472 réponses à ce sujet

[Veruin]

Covi wrote...

During the Mass Effect Retrospective they revealed that over 80% of players chose to play a male Shepard, even though Bioware is one of the most inclusive developers and had a FemShep marketing campaign. Male players are still in the majority, so it's no wonder if marketing decides to use a male protagonist in advertising. Other industries market their products primarily towards women, video games just happen to be male-dominated.

Even with femshep in the marketing, I believe the femshep playerbase was around 14%?  With all these quotes of women being into games as much as men, they must not be into playing their own gender.


Edit*

It's 18%.

http://kotaku.com/58...lays-as-a-woman

http://www.rockpaper...s-play-female/  > Says only 13% left default shepard.  The rest customized theirs.

Modifié par Veruin, 07 février 2014 - 02:07 .

[Fast Jimmy]

Orian Tabris wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Orian Tabris wrote...

Sentinel358 wrote...

Its a minor detail that they missed, its an honest mistake. During the panels someone in the crew said "he" and was corrected by Mike Laidlaw i believe responding with "or she". Its not something to make a big deal out of since Bioware has always done a good job of not favoring one gender

Yes, because using a male Warden and a male Hawke in the trailers, and demonstrating/showing what can be done in Inquisition with a male Inquisitor is doing a good job of not favouring one gender.

I noticed in the current trailer that they never showed the Inquisitor. If I recall correctly, one of the devs once said that they use males in trailers to appeal to people more likely to be interested in the game(s). This was in a really early thread where someone offered having a female Inquisitor in the trailer, so I could have gotten this entirely wrong. Again, if I recall correctly, it was Chris Priestly who said it. So my guess is they didn't want to use a female Inquisitor, but wanted to avoid contention, so decided to not have another male PC, either.

What I think BioWare should have done, was have two trailers. One made for mid 2013 advertising the game in September-November, where the Inquisitor is male, and one made for mid 2014 when they've decided on a release date (month, not day), with the Inquisitor being female.

We still haven't seen a trailer where there was a male or female Inquisitor. Just a obscured, cloaked figure.

If you are talking about the gameplay DEMO, that's a different story. There was only one and it was with a male. Mainly because recording demos takes a long asp time. I've done it before with web presentations and product demos - it takes a while to get everything organized, to create the same effects, to go through the same process... it's just a pain. I'd rather do ten live demos than have to sit down and plan a recorded one.

You may have missed something in my post, Jimmy. I will highlight it in red for you. The third paragraph was just an idea of what would have been better.

When you say "DEMO" you mean the 30 minute PAX demo with a male human Inquisitor? No, I wasn't referring to that, or any demo, for that matter.

Gotcha. Then I guess I just completely disagree with you - I don't think there should be ANY canon protagonist in the marketing materials.

Concealing the appearance (including not just gender, but skin tone, race, etc.) of the protagonist was the best move they could have made. It leaves it up to the imagination, which is exactly where it should be in a game that is going to allow you to create a character as wildly different as a three foot dwarven rogue chick to a seven foot tall Qunari male mage. 

Otherwise, they are selling something that marginalizes the effort of huge amounts of their work. 

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 07 février 2014 - 01:58 .

[Grieving Natashina]

@Covi Two questions, since I've seen that number thrown around: Wasn't that number based on ME2, not ME3? And wasn't ME2 the first ME game to allow fem Shepherds?

Nevermind, the second question was answered.

Modifié par Starsyn, 07 février 2014 - 02:05 .

[CuriousArtemis]

VaticanVice wrote...

I don't disagree that I want the female Inquisitor to be featured in marketing.  In fact, I will point out that as a woman, I didn't buy Mass Effect until 2009 because I did not know that Shepard could be female.  It really does impact my desire to play a game.  That said, I don't think that the exclusion of female PCs in marketing materials is malicious.  It should change--in fact, it's my opinion that for the industry to move forward it must change--but I won't be surprised or even especially angry if it doesn't change for this game.

I also think that awareness of gender selection is helped by awareness of race selection.  I can't think of a game off the top of my head in which you could select your race but not your gender.

The folks at Bioware seem to be some of the most progressive in the industry when it comes to issues of gender and sexuality.  It would sure be nice for the female Inquisitor to get a nod--even nicer if she got a CG trailer.  Inquisition seems like the ideal game to do something like that, because it's a return to greater choice in building your character.  Perhaps we'll see marketing materials in which the Inquisitor changes gender and race from scene to scene, to emphasize customization.  But I'm not getting my hopes up.

Couldn't have said it better myself 

[mopotter]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

andar91 wrote...

Veruin wrote...

I'll say this and leave.

Ads and trailers are not here to make the current fanbase feel good about themselves.

I'm not concerned about the current fanbase. I'm concerned about women who might never glance twice at the game, but who might genuinely enjoy it for any number of reasons if they are at least actively invited to play.

I hate to play devil's advocate, but there is the very real possibility that there is a potential male customer out there who only sees the female trailer and, for the same reason a female might pass on a male-only trailer, the male might pass on the game after seeing only the female trailer.


I'm for ambiguity, across the board. Showcase the ability to create your own character, choose your own class/race/gender/whatever and then make choices that shape the world with your customized character.

Having a "set" or "canon" character just for marketting is harmful, since it marginalizes one of the biggest aspects of the game - not that you can play as a male or female, but that you can completely create and customize your character entirely.

Yes.  I'd rather they not show a set character.   I wish they would advertise the things that make them special, the character creation, morphing into many different characters with some kind of comment, be the inquisitor you want to be, snipits showing the companions something about the story and the graphics.  

[mopotter]

spirosz wrote...

discosuperfly wrote...

OP has a valid point regarding new players to the DA series being made aware of the possibility of playing as a either gender. I play mostly female characters and avoid purchasing games that restrict my PC's gender to male, which is why I avoided buying ME for quite some time because I wasn't aware Shep could also be female.

Were you aware of Bioware and their usual RPG standard of male and female leading roles? 

If I hadn't been on the boards here and Chris hadn't assured us that we could play as Fem Shep, I wouldn't have pre-ordered ME1.   There was the off chance that they were going in a different direction with ME.  

[Covi]

Starsyn wrote...

@Covi Two questions, since I've seen that number thrown around: Wasn't that number based on ME2, not ME3? And wasn't ME2 the first ME game to allow fem Shepherds?

It was based on ME3, and you could play a female Shepard since ME1. You can find the infographic here: http://images.vg247....infographic.jpg

Modifié par Covi, 07 février 2014 - 02:05 .

[Fast Jimmy]

andar91 wrote...

Ambiguity or showcasing 2 characters of either gender would be fine by me--it's not excluding one of them, and the message would be fairly clear to all. 

I suppose ambiguity is safest in terms of marketing--but that isn't what they do. It's the male PC's who are featured in the trailers.

It is what they SHOULD do.

Remember the whole "vote for the ME3 FemShep appearance" contest, where the blonde FemShep was voted in and it caused the biggest stink you can imagine?

There was then insults of Barbie Shephard, as well as racial barbs thrown around for the depiction of the racial minorities... it was an absolute mess. All because Bioware was committed to creating a set protagonist strictly for marketing purposes in a game that didn't need one.

When you start showcasing different canon characters to appeal to an audience, suddenly everyone who isn't being appeased is upset. "They have two white canon characters? What about Rivani and people of color?" "They only have humans in the trailer? What about elves/dwarves/qunari?" "What, they put some blonde chick up there not because of gender equality, but to sell out to some male high school cheerleader fantasy?" Etc.,etc.

Ambiguity is the greatest asset in a game like this. Or, if not ambiguity, then actively showcasing the ability to make any character you want. Show a dwarven rogue male, who then turns into a female elven mage, who then turns into a Qunari male slamming a hammer down, etc. 

There is going to be so much choice with the character creation in this game that it is a huge disservice to have any sort of canon appearance in the marketting at all, I don't care if it is male, female or an anthropomorphized toaster. 

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 07 février 2014 - 02:12 .

[Grieving Natashina]

@Covi Thanks for letting me know.

Since that's from an unrelated series with a completely different style of play, do you have anything from the actual Dragon Age games? I looked myself and couldn't find anything. Mass Effect is an entirely different writing/design team; it just happens to be done by the same game company.

On that note, you guys have fun.   

Modifié par Starsyn, 07 février 2014 - 02:12 .

[Seboist]

That infographic showed what a insignificant minority the vocal femshep agitators on BSN were and it's a no brainer that they should focus on the male protag in the marketing.

[Seboist]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

andar91 wrote...

Ambiguity or showcasing 2 characters of either gender would be fine by me--it's not excluding one of them, and the message would be fairly clear to all. 

I suppose ambiguity is safest in terms of marketing--but that isn't what they do. It's the male PC's who are featured in the trailers.

It is what they SHOULD do.

Remember the whole "vote for the ME3 FemShep appearance" contest, where the blonde FemShep was voted in and it caused the biggest stink you can imagine?

There was then insults of Barbie Shephard, as well as racial barbs thrown around for the depiction of the racial minorities... it was an absolute mess. All because Bioware was committed to creating a set protagonist strictly for marketing purposes in a game that dind't need one.

When you start showcasing different canon characters to appeal to an audience, suddenly everyone who isn't being appeased is upset. "They have two white canon characters? What about Rivani and people of color?" "They only have humans in the trailer? What about elves/dwarves/qunari?" "What, they put some blonde chick up there not because of gender equality, but to sell out to some male high school cheerleader fantasy?" Etc.,etc.

Ambiguity is the greatest asset in a game like this. Or, if not ambiguity, then actively showcasing the ability to make any character you want. Show a dwarven rogue male, who then turns into a female elven mage, who then turns into a Qunari male slamming a hammer down, etc. 

There is going to be so much choice with the character creation in this game that it is a huge disservice to have any sort of canon appearance in the marketting at all, I don't care if it is male, female or an anthropomorphized toaster. 

That whole drama with the femshep voting showed why devs should never listen to fans when it comes to the creative process. They just end up in a perpetual lose-lose situation trying to cater to everyone.

They need to stick to their creative guns and do whatever makes the most sense in marketting(ie a male protag).

[Orian Tabris]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Orian Tabris wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Orian Tabris wrote...

Sentinel358 wrote...

Its a minor detail that they missed, its an honest mistake. During the panels someone in the crew said "he" and was corrected by Mike Laidlaw i believe responding with "or she". Its not something to make a big deal out of since Bioware has always done a good job of not favoring one gender

Yes, because using a male Warden and a male Hawke in the trailers, and demonstrating/showing what can be done in Inquisition with a male Inquisitor is doing a good job of not favouring one gender.

I noticed in the current trailer that they never showed the Inquisitor. If I recall correctly, one of the devs once said that they use males in trailers to appeal to people more likely to be interested in the game(s). This was in a really early thread where someone offered having a female Inquisitor in the trailer, so I could have gotten this entirely wrong. Again, if I recall correctly, it was Chris Priestly who said it. So my guess is they didn't want to use a female Inquisitor, but wanted to avoid contention, so decided to not have another male PC, either.

What I think BioWare should have done, was have two trailers. One made for mid 2013 advertising the game in September-November, where the Inquisitor is male, and one made for mid 2014 when they've decided on a release date (month, not day), with the Inquisitor being female.

We still haven't seen a trailer where there was a male or female Inquisitor. Just a obscured, cloaked figure.

If
you are talking about the gameplay DEMO, that's a different story.
There was only one and it was with a male. Mainly because recording
demos takes a long asp time. I've done it before with web presentations
and product demos - it takes a while to get everything organized, to
create the same effects, to go through the same process... it's just a
pain. I'd rather do ten live demos than have to sit down and plan a
recorded one.

You may have missed something in my post, Jimmy. I will highlight it in red for you. The third paragraph was just an idea of what would have been better.

When you say "DEMO" you mean the 30 minute PAX demo with a male human Inquisitor? No, I wasn't referring to that, or any demo, for that matter.

Gotcha. Then I guess I just completely disagree with you - I don't think there should be ANY canon protagonist in the marketing materials.

Concealing the appearance (including not just gender, but skin tone, race, etc.) of the protagonist was the best move they could have made. It leaves it up to the imagination, which is exactly where it should be in a game that is going to allow you to create a character as wildly different as a three foot dwarven rogue chick to a seven foot tall Qunari male mage. 

Otherwise, they are selling something that marginalizes the effort of huge amounts of their work.

Well, they could have supplemented that possible problem by using a male dwarf and a female qunari, avoiding elves which are a staple among fantasy games, and humans which are also a staple, and are used in most every video game trailer ever.

However, the good thing about not showing a protagonist of any sort in trailers leaves the viewer wondering what the player character is like, so they delve deeper by looking for more information on the game, and find that - in this case - you have four different races to choose from, and two genders (and even three classes).

Just so you know, I never said that they shouldn't avoid using a protagonist, just that I thought two trailers displaying the protag. as both genders would have been better than hiding the fact that a female Inquisitor was possible.

Modifié par Orian Tabris, 07 février 2014 - 02:15 .

[Steelcan]

Starsyn wrote...

@Covi Thanks for letting me know.

Since that's from an unrelated series with a completely different style of play, do you have anything from the actual Dragon Age games? I looked myself and couldn't find anything. Mass Effect is entirely different writing/design team; it just happens to be done by the same game company.

On that note, you guys have fun.   

Do you really think the stats will eb trerribly different between the series?

[Sentinel358]

Orian Tabris wrote...

Sentinel358 wrote...

Its a minor detail that they missed, its an honest mistake. During the panels someone in the crew said "he" and was corrected by Mike Laidlaw i believe responding with "or she". Its not something to make a big deal out of since Bioware has always done a good job of not favoring one gender

Yes, because using a male Warden and a male Hawke in the trailers, and demonstrating/showing what can be done in Inquisition with a male Inquisitor is doing a good job of not favouring one gender.

I noticed in the current trailer that they never showed the Inquisitor. If I recall correctly, one of the devs once said that they use males in trailers to appeal to people more likely to be interested in the game(s). This was in a really early thread where someone offered having a female Inquisitor in the trailer, so I could have gotten this entirely wrong. Again, if I recall correctly, it was Chris Priestly who said it. So my guess is they didn't want to use a female Inquisitor, but wanted to avoid contention, so decided to not have another male PC, either.

What I think BioWare should have done, was have two trailers. One made for mid 2013 advertising the game in September-November, where the Inquisitor is male, and one made for mid 2014 when they've decided on a release date (month, not day), with the Inquisitor being female.

I dont see how what i said isnt valid. Just because their are other ways of approaching the issue, they're still aware of it and have usually done a good job with it in past projects. We've only seen one trailer and one demo where they showed a generic human male, we have 8-9 months so lets give them time to display more material before you criticize their methods

[Grieving Natashina]

Yes.

[Veruin]

People have said a few times in this very thread, that they didn't play x game because they didn't know they could be a female protag. I don't think series or style of play matters as much when you have statements like that.

[Fast Jimmy]

Orian Tabris wrote...
Well, they could have supplemented that possible problem by using a male dwarf and a female qunari, avoiding elves which are a staple among fantasy games, and humans which are also a staple, and are used in most every video game trailer ever.

However, the good thing about not showing a protagonist of any sort in trailers leaves the viewer wondering what the player character is like, so they delve deeper by looking for more information on the game, and find that - in this case - you have four different races to choose from, and two genders (and even three classes).

Just so you know, I never said that they shouldn't avoid using a protagonist, just that I thought two trailers displaying the protag. as both genders would have been better than hiding the fact that a female Inquisitor was possible.

How do you know they weren't hiding the fact that a MALE Inquisitor was possible?

Inquisiception!

[Steelcan]

Starsyn wrote...

Yes.

Why?

FemShep has recieved much more media attentiona nd she still doesn't break 20% of playthroughs, I bet FemHawke or Warden is a lot lower

[Fast Jimmy]

Seboist wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...

andar91 wrote...

Ambiguity or showcasing 2 characters of either gender would be fine by me--it's not excluding one of them, and the message would be fairly clear to all. 

I suppose ambiguity is safest in terms of marketing--but that isn't what they do. It's the male PC's who are featured in the trailers.

It is what they SHOULD do.

Remember the whole "vote for the ME3 FemShep appearance" contest, where the blonde FemShep was voted in and it caused the biggest stink you can imagine?

There was then insults of Barbie Shephard, as well as racial barbs thrown around for the depiction of the racial minorities... it was an absolute mess. All because Bioware was committed to creating a set protagonist strictly for marketing purposes in a game that dind't need one.

When you start showcasing different canon characters to appeal to an audience, suddenly everyone who isn't being appeased is upset. "They have two white canon characters? What about Rivani and people of color?" "They only have humans in the trailer? What about elves/dwarves/qunari?" "What, they put some blonde chick up there not because of gender equality, but to sell out to some male high school cheerleader fantasy?" Etc.,etc.

Ambiguity is the greatest asset in a game like this. Or, if not ambiguity, then actively showcasing the ability to make any character you want. Show a dwarven rogue male, who then turns into a female elven mage, who then turns into a Qunari male slamming a hammer down, etc. 

There is going to be so much choice with the character creation in this game that it is a huge disservice to have any sort of canon appearance in the marketting at all, I don't care if it is male, female or an anthropomorphized toaster. 

That whole drama with the femshep voting showed why devs should never listen to fans when it comes to the creative process. They just end up in a perpetual lose-lose situation trying to cater to everyone.

They need to stick to their creative guns and do whatever makes the most sense in marketting(ie a male protag).

I disagree. 

I can already see the "anthropomorphized toaster for LI" threads now.

[Orian Tabris]

Sentinel358 wrote...

Orian Tabris wrote...

Sentinel358 wrote...

Its a minor detail that they missed, its an honest mistake. During the panels someone in the crew said "he" and was corrected by Mike Laidlaw i believe responding with "or she". Its not something to make a big deal out of since Bioware has always done a good job of not favoring one gender

Yes, because using a male Warden and a male Hawke in the trailers, and demonstrating/showing what can be done in Inquisition with a male Inquisitor is doing a good job of not favouring one gender.

I noticed in the current trailer that they never showed the Inquisitor. If I recall correctly, one of the devs once said that they use males in trailers to appeal to people more likely to be interested in the game(s). This was in a really early thread where someone offered having a female Inquisitor in the trailer, so I could have gotten this entirely wrong. Again, if I recall correctly, it was Chris Priestly who said it. So my guess is they didn't want to use a female Inquisitor, but wanted to avoid contention, so decided to not have another male PC, either.

What I think BioWare should have done, was have two trailers. One made for mid 2013 advertising the game in September-November, where the Inquisitor is male, and one made for mid 2014 when they've decided on a release date (month, not day), with the Inquisitor being female.

I dont see how what i said isnt valid. Just because their are other ways of approaching the issue, they're still aware of it and have usually done a good job with it in past projects. We've only seen one trailer and one demo where they showed a generic human male, we have 8-9 months so lets give them time to display more material before you criticize their methods

I wasn't critising their methods, I was correcting you, by pointing out that using a male protagonist in both the first 2 trailers, and using a male protagonist in the demo wasn't doing "a good job of not favouring one gender" over another.

[dreamgazer]

Seboist wrote...

That infographic showed what a insignificant minority the vocal femshep agitators on BSN were and it's a no brainer that they should focus on the male protag in the marketing.

I don't think one out of every five players is all that insignificant. 

That said, I agree with the bolded based on the numbers.

[mopotter]

Veruin wrote...

motomotogirl wrote...

Imagine a world where male gamers have to research a title before discovering that the game "allows" them to play as male as well as female...

I'm imagining a world where people research a game because they like it and not because of what may or may not be in the PC's pants.
 Totally breaking my oath buuuuut. 

 This statement brings back horror from childhood.  If you can't spell a word, look it up in the dictionary.  You can't look it up if you can't spell it.  

It's very hard to research a game you don't know you will like.  I hate shooters.  If it hadn't been a BW game and I hang out here way too much, I would never have wanted to check out ME 1 because it looked like a shooter and I don't like them.  

Often, you don't know what game to research because you've only seen trailers showing something about the game that you don't like, shooter, male character or female character, but the marketing people think that is going to bring in players who don't usually play their games forgetting that there are other players who might play their game if they weren't so hidebound in their thought process.

I played guys in games for years because there was nothing else available and I love video games.  Now I have choices and I only buy games that let me play both male and female, and there are others like me.  I want them to get as many customers as possible so they will make another game with choices and another after that.  

[Jaulen]

'Focus' doesn't need to mean 'exclusively'.

[efd731]

Late to this convo, but does this level of furor deserve to be raised over a single pronoun In a single video,That never shows us the actual inquisitor. For all we know, varric or Cassandra could be the inquisitor (if we had no prior knowledge). I also dislike the few people who say they passed on previous titles because of a (perceived) lack of female protagonist. What would your reaction be to someone skipping a game because of a female protagonist? That would be sexist right?

PS: I fully support a full race and both genders trailer, or no viewing of the inquisitor at all.

[mopotter]

Covi wrote...

During the Mass Effect Retrospective they revealed that over 80% of players chose to play a male Shepard, even though Bioware is one of the most inclusive developers and had a FemShep marketing campaign. Male players are still in the majority, so it's no wonder if marketing decides to use a male protagonist in advertising. Other industries market their products primarily towards women, video games just happen to be male-dominated.

That 80% included players like me.  I did play male Shepard but I also played more Female Shepard.   Without the Fem part of Fe male, I wouldn't have got the game and I'm pretty sure there are othe women who played both characters. 

And that male dominated thing is slowly going to balance out as kids like my granddaughter start playing rpgs or shooters.  Both parents are gamers and at 2 the girl is already playing on their laptops.   Marketing people need to start thinking outside the box and if the game has options, they need to market those options.