21 réponses à ce sujet

[RedIntifada]

Anita Sarkeesian's series Tropes vs. Women in games has a new episode.

http://kotaku.com/ne...male-1466898678

The episode discusses ME's marketing (around the 19:55 mark) in particular the issue of the default protagonist being male and the female version being defined by the fact that she is female i.e. there is Shepard and femShepard rather than Shepard and maleShep.

With almost half of RPG gamers being female the fact that women are always having to negotiate a male protagonist in marketing is a problem.

Already we have seen the first bits of footage for Dragon Age: Inquisition and of coures we had a male playing character in that demo. It would be great if we could see some female inquisitors in future demos and marketing especially without a big deal being made of it i.e. that it just happens as this is our inquisitor as opposed to it being seen as a special thing that inquisitors are female.

Also it would be great if the default option on character building menues didn't default to male. I could be wrong but most (if not all) RPG games that I have played  have the default option (i.e. the one the cursor starts on) as male which probably increases the statistic to male. The majority of people probably played soldiers on ME3 for the same reason.

Female gamers deserve to finally feel like they are the "default" and male gamers can and should learn to navigate seeing themselves through a female avitar... like women gamers are constantly having to do.



MODEDIT:  Keep this on the topic.  Personal attacks against posters or Anita will not be tolerated.
- Allan

Modifié par RedIntifada, 19 novembre 2013 - 05:27 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Xilizhra wrote...

eluvianix wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...

Estelindis wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...

Hmmm... so the question becomes, how do they show multiple Inquisitors during one round of marketing, if that would be the optimal way to go about this? Showing two different examples of gameplay footage with different PCs?

At least when they're doing gameplay demos at cons, couldn't it be as easy as showng the female protagonist sometimes and showing the male protagonist at other times?  I mean, unless the female version isn't actually ready yet...

That could also work. Possibly also showing a female protagonist of a different race?

Female qunari rogue or mage? That would be really cool.

Tal-Vashoth. Only foreigners would call them qunari; the qunari and Tal-Vashoth themselves refuse to do so.

We've explicitly referred to it as playable Qunari.  I'd prefer to NOT get into yet another internet pissing match about which specific word is used since, in my opinion, when we say "Playable Qunari" most people have a pretty good idea of what we are talking about.

Sorry, I'm anal.

This is a battle I'd really prefer you didn't fight.

Have people considered how confusing it would be to players to show half a dozen protagonists?

I don't know if it'd be confusing or not.  It could provide additional clarity.  It may not.  I don't know.

[Allan Schumacher]

Lord Raijin wrote...

Anita Sarkeesian is like a blood mage... you can't trust her opinions, especially when she blocks peoples comments on her youtube channel. I can only pray to the Maker that she doesn't lay her feminist sticky hands on Dragon Age, and spread her feminism virus to alter the game it self just to please herself and others like her.

Let her ruin Mass Effect all she wants... just leave Dragon Age alone.

This type of tangent will NOT be tolerated.

She has her reasons for blocking people's comments, and any person that feels it's some how silencing discussion or preventing people from responding to her are showing just how little understanding of why she felt the need to do so.

Blame the people that just couldn't control their hateful vitriol.  As a white male, I'd stop comments as well.


NOTE:  I'm going to abuse my power and have the final say with regards to this point.  Do not reply to this post.

[Allan Schumacher]

I have to brave the horrors of Canadian driving right now, but I'm slowly deleting posts that focus far too much on off topic landmines.

[Allan Schumacher]

I will also be watching this thread.

Anyone that decides to make this personal against Anita and not related to the issue from the video and how it should (or should not) be applied to Inquisition will be met with a very angry individual (me).


EDIT: I am adding this to the OP for new posters.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 19 novembre 2013 - 05:26 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Steelcan wrote...

Why shouldn't MaleShep be considered default? He's by Dar the more popular option.

Spending the money on equal representation for both genders in marketing just seems kinda pointless from an economic standpoint.

The problem comes that the association is made that women (and how this applies to a more global issue beyond just video games) are considered secondary.


While I see a lot of people actually refer to their male Shepard as things like Sheploo and so forth, Anita is of the opinion that it's still problematic on a larger scale issue that the woman Shepard has a large scale "FemShep."  Within the context of the rest of the video and how women characters are often given the personality of "woman" and in many cases seem to require obvious gendered imagery to denote that the character is a woman, it's still reasonably consistent.

[Allan Schumacher]

Wraith 02 wrote...

This is just getting stupid now, you cannot claim something is sexist, racist or xeneophobic just because every single demographic has not been personally marketed to.

They haven't shown any marketing aimed purely at people who want to play dwarfs yet so obviously Bioware is predjudiced towards short people...

This is a false equivalence.  Further, people take the term a lot more aggressively.  When people point this out to me, I don't go "oh god I'm an awful human being."  I go "are the assumptions that I make actually fair and representative, or is it actually okay to go away from established tropes."  Note, that my perspective on this goes up with every incident that people say "it shouldn't matter" as a defense.

Has no one considered that creating marketing aimed purely at buttering up women is actually more sexist than not including it? You are seperating the female fanbase from the rest of the audience.

If you can find any traces of sexism in Bioware's actual advertising then fine but claiming sexism on potential marketing because it hasn't been released is insane

It's important to note that default options are not apolitical (though many people seem to think that they are).

The unfortunate problem comes when simply adding a female protagonist gets equated to "marketing aimed purely at buttering up women."  Especially when a lot of people tell me that "it shouldn't matter" as a defense of the status quo.

[Allan Schumacher]

When talking about marketing, Male protagonists are going to get more focus since they are more popular. That just seems to me sound business sense, not sexism in marketing.

Itd be sexist if FemShep was played off as inferior in her trailer, and we all know that isnt the case. BioWare has done a very good job of making a female protagonist on par with the "default" male.

Theres going to be a need for all games to have a default image for trailers and box art etc.. (if the pc is customizable). I just dont see how a less popular character not recieving equal screen time in ads is sexist.

Because it's in large part a chicken and egg issue.

Especially since people keep telling me that it doesn't matter if it's a man or a woman.

But you are right that when dealing with large budgets and the imperfect science and causal relationships of marketing will create trepidation since "what if it DOES matter?"


Still, from the concepts of simply making people think about the topic, I have little issue with people discussing it.

[Allan Schumacher]

Why is Male representation compared side by side with Female representation as if the two are in competition ?

Because in many cases the defining trait of the female character is that she is female. Look at Bowser's children, as shown in the video: You have the smart looking one, the goofy looking one, the crazy one, the girl one.

With Angry Birds you had gender neutral birds that were suddenly and retroactively made female because new versions came out that had girly things (bows/ribbons). As such, they established that the default was actually male.

Note, also, that Anita's video isn't a critique of advertising specifically.

The whole complaint sounds much more like it's taking the context out of the content to make things appear worse then they really are. If the trailers and promotional material showed female characters being inferior or little more then useless eyecandy, then there might be something. But thst isn't the case, and so an excuse needs to be invented from thin air about why psudo-femminists need to be angry at a currently popular upcoming game and give anita a reason to get more money to do something that could be done for free.

For some they feel that under representation (or even outright omission) is still a valid concern. Different people will value different things.


MOD Warning: The bolded is uncalled for and represents a contribution to a toxic and hateful environment. Personal attacks against Anita were already warned against so frankly I'm probably being lenient.

[Allan Schumacher]

Are you going to actually refute it, or are you just going to say citation needed. Give me an example where it isn't true.

Appealing, quite simply means that it is what the player wants. Do you really believe that they just made MaleShep for the the hell of it? They just woke up one day and threw darts until they hit a character and said roll with it?

The problem with using the term "Sheploo" is that your assertion was that people chose to use Vanderloo's model, specifically, because it's what people wanted. At least that's what I thought you were saying.


EDIT: Also, moving this thread to off topic at this point.

[Allan Schumacher]

No, the burden of proof falls to the one who refutes the claim.

This actually isn't true at all. It's also remarkably convenient.

Frankly you provided an untestable claim which if we're going to be pedantic, would be irrelevant if we're going to discuss it based on scientific merit.

[Allan Schumacher]

Fact of the matter is that most game developers are male. So we get the generalised and perfect view on men from a male perspective and also perfect women from a male perspective. Hence why most are always attractive.

This isn't a good thing, and is much more reflective of a HOST of very serious issues (right down to how a lot of people treat women in technology). It also helps cement a self-fulfilling prophecy.

As a gamer and a developer, I see this as bad for the continued growth and diversification of gaming.

[Allan Schumacher]

My claim that characters are designed to appeal is not without merit.

Your claim is, specifically, is that most people pick default Vanderloo Shepard because his character model is the one people want to play.

I'm being told that this was not the case and that they just picked a person.

You're being told that people picked default Shepard because he was the default character available. Note that this claim has as much support as your own conclusion.

Not the claim that at all.

Then you need to do a much better job of writing in a clear manner (this is the second time this has come up in as many days), because Sheploo = Mark Vanderloo Shepard to many people (myself included).  Perhaps you should have simply said "Male Shepard."

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 19 novembre 2013 - 06:34 .

[Allan Schumacher]

EntropicAngel wrote...

Is it not true that the number of women in development is increasing?

If so, "continued growth" will lead directly down your preferred pathway.

I am of the opinion that the number of women in development is increasing.  And yes, I do think that increasing the diversification of those that make games will provide more perspectives and (hopefully) more variation in gaming in general.

(Side note: I'm a large fan of indie gaming scene because they can take bigger risks IMO)


Many of the women that were in my CompSci program with me also work at BioWare, actually.

[Allan Schumacher]

FreshIstay wrote...

Neither am I specifically talking about advertising.
Neither did I agree that Bowsers female child's  only defining characteristic was her Femaleness.
Neither do I agree with Anita, that there is a Gender Binary theory. The differences between Male and Female are clearly defined, EVEN if we didnt have things like TV and Games highlighting them. We are Not the same, different but equal.

Not everyone's going to agree.  We are not the same, different but equal, doesn't mean that women should have bows in their hair, lipstick, and pink colours to make sure it's clear that it's a female character as far as I'm concerned.

Further, I didn't say "only" defining characteristic.  But it is her master status.  Her entire appearance is "She's a girl" whereas the others have other nuances to their characteristics.

At this point I think this particular discussion is over.  We won't agree.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 19 novembre 2013 - 06:54 .

[Allan Schumacher]

While that may be true, he is default for a reason. Otherwise the default custom face would be the default. Somehow I doubt the number of people who would pick that would be the same.

A supposition. We don't know. And can't know. It's an untestable hypothesis and what I was trying to illustrate is a belief on the same standings as someone that believes otherwise. You don't have greater substantiation to your belief.

And yes, I think if default custom face was the face of our marketing, you'd get people picking it at a higher rate than others. But this is my belief and it isn't any more valid than yours, or Rinji's, or whatever.

[Allan Schumacher]

Wraith 02 wrote...

It's still better than nothing. I don't know why Bioware gets such a hard time over sexism when they actually try.
Then you see franchises like CoD that don't even bother and get no flak at all for it.

I don't think BioWare gets a hard time for things such as sexism.

We might get scrutiny because attempts are made at doing various things (whether gender identification, sexual orientation, or whatnot) but I actually get the impression that a lot of people really appreciate it.  Like a lot a lot. Especially at something like PAX where it comes up a lot.


Simply asking for increased representation of women in our prerelease is simply "Hey this is something that I would like" and honestly it comes across as No Big Deal™ to make such a request.

[Allan Schumacher]

Br3ad wrote...

David7204 wrote...

In every culture and society throughout all of human history, it's men who become warriors and fight battles. I don't know of a single exception. It's men who commit the overwhelmingly majority of homicides and other violent crimes. It's men who make up the vast bulk of participants in violent sports.

And this has nothing to do with women, but the roles assigned to them. Some would say this is bad, but very few will pretend like this isn't why. 

Agreed, and this starts to shift away from the topic and far too much towards even MORE controversial topics.

Lets keep this about gaming please.

[Allan Schumacher]

iakus wrote...

And sadly, this is something many game developers, even Bioware, are guilty of.  Not just in marketing a game, but in how characters are portrayed in-game as well.  Catsuits and whatnot.

Indeed.  There are a lot of things that could be done better.

That's not to say attractive women (or men) can never be done.  But if the point of putting someone into a catsuit (or bikini platemail) comes across as nothing more than "just because" then I don't see it as a good thing.

[Allan Schumacher]

David7204 wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Indeed.  There are a lot of things that could be done better.

That's not to say attractive women (or men) can never be done.  But if the point of putting someone into a catsuit (or bikini platemail) comes across as nothing more than "just because" then I don't see it as a good thing.

For outfits or characteristics that fundamentally detract from some other element of the character, maybe.

But I absolutely want characters to be attractive 'just because.'

I didn't make any comment about characters being attractive "just because" but was focusing on outfits, specifically.  I like variation.

[Allan Schumacher]

Br3ad wrote...

David7204 wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Br3ad wrote...

David7204 wrote...

In every culture and society throughout all of human history, it's men who become warriors and fight battles. I don't know of a single exception. It's men who commit the overwhelmingly majority of homicides and other violent crimes. It's men who make up the vast bulk of participants in violent sports.

And this has nothing to do with women, but the roles assigned to them. Some would say this is bad, but very few will pretend like this isn't why. 

Agreed, and this starts to shift away from the topic and far too much towards even MORE controversial topics.

Lets keep this about gaming please.

We can't really talk about the phenomenon in video games without examining its roots in real life...

It's not why.

We're all waiting for your explanation then, David. Please enlighten us. 

Given I asked him not to....

[Allan Schumacher]

Thread closed.