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[Sylvianus]

Blue Gloves wrote...

Shinian2 wrote...


Several people have made mention of this, including the OP. What exactly are male and female game features?

To simplify issues, I've gone ahead and catergorized things like male heterosexual LI's, characters (like Leliana) who have professed unashamedly their homosexual relationships, the ability to create a female avatar, and in game, NPC dialogue that differs for female PC as "female" game features.  I realize that these things were not created solely for the use of women, and that they are enjoyed by both sexes, but I've gone on the assumption that things of this ilk are what OP and other, subsequent posters are referring to as "features that target females."

There are also female LI's.

A character who admits she / he is homosexual can be considered as female or male features by anyone ? Why the gender of the player is involved here ? How would it be more appealing to one gender in the writting ? Is it because the character has simply preferences ? Anyways, Zevran a male did the same.

Also the ability to create a female avatar while it is obvious it was created for women, it was already possible before DAO, ( Kotor, Baldur's gate, jade empire, etc etc   ? ) So I don't think the Op thought about that.

Npc dialogue that differs for female PC, seem pretty normal to me, as a meaning of choice.  Whether I choose a man or a woman, I do think it should matter and not just to be something cosmetic. I don't expect something exactly the same when I choose an elf instead of a human too for example. How could it be considered as a female or male feature here too ? I don't know.  Basically this is the same content with minor differences between the two genders. I don't see how it could be considered as male or female features.

My impression is that nobody has a ****ing idea what the OP meant actually , and what is a game aimed at women or men, why a game would be for males or females, and what it is based on.

Modifié par Sylvianus, 18 décembre 2012 - 01:04 .

[AlexanderCousland]

Maria Caliban wrote...
John is not a writer.

Oh well, I was under the assumption that he was.   Where is my silver cross?

[Fast Jimmy]

berelinde wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...

A different study shows that only 28% of console gamers are female. Which, granted, excludes the PC platform, but consoles are one of the best yard sticks for more 'hardcore' gaming types. I doubt that the female PC DA players outnumber the male 10 to 1 to counter balance such a deficit. 

Ah, "hardcore gamers." You do realize that "hardcore gamer" is defined as "The kind of gamer who plays like 'I' do" and "casuals" refers to everone else, I hope. There is no industry standard "hardcore gamer," regardless of what people say.

I would take "hardcore" in this example to mean people who don't ONLY play mobile phone or social network games, like Words With Friends. I had assumed that was implied, when I said the study you mentioned counted mobile phone gaming and social network gaming, while the study I mentioned did not.

But I'm curious. What is your source for declaring that female PC gamers are an insignificant minority? I play on PC. I do not own a console. My sister plays on PC and does not own a console. Many of my friends play on PC only. Some own consoles, but they usually use them for FPS games, not RPG.

100% subjective antecdotal evidence aside, I'm not saying the PC market has a minority of female gamers. But its simple math.

If PC sales make up less than a third of all DA sales (as VGCharts would seem to indicate) and the rest are console sales, and if only 28% of console players are female, then you would need a TON of female PC players to counter balance the small amount of females playing on console.

MATH:

(28% of PS3 crowd + 28% of XBox 360 crowd + X% of PC gaming crowd)/3 = 50%

This would require X (the percentage of female PC DA players) to be astronomically disproportional, roughly 90-95%. A true statistical anamoly. 

Maybe someday, BioWare will conduct  a survey to determine the demographics of their playerbase, but until then, we're stuck with the ESA report. 

It should be noted that the ESA report is based on the number of respondents who identified themselves as gamers. Many, if not most, people who play games exclusively on social media or mobile apps do not identify themselves as gamers.

Which means it was collected from Self-Report questionaires. Which, in the world of actual academic research, is pretty much the most unreliable there is, particularly in the realms of psychology and marketing.

Not that it matters. Marketing is intended to attract new players as much as to appeal to longtime fans. If a strapping dude on the cover did not entice gamers to try the game before, a strapping dude on the cover will probably not entice them to play in the future.

I liked DA:O's marketing - a simple, bloody dragon insignia on a pure white background. It was striking, unqiue and was bold and, yet, understated. I'd be willing to bet the Marketing department wasn't involved at all with input to the artist on what to make. I bet no thought of demographics or increased sales were given to if it was inclusive enough. And yet DA:O seemed to do just fine.

Again, I don't care if Bioware markets their games with penguins and pinecones in mind... it doesn't phase me in the least. But if Bioware is trying to market their game based on who is most likely to buy they game by the cover alone, then I'd say that's kind of silly. But I don't think Bioware is doing that. I'm just against slanted statistics being used as a justification for anything.

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 18 décembre 2012 - 01:07 .

[Blue Gloves]

Sylvianus wrote...

My impression is that nobody has a ****ing idea what the OP meant actually , and what is a game aimed at women or men, why a game would be for males or females, and what it is based on.

:lol:Fair point.  I was a little hard put to understand what the OP meant at first, but then I went ahead and made the above assumptions.  As I said, I don't personally believe those things are "for the girls", I just assumed that they were what the OP (and other posters) meant.

[Fast Jimmy]

Sylvianus wrote...

There are also female LI's.

A character who admits she / he is homosexual can be considered as female or male features by anyone ? Why the gender of the player is involved here ? How would it be more appealing to one gender in the writting ? Is it because the character has simply preferences ? Anyways, Zevran a male did the same.

I agree with the semantics here. If Bioware made a game that had characteristics that showcased men as sexual objects and did other things to increase the appeal of the characters to heterosexual females, this could also attract homosexual males. The DA series could have a 50-50 split of male and female fans, but maybe only a 25-75 split of heterosexual males to homosexual and female gamers. 

I don't think this is inherently the case, but the gist of this post brings a good point. Gamers are defined by much more than gender. As I said in my earlier post, I always evaluate a game on its own merits, not if I feel it validates my identity as a male. I don't even think about being male in 90% of my preferences in life. My wife, who I am the most compatible with of anyone in the world I've ever met, share the same tastes on pretty much everything... except video games, that is. TV, movies, food, books, sports, politics, religion, family values... we match up, regardless of our sex, on almost every single one of these. If because I was male, we instantly couldn't like the same things, then our relationship wouldn't work.

[Redwardz]

Make both male and female be a part of the game at the same time. If you play the male character, then the female character is a party member and vice versa. And in multiplayer it would be 2 player co-op, one playing male and other playing female.

[Battlebloodmage]

Redwardz wrote...

Make both male and female be a part of the game at the same time. If you play the male character, then the female character is a party member and vice versa. And in multiplayer it would be 2 player co-op, one playing male and other playing female.

I can already hear people screaming of making the other PC into a LI .

[Josielyn]

If I am interested in a specific game, I do research online to decide whether to buy or not. When I go shopping at the store for last year's games that run on an older PC, I look at the cover, and then I look for customizable characters. If it doesn't say anywhere that I can play as male or female, back on the shelf it goes. If it is customizable and my system meets the requirements, I carry it to the checkout. If the game has male/female/customizable characters (in that you aren't forced to choose from a very limited number of looks) I may buy it off the shelf and if it has a great story, then I tell ALL my friends about the great game I bought, and I show it off when they come to visit. RPGs are a great chance to pretend to get out and explore for mothers who are not able to just leave the house and go to the bars whenever they feel like it. And some Codex entries/lore make for great bedtime stories. I enjoy the pause and play RPG that aren't necessarily MMOs, for when the dog needs to be let in or out, when the popcorn needs to be made for the kiddos on those rainy movie days (how many times in a row can you watch the same Backyardigans?!?), for when the washing machine starts rocking madly from side to side and threatening to spew the jeans that are lumped all on one side, for when the whole house is asleep but the caffeinated beverages you consumed with dinner to make it through the rest of the day haven't worn off, etc. So yes, by seeing a woman protagonist on the cover art, it says "THIS GAME's FOR YOU LADY!". Oh, Bioware, TAKE ME AWAY!

[Josielyn]

I suppose all of this comes down to the Target Audience Analysis. Who is your target and what symbols and themes resonate with them? How much time do we have to do research or how many go game-hunting on a whim? How many of us are "gifted" with an older PC or Mac and go on a wild goose chase to find games that will play on it that we might enjoy (before you can't find them on the shelves anymore)? How many of us buy a new PC to keep up with games, or light candles and pray the next sequel will work for us?

[Daissran]

Josielyn wrote...

So yes, by seeing a woman protagonist on the cover art, it says "THIS GAME's FOR YOU LADY!". Oh, Bioware, TAKE ME AWAY!

Yes!

[Daissran]

What resonates with me about DA games, most Bioware RPGs in fact, are that they weave relationships between the PC and other characters.

I find complex, interpersonal relationships and meaningful friendships appealing in games. Games that are overly aggressive, violent and sexualise women put me off, because suddenly that environment in unwelcoming. Putting a woman, who is not objectified, on the front cover of DA3 would be both welcoming and fresh.

[Harle Cerulean]

Daissran wrote...

Josielyn wrote...

So yes, by seeing a woman protagonist on the cover art, it says "THIS GAME's FOR YOU LADY!". Oh, Bioware, TAKE ME AWAY!

Yes!

Sort of.  This is true as long as said female protagonist on the cover isn't passively posed and depicted for maximum titillation/sex appeal.  Which, sadly, is not how it works for the majority of covers that do have a woman on the cover.  There are actually academic studies on exactly this - the depiction of women on videogame covers and how it compares to the depiction of men on videogame covers.  Covers that depict women, even protagonists (and only ~10% of games even have a female protagonist available to depict, less have only a female protagonist) overwhemingly oversexualize them and downplay their active role in the game.

I would certainly hope Bioware would do better than that, of course!  But given the lack of attention to the female protagonist in trailers for DA:O and DA2, and of course, m!Hawke on the cover of DA2 and no sign of f!Hawke, it's not the best of starting positions, and ME3's vote for the default appearance of fem!Shep doesn't inspire any more confidence in their ability to use a female character in marketing without making it about how sexy she is.

[MrMcDoll]

I feel that in terms of box art depicting both male and female options, the collectors edition of ME3 did a wonderful job.
My girlfriend was surprised to see that there was femshep on the boxart as she had only seen me playing the game as broshep and wasn't aware that you could even play as a girl.
Though it's a personal anecdote, it does imply to me that many potential female customers may miss the game out entirely (if they're new to the series etc) if they see manly-man-main-guy box art and aren't aware that gender choice is actually a feature.

Thusfar, Bioware has been wonderful for female gamers (according to my female gamer mates) With the only other RPG being comparable in many of their opinions being Ultima 7 (why you no allow womens U8/9!??!??) and WoW.

EDIT: an Idea for boxart that I had was to have a symbol on the front or some picture of a monster/antagonist/something.
Then on the back have screenshots + features, with a female lead on one side and male lead on the other, both in the same armour and with the same weapons.
Have an equal number of trailers with male or female protagonist shown also.
Bob's your mother's brother - GENDER EQUALITY!!

(also, maybe have main protagonist NOT be a generic white dude - but that's a whole 'nother can o' worms!!

Modifié par MrMcDoll, 18 décembre 2012 - 03:54 .

[AlexanderCousland]

Harle Cerulean wrote...

Sort of.  This is true as long as said female protagonist on the cover isn't passively posed and depicted for maximum titillation/sex appeal.  Which, sadly, is not how it works for the majority of covers that do have a woman on the cover.  There are actually academic studies on exactly this - the depiction of women on videogame covers and how it compares to the depiction of men on videogame covers..

Oh! you mean the Men that alway's show up on Box Cover's with huge Muscles, hammer jaw's, white skin dressed in spandex tight clothing with a bulge that poke's your eye's out, possibly with a gun or a sword.? 

Yea, most of us dont look like that, but Women find that sexy, are Men being oversexualized as well?  

[Harle Cerulean]

FreshIstay wrote...

Harle Cerulean wrote...

Sort of.  This is true as long as said female protagonist on the cover isn't passively posed and depicted for maximum titillation/sex appeal.  Which, sadly, is not how it works for the majority of covers that do have a woman on the cover.  There are actually academic studies on exactly this - the depiction of women on videogame covers and how it compares to the depiction of men on videogame covers..

Oh! you mean the Men that alway's show up on Box Cover's with huge Muscles, hammer jaw's, white skin dressed in spandex tight clothing with a bulge that poke's your eye's out, possibly with a gun or a sword.? 

Yea, most of us dont look like that, but Women find that sexy, are Men being oversexualized as well?  

Do the words "male power fantasy" mean anything to you?  Because that's what those covers appeal to - not women's lust.  If they appealed to women's lust, there'd be a lot different focus, shapes, and clothing.

[brushyourteeth]

Blue Gloves wrote...

Myrmedus wrote...


I don't see any hate in the OP's post at all. There's a difference between disagreeing with someone and yelling that their attitude is one of hatred towards an entire sex. Pull the pole out of your arse, please.

I think the problem (well, my problem, at any rate) is not that the OP offered up a hateful attitude towards women, but rather that he oh so magnanimously offered all us poor wimmin folk the dubious honor of being 'okay' with the fact that "DAO seems to be slanted more towards females."  I understand that OP was simply trying to state an opinion, and I'm not spewing any feminist nerd rage at him, but it does feel pretty awful to be condescended to, and whether that was OP's intention or not, that was exactly what he did.

The idea that the game is marketed for, or designed with women in mind is pretty silly. The game was designed with gamers in mind, but because there are a nearly equal number of options and features for female gamers as for males, many individuals who have been raised with a certain viewpoint automatically assumes that the game must be made for women.  Personally, that viewpoint doesn't make me angry- just sad.   Most of us live in a society that tells us that men and women are equal but presents us with endless examples of how this is not so.  The OP's (and many others') confusion as to why their comments were offensive is just further evidence of that.

All that being said: rage isn't the way to correct unconscious attitudes of superiority or entitlement, instruction is.  The OP's post was offensive to several devs and forumites, he was told so and (mostly) civil discourse has followed.  If we don't recognize and talk about issues like this, even on such small platforms as a thread in a gaming forum, we'll never be able to change them.

I don't think anyone else has adequately commented on how purely awesome this is. So allow me. 



Also, related to the topic but not this particular quote, I'd like to just say that I really couldn't care less what's on the cover art. Male protag, female protag, signature blood dragon, a nug in a wig -- I'm going to buy the game regardless.   

[AlexanderCousland]

Harle Cerulean wrote...

FreshIstay wrote...

Harle Cerulean wrote...

Sort of.  This is true as long as said female protagonist on the cover isn't passively posed and depicted for maximum titillation/sex appeal.  Which, sadly, is not how it works for the majority of covers that do have a woman on the cover.  There are actually academic studies on exactly this - the depiction of women on videogame covers and how it compares to the depiction of men on videogame covers..

Oh! you mean the Men that alway's show up on Box Cover's with huge Muscles, hammer jaw's, white skin dressed in spandex tight clothing with a bulge that poke's your eye's out, possibly with a gun or a sword.? 

Yea, most of us dont look like that, but Women find that sexy, are Men being oversexualized as well?  

Do the words "male power fantasy" mean anything to you?  Because that's what those covers appeal to - not women's lust.  If they appealed to women's lust, there'd be a lot different focus, shapes, and clothing.

Acorrding to the stats posted on this forum  those same cover's have tradiotnally appealed to 47% of female gamer's as well. So, I dont know If your suggesting that  those Female's have a "male power" fantasy. and Im sure game cover's  with Females with clevage showing arent created to appeal to male lust either, but i wont deny that men will find females those character's atttractive, naturally . On the Flipside, I'd have an easier time beliving that females dont find the Muscular Male character's attractive if there weren't examples posted righ here on BSN.  It goes both ways. 

[SirGladiator]

I think the key is to show off the characters, in this case the protagonist, in the best light possible. The cover of DA2 did a reasonably solid job of that, but only for male protagonists. DAO more heavily marketed Morrigan than either a male or female protagonist, and yes she was fairly scantily clad, but she looked great, that was the point. The major selling point of DAO was that you could romance Morrigan (although she ended up only being romancable by male players if you played on a console and didnt have mods), the major selling point of DA2 was....well, that you could play as a dude. Not much of a selling point, since thats virtually every game in existance. If I'm in charge of marketing DA3, by the time I'm done there isn't anybody out there who doesn't know that A. You can play as a male or female character, and that B. playing as a female character will not prevent you from romancing anyone you like, so if you play DA3 you'll be getting the best of both worlds. You obviously do that by prominently featuring the female protagonist, as well as at least one of the female LIs, in the marketing. If you do that, everyone is happy, men and women alike, each for different reasons, but the result is the same. Its not exactly rocket science, but you'd think it was judging by how few marketing teams actually get it right. Hopefully that will change with time, and DA3 will be part of that.

[NoForgiveness]

um.. solution. reversable cover! male on one side female on other    oh wait does xbox have those?

Modifié par MR_PN, 18 décembre 2012 - 06:51 .

[Fisto The Sexbot]

Does anyone else still think differently at this point?

[Khayness]

Fangirls? Perharps.

Yaoi fangirls? Definetly.

[Fisto The Sexbot]

David Gaider wrote...

Gandalf-the-Fabulous wrote...
Not trying to be sexist just curious but for some reason the whole Dragon Age series seems like it is written to appeal more to the female audience, anyone else get this impression? Not having a go at anyone I just find it 'unique', to be fair it would seem most games these days are writen to appeal more to males, I mean we got the far superior Witcher series so I guess it is about time women got a series of games made to appeal more to them, all the more power to ya girlfriend.

I'm uncertain what we do for female fans that we don't also regularly do for male fans. I suppose if the Witcher series is the benchmark you're using, the difference might make it seem unbalanced, but that's a rather dubious measuring stick if you ask me.

Why is The Witcher series a 'dubious benchmark'?

[Daissran]

FreshIstay wrote...

Acorrding to the stats posted on this forum  those same cover's have tradiotnally appealed to 47% of female gamer's as well. So, I dont know If your suggesting that  those Female's have a "male power" fantasy. and Im sure game cover's  with Females with clevage showing arent created to appeal to male lust either, but i wont deny that men will find females those character's atttractive, naturally . On the Flipside, I'd have an easier time beliving that females dont find the Muscular Male character's attractive if there weren't examples posted righ here on BSN.  It goes both ways. 

Firstly, that data refers to women playing games, not how appealing they find the front cover. Also, they do not/cannot have a 'male power fantasy'... because they're not, uh, men.

The covers featuring women cleavaged-up and sexualised are indeed intended to appeal to straight male lust. Obviously. A male power fantasy is what a man wants to be, traditionally the hero. A male sex fantasy is what he wants to have and ogle...

While I won't deny that a few women may find those hero types attractive, they are definitely not made to appeal to women – they are made to appeal to the, once again, male power fantasy.

Also, do you know the meaning of false equivalence?

Modifié par Daissran, 18 décembre 2012 - 09:16 .

[Gazardiel]

I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around the "console gamers are more hardcore" idea, but I'm probably stuck in thinking about the earlier generation (PS2, XBox, Gamecube trifecta). Playstation (1&2) was a haven for JRPGs, which I have loved, but I tend to see those denigrated by a lot of players ("ewww, ANIME with its pretty guys and flashy moves!"). Nintendo Gamecube was specifically marketed for younger players with more cartoony and light games. And I remember writing off XBox because such a large portion of their games were sports games, which don't strike me as hardcore gaming, but as games meant to appeal to sports fans. Oh yeah, Halo and other FPS are on console too, but if that's your benchmark for "hardcore" then we're all pansies here for actually looking at storylines and character development - once you're comparing genres, it gets really hard to compare. There seem to be more "hardcore" games available on consoles today, but there are also a LOT of casual/episodic games too. I suspect that this is another "we're cooler than you" thing.

I have a gaming PC as well as my PS2 (I refuse to get a PS3 because I've seen them spend more time updating than being played - not very conducive for hardcore gaming, IMO), and I still feel that PC lets me play more refined games with more detailed controls (hooray for 10+ hotkeys). I suspect that the greater customizability (including of mods) that PC offers makes that platform more appealing to female gamers, who seem to produce a lot more of the creative content around DA (some stunning cut scenes on YouTube!).

Oh, and when I see sites like this, it really makes me wonder whether "hardcore" just means "hostile and immature": http://www.fatuglyorslutty.com/ (a site that documents sexual harassment in online gaming, with most cases coming from consoles)

(Edit: This is not intended to denigrate console players.  I'm a platform pluralist and appreciate that different platforms offer different benefits and focus on certain genres and playstyles.  I just find it silly to make unwarranted value claims based on platform)

Modifié par Gazardiel, 18 décembre 2012 - 09:44 .

[Plaintiff]

FreshIstay wrote...

Harle Cerulean wrote...

Sort of.  This is true as long as said female protagonist on the cover isn't passively posed and depicted for maximum titillation/sex appeal.  Which, sadly, is not how it works for the majority of covers that do have a woman on the cover.  There are actually academic studies on exactly this - the depiction of women on videogame covers and how it compares to the depiction of men on videogame covers..

Oh! you mean the Men that alway's show up on Box Cover's with huge Muscles, hammer jaw's, white skin dressed in spandex tight clothing with a bulge that poke's your eye's out, possibly with a gun or a sword.? 

Yea, most of us dont look like that, but Women find that sexy, are Men being oversexualized as well?  

Putting aside the fact that you're making a lot of sweeping assumptions about what women find attractive, when their tastes are as varied as any man's, there's nothing "sexualised" about the male protagonists at all. Having a big package (the prominence of which I think you're grossly exaggerating) doesn't automatically make the image a sexual one.

I noticed you completely ignored the issue of posing, which is a major factor in sexualisation. Shepard is not posed suggestively, his expression is not flirtatious. There is a world of difference between this:



and mister "my body is ready" over here:

Modifié par Plaintiff, 18 décembre 2012 - 09:33 .