244 réponses à ce sujet

[Selphie12]

Oddly enough that was an issue that only came about in DA2. If you look on EA origin or anything and find DA2, you'll see male hawke, but since the DA:O protag could have been any race or gender, the trailers only contain the party members.

[LinksOcarina]

 So...you guys know that there is a correlation to marketing budgets tied to the gender of the protagonists?

Ben Kuchera did an expose and did some research on this, taking a sample size of 699 games from the past couple of years to find out how many had female protagonists, male protagonists, or choice of gender.
The results were pretty striking,  taking 699 games in 3 primary genres (RPG, Action/Advenutre, and Shooter) and finding that only 24 games had a female-only lead, with less than 300 games giving us the choice of gender.

This editorial also found that games with a female only lead tend to sell worse during the 7th generation of consoles, but there was a correlation to their advertising budgets being significantly smaller.

I bring this up because I recently tied these stats to an article I wrote, regarding an interview with Jean-Alex Morris did regarding the project hes currently working on, Remember Me. Something to the effect of "We had some that said, ‘Well, we don’t want to publish it because that’s not going to succeed. You can’t have a female character in games. It has to be a male character, simple as that.’” 

I also recall another story popping up regarding The Last of Us, and how Naughty Dog refused to change the cover of the box to feature Joel only, with Ellie on the back. So honestly, a lot of this is internal marketing either being somewhat stuck in their ways, or not giving female leads much credit in the advertising budgets of mainstream video games.

I should point out that this is not fully concrete in the end, since the sample size is small. But at the same time, it seems like an issue withn the industry that is somewhat ingrained sadly. Thankfully BioWare is not in that sort of categoy, but I think that every company can improve their standings somewhat for future releases if they decide to take risks.

I think the new Tomb Raider may in fact open the floodgates if it was successful, but Lara may just be a special case in the end. We shall see how Remember Me fares as well. And I am sure Dragon Age: Inquisition will be up to the task as well. 

Modifié par LinksOcarina, 24 mars 2013 - 04:30 .

[lil yonce]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Youth4Ever wrote...

ME3 and DA2 were the female protagonist was designed and marketed.

Hmm, was FemHawke actually marketed?  I thought ME3 was the first where we actually used the female protagonist in marketing.

She was advertised/shown off in any way as being the default female. I include screenshots, posters, etc. Like this:

[Beerfish]

Youth4Ever wrote...

Varrics version of Bethany. lol  Good gracious.

I'd like to see them do a dual marketing effort, a good portion of the fan base hsould not have to plead and cajole for a fem hero to be reasonably prominant in marketing.

[Fast Jimmy]

Filament wrote...

Um yea, both DAO cinematic trailers had the blue-eyed tattoo-faced protagonist, and he even made appearances in the 'ultraviolence' or whatever it was called, gameplay trailer.

The character was given less screen time than almost every other character in the trailers. One could have assumed that Morrigan was the PC instead of the white guy. 

Not my personal preference (I think someone saying "just put a helmet on the character on the cover and be done with it" had the right idea), but showcasing numerous other characters with the PC being nearly ancillary would be a good route. 

[Sidney]

Marketing is only designed to sell units. The play stats off ME3 show an 82-18 IIRC ratio of male to female Sheps. I played both and I bet if you excluded people who played both versions the figures would skew even more to the male Shep.

I want DA3 to sell well (assuming it is good of course) and so I want the marketing to hit the biggest bang for the buck and that is the male lead.

[SilentK]

Tinxa wrote...

I don't see what would be so bad in making it plain you can customise your character. How can it hurt sales by making customers aware they can also play as a female.
I remember way back when ME was being developed, I had to find and read the faq with a magnifying glass so that I saw information you could also play a female. For a long time I was convinced Sheploo was all you got to play.

Ok, so trailers use one PC char as a face for the game, I can understand that. But often videos with developer interviews and showing gameplay also only use the same character. You could show a female PC in those and the developer could say "you can also play as a female". That wouldn't "confuse" anyone.

I would like to see something with the female protagonist just so people will know that you can indeed play as a female.

Years ago my husband bought DA:O, he had seen the site on the internet and likes fantasy-games. I was not interested at all, I had seen the really cool vid with Morrigan, Leliana and a male Warden. My guess about the game after my husband showed the game he was getting, you can play a badass male character and there are cool females that look good traveling with you. Nothing there really drew me in personally, I was playing Tomb Raider because Lara Croft was the one female hero I found at the time.
Dragon Age Origins Sacred Ashes

He gets the game and look a little sometimes when he is playing, it seemed like a fun game. And then he told me, "You know you can play a female character, right?". Made my first character that evening and went out and got the game straight away. Tomb Raider was completely forgotten after I could rpg so many wonderful female characters. May sound silly but after that gaming became one of my absolutely favorite hobbies. I play DA-series and ME-series regularly. I got SWTOR as well and am a officer in a guild there, when I'm finished here I'm going to continue to look up guides for the event I'm holding tonight for my fellow guildies. I own all the dlc for my BioWare-games and have spent some coin on Cartel stuff. I became more of a gamer than my husband which be both laugh about, he plays games once and is happy. I replay them to see the different outcomes of varying choices. Likewise Torment: Tides of NumeneraI was looking around the site keeping my fingers crossed *please let there be a female protag as well* and acutally danced on the spot when I finally found it. Backed it straight away and I'm really hyped for it.

I want the female protagonist to get some spotlight just for the sake of information. Just so that female gamers get to know that BioWare might just have a really great game for them. There is no secret signal or handshake when you walk into Webhallen or your local gamestore saying that it FemWarden, FemHawke and FemShep is there. They put so much love into FemShep and FemHawke, how about letting female gamers know about it? What they did with the cover off ME3, having it reversible with both a male and a female Shepard is great. It is so strange to me, know gaming is one of my most favorite pasttimes and I almost missed out. Hadn't my husband told me FemWarden was there I would never have known.

Modifié par SilentK, 24 mars 2013 - 04:50 .

[Fast Jimmy]

^

I'd also like to point out that, as a straight, white, male gamer? I hated the DA promotions of Hawke. And found the depictions of the Warden in DA:O's marketing stupid.

Why could I? How is that possible? They are my perfect representation of my demographic! How could I possibly be unhappy?

Because the concept behind a protagonist being marketed is not what I look for in RPG games. I don't want to see Bioware's character. I'll be just as unhappy seeing a woman on the cover as seeing a man. I don't want to see it, period. Because it is going to go against the entire premise of the game's design.

[billy the squid]

SilentK wrote...

.....

I want the female protagonist to get some spotlight just for the sake of information. Just so that female gamers get to know that BioWare might just have a really great game for them. There is no secret signal or handshake when you walk into Webhallen or your local gamestore saying that it FemWarden, FemHawke and FemShep is there. They put so much love into FemShep and FemHawke, how about letting female gamers know about it? What they did with the cover off ME3, having it reversible with both a male and a female Shepard is great. It is so strange to me, know gaming is one of my most favorite pasttimes and I almost missed out. Hadn't my husband told me FemWarden was there I would never have known.

Although It might sound confrontational, so I've toned it down a bit, what I derived from this part was. "I didn't have the inclination to actually find out what the game was about, therefore the Company must do all the work for me, to the point where I can't even turn over the back of a box to find out what the game is about."

That would be the logical distillation of your point. Doesn't portray women who play games in a good light either. And what you encountered was in essence word of mouth marketing which all companies use irrespective of gender and whatever other social concepts people like to go on about. For instance, games which appeal to other types of people outside of their market segment, should their marketing now cater to someone like me who generally has little interest in FPS games, yet now contains customisation and RPG mechanics? Borderlands certainly didn't, yet I found it and looked into it, before making a purchase.

I think it's rather conceited and people, although not aimed at you, need to pull their heads out of their collective arses and take a good look at the reality of what they're asking, and how stupid it is to expect a company to pander to every possible demographic, because everyone has to be included, because "we're people too" no you (plural) are not, they exista as a market segment and a revenue source to be targeted analysed and exploited. Those are the cold hard facts of data analysis.

[grumpymooselion]

LinksOcarina wrote...

 So...you guys know that there is a correlation to marketing budgets tied to the gender of the protagonists?

Ben Kuchera did an expose and did some research on this, taking a sample size of 699 games from the past couple of years to find out how many had female protagonists, male protagonists, or choice of gender.
The results were pretty striking,  taking 699 games in 3 primary genres (RPG, Action/Advenutre, and Shooter) and finding that only 24 games had a female-only lead, with less than 300 games giving us the choice of gender.

This editorial also found that games with a female only lead tend to sell worse during the 7th generation of consoles, but there was a correlation to their advertising budgets being significantly smaller.

I bring this up because I recently tied these stats to an article I wrote, regarding an interview with Jean-Alex Morris did regarding the project hes currently working on, Remember Me. Something to the effect of "We had some that said, ‘Well, we don’t want to publish it because that’s not going to succeed. You can’t have a female character in games. It has to be a male character, simple as that.’” 

I also recall another story popping up regarding The Last of Us, and how Naughty Dog refused to change the cover of the box to feature Joel only, with Ellie on the back. So honestly, a lot of this is internal marketing either being somewhat stuck in their ways, or not giving female leads much credit in the advertising budgets of mainstream video games.

I should point out that this is not fully concrete in the end, since the sample size is small. But at the same time, it seems like an issue withn the industry that is somewhat ingrained sadly. Thankfully BioWare is not in that sort of categoy, but I think that every company can improve their standings somewhat for future releases if they decide to take risks.

I think the new Tomb Raider may in fact open the floodgates if it was successful, but Lara may just be a special case in the end. We shall see how Remember Me fares as well. And I am sure Dragon Age: Inquisition will be up to the task as well. 

There's a stream of logic outside the video game industry, in film and T.V., that's very similar. It's this idea that girls will watch shows about men, starring a male character, but that boys won't watch a show about a female character. This is a strange idea, yet, it's still popular enough that it gets tossed around almost constantly even in the face of ideas that prove it wrong.

There was enough worry on some executive parts that Legend of Korra , the sequel to the Last Airbender cartoon, was put to the test by its creators before it went on air. They brought in quite a few people, and get some pretty telling results - the male audience didn't care that she was female, they only cared that she was, and I quote, 'badass.'

When released Legend of Korra did very, very well.

You see, here's where things break down, there what 'executives think the audience thinks' and 'what they audience actually thinks.'

-

So let's skip over to video games, and think for a second. Where have we had female main characters in games, that have been very successful? Well, plenty places. Metroid, Final Fantasy VI and more all all popular, and beloved, titled with a main character that is female.

The reality is that what people 'think' the audience wants from a character, and their gender, isn't always what the audience actually wants or even cares about.

-

That all said, I don't really care who they market the game with. I make my own characters, I never use the defaults.

[slimgrin]

SilentK wrote...


I would like to see something with the female protagonist just so people will know that you can indeed play as a female.

Or they can just read the box to find this out. Or look it up on the internet. Seriously, gamers aren't so clueless; I'm pretty sure most Bioware fans already know you can play both genders. And that's what this is about, appeasing established fans.

Modifié par slimgrin, 24 mars 2013 - 05:34 .

[RedArmyShogun]

*Reads thread*





Like really what in the hell is with this Thread, I should be selling ringside tickets.

[Terraforming2154]

slimgrin wrote...

SilentK wrote...


I would like to see something with the female protagonist just so people will know that you can indeed play as a female.

Or they can just read the box to find this out. Seriously, gamers aren't so clueless; I'm pretty sure most Bioware fans already know you can play both genders. And that's what this is about, appeasing established fans.

Eh, I don't remember anywhere on Dragon Age or Mass Effect's boxes mentioning that you can play a female character. Went and checked my Bioware games (the NA versions), and Mass Effect 1 is the only one that mentions briefly that you can customize a character.

[syllogi]

billy the squid wrote...

SilentK wrote...

.....

I want the female protagonist to get some spotlight just for the sake of information. Just so that female gamers get to know that BioWare might just have a really great game for them. There is no secret signal or handshake when you walk into Webhallen or your local gamestore saying that it FemWarden, FemHawke and FemShep is there. They put so much love into FemShep and FemHawke, how about letting female gamers know about it? What they did with the cover off ME3, having it reversible with both a male and a female Shepard is great. It is so strange to me, know gaming is one of my most favorite pasttimes and I almost missed out. Hadn't my husband told me FemWarden was there I would never have known.

Although It might sound confrontational, so I've toned it down a bit, what I derived from this part was. "I didn't have the inclination to actually find out what the game was about, therefore the Company must do all the work for me, to the point where I can't even turn over the back of a box to find out what the game is about."

That would be the logical distillation of your point. Doesn't portray women who play games in a good light either. And what you encountered was in essence word of mouth marketing which all companies use irrespective of gender and whatever other social concepts people like to go on about. For instance, games which appeal to other types of people outside of their market segment, should their marketing now cater to someone like me who generally has little interest in FPS games, yet now contains customisation and RPG mechanics? Borderlands certainly didn't, yet I found it and looked into it, before making a purchase.

I think it's rather conceited and people, although not aimed at you, need to pull their heads out of their collective arses and take a good look at the reality of what they're asking, and how stupid it is to expect a company to pander to every possible demographic, because everyone has to be included, because "we're people too" no you (plural) are not, they exista as a market segment and a revenue source to be targeted analysed and exploited. Those are the cold hard facts of data analysis.

Seriously?  So when, as an example, Mass Effect 2 had NO screenshots or ingame images of FemShep available until a day or two before the game actually came out, anywhere online, it was up to female gamers to "do their homework"?  Other than *asking* for that sort of marketing (just like what's happening in this thread), what were female gamers supposed to do in that situation?

I want to be informed about the character *I* am going to play.  I'm not in any way saying I don't want to see marketing with male versions of the player character, but it's in no way conceited or selfish to ask for the same sort of advertising those who play male characters take for granted.

And for the record, I'm sick of both "Grim Broody Dudebro Striding Manfully Towards the Viewer" and "Sexy Lady Twisting Her Body so Both T&A Are Visible" cover art.  I thought the way DA:O handled marketing, and the trailers and posters featuring characters from different origins, was great, and I'd like to see DA:I's marketing handled more like that.

[slimgrin]

Foshizzlin wrote...

I'm still just not seeing why Bioware and some people think advertising another gender, which plays just as big of a role, would be a profit loss.

They have said time and again they want a single face for the series, someone instantly recognizable. And this works, it's a marketing fact. No gender boundaries will be broken or glass ceilings exploded by simply marketing a female anyway.

[SilentK]

billy the squid wrote...

Although It might sound confrontational, so I've toned it down a bit, what I derived from this part was. "I didn't have the inclination to actually find out what the game was about, therefore the Company must do all the work for me, to the point where I can't even turn over the back of a box to find out what the game is about."

That would be the logical distillation of your point. Doesn't portray women who play games in a good light either. And what you encountered was in essence word of mouth marketing which all companies use irrespective of gender and whatever other social concepts people like to go on about. For instance, games which appeal to other types of people outside of their market segment, should their marketing now cater to someone like me who generally has little interest in FPS games, yet now contains customisation and RPG mechanics? Borderlands certainly didn't, yet I found it and looked into it, before making a purchase.

I think it's rather conceited and people, although not aimed at you, need to pull their heads out of their collective arses and take a good look at the reality of what they're asking, and how stupid it is to expect a company to pander to every possible demographic, because everyone has to be included, because "we're people too" no you (plural) are not, they exista as a market segment and a revenue source to be targeted analysed and exploited. Those are the cold hard facts of data analysis.

I didn't know that it was even an option to look up, female character I mean. I really thought that it was Lara Croft or male hero in another game for me at that time. Now I know that there is more out there, which is why I looked up info on Torment: Tides of Numenera prior to backing it like I said. If you don't even know that it is an option, perhaps you are not as likely to go looking for it.

Hmm... don't know why you would say that it draws female players in a bad light. Just because I personally did not know that BioWare did games with a female protag does not mean that other women were not more informed or more active in finding the information out. I am just one woman, I do not represent every single female player. I didn't go looking just because I thought that these games didn't exist. The only game I had ever seen with someone like me was Tomb Raider so I thougth that that was it. That game was for me and the rest was for those who liked to play guys. So I picked up my toy and played with it.

I think that there is a difference between just hoping that there will be some easy to see info on the fact that you can play as a female and how you put it "I didn't have the inclination to actually find out what the game was
about, therefore the Company must do all the work for me, to the point where I can't even turn over the back of a box to find out what the game is about."

Ouch. If I would stand around in a games store turning over boxes randomly until I find the one with a female protag I don't know how much time that will take. How about just one poster with a female character, or something visible on the front with text that mentions a female protag. If you don't know that it can be an option, you might not go looking for it. I'm just hoping that making it a little more visible might catch some more female players, those who perhaps haven't tried rpg's yet. I have a few female friends who really like SIM's. Think that they could perhaps like these games as well. Perhaps I was the one female gamer out there who really didn't know that there were games with with female protags other than Tomb Raider, but in case there are others just something to catch their attetion would be a great thing.

Modifié par SilentK, 24 mars 2013 - 05:50 .

[BeatoSama]

Terraforming2154 wrote...

slimgrin wrote...

SilentK wrote...


I would like to see something with the female protagonist just so people will know that you can indeed play as a female.

Or they can just read the box to find this out. Seriously, gamers aren't so clueless; I'm pretty sure most Bioware fans already know you can play both genders. And that's what this is about, appeasing established fans.

Eh, I don't remember anywhere on Dragon Age or Mass Effect's boxes mentioning that you can play a female character. Went and checked my Bioware games (the NA versions), and Mass Effect 1 is the only one that mentions briefly that you can customize a character.

I second this. I have the DAO Ultimate edition (uk version) and DA2 (scandinavian edition) boxes right beside me. Neither of them mentions anything about being able to customize your character at all. And femHawke isnt in a single screenshot on the back either.

[syllogi]

slimgrin wrote...

Foshizzlin wrote...

I'm still just not seeing why Bioware and some people think advertising another gender, which plays just as big of a role, would be a profit loss.

They have said time and again they want a single face for the series, someone instantly recognizable. And this works, it's a marketing fact. No gender boundaries will be broken or glass ceilings exploded by simply marketing a female anyway.

I know, right?  Remember how poorly Myst sold, because there was no Dudebro on the box?  Or the Sims franchise, man, those sales really sucked with no single dude for dudes to identify with.  Same with the Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo series.  OH WAIT.

[rapscallioness]

mickey111 wrote...

My suggestion for the front cover is for the female protag to be shown getting punched in the stomach. On the back we'd see only her panties and bare legs as she is is hauled off, unconscious. On the flip side of the front cover we'd see a pic of the male protagonist looking powerful and badass and pissed off and ****. On the disc it would say "go claim your power".

is this a part of your campaign to nuke ur acct? Good show.

Modifié par rapscallioness, 24 mars 2013 - 06:05 .

[slimgrin]

syllogi wrote...

slimgrin wrote...

Foshizzlin wrote...

I'm still just not seeing why Bioware and some people think advertising another gender, which plays just as big of a role, would be a profit loss.

They have said time and again they want a single face for the series, someone instantly recognizable. And this works, it's a marketing fact. No gender boundaries will be broken or glass ceilings exploded by simply marketing a female anyway.

I know, right?  Remember how poorly Myst sold, because there was no Dudebro on the box?  Or the Sims franchise, man, those sales really sucked with no single dude for dudes to identify with.  Same with the Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo series.  OH WAIT.

Something tells me you just hate dude bros and would feel validated by having a female lead on the cover. Great, now you and the rest can get together and decide on what she should wear...