9318 réponses à ce sujet

[Nimlowyn]

Maybe you just kidding but it's funny how meany marketing specialist we have on BSN. We can create any character we want and still people complain. I want to see my favorite class rogue in marketing but I don't go and create topics about it.

Your favorite class does not have the history or social repercussions that female representation or lack thereof has in arts and entertainment.  I am not aware of the rogue player demographic being under-represented in social and marketing materials. Nor am I aware that rogue players are coming off of ages of history in which they were considered inferior. Respectfully, they are not the same thing. At all.

 

Yes we can make a female character in the games, which is AWESOME; this is a discussion on marketing materials, not the game itself. Marketing has cultural and sociological implications of its own. We are requesting more representation, and a request does not assume a malcontented complainer. For me, its a friendly request and an opportunity for illuminating discussion. I love games, and I would love the industry to consider women worth marketing to. And I believe they will.

[Mes]

If anything, I would feel even more pandered to than in the current situation.

 

Besides, my gender would still have the monopoly on war movies and sport, so nyah.

 

Ah. Placing yourself in another's shoes - fail. 

[Zazzerka]

Ah. Placing yourself in another's shoes - fail. 

 

Come again?

[Mes]

Come again?

 

I'm not talking about a scenario where all video game characters are marketed as Lara Croft copies (you know.. the types of females who are appealing particularly to men). From your post I felt that you were brushing off the discussion of this topic because of a "as a male I'll still get what I want so I don't care about any of you lalala" attitude. I could have misread it though, and if I did I apologize! I've had an extremely long past few days!

 

Also if your gender does have a monopoly on anything, it would be beneficial to change that to include both sexes rather than happily retain it as a monopoly. ANY industry would benefit from the wallets of both men and women.

[Brass_Buckles]

Brass Buckles - I was going to make this exact same thread, and you beat me to it. Well done!!

 

I concur with this request. Look, I'm a female gamer and... no one is marketing to my demographic. Can you IMAGINE the boost in sales Bioware or any other gaming company would have if it marketed not only to men, but to women?

 

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. 

Actually, and I have no solid evidence or links to study or anything like that to prove it, but I remember I read somewhere that the people most likely to purchase games are actually females.  Mothers buy them for their kids, girlfriends/wives buy them for their boyfriends/husbands.  And there are also plenty of women who buy their own games, for their own selves (like myself).

 

I think that's part of the reason why there's an increasing number of female gamers, along with the fact that little girls see their brothers playing and want to join in.  Girls and women want to play with their boyfriends/husbands.  Mothers want to know what their children are being exposed to.  So, they play games.  This is especially true when it's something you've paid for.

 

Of course, I say all of this, but there's also a disheartening thought to consider:  A lot of people are rather closed-minded, and will say "Well that game has a woman character, it's too girly for you."  They assume games are only for male audiences, and they won't buy it for their children/grandchildren/niece/nephew.  It doesn't matter if the female character is fully clothed and armored--in some cases that's more reason for them to not buy it.  This is anecdotal, but I know it's true because of how some people I know have reacted to their son being interested in what they see as the "wrong" books and stuffed toys.  It's too girly to read a book with a female main character, or to have a stuffed toy that is, by my standards, gender neutral, but by theirs far too feminine.

 

The way to solve the problem I just stated is to push back against it, and to make it normal to see female protagonists who aren't treated as sex objects--and normal for everyone to play the games and read the books they want to, regardless who developed or wrote them or whether the main character is male, female,player-selectable, etc.   I guarantee, even though some people will be closed-minded, there will be a lot of gamers out there who will react like:  OMG I CAN PLAY A GIRL IN THIS GAME?  AND NOT WEAR A BIKINI?  YES PLEASE!  And there will certainly be plenty who'd pass the game by because they simply never knew that it was possible to play as a woman.

[Zazzerka]

I'm not talking about a scenario where all video game characters are marketed as Lara Croft copies (you know.. the types of females who are appealing particularly to men). From your post I felt that you were brushing off the discussion of this topic because of a "as a male I'll still get what I want so I don't care about any of you lalala" attitude. I could have misread it though, and if I did I apologize! I've had an extremely long past few days!

 

In the scenario you described, I would be upset, but not because I felt underrepresented. It'd feel like the developers thought I'd only be interested in their games if there were women in it for me to look at. I would be very embarrassed to be a gamer.

[Mes]

 

The way to solve the problem I just stated is to push back against it, and to make it normal to see female protagonists who aren't treated as sex objects

 

I think this is key. Normal female characters who aren't lovingly caressed by the camera and are not wearing rain-soaked white tank tops and barely-there shorts. Just normal, relatable, cool human beings who happen to be women. That's what the marketing department is missing.

[Allan Schumacher]

I don't know how large BioWare's DA:I team is, but I wonder why they couldn't work on the female Inquisitor at the same time that they were working on the male Inquisitor that was featured in the trailer. You know, to have them done around the same time.
 
Does the female Inquisitor require more planning in regards to her appearance? If so, why?

 
 
It's more, for better or worse, because one gets chosen.  IIRC, we actually discussed this a bit when there was some concept art that showed off a variety of armor sets, and you created a thread asking why they were all of men and not women.  You suggested that we should have done some that were men, and some that are women, and I was trying to explain that for the purposes of iterating quickly on armor means that the body type that it rests on is more of a mannequin.
 
If you are to say that we don't need to start by doing a man Inquisitor first, I agree.  But a large part of the issue is simply "The male Inquisitor was started first."  Which isn't fair, nor do I really expect to placate anyone by saying this (I would, however, not be surprised if I end up slighting someone... yet I still click Post because I'm silly....).  And I mean started first even on a concept art level.  Combine this with doing vertical slices to see how far you can go with the tools and the engine (which is literally to dive deep down and focus on a selection of assets), and one gets developed.  And unfortunately, splitting the time to work on both evenly CAN incur a cost, because then we're giving internal demos on vertical slices where we didn't focus as much on pushing fidelity and we actually don't know the limits of the engine, haven't established our visual targets, and possibly even deliver lesser quality demonstration which may actually negatively affect the ability to get funding, or extend the game by a year, and whatnot.
 
Wanting us to make the female first is fair and I'd like for us to give that a try too.  Wanting us to make both to the same degree of fidelity while in tandem, however, is something that I am skeptical will happen.  I can think of several potential internal risks for doing that, for benefits that maybe I'm not fully realizing.  I can understand the marketing benefit (which has been stated here).  There may be other benefits to it, such as making sure one doesn't receive more time than the other, and other things like that.  There could be more too.
 
 
Although, as to your question "Does the female Inquisitor require more planning in regards to her appearance? If so, why?" it did remind me of this article I read just earlier today, about Desktop Dungeons character art:
http://www.themarysu...ale-characters/
 
It could be that doing art for women characters is more time consuming because it involves breaking down a lot of the easy fallbacks that a lot of (principally male) artists utilize.  For example, the artists found that "Shorthands for the feminine kept crawling into our work when we weren’t paying attention – smooth skin, homogenized facial structures, evidence of makeup, you name it."
 
So part of the efficiency problem comes, in the short term, from acknowledging that how women are depicted in games is a problem.  I mean, if BioWare were to put out a trailer with a woman Inquisitor that had Aribeth's plate mail on it, I don't think we'd actually be doing much for making sure that people that want to see more women in marketing content get what they want.
 
 
I understand this sounds like excuses, and I suppose it is and like I said I'm expecting that some people won't be too thrilled at this answer (in part, I think, because I am not very experienced on trying to discuss the issue and will probably make mistakes).  But I mean, it's also no surprise that the first character kits that were made available for costume design and so forth were the same party members that we showed off in the PAX demonstration.  Those ones got the most time early, and are the farthest along as a result.  That's the way it is with the male Inquisitor too, as unfortunate as that may be for people that would like to see more marketing for a female Inquisitor.  You could probably make a decent guess as to which party member will receive a character kit costume package too, based on what you've seen so far.

[Mes]

In the scenario you described, I would be upset, but not because I felt underrepresented. It'd feel like the developers thought I'd only be interested in their games if there were women in it for me to look at. I would be very embarrassed to be a gamer.

 

So by that logic, should us women be embarrassed to be gamers because we're bombarded with all these male images? 

[GVulture]

So, as a female gamer... I will say that regularly play games that don't feature a female lead or customization options to be one. But when there is? Hoo boy you bet I am all over it. I even played Bayonetta (which at first glance is total fan service for the male gaze, but it totally ended up being one of the best female led games I had ever played... because... well... there was fanservice for me too, but I digress).

 

As for female gamers driving the course for video game purchases? I have been married for close to ten years and my husband is a game too. He USED to buy all the WWE games when they came out. But guess what he has stopped buying once I told him that the fact they took out the female story modes bothered me? (He also says that they started to suck around the same time too... which is true... but added bonus that I didn't like them anyone either) I used to play them with him. I played the **** out of Raw 2 because it was the only one that actually... you know... had a story mode that didn't pretend I was still a man when I was playing a woman. In other words, MY opinion on a game actually affects other people from buying things too.

 

In fact, Saints Row, when it was first up and coming husband was telling me all about the female gangster option. I was excited. Then they cut it at the last minute. Boo. Still kept our preorder anyways but you have NO FREAKING IDEA how happy I was when they brought the option back in Saint's Row 2.

 

It matters to female gamers. To pretend that seeing these things in media and advertising doesn't affect how more than 40% of gamers spend their money is ignorance.

 

Especially considering that with the internet, they don't HAVE to spend oodles of money marketing things on TV or in magazines. This is an age where information is cheap and acting like it would somehow cost developers MORE money to show off a bit of female friendly game play is well... ridiculous. They can host that kind of thing right on their website and have all their devs and community managers pimp that stuff out on all the social media.

[Mes]

 
 long post

 

EEK sorry for posting a few times in a row, this thread is just moving so fast.

 

Thank you for your post and taking the time to contribute and give us an insight into the process!

 

You're right though, there's really no nice way to say that the male PC is default and the female PC is secondary. 

 

I hope some day (SOON) we can get to a stage where the default character is much more random - 50/50 chance of being of either gender.

[Zazzerka]

So by that logic, should us women be embarrassed to be gamers because we're bombarded with all these male images? 

 

I don't think it's the same. I think a male would come under much more scrutiny for playing a game with sexualised females than a female would for playing a game with sexualised males.

[Brass_Buckles]

In the scenario you described, I would be upset, but not because I felt underrepresented. It'd feel like the developers thought I'd only be interested in their games if there were women in it for me to look at. I would be very embarrassed to be a gamer.

 

Okay, let's make this a bit more clear.  Every woman in these games will be a beefy, shapeless hulk so that we will feel more empowered playing them.  They will wear armor to make themselves look even huger, and for most men they will not have much sex appeal.  They will most often be portrayed as scraggly and unkempt, with the occasional leg and underarm stubble displayed just so we get that "rugged" look appropriately depicted.  "Pretty" will be the smallest concern; it will only be about how badass that character looks.  If that means she's missing half her face or has ragged burn scars where her breasts should be, then that's how she'll look.  These women characters will in no way, shape, or form be eye candy.  Their assets will never be panned to, their poses will not display them and their animations won't either.

 

When they are not mountainous and misshapen with muscle (and occasionally muscle combined with fat), they will be skinny and scrawny and, again, shapeless, as though they were human rubber bands.  That's the next most common archetype of male character, I think.  Only a very small handful of them will fall into anything remotely resembling a recognizeable or realistic female shape.

 

The men who appear as secondary characters in these games will clearly be just there for eye candy for the female characters.  They will wear string thongs that barely cover their privates, or that realistically wouldn't cover their privates.  Their "armor" will be gravity-defying and will not make sense as compared to the design of the hefty, reasonable female armor.  Spikes will be put in interesting places (crotch, nipples), and the rest barely covered at all.  They will be very well muscled (edit:  And toned, but they won't be bodybuilders) and many of them will glisten with oil or sweat.  In combat they will make very sexual noises.  They will always be designed with the attractiveness to straight female audiences in mind, so females will draw and develop them, and will ask each other extensively how hot they look.  There will even be discussion later in interviews about how they designed such an interesting, strong male character--and these developers will offer up that they just thought about their ideal boyfriend and went from there.

 

Most of the male characters, regardless of circumstance, will fawn over the female protagonists.  They'll throw themselves at her even if she's hideously deformed.  This will be seen as normal although it is clearly meant to pander to the female player's ego (and also likely to titillate).

 

And now I ask, are you getting the idea yet?

 

Edit:  Man it's late.  Keep making minor typos but I have to correct them... I just HAVE to...

[Mes]

I don't think it's the same. I think a male would come under much more scrutiny for playing a game with sexualised females than a female would for playing a game with sexualised males.

 

Okay I think I see what you're saying.

 

What I'M trying to paint is a world where all the characters are female.. and NOT sexualized, hence my non-Lara Croft reference. If you know what I mean? Speaking for myself, I don't find the current faceless male Inquisitor sexualized. Male Shepard didn't seem sexualized to me, either. If he was shirtless on the game's cover and wet like he just stepped out of the ocean, that would be sexualized to me.

 

Edit: Thanks for the detailed post, Brass. I forget that these things need to be spelled out sometimes. But yes what she said is what I was trying to paint.

[Ispan]

Of course, I say all of this, but there's also a disheartening thought to consider:  A lot of people are rather closed-minded, and will say "Well that game has a woman character, it's too girly for you."  They assume games are only for male audiences, and they won't buy it for their children/grandchildren/niece/nephew.  It doesn't matter if the female character is fully clothed and armored--in some cases that's more reason for them to not buy it.  This is anecdotal, but I know it's true because of how some people I know have reacted to their son being interested in what they see as the "wrong" books and stuffed toys.  It's too girly to read a book with a female main character, or to have a stuffed toy that is, by my standards, gender neutral, but by theirs far too feminine.

 

I know this isn't directly related to the topic but after reading this I have to relate an experience of mine.  I'm a woman who worked at a game... shop and encountered this many times.  Specifically, a mother was perfectly fine with her 12 year old son playing the Witcher 2, after I described it in detail, but didn't want him to play Tomb Raider because of the female lead.  I felt a little betrayed by my gender :/

 

Also, when I decided to switch all the ME3 boxes to the FemShep side I was able to convince more female gamers to purchase.

[Brass_Buckles]

Okay I think I see what you're saying.

 

What I'M trying to paint is a world where all the characters are female.. and NOT sexualized, hence my non-Lara Croft reference. If you know what I mean? Speaking for myself, I don't find the current faceless male Inquisitor sexualized. Male Shepard didn't seem sexualized to me, either. If he was shirtless on the game's cover and wet like he just stepped out of the ocean, that would be sexualized to me.

 

Edit: Thanks for the detailed post, Brass. I forget that these things need to be spelled out sometimes. But yes what she said is what I was trying to paint.

 

The sad thing about this is now I actually want to see this mountain of a lady somewhere with her arm hair and leg stubble and half her face missing.  I mean, yeah, I like playing an attractive character, but just picturing this unattractive badass of a woman in my head gives me a sort of wicked glee.  She needs to exist in some media, somewhere.

[Zazzerka]

I forget that these things need to be spelled out sometimes.

 

I feel like this is an attack on my intelligence. Your plans for a world filled with Amazonian princesses and oiled up twinks weren't clear in your original post.

 

While such a world would be very confusing, I don't think it's an accurate analogue. And for the record, I don't disagree with the OP. I hope you get the representation you desire, and I do think that you will, eventually. You're just kind of new on the gaming scene.

[Nimlowyn]

 
 
It's more, for better or worse, because one gets chosen.  IIRC, we actually discussed this a bit when there was some concept art that showed off a variety of armor sets, and you created a thread asking why they were all of men and not women.  You suggested that we should have done some that were men, and some that are women, and I was trying to explain that for the purposes of iterating quickly on armor means that the body type that it rests on is more of a mannequin.
 
If you are to say that we don't need to start by doing a man Inquisitor first, I agree.  But a large part of the issue is simply "The male Inquisitor was started first."  Which isn't fair, nor do I really expect to placate anyone by saying this (I would, however, not be surprised if I end up slighting someone... yet I still click Post because I'm silly....).  And I mean started first even on a concept art level.  Combine this with doing vertical slices to see how far you can go with the tools and the engine (which is literally to dive deep down and focus on a selection of assets), and one gets developed.  And unfortunately, splitting the time to work on both evenly CAN incur a cost, because then we're giving internal demos on vertical slices where we didn't focus as much on pushing fidelity and we actually don't know the limits of the engine, haven't established our visual targets, and possibly even deliver lesser quality demonstration which may actually negatively affect the ability to get funding, or extend the game by a year, and whatnot.
 
Wanting us to make the female first is fair and I'd like for us to give that a try too.  Wanting us to make both to the same degree of fidelity while in tandem, however, is something that I am skeptical will happen.  I can think of several potential internal risks for doing that, for benefits that maybe I'm not fully realizing.  I can understand the marketing benefit (which has been stated here).  There may be other benefits to it, such as making sure one doesn't receive more time than the other, and other things like that.  There could be more too.
 
 
Although, as to your question "Does the female Inquisitor require more planning in regards to her appearance? If so, why?" it did remind me of this article I read just earlier today, about Desktop Dungeons character art:
http://www.themarysu...ale-characters/
 
It could be that doing art for women characters is more time consuming because it involves breaking down a lot of the easy fallbacks that a lot of (principally male) artists utilize.  For example, the artists found that "Shorthands for the feminine kept crawling into our work when we weren’t paying attention – smooth skin, homogenized facial structures, evidence of makeup, you name it."
 
So part of the efficiency problem comes, in the short term, from acknowledging that how women are depicted in games is a problem.  I mean, if BioWare were to put out a trailer with a woman Inquisitor that had Aribeth's plate mail on it, I don't think we'd actually be doing much for making sure that people that want to see more women in marketing content get what they want.
 
 
I understand this sounds like excuses, and I suppose it is and like I said I'm expecting that some people won't be too thrilled at this answer (in part, I think, because I am not very experienced on trying to discuss the issue and will probably make mistakes).  But I mean, it's also no surprise that the first character kits that were made available for costume design and so forth were the same party members that we showed off in the PAX demonstration.  Those ones got the most time early, and are the farthest along as a result.  That's the way it is with the male Inquisitor too, as unfortunate as that may be for people that would like to see more marketing for a female Inquisitor.  You could probably make a decent guess as to which party member will receive a character kit costume package too, based on what you've seen so far.

I don't think it sounds like excuses. It's a way things are right now, and this is a big ship to turn around. Your insider perspective is definitely appreciated.

[Mes]

I feel like this is an attack on my intelligence. Your plans for a world filled with Amazonian princesses and oiled up twinks weren't clear in your original post.

 

While such a world would be very confusing, I don't think it's an accurate analogue. And for the record, I don't disagree with the OP. I hope you get the representation you desire, and I do think that you will, eventually. You're just kind of new on the gaming scene.

 

Let me stop you right there - NO ATTACKING of anyone, not intended, no no nonononnonono. Please accept my apologies if that's how it came across!

 

I meant it like this - when I use the term "female characters," I automatically think of a non-sexy, possibly burly type and don't realize that those words automatically conjure a picture of a busty sexy lady to other people. When I say it needs to be spelled out, I mean it needs to be explained from the ground up to people who just happen to have completely different ideas of what "female" might mean in gaming. Not due to any lack of intelligence - probably just due to marketing, which is what this topic is about.

 

That's all I meant. Not here to offend. Only to discuss.

 

*whispers from corner* I don't feel that new either. Been gaming since N64 in fact. Or actually... that system before it. Don't remember what it was called. I played Frogger on it. Oh how times have changed.

[Zazzerka]

'sall good.

[Sanunes]

You're assuming that the female gamer audience will necessarily not be watching the same things the male gamer audience does, and also that no male gamer would want to play a female character.  While we probably don't all enjoy the same shows, and some of us don't watch TV at all (hence online advertising is actually quite important--more important than you suggest in your post, as the new trailer was promoted on lots of gaming websites and not just this forum) Is there any real reason not to include the female version, or non-human races, or both, in any given media promotion?

 

I can't say for I was just trying to explain why I think they (marketing people) are hesitant to do it.

 

With developers from games like Remember Me saying that they had publishers turn them down because they wouldn't change their main characters gender to male, I see the same thing happening with marketing for video games as well.  They might see that an advertisement aimed for a female audience might bring in some people, but using the same resources but aiming it for a male audience will attract more people.  It doesn't mean either won't be successful, just one is more successful then the other.

[Allan Schumacher]

I don't think it sounds like excuses. It's a way things are right now, and this is a big ship to turn around. Your insider perspective is definitely appreciated.

 

I agree that the ship is big.  Slightly related, in case anyone hadn't already seen this.  A piece from one of DAI's concept artists for Cassandra, and about how he recognizes that women are a big part of DA fandom and how we need to consider them more than we have in the past.

http://theworkofcasp...eauty_2687.html

 

It's off topic for the thread, specifically, but threads like these serve as the "oh right" types of stuff so that it stays in the mind.  Cheers!

[SleepyBird]

You're just kind of new on the gaming scene.

No, women are not new to the gaming scene. I am in my mid thirties, my first console was the Atari 2600. All of my girl-friends growing up and to the present day played and play video games. I used to go to the arcade when that was the thing you did in the 80's. Women were there. It was never the all-boy's club some kids like to tell each other it was. Women are not suddenly invading your space. We are here as we have always been here and we just think it might be nice if sometimes marketing acknowledged that.

[Mes]

No, women are not new to the gaming scene. I am in my mid thirties, my first console was the Atari 2600. All of my girl-friends growing up and to the present day played and play video games. I used to go to the arcade when that was the thing you did in the 80's. Women were there. It was never the all-boy's club some kids like to tell each other it was. Women are not suddenly invading your space. We are here as we have always been here and we just think it might be nice if sometimes marketing acknowledged that.

 

Well said. Me and my girlfriends played games regularly in the 90s... From Mario Cart to shooters.

[Zazzerka]

@SleepyBird.

 

People such as yourself aren't new, and I'm not saying that women never used to play video games (when I was 16, there was a RuneScaper whom I adored, though that's another story.) But you can't deny that female interests in video games have gone up recently. It hasn't always been at this level. I spent a lot of primary school and high school being laughed at by most of the girls for playing handhelds and flash games during free-time. And now I'm on a forum reading about their desires to be included and catered for more in those very games.

 

As far as I'm concerned, they're more than welcome, but it does evoke a little bitterness in me. I could've been a pretty popular guy, if only the ladies had had their little revelation that "Wow, games are fun!" just a few years earlier.