Support NeoGAF

[Galactic Fork]

Mmmkay. Sorry you took it that way but I didn't mean to say that the article wasn't valuable. I wouldn't take the time to discuss an article I thought wasn't valuable.

All I said was I would have spun it differently. That's all. If I worked at FF and was responsible for publishing this data, I would have gone with a different headline.

Personally I don't see why that merits accusing me of devaluing it and contributing to the shittening of the industry. Once again you seem to have a very black and white view of things. Corporations need to be constantly harangued about what they're doing wrong, but the outlets who do the watch-dogging are apparently beyond reproach.

The headline by FF was actually "Gender Breakdown of Games Showcased at E3 2016." The headline quoted by the OP is from the Verge.

 

[ClayKavalier]

The headline by FF was actually "Gender Breakdown of Games Showcased at E3 2016." The headline quoted by the OP is from the Verge.

Haha! Wish someone would have pointed that out earlier. I skimmed through the Verge link and actually did click through to the original FF post but saw that it was just reporting on the same graph I'd already seen and didn't pay much attention to it.

Well, I guess my minor beef is now with the Verge.

 

[A Link to the Past]

Mmmkay. Sorry you took it that way but I didn't mean to say that the article wasn't valuable. I wouldn't take the time to discuss an article I thought wasn't valuable.

All I said was I would have spun it differently. That's all. If I worked at FF and was responsible for publishing this data, I would have gone with a different headline.

Personally I don't see why that merits accusing me of devaluing it and contributing to the shittening of the industry. Once again you seem to have a very black and white view of things. Corporations need to be constantly harangued about what they're doing wrong, but the outlets who do the watch-dogging are apparently beyond reproach.

Not a soul claimed that it was "beyond reproach." That's a silly conclusion to come to. People are telling you that the complaint you have with the article makes no sense because it is not something that most people would do, regardless of industry. You're essentially asking the article to do something unusual. If it happens, neat. But if it doesn't happen, well, too bad eh

 

[ClayKavalier]

Not a soul claimed that it was "beyond reproach." That's a silly conclusion to come to. People are telling you that the complaint you have with the article makes no sense because it is not something that most people would do, regardless of industry. You're essentially asking the article to do something unusual. If it happens, neat. But if it doesn't happen, well, too bad eh

People? You're basically the only one reacting to my posts.

I made a minor suggestion that's lead to a pretty lengthy conversation. If this is the response from suggesting a tonal shift (you claiming I'm "damaging the credibility" of an entire industry) it definitely seems to me they're beyond reproach. What sort of critique is acceptable if simply saying "I would have presented this data slightly differently" leads to this reaction? At no point did I disagree with the actual content of the article, or say that it shouldn't have been published, or say that the subject wasn't important, or really anything else negative. Just said I would have framed the observation differently. And by doing that I'm "devaluing the article." So what exactly could I say I would change about this article that wouldn't lead to you leveling those claims? Font choice? The color scheme of the graphs? Hard to imagine any comment about the actual content more harmless than "I wouldn't change the body of this article and I think the subject is important but the tone could have been changed."

Anyway, I've already said a few times that I don't see what either of us is getting out of this discussion, but then I keep posting.

 

[Vancouver]

Haven't read every page of the thread, so not sure if it has been mentioned yet.

Has there ever been a prominent and/or playable transgender character in a video game? I'm drawing a blank here. Something I thought of as an aside while i was reading through the data.

As for Anita Sarkeesian, while I do find her grating at times, I do admire the work that she does. (as a fellow Canadian) Although she grew up in Toronto and I'm from Vancouver, but I won't hold that against her. =)

 

[Galactic Fork]

People? You're basically the only one reacting to my posts.

I made a minor suggestion that's lead to a pretty lengthy conversation. If this is the response from suggesting a tonal shift (you claiming I'm "damaging the credibility" of an entire industry) it definitely seems to me they're beyond reproach. What sort of critique is acceptable if simply saying "I would have presented this data slightly differently" leads to this reaction? At no point did I disagree with the actual content of the article, or say that it shouldn't have been published, or say that the subject wasn't important, or really anything else negative. Just said I would have framed the observation differently. And by doing that I'm "devaluing the article." So what exactly could I say I would change about this article that wouldn't lead to you leveling those claims? Font choice? The color scheme of the graphs? Hard to imagine any comment about the actual content more harmless than "I wouldn't change the body of this article and I think the subject is important but the tone could have been changed."

Anyway, I've already said a few times that I don't see what either of us is getting out of this discussion, but then I keep posting.

It really depends on what the article intends to convey. Focusing on the fact only 2 games that have a female protagonist isn't done simply to ignore the games that allow both. The article isn't about the number of women you get to play as in these games. Or that wow, the industry lets you play as a woman half the time. It's about how only 2 games focused entirely on a female protagonist and what that means compared to the 24 that focused entirely on a male protagonist.

To put it another way. You can play as a male character in 90% of these games. If you want, you can play as a man 90% of the time, and you are virtually never required to play as a woman. Where you are often required to play as a man (40%). To quote the FF article:

We live in a culture that regularly encourages girls and women to project themselves onto and fully empathize with male characters, but rarely encourages boys and men to fully project themselves onto female characters. When players are encouraged to see a game universe exclusively through the eyes of a humanized female character, it helps challenge the idea that men can’t or shouldn’t identify with women as full human beings.

And also, many of the games that let you choose do so in an avatar creation way, rather than having you play a character.

There is literally no way you can focus on "yay you get to choose half the time" and this issue at the same time.

 

[Weltall Zero]

Now now, I just got back from a three-day ban for hurling an obviously not ok insult at someone in this very thread.

iknowthatfeel.jpg. In this thread very thread, I kept typing and deleting "fuck you" in response to the guy who basically said gluten intolerance was a made-up thing; my significant other has been gluten-intolerant since birth and since back then it wasn't as widely know, she was hospitalized for long periods as a baby until they diagnosed her.

I'd say 'patience of a saint' might maybe be a tiny bit overstated. >w>As you wish. Put a few of these points together. I think the only thing not worked in yet somehow is the 'can't relate' one;

Absolutely perfect. I'm going to get a lot of use out of that.

It also underscores what an incredible job the games industry has done in creating soldiers out of their consumers who irrationally defend the status quo and publishers from criticism, thereby ensuring that power hierarchies remain stable.

Completely true. Since the game communities I frequent are overwhelmingly American, and conversely I rarely interact with Americans outside of that, up until now I had mostly chalked that out to America's strong pro-capitalism bias, but I'm starting to think the games industry is a particularly consumer-defended one even then.

People? You're basically the only one reacting to my posts.

Only because I was at work. You're not bad and you're one of the few offering a counterpoint that doesn't simply drop wisdom nuggets like the ones in the bingo, but I still can't agree with any part of that "look how far we've gone" at all. If anything, the industry seems to be regressing more and more, especially compared to the zeitgeist at each time. By which I mean, current society and media is infinitely more socially conscious and minority-respectful than it was during the 80's, yet you have to squint to see the differences between both times in the games industry. Again, arguably we've regressed. Think, say, of Cauldron, one of my favorite games back then.

It might not look like much now visually, obviously, but back before the NES this was as close as it got to an AAA game. The main character is an old, stereotypical witch; imagine that in a modern mainstream game! Virtually inconceivable.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Amazing!

 

[kamineko]

Now now, I just got back from a three-day ban for hurling an obviously not ok insult at someone in this very thread. I'd say 'patience of a saint' might maybe be a tiny bit overstated. >w>As you wish. Put a few of these points together. I think the only thing not worked in yet somehow is the 'can't relate' one;

Ah; you were simply pointing out things being put in the wrong category by the poster you were quoting. My apologies.

This is great. Jar-Jar really sets it off

 

[HokieJoe]

It's not because one of the main points is that in Andromeda, men still have an option of being men. This is not a problem, but it does not count for the sake of this discussion because it's focusing on how much more often games only offer a man as an option vs. games that only offer a woman as an option.



But they don't. The variance between male and female gamers is like, eight percent, at best.

What's the percentage variance for fps/shooters, racing games, sports games, RTS?

 

[Weltall Zero]

What's the percentage variance for fps/shooters, racing games, sports games, RTS?

I don't know, why don't you tell us?

 

[Llyrwenne]

Honest question.

How many games with starting males are actually "written characters" that couldn't be replaced with a woman?
I feel like most of the characters, even if you can't choose their gender, are avatars that could easily be swapped for the other gender (include race and sexuality here as well) since they don't tell "a man's story".

I'm quoting someone from the first page (sorry I just copy pasted)

This is what I mean. I guess Metroid is not a "woman's" story then? (only played till Prime)
If Samus was a man the narrative would've stayed the same, right?

I don't feel Horizon is telling a "woman's" story either. But a "hero/avatar/our" story.

And please don't get me wrong, I understand what you mean but I thought this was worth posting.

I’m not entirely sure on what you mean? Do you mean to imply that any written character can just be gender-swapped without any changes in writing and it would have no effect on the story? If so, I’d say that that is wrong on multiple levels. Let’s pick five male playable characters from recent games;

( left to right: Chris from Until Dawn, Joel from The Last of Us, Michael from Grand Theft Auto V, Nathan Drake from Uncharted, Booker DeWitt from Bioshock Infinite )

Change their gender and you change how their actions and relationships in their stories are perceived by the audience. This goes for pretty much any other character too.

This is different from what we see in most games with a gender toggle, where one mostly neutral / genderless character is written and then male or female skins are applied to them. Most of those games do not have the character actually influencing the story. The player character in Fallout 4 for example does not exhibit any real character traits that influence the story; the story is shaped by player action / player choice, not by the character itself. These ‘characters’ have no real agency; they are shaped and guided by the player. Written characters are not. Written characters are observed and perceived by the player, not shaped by them. This is why we can have a discussion on the morality of Joel’s actions at the end of The Last of Us but not about the morality of the player character nuking a town in Fallout. Joel is a character that made certain decision that lead to that final action while the fallout player character is completely controlled by the player that could have made any decision for any reason.

I’d also like to discuss your use of ‘man’s story’ and ‘woman’s story’ a bit; you seem to interpret them as stories that need to specifically deal with the gender of the player character in a big way through major themes incorporated in the main story. I would disagree with that. Any story where you play exclusively as a male character is ‘a man’s story’ just as any game where you play exclusively as a female character is ‘a woman’s story’. Those are the lenses that you perceive the story through. Metroid is ‘a woman’s story’ because it stars Samus. That her gender is not a major - or even minor - plot element in most of the stories ( *shoots nasty glare at Other M in the corner* ) does not make her story ‘not a woman’s story’.

Specifically on Horizon: Zero Dawn; I don’t really see how you can think of Horizon as an ‘our’ / ‘avatar’ story at this point. From what we have seen so far, Aloy is very much her own character with her own motivation. She is a character with agency. She decides that she wants answers. She decides to leave her tribe.

I don't think there's been enough games with minority leads to produce anything statistically significant, sadly. We could go back and forth all day with anecdotes. I'd be willing to bet that some EA executives are looking Mirror's Edge sales and partially blaming it on the main character and non-violent gameplay even though you could make the same case that it wasn't marketed.

But you're right, any remark about potential sales is conjecture. We do have plenty of data on past sales however, which is what executives at publishers use to make business decisions, and the best selling games tend to violent and male-led. Change "risk" to "perceived risk" if it feels more accurate, but the reality is that if publishers thought there was a massive audience for something like a motherhood story, it'd be made.

This is exactly why I will keep pointing this out to people though. There are no current statistics supporting this assumption and there have simply not been enough big new games starring female characters in the last few years to draw any sort of conclusion on our own. The big publishers seem to be stuck in a loop of male executives, male focus testers and pulling in more males. Therefore the ‘the market doesn’t want it’ / ‘developers would be taking a great risk’ at this point is almost entirely based on assumption and thus not a valid counterpoint in this discussion until we get detailed and recent statistics supporting it.

I used That Dragon Cancer as an example because it's story can be related to by a much larger portion of the population than any given gender or ethnicity and it still struggled to find an audience. Presumably something that spoke directly to women would appeal to fewer people. Also IIRC it was actually covered quite a bit in mainstream press for a game, especially an indie game. I'm pretty sure I remember reading about it in the New York Times and New Yorker, which is impressive for a game with such a small team. I don't see what the fact that it was initially an Ouya exclusive has to do with anything. But like I said, picking apart each other's anecdotes is a waste of time.

I very much disagree with your assessment of That Dragon Cancer’s reach / accessibility due to the points I already listed and I still fail to see the relevance of this specific game to the overall discussion. I doubt being mentioned in a newspaper contributes any meaningful amount to sales for that specific type of game. So yes, I agree that picking this example further apart is not a productive line of discussion.

When I mentioned "themes" it was in response to you using "fatherhood and father-like relations (The Walking Dead, The Last of Us, God of War, Bioshock Infinite ), relationships from a male player perspective ( Uncharted, Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor ), ‘bromances’ ( Gears of War, Call of Duty, FFXV ) and similar things" as examples. Seems like more than motherhood to me. Maybe I misunderstand.

Then there might be some miscommunication here then. I listed games that have been made / are being made with those themes that were received positively. You said those themes ‘are sadly not financially viable’, but all of the games I listed did well / great sales-wise ( FFXV and God of War not yet out of course, but they have been positively received by the press ). Why can similar themes not be explored with a female main character? Why would that make it less viable? This loops back into the unproven ‘the market doesn’t want it’.

 

[Spyware]

I’m not entirely sure on what you mean? Do you mean to imply that any written character can just be gender-swapped without any changes in writing and it would have no effect on the story? If so, I’d say that that is wrong on multiple levels.
[Awesome big post]

Thank you for this great explanation. This is pretty much the post I've been trying to construct for days and simply couldn't nail. Awesome post.