@themikefest I think it's difficult to find that out from this forum given most would have bought it based on how they felt about previous games.
I can't say I'm sick of the games - just the marketing, this is the entry point to their games, if it puts me off at the door what encouragement do I have to try it?
The statistics do tell us that more players are interested in playing Male Shepards than female.
Since women make up roughly 40% of console gamers, much higher in mobile gaming, (using the stats from the previous page) I'd expect the ratio of FemSheps to MaleSheps to match that roughly 4:6, but its closer to 2:8. While you are right there is no way to tell firmly how many women played FemShep vs MaleShep but for argument's sake I will stick to the logical conclusion. So I am forced to conclude that either women make up a smaller percentage of console gamers than previously believed, I find that unlikely, or the game was played predominately by men, more likely in my opinion, or there were significantly more women than men playing as the opposite gender Shepard, possible but a bit unlikely.
It's clear to me that you are stuck on that ratio despite the many reasons that it is unreliable as data and the fact that you have much more solid numbers right in front of you. So I'll just leave you with a quote from Mr. Schumacher further back in the thread and be done with it.
I went to my first ever PAX this year, though, and it's painfully clear how appealing our games seem to be for women given the large amount of women that came to talk. I didn't really take polls on the distribution, but in terms of the people that were interested in talking games with me was probably about 90% women.
They left out the crushing disappointment and rage
Oh boy did they ever. I'd rather make a petition for Bioware to fix their broken stories (ME3, DA2) rather than saying 'we done goofed.....oh well, NEEEXT!'.
*Extremely relevant!*
https://www.youtube....h?v=ePRZC_OulYc
It's clear to me that you are stuck on that ratio despite the many reasons that it is unreliable as data and the fact that you have much more solid numbers right in front of you.
Given the lack of other hard numbers I'm going to use them until a more exact statistic is revealed.
The only solid numbers I've seen that are relevant are the percentages of women on Xbox which are also suspect for a few reasons.
If you have more reliable numbers about the distribution of women vs men in a specific game that offers both male and female character choices and a logical conclusion to draw from them, I am all ears
The statistics do tell us that more players are interested in playing Male Shepards than female.
Since women make up roughly 40% of console gamers, much higher in mobile gaming, (using the stats from the previous page) I'd expect the ratio of FemSheps to MaleSheps to match that roughly 4:6, but its closer to 2:8. While you are right there is no way to tell firmly how many women played FemShep vs MaleShep but for argument's sake I will stick to the logical conclusion. So I am forced to conclude that either women make up a smaller percentage of console gamers than previously believed, I find that unlikely, or the game was played predominately by men, more likely in my opinion, or there were significantly more women than men playing as the opposite gender Shepard, possible but a bit unlikely.
As for Shepard being default, the options on the New Game Menu are:
Start Default Shepard (leads to Sheploo, Soldier, with preset service history)
Start Custom Male Shepard
Start Custom Female Shepard
So I don't see how the default Shepard being male would dissuade people who already have the game from playing a custom Shepard.
In my ME1 game, the startup screen says:
John Shepard
Enter New ID
Select Existing ID
So, the number of people who started (and possibly imported) their Shepard as male might be due to the fact that it wasn't even clear that there was a character creator, never mind one that allowed for a Female Shepard.
Adding: The text when you cycle to "enter new ID" is "Manually enter career info and physical stats into the Normandy Crew database".
In my ME1 game, the startup screen says:
John Shepard
Enter New ID
Select Existing ID
So, the number of people who started (and possibly imported) their Shepard as male might be due to the fact that it wasn't even clear that there was a character creator, never mind one that allowed for a Female Shepard.
Adding: The text when you cycle to "enter new ID" is "Manually enter career info and physical stats into the Normandy Crew database".
That's ME1, I was talking about the new game screen in ME3 with no import
Given the lack of other hard numbers I'm going to use them until a more exact statistic is revealed.
The only solid numbers I've seen that are relevant are the percentages of women on Xbox which are also suspect for a few reasons.
If you have more reliable numbers about the distribution of women vs men in games and a logical conclusion to draw from them, I am all ears
I have given you the overall percentage of women in games, women who play online games, women who play PC games, women who play Nintendo, women who play violent games. Whoop, not nearly enough statistics to convince you!
You know what? Even if the 18% number is 100% accurate to the amount of women who played ME and who will play any Bioware game ever (and that's not even getting into the fact that ME is a shooter and DA is an RPG and women are more inclined to RPGs than shooters...), then that means we warrent 18% of the advertising. Let's round that up to 20%. One in five.
One in every five videos should have a female protag.
One in every five promo images should be of the female protag.
That's it. One in every five. That is going by the numbers that you say must be fact.
In my ME1 game, the startup screen says:
John Shepard
Enter New ID
Select Existing ID
So, the number of people who started (and possibly imported) their Shepard as male might be due to the fact that it wasn't even clear that there was a character creator, never mind one that allowed for a Female Shepard.
Idk, I don't think that's the reason, I could be wrong though, but either way it feels like if you didn't explore those other two option in an RPG you deserve to suffer!!!!
I personally picked male for lots of little reasons (this really doesn't have much to do with the actual conversation though) 1: I like to roleplay as my own gender 2: I wanted finely crafted man-as* to look at while I played 3: MShep just looked more attractive to me and I liked his voice actor better.
Idk, I don't think that's the reason, I could be wrong though but it feels like if you didn't explore those other two option in an RPG you deserve to suffer!!!!
I personally picked male for lots of little reasons (this really doesn't have much to do with the actual conversation though) 1: I like to roleplay as my own gender 2: I wanted finely crafted man-as* to look at while I played 3: MShep just looked more attractive to me and I liked his voice actor better.
There are people on this board who have said they didn't realise they could play as a female Shepard until later because of the way the ME1 screen was setup.
I have given you the overall percentage of women in games, women who play online games, women who play PC games, women who play Nintendo, women who play violent games. Whoop, not nearly enough statistics to convince you!
You know what? Even if the 18% number is 100% accurate to the amount of women who played ME and who will play any Bioware game ever (and that's not even getting into the fact that ME is a shooter and DA is an RPG and women are more inclined to RPGs than shooters...), then that means we warrent 18% of the advertising. Let's round that up to 20%. One in five.
One in every five videos should have a female protag.
One in every five promo images should be of the female protag.
That's it. One in every five. That is going by the numbers that you say must be fact.
If you need me to spell out why those statistics aren't relevant I will not waste my time anymore.\
Mass Effect is also an RPG, it is also a TPS, and a Sci-Fi game don't trt and cram it into the category that is most relevant to your argument.
I can check the total numbers of trailers, but if memory serves correctly there were three trailers featuring Male Shepard before release and one of FemShep
There are people on this board who have said they didn't realise they could play as a female Shepard until later because of the way the ME1 screen was setup.
More fool them, I had no problem with the ME1's screen, I think that's more of a personal issue than an objective one.
There are people on this board who have said they didn't realise they could play as a female Shepard until later because of the way the ME1 screen was setup.
Well I find it hard to sympathize with people who don't fully explore the options available to them before drawing a conclusion
More fool them, I had no problem with the ME1's screen, I think that's more of a personal issue than an objective one.
Or it could be that BioWare wasn't clear enough in their setup. If they're being clear, there should be no doubt. Anything else is a design flaw.
Just as a note, #2 is the Shepard breakdown, and that's the only thing it tells us is what gender of Shepard was completed. It's hard for us to definitively conclude who was playing those Shepard's, even if it's a logical conclusion (note, logic often doesn't reflect reality).
It's also important to note that the default for the game was male. Much like how the largest bulk of DAO's players were Male, Human Noble warriors. It's possible that the data cited doesn't lead the conclusions that people think it might. It's just data. We'd need to do experiments which is trickier.
The part about the male human noble warrior being the most played is actually quite normal.
The problem is to understand the difference between "casual consumer" of the product and "active consumer", and that is quite clear with DA 2. Actually with that data I really do not get, why the marketing was focus on the mage male, kinda strange.
Or it could be that BioWare wasn't clear enough in their setup. If they're being clear, there should be no doubt. Anything else is a design flaw.
Or just dumb people, have you ever looked at the website NotAlwaysRight ? Some people are determined to remain ignorant when things are spelled out for them.
Or it could be that BioWare wasn't clear enough in their setup. If they're being clear, there should be no doubt. Anything else is a design flaw.
If they bothered to click on the "Create new ID" they immediately see that FemShep is an option
Given the lack of other hard numbers I'm going to use them until a more exact statistic is revealed.
Dude why are you so set on that one piece of data? It doesn't prove what you want it to prove.
It's like saying that the percentage of male Shep protagonists directly corresponds to the percentage of dog owners.
Number of women playing Mass Effect and number of female Shepard PCs is not automatically correlated.
You can shout those percentages from the rooftops til you're blue in the face. Won't make it any more relevant.
The part about the male human noble warrior being the most played is actually quite normal.
The problem is to understand the difference between "casual consumer" of the product and "active consumer", and that is quite clear with DA 2. Actually with that data I really do not get it why the marketing was focus on the mage male, kinda strange.
Most people will pick the default. It actually makes me curious about the breakdown of which Hawke was chosen most often in DA2 given the way they set up their screen.
Dude why are you so set on that one piece of data? It doesn't prove what you want it to prove.
It's like saying that the percentage of male Shep protagonists directly corresponds to the percentage of dog owners.
Number of women playing Mass Effect and number of female Shepard PCs is not automatically correlated.
You can shout those percentages from the rooftops til you're blue in the face. Won't make it any more relevant.
It gives me basis to draw a logical conclusion.
The data shows that most people who finished the game played MaleShep, therefore it is logical that most people who played the game played MaleShep, it is also logical to assume that most people play their own gender when playing a game, it is logical to assume that the people who played ME3 are more interested in playing MaleShep
This whole argument is a chicken and egg scenario. Do companies not market to women because they don't buy games, or do women not buy games because companies don't market to them?
The Mass Effect series has a lot of things that women like: drama, romance, customization, exploration, character interaction, the ability to play as your own gender etc...too bad the marketing for all three games glosses over these things and makes it look like a generic CoD/Gears clone which is something that does NOT appeal to most women. There was one trailer with femshep, yes. However it was online only, most of the trailers featured Sheploo as did all the promotional material, posters, etc...AND this only came out close to the release date of the final game. Years of zero marketing and then finally one trailer...which still made the game look like a generic shooter but this time with a lady! Even if a potential female customer saw the trailer, her interest was piqued by the fact that she could play a woman, and she did research and found out that hey, this is actually a female oriented game series, she may not want to play a game that is already old and dated or come into a series in the last installment and not know what was going on.
Dragon age is a series that would really appeal to women. Don't hide the fact that we can choose out gender and race, that we can have romances, that the game will make us laugh and cry. Don't just show generic Whitedude McStubblechin and make the promos all about combat and explosions. Showcase a bit of everything the game offers, show its' strengths both masculine and feminine.
If you need me to spell out why those statistics aren't relevant I will not waste my time anymore.\
Mass Effect is also an RPG, it is also a TPS, and a Sci-Fi game don't trt and cram it into the category that is most relevant to your argument.
I can check the total numbers of trailers, but if memory serves correctly there were three trailers featuring Male Shepard before release and one of FemShep
No, do. You demanded statistics, now tell me why all the statistics are wrong. You've put the onus on us to prove to you how many women are playing video games. Now please tell me why they aren't worth your time.
ME3 was the most shootery of the ME trilogy, let's be honest. Most of us may play it for the RPG elements, but that's not who they were trying to get to buy the game by the third one.
This whole argument is a chicken and egg scenario. Do companies not market to women because they don't buy games, or do women not buy games because companies don't market to them?
The Mass Effect series has a lot of things that women like: drama, romance, customization, exploration, character interaction, the ability to play as your own gender etc...too bad the marketing for all three games glosses over these things and makes it look like a generic CoD/Gears clone which is something that does NOT appeal to most women. There was one trailer with femshep, yes. However it was online only, most of the trailers featured Sheploo as did all the promotional material, posters, etc...AND this only came out close to the release date of the final game. Years of zero marketing and then finally one trailer...which still made the game look like a generic shooter but this time with a lady! Even if a potential female customer saw the trailer, her interest was piqued by the fact that she could play a woman, and she did research and found out that hey, this is actually a female oriented game series, she may not want to play a game that is already old and dated or come into a series in the last installment and not know what was going on.
Dragon age is a series that would really appeal to women. Don't hide the fact that we can choose out gender and race, that we can have romances, that the game will make us laugh and cry. Don't just show generic Whitedude McStubblechin and make the promos all about combat and explosions. Showcase a bit of everything the game offers, show its' strengths both masculine and feminine.
The answer is technically the egg since single celled organisms came first which over many millions of years eventually mutated and evolved which at some point an egg hatched with what we would recognise as a chicken. I just solved the mystery, No no, your thanks and praise is not necessary. I will accept gold bullion though.
The answer is technically the egg since single celled organisms came first which over many millions of years eventually mutated and evolved which at some point an egg hatched with what we would recognise as a chicken. I just solved the mystery, No no, your thanks and praise is not necessary. I will accept gold bullion though.
I have beef bouillon, is that good enough?
I have beef bouillon, is that good enough?
Yes, yay beef. All glory to the hypnobeef.
It gives me basis to draw a logical conclusion.
The data shows that most people who finished the game played MaleShep, therefore it is logical that most people who played the game played MaleShep, it is also logical to assume that most people play their own gender when playing a game, it is logical to assume that the people who played ME3 are more interested in playing MaleShep
And I drew the logical conclusion that if that is the only statistic you will accept, then that is still not an insignificant number. One in five is not an insignificant number.
Femshep was nearly nonexistant until ME3, and then she was only occasionally mentioned. Lady Hawke does not exist anywhere outside of the game, at any point, ever. They should have been in the promo materials 20% of the time. But they weren't.
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