said. Tthe gap IS wide but not 99% to 1% in MMO or ME. I can attest my own experience I've seen many REAL women play in my guild and others, so lets not exaggerate. OBVIOUSLY, it's still not HUGE % but it's still not as small as maybe ppl think.

And yeah dudes play more as females in MMOs sure yeah =D But still -

This is the problem, there is a market out there for females if they're targeted more; they just still even so make up a relativly small number many companies just don't think it's worth it. We should be glad BioWare doesn't or ME doesn't and ARE actually marketing towards ME3 with FemShep not just Mshep. I knows of 3 women who play ME who I hang with ifrom my various RL groupings. Majority of either sex tend to choose their sex (esp first playthrough) to identify with the protagonist, so out of those roughly 18% I am sure well over 10% are females. Alt playthroughs mix it up.

I mean anyone watch the ComicCon BW costume contest? There were almost MORE women than guys it seemed... now that isn't an accurate sample size obviously, but more women play than think for sure =)

Modifié par CaptREDKangaroo, 02 août 2011 - 05:30 .

[Bryy_Miller]

KBomb wrote...

Hurt by it? Oh ffs. When did every single aspect of a female character or female gamer become a feminist movement?

Since the Feminist movement came to exist.

[CrazyCatDude]

musicalfrog7 wrote...

A friend of mine linked a video from game trailers today about him talking about ME3 at comic con. I haven't been keeping up with Bioware actively since the original Dragon Age came out but every now and then slivers of information come my way.

In the video I found there to be a questionable sounding quote:

"We find that about one fifth of the players play female characters. You know, we've put a lot of effort over the course of this series to do a really good job of both the male and female experience as Commander Shepherd. And it's something we could've cut a long time ago because it's actually very expensive for us to develop."


As an avid female gamer, I am surprisingly hurt by this. The video does not show what the context is but when it is haphazardly thrown into a video like that, what am I to think? It sounds like such a strong disregard to the female fandom. I've thought for a long while, that Bioware cared more about the female fanbase than any other developer out there. Is that not true? Is it not true anymore?

One fifth? That cannot be. I was never polled nor asked what shepherd I play. Where does this poll data come from? The website? Video game registration? An educated guess? I feel like that statistic is unfairly wrong and inaccurate to judge on whether or not it's worthwhile to have a female playable character.

I love it when video game companies make video games that invite girls and women to play them by being approachable to our gender and/or adding a heroine that we can identify with. If the quote is about feeling under appreciated for your (Bioware's work) on the female heroines, I most certainly do love it and appreciate it. It's part of the reason why I love Bioware games so much!



The link in question can be found here:

The quote was taken out of context.  Within the context of the larger interview, he was actually talking about how they've taken the feedback they've received and are making additional efforts to promote the female version of Shepard more.

To be perfectly honest though, this is one of my few major gripes with Bioware.  I don't understand why they insist on putting nothing but male protagonists all over their boxes.  I know it supposedly plays better with male audiences, but... *points at Lara Croft, Samus, Jill Valentine, Chell*

Seriously, am I missing any?

[Boiny Bunny]

CrazyCatDude wrote...

The quote was taken out of context.  Within the context of the larger interview, he was actually talking about how they've taken the feedback they've received and are making additional efforts to promote the female version of Shepard more.

To be perfectly honest though, this is one of my few major gripes with Bioware.  I don't understand why they insist on putting nothing but male protagonists all over their boxes.  I know it supposedly plays better with male audiences, but... *points at Lara Croft, Samus, Jill Valentine, Chell*

Seriously, am I missing any?

Let's not forget that Lara Croft was from the beginning, designed to be walking sex in polygon form, and was designed 100% for males to drool over.  Samus is never advertised in a way that would cause a person looking at a box to realise that she is in fact female (other than Other M) - I've had many friends who played the first few Metroid games and thought Samus was a man.  Jill Valentine did get her own game, but for whatever reason, it's clear that Capcom decided that Chris is the main protagonist of RE, and Jill is just the sidekick.  In RE1, playing as Jill was equivalent to 'easy' mode, one of the reasons being, a man (Barry) constantly came in to save her ass with his big magnum, whilst in the same scenario, Chris had to made do by himself.  Chell was not a part of the Portal 1 or Portal 2 boxart at all (well, not in my region of the world anyway - I understand box art differs by region with some titles).

All of that said, I prefer Bioware's older style of boxart where the PC is not depicted in any way.  For example:

[Clonedzero]

Boiny Bunny wrote...

CrazyCatDude wrote...

The quote was taken out of context.  Within the context of the larger interview, he was actually talking about how they've taken the feedback they've received and are making additional efforts to promote the female version of Shepard more.

To be perfectly honest though, this is one of my few major gripes with Bioware.  I don't understand why they insist on putting nothing but male protagonists all over their boxes.  I know it supposedly plays better with male audiences, but... *points at Lara Croft, Samus, Jill Valentine, Chell*

Seriously, am I missing any?

Let's not forget that Lara Croft was from the beginning, designed to be walking sex in polygon form, and was designed 100% for males to drool over.  Samus is never advertised in a way that would cause a person looking at a box to realise that she is in fact female (other than Other M) - I've had many friends who played the first few Metroid games and thought Samus was a man.  Jill Valentine did get her own game, but for whatever reason, it's clear that Capcom decided that Chris is the main protagonist of RE, and Jill is just the sidekick.  In RE1, playing as Jill was equivalent to 'easy' mode, one of the reasons being, a man (Barry) constantly came in to save her ass with his big magnum, whilst in the same scenario, Chris had to made do by himself.  Chell was not a part of the Portal 1 or Portal 2 boxart at all (well, not in my region of the world anyway - I understand box art differs by region with some titles).

All of that said, I prefer Bioware's older style of boxart where the PC is not depicted in any way.  For example:

did you see anything on the complete redesign of lara croft for the new rebooted tomb raider game? looks really compelling actually.

samus is a horrible example of a female character because she's not really a character. she has no personality, she's just an avatar for you to run around and play the game with. well aside from the trainwreck of that newest metriod game.

plus, honestly, who the hell cares about boxart? seriously? it's probably the least important thing about a game and i see SO many people whine about it on the forums. it makes no sense to me. anyone who bases their purchasing choices on the boxart is too stupid to care about.

if theres girls out there who dont buy mass effect 1&2 out there because the boxart has a male protagonist and they refuse to look into details about the game, then they are probably too dumb to actually apperciate the game anyways and should stick to farmville.

[Weiser_Cain]

I play male and female characters I only made two soldiers, and that was to see the assault rifle only they can get. I play a lot of Adepts.

[TuringPoint]

nvm

Modifié par Alocormin, 02 août 2011 - 07:39 .

[Dexi]

I'm laughing my ass off at butthurt femshep fans...

Lol, dudes, no reason to be butthurt. It's not like you won't have a femshep for ME3.
Plus, BW made Femshep one of the strongest female leading characters in the gaming industry.

But the truth is A LOT more people play Sheploo. Sorry. That's the truth.

[TuringPoint]

nvm

Modifié par Alocormin, 02 août 2011 - 07:39 .

[TuringPoint]

Having female protagonists has the possibility of broadening the audience; barring unreasonable costs, this can only be profitable from a business perspective.  

Hudson wasn't saying what the OP seems to think.  I'm sick of people picking apart anything that is said even remotely publically, as if any misunderstanding is justified and a civil liberty for people to fight for.  I'm equally sick of people trolling anyone who thinks the female voice in interactive media is a bad thing, or even that it's impractical.  

Twenty percent of a market as big as Mass Effect is no small sum; and those games paid for by female customers or those who believe in Bioware allowing the choice of a female protagonist are paying for their share of the market.  Voice-over of femshep is only one cost of one persons time, plus a little bit of minor modification with the writers and developers to adjust for it - especially considering they didn't so much as change the animations and skeleton of Femshep compared to mshep.

There are also lots of people who don't like Sheploo.  I think if Bioware decided to go with only the most apparently "profitable" aspects of game development, their games would be less unique and would lose more customer interest than you munchkins would expect.

Modifié par Alocormin, 02 août 2011 - 07:28 .

[Nimrodell]

Dexi wrote...

I'm laughing my ass off at butthurt femshep fans...

Lol, dudes, no reason to be butthurt. It's not like you won't have a femshep for ME3.
Plus, BW made Femshep one of the strongest female leading characters in the gaming industry.

But the truth is A LOT more people play Sheploo. Sorry. That's the truth.

You should laugh only 'cause of one simple reason - the interview and that particular sentence were misinterpreted. Casey Hudson said nothing in it that could worry female players as I am. He wasn't even reffering to shuting down female protagonist... he actually said the opposite - paraphrazing - even though there is significantly smaller population playing female, we kept her and we're going to keep her. And this entire topic has no sense for me 'cause atm they are choosing default femShep and making a trailer with her... I would actually say that they are acknowledging significant existence of femSheps out there, not the opposite.

Been playing BW games for really long now and as a female player I always got to choose my own gender - so I've never seen a problem. Since I'm aware that there are more guys out there than girls playing and there's still a prejudice going around stating that girls either don't play or they play silly games - I feel that BW was always respecting me as a minority (but not that big minority and that is changing). So, no, there are no hidden intentions or statements in that interview that imply 'we're not going to loose time and money on female versions'.

[Dexi]

Nimrodell wrote...

Dexi wrote...

I'm laughing my ass off at butthurt femshep fans...

Lol, dudes, no reason to be butthurt. It's not like you won't have a femshep for ME3.
Plus, BW made Femshep one of the strongest female leading characters in the gaming industry.

But the truth is A LOT more people play Sheploo. Sorry. That's the truth.

You should laugh only 'cause of one simple reason - the interview and that particular sentence were misinterpreted. Casey Hudson said nothing in it that could worry female players as I am. He wasn't even reffering to shuting down female protagonist... he actually said the opposite - paraphrazing - even though there is significantly smaller population playing female, we kept her and we're going to keep her. And this entire topic has no sense for me 'cause atm they are choosing default femShep and making a trailer with her... I would actually say that they are acknowledging significant existence of femSheps out there, not the opposite.

Been playing BW games for really long now and as a female player I always got to choose my own gender - so I've never seen a problem. Since I'm aware that there are more guys out there than girls playing and there's still a prejudice going around stating that girls either don't play or they play silly games - I feel that BW was always respecting me as a minority (but not that big minority and that is changing). So, no, there are no hidden intentions or statements in that interview that imply 'we're not going to loose time and money on female versions'.

Exactly what I was saying with the first 4 sentences only in more words  

[LilyasAvalon]

...Those stats do not seem accurate and I'm extremely sure they're not.

But, even if it's true, it's encouraging that they've continued including Fem!Shep, regardless. There's not many games that provide the indepth plot and gameplay while providing an alternative for a female gamer.

Modifié par LilyasAvalon, 02 août 2011 - 10:47 .