Assassin's Creed: Unity (for men only!)

[Blarghagh]

How about Uncharted? I think that series comes closer to being Tomb Raider with a male protagonist.

 

I've never played Assassin's Creed, how important is the identity and personality of the lead? Assassin's Creed doesn't look like it is all about customization. How story and theme based is it? I think that is the key factor.

[Elerond]

How about Uncharted? I think that series comes closer to being Tomb Raider with a male protagonist.

 

I've never played Assassin's Creed, how important is the identity and personality of the lead? Assassin's Creed doesn't look like it is all about customization. How story and theme based is it? I think that is the key factor.

 

Uncharted is Sony's franchise only that is only sold for their platform and they market it lot with their platforms and they bundle it heavily to their services so it difficult to say how well it would excel in more typical gaming market, but with Sony's marketing strategy series three first installments are sold about 18 million copies, which about six million by Uncharted 3, which is quite well for one platform, but series is critically heavily praised, but Last of Us from same studio and similarly Sony platform only tittle, but being new franchise with female co-lead is already sold over 6 million copies.

Edited June 14, 2014 by Elerond

[Calax]

Biggest thing about last of us was that it's characters were FANTASTICALLY well written. And AC actually has a pretty good history of writing good female characters (specifically Ezio's family and Caterina Sforza and some of the black flag characters). It's just none of them were playable in previous iterations and nobody batted an eye.

 

In fact Brotherhood got a bit of praise for having Caterina Sforza be so good. 

 

And if we're playing numbers, I guess we could pit Last of Us or Uncharted against Wet...

[Sarex]

Bayonetta has good sales numbers, people should follow their lead.

[Elerond]

Biggest thing about last of us was that it's characters were FANTASTICALLY well written. And AC actually has a pretty good history of writing good female characters (specifically Ezio's family and Caterina Sforza and some of the black flag characters). It's just none of them were playable in previous iterations and nobody batted an eye.

 

In fact Brotherhood got a bit of praise for having Caterina Sforza be so good. 

 

And if we're playing numbers, I guess we could pit Last of Us or Uncharted against Wet...

 

WET (about million) should compared to other Bethesda's tittles like, Call of Cthulhu (best I can find is about 10k).  

[Meshugger]

 

 

 

 

I'm waiting for the day when they put a male lead in Tomb Raider. Same with the Syberia games. We men should be able to play as a man and it's discrimination not to include a male avatar. 

 

I think the point is that as the number of players/playable characters increases, the omission becomes more noticeable and jarring. In single-protagonist titles it's all rather arbitrary, but with four-player co-op such as in the new AC game, variety becomes more appreciated. By the time you get to larger scale multiplayer games like Unreal Tourney it's an expected feature, and attempting anything else in an MMO would be a ludicrous concept.

 

Females make up 48% of the user base. 

 

Ubisoft continuing to unapologetically chase the old demographic is incredibly insulting.

 

 

How much % of the market are:

 

- Christian?

- Any other religious following?

- Asian?

- Indian?

- Communists?

- Poor?

- Slaves?

 

Should they be less or more insulted by Ubisoft? Is Ubisoft morally obliged to cater any need of any insulted group, or do they have to rank them accordingly in a made up importancy-scale so that some are more equal than others? 

 

I wouldn't find this debacle irritating as much if it wasn't for this weak, not-really-angry-just-more-fake-dissapointed-attitude among these journalists. They do not really fight, they do not have their jobs and livelyhoods threathened because of what they do, they are not doing mass protests or boycotts, nothing is at stake. Just some mean and catty comments that they want something. It's this manifestation of weakness that i really find abhorrent. 

 

Ubisoft decision not carter big part of their customer base opens them up for critic from said part of their base and supporters. As customers have always right to ask that company also caters them and when we speak about big companies and customer base size of tens of millions, then it is quite natural that there is lots of critic when company decides not to cater people that consist about half of their customer base, especially if you are idiot in way you inform people about your decision not to cater them.

 

 

We are not talking about the same thing here: I am talking about social justice journalists, you are talking about a potential customers for a product. Your point could be the same about customers being upset that there aren't Coca Cola-bewerages with a Pear taste because millions of potential customers might buy it because it might cater their needs since Pear eaters also like Coca-Cola. 

 

You do not happen to be a corporate lawyer, are you? 

[Elerond]

 

 

 

 

 

I'm waiting for the day when they put a male lead in Tomb Raider. Same with the Syberia games. We men should be able to play as a man and it's discrimination not to include a male avatar. 

 

I think the point is that as the number of players/playable characters increases, the omission becomes more noticeable and jarring. In single-protagonist titles it's all rather arbitrary, but with four-player co-op such as in the new AC game, variety becomes more appreciated. By the time you get to larger scale multiplayer games like Unreal Tourney it's an expected feature, and attempting anything else in an MMO would be a ludicrous concept.

 

Females make up 48% of the user base. 

 

Ubisoft continuing to unapologetically chase the old demographic is incredibly insulting.

 

 

How much % of the market are:

 

- Christian?

- Any other religious following?

- Asian?

- Indian?

- Communists?

- Poor?

- Slaves?

 

Should they be less or more insulted by Ubisoft? Is Ubisoft morally obliged to cater any need of any insulted group, or do they have to rank them accordingly in a made up importancy-scale so that some are more equal than others? 

 

I wouldn't find this debacle irritating as much if it wasn't for this weak, not-really-angry-just-more-fake-dissapointed-attitude among these journalists. They do not really fight, they do not have their jobs and livelyhoods threathened because of what they do, they are not doing mass protests or boycotts, nothing is at stake. Just some mean and catty comments that they want something. It's this manifestation of weakness that i really find abhorrent. 

 

Ubisoft decision not carter big part of their customer base opens them up for critic from said part of their base and supporters. As customers have always right to ask that company also caters them and when we speak about big companies and customer base size of tens of millions, then it is quite natural that there is lots of critic when company decides not to cater people that consist about half of their customer base, especially if you are idiot in way you inform people about your decision not to cater them.

 

 

We are not talking about the same thing here: I am talking about social justice journalists, you are talking about a potential customers for a product. Your point could be the same about customers being upset that there aren't Coca Cola-bewerages with a Pear taste because millions of potential customers might buy it because it might cater their needs since Pear eaters also like Coca-Cola. 

 

You do not happen to be a corporate lawyer, are you? 

 

 

I am not corporate or any kind ow lawyer. But if company don't cater millions of people in their customer base you can be quite sure that there will be journalist that cater them, because other company's angry customer are best kind customers for journalistic publications as they will read and share their articles much higher intensity than satisfied customers. 

 

And I don't speak potential customers, but actual Ubisoft's customers that have bought their previous games and have asked/hoped/etc. that Ubisoft would cater them better in next installment of the series they like/play/something.

 

PS. And Coca-Cola tries to cater pear lovers with producing pear flavored beverages using their other franchises such Fanta.

[Meshugger]

But the Pear Eaters do not cry out in the name of justice.

[Meshugger]

Does the user base of AC actually consist of millions of girls? I hardly know any girl owns a PC or a console.

 

Signs of the times, i guess.

[Elerond]

Does the user base of AC actually consist of millions of girls? I hardly know any girl owns a PC or a console.

 

Signs of the times, i guess.

I know tons of girls that own both  for gaming and some that are also professional gamers, but one should never assume that people they know are any accurate representation of any sort of big demographic. It is one major mistake that many engineers do when they design new devices and thing that people are warned time and time again in universities and other schools not to do.

 

Only real number that I know is used publicly about gaming demographics is ESA yearly study, and their this years number tell us that their study shows that 48% (and that average gamer is 31 years old so we should use terms men and women instead of boys and girls when we speak about average gamers of franchise that consist mainly tittles with 18+ age limit) of all gamer are women. Addition to that Assassin Creed franchise has sold over 73 million copies, which goes for ACIII over 12 million copies, so I would say it is quite unlikely that there isn't at least three million women (which would justify using term millions of women) that have played at least one of the Assassins Creed games.

[Blarghagh]

Does the user base of AC actually consist of millions of girls? I hardly know any girl owns a PC or a console.

 

Signs of the times, i guess.

 

Like Elerond says, personal experience doesn't very often translate to statistical truth.

 

Personally, I know more women gamers than men. Which bodes well for the future of gaming, since a large portion of those are game design students. On the other hand, some of them aren't, including my girlfriend (playing Diablo on her laptop next to me as we speak), my sister-in-law (who routinely wins money in DotA 2 tournaments) and my mother (who has been playing games since before I was born).

[Malcador]

Not too sure a female protagonist is catering or a big deal for most women who play. Women have played games in the past using characters that weren't women and had fun, after all. Laughable that this is a justice issue, heh.

[Meshugger]

True, but most of the time in the western world, certain cultural expressions seems to universal to a certain degree. Like music, style and such. But like Elerond said, it does not matter. As long as you treat it as a demographic consumer-issue, and not a social justice one, i do not mind. 

[Blarghagh]

Judging from what people tell me (like I said before, I haven't played Assassins Creed so that's all I have to go on), I don't understand why it would bother people in this game since you play a specific character. It's like saying "Ripley is a woman in Aliens? Well, I want my own version of the movie where Ripley is a man!" even though it destroys the characterisation and theming.

 

On the other hand, I clearly remember a few years ago when my girlfriend and another female friend both refused to play the original Fable because you could not play a female character. What's the point of "BE the hero!" if you can't even be your own gender? Power fantasies sorta fall flat if you can't identify with them.

 

That's generally my rule of thumb now when it comes to whether a game should have both genders as an option. The Last Of Us, at it's thematic core, is the story of Joel and his unresolved fatherhood issues. It's the story of a character. Same for the latest Tomb Raider, it is Lara Croft's story (though I felt it was badly done). Again, the story of a specific character. However, your sandbox games, power fantasies where you're supposed to live an adventure through your customized character, etc. are simply failures by default if they don't allow both genders.

[Elerond]

Judging from what people tell me (like I said before, I haven't played Assassins Creed so that's all I have to go on), I don't understand why it would bother people in this game since you play a specific character. It's like saying "Ripley is a woman in Aliens? Well, I want my own version of the movie where Ripley is a man!" even though it destroys the characterisation and theming.

 

On the other hand, I clearly remember a few years ago when my girlfriend and another female friend both refused to play the original Fable because you could not play a female character. What's the point of "BE the hero!" if you can't even be your own gender? Power fantasies sorta fall flat if you can't identify with them.

 

That's generally my rule of thumb now when it comes to whether a game should have both genders as an option. The Last Of Us, at it's thematic core, is the story of Joel and his unresolved fatherhood issues. It's the story of a character. Same for the latest Tomb Raider, it is Lara Croft's story (though I felt it was badly done). Again, the story of a specific character. However, your sandbox games, power fantasies where you're supposed to live an adventure through your customized character, etc. are simply failures by default if they don't allow both genders.

 

If Ubisoft had said from start that there isn't female character option as you always play male protagonist, they would have gotten much less **** that they got now when they claimed first that they planed female option for protagonist but decided against it as it was too much work, and after that go with claim that their male protagonist which everybody plays even in coop is so integral part their story that they could not offer female protagonist option. I am not surprised that people find Ubisoft's claims to be bit hollow sounding. 

 

I don't know what they have planned story to be in ACU, but if it is any bit like what their stories have in previous installments, I would say that going with Mass Effect road where story is about protagonist whose gender don't play role in main story arc, would have been valid option, especially when you consider that fact that they change their protagonist time and time again references to previous protagonist are quite approximated, that it would actually matter in next game that was protagonist from last game male or female.

 

So Assassin's Creed's aren't similar to Tomb Raiders, Witchers, Batmans etc. games where you always know who the main protagonist is from game to game, but instead they change protagonist to new one when they decide that story of one protagonist story has come to end. For example in Assassin's Creed main series three previous games AC:Revelations, AC3, AC4 and now AC:Unity all have different protagonist.

[Bryy]

My friend seems to think this is all orchestrated BS and that Ubi at the last second will say they caved and "reveal" a female playable. I'm skeptical because if they were going to do that I doubt they would have been so moronic in their replies.

[Blarghagh]

Yeah, the problem is that Ubisoft's representatives were just complete idiots and they made this situation much worse for themselves. That former Ubisoft animator works for Naughty Dog, they have some of the highest animation standards outside of film, so I don't doubt his statement either. So Ubisoft pretty much brought this on themselves by being dishonest.

[MacMichael]

I think I agree that it's Ubisoft's comments that have set off the outrage more than the lack of a female option in co-op itself.  And maybe a little bit of a perception issue for those of us who haven't been following it too closely.  I just started playing AC3 for the first time yesterday, hoping to pick up AC4 during the upcoming Steam sales, so it got me looking at what's going on with the Unity co-op stuff.

 

First thing that came to mind was that since multiplayer was introduced to AC, there have been playable female characters.  And they all needed character models, animations and voice work.  Then I saw that the multiplayer was co-op and similar to Watch Dogs.  So a kind of drop-in/drop-out style in which you never leave the main character.  So you're always playing as Pierce/Arno, but so is everyone else, you just see them differently, as generic random civilian/generic assassin.  I can understand not having options for how you're displayed to other players in that case.  There's a cynical part of me that thinks that if the generic assassin was fixed as female, that there would be some people complaining about that too, and that some of them would be the same ones saying the way it is now is fine, but maybe that's too cynical.  Anyway, I can understand not having options for your display since you're a fixed character, except that Ubisoft seems to have said that your assassin will be customizable.  They said they were planning on putting a female option but ran out of time.  If it's a fixed character, and being that character all the time is important, then how were they planning a female character to play?

 

Now since I'm playing AC3 currently, something else came to mind.  They said they ran out of time, that they were planning this option, but couldn't get it done.  Yet in AC3, they managed to not only get playable female multiplayer characters done and in game, but they also managed to get four, so far, playable characters into the main story(Kenway, Boy Connor, Teenage Conner, Adult Conner).  Four character models and at least one set of clothing for each of them.  Which tells me, though I could be interpreting this wrong, that they really could have gotten a female character option into Unity if they had put any level of priority on it above "eh, it'd be nice if".

 

And while for some people it's a SJ issue, it's not just about letting women play as women.  There are plenty of men that prefer playing as a female character when given the chance, and women that prefer playing as men.  It's about letting people choose how they're represented in the online environment.  The more online and interconnected a game, the less justifiable limited options are.  I don't think you'll ever find an MMO that forces you to only be a male who wears a hood, where you're only options are what color hood you're wearing.  But when given a single player story that's based around a specific character, being a single sex and having limited customization options make more sense, because it's not about you, but about that character.  With co-op and other multiplayer being somewhere between the two, the more people you include in your game, the less it becomes about that one single character and the more it becomes about the group of players.

[Bryy]

I also think it's important to remember just how stupid a phrase Social Justice is. 

 

Or rather, how stupid it is that we've turned it into a negative.

[Malcador]

Yeah, the problem is that Ubisoft's representatives were just complete idiots and they made this situation much worse for themselves. That former Ubisoft animator works for Naughty Dog, they have some of the highest animation standards outside of film, so I don't doubt his statement either. So Ubisoft pretty much brought this on themselves by being dishonest.

Animation, sure. But for everything else with related to project management and their cycle with an eye to their timelines, eh, not sure he's an authority on that (that and him not being motivated by an agenda).

 

Hmm...maybe they should sell the female model as DLC.

 

I also think it's important to remember just how stupid a phrase Social Justice is.

 

Or rather, how stupid it is that we've turned it into a negative.

Not really, is rather fitting in most cases when it's people outraged over little things and online (and in that setting it's a joke).

Edited June 14, 2014 by Malcador

[licketysplit]

My friend seems to think this is all orchestrated BS and that Ubi at the last second will say they caved and "reveal" a female playable. I'm skeptical because if they were going to do that I doubt they would have been so moronic in their replies.

I agree with you and not your friend. The epic level of stupidity in their excuse pretty much excludes any chance of a female assassin. Which is fine, I don't care. I just love seeing these corporate dimwits say stupid ****.

[Blarghagh]

 

Yeah, the problem is that Ubisoft's representatives were just complete idiots and they made this situation much worse for themselves. That former Ubisoft animator works for Naughty Dog, they have some of the highest animation standards outside of film, so I don't doubt his statement either. So Ubisoft pretty much brought this on themselves by being dishonest.

Animation, sure. But for everything else with related to project management and their cycle with an eye to their timelines, eh, not sure he's an authority on that (that and him not being motivated by an agenda).

 

 

Perhaps not, but as far as I remember, the representative said that they started making female avatars, but they stopped because it would take 8000 extra animations. That what it said in the OP article, anyway. The main problem was the animation, but that doesn't make sense. Male and female MoCap isn't all that different. Since the male MoCap was cleaned and optimized anyway, all they would really need to do is to alter their male rig for female character models and boom, all your MoCap works for female characters with some minor tweaking.

[Malcador]

I just laugh a bit when I hear someone saying doing X needs minor work or can be done quick. Client experience I guess.

[Bryy]

 I just love seeing these corporate dimwits say stupid ****.

 

That's extremely cynical.

[BruceVC]

Not too sure a female protagonist is catering or a big deal for most women who play. Women have played games in the past using characters that weren't women and had fun, after all. Laughable that this is a justice issue, heh.

 

But female gamers didn't have a choice so I don't see the relevance of your post to the modern campaign of gender equality in games?

 

True, but most of the time in the western world, certain cultural expressions seems to universal to a certain degree. Like music, style and such. But like Elerond said, it does not matter. As long as you treat it as a demographic consumer-issue, and not a social justice one, i do not mind. 

 

Actually I would argue this should be a social justice consideration, not an issue. More discussion and awareness gets raised this way