Journalism and bias in the gaming industry

[Blarghagh]

Eh, there's so many games starring just men that I don't mind games starring just women. Beyond Good & Evil is still better than most games they put out these days.

[Bartimaeus]

Eh, there's so many games starring just men that I don't mind games starring just women. Beyond Good & Evil is still better than most games they put out these days.

 

There's absolutely nothing wrong with having just a female protagonist: there is, on the other hand, perhaps something wrong with finding it necessary to complain that there's something wrong with a game if the devs include both options. Personally, I generally prefer female leads, and would be happy to see more...but I'm not going to go around complaining about the games that are kind enough to include the option for both preferences.

 

(edit): I wish there was like a five minute grace period for editing where it doesn't say you edited. Why do I have to write my posts so horribly the first time and not check before actually posting?

 

(edit): See, I even had to edit my edit for full clarity! Argh!

Edited June 15, 2015 by Bartimaeus

[Nonek]

Male, female, personally i'd be happy for a simple well made protagonist. Let's face it usually the protagonist isn't of either gender, they're a cardboard cutout supermodel with generic lines, a few customisable barbie doll options and not one hint of any kind of personality, stance or individuality. Indeed many games prioritise playing using your imagination rather than having a personality (which one doesn't really need the game for,) as it usually barely reacts to the player except for a few token barks.

 

Let's face it the state of protagonists is, irrespective of supposed virtual gender, abysmal. You are lucky if you get the usual Bioware idiot, spouting sub par Joss Whedon squeeing humour, with any dialogue option you decide on leading to exactly the same outcome except for a little flavour text. While blindly trudging on through a cliche, nonsensical plot without complaint, choice or any real control whatsoever.

Edited June 15, 2015 by Nonek

[Malcador]

 

Complaining that the Doom is violent is pretty much the same as complaining that the water is wet when you go swimming. They also complained about Fallout 4 being violent, but what would you expect from these two? Perhaps something like this:

 

 

"You can play as a woman or as a man in Dishonored 2 and that's bad."

Meh, Sarkeesian's worthless, not sure why people pay any attention to her. Then again, was on a forum where people were pre-ordering games based on there being a female PC, so maybe I have the bar too high.

[Ineth]

 

Cheong really has made a 180, hasn't he

[Bartimaeus]

Male, female, personally i'd be happy for a simple well made protagonist. Let's face it usually the protagonist isn't of either gender, they're a cardboard cutout supermodel with generic lines, a few customisable barbie doll options and not one hint of any kind of personality, stance or individuality. Indeed many games prioritise playing using your imagination rather than having a personality (which one doesn't really need the game for,) as it usually barely reacts to the player except for a few token barks.

 

Let's face it the state of protagonists is, irrespective of supposed virtual gender, abysmal. You are lucky if you get the usual Bioware idiot, spouting sub par Joss Whedon squeeing humour, with any dialogue option you decide on leading to exactly the same outcome except for a little flavour text. While blindly trudging on through a cliche, nonsensical plot without complaint, choice or any real control whatsoever.

 

Agreed...though this problem isn't usually limited to just the protagonist in most games. Additionally, if you have the option of choosing either gender, the game probably won't be all that well written in this regard to begin with, it seems to me...because good writing would take stuff like gender (and race, if it's a fantasy/sci-fi game...and height, and character build, etc.) into account in a more meaningful, non-superficial way than games ever do today if you're given the choice: it's generally not worth development time building meaningful content around multi-faceted choices, because your players will not be able to see/appreciate all of the dev-time put into that content unless they replay the game several times...which most players don't do (or, if they do, it doesn't hardly ever matter for the sales of the game). In games, having even just two choices means that taking either of those choices won't end up having meaningful consequences/effects most of the time outside of maybe two, three major game decisions for games like Mass Effect (and sometimes not even then), and three or more choices pretty much guarantees that it won't end up mattering.

 

So...in reality, yeah, I would prefer to see less choice for most games in this regard (outside of blank-state RPGs like Baldur's Gate)...so that more dev-time could be spent making what is chosen (or, rather, what is not chosen) actually mean something in the game - actually have it play some part...even if it's not that big of a part, if it's still meaningful. I definitely don't want that to happen simply for the reasons (I'm assuming are implied) in the tweet, though.

 

But seriously, if there was like a...post log for posts being edited, my posts would have sooo many entries. I swear I need to like actually force myself to practice reading my posts and fix/finish them before actually hitting submit...

Edited June 15, 2015 by Bartimaeus

[Nonek]

 

Additionally, if you have the option of choosing either gender, the game probably won't be all that well written in this regard to begin with, it seems to me...because good writing would take stuff like gender (and race, if it's a fantasy/sci-fi game...and height, and character build, etc.) into account in a more meaningful, non-superficial way than games ever do today if you're given the choice: it's generally not worth development time building meaningful content around multi-faceted choices, because your players will not be able to see/appreciate all of the dev-time put into that content unless they replay the game several times...which most players don't do (or, if they do, it doesn't hardly ever matter for the sales of the game). In games, having even just two choices means that taking either of those choices won't end up having meaningful consequences/effects most of the time outside of maybe two, three major game decisions for games like Mass Effect (and sometimes not even then), and three or more choices pretty much guarantees that it won't end up mattering.

 

 

This is the problem in my opinion, the game being designed too much around what the developer expects the protagonist will see and use, rather than what is authentic to the setting, the situation and the character. It also aids the undervalued internal consistency of a setting to have a world where logical constraints are placed upon what may occur, and aids that setting when the fantastic arises to enhance and affirm the verisimilitude of the mundane and the otherworldliness of the supernatural.

 

It is quite easy to spot when divergent paths are found through options taken or not taken, as we will invariably talk about the game, and our unique playthroughs will prompt discussion and possibly replays. I'd prefer multiple playthroughs to unlock all content, areas and plots barred to me because of my choices in dialogue or character creation etcetera. The world feels more authentic and reactive, the work that the designers have undertaken appears more personal, and i'm left thinking that the choices I make are acknowledged and reacted upon logically.

[Bartimaeus]

I don't disagree: it's unfortunate, then, that this is (or appears to be?) the general viewpoint of the gaming industry. I understand why it is, because time is money and most corporations are, on the macro-level, developing games to make money...but I don't like it.

[ShadySands]

 

 

Complaining that the Doom is violent is pretty much the same as complaining that the water is wet when you go swimming. They also complained about Fallout 4 being violent, but what would you expect from these two? Perhaps something like this:

 

 

"You can play as a woman or as a man in Dishonored 2 and that's bad."

Meh, Sarkeesian's worthless, not sure why people pay any attention to her. Then again, was on a forum where people were pre-ordering games based on there being a female PC, so maybe I have the bar too high.

I don't know why anyone cares what crazy people say on the internet, myself included

 

As fart as having a male and female option, I'm glad for it because I personally don't like to play as a woman and my wife doesn't like to play as a man. I won't not play a game just because the protagonist is a woman but if I have the option then I'm probably going to play as male

 

 

EDIT- was going to fix that typo but it's too good to change

EDIT2- just trying to clarify what I'm trying to say a bit better

Edited June 16, 2015 by ShadySands

[Barothmuk]

Can't help but see their point. With all the things that can be done with games it's strange that the most common thing is running around killing people.

 

That said, my favourite film is Commando and after RPGs my two favourite genres are fighting games and war games so I can hardly complain.

[licketysplit]

 

Complaining that the Doom is violent is pretty much the same as complaining that the water is wet when you go swimming. They also complained about Fallout 4 being violent, but what would you expect from these two? Perhaps something like this:

 

 

"You can play as a woman or as a man in Dishonored 2 and that's bad."

 

Really pleased to see this hypocrite out herself with such clumsy enthusiasm.

[Meshugger]

I do not see anything inheritly bad with "pow-pow" and "kaboom!"-games. After all, on the most base-level, the nature of men is war and the market simply delivers.

 

But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't appriciate if someone tries something new though, political humbug from leftiefeminists notwithstanding.

[HoonDing]

Ironic considering Dishonored is first person game and character doesn't speak.

[Fighter]

Ironic considering Dishonored is first person game and character doesn't speak.

 

The DLC character spoke and frankly as noted by many people it worked far better than the kind of non-entity that was Corvo. So I'm actually hoping they'll give everyone a personality. I'm ready to let the "better immersion" theory of a silent protagonist die.

[GhoulishVisage]

 

 

Every single Fallout game and every single game developed by Bethesda Softworks since the 90s has let you choose what gender to play as.

[Malcador]

Well, can't expect too much from the audience there, dumb yahoos whooped for everything even non-eventful standards of the series.

 

Either that or Ismail is really ignorant of gaming pre-2005 or something.

[Meshugger]

 

 

Every single Fallout game and every single game developed by Bethesda Softworks since the 90s has let you choose what gender to play as.

 

Nononono, you silly dumb-dumb. It doesn't matter what some company did long ago, what matters now is a validation of their feelz.

[Nonek]

We have always been at war with Eurasia!

[BruceVC]

Apart from Shady would anyone else have a problem with Dishonored 2 only having a female character?

[Bartimaeus]

As I said before, for the reasons presumably implied by Anita, I definitely would.

 

I don't think Shady said he would have a problem with "only having a female character": he said he has a preference. These are not equitable.

Edited June 16, 2015 by Bartimaeus

[BruceVC]

As I said before, for the reasons presumably implied by Anita, I definitely would.

 

I don't think Shady said he would have a problem with "only having a female character": he said he has a preference. These are not equitable.

Sorry  can you just tell me your reasons, I really don't feel like going back to read previous posts 

[ShadySands]

^ Yep, no problem with it. I just prefer to play as male

 

Why? I dunno. I think I mentioned before that while my favorite games are RPGs I don't actually like to play as someone else and usually just play as me in whatever situation the game puts me in. You know, like an actor that always plays himself in movies.

[BruceVC]

^ Yep, no problem with it. I just prefer to play as male

 

Why? I dunno. I think I mentioned before that while my favorite games are RPGs I don't actually like to play as someone else and usually just play as me in whatever situation the game puts me in. You know, like an actor that always plays himself in movies.

I only play as a male, I'll be honest I probably won't play a game like  Dishonored 2 if its only a female character because I need to identify with my character for the RP experience 

[Bartimaeus]

 

As I said before, for the reasons presumably implied by Anita, I definitely would.

 

I don't think Shady said he would have a problem with "only having a female character": he said he has a preference. These are not equitable.

Sorry  can you just tell me your reasons, I really don't feel like going back to read previous posts 

 

 

Because if the game is being designed as having both options...it's pointlessly limiting and serves practically no benefit to force one choice...unless they redesign the game around the new lack of a gender choice and actually have playing a female character mean something...because if the game is being designed around having the choice of choosing either, they're not going to develop any meaningful content around what is essentially an arbitrary choice made at character creation - nevermind that these types of games don't usually have strong characterization for protagonists to begin with, and I doubt they could write an intriguing/decent main character, regardless of gender, even if they tried. This is frustrating to me, because gender (and other things like it, including something as simple as height), are actually pretty important distinctions (or at least they CAN be important distinctions) in most other mediums (and life!)...and because of the costly nature of game development, these sorts of choices that you make as a player will never truly matter if you're being allowed to actually make them.

 

I'll admit that I don't fully understand what Anita's reasons for this are, because she doesn't state them. If her reasons are the same as mine, then by all means, go ahead and have only a female character...but my reasons are just as good of an argument for having only a male character, so I don't think they are her reasons. I am presuming her reasons are something more along the lines of, "There aren't enough strong female protagonists in the gaming industry...and I think there should be more. Therefore, I'm going to pick on a game that is allowing both options for some inexplicable reason!"...and while I can agree with the first sentence, I just don't understand the rationale behind the second, so I can't do the same for it.

Edited June 16, 2015 by Bartimaeus

[Orogun01]

I get the feeling that we're bound for a new wave of radicals that will push back against this whole PC, we can see them forming right now but I wonder what will become when they reach full strength.