9318 réponses à ce sujet

[GVulture]

Oops, I'm not too familiar with the qunari at all.

 

So there are some qunari that were born outside the Qun? And they have a special name? That's fascinating from a story point of view.

Basically second generation Tal-Vashoth it seems. I guess the Qun doesn't consider someone that never knew the Qun to be as bad as ones that break from it.

[Mes]

Straight male here saying that the above makes me real happy. Says a lot about where gaming might be going in the future, with more equal emphasis and attention being given to everyone.

 

I could kiss you! That is exactly the kind of attitude I'd love for everyone to have - that the prospect of equality is a good thing, for everyone.

[LPPrince]

I could kiss you! That is exactly the kind of attitude I'd love for everyone to have - that the prospect of equality is a good thing, for everyone.

 

I'll gladly accept that kiss via email, instant messaging, or PMs.

 

But seriously, we gotta move away from the "gaming is for dudebros/neckbeards" mentality.

[Rainbow Wyvern]

I didn't buy Mass Effect for the longest time after it came out because I had no clue you could play anything other than a stereotypical dudebro protagonist. I eventually looked up the game after someone had told me there was character creation. Found out that it included a female character option, which led to me buying all the Mass Effect games, then eventually Dragon Age. I cannot express how happy I was that the game had that option. I think I actually squee'd out loud, to be honest.

 

It would be refreshing to have marketing not ignore my existence for once. I've not bought many games (The Witcher games, for example) simply because female is not an option, or if it is, she's the most over-sexualized thing ever, existing solely to be ogled. It's one reason I only buy BioWare games, and rare games like Mirror's Edge. I can play a female character, and she doesn't have to be some thing that exists only to be objectified. 

So, most certainly on board for more lady Quizzy.

BioWare already does a better job than most companies simply because they include the option for a lady protagonist in the first place.

 

And, I wish I could have 'liked' more posts but I don't want to reach my like-limit-thingy so yeah.

Also too lazy to do any editing so this post will probably be full of typos and horrible mashed up sentences n' thoughts.

[sandalisthemaker]

Thank you Allan for taking the time to answer my question.

[Nimlowyn]

 

1. I feel like women are shamed who are into girly things by feminists that think we need to be more like men. I have every right to be into fashion, jewelry, makeup, trends...and it doesn't make me less of a woman to admit it either. I want to feel beautiful (even though I know I already am) and I'll do whatever i want to feel that way. I don't want armor that's exactly the same as a man. I should be able to celebrate my differences.

 

 

This reminds me of a story my grandmother told me. My grandfather worked in Washington DC and they went to this party (this is in the 1960s). She started chatting with this woman who asked, "So what do you do?" When my grandmother replied that she was a mother, this woman said, "Any cow can have a calf." And she called herself a feminist!!! (Apparently my grandmother, without skipping a beat, said, "If you think it's that easy, you aren't doing it right.")

 

Basically I agree with you 5000000%. I have two sisters that are 20 and 22 years younger than me. They both love reading and (yes!) playing video games, but also enjoy classically girl things like their toy kitchen, their pretty pink princesses and their nail polish. Let people be who they are.

[CuriousArtemis]

1. I feel like women are shamed who are into girly things by feminists that think we need to be more like men. I have every right to be into fashion, jewelry, makeup, trends...and it doesn't make me less of a woman to admit it either. I want to feel beautiful (even though I know I already am) and I'll do whatever i want to feel that way. I don't want armor that's exactly the same as a man. I should be able to celebrate my differences.

 

I sympathize with your feelings But surely you meant to say "some feminists." I certainly have never shamed a woman for enjoying fashion, jewelry, or make-up. No, those are not my things, but I'm more "just happen to be female" than woman.

 

And I agree that you should be able to celebrate your differences as a woman! Of course, I also believe I should be able to do the opposite. 

 

Once we're all sitting down and having a civil conversation, the real conundrum arises: who to please? Make female characters have different armor or the same armor as male characters? Make them walk/run/talk differently or the same? One group wants it one way, another wants it another. I guess it comes down to developer decisions at that point... assuming budgetary concerns make "both" not a real option.

 

Of course I'm of the opinion that if an outfit is made for a female, it should be available to a male, too, and vice versa, no matter how "silly" one might think a character might look in it. Same with hairstyles, make-up, even stride. I'm all about choice.

[Brass_Buckles]

I've skimmed over the last four pages and while I haven't read everything, I have read several things I would like to respond to. These are not directed -at- anybody, just sort of my views on a few larger issues.

 

1. I feel like women are shamed who are into girly things by feminists that think we need to be more like men. I have every right to be into fashion, jewelry, makeup, trends...and it doesn't make me less of a woman to admit it either. I want to feel beautiful (even though I know I already am) and I'll do whatever i want to feel that way. I don't want armor that's exactly the same as a man. I should be able to celebrate my differences.

 

2. As a woman, it would be nice to see a female inquisitor on the cover or on a new trailer, but I have no real need for it. I know that Bioware is one of the few companies that lets me have a woman PC to begin with- AND that is so friendly to people of all sexualities. It's not perfect but I'll take that small victory as a sign of positive things to come.

 

First off, I am a feminist, and I'm not going to shame anyone for liking jewelry and makeup or deciding that they want to stay at home and raise their children.  I love jewelry myself.  I enjoy prettying myself up with makeup (but I'm so slow at applying it that I usually don't).  I'm more than a little vain about my hair.  Feel free to call out the "feminists" who think they have the right to say how you should live or behave.  That's not supporting equality and respect at all, that's dictating your life and it's not okay.  What I want to know is why you think anyone here is saying you have to be more like a man?

 

Second, I can't agree with you on the armor if by "celebrating our differences" you mean "boob plates, cleavage windows, chain mail bikinis" and other similar female "armor" tropes.  And it has nothing whatsoever to do with making my character look or act more like a man and everything to do with my inability to take her seriously if she isn't wearing armor that actually serves as armor.

 

While I wouldn't expect female armor to be the exact same as male armor (it will be lighter since women are generally smaller, and probably curvier in the breast area so she'd have comfortable space for her breasts, and they probably won't include a codpiece and the pauldrons will likely be smaller), it should look similar and it shouldn't look like it would be dangerous to wear (cleavage windows, random cutouts, boob plate--which would lead to a broken collarbone and also direct blades directly between the breasts, according to an actual armorer who was posting about it once). I like playing an attractive female, too, but I want her to look like she can actually survive combat.  I can just about promise you that Bioware will indeed make the women look feminine, even when they're wearing full plate armor.  But what is the problem if the women do not look ultra-feminine in full plate armor?  That doesn't mean that they are trying to be manly, it means only that they are attempting to stay alive--as in not be slain in combat due to armor choices based on how they would look wearing that armor.

 

If you don't feel reassured about what I've said about armor, check out the concept art.  The female warriors/Inquisitors do not look manly to me, even in full plate.  And bear in mind that we are supposed to be able to customize our armor, so you may be able to craft something that you're just thrilled with, even down to the color.

 

But this thread wasn't anything to do with armor in the first place.  It's about marketing.  If you want to discuss armor, we need to have another thread.

 

I definitely agree that Bioware is great compared to a lot of companies.  They are much more accessible to people who aren't straight white males.  But that doesn't make them perfect, and even they acknowledge that.  Again, as others pointed out, a lot of women will just pass by a game if they don't think they can be a woman--and some will accept dressing in lingerie in a game just because they can be female and that is the only option they have.  Others?  Others like that "armor" style and more power to them.  But to me, if the armor doesn't at all match the male armor in style and protectiveness, I don't like it.  It's a bit different if the male armor is just as scrawny and skimpy and revealing as that for the females.  That's just being consistent.

 

I can't repeat enough that marketing does matter.  I probably would have passed over Dragon Age Origins if I hadn't known from an article in Game Informer that you could be female.  Once I knew and had read about what the game was, I preordered it.  I didn't regret that.  I probably would never have picked up Mass Effect if the person at the game store hadn't told me that I could play as a woman--I wasn't even that into sci-fi, until after I played Mass Effect.  If they actually had ads, or videos, etc. with the female Inquisitor involved, I guarantee more women would buy it--they wouldn't have to wait until someone told them, or they randomly stumbled across the info, or they caught it on sale and were bored enough to try it out.  At the very least, more women might buy the game at full price, or even preorder.

[Allan Schumacher]

Do you think there's a disconnect between anecdotes like these and the way the game is marketed? From the DA2 campaign you'd swear the marketing department were pitching at an audience of 12 year old boys, with the rock music trailers and "fighting like a Spartan" etc. I know that it's a minefield to start stereotyping groups of fans, but (again, anecdotally) it seems that many of the players most invested in the characters and roleplaying aspects of the games are women. Certainly from my own experiences at Bioware events (I was at PAX Australia) there were a huge number of incredibly fun, enthusiastic female players. 

 

Although it's marketing's job to get the game out to as wide and as mainstream an audience as possible, couldn't the bombastic (and occasionally unpleasantly macho) ad campaigns actually turn away fans who are more interested in exploration, story or characters? 

 

It's hard to say specifically how much an event like PAX reflects its audience.  There could be factors at play that I'm not aware of.  There some biases in terms of the ability and desire to attend PAX.  It's possible that a lot of people who don't really swing by are still fans.  Maybe our games have a particular appeal to women gamers compared to other games that some women attended exclusively because of BioWare's presence (some people basically hung out the whole weekend, which was pretty cool and ultra flattering).

 

I think our ad campaign will be a bit less bombastic this time, but at the same time DAO is BioWare's best selling game I believe.  Did marketing help that?  I'm pretty clueless to say, to be honest.  Perhaps those that are interested in exploration, story, and characters are likely already going to get our game?  Maybe there are some that don't realize that they love story and characters in games?  Marketing strikes me as a lot of art (rather than science) because ultimately you don't really get to repeat your study and there's so many potential confounding variables IMO.

 

 

The PAX audience tells me, though, that there's a non-trivial amount of women gamers that love our game, and possibly the biggest most die hard fans are more likely women (which would be cool, if true).  But yeah, it's just an anecdote so some assumptions may be wrong.

[Lilaeth]

The thing is to us it seems like an easy thing to whip up a trailer that will show all the inquisitor options, but outside of that you need to figure out where to show it for it doesn't make sense to show it on a website (such as the BioWare one) for around here we know there are going to be four races and we can play either gender for each.  Do you show it on television on a program geared for female viewership, then you have to ask how many of those viewers are really interested in a video game. So at the end of the day it would be nice, but it does have to serve a purpose and be functional to the task that any trailer requires.

 

It will serve the same purpose/be functional to the same task that any trailer with the male Inq does.  We're paying the same amount of money for the game as the blokes are, so why are we left feeling that it might as well be the 19th century, for all the attention that's paid to our polite requests to be treated just like the male gamers?  Is that really too much for a large company like Bioware to handle?

[Nefla]

I sympathize with your feelings But surely you meant to say "some feminists." I certainly have never shamed a woman for enjoying fashion, jewelry, or make-up. No, those are not my things, but I'm more "just happen to be female" than woman.

 

And I agree that you should be able to celebrate your differences as a woman! Of course, I also believe I should be able to do the opposite. 

 

Once we're all sitting down and having a civil conversation, the real conundrum arises: who to please? Make female characters have different armor or the same armor as male characters? Make them walk/run/talk differently or the same? One group wants it one way, another wants it another. I guess it comes down to developer decisions at that point... assuming budgetary concerns make "both" not a real option.

 

Of course I'm of the opinion that if an outfit is made for a female, it should be available to a male, too, and vice versa, no matter how "silly" one might think a character might look in it. Same with hairstyles, make-up, even stride. I'm all about choice.

 

I like how it's done in Saints Row. All clothes (including bras and high heels)and hairstyles are available to both genders and you can make your character look as masculine or feminine as you want regardless of gender. In DA:I I know they wont have anywhere near the CC options or clothing options, but they could easily have some armors/robes be girly, lacey, and covered in jewels(), some skimpy and sexy, some bulky and functional and the same for both genders (like heavy armor in DA:O) and others just simple everyday stuff. They already said we will be able to keep an outfit we like the looks of through upgrades so we wouldn't have to switch to something we find ugly or objectionable because it has better stats.

[Mes]

Iand possibly the biggest most die hard fans are more likely women 

 

You know, I keep hearing this and not just of games but of movies, shows, etc... From what I've seen it's mainly women who buy the merchandise, write the fanfiction, create the fanart etc... 

 

I feel like all this data (even if at times anecdotal) just still gets ignored. Even if 100% of the PAX attendees were women (rather than 90% which is still pretty darn close to 100), the default advertised PC would STILL be male.

 

It's such an uphill battle for us. 

[Brass_Buckles]

You know, I keep hearing this and not just of games but of movies, shows, etc... From what I've seen it's mainly women who buy the merchandise, write the fanfiction, create the fanart etc... 

 

I feel like all this data (even if at times anecdotal) just still gets ignored. Even if 100% of the PAX attendees were women (rather than 90% which is still pretty darn close to 100), the default advertised PC would STILL be male.

 

It's such an uphill battle for us. 

 

It's like I said before, there's probably some fear in the marketing department that they would lose their male fans by advertising with a female.  But until it becomes mainstream to include a female in the advertising, that will always be a risk.  Why is it not okay for a boy or man to be a fan of a female character when she shows all of the same virtues (or lack thereof) of her male counterparts?  Why is it automatically too girly for a boy to read a book written by a woman, or written about a girl?

 

Even though there are differences, people are people.  And I think maybe if from a younger age boys were in fact exposed to more supposedly feminine things like books about girls, they might grow up understanding women better, instead of insisting that women are a mystery.  It won't make them less manly when they grow up, and it won't magically turn them gay if they aren't already.  What it will do is encourage them to have empathy for women instead of treating us like we're lesser beings that are alien and mysterious and impossible to understand.

 

And that's also why it's important that women begin to be included in marketing.  It might put off some people, but it will encourage others, and it will also normalize the idea of the female hero to people who aren't female.

[Darth Krytie]

It's hard to say specifically how much an event like PAX reflects its audience.  There could be factors at play that I'm not aware of.  There some biases in terms of the ability and desire to attend PAX.  It's possible that a lot of people who don't really swing by are still fans.  Maybe our games have a particular appeal to women gamers compared to other games that some women attended exclusively because of BioWare's presence (some people basically hung out the whole weekend, which was pretty cool and ultra flattering).

 

I think our ad campaign will be a bit less bombastic this time, but at the same time DAO is BioWare's best selling game I believe.  Did marketing help that?  I'm pretty clueless to say, to be honest.  Perhaps those that are interested in exploration, story, and characters are likely already going to get our game?  Maybe there are some that don't realize that they love story and characters in games?  Marketing strikes me as a lot of art (rather than science) because ultimately you don't really get to repeat your study and there's so many potential confounding variables IMO.

 

 

The PAX audience tells me, though, that there's a non-trivial amount of women gamers that love our game, and possibly the biggest most die hard fans are more likely women (which would be cool, if true).  But yeah, it's just an anecdote so some assumptions may be wrong.

 

According to Raptr, I've played DAO/2, ME 1-3 for a total of 2,156 hours. Wow. This doesn't even take into consideration KOTOR and Baldur's Gate. *hangs head* I guess that's one woman in the die-hard fan category.

 

When I was at PaxEast a few years ago, I noticed the same thing when I visited the BioWare Base. Lots of women. Lots of women in cosplay. It was great. It was comfortable. I didn't feel out of place there, so yeah..

 

I really look forward to when marketing gets better at inclusion. I think it will benefit everyone, eventually.

[Mes]

It's like I said before, there's probably some fear in the marketing department that they would lose their male fans by advertising with a female.  But until it becomes mainstream to include a female in the advertising, that will always be a risk.  Why is it not okay for a boy or man to be a fan of a female character when she shows all of the same virtues (or lack thereof) of her male counterparts?  Why is it automatically too girly for a boy to read a book written by a woman, or written about a girl?

 

 

On point, as always.

 

It might be a risk but I think it's a necessary one, in the name of social progress for goodness sake... and how cool would it be for Bioware to be a part of it.

 

For DAI specifically, I think most people who will buy the game outright are those who are already fans. So male fans aren't going to view this anticipated game in any worse light if they showed a lady inquisitor in their trailers. And subsequent male buyers of the game would buy it after reading great reviews, after reading about the game play and the stories etc etc etc, all those things that consumers of games love and want.

 

So really, for this game specifically, would it be a risk at all?

[Lilaeth]

I really think it is quite sad (not to mention annoying and frustrating) that here we are in 2014, and apart from the technological content, we could be having this conversation in the 1900s.  I am in my 50s, and really thought all this sh!t would be a thing of the past by now.

 

And I've been playing games since the advent of 'Pong'! 

[GVulture]

Sad truth is that a lot of marketing companies everyone (video games and movies included) have this thing where they think that female led movies/games are going to fail so they don't want to advertise them. But guess what? Then they fail because people don't know the media existed. Equal marketing for something male or female led shouldn't be a difficult thing to ask for because ONLY THEN can you truly tell if a game or movie failed because of X because unless all things are on an equal standing you are going to get biased results.

 

"Oh, you mean this male led movie we gave a crap budget and never advertised failed? Must be because it was a crap movie."

 

"Oh, you mean this female led movie we gave a crap budget and never advertised failed? Must be because movie goers hate boobs and vajayjays. Couldn't possibly be that we set it up to fail from the beginning through our misguided budget choices."

 

 

[The dead fish]

 

I can't speak for the rest of us women, but I'd like to see a few renders of female inquisitors.  

 

I really liked reading that sentence Brass_Buckles. And I liked your post, without any sign of controversy. 

 

Now agreed with everything you said in the OP. We definitely need to see more marketing with DA:I. The female inquisitor is barely invisible, and it's a bit annoying. There are a lot of women in the Bioware's fanbase, ( more than I ever could imagine when I came to this forum ) that would be nice courtesy to aknowledge that, to begin with. It won't hurt sales in my opinion, that's the opposite... More women, more people, more fans. If gamers (regardless of their gender ) know that we can play a male or a female character in DA:I, I don't see how anyone would be frightened by the protagonist. So let's do it. 

[Bond]

I never understood playing with a woman. 

[Monica21]

I really liked reading that sentence Brass_Buckles. And I liked your post, without any sign of controversy. 

 

Now agreed with everything you said in the OP. We definitely need to see more marketing with DA:I. The female inquisitor is barely invisible, and it's a bit annoying. There are a lot of women in the Bioware's fanbase, ( more than I ever could imagine when I came to this forum ) that would be nice courtesy to aknowledge that, to begin with. It won't hurt sales in my opinion, that's the opposite... More women, more people, more fans. If gamers (regardless of their gender ) know that we can play a male or a female character in DA:I, I don't see how anyone would be frightened by the protagonist. So let's do it. 

 

It's not even that there are a lot of women in the Bioware fanbase (which there are), but there are a lot of male gamers who choose to play female characters in at least one playthrough. I'm sure they're out there, but I don't know of a single male gamer who doesn't have at least one playthrough with a female character. While I wouldn't call that demand, necessarily, I will say that there's at least some level of curiosity on the part of most gamers about the female protagonist. So, you know, let's see her.

 

That said, I love Cassandra's character kit. She looks fantastic. She's gorgeous and looks like she could totally kick your ass at the same time, proving that the two aren't mutually exclusive. And mostly I just love that she doesn't have molded boob cups for armor. I think the female Inquisitor is going to have a pretty awesome look, but I still want to see her actually marketed.

 

 

I never understood playing with a woman. 

 

.....

[The dead fish]

It's not even that there are a lot of women in the Bioware fanbase (which there are), but there are a lot of male gamers who choose to play female characters in at least one playthrough. I'm sure they're out there, but I don't know of a single male gamer who doesn't have at least one playthrough with a female character. While I wouldn't call that demand, necessarily, I will say that there's at least some level of curiosity on the part of most gamers about the female protagonist. So, you know, let's see her.

 

That said, I love Cassandra's character kit. She looks fantastic. She's gorgeous and looks like she could totally kick your ass at the same time, proving that the two aren't mutually exclusive. And mostly I just love that she doesn't have molded boob cups for armor. I think the female Inquisitor is going to have a pretty awesome look, but I still want to see her actually marketed.

 

Very true, you're right. There are a lot of male gamers who choose to play female characters;. The same for me as well. I even more played femshep than maleshep. ( but only beause she looked much better than customized male shepard ) So yeah, definitely, it won't hurt Bioware in my opinion. 

[Bond]

@Monica I meant if you are male gamer (: Because when i play a RPG i put myself in character shoes when it is time for decisions and dialogue and is strange to me to response as female.

[The dead fish]

Personally, whenever I play a female character, I do not identify with her. It's like a movie where you have to write the script and you decide what the protagonist that is not you, has to do . I give all my female characters their own personality, their sexuality, their own desires independent from me, and I imagine how they could live their own life.

 

For example, my femshep romanced Kaidan. But I'm not attracted to guys. Obviously, if I was putting myself in their shoes, all my female characters would become lesbian in every playthrough. It's not really different from watching a movie, except it's you, behind in the dark, who decides what's going to happen and what the protagonist is going to do.