590 réponses à ce sujet

[esper]

TK514 wrote...

Soundsystem wrote...

TK514 wrote...

Nyneve wrote...

pdusen wrote...

Soundsystem wrote...

And you are the one who gets to decide what is reasonable and what isn't?

How convient.

Just because an issue doesn't affect you doesn't make caring about it unreasonable. 

No, I certainly am as capable of being unreasonable as everyone else.

I get that many female gamers feel that their lack of representation in game marketing is an open wound. But that is a feeling, and letting that be the basis of your disappointment is, by definition, unreasonable.

Eh? The basis of OPs (and mine) disappointment isn't hurt feelings, it's the fact that female player characters are underrepresentet in video games and as of right now, the marketing for DA:I is very centered on a male protagonist.

I just can't take this complaint even moderately seriously.  Saying 'as of right now, the marketing for DA:I is very centered on a male protagonist' is like being greeted at the front door by a man while a woman walks into another room and assuming that you are only ever going to see the man and glimpses of the woman.

And what would make us think otherwise?

DA:O, DA2, ME1, ME2. All save ME3 were marketed with only brief glimpses of the female PC, if that. Other game companies have certainly not given me any reason to think, "Oh. If I just sit back nicely and wait eventually they'll get around to me. Maybe."

You answered your own question.  ME3 should make you think otherwise.    If ME3 were ten years ago and every marketing effort by BioWare since then had been a total sausage fest, then you could dismiss it as an outlier.  However, ME3 is their most recent blockbuster marketing effort, and was clearly an improvement over past sausagefest, so why do you assume that the BioWare marketing division, having acknowledged female gamers and made moves to include them, would suddenly throw that out the windown and go back to the old way?  What has BioWare done between ME3 and now to make you assume that being inclusive is suddenly back off the table?

esper wrote...

But that is exactly what happens in 80 percent of games, so that is a fairly reasonable assumption.

That would certainly matter if BioWare were 80 percent of game developers.  Maybe if BioWare were Bethesda, or Atari, or whoever, it would be a reasonable assumption to make, but they aren't.  They're BioWare, and their most recent effort had multiple instances of focusing on the female protagonist.

Same question as above:  What has BioWare done lately to justify your assumption that they are suddenly going to revert to what '80 percent of games' developers do?


Or are you going to try to tell me that roughly ten minutes of total footage, with probably less than five of that being relevant, and some environmental concept art is enough to justify your refusal to give them the benefit of a doubt?

Up untill a few posts ago, I was giving them the benefit off doubt. As I said it seemed bioware was surprised by the reaction and I was fairly sure that they would try to be more aware in the future. The one I was most angry wiht was people like you saying it is not a problem. (Because it is a problem, and the only way to fix it is to acknowlegde it).

Now, however, I am also dissapointed in bioware.

[Ianamus]

John Epler wrote...

Which is rather the point. As a guy, we will never live in a world where we will be underrepresented in media. It is never going to happen.

So for us to say 'it's ridiculous to complain about your gender not being included!' is kind of silly, because we are in the privileged position of never, ever having to fight for that sort of inclusivity.

Well, never have to fight for gender-related inclusivity. I'm sure there are many men who feel underrepresented, be it due to their race, religion of sexuality. 

[Lord Raijin]

It's nearly impossible to make everyone happy, Sylvianus.

[John Epler]

Folks, while I know some of you don't care, let's refrain from making posts that are, essentially, 'I don't care'. It's not really adding anything to the discussion, which I think is a good discussion to have.

[lady_v23]

discosuperfly wrote...

I'm also a female gamer who almost exclusively RPs with female PCs. I didn't really take offense to the exclusive focus on the male protagonist, but I think the reason for that is because I have unfortunately become use to that being the norm and have lowered my expectations of ever seeing equal gender representation in the marketing of any game, especially right out the gate. But I don't think it's unreasonable to expect to see some equal representation in videos and marketing down the line, or to express disappointment in the lack of it thus far. EA and Bioware need to be made aware of how their fans feel, and that is what forums are for.

Agreed.

[John Epler]

EJ107 wrote...

John Epler wrote...

Which is rather the point. As a guy, we will never live in a world where we will be underrepresented in media. It is never going to happen.

So for us to say 'it's ridiculous to complain about your gender not being included!' is kind of silly, because we are in the privileged position of never, ever having to fight for that sort of inclusivity.

Well, never have to fight for gender-related inclusivity. I'm sure there are many men who feel underrepresented, be it due to their race, religion of sexuality. 

And that's an entirely fair discussion to have - however, this specific discussion has to do with gender.

Each box you check under 'heterosexual, cisgendered, male and white' is another aspect of privilege to consider. Given that this is a discussion specific to gender, however, that's a topic outside the scope of this thread.

[Sylvianus]

Lord Raijin wrote...

It's nearly impossible to make everyone happy, Sylvianus.

Don't neglect the female inquisitor and I'm sure everyone will be happy, whether people care about marketting or " don't care " about marketting.

Modifié par Sylvianus, 20 août 2013 - 09:29 .

[esper]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

This is a 3 minute behind the scenes video, with a small amount of concept art and one developer calls the Inquisitor "Him", it does in no way represent the entire marketing strategy of the game.

This actually reminds me that as my friend and I talk about games like Mass Effect, we default to the protagonist we used during the conversation (without even blinking an eye at it anymore, actually).

I will be like: "It was cool when he blahblahblah" and then my friend would respond "I know! And then she follows up with blahblahblah"

It's actually kinda neat, in retrospect.

And that is fairly natural and not in itself bad, but your marketing people should really think about what they are saying, after all they are the face outward.

[Lord Raijin]

Sylvianus wrote...

Lord Raijin wrote...

It's nearly impossible to make everyone happy, Sylvianus.

Don't neglect the female inquisitor and I'm sure everyone will be happy, whether people care about marketting or " don't care " about marketting.

I don't need a female inquisitor to make me happy All I need is Cassandra and hopfully Leliana The mage woman seems rather interesting

Modifié par Lord Raijin, 20 août 2013 - 09:36 .

[Saraphial]

Lord Raijin wrote...

Jaison1986 wrote...

Well, Bethesda only used an male nord while marketing Skyrim. I wonder if they had to deal with fans complaining about the lack of female dragonborn during their promos?

It wouldn't surprise me if their were complaints about it.

Real life people are like Mages. They have specialization skill to choose from. Far many of them pick the art of complaining as their first skill, and as they complain they get better at it. Their XP goes up each time they complain.

This discussion isn't about just finding something to whine about. Beleive it or not, some complaints are completely warented, and the under-representation of half of the human population happens to be one of them. Honestly, your blatent disregard for it just further displays its importance. 

[TK514]

esper wrote...

Up untill a few posts ago, I was giving them the benefit off doubt. As I said it seemed bioware was surprised by the reaction and I was fairly sure that they would try to be more aware in the future. The one I was most angry wiht was people like you saying it is not a problem. (Because it is a problem, and the only way to fix it is to acknowlegde it).

Now, however, I am also dissapointed in bioware.

No you weren't. You have yet to give them any such consideration. You have done nothing but complain that the marketing for DA:I wasn't going to have sufficient female representation based on woefully inconclusive data.

Your recent reply to Allan when he discusses how some marketing is geared towards regaining customer confidence is fairly demonstrative that you are unwilling to accept reason.

As for earlier assertions that people might not know that you can customize the character's gender, that might be a point worth making if:

1. What we've been shown so far were geared towards expanding the market and
2. This were the sum total of all marketing for DA:I.

Additionally, BioWare is making a perfectly reasonable assumption when they mention race but not gender in the latest discussion on customization. Until recently, race was off the table. Not included. Thus, the change needed to be pointed out and addressed. By comparison, name the last BioWare property that didn't allow you to customize gender.

[Maria Caliban]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Not all marketing is geared directly towards getting new fans, however. Sometimes it's about regaining confidence with fans that have felt alienated.

I thought it was pretty evident that much of the marketing has been addressing the very vocal concerns a lot of the fan base had with things, such as lack of player race, improved armor customization, and so forth.

Lack of female representation in EA and BioWare's marketing is also a vocal concern and it has been for years now.

So while it may not be acceptable for us to omit/under represent female protagonists in our discussion points, I hope you can understand how it may not have come up when trying to determine what to discuss in 3.5 minutes of footage.

I can understand. A white guy is the cultural default. No, I don't expect it came up at all, which is why threads like this need to happen.

If people don't complain, nothing will change. Whether it be 3.5 minutes of footage or the pre-rendered CGI trailers or a thirty minute walkthrough video, if we don't say 'We want something other than a white guy' then we'll only get white guys.

At this point, in order to maintain fairness we wouldn't have been able to show the armor shots because there aren't (to my knowledge anyways) female concepts for many of them.

"Our artists only draw men for the Inquisitor concept art" does not fill me with confidence.

So in that sense we have to pick and choose. We could be fair, and not show it and just talk about it. Or we could show it, and accept that some people are going to see that there's no women being represented and going to be unhappy.

It's a situation of recognizing that someone isn't going to be happy.

There's always next time. I doubt anyone is canceling their pre-order over this.

Modifié par Maria Caliban, 20 août 2013 - 09:46 .

[Soundsystem]

Nyneve wrote...

<~~~~ How to stop your complaining habit hosted by a beautiful woman Learn from her and take her advice at heart

You're right, how silly of me! Gosh, as a woman I shouldn't complain at all, I should just accept my underrepresentation in a medium I otherwise very much enjoy. But then again, what am I even doing playing video games instead of cooking a lovely dinner?

Seriously, we got comments from the devs and I understand that for now it was just an issue of non-finished artwork. I'm more concerned about the reaction this thread got, about how none of the points adresses are even an issue in marketing in general, which isn't true.

Thank god she's there to teach us how to stop complaining as a woman! Men never complain ever! At least we have soup. By which I mean, at least we are allow to purchase video games. 

TK514 wrote...

You answered your own question.  ME3 should make you think otherwise.    If ME3 were ten years ago and every marketing effort by BioWare since then had been a total sausage fest, then you could dismiss it as an outlier.  However, ME3 is their most recent blockbuster marketing effort, and was clearly an improvement over past sausagefest, so why do you assume that the BioWare marketing division, having acknowledged female gamers and made moves to include them, would suddenly throw that out the windown and go back to the old way?  What has BioWare done between ME3 and now to make you assume that being inclusive is suddenly back off the table?

If I'm looking at five games, and only one of them markets with a female those are not good enough odds for me to just assume something. Even if the 1/5 is the most recent I still have 4/5 telling me something else. If 4/5 times I go over to your house, your dog bites me but doesn't do it on the 5th time, I'm not just going to assume he won't bite me on the sixth time. 

Besides that we have often been reminded by devs that ME and DA have different development teams. They apporach things differently. DA2 very rarely showed Fem!Hawke in marketing.

Again. The bottom line is with 13+ years of experience I'm not going to assume something that goes against that experience. Instead I'm going to come into a thread, wonder "Huh. Why did you only say him and show us only male PC character art". Now we've been told it's due to female art not yet being completed, which is fine. But now this has all kind of slid into a debate about the debate area of weirdness.

[LadyRaena13]

*decided NOT to feed the obvious troll of the thread anymore*

Modifié par LadyRaena13, 20 août 2013 - 09:47 .

[Hazegurl]

esper wrote...

Because:
1. It acknowlegde the female fans instead of ignoring their existance.

Your existence as NEVER been ignored. You can play a woman since day 1. The existence of elves and dwarves have most certainly been ignored, which is why it is very important to let fans know that these races are available.

2. We are not in the middle of the series every where. People new to dragon age, bioware or just BSN will not automatically assumme that customization include gender. If it is not shown in the marketting many female and player who wants to play females bitter experience is that you cannot play female, thus some of them won't even buy it.

Why is that important to know just to play the game? If you read the description and the story looks good to you, then why is it so important to know that you can create a female PC? Are you saying that even if a game looks good to you, you won't even touch it if you can't play a female? I'm not throwing a pity party stink fest over the skin color options. "I won't play if I can't play a black character!" Well I won't be playing a whole lot of games then if that was my gaming logic. If my logic was "I won't play a game unless I was a black female character!!" Then kiss my gaming life goodbye. But you want to know what game I could still play even if that was my logic? Dragon age! Even if the skin color options weren't perfect, they have been working on tweaking these options in since the first game. 

And tell me how it makes sense to pour in most of your marketing dollars on a group of brand new consumers who have always been the lowest demographic in the industry? People may not know this, but I'm sure each department only have a certain amount of funds to spend and they have to make the best out of what they are given. Appealing to the largest demographic is priority, then appealing to the fans who wish to play other races (because these races have been removed from the game). Appealing to women would be after (they have never been removed from the game). And seriously, I want more elf PC info and pics.

3. It would not have cost them anything more than a second. It is easy to mention the female/male choice in the same breath the race choice was mentioned.

Yes it would cost them more. Man hours cost money, more concept artwork cost money. As for SAYING the word "her" in a sentence...I seriously for the life of me cannot understand why this is a complaint. Someone said HIM instead of HER. Now let's sit around and complain about the gaming industry! SMH. Let's complain about being ignored when we never were to begin with. You don't even know what it means to be truly ignored in this industry. Here's something for a real challenge, let's see a black female inquisitor PC But I won't be holding my breath for that, besides, women in this world have bigger problems to face than whether or not some dev said HER in a sentence. But that's first world problems for ya. 

[Hazegurl]

Youth4Ever wrote...

Hazegurl wrote...

Parmida wrote...

LOL! I may be the only girl, but I enjoyed seeing that peace of beefcake Inquisitor in his full glory in leather armor and a FABULOUS hat! So hot!

I know! LOL! I wonder if we can customize the body type so I can build the man of my dreams.

Yes! Male Inquisitor = HOT. And as a black female too, I don't really care about seeing a female Inquisitor in advertising. I'd really only care if she were non-white, but since that's unlikely to be the case, I just don't care. I've had much better luck with the character creator when making male protagonists anyway and that probably won't change. Male PC for me it is.

Right! I really don't give a fig about whether or not they show some female inquisitor, she's going to be white anyway if they did show her. I love the male PCs too and will continue making them. Besides, I'm more likely to play the game if I see a hot guy on the cover anyway. That's how Mass effect got me. 

[CuriousArtemis]

Wow. The only response to the OP's post should have been either, "I agree" or "I hadn't noticed this before; thank you for pointing it out."

This entire thread -- 14 pages of people denying privilege -- is so telling in and of itself.

[Scroll]

I love this Fem Inquisitioner.  (Sorry on phone, so strange formatting. )http://i1284.photobu...or.png~original

Hazegurl wrote...

Youth4Ever wrote...

Hazegurl wrote...

Parmida wrote...

LOL! I may be the only girl, but I enjoyed seeing that peace of beefcake Inquisitor in his full glory in leather armor and a FABULOUS hat! So hot!

I know! LOL! I wonder if we can customize the body type so I can build the man of my dreams.

Yes! Male Inquisitor = HOT. And as a black female too, I don't really care about seeing a female Inquisitor in advertising. I'd really only care if she were non-white, but since that's unlikely to be the case, I just don't care. I've had much better luck with the character creator when making male protagonists anyway and that probably won't change. Male PC for me it is.

Right! I really don't give a fig about whether or not they show some female inquisitor, she's going to be white anyway if they did show her. I love the male PCs too and will continue making them. Besides, I'm more likely to play the game if I see a hot guy on the cover anyway. That's how Mass effect got me. 

[Dave of Canada]

Filament wrote...

I can agree with this. Why do they only have male concept art at this stage?

I'll throw my two cents into it, I don't know if BioWare follows the same rules but I'll offer my experience on the matter: 

When you're creating a large amount of armor and clothing that fit more than just both genders, it's a lot quicker to draw the design on a male character because you've got the general gist of what the clothing represents due to it not accentuating female proportions. Converting clothing from male to female is a lot easier than the opposite.

Perhaps they don't do female character art for every armor set, using the texture from the finished male armor and modifying it to fit the female model approprietly and editing it if elements of the male armor don't carry over well. 

[GuardianGamerX]

one of the things I keep contemplating is of the limited abilities of being the mage class from the DA games, like when it came to the arcane warrior specialization, it got me thinking why didn't they consider adding in actual combat skills like dual-wielding or weapon and shield if you preferred having a mage that not only made use of his/ her magic but also join the front lines wielding a weapon, in my opinion that was a set back when setting up the mage class. also on an unrelated note, why only limit lockpicking to only the rouges when you could have it set as a skill for wanting to open locks, I can understand it for when it involves traps but still

[lil yonce]

Hazegurl wrote...
Here's something for a real challenge, let's see a black female inquisitor PC But I won't be holding my breath for that,

If she really was non-white I'd be IMPRESSED! But, yeah, like you, I won't hold my breath.

[David Gaider]

Ragabul the Ontarah wrote...
For the record, I don't really care that one developer used the word "he" in one specific vid posted early in the marketing cycle. I more find this thread a good place to reiterate my desire for Bioware to include female PCs in their marketing targeting the "mainstream" audience. It's one thing to *have* content that promotes inclusion of underrepresented groups and a whole other thing to promote that content. It's pretty pointless if the only people who know the content exists are the hard core RPG crowd who hangs around on these forums.

Yes, those are good points.

I'm going to play a little Devil's Advocate here and say that, from the perspective of those who market games, the primary purpose of marketing is to get information about the game to people who don't know about it and/or aren't planning on buying it. It's not to speak to people who already know about the game... so I think, from their perspective, it might seem like a pointless argument to be made by fans on a forum to ask that they be marketed to when they know more and are more invested in the game than almost anyone.

So the argument offered above is more credible-- it's possible there might be an element of "thanks for the advice" if one's suggestion is that we market to a particular group (and do so better), but that might at least seem like a less self-serving argument in the context of this forum.

Remember that we are, after all, talking about the marketing of the game and not about the game itself. I think most people here are clear on that, but it's worth repeating as I've noticed some of the issues being brought up as blending into larger issues.

And, to also be clear, this is a dev diary -- there's still plenty more to come over the next year. That doesn't invalidate any concerns someone might have, and they're absolutely worth expressing... let's just tone down the rhetoric a notch or two, please.

Modifié par David Gaider, 20 août 2013 - 10:07 .

[Dagr88]

... Did they show a default PC's appearance? I didn't see any. All I saw was some mannequin wearing different cloth and a dragon... same one... at least 3 times (looked a bit silly).

At this point Inquisitor for us (general public) is a faceless, voiceless, emotionless, storyless concept. Yet her or his sex...

Bottom line is: The lack of female PC's screen time was acknowledged the moment David Gaider (Bioware's employee) wrote in this post.

And something tells me that most cloth will look mostly the same (unisex), plus/minus human biology.

Modifié par Dagr88, 20 août 2013 - 10:14 .