25 réponses à ce sujet

[von uber]

Simple question:
If the marketing was switched (I.e a focus on a female protagonist instead of  male) for the mass effect trilogy do you think:

1) you would have bought it
2) it would be as popular in general

[Massa FX]

With only 18% of players choosing femshep, the trilogy would have failed to attrack the male market. However... BW and JHale did a wonderful thing in creating femshep. The majority missed out!

[von uber]

How old is that 18% figure though? And is it a result of the marketing campaign pretty much exclusively using the male shep? I mean look at the background of this site for example.

[Rusty Sandusky]

von uber wrote...
 I mean look at the background of this site for example.

I don't know what you're talking about



It's not like the option to play as a Female character is hidden, the moment you select New Game it has the option of male or female straight up, Bioware suck at marketing so it's best to just ignore it.

[AlexMBrennan]

With only 18% of players choosing femshep, the trilogy would have failed to attrack the male market.

Non-sequitur - just because you pick A given a choice of A or B doesn't necessarily mean you'll not buy the game if there is no choice.

Having said that, since I'd assume that the marketing people sorta know how marketing works, and thus conclude that the chosen advertising method (male only) maximises sales.

[von uber]

Hmm. Odd, for me it's always male shep. Maybe it's punishment for not playing him.

Anyway, what I am saying is that if you promote the male version potentially in people's minds that becomes the 'correct' version. This may not be true on bsn but in the larger community it may.
I would have expected a more 50/50 split, but as I say how old are those 18% figures?

[Vigilant111]

How they market the game is irrelevant to me, am I bothered by having a female protagonist representing a game I am playing? No, as long as I get to play a male character

Of course, this is my own position, others may not like it

Side note: I don't think it is all that fashionable to advertise or make a game based on these survey (?) numbers, the game should be inclusive of minorities and majorities alike. Favoritism always lose customers

Modifié par Vigilant111, 25 janvier 2014 - 11:31 .

[cap and gown]

I don't really trust those stats. To get those stats they rely on people who play while their box is hooked in to the internet. I almost never have my box hooked up while playing SP. Second, what about a second, third, fourth playthrough? How many people shot Mordin? Well I have only shot him once, but I have. How many people had Wrex in ME3? Well, since I started with ME3 I didn't for my first two games. But then I went off and bought ME1 and ME2 and I usually have Wrex now. I generally play femshep, but I have several mshep playthroughs.

I am sure these stats give BW some valuable insights. But take them with a grain of salt.

[Massa FX]

Bioware released the metric figures without context. That 18% could be based on initial playthrough data. Or not.

I do think that they did market femshep (trailers and JHale interviews) but the majority of their budget was solely for Sheploo.

Given the industry as a whole... I believe most of the 18% were male players.

I promote women playing hardcore vid games whenever possible. Turning them from farmville players to RPG'ers. Mass Effect is an excellent conversion tool!

[Massa FX]

@AlexB. I actually do choose not to buy a game based on gender equality. I'm a woman and I demand the right to roleplay a female character.

I did not buy any Dues Ex, Deadspace or Witcher games for their lack of gender options. Bioware has always included a strong and equally fascinating feminine protagonist and I love them for that.

[AlanC9]

cap and gown wrote...

I don't really trust those stats. To get those stats they rely on people who play while their box is hooked in to the internet. I almost never have my box hooked up while playing SP.

Is there any reason to think that players who don't connect their boxes play FemShep more or less often than players who do? The populations might be different, sure, but I'd stll have a fairly high level of confidence here unless the percentage of players opting out is high.

And IIRC your data gets uploaded whenever you connect, unless you've specifically opted out of the process. So since you played MP, some of your data is in.

Second, what about a second, third, fourth playthrough?

A large majority of players don't replay. Most don't even finish the game once.I believe completion percentages for DA:O and DA2 were 36% and 41%, which I guess means that  DA:O was too long.

[AlanC9]

Massa FX wrote...

Bioware released the metric figures without context. That 18% could be based on initial playthrough data. Or not.

When the DA team talked about stats like this, they meant per copy of the game, not the initial playthrough. Don't know for sure if the ME team does the same.

[General TSAR]

1) you would have bought it

To be honest, not really.

I connect better with a male than a female PC and first impressions are everything. 

2) it would be as popular in general

Hmm......depends. 

Modifié par General TSAR, 25 janvier 2014 - 06:17 .

[Almostfaceman]

von uber wrote...

Simple question:
If the marketing was switched (I.e a focus on a female protagonist instead of  male) for the mass effect trilogy do you think:

1) you would have bought it
2) it would be as popular in general

Nope, wouldn't have bought the premise, so wouldn't have bought the game.
I don't know if it would be popular in general, Tomb Raider was popular. 

[von uber]

Almostfaceman wrote...

Nope, wouldn't have bought the premise, so wouldn't have bought the game.

What prmeise wouldn';t you have bought into?

From my perspective - I am white, male and 34 years old and have been playing games since I was about 8 . That's 26 years of playing games, and I am sick to death and bored of the protaganists in the vast majority of games being men, and men who fit a stereotype (which I think male shep plays right into).
The witcher wa mentioned before - I see her point but for me, the fact the hero and game was flavoured by it's Polish culture made it interesting (despite, especially in the first game, some of it's dubious issues - sex cards anyone?) with the male lead character being fundamentally flawed and hated by a large proportion of the game inhabitants..

I wish Bioware would have made a bolder decision in it's marketing - if you could only play as a man in this game I would've passedover it. Playing as a female turns a fairly generic male power fantasy on its head.

[Almostfaceman]

von uber wrote...

What prmeise wouldn';t you have bought into?

From my perspective - I am white, male and 34 years old and have been playing games since I was about 8 . That's 26 years of playing games, and I am sick to death and bored of the protaganists in the vast majority of games being men, and men who fit a stereotype (which I think male shep plays right into).
The witcher wa mentioned before - I see her point but for me, the fact the hero and game was flavoured by it's Polish culture made it interesting (despite, especially in the first game, some of it's dubious issues - sex cards anyone?) with the male lead character being fundamentally flawed and hated by a large proportion of the game inhabitants..

I wish Bioware would have made a bolder decision in it's marketing - if you could only play as a man in this game I would've passedover it. Playing as a female turns a fairly generic male power fantasy on its head.

From my experience in the military, I don't really buy into the notion that women should be in field combat roles. They generally just don't have the upper body strength. I can't see many women, for instance, grabbing a hurt male comrade and hauling his body off the battlefield.  Women are not inferior, they're just built differently. So, I don't buy Shep being a female. But that's just me. Wanna play a female Shep, more power to ya.

[von uber]

Hmm, Might want to tell the Israelis that.
But regards to the future, why ever not? I would assume that, for example, the armour they wear is power assisted so strength is not an issue.

Given all the other aspects you have to handwave, I would've thought that would've been the least of the things to worry about.

[AlanC9]

Or outright genetic modification if they don't want to rely on the suit for strength.

Note that in ME1 FemShep carries the VS away from the bomb pretty easily. That actually looks too easy even when BroShep does it.

Modifié par AlanC9, 25 janvier 2014 - 06:47 .

[Almostfaceman]

von uber wrote...

Hmm, Might want to tell the Israelis that.
But regards to the future, why ever not? I would assume that, for example, the armour they wear is power assisted so strength is not an issue.

Given all the other aspects you have to handwave, I would've thought that would've been the least of the things to worry about.

When it comes to putting a gun in someone's hand, pointing and shooting, yes women are just as good as men. Israeli's or not, though, I still stand by my statements with regards to strength.

It's interesting you bring up power assist, because our military is actually developing that right now and it's being used for disabled vets. So yeah, it could be used in sci-fi with really no heavy stretch of the imagination.

Where you're making a mistake right now in this conversation is that you're kinda putting your perspective in place of mine. I'm not interested in Mass Effect for the reasons you are. I like it because I can pretend to be a space soldier. I am a man. Hence, I pick a man for Shep. It makes sense to me, because men are strong enough to be soldiers, smart enough to be soldiers, I don't have to headcanon the female because I can pick the male. 

If females want to pretend to be a space soldier, or do anything else, they have that option. That's great.

I know a lot of guys who like to play female avatars, for a wide variety of reasons - more power to them.

The marketing was just fine, they picked their target audience and got it but they were smart enough to appeal to the smaller market at the same time. They sold a lot of games. You may be tired of this or that in the marketing, that's fine, it's your right, I have no problem with it. It's just really not an issue for me. 

[AlanC9]

Going back a bit in the thread, does anyone know how the background pic for the forum is controlled?

[Almostfaceman]

AlanC9 wrote...

Or outright genetic modification if they don't want to rely on the suit for strength.

Note that in ME1 FemShep carries the VS away from the bomb pretty easily. That actually looks too easy even when BroShep does it.

Yes genetic modification for strength would be great lore-wise, but there's really not much mention of that that I know of (except for Miranda). It would have helped sell that if they would have made the women look a lot more athletic though, instead of skinny stick-armed women, lol. 

[AlanC9]

It's canon that all Alliance recruits receive some genetic enhancement. I don't recall any specifics about exactly what is enhanced.

[SwobyJ]

I don't entirely buy Shepard being female either.

But it's less her gender itself, but more the build that Bioware put her with

As it is, if we get a future game that less plays the 'Soldier' class archetype (I'm being very general here folks), but more the Adept, or Sentinel, or Infiltrator... or maybe even Engineer or Vanguard, I'd buy it more.

I'm not saying I'd know what those stories would be, but I consider 'Shepard ME1-3' to be a base Soldier story (which we can occasionally branch out from, in some of our choices and especially the DLC adventures). And I don't think it's AS suited for a female character, again at least of this body build.

But in the future of the series? Hmmm, yeah, I think I really may go for it. Females can be great at a lot of combat and conflict situations. It's that I can't as easily buy a female like the one Soldier Bioware is showing us, doing these specific things we see in the trilogy.

I'd especially love a super-cosmic-in-scope Adept story. I think I'd pick a female main character for that, and her power could end up stronger than Shepard ever was

Modifié par SwobyJ, 25 janvier 2014 - 07:06 .

[SwobyJ]

Yeah all Alliance recruits get something, but it looks like even the writers just handwave it, at least for now.

I can buy so many Alliance soldiers being female, I mean. I can totally buy Ashley, for example (heh, at least ME1 Ashley ).

But Shepard is more of a tough sell. Things like punching that Yahg make me go WTF. I mean I do that too with Maleshep, but it looks even far more strange with the size of Femshep's muscles and bone structure!

[SwobyJ]

Oh, I'm also less picky about ME2-3 Shepard.

Bioware may hide the details of it, but I basically consider ME2-3 Shepard to be a Terminator in disguise. So yeah. Punch yahgs all you want, male or female!

ME1 Femshep is the one that more rubbed me the wrong way. Ashley seemed like a better way to portray that female soldier idea (except the silly pink armor).