109 réponses à ce sujet

[JustifiablyDefenestrated]

 Let me first say that I'm a girl. Just in case my avatar didn't clue you in. And I also play video-games. Shocking, I know.

I'm going to be frank here: the marketing for the past dragon age games has been extremely one-sided. The dragon age franchise has, overall, been very inclusive of female gamers. But if you were judging the game based on the ads, you would never know. 

And I do understand why this is. It all comes down to Dogs and Smurfs. 
But I wish it didn't. 

[chunkyman]

Male gamers outnumber female gamers, so it's logical they would focus marketing efforts on drawing in the male gamers. It's the same reason they don't market games to seniors, because it would be a poor allocation of resources.

[JustifiablyDefenestrated]

chunkyman wrote...

Male gamers outnumber female gamers, so it's logical they would focus marketing efforts on drawing in the male gamers. It's the same reason they don't market games to seniors, because it would be a poor allocation of resources.

This is an issue of the chicken and the egg. You are implying that males are naturally more interested in games. Which is just False. Look at tetris and solitaire. Or any Facebook game, really. If they weren't actively driving girls away, via marketing and/or game design decisions, I doubt that this would be an issue at all.

[Scarlet Rabbi]

Well, keep wishing.

Maybe someday someone or something will grant it.

[MichaelStuart]

As a male, I don't never thought the adds wear appealing to my gender. I thought they wear trying to trying to make the games look more appealing to non-RPG players

[cJohnOne]

Which ads? I don't even remember the commercial except I saw Isabela at the end of it.

Modifié par cJohnOne, 21 avril 2012 - 08:14 .

[Dakota Strider]

Honestly, I do not know what figure they choose to market the game with, has anything to do with your enjoyment of the game. I could care less if they use a male or female, a human, dwarf or elf. Because when I play a game, I create "my" character, and I do not have any desire for it to be a clone of whatever they use for the marketing campaign. In the DA games, and almost every other Bioware rpg I can think of, once you actually install the game, and start it up, you get to choose the gender of your character. Besides a few LI's, you get almost the exact same game experience, regardless of the gender you choose.

There are some games, where you do not get to choose, such as The Witcher, or Tomb Raider. However, since that style is not used in the Dragon Age games, I don't think it is worth discussing them here.

Bioware has used females to market their games quite often in the past. I am sure they will do it plenty in the future. From what I recall about the DAO advertising, Morrigan and Leliana were the most common figures seen....besides the Arch Demon. I may have missed some of the advertising, I admit. But, I really do not think this is an issue. While I have my issues with some of the things Bioware has done recently, this is something I believe they are faultless on.

[Mmw04014]

What bothers me most about this kind of marketing is that it is not indicative of the product. I remember that I didn't touch Mass Effect 1 for the longest time because I thought you could only play as a man. If I had looked deeper, I would have found out that was not the case, but why would I have when all the marketing pointed to it being another game with a generic white male protagonist.

I wish Bioware would try harder to make it known that you can play as a woman in their games. They are all about broadening their demographic these days (to the detriment of their game, but I digress..), why wouldn't they want to get more female gamers into their games?

[JustifiablyDefenestrated]

MichaelStuart wrote...

As a male, I don't never thought the adds wear appealing to my gender. I thought they wear trying to trying to make the games look more appealing to non-RPG players

If all game ads (as in every single one) featured a female protagonist, you'd probably notice. Since every game ad (as in every single one) features a male protagonist, it seems normal. Especially since you happen to be a guy. Because, being a guy is normal for you.

Having two X genes isn't some rare mutation. Roughly 50% of the population is female. This is an issue of fundamental equality. But it's also an issue of fundamental economics. I'd imagine that game companies are cutting a significant portion of their profits by only pandering to half of their potential buyers. 

[MichaelStuart]

JustifiablyDefenestrated wrote...

MichaelStuart wrote...

As a male, I don't never thought the adds wear appealing to my gender. I thought they wear trying to trying to make the games look more appealing to non-RPG players

If all game ads (as in every single one) featured a female protagonist, you'd probably notice. Since every game ad (as in every single one) features a male protagonist, it seems normal. Especially since you happen to be a guy. Because, being a guy is normal for you.
 

I have to disagree with you, I dont think having a girl would have made a difference to me. The adds would still have been people doing action stuff. 
I suppose what Im saying is, action does not intest me what ever the gender of the person is.

The thing I rember most about the adds were the Blood Dragon at the end, which I think is a more powerful image than any person

Modifié par MichaelStuart, 21 avril 2012 - 08:57 .

[Dakota Strider]

JustifiablyDefenestrated wrote...

MichaelStuart wrote...

As a male, I don't never thought the adds wear appealing to my gender. I thought they wear trying to trying to make the games look more appealing to non-RPG players

If all game ads (as in every single one) featured a female protagonist, you'd probably notice. Since every game ad (as in every single one) features a male protagonist, it seems normal. Especially since you happen to be a guy. Because, being a guy is normal for you.

Having two X genes isn't some rare mutation. Roughly 50% of the population is female. This is an issue of fundamental equality. But it's also an issue of fundamental economics. I'd imagine that game companies are cutting a significant portion of their profits by only pandering to half of their potential buyers. 

You really need to do your research better.
Dragon Age Origins
video.search.yahoo.com/search/video;_ylt=A0PDoX2jGZNP4nsAQYiJzbkF
Above advertisement features 4 characters...two of them female humans, another a male Qunari, and the last a human male, that appears to have darkspawn taint.  And if you really want to get nit-picky, you will find that the females are shown about 15 of the 30 seconds, the males about 10 seconds, and monsters or print the other 5 seconds.

Now you probably only remember the Dragon Age 2 advertisment, which featured a male Hawke.  It was however narrated by Flemeth (female) and show clips of Isabella within it.  
video.search.yahoo.com/video/play
The main reason I believed they put the male Hawke as lead in the adverstisment, is because that Isabella was really the only good looking companion.  And the advertisement shows Hawke embracing and falling into bed with e her.  I do not think Bioware/EA felt they wanted to deal with the controversy before the launch of their game, of female Hawke kissing Isabella....and the other choices, honestly would not have been that enticing as a tv commercial.   Just speaking of how they were rendered in the video/game. 

Modifié par Dakota Strider, 21 avril 2012 - 09:02 .

[PsychoBlonde]

Dakota Strider wrote...

Bioware has used females to market their games quite often in the past. I am sure they will do it plenty in the future. From what I recall about the DAO advertising, Morrigan and Leliana were the most common figures seen....besides the Arch Demon. I may have missed some of the advertising, I admit. But, I really do not think this is an issue. While I have my issues with some of the things Bioware has done recently, this is something I believe they are faultless on.

Hawke, Flemeth, and the Arishok were the most common in DA2 advertising.  (Why Flemeth?  She's in the game for 5 minutes . . .)  Mostly Hawke.  Who was portrayed as definitely being a scruffy brown-haired white guy.

I'd prefer that they stick with NPC's, personally.  Or something abstract, like the blood dragon, which was ossum.

[Dakota Strider]

PsychoBlonde wrote...

Hawke, Flemeth, and the Arishok were the most common in DA2 advertising.  (Why Flemeth?  She's in the game for 5 minutes . . .)  Mostly Hawke.  Who was portrayed as definitely being a scruffy brown-haired white guy.

I'd prefer that they stick with NPC's, personally.  Or something abstract, like the blood dragon, which was ossum.

This is just my guess, but from hindsight, I would say the reason they advertised DA2 the way they did, was to show the "improvement" (which is highly debatable)  in the combat system, to appeal to a new audience, outside of Bioware's base rpg customer base.   If they had used female Hawke, there is a very good chance, you would have had some female gamers claim that was sexist, because it was just being done for male gamer eye-candy.  Not a very enviable position to be in.  But, since Bioware has a history of using females to advertise their games starting back with the Baldur's Gate series, I think they should be able to get away with using a male figure in their advertisements, every once in a while.

Modifié par Dakota Strider, 21 avril 2012 - 09:32 .

[JustifiablyDefenestrated]

Dakota Strider wrote...

You really need to do your research better.

 

Please, let's stay away from patronizing language. I've seen all the trailers, hence the discussion.

 
Dragon Age Origins
video.search.yahoo.com/search/video;_ylt=A0PDoX2jGZNP4nsAQYiJzbkF
Above advertisement features 4 characters...two of them female humans, another a male Qunari, and the last a human male, that appears to have darkspawn taint.  And if you really want to get nit-picky, you will find that the females are shown about 15 of the 30 seconds, the males about 10 seconds, and monsters or print the other 5 seconds.

 

If you want to be even nit-pickier, you could look at how all of those characters are portrayed. All of the characters are, admitedlly, pretty bad-ass. But, I think it's pretty obvious who the main character is. And that, ultimately, is what I'm talking about. It's nice that npc's that happen to be female are featured in the ads, but they are not the focus of it.  Not in any Dragon Age advertisements.

 
Now you probably only remember the Dragon Age 2 advertisment, which featured a male Hawke.  It was however narrated by Flemeth (female) and show clips of Isabella within it.  
video.search.yahoo.com/video/play
The main reason I believed they put the male Hawke as lead in the adverstisment, is because that Isabella was really the only good looking companion.  And the advertisement shows Hawke embracing and falling into bed with e her.  I do not think Bioware/EA felt they wanted to deal with the controversy before the launch of their game, of female Hawke kissing Isabella....and the other choices, honestly would not have been that enticing as a tv commercial.   Just speaking of how they were rendered in the video/game. 

Personally, I thought Anders or Fenris were the only good looking companions, but that's just me.

Modifié par JustifiablyDefenestrated, 21 avril 2012 - 10:35 .

[Dakota Strider]

JustifiablyDefenestrated wrote...
If you want to be even nit-pickier, you could look at how all of those characters are portrayed. All of the characters are, admitedlly, pretty bad-ass. But, I think it's pretty obvious who the main character is. And that, ultimately, is what I'm talking about. It's nice that npc's that happen to be female are featured in the ads, but they are not the focus of it.  Not in any Dragon Age advertisements.

Honestly, until I played the game, I had no idea who any of the 4 characters shown in that trailer were.  It was a Bioware game, it was a swords and sorcery setting, that was good enough for me.  I generally do not like to go to forums and get all the details about a game before i play it.  I like to discover everything on my own.  So, before I bought DAO, I did not know who Morrigan, Alistair, Leliana, or anyone else was.  Didn't know about the Blight, Wardens, Mage Circle, Chantry...nothing.  So, as far as I was concerned, that maie human, was no more important than the other 3 they showed.  To be honest, the one that most impressed me in that video was Leliana.

[Massakkolia]

Mmw04014 wrote...

What bothers me most about this kind of marketing is that it is not indicative of the product. I remember I didn't touch Mass Effect 1 for the longest time because I thought you could only play as a man. If I had looked deeper, I would have found out that was not the case, but why would I have when all the marketing pointed to it being another game with a generic white male protagonist.

I wish Bioware would try harder to make it known that you can play as a woman in their games. They are all about broadening their demographic these days (to the detriment of their game, but I digress..), why wouldn't they want to get more female gamers into their games?

This happened to me too. I avoided Mass Effect because I had no interest playing as a white male marine. I also thought the game was a pure shooter. Why? Because I never followed the game development and made my judgement based on Mass Effect's marketing campaign. If I hadn't eagerly followed the development of DA2, I would have most likely thought that the bearded guy is a fixed protagonist even though Garrett Hawke does not even exist in my game.

This is a serious problem. Misleading potential customers actually harms Bioware in a long run. EA's marketing campaigns don't emphasize the strengths of the game. Instead they try to create ads with a clichéd blockbuster action film like atmosphere that is suppose to appeal to (white) young males with heterosexual identity and a penchant for exploding heads.

This is a fairly big demographic, so what's the issue? The first problem is that EA's marketing is trying to catch customers who are not likely to get very attached to the product. When you advertise one thing and create another, there's a gap between the conception and the actual product. This leads to a situation where a company might get a lot of random buyers for one specific product but does not increase its loyal customer base.

The second problem is that young male gamers form a pretty exhausted demographic from a business point of view. Young males are already into console gaming and the competition within the demographic is pretty intense. Bioware's games are fairly inclusive to women and should appeal to all genders. It is mind-boggling to me, that EA doesn't seem to grasp strong points of Bioware products. With a carefully planned marketing campaign (that is inclusive and respectful to men, women and everything between) they could seriously break some ground and discover new audiences while keeping the old. 

Casual gaming gets a lot of scorn but Wii was a very successful console because Nintendo didn't laugh at the thought of expanding their audiences and aggressively targeted new demographics with their marketing. Nintendo did that because they knew their product and understood it could appeal to people outside the traditional gamer box. Bioware makes products that should appeal to all sorts of adults who hunger after good stories and interactive experiences. Dragon Age's marketing team should keep in mind what sort of product they are advertising. 

[Jackel159357]

Personally I think with marketing Bioware should forgo focusing the advertising on the main character as they did in Dragon Age 2 rather market the setting and the other interesting characters.

I really hate how Hawke had a default look which was better quality than a custom made face it made the game feel like it was forcing you into playing more of a set Bioware created character rather than a Hawke of your own creation.

[Maria Caliban]

JustifiablyDefenestrated wrote...

 Let me first say that I'm a girl. Just in case my avatar didn't clue you in. And I also play video-games. Shocking, I know.

What an odd opening in a forum with a large female population.

[JustifiablyDefenestrated]

Maria Caliban wrote...

JustifiablyDefenestrated wrote...

 Let me first say that I'm a girl. Just in case my avatar didn't clue you in. And I also play video-games. Shocking, I know.

What an odd opening in a forum with a large female population.

You're right, I went overboard. I thought it fit thematically.

[syllogi]

Mass Effect 3 FINALLY marketed the game with FemShep.

And then they subjected the character to a beauty contest, and when the game came out, marginalized female Shepards by ruining two of the past romances, and didn't give straight female Shepards any new romance options.

I will still roll my eyes if DA3 has yet another marketing campaign revolving around a "default" Generic White Guy, but I'd rather they focus on giving female players ingame content, if I had to choose.

[Wulfram]

My "canon" Dragon Age world is feeling a bit short on notable men at the moment. What with Flemeth, Morrigan, Queen Anora, Empress Celene, Divine Justinia, Leliana and Cassandra.

With Alistair a drunk and Anders dead, I can't think of any male characters I'd rate as of equal importance to those guys. Maybe Varric, but that's just because he's telling the story.

[Massakkolia]

Wulfram wrote...

My "canon" Dragon Age world is feeling a bit short on notable men at the moment. What with Flemeth, Morrigan, Queen Anora, Empress Celene, Divine Justinia, Leliana and Cassandra.

With Alistair a drunk and Anders dead, I can't think of any male characters I'd rate as of equal importance to those guys. Maybe Varric, but that's just because he's telling the story.

Well that just exposes the root of the problem. Dragon Age series has complex and interesting characters that are not defined solely by their sex. Women can rise to positions of power in Thedas because of their abilities. None of this, or even the mere fact that you can play as a woman, was advertised in DA2's marketing campaign. Isabela is a great character in the game but in the ads she's reduced to a sex symbol. There's a disconnection between the product and the ads.

Modifié par Ria, 22 avril 2012 - 12:28 .

[JustifiablyDefenestrated]

Ria wrote...

This happened to me too. I avoided Mass Effect because I had no interest playing as a white male marine. I also thought the game was a pure shooter. Why? Because I never followed the game development and made my judgement based on Mass Effect's marketing campaign. If I hadn't eagerly followed the development of DA2, I would have most likely thought that the bearded guy is a fixed protagonist even though Garrett Hawke does not even exist in my game.

This is a serious problem. Misleading potential customers actually harms Bioware in a long run. EA's marketing campaigns don't emphasize the strengths of the game. Instead they try to create ads with a clichéd blockbuster action film like atmosphere that is suppose to appeal to (white) young males with heterosexual identity and a penchant for exploding heads.

This is a fairly big demographic, so what's the issue? The first problem is that EA's marketing is trying to catch customers who are not likely to get very attached to the product. When you advertise one thing and create another, there's a gap between the conception and the actual product. This leads to a situation where a company might get a lot of random buyers for one specific product but does not increase its loyal customer base.

The second problem is that young male gamers form a pretty exhausted demographic from a business point of view. Young males are already into console gaming and the competition within the demographic is pretty intense. Bioware's games are fairly inclusive to women and should appeal to all genders. It is mind-boggling to me, that EA doesn't seem to grasp strong points of Bioware products. With a carefully planned marketing campaign (that is inclusive and respectful to men, women and everything between) they could seriously break some ground and discover new audiences while keeping the old. 

Casual gaming gets a lot of scorn but Wii was a very successful console because Nintendo didn't laugh at the thought of expanding their audiences and aggressively targeted new demographics with their marketing. Nintendo did that because they knew their product and understood it could appeal to people outside the traditional gamer box. Bioware makes products that should appeal to all sorts of adults who hunger after good stories and interactive experiences. Dragon Age's marketing team should keep in mind what sort of product they are advertising. 

You've said everything I was attempting to say, but 100x more eloquently.