9318 réponses à ce sujet

[Paul E Dangerously]

I'm for actually letting them start marketing the game before we get requests from people hammering "I want to see (x) Inquisitor now why aren't you catering to me". We've barely seen anything of anyone at this point, unless you've watched the cell phone footage of the demo.

[Zeldrik1389]

I think Mike or someone did say they would think about making male and female trailers again. Honestly, I wish they would make male and female Quinari inquisitors trailer. They are the new unique playable race only Dragon Age has, having them as poster boy / girl might be interesting. Especially female Quinari since we only saw them briefly in the comic.  

[ElitePinecone]

I'm for actually letting them start marketing the game before we get requests from people hammering "I want to see (x) Inquisitor now why aren't you catering to me". We've barely seen anything of anyone at this point, unless you've watched the cell phone footage of the demo.

 

The voiceover for the trailer they released last week was a male Inquisitor, the same actor as in the demo. And there was a (justifiable) reaction to when one of the devs kept calling the Inquisitor "he" during a dev diary last year, even though I don't think that person intended to be exclusionary.

 

What it boils down to is an assumption (even inside Bioware, it seems, occasionally) that the Inquisitor is male by default, instead of being ambiguous. The Mass Effect team did the same thing - for all the celebration of femShep and Jennifer Hale, devs including the writers constantly referred to Shepard as a man. The internal script that was leaked in the middle of ME3's development assumes Shepard is male and constantly talks about the character using male pronouns. 

 

There's an argument that sticking with one gender is less confusing, sure, but subconsciously that has to have an effect on how developers and fans see the character. If they're only ever talking about Manquisitor* internally and externally, that's going to influence the wider discussions that fans and the media have about the game to some extent. Basically if the unspoken assumption is that the character is male by default, I think that's a bad thing.

 

(*I just coined Manquisitor and now it almost sounds like a medieval Grindr)

[Bob from Accounting]

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?

Do women really believe this kind of thing?

[DragonRacer]

Do women really believe this kind of thing?

 

Some do. I personally do not in that I have zero problem or qualms telling people - men or women - that I'm a gamer and if that colors their perception of me or my value as a person or woman, then that is their problem and not mine. But I DO know some female gamers who hide the fact that they are gamers because they worry about stereotypes... largely, though, from women who AREN'T gamers moreso than a worry about men finding out. They are fearful about what the neighborhood "soccer moms" (so to speak) might think of them if it's discovered that *gasp* they enjoy video games just as much as their 12-year-old sons.

 

 

*snipped a very long and thoughtful post for the sake of space*

 

You. I like you. Are you a graphic artist or a media sales rep? Just curious since you're obviously in the field. Sounds like you are the one building the ads that I sell to the advertisers, haha! 

 

Yes, white space is a tragically under-valued thing. Truly. If I had a penny for every time someone wanted to shove War & Peace inside a little 2x2 newspaper ad, I could retire right now.

 

I agree with you on book covers. I absolutely will grab a book that has a catchy illustration (or even a nicely-covered spine, for those properly in the bookshelf and not forward-displaying) to read the synopsis on the back. If the cover doesn't grab me, I won't even pick it up, and it may be the best book I've never read, but there you go. When a consumer is faced with SO MANY CHOICES, the mind filters as it must.

 

The key point is to grab that attention just long enough to scream "LOOK AT ME, IT'LL ONLY TAKE A MOMENT OF YOUR TIME." That's all the cover or the ad has to do. Spark them just long enough to have them click your link or call your number or read the back of your book/video game case... from there, give the supplemental info that lets them decide yes/no on the call to action.

 

While you do want to try and market to the widest audience possible, it's impossible to create something that will appeal to everybody. Because everybody is different, despite the fact we try to herd people into specific groups and categories to market to. I'll admit I was first introduced to BioWare through DA:O. I was at GameStop browsing the game shelves and saw a cover that had a dragon outline on it and "dragon" in the title. Since I am a ) a gamer, b ) a fantasy/medieval nut, and c ) love dragons, this obviously made me stop, grab it, and read the back. That marketing worked for me. It wouldn't work for my husband, who simply has no interest in the fantasy/medieval genre, but who picked up the Mass Effect space adventure cover a few shelves over.

 

As far as a game box cover, I'm against illustrations. I like catchy, colorful, grab my attention. Not too busy, but not too sparse. The DA:O cover was *almost* bland enough for me to gloss over, but the allure of DRAGON couldn't be ignored. Had the subject been anything else, I might have passed it by. 

 

I think I'd like to see one of two things from a cover:

 

1. An experiment that probably won't happen because it would entail extra production costs. But I thought it interesting how ME3 produced a 2-sided cover. The MaleShep was the default cover, the one everyone saw. But you could pull the cover out of the sleeve, flip it over, and have an identical cover with FemShep instead. I would have been interested to see results had point-of-purchase locations made half the covers MaleShep and flipped the other half of their stock over to be FemShep, to see which cover grabbed more attention and from whom. Some would likely not even notice... when I bought an extra ME3 copy for my husband so that we could both play the MP together at the same time from our two PS3 systems, I flipped his cover over to FemShep for giggles. He never even noticed until I pointed it out.

 

So, on that note, I think it would be interesting to box some of the games with MaleInquisitor and some of the games with FemaleInquisitor to see what happens. But that involves an extra cost of printing 2-sided game box covers and the additional labor of having half of them flipped so that you don't just have one cover gracing them all the same.

 

2. Something simple and ambiguous, like what has been alluded to (like Fast Jimmy's example). Something that follows the style of DA:O and DA2 with a blood dragon silhouette. Maybe have the Inquisition pennant flying above the blood dragon outline. And then have the Inquisitor armor (with a person in it, but one not easily identifiable due to placement on the cover and maybe shadowing) along the side or close to the spine of the box, so that you're really just seeing half a helmet, an eye (that could belong to anybody of any gender), half a torso, and an arm with the ring holding the sword hilt.

 

Either way, you're trying to appeal to the masses and/or to gamers that are not as BioWare-familiar, perhaps, as we are. They're not marketing to US here on the forum, in my opinion. They already HAVE us. We've bought their previous products and enjoyed them enough to actually sign up and talk about them on a game forum. We're not just on the hook, we're already swimming around in the live well of their fishing boat. What their marketing and game cover need to do is try and grab the people who a ) aren't already fans and/or b ) were once fans, but drifted away for one reason or another.

 

EDIT: Edited because OMG typos. Not too bad, not too noticeable, but they drove me bonkers on a re-read. This is what I get for posting during my morning coffee. Ugh.

[Monica21]

Do women really believe this kind of thing?

 

I really believe that marketing companies are more afraid of turning away men with a female protagonist on box art then men are afraid of buying a game with a female protagonist on the box. (It's early. I hope that made sense.) I don't know of any men, even in this thread, who would turn away from a game because of a woman on the cover. Maybe I've missed it or I'm a little too wide-eyed, but I think it's a marketing dilemma that's created in the minds of the people who are marketing the game, and not the people who are buying the game.

 

So, for what it's worth, I don't believe that men are hostile to it and I'm a woman.

[ElitePinecone]

2. Something simple and ambiguous, like what has been alluded to (like Fast Jimmy's example). Something that follows the style of DA:O and DA2 with a blood dragon silhouette. Maybe have the Inquisition pennant flying above the blood dragon outline. And then have the Inquisitor armor (with a person in it, but one not easily identifiable due to placement on the cover and maybe shadowing) along the side or close to the spine of the box, so that you're really just seeing half a helmet, an eye (that could belong to anybody of any gender), half a torso, and an arm with the ring holding the sword hilt.

 

Worth noting that in the announcement trailer they did do something like this, which was quite encouraging. 

 

The Inquisitor that appeared at the end was covered in full body armour in the middle of a sandstorm, which obscured their gender and race. It might be hard without the sandstorm because a dwarf is drastically smaller than a qunari, but I think it's certainly possible to show an "Inquisitor" character that doesn't reveal a specific gender.

 

(The iconic helmet actually helps in this regard, because it covers enough of the face and hair that it's very difficult to distinguish gender. That might've even been one of the reasons why they chose it.)

 

On the other hand something like Skyrim was phenomenally successful (to the point where that seems to be what Bioware are aiming at) with cover art that was basically a stylised dragon - you could argue its huge sales, even to new customers, came from buzz and word of mouth rather than people finding it in a store. I'm not so sure that box art in and of itself is as large a factor in game sales as it was five or ten years ago.

[Dio Demon]

I really believe that marketing companies are more afraid of turning away men with a female protagonist on box art then men are afraid of buying a game with a female protagonist on the box. (It's early. I hope that made sense.) I don't know of any men, even in this thread, who would turn away from a game because of a woman on the cover. Maybe I've missed it or I'm a little too wide-eyed, but I think it's a marketing dilemma that's created in the minds of the people who are marketing the game, and not the people who are buying the game.

 

So, for what it's worth, I don't believe that men are hostile to it and I'm a woman.

Marketing is a flawed science in which they try to predict the behaviours of a whole. It's flawed because it fails to recognise the individuality of the individual for example let's say we are exactly alike in every possible way except you like Dragons and I like something else. Marketing will fail to recognise that difference and assume we are one and the same.

 

So essentially if they think their strategy is working even though it may not they're not going to change it. It's a sad thought but all it takes is one crazy person with one far out idea to shift the world in a new direction.

[GVulture]

I'm for actually letting them start marketing the game before we get requests from people hammering "I want to see (x) Inquisitor now why aren't you catering to me". We've barely seen anything of anyone at this point, unless you've watched the cell phone footage of the demo.

Protip: when in a discussion about things that some people want and others don't, it is good form to avoid words like "catering" and "pandering". It doesn't carry a nice tone.

[Lebanese Dude]

(*I just coined Manquisitor and now it almost sounds like a medieval Grindr)

Thanks Pinecone. I laughed at this so hard, my professor side-eyed me.

Yea just spent 5 mins imagining my inquisitors profile.

This could be a thread idea lol

[Lebanese Dude]

Marketing is a flawed science in which they try to predict the behaviours of a whole. It's flawed because it fails to recognise the individuality of the individual for example let's say we are exactly alike in every possible way except you like Dragons and I like something else. Marketing will fail to recognise that difference and assume we are one and the same.
 
So essentially if they think their strategy is working even though it may not they're not going to change it. It's a sad thought but all it takes is one crazy person with one far out idea to shift the world in a new direction.

Er this is wrong.

As much as wears different and unique, we share interests and ideologies with others. This is inevitable.

What marketing does is try to attract those who are interested while trying to grab others.

Its silly to assume humans can't be categorized. They just shouldn't be homogenized.

[Allan Schumacher]

I really believe that marketing companies are more afraid of turning away men with a female protagonist on box art then men are afraid of buying a game with a female protagonist on the box. (It's early. I hope that made sense.) I don't know of any men, even in this thread, who would turn away from a game because of a woman on the cover. Maybe I've missed it or I'm a little too wide-eyed, but I think it's a marketing dilemma that's created in the minds of the people who are marketing the game, and not the people who are buying the game.

 

It's also made more complicated if these leanings/decisions are made more subconsciously than consciously.  I think it's less "person looks at cover, scoffs at the woman the cover, then moves on" and is more "whatever subconscious things are going on in my mind while inundated with imagery causes my attention to gravitate towards one thing over another."  Which is a bit harder to nail down with anecdotal self-analysis.

 

As an example, it's only recently that I feel I could say I reasonably understand why someone may appreciate better representation with characters and protagonists.  I remember being utterly baffled by a woman mentioning that she wasn't interested in Alpha Protocol because you could only play as a male character.  That was strange to me because I certainly didn't have any problems playing as a woman in some games!  But our experiences were different.  I certainly wouldn't have stated at the time that I was afraid of women protagonists, or that my attitudes my have reflected various -isms or a general inability to understand why it may be an issue.

 

It was more that it was something I just didn't think much about, for a variety of reasons.  Some of which are probably hard to isolate because it was more that I wasn't consciously thinking about it, but for some reason certain things would catch my attention.

[Mes]

It was more that it was something I just didn't think much about, for a variety of reasons. 

 

This was me too but in terms of race instead of gender. For instance in the past I used to wonder what the big deal was with white people dominating the movie industry. I never used to notice that there was not a good representation of other races. Well, it was because I never felt underrepresented in this sense and thought everyone else was just being a little bit too sensitive.

 

Now I get it. You just don't notice some of these things unless it is affecting you.

 

I've since tried to more actively put myself into other people's shoes. Honestly if I were a white straight man, I don't think I'd have nearly as many issues with the world.

[Fast Jimmy]

This was me too but in terms of race instead of gender. For instance in the past I used to wonder what the big deal was with white people dominating the movie industry. I never used to notice that there was not a good representation of other races. Well, it was because I never felt underrepresented in this sense and thought everyone else was just being a little bit too sensitive.
 
Now I get it. You just don't notice some of these things unless it is affecting you.
 
I've since tried to more actively put myself into other people's shoes. Honestly if I were a white straight man, I don't think I'd have nearly as many issues with the world.

That's true... but, then again, I've found as a straight white male I've found the world has a lot of issues with ME, by default.

[XMissWooX]

That's true... but, then again, I've found as a straight white male I've found the world has a lot of issues with ME, by default.

I can sympathise with you for this. I think what happens is minorities become so used to having to defend themselves they start to assume by default that all men are sexist or all white people are racist, etc. and have some sort of agenda against them. It's not true, but it results in both sides becoming somewhat bitter.

For my part, I had very few issues with sexism throughout my life - until I started hanging out online. I don't know of it's just a clash of cultures or the freedom of anonymity, but some people can be complete jerks.

[mopotter]

For me it's because I played so many guys back in the 80's & 90's.  There were very few games that let you play a female, other than ones like Laura Croft and I don't do well with those games.  BG and Realmz introduced me to rpg type and I found I liked this type of game. I'm in my nevermind, and don't have any interest in being forced to play a guy, so I don't buy the game if I can't pick what I want to play.      If I have a choice, I play more female characters than male, but I do play at least one guy.

 

I also have a grand daughter and I am hoping when she starts playing there will be more games where she can have a choice.  if not, she will have all of my BW games, FA and Elder Scrolls and a few others that let me pick.  I'm not sure how guys would feel if they never had a choice about the sex of their character, but from my nephews, I'm inclined to think they wouldn't be happy.  Once in a while, sure, but every time, not so much..

[GVulture]

I can sympathise with you for this. I think what happens is minorities become so used to having to defend themselves they start to assume by default that all men are sexist or all white people are racist, etc. and have some sort of agenda against them. It's not true, but it results in both sides becoming somewhat bitter.

For my part, I had very few issues with sexism throughout my life - until I started hanging out online. I don't know of it's just a clash of cultures or the freedom of anonymity, but some people can be complete jerks.

That would be because in a lot of people's eyes, if someone isn't actively trying to help make things different, then they're part of the problem.

[XMissWooX]

That would be because in a lot of people's eyes, if someone isn't actively trying to help make things different, then they're part of the problem.

That's a fair point and it would be nice if the world was like this.
But I think the 'if you're not with us, you're against us' mindset is a little hostile - not everyone is a revolutionary, and some people don't know enough about the topic to decide either way. Ambivalence is better than opposition, after all.

[GVulture]

That's a fair point and it would be nice if the world was like this.
But I think the 'if you're not with us, you're against us' mindset is a little hostile - not everyone is a revolutionary, and some people don't know enough about the topic to decide either way. Ambivalence is better than opposition, after all.

If someone doesn't try to change a corrupt system, they are supporting it with their ambivalence.

[Mes]

That's a fair point and it would be nice if the world was like this.
But I think the 'if you're not with us, you're against us' mindset is a little hostile 

 

Yes, it's hostile. But my attitude is it's there for a reason. Not that there's any excuse to be hostile towards someone out of the blue, but... For instance I'm an active(ish) member on tumblr and I OFTEN see posts on my dash from POC along the lines of "white people think this, white people do that, white people are like this, white people say that" all in a very generalizing, derogatory way. What can I do, though? Can I reply to them and say "well hang on white people have problems too"? Or "well not all white people are like that"? No, I can't. Because even if what I say may be the truth, just by saying it in that context shows that I'm invalidating their issues and I'm bringing the conversation back around to me.

 

The problems of a group that's been discriminated against can't really compare to the problems of a group that hasn't. 

[Darth Krytie]

@FastJimmy: It's true. However, there's not a lot of socioeconomic pressure and violence backing up people with issues with SWM unlike the other way around. It's the difference between a bruised ego and a bruised body sometimes.

 

Anyhow, back on point.

 

I know marketing affects the games my daughter asks me for...there were a few she was curious about until she found out that playing as a girl wasn't an option and some she didn't care about until she realised playing as a girl was an option.

 

I think sometimes people are so caught up in the idea that women don't play videogames, that you could literally show them footage of women playing videogames and they'd still deny it.

[Fast Jimmy]

That would be because in a lot of people's eyes, if someone isn't actively trying to help make things different, then they're part of the problem.

Only a Sith deals in absolutes.

[XMissWooX]

I don't know. I think it's much better to have someone come into this thread, read all our posts and say "meh, I don't mind either way" than have them say "women on the cover? Are you joking? That's ridiculous, get back in the kitchen, lol!"

[Fast Jimmy]

@FastJimmy: It's true. However, there's not a lot of socioeconomic pressure and violence backing up people with issues with SWM unlike the other way around. It's the difference between a bruised ego and a bruised body sometimes.

Anyhow, back on point.

I know marketing affects the games my daughter asks me for...there were a few she was curious about until she found out that playing as a girl wasn't an option and some she didn't care about until she realised playing as a gril was an option.

I think sometimes people are so caught up in the idea that women don't play videogames, that you could literally show them footage of women playing videogames and they'd still deny it.

 

But this brings me back to the exact point I was trying to make last night (and failed at, obviously). Your daughter isn't interested in a game unless she realized she could play as a female. That's totally natural and understandable. Just like I could understand someone not wanting to play a game if they couldn't play a POC.

So would putting a female on the cover help? There may be males who see it and don't want to play as a woman (not realizing the option is there). If the cover female is white, a POC may still say they don't want to play a game as another white person, again (not realizing the option is there). If the hair is a style someone might not like - or anything about the general appearance - they may not want to play it (again, not realizing the option is there).

If Bioware has put so much effort and resources into adding these ability to customize your character, then wouldn't it make sense to devise a way to market the OPTION, not to market a set protagonist that will invariably turn someone away? I realize that the straight white male character has been in the spotlight for a while, but switching the cover art to include others, while an attempt to balance out the previous injustices, is still not making people aware of the option.

If the game HAS to have a set protag, then yes... this would be a different situation. But nothing about DA's marketing need include this. And if they did go with a set protag, I'd not mind a woman or POC or any other variety the team would like (or, perhaps, more accurately, it would irk me just as much as, for instance, Hawke on the cover, where the game was screaming at me that MY Hawke was wrong). But to say a set protag is a foregone conclusion isn't a guarantee. I'd like to fight it as much as possible.

[Fast Jimmy]

I don't know. I think it's much better to have someone come into this thread, read all our posts and say "meh, I don't mind either way" than have them say "women on the cover? Are you joking? That's ridiculous, get back in the kitchen, lol!"

If it makes anyone feel better, I cooked in the kitchen and took care of my two year old daughter while my wife worked this evening? I'm a far stretch from a sexist - I'm just someone who thinks ANY set protagonist is a bad idea. One that misleads consumers, marginalizes Bioware's efforts and is going to exclude someone/some group by default.