9318 réponses à ce sujet

[Ser Pounce A Lot_]

Even if it's true that most females aren't interested in mainstream AAA games, do you not think that this could be caused by the fact that they see a distinct lack of games that come across as even inclusive, let alone catered to female players.

My personal opinion is that AAA developers are losing out by not taking the opportunity to draw more women into the field of AAA games. Since women make up nearly 50% of video game consumers as a whole, it seems silly that so little effort is invested in making big-money titles accessible or desirable to them. This is why I DAI will be one of the only games I purchase this year.

 

I think this goes back to a post I made a few pages ago, AAA games only make up a small portion of games. People such as yourself are ignoring mobile, handheld, browser, and indie games, and treating AAA games as if it's the majority.

 

It's like complaining about why boybands don't appeal to males, or why romance novels don't cater to men.

[Ser Pounce A Lot_]

Actually the links Allan Schumacher posted indicate its closer to 1/3 rather than 50% but your point is valid none the less.

 

Yeah it's 1/3 and it doesn't even go into what the women are buying

[Pasquale1234]

No need to be hostile. I was simply stating because her statement said she did not understand why others do. I was simply pointing out it was likely just her personal preference. Why do people jump to the conclusion that others are automatically being snarky?

I don't think I was being hostile, nor did I assume anyone was being snarky. If I came across that way, I apologize.
 

If you dismiss a game based on there being a male protagonist you don't know what the content is so using Witcher's content has no bearing on the conversation.

I don't make the effort to research every game out there. Frankly, I still have quite a backlog of games I've already purchased or plan to purchase that I've not yet played. If I see an ad campaign that shows (yet another) dudebro protag, it's pretty easy to ignore it. As for the Witcher, I've seen it being so heartily praised on the BSN, I decided to do a bit of research.
 

EDIT: Would it not be better to just say 'I take male protagonist games on a case by case basis after I learn more about them' rather than saying 'i don't want to play a game with a male protagonist'?

The latter is more authentic. I have played male Wardens and Hawkes because I already own those games. I was, frankly, rather surprised to find that some of the content was different.

[Trikormadenadon]

I think this goes back to a post I made a few pages ago, AAA games only make up a small portion of games. People such as yourself are ignoring mobile, handheld, browser, and indie games, and treating AAA games as if it's the majority.

 

It's like complaining about why boybands don't appeal to males, or why romance novels don't cater to men.

With women making up approx. 33% of the gaming sales industry (at least on consoles according to Allan Schumachers post earlier) one would think AAA publishers would put more emphasis on catering towards women.

[Pasquale1234]

How many of those women are just using Xbox for netflix, movies or other streaming sites?

How many men are doing that?
 

I say this because I've been on xbox live past years, and played though thousands of multiplayer games in Halo, Call of Duty, Battlefield, ME3, etc and rarely do I ever come across any females.
 
I know it's just from my experience, but I think I've had a big enough sample size. If women are as interested in AAA games as people say they are, I would've met a ton more than I have already.

Check their IDs, do you?

Or do you believe that everyone who pretends to be male online actually is?

[Trikormadenadon]

I don't think I was being hostile, nor did I assume anyone was being snarky. If I came across that way, I apologize.
 

I don't make the effort to research every game out there. Frankly, I still have quite a backlog of games I've already purchased or plan to purchase that I've not yet played. If I see an ad campaign that shows (yet another) dudebro protag, it's pretty easy to ignore it. As for the Witcher, I've seen it being so heartily praised on the BSN, I decided to do a bit of research.
 

The latter is more authentic. I have played male Wardens and Hawkes because I already own those games. I was, frankly, rather surprised to find that some of the content was different.

It came across as hostile to me yes. And thank you for the apology.

 

But if you ignore it you might miss out on something great. That's all I'm saying. I certainly can see why the Witcher would not appeal to women, however i'm sure you realize that not all male protagonist games are like that.

 

It's more authentic? Fair enough if that is true for you. Disappointing to me however it might be. I would like to think people would at least find out about a game before dismissing it out of hand. I have had great times playing as female protagonists in a female protagonist only game. The reverse can also be true for women playing male protagonist only games.

 

BTW...how the heck do you break down the quotes so you can tackle them split up like that?

[WildOrchid]

My personal opinion is that AAA developers are losing out by not taking the opportunity to draw more women into the field of AAA games. Since women make up nearly 50% of video game consumers as a whole, it seems silly that so little effort is invested in making big-money titles accessible or desirable to them.

 

I've wondered that too. I'm sure most men are mature enough to accept diversity in games so i don't see why devs shouldn't cater to women too. Making an AAA game that caters to women AND men and i'm sure there would be loads of money.

 

 

When you have games with stories that don't focus on female accomplishments like Pasquale said, then it's no wonder why they don't buy these games. If companies were more female friendly then....

[Trikormadenadon]

Check their IDs, do you?

Or do you believe that everyone who pretends to be male online actually is?

Not sure what the ID's have to do with anything from his statement.

 

It never even ocurred to me that anyone would pretend to be otherwise with all the voice chat nowadays, male or female.

[Char]

I think this goes back to a post I made a few pages ago, AAA games only make up a small portion of games. People such as yourself are ignoring mobile, handheld, browser, and indie games, and treating AAA games as if it's the majority.

 

It's like complaining about why boybands don't appeal to males, or why romance novels don't cater to men.

 

I'm not ignoring any of these games- but this isn't a forum for these games

Many of the women on this forum are dedicated PC/console gamers and therefore their main concern is greater representation in the area that they want to support and be interested in.

 

I think you will find that boybands typically do appeal to a niche male demographic, even if not a majority of males, and you've really made a sweeping generalisation there, as boybands certainly don't have a universal appeal to women- I listen to heavy metal, you wouldn't catch me at a One Direction gig

[Inquisitor Mary Sue]

And to any guys who can't understand how this is a big deal or even worth discussing, picture this: All protagonists in all games ever were female by default. On the game's cover, in the trailers, just females everywhere. Would you feel slightly underrepresented? Or that your wallet didn't matter to these companies?

 

I think the gaming industry still thinks there aren't that many women purchasing their games. It's a shame. Like I said, they could make a heck of a lot more money if they marketed to both sexes. 

 

I don't think that is fair, while it is probably true that there are more games made with men in mind than women I don't think it is fair to say that developers (publishers on the other hand) don't care about catering to women, I would say it is more the result of a more male oriented industry, since the majority of video game developers are male it is only natural to see them create content that they find appealing, it is not about slighting women it is just about them as men creating the games that they would want to play. The problem is not the "misogynist game industry oppressing women at every opportunity" but rather that there aren't enough women in the game industry creating the content that they find appealing.

 

Personally I think it is a bit selfish telling an artist that they are being a misogynist for creating content that appeals to their tastes rather than your own.

[Wulfram]

David Gaider said that their telemetry said that Dragon Age's players were 30% female.  Or possibly that was characters, but either way it's relevant.

 

http://www.gamasutra...ty_in_games.php

(16:30ish)

[Char]

Not sure what the ID's have to do with anything from his statement.

 

It never even ocurred to me that anyone would pretend to be otherwise with all the voice chat nowadays, male or female.

 

It may be more difficult to do these days with voice chat enabled on many systems, but quite a few female gamers will play online as male characters/individuals because there has been quite a bit of widespread sexism where male gamers would refuse to play alongside women, or continually harass them. I certainly don't mean to denigrate all male gamers by this statement, and I am also certain there are many women who have had fantastic online experiences, but it has historically been common for women to pretend to be men on-line.

[Trikormadenadon]

I don't think that is fair, while it is probably true that there are more games made with men in mind than women I don't think it is fair to say that developers (publishers on the other hand) don't care about catering to women, I would say it is more the result of a more male oriented industry, since the majority of video game developers are male it is only natural to see them create content that they find appealing, it is not about slighting women it is just about them as men creating the games that they would want to play. The problem is not the "misogynist game industry oppressing women at every opportunity" but rather that there aren't enough women in the game industry creating the content that they find appealing.

 

Personally I think it is a bit selfish telling an artist that they are being a misogynist for creating content that appeals to their tastes rather than your own.

However this is becoming less and less of a truth over time. Allan Schumacher has made several points about this. Many more women are getting into video game development and yet there still seems to be an over abundance of male oriented content. Something just seems to be off about that. 

 

Personally I see the industry changing slowly over time. Change takes time and I think the frustration women feel is making them just that, frustrated, and if they took a step back and took a deep breath they would see that the industry is changing, and change takes time. The equality will come.

[syllogi]

It may be more difficult to do these days with voice chat enabled on many systems, but quite a few female gamers will play online as male characters/individuals because there has been quite a bit of widespread sexism where male gamers would refuse to play alongside women, or continually harass them. I certainly don't mean to denigrate all male gamers by this statement, and I am also certain there are many women who have had fantastic online experiences, but it has historically been common for women to pretend to be men on-line.

 

That's how it was when I played World of Warcraft with a raiding guild.  Ventrilo was necessary, so it was obvious who was male or female, but what I heard from other female players was that they preferred to pretend to be men if asked by strangers, and they never talked to PUGs, and I felt the same way.  It just wasn't worth the aggravation if the unknown players turned out to be jerks who would harass or creepily flirt with us.

[kukumburr]

How many of those women are just using Xbox for netflix, movies or other streaming sites? Remember up until a few months ago, all apps were behind the Live paywall.

 

I say this because I've been on xbox live past years, and played though thousands of multiplayer games in Halo, Call of Duty, Battlefield, ME3, etc and rarely do I ever come across any females.

 

I know it's just from my experience, but I think I've had a big enough sample size. If women are as interested in AAA games as people say they are, I would've met a ton more than I have already. 

 

This is a bad way to try and figure out the number of men/women playing. The only way to tell would be by hearing them through voice chat, and there are a lot of reasons why women would want to avoid telling other players that they are women. I've been raiding in MMOs and playing MP games like Counterstrike, TFC, TF2, and ME3 since I was about 12 and I learned very quickly that giving any indication you were female IRL would often get you comments like "pics or get out", get accused of "just looking for attention", or creepily flirted with. So I just didn't mention it ever and didn't correct people when they called me "he" and so forth. There were times when I had to use voice chat for certain things though and I don't recall there EVER being a time where people found out and at least one guy didn't do/say something like I said above. And I'm positive a LOT of women have had the same experience because I saw it happening all the time.

[Trikormadenadon]

It may be more difficult to do these days with voice chat enabled on many systems, but quite a few female gamers will play online as male characters/individuals because there has been quite a bit of widespread sexism where male gamers would refuse to play alongside women, or continually harass them. I certainly don't mean to denigrate all male gamers by this statement, and I am also certain there are many women who have had fantastic online experiences, but it has historically been common for women to pretend to be men on-line.

Yes I know it was common. I just did not think it was still common with all the voice chat and video chat etc. that is out now. I guess those women don't use mics or video links in order to maintain the illusion.

[In Exile]

There's a lot of social pressure against female heroes, and e.g. men like a work that's supposedly "girly". I remember when I was in grade school I stumbled across a Sailor Moon dub, and totally became a fan. To 6 year old me, Sailor Moon was a blatantly obvious boys show: it had lots of fighting and killing monsters, and basically looked like power rangers but with more women. To other 6 year old boys, this was some sort of insane heresy. 

 

I still remember the arguments I had with people when they tried to pick on me because of it. 

[Char]

I don't think that is fair, while it is probably true that there are more games made with men in mind than women I don't think it is fair to say that developers (publishers on the other hand) don't care about catering to women, I would say it is more the result of a more male oriented industry, since the majority of video game developers are male it is only natural to see them create content that they find appealing, it is not about slighting women it is just about them as men creating the games that they would want to play. The problem is not the "misogynist game industry oppressing women at every opportunity" but rather that there aren't enough women in the game industry creating the content that they find appealing.

 

Personally I think it is a bit selfish telling an artist that they are being a misogynist for creating content that appeals to their tastes rather than your own.

 

I would say that the modern-day disconnect arrives due to the fact that the number of women playing games, asking for representation, and hoping to see a character they can relate to is growing far faster than the number of women actually involved in the game-designing process. This can in part be blames on the lack of an inviting industry, and a lack of adequate effort from companies to encourage women to apply. For example, it is possible that the demographic of female writers is largely seperate from the demographic of female video-game players. Therefore to attract female writers, game companies need to broaden their advertising to make women aware that this is a field open to them.

Of course, some of this effort needs to come on the part of the women themselves, partly by making their needs, wishes and presence known (as we try to do here), partly by supporting companies who do make this effort, and partly by encouraging each other to stand up, be counted, and consider a career in an industry that needs more female leaders.

 

EDIT: regardless of the number of women involved in the process, however, Bioware among others have proven that males can write believable, strong, effective female characters. Despite artistic vision being a respected commodity, the fact is that it is short-sighted for developers not to also consider what the other half of the population might want to see.

[In Exile]

I don't think that is fair, while it is probably true that there are more games made with men in mind than women I don't think it is fair to say that developers (publishers on the other hand) don't care about catering to women, I would say it is more the result of a more male oriented industry, since the majority of video game developers are male it is only natural to see them create content that they find appealing, it is not about slighting women it is just about them as men creating the games that they would want to play. The problem is not the "misogynist game industry oppressing women at every opportunity" but rather that there aren't enough women in the game industry creating the content that they find appealing.

 

Personally I think it is a bit selfish telling an artist that they are being a misogynist for creating content that appeals to their tastes rather than your own.

 

I present as exhibit A this article: (http://www.polygon.c...izzard-nintendo), that includes the following passage, which makes it sound to be like some developers quite clearly understand what they are doing. 

 

"After his talk, I asked Pardo to talk about how Blizzard's values — "epic entertainment experiences," emphasizing the Blizzard brand, focus on gameplay and de-emphasizing narrative — and the company's perception of their audience might impact how they portray socially progressive content.

His answer was disappointing. "I wouldn't say that's really a value for us. It's not something that we're against either, but it's just not something that's ... something we're trying to actively do."

His subsequent list of justifications, reasons and examples became increasingly problematic. Pardo argued that Blizzard works primarily in sci-fi and fantasy because they're "kids at heart," reinforcing the idea that games — specifically Blizzard games — are not a place for "real world issues" to be discussed:

"We're not trying to bring in serious stuff, or socially relevant stuff, or actively trying to preach for diversity or do things like that," he said. His example of a place where Blizzard struggles is portrayal of women.

Pardo notes that "because most of our developers are guys who grew up reading comics books," Blizzard games often present women characters as a sexualized comic book ideal that "is offensive to, I think, some women."

[Inquisitor Mary Sue]

However this is becoming less and less of a truth over time. Allan Schumacher has made several points about this. Many more women are getting into video game development and yet there still seems to be an over abundance of male oriented content. Something just seems to be off about that. 

 

Give me an example of a game with a large percentage of female developers that was still aimed at males?

[Trikormadenadon]

I present as exhibit A this article: (http://www.polygon.c...izzard-nintendo), that includes the following passage, which makes it sound to be like some developers quite clearly understand what they are doing. 

 

"After his talk, I asked Pardo to talk about how Blizzard's values — "epic entertainment experiences," emphasizing the Blizzard brand, focus on gameplay and de-emphasizing narrative — and the company's perception of their audience might impact how they portray socially progressive content.

His answer was disappointing. "I wouldn't say that's really a value for us. It's not something that we're against either, but it's just not something that's ... something we're trying to actively do."

His subsequent list of justifications, reasons and examples became increasingly problematic. Pardo argued that Blizzard works primarily in sci-fi and fantasy because they're "kids at heart," reinforcing the idea that games — specifically Blizzard games — are not a place for "real world issues" to be discussed:

"We're not trying to bring in serious stuff, or socially relevant stuff, or actively trying to preach for diversity or do things like that," he said. His example of a place where Blizzard struggles is portrayal of women.

Pardo notes that "because most of our developers are guys who grew up reading comics books," Blizzard games often present women characters as a sexualized comic book ideal that "is offensive to, I think, some women."

At least they are willing to see and admit that. It's their money and games. If they choose to not cater to women, that's their choice. Women will just show them what they think of that with their buying practices. You can't tell someone they can't create what they choose to create. If they make games they loved as kids because they loved them as kids that's a perfectly valid perspective. Women who do not agree with this will just continue to not buy those games.

 

It's fine to fight for equality, but not fine to demand people make games they are not interested in making.

[Trikormadenadon]

Give me an example of a game with a large percentage of female developers that was still aimed at male

I don't know of any games with a large percentage of female developers but that's not what I was pointing out. i was pointing out the fact that despite more women getting into the industry, there is still a lack of catering to the female consumer being done. Your request has no bearing on our conversation at all.

[Inquisitor Mary Sue]

I would say that the modern-day disconnect arrives due to the fact that the number of women playing games, asking for representation, and hoping to see a character they can relate to is growing far faster than the number of women actually involved in the game-designing process. This can in part be blames on the lack of an inviting industry, and a lack of adequate effort from companies to encourage women to apply. For example, it is possible that the demographic of female writers is largely seperate from the demographic of female video-game players. Therefore to attract female writers, game companies need to broaden their advertising to make women aware that this is a field open to them.

Of course, some of this effort needs to come on the part of the women themselves, partly by making their needs, wishes and presence known (as we try to do here), partly by supporting companies who do make this effort, and partly by encouraging each other to stand up, be counted, and consider a career in an industry that needs more female leaders.

 

 Not sure what you mean by "lack of an inviting industry", do these companies put up a sign saying "don't bother applying if you are a woman"?

[Allan Schumacher]

How many of those women are just using Xbox for netflix, movies or other streaming sites? Remember up until a few months ago, all apps were behind the Live paywall.

 

I say this because I've been on xbox live past years, and played though thousands of multiplayer games in Halo, Call of Duty, Battlefield, ME3, etc and rarely do I ever come across any females.

 

I know it's just from my experience, but I think I've had a big enough sample size. If women are as interested in AAA games as people say they are, I would've met a ton more than I have already. 

 

I've had friends of mine that I didn't even know with gamers until she overheard me talking about WoW.

 

Your personal experiences are not representative.  Sorry.  No one person's sample size is large enough.

[Allan Schumacher]

Very true for the most part.

 

His first sentence."I believe men and women on average have different interests" is fairly accurate though. Even if a man and a woman both love video games, it is very likely they get different things out of their gaming experience. Even within the same game.

 

This statement is true generally speaking between two different people.  For instance, I wouldn't be surprised if you and I get different things out of our gaming experience, even with the same game.