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[ManchesterUnitedFan1]

'Men and women are evenly represented in most organisations, noble houses and military forces.' - The Dragon Age: Origins character creator.

 

 
A quick couple of hours in, and we see this quote does not hold true: We know that female grey wardens are unusual thanks to some dialogue, that the army fighting the darkspawn mainly contains men, that the redcliffe knights are all men, that generic templars are pretty much exclusively male, that the town guard was almost exclusively male and that even in the final battle there is barely a female soldier to be seen. 
 
(In the case of Redcliffe there is much more disturbing sexism, where all the 'weak and helpless' women are told to hide themselves in the chantry while we force all the 'brave, strong and chivalrous' men we can to 'gallantly' defend them, but this is not the thread for that particularly discussion).
 
This doesn't really sound like 'even' representation.
 
In Dragon Age 2, this got slightly better: there were specific named NPCs in both the guard and the templars who were female, including our beloved Meredith. However, once again the generic (i.e. non-named) templars and guardsmen were male.
 
You may say that 'military' organisations are the exception, but that raises another problem: if this is the case, then military jobs must therefore be very common for men to have, and as such we should be seeing mainly women doing other jobs or roles. But in this regard, with merchants or people working in a tavern or even beggars, the split IS roughly 50/50, and that just doesn't make any sense. 
 
This eventually means that there are more men than women in Dragon Age, which is a bit of an odd situation, albeit not impossible (although one would expect that such an important plot detail wouldn't have been left out for two games).
 
Now, presuming that this isn't true and females have just been neglected slightly from presentation, I am starting to worry that the same will be true in DA:I
 
While it is true that at the moment there seems to be 3 female followers and 6 male, it is unfair to talk about that, as we don't know for certain that this is the case (and in my opinion, it probably won't be). BUT the theme of men being the only generic soldiers continues to be shown, at least if this image is anything to go by:
 

 
At least, I think these are men. I may be mistaken.
 
Even in concept art, which one would think would be far easier to facilitate, soldiers are male: 
 

As Bioware have stated in the past, they tend to work on the male models first for whatever reason. And, this being an early image, I hope that means that female soldiers are being added in. However, with Mr. Gaider's stating that they are reluctant to add in two models for something in case it takes away resources they could use to do things they consider more important in the Male Desire Demon thread, I remain slightly nervous that this trend of female under-representation will continue.
 
Thanks for reading, and please do let me know what your thoughts are on the matter

[David Gaider]

That's placing a lot of weight on the one line in the character creator.

 

I don't think we ever intended the gender divide to be 50/50 among the military forces. That said, the issue is mainly one of modeling time to do extra versions of existing forces...and, happily, we do have female versions of some of the commonly-encountered models. So the split still won't be 50/50, but you will definitely see female soldiers/enemies in the mix.

[Allan Schumacher]

Why does Bioware get so much flak for this sort of thing?
" Not enough openly gay characters."
"I want my male Inquisitor to be able to where dresses because I'm Transgender."
" Why isn't the Female Inquisitor the default?"
" We need more multiracial people in the game."
Enough is enough. Yes Bioware is great at having a diverse cast and characters in this game. It's why these games have such wide appeal to so many Audiences. Its great that it happens. But really people. Stop looking at Bioware for some sort of social justice and equality. It is totally unfair to Bioware that people have thrown this mantle on them. Give them a break. Apologies for the rant.

 

I once wondered this too.  Depending on the level of aggression that can come out of a complaint, I'll still wonder why the hostility when we're trying.  Mostly because I am human and get defensive like other people.

 

I think it's also because, frankly, by providing a game that lets this stuff be validated, it's simply a consequence of there being people here that like that stuff, and perhaps even (hopefully) bring it up because there's a chance that it might be able to be discussed.  Maybe these types of conversations don't come up in some other places because it's seen as completely futile to even try.

 

 

In this sense, if you're going to get more people of a particular viewpoint that maybe isn't reflected elsewhere, they'll simply be bringing in their own opinions that maybe we're not used to seeing.  And because we're not used to seeing them, it makes us feel a bit shocked and surprised because "hey, it's getting better."

 

 

 

But that seems to be an actual legitimate flaw in humans ability of perception then anything sexists, because when you wear head obscuring and body obscuring clothing, it tends to make your body obscured and hard to identify. And because its rare to encounter a situation where its difficult to distinguish genders of individuals, most people assume, thanks to the brains memory of past experience, what would be the more likely gender identifier to use.

 

It's sexist in the fact that people assume male is the default.  It's not really conscious sexism and on the scale of "sexist thoughts and behaviours" it's probably not as explicitly bad as other forms, but I do agree it has problematic elements.  I don't think it's a coincidence that men and women (in my experience) assume that the lack of any obvious sex cues causes people to assume "man."

 

While yes, it's an issue of past experience, an interesting question to me is whether or not our societal experiences are biased in a particular way to manufacture this perspective.

[Allan Schumacher]

If it isn't conscious sexism, non-derogatory, and done simply out of human error, then it isn't sexism imo. That sounds like a ludicrous push of the concept of microagression.

 

I disagree with the notion that sexism must be conscious and derogatory.  Sexism is simply a prejudice or discrimination against a particular sex - and when one simply assumes that a default person is a man that that discriminates (even if just mildly) against women.  I also think that it's important to challenge world views because it reminds us to be cognizant of it, lest we revert back.

 

 

I think part of the issue is also that people recognize sexism as being a bad thing so much that they feel insistent to reclassify things like this because it absolves them from having a sexist perspective about a particular topic.  I'm more comfortable now acknowledging that yup, I have some sexist tendencies in how I see things.  Some are probably more innocuous than others.  For instance, I have a tendency to refer to the player character as a "he" when discussing it with fans and co-workers.  I don't consider this derogatory, and I do feel that there are more hurtful forms of sexism out there.  But since it's been brought to my attention, I make a more concerted effort to use "they" since the player character could be male or female.  And perhaps most importantly for myself, acknowledging this doesn't make me feel like I'm a bad person, or even that I'm sexist.

 

Part of the issues with the -isms is that systematic/institutionalized means of conveying knowledge can inadvertently reinforce a believe.  The New York school curriculum features only a single woman, in grades 9 and 10 history.  I do believe that stuff like this colours a student's perspective on how much influence women had in history.  Which provides some context on why many people will argue about whether or not a video game's depiction of gender/sex is "realistic."

 

 

I wouldn't fault anyone for making the mistake if they are given zero means of identifying the person identity or to see any sort of characteristics that we use to identify and distinguish each other from one another, for assuming the most common denominator in trying to understand who the person is they are talking to, and to, if necessary, know what to say when trying to communicate with them, so as not to simply address them as "Unidentifiable Entity Whose Presence I Am Now Acknowledging". Humans just do not think this way, the brain is not set up to think in unknown designations for other humans on how we naturally categorize and compartmentalize information our brains receive.

 

I don't really find fault with someone for mistakenly assuming that a particular person is a man (or a woman) based on preconceived notions based on personal and societal expectations.  I certainly wouldn't consider someone looking at someone like this person (with her helmet on) and assuming a man as a bad person at all.  But it's one thing to look at one person's perception, and another when looking at a society's aggregate perceptions, and wondering that because it is that way, must it be that way?

 

 

A lot of people (including myself) display various -isms, and get very defensive (including myself) when called out on various -isms, because most of us recognize that the various -isms are not a good thing (which in and of itself is a good thing for people to recognize).  So when speaking of human brains not behaving a certain way, the human brain is *excellent* at defending itself against cognitive dissonance.  So if a say or do something that is actually sexist, but recognize that sexism is bad and aspire to not wanting to be sexist, I will rationalize that a sexist action I performed is not because if it were, it runs contrary to my self image that I am not sexist.  Any ammunition that could challenge that notion faces heavy resistance.

 

 

Not everyone will agree with my perspective, but given that if I am wearing a full suit of clothing (almost any clothing) masking my face and body, the likelihood of anyone mistaking me for a woman is pretty low.  I know I wouldn't really appreciate being mistaken for a woman, though, so I can empathize with people that it comes up a lot with.  I do not believe that most women have that luxury, which isn't in and of itself a bad thing in isolation, when part of the greater picture it's possibly the type of thing that reinforces our tendencies to put men front and center in fiction.  So it's a part of the problem, if not the biggest part of the problem.

 

IMO anyways.  And while you may disagree, it's still useful for you to know my perspective (and I yours), so that you can get a better understanding of what I am referring to when discussing the subject matter.

[Allan Schumacher]

There was a lack of women soldiers in Dragon Age? Watch the battle of Ostagar again - many women were fighting on the front line (not just archers or priests)

 

If generic soldiers wear a helmet and standard armor (no breast slots) then how are we supposed to recognize them? 

 

Inquisition forces have an "open face" helmet style, but that doesn't help when you're seeing them from a distance or in large groups. People argued for gender neutral armor. This is the downside (or upside since it cuts model numbers in half)

 

Just as a reference, I took a peek at a video here (Evidently it's a german one haha).  And yup they are there. 

 

 

As for the gender neutral armor, I was actually thinking about that myself.  When I saw the pictures posted, I wasn't sure if it was definitively the best example because I'm not sure I can definitively state the sex of any of the people wearing the armor.  Especially in the concept art.

 

It got me thinking that a way to facilitate better representation may simply be the inclusion of women sound sets in a lot of cases.  Take someone in full plate, and have them use a woman's voice, that'd establish that it's a woman in that armor.  I wonder if stuff like that would help a lot, while still allowing us the possibility of leveraging less assets when necessary.

[Allan Schumacher]

I don't see how its sexist to assume that the human in platemail is a male when in reality and most fiction its much much more likely to be a man. If I say babysitter do you assume it is a girl?

 

 

I do assume woman when I hear babysitter.  I don't consider this ideal either, nor do I think it makes me a bad person.  Most people assume woman when they hear nurse as well.  Or man when they hear weightlifter.  Interestingly, I'm friends with a male nurse and a female power lifter.

 

 

Again, it's not as egregious as me declaring "I HATE WOMEN" (or even men), but I do consider it problematic and feel that it's not a bad thing to be aware of it going forward.  I certainly think it's an interesting thing to explore either with my own thoughts, or in discussions.

[Allan Schumacher]

I don't have a problem with it personally. Besides helping female characters to stand out from the men, plenty of historical armor designs included features that were purely cosmetic. I see it as falling into the same category of the muscled cuirass, which was worn by some ancient warriors.

 

According to Wikipedia, the muscle cuirass was likely too cumbersome and expensive for actual combat (compared to a standard cuirass), though it was depicted ceremonially and in art.  The last point is interesting, because art is one of the ways most of us are exposed to that sort of style.  We'll see the art, and if we see it enough, it begins to form our expectation for how the actual armor must have looked.  It becomes the "realistic" armor.

[Allan Schumacher]

I definitely agree. I just feel that we should fight for the future without blaming too much the devs from the past with their " lack of imagination " Now, I 'm glad that bioware said we will have a lot more generc female soldiers. 

 

I don't really consider it "blaming," mostly just observations.

[Allan Schumacher]

But, I don't think there is going to be a suddenly rush of male nurses and female lifters to change our perception. Its just the way we assume things to help us picture things better. I don't know how to picture a gender netural nurse and its easier to refer to the unseen knight as "he" instead of just saying the knight over and over untill he takes off his helm.

 

As long as we don't take these preconceptions as absolute fact its harmless.

 

But we are seeing more more male nurses.  And I have certainly noticed more female lifters.  We're also seeing more men receive custody of children, and more men teaching younger grade school children, with more women becoming post-docs, construction works, and marines.

 

 

I'm not content with it being "just the way we assume things."  Perhaps we need a general neutral pronoun for the case of the knight (I started using "they" and it's actually becoming more common, even if some grammar critics will disapprove), and some have argued that using "he" for gender neutral situations (something I was explicitly taught in school) is an example of systemic/institutional sexism because it reinforces the male default (given my education, mentally I don't know if that's the case for me, but I can certainly understand the angle that that comes from).

 

As for harmless, I actually am not sure.  Is it surprising that a girl that acts in masculine ways tends to be less noteworthy than a boy that acts in feminine ways?  If you have people actively NOT pursuing something that they want to do because of these perceptions, I don't consider that a good thing.

 

If someone really wants to be a power lifter, but just by observation concludes that it's not something that a woman does, then I don't think it's harmless.

[Allan Schumacher]

The thing is, much like the muscle curiass, I've becoming increasingly disinclined to just assume that our understanding of history is without bias itself.  How many people see a gladiator in a movie fighting with that and don't blink an eye, even though it's not actually practical to wear that?

 

I mean, people see Braveheart and assume Prima Noctis was a common thing, because hey lords could do what they want and it's fun to imagine them being all dastardly.  How much of how we think history was is the way it actually was?

 

Unfortunately it's not really verifiable and what people decided to record is all we'll have to go one.

[Allan Schumacher]

Tell it to the forensic anthropologists, baby .  Fab discovery of the week: by examining the dentine in the London Mass Plague Grave they have found promising evidence that the 1348 plague was not spread by fleas, but was one of the airborne ones.  So all that stuff about rats and filth and whatall -- still true, but not the whole story.  Female skeletons turning up in Viking warrior graves, treatises by women doctors like Abbess Hildegarde clearly based on field work; we're chipping away at the monolithic male past.  Hopefully in time we can find enough that people won't swallow the traditional view hook, line and sinker.   Perhaps we can get to something a bit more like the truth.

 

But yeah; the recorders were usually male, what they thought was important was usually male, so people looking at women's history have to be a lot more lucky, and inventive. But it's more verifiable than you think, especially with the technology we are bringing to bear.

 

Interesting and thanks for sharing.  And I'm glad to see that new angles can help us determine this sort of stuff and challenge perspectives.

 

I suppose I should clarify that I'm not aware of it being verifiable at this time.  But I know that I assumed a lot of things were true (like kilts!) simply because I saw them in media and decided "Yeah that makes sense to me" (for who knows what reason...) and didn't question it.

 

 

if my experience with games is any indication, she ether be young and idealistic and think it's all a pack of lies, or older and very jaded about the whole thing possible with a story of a run in with one of the nastier ones more likely then not as the victim but possible the relative of one likely a sister. if a brother he will have been killed if sister probably not. 

 

It'd be interesting to see the perspective of someone from the otherside, that acknowledges that they did awful things in response to the even more awful things that Fereldans did to them.  The justifications for atrocities is an interesting thing to examine, IMO.

[Allan Schumacher]

This is incredibly off topic, but if you truly desire to get into it, you can PM me.

 

Back on topic:

I think a lot of what happens is people take what's true for the nobility and apply it top down. Now, the nobility had a lot more disparity between gendered roles than the poor. Everyone worked the farm or what not when you were poor. Else, you wouldn't eat.

 

Thank you.  I removed the original full post because I saw it as a ticking bomb.  If you wish to discuss the situation further, PM is a significantly better place to discuss that.

[Allan Schumacher]

Making their biggest market second fiddle, good idea :-/

 

Given that the biggest market typically states that for them it doesn't matter how many women are in the game as long as the game is good, I'd love to do it just to see if that statement turns out to be true.

 

The only trepidation I'd have is that it'd be a huge risk if the statements weren't true, and I'd be disinclined to sacrifice the employment of a lot of people for an experiment.  I need more alternative universes.

[Allan Schumacher]

It'd be like playing a dead or alive game or harem game if it were like that, imo. XD But I'd still give it a shot, it worked for skullgirls after all.

 

Well, Dead or Alive is still pretty hypersexualized... I'm not sure if it'd really be considering the male demographic second fiddle, with content like that.

 

 

I don't get it, I just cannot wrap my head around it.  Since when is more choices in a RPG that is more inclusive to more potential gamers a bad thing?  Something simple like some extra NPCs or even (gasp!) having a lady Inquisitor as one of the potential stars of a trailer goes a long way to making others feel accepted.

 

Speaking in my own experience, I found it was because as something I didn't give much thought to, having it be brought to my attention made it noteworthy, and since it was something that I didn't think was an actual problem, it was easier for me to notice when the topic came up.  I think this biased me to overestimating how often it was actually discussed.

 

While I'm actually much more in favour of inclusion, I do find it interesting to see that the same positions I defended 14 years ago with Baldur's Gate still exist.  I was that guy saying "let the writer's do what they want to do" and "of course there's more romances for men... men are the primary market!"  I think those were mostly on the old interplay boards so I don't think I can dig them up, but they were definitely there!  I didn't really understand why those perspectives had issues of self-fulfilling prophecies.

 

As for "the cost," well again speaking from my own experience, it's mostly the "I don't have a problem with this, and I have enough understanding about economics and opportunity costs that any time spent on This Thing That I Don't Think is an Issue™ is time not spent on something that I would like to see more of."

 

Allen, I sincerely thank you for taking the time and coming to talk to us about this.  Reading your responses has been very heartening, and I've seen much of my own thoughts echoed in your posts.

 

Well thank you.

 

I'd blame my friend Rob, as well as a few others (but mostly Rob), since he was the friend that often brought up some stuff like this from time to time, and he'll vouch that I often asked him "well are you just making this a big deal because you're expecting this to be a big deal?" and other things like that.  But by virtue of being my friend, I engaged in the conversations a bit more and from time to time things would happen and I'd start to notice when I wasn't around.

 

Working on DA2 was interesting too.  When I first learned about the romances, I wasn't keen on it because I felt it took away from the characterization.  But that, and talking with a lot of people whether here or in other places, and I think just that our games (and other games) start to have more content like this, it increasingly came away as "not that big of a deal after all" coupled with the realization that other people have different life experiences and that I have to be careful to not assume that what I being discussed is being brought up as though it is someone with my own world view.  As such, the nature of their feature requests will have a different background of experiences leading up to them, and it's probably reasonable that I don't entirely relate to those perspectives since they aren't the ones I have had throughout my life.  Which doesn't invalidate them.

 

 

I still make mistakes though, and I still get defensive when called out on it.

[Allan Schumacher]

There seems to be a misunderstanding here.  Jen is referring to the post in his quote, where someone suggested that in response to the "resources" excuse, most people be female instead of male.

Read this response here, including the quoted text.

 

That's the context where Jen is making his statement from, not the OP (which happens, it's a 17 page thread and discussions evolve).

 

 

I think by having the quote after his text may have made you overlook the quote, since it seemed pretty clear to me.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 04 avril 2014 - 09:13 .
Removed quote as it's been hidden.

[Allan Schumacher]

^^ Oh, right. I was getting a little confused as well but thanks for the clarification.

 

I suppose one issue is that we don't really have any data that can tell us conclusively what percentage of Bioware customers are male versus female... Do we? We have anecdotal evidence that suggests PAX attendees are mostly women, but that's about it as far as I'm currently aware of.

 

So can anyone really make an argument that Bioware shouldn't do this or that to alienate their primary market if we don't know WHAT that market actually is?

 

Hah, well I provided that anecdote.  But it's hardly experimental and it could simply be that I noticed more women because I wasn't expecting them.  Or because many of them were dressed up and as such brought attention to themselves via their costumes.  It also excludes those that are fans but simply didn't swing by the BioWare base for very long.

 

I don't know the breakdown of the players, though telemetry for Mass Effect 3 showed that more games were created with a Male Shepard than a Female Shepard, by a nontrivial amount (3 to 1 or 4 to 1 I think).  But it's hard to definitively isolate the size of each demographic from that information since people may replay the game.  There's also biases that exist in that the default is male (this also may cause bias in terms of who picks up the game in the first place).  That said, I certainly wouldn't say that the female demographic is insignificant by any means.  It's also just looking at characters created, and there's nothing stopping a man from making a FemShep, or a woman from making a MaleShep.  Marketing and other people may have better assessment of this than I do though.

 

I know I grew up in a time where gaming was definitely marketed as "toys for boys" and I'm not far removed from my 20s, so there's still going to be some legacy there.

[Allan Schumacher]

honestly getting data from what gender you pick in game is imo misleading at best, its along the lines of those school surveys that ask you if you are doing drugs or smoking. at least 60% of the data is false either from people who don't care or are purposefully lying its just a waste of time.

 

If it's done with data telemetry, then it's actually tracking the actions people take while in game, so I don't think the survey analogy works.  (To be fair, perhaps the place where I saw that number determined it via a survey)

 

And yes, it's hardly an accurate statistic.  It accurately says "which sex was Shepard most frequently chosen" which doesn't give me any confidence on the person that is making the selection.

 

 

In any case people, it's been a slice.  Have a good night

[Allan Schumacher]

Not trolling. I hope that post didn't come across as advocating sexism and homophobia as viewpoints because I don't support them.   Though I'll defend to the death your right to hold them.

 

No, I just think it would add to the DA world to have more injustice floating around. Opposition and conflict are what make Bioware games and while it's true we have plenty of physical conflict with Darkspawn and dragons, I wouldn't mind some more idealogical conflict. Isn't fighting against opposition our reason for playing? Ridding Thedas of the Blight or trying to bring peace to Kirkwall. Bigoted characters are realistic and add further types of opposition to the game world.

 

The biggest concern I have is that when people say this, they typically only mean a specific type of injustice.

 

For instance, almost any thread that says they want more mature themes tends to ask for the same things: various isms, rape, torture, and so forth.  I once put forth that I think it'd be interesting if there was a situation where a male character undergoes the threat of rape (or even actual rape) in a particular situation, by an explicitly gay aggressor.  As such, if the character was a woman the situation would be avoided.

 

Not many were keen on it though, as they felt it'd just be obvious trope reversal and would seem forced.  It wasn't satisfying what they were claiming to want (depictions of rape), even though it seemed to hit on the various points that they put forth as far as I was concerned.

[Allan Schumacher]

There is where philosophies of playing video games differs. I know myself and others don't use video games to escape real world problems, as such a dependency can form a emotional instability and near psychological addiction to those outlets for relief. I can certainly understand the temptation to do so, but I feel its good to have a barrier of separation, at least emotionally, from what goes on in the game world and what you feel in the real world. The two can meet and intersect, but its not healthy for them to intersect to the point where one mentally associates a character as a surrogate fo themselves, and that what is done to one is meant as a direct action against the other.

 

As touched on by an earlier poster, an advantage of a fantasy world is we can explore the themes using fantasy races, rather than closer to real world analogues, as it separates some of the potentially volatile elements.

 

Sometimes we deal with similar elements that don't really have a real world analogue (mages, for example), and also elements that are a bit more comparable (elves IMO).  I'm sure some still find it uncomfortable, but hopefully the separation helps a bit because I do think that games can be a medium to explore these types of themes in a meaningful and interesting way.

[Allan Schumacher]

Hmmm. What exactly were they asking for? A graphic depiction of rape?

 

I ask only because both the DA and Mass Effect series have alluded to rape. In Mass Effect Jack was the victim of it, and there is also a male prisoner where you first recruit Jack who implies it happened to him. In one of the comics a couple Batarians also try to rape Liara. Jacob's loyalty mission also contains numerous references to it. In the DA series Leliana is a rape victim, and in DA:O it is implied that is what Vaughn was up to when he abducts elven women during the City Elf origin.

 

There was no lack of mention of it in either series, so I'm not sure exactly what those fans would be complaining about. 

 

In any case I'm glad there were no graphic depictions of it, nor is it necessary.

 

No, not that it's graphic.  Just the fairly standard "I want to see more elements that make me uncomfortable" types of posts.  These threads invariably come up all the time (across more than just BioWare games), and tends to be pretty consistent in what they want.

 

I just tried chiming into the thread with my example and there was some (not all) resistance to it because it didn't fit particular assumptions over whom is being oppressed and whom is being victimized.  Often it's still framed as "I want to overcome my oppressors" but I think there's still perspective concerns that aren't fully appreciated.  In that it tends to come across as "I don't typically suffer from this, but I want to put my character in a position where they suffer from this within the confines of how I imagine this suffering plays out, and the potential responses my character can make to get retribution."  It's often framed under the idea of being mature, although I find it's "mature" in the sense that "A mature person can understand what is happening is fantasy" as opposed to "this is a mature examination of the actions that are occurring."

[David Gaider]

This thread is getting waaaay off topic. If there's nothing to discuss about the original subject, it'll be closed down.

[Allan Schumacher]

Closing.