334 réponses à ce sujet

[DarthLaxian]

Zanallen wrote...

Why not just not have a default Inquisitor? Have the Inquisitor wear a special Inquisition mask or something and wear robes that hide body shape. Also, just don't have a default option in the character creator. Force the player to actually create their character.

indeed - defaulting a class, race and gender is a bad idea, for a game that gives you the choice (bioware can still - for the purpose of say writing future books etc. - creat something they consider canon, but they don't need to tell us)

as for "games with a female protagonist are marketable"

they have been for over 10 (ten!) years (tomb raider comes to mind for example or "no one lives forever")

so the gender of the protagonist is not something that makes or breaks a game (hell, i myself rather like female protagonists, as they are easier on the eyes (for a third person game, that can be an argument!))

greetings LAX

[Tracy-Shepard]

A female inquisitor as default would be AMAZING. I play ME and DA games over and over because I like being able to play as a women. 18% in ME3 played femshep. Many say that is very little. But I disagree - it’s a lot! I know women playing games are less than men, but that does not mean that women don’t matter! I hear men all the time, saying that a woman can't be a commander or any kind of strong leader! It’s crazy how we are in 2013 and a lot of men still feel like they are superior to women. Please Bioware, you have been so good at creating sexual equality, take it to the next step and give us a female inquisitor as default.

[Billy-the-Squid]

Led Guardian wrote...

Killdren88 wrote...

I really don't understand why the Gender matters. Your making your own character anyway, why should it matter to you that the cover art or the Inquisitor they use in the trailer isn't the gender or skin color you want? Your making your Inquisitor the way you want him/her anyway. Why does it matter to you on what Bioware uses?

Short answer? How things are presented in media influences perception of societal norms. If women are depicted as protagonists more often, it sends the message that gaming is a hobby that welcomes women. If almost exclusively men are depicted as protagonists, it sends the message that gaming is hobby intended for almost exclusively men. It matters because within the context of our society, we have created an inequity.

Note: The current inequity creates the context for these messages. If we lived in a hypothetical world where the opposite were true, then the implied message would be the opposite, the genders would be swapped. If representation were already equal, then neither choice would send those messages, because the issue wouldn't exist.

Long answer: People have written entire essays on the effects of media on the social consciousness. If you mean those questions as genuine curiousity, and not rhetoric, then read some. There are a lot of interesting ideas to think about in that area.

Yes sociology makes business run. Pffft. You're banking on women being drawn to a niche market, because that's what gaming is let's face it, if they'll be depicted more. When you already know that your dominant market will play pretty much anything regardles of gender as long as they are aware of what it contains, changing a gender achieves nothing, it doesn't attract more women or Tomb Raider and other games like Remember me would have actually been succesful and more than 18% of shepards in ME would have been female. 

[Deflagratio]

J. Reezy wrote...

Deflagratio wrote...

Tequila Cat wrote...

Thief-of-Hearts wrote...

Tomb Raider has a female protagonist and sells well. The Resident Evil series has female protagonists along with males and also sells well. ((There's also been fan outcry for the return of Claire and Jill in the main series rather than side story games since neither have been in one since RE3))

On a smaller scale, the Fatal Frame series was also pretty successful and has (mostly) female protagonists (sort of, if you ever play all of the games). You also have the Parasite Eve games as well.

All of those games also feature the ladies on the cover.

Saying a game can't sell well because of a female protagonist is a BS theory and companies know it's a BS theory but choose to use it anyway when they are grasping at straws for why and game does poorly.

Misandrist.

Tomb Raider flopped as per Square Enix Expectations, Resident Evil 6 failed to live up to the publisher's expectations.

Your information is incorrect.

Tombraider sold quite well, and was financially successful. It failed to meet Square's sales expectations, but when you expect to sell 18% more than the latest Call of Duty installment, who's really to blame.

Resident Evil 6 sold very well too, however it was a finacial flop because it was poorly managed to the point where it became an expensive boondoggle.

lern2researchkthx.

So what you're saying is he was right. Gotcha.

All of my wat.

I said literally the opposite.

[franciscoamell]

Eh I don't care about the default as long as I can make my characters the way I want to.

Only thing that bothers me is when I feel I lose from not choosing the default. Like not being able to use the best (imo) hairstyles or the blood face thingy in DA2 with the face I wanted. And it's impossible to make a male Shepard better looking than Sheploo.

[Billy-the-Squid]

Deflagratio wrote...

Tequila Cat wrote...

Thief-of-Hearts wrote...

Tomb Raider has a female protagonist and sells well. The Resident Evil series has female protagonists along with males and also sells well. ((There's also been fan outcry for the return of Claire and Jill in the main series rather than side story games since neither have been in one since RE3))

On a smaller scale, the Fatal Frame series was also pretty successful and has (mostly) female protagonists (sort of, if you ever play all of the games). You also have the Parasite Eve games as well.

All of those games also feature the ladies on the cover.

Saying a game can't sell well because of a female protagonist is a BS theory and companies know it's a BS theory but choose to use it anyway when they are grasping at straws for why and game does poorly.

Misandrist.

Tomb Raider flopped as per Square Enix Expectations, Resident Evil 6 failed to live up to the publisher's expectations.

Your information is incorrect.

Tombraider sold quite well, and was financially successful. It failed to meet Square's sales expectations, but when you expect to sell 18% more than the latest Call of Duty installment, who's really to blame.

Resident Evil 6 sold very well too, however it was a finacial flop because it was poorly managed to the point where it became an expensive boondoggle.

lern2researchkthx.

Aka it still flopped and was considered a commercial failure as the budget balloned, putting a woman on the front changed absolutely nothing. My information was spot on. 

What you said is plain stupid "but it still sold well" yes and if it failed to provide the cost to income return it needed to it still won't matter if it sold 3 million or 5 million, it still failed as a commercial project. 

Learn to think.

Modifié par Tequila Cat, 11 septembre 2013 - 10:08 .

[Kharaide]

no just no, please dont .
your the reason why the mako got removed! MALE OR ASEXUAL OR BUST

[ComfortablyNumb]

draken-heart wrote...

I am a guy, but love a badass female protagonist. Can't play a male in Bioware games because of it.

I'm a woman, but I love a badass male protagonist. I do eventually play female, but it's never my first (or even second or a third) choice. 

[Blank-Slate-Blues]

Tequila Cat wrote...

Led Guardian wrote...

Killdren88 wrote...

I really don't understand why the Gender matters. Your making your own character anyway, why should it matter to you that the cover art or the Inquisitor they use in the trailer isn't the gender or skin color you want? Your making your Inquisitor the way you want him/her anyway. Why does it matter to you on what Bioware uses?

Short answer? How things are presented in media influences perception of societal norms. If women are depicted as protagonists more often, it sends the message that gaming is a hobby that welcomes women. If almost exclusively men are depicted as protagonists, it sends the message that gaming is hobby intended for almost exclusively men. It matters because within the context of our society, we have created an inequity.

Note: The current inequity creates the context for these messages. If we lived in a hypothetical world where the opposite were true, then the implied message would be the opposite, the genders would be swapped. If representation were already equal, then neither choice would send those messages, because the issue wouldn't exist.

Long answer: People have written entire essays on the effects of media on the social consciousness. If you mean those questions as genuine curiousity, and not rhetoric, then read some. There are a lot of interesting ideas to think about in that area.

Yes sociology makes business run. Pffft. You're banking on women being drawn to a niche market, because that's what gaming is let's face it, if they'll be depicted more. When you already know that your dominant market will play pretty much anything regardles of gender as long as they are aware of what it contains, changing a gender achieves nothing, it doesn't attract more women or Tomb Raider and other games like Remember me would have actually been succesful and more than 18% of shepards in ME would have been female. 

Isn't that what we want though, to have a game's merit/marketablility judged on its content rather than if there's a lady on the cover? The reason so many BioWare fans want a woman as the featured Inquisitor is because they don't want it to matter, or rather they don't want others believing that game sales are negatively affected by women on the cover.

And yes, many more women will be drawn into gaming if they feel they have a presence within the industry, that's how visibility works. I was definitely more inclined to buy The Last of Us when I had (mistakenly) thought Joel was gay because, lets face it, homosexual men hardly have any presence in games as predetermined protagonists. It's still a great game, but Joel being straight dissapointed me...

(From what I heard, Nilin was actually one of the highlights of a game that had quite a few issues gameplay-wise. And when you have to fight to have a female protagonist in games, you seriously can't say it doesn't matter, even if we all wish it didn't.)

[Ravensword]

Blank-Slate-Blues wrote...

Tequila Cat wrote...

Led Guardian wrote...

Killdren88 wrote...

I really don't understand why the Gender matters. Your making your own character anyway, why should it matter to you that the cover art or the Inquisitor they use in the trailer isn't the gender or skin color you want? Your making your Inquisitor the way you want him/her anyway. Why does it matter to you on what Bioware uses?

Short answer? How things are presented in media influences perception of societal norms. If women are depicted as protagonists more often, it sends the message that gaming is a hobby that welcomes women. If almost exclusively men are depicted as protagonists, it sends the message that gaming is hobby intended for almost exclusively men. It matters because within the context of our society, we have created an inequity.

Note: The current inequity creates the context for these messages. If we lived in a hypothetical world where the opposite were true, then the implied message would be the opposite, the genders would be swapped. If representation were already equal, then neither choice would send those messages, because the issue wouldn't exist.

Long answer: People have written entire essays on the effects of media on the social consciousness. If you mean those questions as genuine curiousity, and not rhetoric, then read some. There are a lot of interesting ideas to think about in that area.

Yes sociology makes business run. Pffft. You're banking on women being drawn to a niche market, because that's what gaming is let's face it, if they'll be depicted more. When you already know that your dominant market will play pretty much anything regardles of gender as long as they are aware of what it contains, changing a gender achieves nothing, it doesn't attract more women or Tomb Raider and other games like Remember me would have actually been succesful and more than 18% of shepards in ME would have been female. 

-snip- 

And yes, many more women will be drawn into gaming if they feel they have a presence within the industry, that's how visibility works. I was definitely more inclined to buy The Last of Us when I had (mistakenly) thought Joel was gay because, lets face it, homosexual men hardly have any presence in games as predetermined protagonists. It's still a great game, but Joel being straight dissapointed me...

-snip-

Heterophobia is disappointing as well.

[KBomb]

It's just my opinion, but I wish social agendas and political correctness would just stay out of video games.

[Billy-the-Squid]

Blank-Slate-Blues wrote...

Tequila Cat wrote...

Led Guardian wrote...

Killdren88 wrote...

I really don't understand why the Gender matters. Your making your own character anyway, why should it matter to you that the cover art or the Inquisitor they use in the trailer isn't the gender or skin color you want? Your making your Inquisitor the way you want him/her anyway. Why does it matter to you on what Bioware uses?

Short answer? How things are presented in media influences perception of societal norms. If women are depicted as protagonists more often, it sends the message that gaming is a hobby that welcomes women. If almost exclusively men are depicted as protagonists, it sends the message that gaming is hobby intended for almost exclusively men. It matters because within the context of our society, we have created an inequity.

Note: The current inequity creates the context for these messages. If we lived in a hypothetical world where the opposite were true, then the implied message would be the opposite, the genders would be swapped. If representation were already equal, then neither choice would send those messages, because the issue wouldn't exist.

Long answer: People have written entire essays on the effects of media on the social consciousness. If you mean those questions as genuine curiousity, and not rhetoric, then read some. There are a lot of interesting ideas to think about in that area.

Yes sociology makes business run. Pffft. You're banking on women being drawn to a niche market, because that's what gaming is let's face it, if they'll be depicted more. When you already know that your dominant market will play pretty much anything regardles of gender as long as they are aware of what it contains, changing a gender achieves nothing, it doesn't attract more women or Tomb Raider and other games like Remember me would have actually been succesful and more than 18% of shepards in ME would have been female. 

Isn't that what we want though, to have a game's merit/marketablility judged on its content rather than if there's a lady on the cover? The reason so many BioWare fans want a woman as the featured Inquisitor is because they don't want it to matter, or rather they don't want others believing that game sales are negatively affected by women on the cover.

And yes, many more women will be drawn into gaming if they feel they have a presence within the industry, that's how visibility works. I was definitely more inclined to buy The Last of Us when I had (mistakenly) thought Joel was gay because, lets face it, homosexual men hardly have any presence in games as predetermined protagonists. It's still a great game, but Joel being straight dissapointed me...

(From what I heard, Nilin was actually one of the highlights of a game that had quite a few issues gameplay-wise. And when you have to fight to have a female protagonist in games, you seriously can't say it doesn't matter, even if we all wish it didn't.)

So you want it to be judged on merit and content, not by marketability, but you want a woman on the cover anyway. That's a fairly obvious oxymoron. Especially when you then make the point that marketing to women will increase their presence, regardless of whether the game content actually appeals to them in the first place, it's a staggering contradiction in terms.

It also ignores the "We don't like your **** theory" as I term it. People will like certain content and won't like others, or are you saying that if the developers of EVE online marketed their product to women then the online following wouldn't be predominantly men (over 95%) or CoD, or Battlefield, RTS games like Total War and Civilisation, or Killzone etc. 

No, that won't happen because what everyone tends to ignore is that men seem to dominate the market for a particular genres and titles, because it appeals to them based on content, marketing towards women wouldn't make a blind bit of difference as games like EVE etc. appeal to men by their design, not their visibility.

You have the mentality that cheap tokenism is progressive and visibility changes anything when they don't. What would that change to Joel in the Last of Us do to affect the content, frankly the change would be pointless and counter productive ruining the entire point of the introduction and the surrogate father daughter aspect between Joel and Ellie.

[The Six Path of Pain]

Meh

[bluebeam]

This game will allow players to choose gender and race, so I think having an iconic protagonist in this case would not be a good representation of the game. I'd prefer if they made it obvious that the player can choose, since even some RPGs (which, for the record, I'd never buy for that very reason) don't allow to choose the gender of the character.
I think they are already leaning towards an ambiguous figure, considering some concept art and the image displayed in the inquisition website, and I'm absolutely OK with that.

[Billy-the-Squid]

Modifié par Tequila Cat, 11 septembre 2013 - 10:59 .

[Billy-the-Squid]

KBomb wrote...

It's just my opinion, but I wish social agendas and political correctness would just stay out of video games.

I'd check that privilege, you can't say what you think anymore without being called bigot.

[Doveberry]

Very eloquently argued, OP. I think that your suggestion is a wonderful one, but I also pessimistically think that we won't see this anytime soon. If it were to happen, however, I'd be very pleasantly surprised.

[lady_v23]

Honestly I didn't know the cover of a game was so important to make a game successful. I thought it was word of mouth? Not if the cover of the game is male or female. Because by that logic, what is the explanation for games that totally fail and a have male, while protagonist. Plot no interesting? Boring game play, stupid characters? But since a female is on the cover.. nope!. Must be the that girl on the cover..

[Kalas Magnus]

Star fury wrote...

Only if FemInquisitor will be voiced by Jennifer Hale.

this x1000

[lady_v23]

Oh! And didn't bioware said that the cover will both male and female inquisitor? So I believe a default female will be chosen.

[Taura-Tierno]

I'm not sure where the idea that games with a woman on the cover won't sell comes from. The newest Tomb Raider game sold the most in the series, and had over 1 million sales after a few days. And on that cover, Lara Croft wasn't even overly sexualised. So obviously games with (non-sexualised) women on the cover can sell really well.

Tbh, I think it has more to do with how the cover looks (if the art is good and cool and awesome) than what it portrays, if we're talking about people who judge only the cover. Hype, marketing in general and reviews are probably more important than the cover, as well. And I wager DA3 will be judged primarily by things not related to the cover, since it'll gain quite a bit of attention anyway. 

I mean. Who would refuse to buy the game just because there's a woman on the cover? Perhaps someone who's never heard about it and sees it in the store and can't imagine playing a game with a woman as a protagonist? And given how quite a few extremely popular games feature female protagonist, I somehow doubt that those people make a difference. And, on the other side, we'd have women who might be enticed to buy the game by that. 

Modifié par Taura-Tierno, 11 septembre 2013 - 11:32 .