Ubisoft: Far Cry 4 is "packed to the gills with women"

[Misanthrope]

By now you know my style but I'll clarify for others: I'll focus on what I think it's relevant, what I don't reply to is either covered on another point or I concede and/or decline to discuss further

 

The Twitch survey was moronic. They called anyone who has played any game in the last 60 days a "gamer".

Do you honestly think that the 45 year old mom is as likely to play Far Cry 4 as her 18 year old son? Even if both of them like playing games, they will most likely play different kinds of games.

I must have forgotten Twitch's mission statement that according to you should read "Hardcore gaming only or GTFO" So briefly: I addressed this but to reiterate Twitch is a company that focus on gaming, while hardcore games might get more views more consistently does that means that they should basically turn away revenue money if someone it's rolling in tons of cash with Maple Story streaming?

I get the distinction, but to a company wanting to make money off gaming it should not be relevant since it takes no effort to be inclusive, most gamers, even hardcore ones, won't mind female characters and such so the only thing you do by saying "males primarily" it's shoot yourself in the foot and passively close yourself to potential revenue.

 

Now you're ignoring my second explanation as to why most protagonists are male. It's mostly male protagonists because it is mostly males that go out in war. A lot of franchises are also male dominated because of the limitations of the earliest kinds of gaming systems.

You couldn't have a very rich background story so the damsel in distress plot, while being awful, was an easy way to get the plot out of the way and the game going. A lot of those franchises still lives on and you can't just change protagonist like that. I am not saying "therefore it is okay!" but what I am saying is that developers are not doing it in order to be sexist. It is the default position and deviating from it requires more work. It is as simple as that.

If the proportion of war games was reasonable, you'd have an argument. But war games that might or might not have an historical excuse to focus on macho bullshit are way too predominant. Again this is not only an moral argument but a practical one: Most companies should realize that they aren't going to overtake Call of Duty and Battlefield in sales and in fact will most likely loose money. If they instead focused their efforts on something a bit more risky and made other sorts of games then you'd have a winner on your hand.

It really doesn't takes any extra effort even on action games to include women: just don't limit yourself to male dominated scenarios like historical and present but still unrealistic military games (i.e. You'd likely know that some places like Israel require all people, including women, to take basic military training and act as reserve) We're starting to see this trend disappear but it is very unfortunate that a lot of people justify sexism by claiming it's necessary because of the demographic: It's a self fulfilling prophecy like I said: by catering to men and excluding women and in some cases even offending them, you're assuring that the demographic won't ever change. Most sane people do not do this intentionally mind you, they merely follow established franchises and niches like I said, but that's not a valid justification anyways.

 

By the way, there have been studies done on humans and monkeys which shows that boys and girls play in different ways. Women are biologically wired to be more caring and men are more violent. It's completely natural.

Source please, I'd like to see this study cause this will get off topic but there's A LOT of behavior that's not intrinsical to the individual and it's instead quickly adopted by the social environment in very subtle ways.

Oh and consider that as just a side point for my amusement cause to your point I don't disagree: I am precisely arguing that more types of games should be made available with equal effort, not just shoot motherfuckers all the time.

 

Well this thread isn't about those more casual titles, is it?

Actually I make it a point to single out casual titles precisely because of this: I think the casual formula it's successful largely in part because it's a lot more inclusive for a lot more people, including women. Accessibility and ease of use are important yes, but if an AAA games didn't went out of their way to be noninclusive they would improve their profits by a lot more.

[frustratedrocka]

Anyone ever heard of the Bechdel test?

 

If not: It's a quick barometer of female representation in media. Easy test, nothing complicated. If a work has two or more female characters who at some point have a conversation about something other than a man, it passes. You'd be amazed how few things actually do.

 

The "default" for most media is for the story to be based around men interacting with other men. When women are introduced into the story, they're generally defined entirely by their relationships to the men. That's when they're given any characterization at all - all too frequently they're treated first and foremost as eye candy for a presumably male player base.

 

The message this sends is that games are made entirely by men, entirely for men. Women enjoying them is a nice side benefit, but the assumption is that women aren't going to be interested in games. At the absolute most charitable, the message is instead "Things made for men appeal to everyone; things made for women only appeal to women."

 

So it's no fucking wonder that more men end up playing the games. If you make no effort whatsoever to appeal to 50% of the population, and in many cases create something that's actually hostile to them by implicitly reducing them to - at best - emotional fulfillment for men, and at worst an object there to provide eye candy for men, then of course you're going to alienate women. And it would be so easy not to if people would put in three seconds of thought.

[StingBull]

-snip-

Well it is a stupid statement. "we got shit load of womenz"

So the realism aspect took one in the ass but even if that wasn't the case, there is still the fact that Ubisoft is expecting praise for something so mundane.

[LAwLz]

I must have forgotten Twitch's mission statement that according to you should read "Hardcore gaming only or GTFO" So briefly: I addressed this but to reiterate Twitch is a company that focus on gaming, while hardcore games might get more views more consistently does that means that they should basically turn away revenue money if someone it's rolling in tons of cash with Maple Story streaming?

I get the distinction, but to a company wanting to make money off gaming it should not be relevant since it takes no effort to be inclusive, most gamers, even hardcore ones, won't mind female characters and such so the only thing you do by saying "males primarily" it's shoot yourself in the foot and passively close yourself to potential revenue.

You clearly missed the point. I am not sure how you managed (maybe you did it on purpose in order to strawman?) since I tried to be as clear as possible but whatever. My point was that even IF you go by their definition you still have to take into consideration that different genres have different core demographics. Farmville's core demographic and Far Cry 4's core demographic might have a bit of overlap, but it's not a 100% overlap.

That was my point. Even if you take the "48% of gamers are female" number as an absolute fact you still have to take this into consideration. Different games appeal to different kinds of people.

 

 

If the proportion of war games was reasonable, you'd have an argument. But war games that might or might not have an historical excuse to focus on macho bullshit are way too predominant. Again this is not only an moral argument but a practical one: Most companies should realize that they aren't going to overtake Call of Duty and Battlefield in sales and in fact will most likely loose money. If they instead focused their efforts on something a bit more risky and made other sorts of games then you'd have a winner on your hand.

It's not a question of "they might have an excuse", they do have an excuse. Like I said before, 2.7% of the front-line tropes are female. The rest are male. Writing about one of the 97.3% instead of one of the 2.7% feels far more organic and comes naturally.

You have to go out of your way to write about female soldiers because they are far more rare. Companies don't want to take risks, and I seriously doubt that changing the protagonist from male to female would have that much of an impact.

"Your game won't be as popular as COD and Battlefield" is not a good excuse as to why companies should stop making FPS games either.

If you think about your argument for a bit you will realize how silly it sounds. "Don't make games where female protagonists are out of place because you won't be more successful than COD or BF anyway!")

 

 

It really doesn't takes any extra effort even on action games to include women: just don't limit yourself to male dominated scenarios like historical and present but still unrealistic military games (i.e. You'd likely know that some places like Israel require all people, including women, to take basic military training and act as reserve) We're starting to see this trend disappear but it is very unfortunate that a lot of people justify sexism by claiming it's necessary because of the demographic: It's a self fulfilling prophecy like I said: by catering to men and excluding women and in some cases even offending them, you're assuring that the demographic won't ever change. Most sane people do not do this intentionally mind you, they merely follow established franchises and niches like I said, but that's not a valid justification anyways.

Again, this sounds completely moronic to me. "It doesn't take any extra effort, you just have to avoid all of history as well as the present!". Not letting yourself make a game on any past or present wars (or imaginary wars taking place in the past or present) is what I'd consider "limiting yourself".

This is not sexism by the way. If you think that it is sexism to not include female characters in games then I'd like you to look up what sexism means. By your logic, Metroid is sexist against men.

It would be sexist to say "women are not allowed to play the new Assassin's Creed". It's not sexism to say "We didn't put in the extra effort needed to create a female protagonist". Not allowing women to play the main game in a tournament is sexism. Not having a game with a female protagonist in the tournament is not sexism. I hope you can see the difference. One is about not wanting to put in extra effort into your product. The other one is about hindering someone from doing something based on their gender.

 

You're also ignoring my counter argument as to why it is not a self fulfilling prophecy. It's simple biology.

I could use your exact same argument against tampon commercials. "Why don't they make tampon commercials aimed at men? It's a self fulfilling prophecy that men don't use tampons since they only cater to women!". I am using tampons to illustrate how it is illogical to think this way. I am not trying to say that tampons and video games are equally gender biased. Women aren't being excluded by the way. Exclude means that you are denying them something. Not catering to someone and excluding someone are two completely different things by the way. Women are not being catered to, but they are not being excluded. The reason why they are not being catered to (in center genres) is because they are a minority (in those genres).

 

 

Source please, I'd like to see this study cause this will get off topic but there's A LOT of behavior that's not intrinsical to the individual and it's instead quickly adopted by the social environment in very subtle ways.

The source is the National Institutes of Health's library of medicine.

The paper was titled "Sex differences in rhesus money toy preferences parallel those of children"

Please note that these monkeys do not have any idea what gender roles are or even what toys are. They acted instinctively. It makes perfect sense as well. Males are more interested in things like aggressive games because we were the hunters. Women are more interested in things like nursing since that is what they did. We have had these roles for hundreds of thousands of years so it's not strange that they have been imprinted in our genetics. Call it sexist if you want, but nature isn't gender blind.

 

 

Oh and consider that as just a side point for my amusement cause to your point I don't disagree: I am precisely arguing that more types of games should be made available with equal effort, not just shoot motherfuckers all the time.

Well that is simple capitalism. FPS games is a pretty safe bet and companies don't want to take big risks. You can't really blame them for that either. I mean, just look at the studios that are closing down (RIP Airtight games).

 

 

Actually I make it a point to single out casual titles precisely because of this: I think the casual formula it's successful largely in part because it's a lot more inclusive for a lot more people, including women. Accessibility and ease of use are important yes, but if an AAA games didn't went out of their way to be noninclusive they would improve their profits by a lot more.

Again you seem to have this twisted view that companies are going out of their way to be noninclusive.

Not including something requires 0 effort. Including something requires effort. I don't understand how you can not understand this.

You don't "go out of your way" to not include something. You have to go out of your way in order to include something.

 

Big AAA games won't be popular with the casual crowd just because they are inclusive either. My mom loves silly games on her phone. Skyrim and Saints Row are very inclusive games. Do you think she would enjoy playing them just because you can play as any skin color or gender? No... Casual games are not popular because they are inclusive. They are popular because of the format (easy to start and stop playing).

[StingBull]

Holy shit, @LAwLz you are going critical. That last post takes 3 screens.

[Guest Kloaked]

Well it is a stupid statement. "we got shit load of womenz"

So the realism aspect took one in the ass but even if that wasn't the case, there is still the fact that Ubisoft is expecting praise for something so mundane.

 

You can't blame them for trying to appease the feminazi's - if it were me I wouldn't have said anything though because I sort-of do agree with you, the way they said it (like everything else they release to the public) is just so asinine.

[Misanthrope]

Too verbose. Heavy handed editing and flatout tl:dr parts here Lawlz, sorry to say but I don't have the energy to argue with someone with your biased views: you're too influenced by the negative experiences with feminazis in your country it seems.

 

It's not a question of "they might have an excuse", they do have an excuse.

So it IS an excuse then?

 

Again, this sounds completely moronic to me. "It doesn't take any extra effort, you just have to avoid all of history as well as the present!".

Portraying reality without purpose is useless. They have a term for that you know, "exploitation" which was very famous during the 60s 70s 80s and beyond for the film industry.

So to the point: By your logic the strive for realism means that we should disregard all fantasy, the most popular genre there is for videogames? Like fuck elves, dwarves and dragons those aren't historically accurate, let's just make depressing-as-all-fucking-shit games about historical attrocities? Auschwitz simulator 1942? Graphical portrayals of rape and child abuse? Wife beater 3: modern house warfare?

Nobody would like to play those "games" but since being abusive or dismissive of women and gay people is still sorta ok you can immediately go to what you (possibly kidding and I'm surely misrepresenting you but still) yourself admit are excuses? Come on, we live on a civilized world we can acknowledge the negative parts of it without having to base all our entertainment on them, you're not reflecting negative behavior with this attitude you're perpetuating it.

[Sauron]

This is how it should work: get about the same amount of women as there are men in the game, and DON'T SAY IT because otherwise it's obvious that you only did it because of media pressure. THINK ubi, THINK.

[StingBull]

I think your ideals are blinding you @Misanthrope. It was a long post but @LAwLz made good some points there: Subject matter affects the characters.

[Misanthrope]

I think your ideals are blinding you @Misanthrope. It was a long post but @LAwLz made good some points there: Subject matter affects the characters.

Yes and I don't hide the fact or argue against it: I'm biased towards equality and fair representation and portrayal of women. I automatically think less of developers who come up with lame excuses and rationalizations and also dislike people who make damage control statements and actions instead of simply writing stories normally which would naturally include writing women normally. This isn't the real world it doesn't take extra effort to be equal, using your fucking brain to write something slightly different and have your make-belief creators follow along doesn't takes any effort at all.

[theroflcopta]

Yes we should be having more females playable characters in games that is not a debate. It is about time we stopped this idea that we can only have dude bros running round in dude bro games. But what is also true is we shouldn't just throw girls in for the sake of having them. The way developers tell stories needs to fundamentally change in games. Games are becoming so much more creative and artistic and challenging and adventurous lately with the way they tell stories and interact with the players. The fact the women and many minorities are so underrepresented is a little disheartening. Yes I believe in artistic freedom and i'm not saying all game developers need to start throwing in Asians and Latinos and woman just for the sake of checking off the "has non male white people in it" box. But as it develops as an art form it needs to start developing its characters and messages.  

[LAwLz]

Too verbose. Heavy handed editing and flatout tl:dr parts here Lawlz, sorry to say but I don't have the energy to argue with someone with your biased views: you're too influenced by the negative experiences with feminazis in your country it seems.

I am simply fed up with SJW and political correctness going overboard.

Calling me biased doesn't make my arguments false. Men and women are genetically different which is why we see so few women playing certain types of games. Since the core demographic of those games are men, they also cater towards them.

Saying that it is sexist to not cater to a minority is moronic. I am sorry but it is. You seem to think that not catering to someone, and excluding someone are the same thing, which it isn't. You also seem to be under the delusion that developers go out of their way to not include women in games, when in reality they don't include women because it would mean going out of their way. Like I said before. It takes no effort to exclude someone, but it takes effort to include someone.

 

So it IS an excuse then?

Yes it is an excuse. If you are going to make a game based on reality then you have to follow what actually happened.

If you make a game about World War 2 then you can't just make half the soldiers women because that's simply not what reality was like. You might say "oh but you can change that part of history if you want" and you'd be right. It would feel very shoehorned and unnatural though so what's the point? It would require more work and it would just end up being awkward, just so that a minority can feel a bit more included?

It's as silly as if I started saying Saints Row 4 was trying to exclude me because I can't play as a lolicon.

Lolicons are really underrepresented in video games. The only somewhat mainstream game that caters to that side of me is Tera. If my entire identity was based on me being a lolicon I might have been pissed, but luckily for me that is just a small part of who I am, just like being male is just a small part of who I am, and I am therefore not bothered by it.

I just don't get why people put to much weight on what gender the main character is. To me it is completely irrelevant. It's when you start taking gender into consideration that you become sexist, for example "I won't play this game because the main character is male".

 

 

Portraying reality without purpose is useless. They have a term for that you know, "exploitation" which was very famous during the 60s 70s 80s and beyond for the film industry.

Already addressed this in the previous paragraph.

 

 

So to the point: By your logic the strive for realism means that we should disregard all fantasy, the most popular genre there is for videogames? Like fuck elves, dwarves and dragons those aren't historically accurate, let's just make depressing-as-all-fucking-shit games about historical attrocities? Auschwitz simulator 1942? Graphical portrayals of rape and child abuse? Wife beater 3: modern house warfare?

Wow I am surprised that it took this long for you to start strawmanning.

I have addressed this before. Making a WW 2 game and then make half the soldiers female would feel out of place and take away from the experience.

Characters should be as organic as possible, and in these kinds of games a male character feels the most natural. So stop with the strawmanning and read my actual arguments.

 

 

Nobody would like to play those "games" but since being abusive or dismissive of women and gay people is still sorta ok you can immediately go to what you (possibly kidding and I'm surely misrepresenting you but still) yourself admit are excuses? Come on, we live on a civilized world we can acknowledge the negative parts of it without having to base all our entertainment on them, you're not reflecting negative behavior with this attitude you're perpetuating it.

Wait, since when is it okay to be abusive against women and gay people? If you think that not making a female protagonist is classified as abuse against women then you're out of your mind. You claim to be for women but then you downplay how serious abuse against women is by saying such a trivial thing as "this new game doesn't let you play as a woman" is abuse. I REALLY hope I am misreading you here but if not then I pity you.

Go to a rape victim and say "yeah I am against abuse of women too. I sad bad thing about Ubisoft because they won't let you play as a female assassin in their latest game" and she would probably hit you in the face.

Real abuse is NOT okay. Not adding the option to be a female in your game is not abuse though. Please don't ever say that again. At worst it should be classified as a minor annoyance.

 

 

Edit:

I would like to point out that I have never said that we don't need more female protagonists in games, or that women should not be equal to men.

All I am saying is that:

1) You shouldn't hate on a developer for not catering to you if you are a minority. Not having everything tailored to your liking is part of life, and the sooner you start accepting that the sooner you can stop bitching about minor things and start enjoying things. If I liked wearing pantyhose then I am a minority and should therefore not be pissed that they don't make pantyhose for men, or make pantyhose commercials aimed at men.

 

2) Shoehorning female characters into games is bad. It not only takes unnecessary time from the development scheduled for games in a world where deadlines are already hard to meet and things are cut because lack of time, it will also feel very unnatural and awkward in many games.

 

3) Men and women like different things. It is in our genes since hundreds of thousands of years back. We should get as much equality as possible in the areas that matter but we also have to respect that not everyone is equal at absolutely everything. For example the mom should have the benefit of staying home longer than the dad because it is best for the child. We shouldn't force women to get back to work sooner just because "the mom can't have more time with the child than the dad".

[NInety]

Thankfully they found all these women in various binders.  There are are plenty of women, now.

[ZeroBreaker]

In the words of foreverpandering,

youtube.com/watch?v=GHbuhoD9s9Y

 

'We want this to appeal to a 15-25 year old male demographic who are the core consumers of videogames'.

The bottom line is, girls tend to have different tastes to guys, simple differences in genetics - a life simulator like Sims does far better at attracting female gamers than something like COD, but at the end of the day they are the minority in consumers of videogames. I know very few females who own a console, and fewer still who game on PC. It's uncommon, and that is the pure and no nonsense truth. We don't need female playable characters which appeal to specifically to females if there is no market for them, or if the market is not worth the development time. It is impractical to even make that suggestion. If females made up a larger portion of the gaming community, we would ALREADY be seeing a fairer representation of women in videogames appealing more to women, because the market would be there and developers would be tapping into it.

There is a TON of erotica literature aimed at women in the world, and more is being written everytime. They feature muscular men doing manly stuff and whatnot. I don't give a crap, it doesn't affect me, and I would not rally against the unfair representation of men in these novels because the format doesn't appeal to me or affect me in the slightest. Unfortunately, a lot of women feel it is their right to rally against the equivalent phenomenon in videogames. It isn't. Picking up a controller for a camera doesn't make you a gamer, having played mario kart for a month in your teen years doesn't make you a gamer. Purchasing actual videogames is what makes you a gamer, and what makes you part of the market for said videogames. If there is many people with your tastes, you will find games that appeal to you. If not, you won't. Fact of life, deal with it. I find very few games that actually appeal to me and are not simply time fillers or ways to spend time with my friends online. I don't complain because my tastes are specific and that is MY problem, NOT the developers problem.

TL;DR Ignore tumblr feminists. when they start actually buying games, then they have an argument.

[BallGum]

This thread was a pretty interesting read.

[Misanthrope]

In the words of foreverpandering,

youtube.com/watch?v=GHbuhoD9s9Y

 

'We want this to appeal to a 15-25 year old male demographic who are the core consumers of videogames'.

The bottom line is, girls tend to have different tastes to guys, simple differences in genetics - a life simulator like Sims does far better at attracting female gamers than something like COD, but at the end of the day they are the minority in consumers of videogames. I know very few females who own a console, and fewer still who game on PC. It's uncommon, and that is the pure and no nonsense truth. We don't need female playable characters which appeal to specifically to females if there is no market for them, or if the market is not worth the development time. It is impractical to even make that suggestion. If females made up a larger portion of the gaming community, we would ALREADY be seeing a fairer representation of women in videogames appealing more to women, because the market would be there and developers would be tapping into it.

There is a TON of erotica literature aimed at women in the world, and more is being written everytime. They feature muscular men doing manly stuff and whatnot. I don't give a crap, it doesn't affect me, and I would not rally against the unfair representation of men in these novels because the format doesn't appeal to me or affect me in the slightest. Unfortunately, a lot of women feel it is their right to rally against the equivalent phenomenon in videogames. It isn't. Picking up a controller for a camera doesn't make you a gamer, having played mario kart for a month in your teen years doesn't make you a gamer. Purchasing actual videogames is what makes you a gamer, and what makes you part of the market for said videogames. If there is many people with your tastes, you will find games that appeal to you. If not, you won't. Fact of life, deal with it. I find very few games that actually appeal to me and are not simply time fillers or ways to spend time with my friends online. I don't complain because my tastes are specific and that is MY problem, NOT the developers problem.

TL;DR Ignore tumblr feminists. when they start actually buying games, then they have an argument.

 

Again pure chicken and egg argument and self fulfilling prophecies: You admit there is no content females would feel comfortable with for the most part yet you say it's because there are no women playing games, only how would you know if the market was there if it's almost never exploited?

 

To give you another example: do you know the origin of action figures? A vendor realized that there was no good reason why boys wouldn't like dolls, so an "action figure" was the term coined for both parents and children to feel more comfortable with the concept of a doll for boys. The reverse would also apply to games here.

 

Even then and regardless of all this it's just not realistic to apply stereotypes so broadly like this, breaking a personal rule of anecdotal evidence I'll share my sister comments on the subjects: My mom often wondered why my sister always showed equal interest in girl and boy related activities and her answer was always that she didn't really have many friends growing up and me and our cousin were always playing videogames and cards and talking about american football (which we both play) and such so she naturally grew up interested in videogames and heavy metal (which I have been blasting at full volume out of my room for the better part of 3 decades) as well as more "male" oriented sports like American Football (which she plays, full contact stuff in fact) equally as well as boy bands, dolls and other interests like fashion (she's a fashion designer). 

So this is why I don't give much weight to those "boys hunt and girls gather!" argument cause we're not fucking monkeys and our social upbringing plays a much larger role on this sort of preferences.

[ZeroBreaker]

Again pure chicken and egg argument and self fulfilling prophecies: You admit there is no content females would feel comfortable with for the most part yet you say it's because there are no women playing games, only how would you know if the market was there if it's almost never exploited?

 

To give you another example: do you know the origin of action figures? A vendor realized that there was no good reason why boys wouldn't like dolls, so an "action figure" was the term coined for both parents and children to feel more comfortable with the concept of a doll for boys. The reverse would also apply to games here.

 

Right, Ok, i understand what you are saying, but the thing is my issue is far more with the people clamoring for a 'better' representation of women in videogames, despite having no interest in and no experience with the medium. We have some female developers (not enough to be called equal, but that's down more to choice in qualifications), so why haven't they managed to use their knowledge of videogames and women and crafted some masterpiece tailored toward them, with the male audience as a possible extra? They don't see a market big enough to focus solely on, and neither do I. As a seperate note, where do you see the problem? Personally, I take issue with the lack of thought out female characters in games - with the notable exception of RPG's, i can't think of a single female support character that was interesting or even as fleshed out as their male counterparts. A lot of people instead take issue with the current ideals of women present in videogames, which is where my previous analogy of erotica comes in.

The thing is, who is saying that current games can't appeal to women? Featureless shooters are exactly that, and RPG's are male-lead far more by convention than anything else and even that is becoming more balanced as time progresses. I don't see any legitimate reasons for the outrage expressed on this issue, the gaming industry is shifting as it is and forcibly shoving it towards a more balanced view of gender will take time, and will only happen when we have a more balanced market.

[Misanthrope]

Sorry for the late editing on my previous reply btw.  Anyway I have another comment here:

 

Right, Ok, i understand what you are saying, but the thing is my issue is far more with the people clamoring for a 'better' representation of women in videogames, despite having no interest in and no experience with the medium. 

 

Well I can tell you that as a (mostly) heterosexual male and avid fan of violent videogames since the 90s, I am interested in a better representation of women in videogames simply because I'd be happy to see stories and things that are helping remove stereotypes and make stories overall more diverse and interesting instead of repeating stereotypes.

 

Notice how I do not need to mention any social justice issues as part of my reasons to want more inclusive games: it just makes more sense to see the entertainment world evolve and reflect what it is now a more common denominator which is progressive thinking and acceptance.

[MonkeyFace]

Resolution is a number, just like framerate is a number, and how many female characters we have is just a number.  

[LAwLz]

Personally, I take issue with the lack of thought out female characters in games - with the notable exception of RPG's, i can't think of a single female support character that was interesting or even as fleshed out as their male counterparts.

Well here are some games I can think of with good female characters (either playable or in the story, also counting games where you can pick between male or female). I made this list by simply looking at my Steam library and looking around in my room, so it's far from complete:

Some Assassin's Creed game (can't remember which one(s)).

Portal

Saints Row series

Some of the Star Wars games (like Jedi Academy)

Borderlands

Command and Conquer: Red Alert

Dead Island (I think, haven't played it)

DOTA/HON/LOL

F.E.A.R (although the girl is the enemy)

Giana Sisters

Mirror's Edge

Mortal Kombat

Dead or Alive

Street Fighter

Recettear

Trine 2

Metroid

Tomb Raider

Silent Hill 3

Heavy Rain

The Walking Dead

Beyond: Two Souls

Bioshock Infinite

Resident Evil 6 (maybe more of the resident Evil games)

Senran Kagura

Alice: Madness Returns

Perfect Dark Zero

One or more of the Metal Gear games

Legend of Zelda

 

If you include RPGs then:

Diablo

WoW

Dungeon Siege

Mass Effect

The Elder Scrolls

Pokémon

Fable

A ton of Japanese games (visual novels and JPRGs including but not limited to Bravely Default, Persona and the Final Fantasy series)

Dragon Age

Fallout

 

 

There is a surprising amount of good female characters in games if you start looking around.

[ZeroBreaker]

Sorry for the late editing on my previous reply btw.  Anyway I have another comment here:

 

 

Well I can tell you that as a (mostly) heterosexual male and avid fan of violent videogames since the 90s, I am interested in a better representation of women in videogames simply because I'd be happy to see stories and things that are helping remove stereotypes and make stories overall more diverse and interesting instead of repeating stereotypes.

 

Notice how I do not need to mention any social justice issues as part of my reasons to want more inclusive games: it just makes more sense to see the entertainment world evolve and reflect what it is now a more common denominator which is progressive thinking and acceptance.

 

I absolutely agree with you, videogames should be becoming more progressive as society does over time, I mentioned this in my last post, but in the end, videogames are becoming more and more balanced already, and it will continue over time as more people from my generation, who are far more liberal and progressive, move up and become the developers, or the writers, etc. Forcing the issue helps no one to be honest, it needs to be a gradual change.

 

snip

 

 

There is a surprising amount of good female characters in games if you start looking around.

 

To be fair, I specifically mentioned female support characters, not female leads. I tend to gravitate towards story heavy games, and often you get the typical generic female support character (for skyrim, lydia for example, those sorts of characters) and they aren't as fleshed out as their male counterparts, they are bland and have no effort put towards them. My personal issue with females in videogames is this. This won't really change until more female developers or writers get the reigns, so I don't go out actively yelling at developers to change this, because it's something that will happen over time.

[thebennyboy]

Lets hope it's "packed to the gills with pc optimisation" and "packed to the gills with nVidia AND amd optimisation"

[PortentousLad]

And where's the female protagonist?

[ShogunZ]

I don't care about all the complaints about females in games. It's never good enough for them fems.

[SSL]

This thread was a pretty interesting read.

 

Not really. With a few exceptions it's depressingly par for the course.