9318 réponses à ce sujet

[ElitePinecone]

See my previous comment about box art with the different genders on either side and all races on each side, plus the different classes also depicted, and everyone with different skin tones etc.  Just wildly different but all well-designed characters.  Bonus points if the box art is actual in-game character art, though it may be difficult to make that as appealing as a painting due to the uncanny valley effect.

 

I still think you'd run the risk of people taking one glance at that scene and assuming that we play as a whole team of different characters wearing the same armour. Or that DA:I is an RTS, or whatever. 

 

People *will* confuse things, especially if they're new customers to the series - and the entire point of box art is to convince new customers, since they're the very people who don't follow news about your game and might not even know it exists until they walk into a store. 

[Darth Krytie]

The obvious solution is to invent a new piece of tech...you pick up the box, place your thumb print on a special place, and by sciencemagicwizardy, your ideal inquisitor (or protag) appears decked out according to your desire on the front.

 

Problem solved.

[Allan Schumacher]

At the risk of stepping into a crossfire:

 

 

 

You've come into a thread where we're asking politely that women be more included in marketing and trying to offer constructive means to do so, and you have basically said, "haha no sorry because dudebro is already there, sorry ladies but we only need one lead and it's a dude and he's white--there's no room for anyone else."  Yes, I'm going to be indignant about that.

Now granted, I have some previous interactions aside from this thread, but Fast Jimmy isn't saying "we only need one lead and it's a dude and he's white."  He's saying he'd rather not see any sort of protagonist at all.  He's spoken out about this in the past, and prefers DAO's boxart because it doesn't show any sort of protagonist, while DA2's does show a protagonist and he considers that a failing of the boxart because it may lead people to think that that character specifically is the one you're going to play (my counter to this is that this is a risk of showing any character on the cover).

 

 

That said, with respect to Fast Jimmy, when you said the following:

 

 

Sorry - I can't endorse encouraging a company to do something that's wrong, even if they have the option of doing it wrong in a way that will make others feel better. It's still a wrong, bad idea.

 

Within the context of this thread, you've basically stated "you are all wrong.  That's not the right way to do it."  This is always going to make someone asking for something defensive (it made me twitch too), and to be honest I don't think we're really equipped to straight up state "it's wrong" because we can't really do an experiment and we can't really quantify if the type of protagonist-less boxart/marketing you would like would even make any difference.  If we do it, and the game sells poorly... is it because the marketing was bad, or was the game lacking?  If we do it, and the game sells great, is it because of the marketing or is it because of the game's quality being good.  Too many confounding variables.  It's part of the frustration that women share in that when a game with more women in the marketing does poorly, people can conclude that it's because of the marketing, not the game, and that's frustrating.

 

 

I do feel (and I think people agree) that there's a divide here, in that what Jimmy feels is best for the game's marketing is not what many of the women here feel is best of the game's marketing.  And those perspectives, as far as I'm concerned, are perfectly fine to hold given the difficulty of discerning the quantifiable effect a marketing detail like that may make given all the things that eventually get shown.  In that sense, I don't think anyone can be called "wrong" though I do agree that given the nature of this particular thread, coming in and suggesting that one group IS (matter of factly) wrong for wanting what they want is going to come across the wrong way.

 

 

In any case, yes I agree that if posters are getting your blood boiling, take a break and disengage.  I appreciate that rather than escalating things.  I do think that there's a degree of misunderstanding that happened, and hope that further discussion can be somewhat reset back to a more cordial perspective.  I hope my interpretations of people's perspectives are both correct, and clearly communicated for everyone so that people don't hold any unnecessary grudges.

 

 

In any case I played too much Titanfall and have to go to bed now....  If anyone has any questions about this post please fire off a PM to me.

 

Good night.

[GVulture]

At the risk of stepping into a crossfire:

 

 

 

Now granted, I have some previous interactions aside from this thread, but Fast Jimmy isn't saying "we only need one lead and it's a dude and he's white."  He's saying he'd rather not see any sort of protagonist at all.  He's spoken out about this in the past, and prefers DAO's boxart because it doesn't show any sort of protagonist, while DA2's does show a protagonist and he considers that a failing of the boxart because it may lead people to think that that character specifically is the one you're going to play (my counter to this is that this is a risk of showing any character on the cover).

 

 

That said, with respect to Fast Jimmy, when you said the following:

 

 

 

Within the context of this thread, you've basically stated "you are all wrong.  That's not the right way to do it."  This is always going to make someone asking for something defensive (it made me twitch too), and to be honest I don't think we're really equipped to straight up state "it's wrong" because we can't really do an experiment and we can't really quantify if the type of protagonist-less boxart/marketing you would like would even make any difference.  If we do it, and the game sells poorly... is it because the marketing was bad, or was the game lacking?  If we do it, and the game sells great, is it because of the marketing or is it because of the game's quality being good.  Too many confounding variables.  It's part of the frustration that women share in that when a game with more women in the marketing does poorly, people can conclude that it's because of the marketing, not the game, and that's frustrating.

 

 

I do feel (and I think people agree) that there's a divide here, in that what Jimmy feels is best for the game's marketing is not what many of the women here feel is best of the game's marketing.  And those perspectives, as far as I'm concerned, are perfectly fine to hold given the difficulty of discerning the quantifiable effect a marketing detail like that may make given all the things that eventually get shown.  In that sense, I don't think anyone can be called "wrong" though I do agree that given the nature of this particular thread, coming in and suggesting that one group IS (matter of factly) wrong for wanting what they want is going to come across the wrong way.

 

 

In any case, yes I agree that if posters are getting your blood boiling, take a break and disengage.  I appreciate that rather than escalating things.  I do think that there's a degree of misunderstanding that happened, and hope that further discussion can be somewhat reset back to a more cordial perspective.  I hope my interpretations of people's perspectives are both correct, and clearly communicated for everyone so that people don't hold any unnecessary grudges.

 

 

In any case I played too much Titanfall and have to go to bed now....  If anyone has any questions about this post please fire off a PM to me.

 

Good night.

Thanks for weighing in, for the most part I get what he was trying to say and I DO agree that in a game like ME or DA where canonically there is no iconic lead then there shouldn't be one for the boxart.

 

However, the main reason that Sheploo exists is because of marketing. They wanted to create a brand for the game and honestly it served them well. I am all for having unique models for the default options but unless you use them for marketing it might be a waste of the company's money to pay for someone like Mark Vanderloo to or Yvonne Strahovski come in and do scans. I DO NOT THINK that Mass Effect would have done as well without a strong lead on the cover. It was a sci-fi space opera and those need heros on the cover being all Star Wars-esque.

 

I DO think that it is extra craptacular that it took three games before Femshep got the similar treatment because the message there is "you were an afterthought". Don't get me started on the beauty contest for her because you ask the internet which option they like best and they're going to go for what they think is the most attractive not the most unique. While attractiveness does factor into a brand's popularity I think Commander Shepard needed something more... Shepardy. Personally, I think the most iconic and unique looking Femsheps were the one with streaks in her hair and the darker skinned blunt bangs looking one. =p They both screamed SCIFI to me.

[Fast Jimmy]

To hop on after having time to sleep and follow on Allan's comment, I am sorry for using the word/phrase wrong, but it seemed appropriate for what I was trying to convey.

Not that it is wrong to put a woman on the cover (I believe I gave some examples of games that have done well that did just that), but putting a set protagonist (of any gender) on the cover would be wrong. At least, in the sense that it is actively promoting a perception that "you play as this character," which is true of the vast majority of games. For a DA game to actively endorse such notions to an uninformed populace is promoting misinformation. Which is, in my mind, a wrong/bad thing to do. I'm sure it isn't done with malice intent or anything, but it is still the wrong way to go about doing things - getting people to pick up and possibly buy your product under false pretenses.

Anyway, I realize that I have gotten people's blood boiling and that was not my intention. So I'll step away from the conversation.

[LPPrince]

I think there could very well be multiple iconic characters for a brand and have it be successful advertising. When I say that, I don't mean fifteen different characters, just two-

 

Man, and Woman.

 

Lets all go back in time to 2007. Mass Effect is being advertised. I want you to(if you can) remember the commercials and advertisements for ME, except with both Femshep and Sheploo in the advertising, simultaneously. Each time, with a tag line or hint of some sort that you can choose between playing a male or female character.

 

Now, ME2. Advertising is improving, yes? Commercials are getting taken to the next level, ads everywhere are popping up. Every time you saw Sheploo? Imagine Femshep next to him, in an equal pose, doing the exact same thing. Hell, imagine new ads, like a poster showing half of Sheploo, and half of Femshep. Imagine fem-centric advertisements, just showing a female Commander Shepard, placed in areas where women are likely to cross, online and in real life(same goes for Sheploo).

 

ME3? Again with the advertising. Everything Sheploo does, Femshep does too. The choice between playing man or woman never gets let up, is always a part of the marketing, to drive the point home(this would hopefully stop stupid remarks like the ones on Fox News' report back on MLK Day 2008 about how in Mass Effect you play a 'man' in that game and *incessant garbage data here*).

 

I think an iconic brand can exist while still pushing the multiple-choice options that Bioware games provide. The effort just has to be made. Then again, I am not paid(at all) to make these sorts of marketing decisions. I don't have the numbers in front of me hinting at what works and what doesn't. I don't have a list of all the demographics of gamers playing our games, where they come from, when they get up in the morning, etc etc. I can't say for certain that a woman in equal advertising with a man for a video game would help sell it.

 

But it'd be nice.

[Sanunes]

The problem with changing the focus to making anything geared to a female protagonist is that you are going to have to overcome this type of stereotyping.

 

http://www.vg247.com...ng-with-capcom/

 

Right now the only way I can see as consumers is to financially support games/developers that give you want you want, it might not be everything but corporations like to try and mimic one another to make more money.  If a game like Remember Me did well, I could see one or two more female only protagonist games in development, but because I don't think it sold very well they are going to continue to hang onto those feelings and be stubborn to change.

 

Conversations like this one are going to help, but at the end of the day I am pretty sure a corporation will listen more to money then to forum posts.

[Mes]

 

Conversations like this one are going to help, but at the end of the day I am pretty sure a corporation will listen more to money then to forum posts.

 

No no no get rid of that pessimistic attitude right now! Yes true a forum thread is not going to solve anything, but having a public conversation about any kind of problematic topic is always a great first step. 

 

Possibly part of the problem is that there aren't enough women employed in the gaming industry. Maybe if the execs from your link had been women, they wouldn't have said female characters don't sell. 

 

Look at the end of the day men and women are frighteningly similar - in my opinion it's just CHANCE that men are getting all the goodies here in gaming. One day it's gonna be equal, and we gotta push to make it happen faster. I'm not getting any younger here.

[XMissWooX]

I just wanted to share some of my thoughts on DAI's marketing. Bear in mind that I know next to nothing about marketing so anything I have to say should be taken lightly.

One of the major strengths of Dragon Age which (to me) sets it apart from its fantasy RPG rivals (such as the Witcher series) is the absense of a set protaganist.
The player can choose from two genders, four races (one of which is *entirely* unique to the Dragon Age games) and a number of skin tones. Add to that an extensive character creator which allows for face, hair, eye, nose, mouth customisation and more, and you really start to get the feeling that *your* Dragon Age protagainst is unique.

Bioware knows that this is appealing to fans (hence making Qunari a playable race) but it seems odd that they don't really emphasise it in their marketing.
The games market has become more competitive in recent years, and whilst you can get information to people via written articles, blogs or a blurb, there are going to be potential consumers who are too busy browsing the market to do little more than glance at the cover - so you need to make sure yours says a thousand words.
A game cover like the one Brass Buckles suggested earlier in this thread sounds like a very good idea to me. It is eye-catching and gives little hints to the deep level of customisation available in the game - for both the protaganist's appearance and the protaganist's personality. Will you be a heroic human who protects the innocent? Or a ruthless Qunari who crushes the opposition?

I will be interested to see what Bioware/EA decide to do for DAI's marketing. If they do decide to go with a 'default' protaganist, I would like to see them include the female protaganist alongside the male, and avoid the pitfall of making them both white. I imagine this is probably the best way to achieve variety and better appeal to your (highly diverse) consumer-base within the limitations of having only two default protagonists.

[DragonRacer]

I think there could very well be multiple iconic characters for a brand and have it be successful advertising. When I say that, I don't mean fifteen different characters, just two-
 
Man, and Woman.
 
Lets all go back in time to 2007. Mass Effect is being advertised. I want you to(if you can) remember the commercials and advertisements for ME, except with both Femshep and Sheploo in the advertising, simultaneously. Each time, with a tag line or hint of some sort that you can choose between playing a male or female character.
 
Now, ME2. Advertising is improving, yes? Commercials are getting taken to the next level, ads everywhere are popping up. Every time you saw Sheploo? Imagine Femshep next to him, in an equal pose, doing the exact same thing. Hell, imagine new ads, like a poster showing half of Sheploo, and half of Femshep. Imagine fem-centric advertisements, just showing a female Commander Shepard, placed in areas where women are likely to cross, online and in real life(same goes for Sheploo).
 
ME3? Again with the advertising. Everything Sheploo does, Femshep does too. The choice between playing man or woman never gets let up, is always a part of the marketing, to drive the point home(this would hopefully stop stupid remarks like the ones on Fox News' report back on MLK Day 2008 about how in Mass Effect you play a 'man' in that game and *incessant garbage data here*).
 
I think an iconic brand can exist while still pushing the multiple-choice options that Bioware games provide. The effort just has to be made. Then again, I am not paid(at all) to make these sorts of marketing decisions. I don't have the numbers in front of me hinting at what works and what doesn't. I don't have a list of all the demographics of gamers playing our games, where they come from, when they get up in the morning, etc etc. I can't say for certain that a woman in equal advertising with a man for a video game would help sell it.
 
But it'd be nice.

 
Online demographic targeting could do some of that.
 
Realistically, you could create a display ad campaign that is broken into two different sets: banner ads with the male protagonist (I would assume most likely a default warrior look) and banner ads for the female protagonist (perhaps a default rogue look). A user whose cached online info has them marked as a male would get served the male Inquisitor banner ad, while a user marked as a female would get served the female Inquisitor ad.
 
Something like that is probably the easiest/most feasible/most cost-effective way to do a tandem advertising campaign like that and know you're hitting a specific audience (as opposed to, say, a TV commercial where you have no idea what gender is sitting in front of that box consuming that ad). People better remember ads when it is something that applies directly to them or speaks to them. Seeing your gender reflected in the protagonist is one way of doing that, I believe. It's actually got some tie to how the brain works with the reticular activating system. We are drawn to what is familiar to us or stands out to us (ever suddenly notice how many cars on the road look just like yours when you've just acquired a new vehicle?).

 

I played DA before I ever played ME. When I started Google searching about ME to see if I might want to try playing it, the FemShep photos online instantly caught my attention faster than the Sheploo ones... because I'm also a red-head female and seeing a red-head badass-looking female space captain activated my interest immediately. That doesn't necessarily mean that I wouldn't have made that purchasing decision had I only seen the Sheploo photos, but seeing the FemShep ones better helped to immediately hook me.

 

Just my two cents from a professional advertising/marketing position.

[Mes]

 
Online demographic targeting could do some of that.
 
Realistically, you could create a display ad campaign that is broken into two different sets: banner ads with the male protagonist (I would assume most likely a default warrior look) and banner ads for the female protagonist (perhaps a default rogue look). A user whose cached online info has them marked as a male would get served the male Inquisitor banner ad, while a user marked as a female would get served the female Inquisitor ad.

 

Ooooh or why not create two online ads and just a simple poll asking which one people preferred? Not a perfect collection of data but surely better than nothing. And people wouldn't be voting based off their own genders, they'd hopefully vote based on which cover they objectively liked better. 

 

OR two banner ads and record which one gets the most hits. 

[DragonRacer]

Ooooh or why not create two online ads and just a simple poll asking which one people preferred? Not a perfect collection of data but surely better than nothing. And people wouldn't be voting based off their own genders, they'd hopefully vote based on which cover they objectively liked better. 

 

OR two banner ads and record which one gets the most hits. 

 

Very easy to track. As an example, in Google AdWords when you use text-only ads (those paid links you see at the top, bottom, and right-hand side of the Google search results page, shaded in a yellow background to differentiate them from the organic search results), you can measure just how many click-thrus each different ad campaign is receiving. If one is performing very poorly, you can tweak the verbage and re-release it out into Google Land and see if it performs any better. You can also raise your bids so that the ads that are performing better will be served more frequently than your runts. or adjust for day-parting if some ads seem to be performing better at certain times of the day. There's really a lot that can be done to customize.

 

I haven't fully trained in all of the targeted online advertising world, but I would imagine display ads can be operated in much the same manner. You can see, pretty much as often as you want to run the statistics report, how well a campaign is performing... i.e. "getting the most hits", as you put it.

[mopotter]

I also don't need to see her on the cover, or see him on the cover.  I liked the way the did KOTOR and Neverwinter Nights.   Show me the companions, or the inquisition insignia or the dragon shown with the Keep on the cover.   

 

I would like to see them on one of the blips of information  they send out.  But I'd also like to see the creation kit because chances are I'm not using the default character for either sex.

[mopotter]

Ooooh or why not create two online ads and just a simple poll asking which one people preferred? Not a perfect collection of data but surely better than nothing. And people wouldn't be voting based off their own genders, they'd hopefully vote based on which cover they objectively liked better. 

 

OR two banner ads and record which one gets the most hits. 

I'd like something I could just post on my facebook page.  Look family and friends, I'm going to be playing this game soon, but she will look better.  .

[Brass_Buckles]

At the risk of stepping into a crossfire:

 

 

 

Now granted, I have some previous interactions aside from this thread, but Fast Jimmy isn't saying "we only need one lead and it's a dude and he's white."  He's saying he'd rather not see any sort of protagonist at all.  He's spoken out about this in the past, and prefers DAO's boxart because it doesn't show any sort of protagonist, while DA2's does show a protagonist and he considers that a failing of the boxart because it may lead people to think that that character specifically is the one you're going to play (my counter to this is that this is a risk of showing any character on the cover).

 

 

That said, with respect to Fast Jimmy, when you said the following:

 

 

 

Within the context of this thread, you've basically stated "you are all wrong.  That's not the right way to do it."  This is always going to make someone asking for something defensive (it made me twitch too), and to be honest I don't think we're really equipped to straight up state "it's wrong" because we can't really do an experiment and we can't really quantify if the type of protagonist-less boxart/marketing you would like would even make any difference.  If we do it, and the game sells poorly... is it because the marketing was bad, or was the game lacking?  If we do it, and the game sells great, is it because of the marketing or is it because of the game's quality being good.  Too many confounding variables.  It's part of the frustration that women share in that when a game with more women in the marketing does poorly, people can conclude that it's because of the marketing, not the game, and that's frustrating.

 

 

I do feel (and I think people agree) that there's a divide here, in that what Jimmy feels is best for the game's marketing is not what many of the women here feel is best of the game's marketing.  And those perspectives, as far as I'm concerned, are perfectly fine to hold given the difficulty of discerning the quantifiable effect a marketing detail like that may make given all the things that eventually get shown.  In that sense, I don't think anyone can be called "wrong" though I do agree that given the nature of this particular thread, coming in and suggesting that one group IS (matter of factly) wrong for wanting what they want is going to come across the wrong way.

 

 

In any case, yes I agree that if posters are getting your blood boiling, take a break and disengage.  I appreciate that rather than escalating things.  I do think that there's a degree of misunderstanding that happened, and hope that further discussion can be somewhat reset back to a more cordial perspective.  I hope my interpretations of people's perspectives are both correct, and clearly communicated for everyone so that people don't hold any unnecessary grudges.

 

 

In any case I played too much Titanfall and have to go to bed now....  If anyone has any questions about this post please fire off a PM to me.

 

Good night.

 

Sorry about that.  I obviously did start to lose my head, and when I realized I was getting less than personable, I decided I'd better back off.  The others are right:  this thread is important to us, and it is definitely not worthwhile to get it locked down.

 

I do appreciate your viewpoint as a third party--it does help to clarify things, maybe to both sides, where we went wrong and why things started to get a bit unpleasant.

 

And having said that, I won't say Fast Jimmy's marketing idea is entirely wrong--the blood dragon was pretty neat on the cover of DA:O, with the NPCs and monsters on there too.  Then DA:2 came along and we got Hawke, with no female version.  The silhouettes in the blood dragon were a nice touch, but as far as an "iconic character," Hawke really is just another beardy white guy with a sword.

 

So, yes, some of the game's intent could be shown without showing any main character at all.  And yet, I do think iconic characters are important, just as others have pointed out.  There used to be mascots for all of the big gaming industries.  Sega had Sonic and Ecco and Nintendo has Mario, Yoshi, Link... But the difference between them, and even Shepard from Mass Effect, is that they were there for more than just one game.  Sure, there was one original game that made those characters iconic, and yet we wouldn't remember them had it not been for the games that followed.

 

In other words, DAO didn't have an iconic character, and DA2 had Hawke, who will be forgotten by most people within ten years because some of us won't game anymore and there will be a whole lot of new gamers who've never played DA2 and never will (unless it's remastered or something at that point).  Iconic characters work best if they occur over more than one game, although it's also true that an interesting face or two can hold a lot of value in terms of making us look.  We're hardwired to notice faces.

 

You could put lots of faces into some other kind of graphic, such as another iconic blood dragon, and we'd notice.  But I still don't think total ambiguity is really the way to go.  Put a shadowy cloaked figure in there, and people are going to think it's a stealth game.

 

And yet, adding females into the trailers, box arts, posters, etc. is not an easy prospect especially when it's actively been avoided for so long (and still is in most circles).  How do you do this and have the game still be compelling, and allow potential players and buyers to know that you can be any of the races, classes, characters?  Maybe a sort of "morph" of the character as different races and classes, switching gender, and then having whatever character it lands on start running out into the actual gameplay trailer?

 

I really have no idea.

[Allan Schumacher]

I can see pros and cons of showing an iconic protagonist.  An advantage of Hawke is that someone can have that outfit on, with the blood smear, and people will recognize "Oh that's Hawke."  It's not that the details of the face necessarily even need to be precise.  Put on that armor with the smear, and people will recognize it.  It's a type of branding that could be important.

 

Even if it crosses gender/sex, I think someone like Holly Conrad (or a plethora of other women!) can dress up in the N7 armor and people will go "Yeah that's Commander Shepard."  She certainly doesn't look like man Shepard, or even that much like default woman Shepard.  In that sense, I think marketing did something right, even if the iconic character had a particular look.

 

 

For something like Dragon Age: Inquisition, maybe it'd be better to have that iconic look be a bit more generalized (since it's more than just human), but I'm not sure that the mere existence of an "iconic look" is bad if it can result in people identifying a particular outfit as being "the armor of Dragon Age Inquisition's main character."  I'm not sure how much a box art specifically needs to explain what the game content is really like, or rather more catch an eye.  In this case, as the women in this thread have pointed out, by having a woman on the boxart (or in marketing in general) could be useful in catching the eye of someone who values that.  From there, they have picked up the box/clicked on the link/whatever, and from there supplementary content (in the article, on the back, etc.) can explain what the game is.  Some may go "oooo" and some may go "naaah" but that initial hook, to me, is pretty important for a lot of potential customers.

 

 

I do think that there is a risk of a cover being potentially TOO busy (I'm a big fan of the Dragon Age covers because I find them very clean, and eye catching -- which may be a personal bias), as well as too sparse.  I think it's also important to have a degree of consistency in the style, so that different marketing attempts don't conflict with each other in terms of making an association in a person's mind.

 

In this sense (note: I'm not a marketer, and I'm just thinking on the fly), for any individual piece of material, whether it be a box art, poster, or even trailer, I'd probably go with a randomized selection of a race gender, but all wearing the same armor set.  With this, you could still show off physical differences between races/sex with each promo piece, while maintaining an aesthetic consistency between all of them so that the association of "that's the Inquisitor" can be reinforced.  Then for the box art, any reference to the protagonist would be made simply to the armor (possibly with no one inside it -- literally just have the armor placed somewhere) used in other materials, with any actually fleshed out characters being party members.  And I'd probably still keep the Blood Dragon since I think that that is a pretty iconic look for the franchise itself.

 

Anyways, my musings before I head off to volleyball.

[GVulture]

How to do a video showcasing different player options:

 

[Brass_Buckles]

I can see pros and cons of showing an iconic protagonist.  An advantage of Hawke is that someone can have that outfit on, with the blood smear, and people will recognize "Oh that's Hawke."  It's not that the details of the face necessarily even need to be precise.  Put on that armor with the smear, and people will recognize it.  It's a type of branding that could be important.

 

Even if it crosses gender/sex, I think someone like Holly Conrad (or a plethora of other women!) can dress up in the N7 armor and people will go "Yeah that's Commander Shepard."  She certainly doesn't look like man Shepard, or even that much like default woman Shepard.  In that sense, I think marketing did something right, even if the iconic character had a particular look.

 

 

For something like Dragon Age: Inquisition, maybe it'd be better to have that iconic look be a bit more generalized (since it's more than just human), but I'm not sure that the mere existence of an "iconic look" is bad if it can result in people identifying a particular outfit as being "the armor of Dragon Age Inquisition's main character."  I'm not sure how much a box art specifically needs to explain what the game content is really like, or rather more catch an eye.  In this case, as the women in this thread have pointed out, by having a woman on the boxart (or in marketing in general) could be useful in catching the eye of someone who values that.  From there, they have picked up the box/clicked on the link/whatever, and from there supplementary content (in the article, on the back, etc.) can explain what the game is.  Some may go "oooo" and some may go "naaah" but that initial hook, to me, is pretty important for a lot of potential customers.

 

 

I do think that there is a risk of a cover being potentially TOO busy (I'm a big fan of the Dragon Age covers because I find them very clean, and eye catching -- which may be a personal bias), as well as too sparse.  I think it's also important to have a degree of consistency in the style, so that different marketing attempts don't conflict with each other in terms of making an association in a person's mind.

 

In this sense (note: I'm not a marketer, and I'm just thinking on the fly), for any individual piece of material, whether it be a box art, poster, or even trailer, I'd probably go with a randomized selection of a race gender, but all wearing the same armor set.  With this, you could still show off physical differences between races/sex with each promo piece, while maintaining an aesthetic consistency between all of them so that the association of "that's the Inquisitor" can be reinforced.  Then for the box art, any reference to the protagonist would be made simply to the armor (possibly with no one inside it -- literally just have the armor placed somewhere) used in other materials, with any actually fleshed out characters being party members.  And I'd probably still keep the Blood Dragon since I think that that is a pretty iconic look for the franchise itself.

 

Anyways, my musings before I head off to volleyball.

 

I tend to like less busy artwork, too, for games anyway.  Like I said, I make ads for a living, and usually the client wants more info than they should be putting into the ad space that they're buying.  Their theory is that if they are paying that much, they should get as much as they can for that price.  What they don't seem to grasp is that people don't want to squint to see their tiny info.  Sure, it still helps, they're still advertising, but to make their ad really eye-catching, I need room to do so.

 

It always looks better if they have less information.  Then you can put the important stuff nice and big for people to notice, and one or two (or more, if you have them and have the space) eye-catching graphic or image elements.  And you still have plenty of empty space to work with.

 

The blood dragon is definitely the symbol of Dragon Age overall.  I actually thought that the silhouettes in the wings of the dragon on the cover of DA2 were really neat.  They wouldn't be that hard to make,  but it was an eye-catching design.  I suppose I'm partly overthinking the problem because I'm thinking "how are potential new players going to look at this?"  They aren't going to look for the blood dragon, and some people might be hesitant to pick up DAI because many didn't like DA2.  Personally, I thought it was a better-than-average game, but I wouldn't have ranked it with Bioware's best.

 

I don't like the idea of just armor on the front, even if it's got a blood dragon backdrop.  Yes, it identifies the Inquisitor, and that's good.  Unfortunately armor alone doesn't have a lot of character.  The Inquisitor's ring on the website is really cool, but if all I saw were the ring on a box, I'd be thinking it might have something to do with vampires, or a magic ring.

 

Now if the armor could have sort of faded-out scenes or characters, without making the overall art busy, maybe as a reflection on the metal, that might give it a bit more character.  But I didn't get the impression the helmet etc. were meant to be that shiny.  With DA:O, the cast were shown inside the blood dragon (if I recall correctly), so you didn't really notice them much until you actually started looking at the box.  "Oh hey what's this red dragon shape, is that blood?  ... Who's that in the dragon's wing?"

 

If this were a fantasy novel, I'd prefer an actual painting-style approach; I actually dislike the trend of making book covers more graphically oriented.  Some of the graphics are really beautiful, but for a fantasy novel it's always nice to have a beautifully illustrated scene on the cover, so you wonder what's going on and want to--though graphical covers can definitely work well, and even better in many cases, particularly modern novels, than illustrations.  Yes, you can't judge a book by its cover and I know that.  Some of the most beautiful covers I've seen have been on some of the most horrible books that I've read.

 

But, a game isn't a book, and a painting like that might spoil some unintended element.  So while the Inquisitor surveying the damage (either of the keep or the village) would be visually intriguing and would definitely viscerally display "choice," it would also not leave room for the Blood Dragon, or much else.  And yet, again, a bland game box/case is one that's going to be passed by by new players who haven't been poking around the Internet for fantasy games.  Personally, for me, with no means to give it some kind of personality, no matter how cool the design, the armor would just not be that interesting.  If that's the route marketing goes, they'll probably think of something I can't think of at the moment to make it more appealing--they'll know more about the game than I do.

 

Having said all of that about just the box art, I still think it's very important to be more inclusive in the trailers.  I'd be happy to see women in the trailers, images of the Female Inquisitor on the website/shown to gaming websites etc.  But being more inclusive in general, to others besides just "white women," definitely wouldn't hurt.  Some people might call that being politically correct.  I call it acknowledging that people don't come in a single variety.

 

The only thing I know for sure I would push is the idea that "choice" is important.  We're told this is going to be our world, our Inquisitor, our story, our hero.  So even though the trailers already mention this, it really needs to be shown as well as told, if that makes sense.  But now I think I might just be rambling...

[XxPrincess(x)ThreatxX]

Wow, im surprised this hasn't been locked yet since everytime someone makes a thread asking this question it gets overrun & derailed by guys that are very against females being shown in game marketing. im for showing different genders & races in marketing, seems a waste to only the male character when there's different races/looks to choose from.

[Nefla]

Wow, im surprised this hasn't been locked yet since everytime someone makes a thread asking this question it gets overrun & derailed by guys that are very against females being shown in game marketing. im for showing different genders & races in marketing, seems a waste to only the male character when there's different races/looks to choose from.

Yeah, I was surprised as well.

[GVulture]

Wow, im surprised this hasn't been locked yet since everytime someone makes a thread asking this question it gets overrun & derailed by guys that are very against females being shown in game marketing. im for showing different genders & races in marketing, seems a waste to only the male character when there's different races/looks to choose from.

Exactly. It makes no sense to market Choose Your Destiny! Forge Your Fate! and then only show options for one gender. Mass Effect was just as bad at this as Dragon Age II was.

 

Although, I will give points for actually showcasing Femshep in more than one screenshot for Mass Effect 3. I just wish it was a bit more even.

[Fast Jimmy]

 

To clarify my point last night, I wasn't saying a person in a hood. I was saying a helmet - namely, the Inquisitor's helmet. AND ONLY THE HELMET. 

 

As can be seen in some of the recent cosplay blogs, a woman cosplayer can put on this helmet and be known as the Inquisitor. It is not gender defined.The above picture would be all the cover art work the game needs.

 

 

Simply look at Skyrim, which became iconic off of a helmet with horns and three simple words Fus Ro Dah. I saw a kid out in front of Little Caesar's last weekend waving a sign for some pizza deal and wearing a simple styrofoam hat with horns and a t-shirt with Fus Ro Dah on it. It was plenty iconic without having to do any extra work. I'm sure the outfit cost him maybe $15 total. 

 

I'll step back again. I had just hopped on and thought I'd clarify what I meant, because I keep seeing people say "have a character in a cloak on the cover" as my meaning of the word ambiguous. 

[sandalisthemaker]

A common argument from forum posters on this subject usually boils down to showing the female protag as being a form of fanservice, and that people "complaining" that there isn't female representation in the marketing already know that they can play as female and therefore there is no need to show the female protag. They go on to say that marketing exists to try and capture the attention of the target audience, whom they repeatedly state are overwhelmingly young males, so the marketing should reflect that.

 

However, shouldn't the goal be to appeal to a wide variety of people in marketing? Showing a female protag would capture the attention of potential female players, which is a good thing overall since that equals more people playing Dragon Age, which strengthens the franchise. 

[XxPrincess(x)ThreatxX]

Exactly. It makes no sense to market Choose Your Destiny! Forge Your Fate! and then only show options for one gender. Mass Effect was just as bad at this as Dragon Age II was.
 
Although, I will give points for actually showcasing Femshep in more than one screenshot for Mass Effect 3. I just wish it was a bit more even.

I prefer the DA:O type marketing showing all the different genders & races, i really disliked the DA2 marketing & had arguments with people that kept saying hawke should be "male only" & that female hawke was "bowing to the feminist agenda".

[Brass_Buckles]

I prefer the DA:O type marketing showing all the different genders & races, i really disliked the DA2 marketing & had arguments with people that kept saying hawke should be "male only" & that female hawke was "bowing to the feminist agenda".

 

I wonder what the sinister feminist agenda is, exactly, that they're so afraid of... People feeling included in a game they play for fun, maybe?  Man, that's just so evil!

 

And yet again, this is why we need marketing toward women, too.  People will feel more comfortable with it when it's normalized.  Women might feel more open about admitting to being gamers, or to joining in the fun if they haven't already.  Those who are hostile about it might stop being so hostile, because it becomes the norm, and what are they going to do?  Make themselves look like terrible people by saying that no, women can't play too?