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On March 12 2015 19:17 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2015 19:04 Darkwhite wrote:On March 12 2015 19:01 Plansix wrote:On March 12 2015 18:49 Darkwhite wrote: Nobody heaps shame on failed artists - those, we sympathize with. This is not about mere critique. We are talking about successful artists with satisfied customers, and someone on the sidelines butting in on this relationship. It is someone trying to impose their superior values on people who create things they are supposedly wrong to create, and the people who like things they are supposedly wrong to like. For a guy who was talking about people on the Internet getting a thicker skin and hugboxes earlier, you sure are concerned with the feelings of a few game developers. By your previous logic, if they can't take the criticism, they shouldn't be making games. What in the world are you talking about? Phone posting. I mistook you for another poster because I couldn't see the top of the post when I hit reply. Either way, criticism is not bullying. The people that makes these games are prepared to hear for people who don't like them. They don't need to be protected from that. Let's leave aside whether they need my protection, and focus on whether heaping shame on people for making games for the wrong demographic is commendable.
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On March 12 2015 19:51 Darkwhite wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2015 19:17 Plansix wrote:On March 12 2015 19:04 Darkwhite wrote:On March 12 2015 19:01 Plansix wrote:On March 12 2015 18:49 Darkwhite wrote: Nobody heaps shame on failed artists - those, we sympathize with. This is not about mere critique. We are talking about successful artists with satisfied customers, and someone on the sidelines butting in on this relationship. It is someone trying to impose their superior values on people who create things they are supposedly wrong to create, and the people who like things they are supposedly wrong to like. For a guy who was talking about people on the Internet getting a thicker skin and hugboxes earlier, you sure are concerned with the feelings of a few game developers. By your previous logic, if they can't take the criticism, they shouldn't be making games. What in the world are you talking about? Phone posting. I mistook you for another poster because I couldn't see the top of the post when I hit reply. Either way, criticism is not bullying. The people that makes these games are prepared to hear for people who don't like them. They don't need to be protected from that. Let's leave aside whether they need my protection, and focus on whether heaping shame on people for making games for the wrong demographic is commendable. Its not a great choice of words, but if people think they should have not used that half assed excuse that it was to hard to render female character, they can take their lumps. That was one of the dumbest PR moves I have ever seen. The reason they didn't have a female model in AC:unity co-op was because that game was a hot mess and barely ran and couldn't deal with another model. Never mind that they had female models in previous multiplayer games.
So considering they were making excuses for their shitty game and made up some lame, poorly explained excuse as to why players could play as a woman in co-op, they can take a little shaming for it.
Edit: Also, I want to point out that there wasn't a single website, from Kotaku to Giant Bomb that didn't give Ubisoft shit about the way they handled that. It was just another sign that AC: Unity was going to arrive as a hot, poorly coded, unoptomised, mess.
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On March 12 2015 18:49 Darkwhite wrote: Nobody heaps shame on failed artists - those, we sympathize with. This is not about mere critique. We are talking about successful artists with satisfied customers, and someone on the sidelines butting in on this relationship. It is someone trying to impose their superior values on people who create things they are supposedly wrong to create, and the people who like things they are supposedly wrong to like.
Er I don't know about you, but every thing I know about artistic endeavour welcomes critique as a way to discuss the merits of a work. I hope like you've never complained to Blizzard or Valve or Riot for any imbalanced unit in their games because they have satisfied customers?
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I mean look - suppose we take your example, and an artist actually, literally, creates a female character in the game with tits the size of jupiter. Are you actually suggesting that we are prevented from pointing how ridiculously stupid that is, because it's his artistic vision?
Heck something like that would deserve all the shame heaped onto it.
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Yes, I am really suggesting that if an artist creates a female character with astronomical breasts, and if some tiny minority enjoys this art, that you leave them be. If literally nobody appreciates the character, that actually doesn't change anything. The same goes if you find adults who play with model trains or people whose sexual preferences involve licking each other's armpits. Even if you think it's ridiculously stupid. Is this sort of tolerance of other people's preferences a radical concept?
How long are you going to keep conflating criticism and shaming? Can you honestly not tell the difference between This does not appeal to me and You should feel ashamed to have made this?
Shaming is not an unfortunate choice of words - it's just a crudely straightforward admission that it's about leveraging social pressure against the artists. I stand by calling it vile, but mileages tend to differ.
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All right, you really seem to be caught up on that use of shaming. That comment is in response to a specific statement by Ubisoft about AC: Unity when people asked by they could play female characters in the co-op. The response from Ubisoft's PR was "its to hard to render female models" which people took as a hot pile of bullshit. Rather than owning up to their dumb mistake, Ubisoft doubled down and claims they couldn't do it was because they were working on making AC Unity so "amazing".
Then the game came out and we all know that game was a buggy pile of trash. They couldn't render a second model in co-op because the game was such a piece of shit. They fabricated a bullshit reason as to why they couldn't let people play as a woman in co-op and just didn't state the real reason because they didn't want hint at how much trouble they were having with that game.
That whole event is what the shaming comment is in relation to. And if you don't think that Ubisoft should catch a ton of shit for flat out lying as to why they couldn't make a female character in co-op, when they had it in other games(for their weird death match mode), then I don't really know what we are supposed to give them shit for in your world.
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On March 12 2015 14:08 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2015 13:04 Stratos_speAr wrote: It doesn't even require conscious effort at all. All it requires is that women are depicted realistically (their bodies aren't overly-sexualized), they are put in at least some prominent roles (doesn't need to be the main character, but it definitely can be), and their entire existence doesn't revolve around a male character. The problem is that it is a pretty well-established fact that games that currently do this are not that common. But it's artistic fantasy. It's fiction, not the real world. For example, in a game like Halo, involving faster than light spaceships, aliens, laser guns and energy shields, the sexualized image of a holographic AI is a problem because it's not realistic? Tychus Findlay doesn't look like me, but I wouldn't think this was a social issue. Living, breathing women in the developed world are able to dress themselves as they please and they have the freedom of their own image. But imaginary female characters are exclusionary if they don't fit your sense of a normalized image? I don't see why this needs social awareness and how it's not something for the market to just take care of? To the extent women can be an audience for games, studios will want to make stuff they like to make money. Right? In any medium people carve out their own target audiences. Women read Danielle Steel, men read Tom Clancy, everybody reads Ray Bradbury, too many people read Deepak Chopra. Show nested quote +On March 12 2015 13:33 Stratos_speAr wrote: It's simply a fact that the ability to relate only goes so far. Not only have you created a terrible strawman, but you've also created a false dichotomy between "all game characters are male" (which is what we're much closer to now than either the middle or the other extreme) or "all game characters are female". The idea is that there needs to be more diversity, because women don't want to be part of a gaming culture where 98% of playable characters are male and 75% of important/powerful characters are male. 66% of characters in Starcraft aren't even human. Should we not be worried about how humans relate when playing the campaign? Women watch TV and movies, right? Have Hollywood leading men been holding back women as film audiences?
This is just lazy and you should be able to see the obvious response to your arguments.
Stop with the "all or nothing" crap. Sexualizing a female character is not bad purely on its own. The problem occurs when the overwhelming majority of female characters are sexualized/unrealistic/are marginal.
Cortana being sexualized (I don't really even see her that way) isn't bad on it's own. The problem comes when Halo and every other major title out there have the exact same setup; strong male leads and the only female characters are sexualized. It's perfectly fine to have a game or story that lacks women; I was really annoyed by the Hobbit movies artificially throwing Tauriel in our faces just for a female character when it didn't need it. You can find similar examples in games/movies as well.
Stop with the weak strawmans and actually read what I'm saying. Nowhere am I saying that any one game is terrible for this. Nowhere am I saying that ALL games have to depict females in a certain way. All I'm saying is that the genre as a whole needs more diversity. You are creating an artificial conflict just because you absolutely refuse to admit that there's anything wrong with gaming whatsoever and that it's some kind of perfect little rainbow world.
And another thing; it's funny how people always say, "Let the free market react! We don't need to mandate that X does Y!".
What do you think this is? There aren't many (if any) people that are saying that we need to legally mandate that movies and video games start depicting more women and start doing so favorably. It's essentially the free market; it's the audience (the consumer) getting together and saying, "We're tired of this". "Free market" people just don't like it because it's working against them. Not only that, but the market is already working towards exactly what I'm talking about; there are more movies/books/games coming out depicting strong female leads, or at least competent female characters that aren't overly sexualized.
Heaping shame? For following their artistic vision? That is vile and reprehensible, and an excellent example of someone trying to impose their own standards of artistic merit on other people - the exact same thing you meant that I had gotten backwards.
Art is not free from criticism. That is a weak double standard and nothing but a cop-out to try to excuse poor writing.
You are free to create whatever kind of fictional world you want. However, if you are going to release art into the world, then everyone that sees it has the 100% right to critique it. If it depicts all black people as stupid monkeys, it would rightfully be shamed and criticized. Similarly, if it portrays all women as weak, stupid sex objects, it will rightfully be slammed.
This argument of "freedom of expression" stems from freedom of speech, yet you are being a complete hypocrite by trying to protect art from the consumer's freedom of speech (freedom to critique).
Nobody heaps shame on failed artists - those, we sympathize with. This is not about mere critique. We are talking about successful artists with satisfied customers, and someone on the sidelines butting in on this relationship. It is someone trying to impose their superior values on people who create things they are supposedly wrong to create, and the people who like things they are supposedly wrong to like.
That relationship is rightfully criticized because it's not that the developer has a good relationship with the U.S. population by creating games they like. The developer has a good relationship with its consumer because its consumer is made up almost entirely of white males (one relatively homogeneous population), so when a different population tries to join the community (or is invited to "We want women to play games too!") they are criticized for their depictions of those populations.
Again, few (if any) people are saying that every game has to be created in a certain way and depict women in a certain way. The problem is when the AAA gaming industry creates games where almost every one of them has a strong white male lead and marginalized or sexualized female characters.
Stop creating this weak strawman just because you're scared of change.
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On March 12 2015 21:47 Plansix wrote: All right, you really seem to be caught up on that use of shaming. That comment is in response to a specific statement by Ubisoft about AC: Unity when people asked by they could play female characters in the co-op. The response from Ubisoft's PR was "its to hard to render female models" which people took as a hot pile of bullshit. Rather than owning up to their dumb mistake, Ubisoft doubled down and claims they couldn't do it was because they were working on making AC Unity so "amazing".
Then the game came out and we all know that game was a buggy pile of trash. They couldn't render a second model in co-op because the game was such a piece of shit. They fabricated a bullshit reason as to why they couldn't let people play as a woman in co-op and just didn't state the real reason because they didn't want hint at how much trouble they were having with that game.
That whole event is what the shaming comment is in relation to. And if you don't think that Ubisoft should catch a ton of shit for flat out lying as to why they couldn't make a female character in co-op, when they had it in other games(for their weird death match mode), then I don't really know what we are supposed to give them shit for in your world. This is not what the article is about. Read the article we are discussing; or read the actual quote we are discussing; or just read the title of the article. For instance, the article wholeheartedly agrees that it's a lot of effort to make a female model without getting odd artifacts because of different sizes and proportions. It wants to shame Ubisoft for making a game which is too straight, white and dudish.
Stratos_speAr: I strongly disagree, but I have nothing to add to what I wrote in these two posts: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/general/479996-gtfo-new-documentary-about-female-gamers?page=42#824 http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/general/479996-gtfo-new-documentary-about-female-gamers?page=42#828
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On March 12 2015 22:37 Darkwhite wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2015 21:47 Plansix wrote: All right, you really seem to be caught up on that use of shaming. That comment is in response to a specific statement by Ubisoft about AC: Unity when people asked by they could play female characters in the co-op. The response from Ubisoft's PR was "its to hard to render female models" which people took as a hot pile of bullshit. Rather than owning up to their dumb mistake, Ubisoft doubled down and claims they couldn't do it was because they were working on making AC Unity so "amazing".
Then the game came out and we all know that game was a buggy pile of trash. They couldn't render a second model in co-op because the game was such a piece of shit. They fabricated a bullshit reason as to why they couldn't let people play as a woman in co-op and just didn't state the real reason because they didn't want hint at how much trouble they were having with that game.
That whole event is what the shaming comment is in relation to. And if you don't think that Ubisoft should catch a ton of shit for flat out lying as to why they couldn't make a female character in co-op, when they had it in other games(for their weird death match mode), then I don't really know what we are supposed to give them shit for in your world. This is not what the article is about. Read the article we are discussing; or read the actual quote we are discussing; or just read the title of the article. For instance, the article wholeheartedly agrees that it's a lot of effort to make a female model without getting odd artifacts because of different sizes and proportions. It wants to shame Ubisoft for making a game which is too straight, white and dudish.
The quote specifically states: "But I don't have to stop heaping shame on them for fumbling at PR and game design." He is shaming them for PR and game design, which is exactly what I said. How are you still confused by this? Are you going to say Unity was a good game now?
And a programmer for Ubisoft said the work would take 2 days in the article. Also they had numerous female models in the previous games for the multiplier, so I don't believe them.
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On March 12 2015 22:42 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2015 22:37 Darkwhite wrote:On March 12 2015 21:47 Plansix wrote: All right, you really seem to be caught up on that use of shaming. That comment is in response to a specific statement by Ubisoft about AC: Unity when people asked by they could play female characters in the co-op. The response from Ubisoft's PR was "its to hard to render female models" which people took as a hot pile of bullshit. Rather than owning up to their dumb mistake, Ubisoft doubled down and claims they couldn't do it was because they were working on making AC Unity so "amazing".
Then the game came out and we all know that game was a buggy pile of trash. They couldn't render a second model in co-op because the game was such a piece of shit. They fabricated a bullshit reason as to why they couldn't let people play as a woman in co-op and just didn't state the real reason because they didn't want hint at how much trouble they were having with that game.
That whole event is what the shaming comment is in relation to. And if you don't think that Ubisoft should catch a ton of shit for flat out lying as to why they couldn't make a female character in co-op, when they had it in other games(for their weird death match mode), then I don't really know what we are supposed to give them shit for in your world. This is not what the article is about. Read the article we are discussing; or read the actual quote we are discussing; or just read the title of the article. For instance, the article wholeheartedly agrees that it's a lot of effort to make a female model without getting odd artifacts because of different sizes and proportions. It wants to shame Ubisoft for making a game which is too straight, white and dudish. The quote specifically states: "But I don't have to stop heaping shame on them for fumbling at PR and game design." He is shaming them for PR and game design, which is exactly what I said. How are you still confused by this? Are you going to say Unity was a good game now? And a programmer for Ubisoft said the work would take 2 days in the article. Also they had numerous female models in the previous games for the multiplier, so I don't believe them.
(...) and their excuses are actually more patronizing and irritating than just coming out and admitting that the only thing they want to do is make more stories about shallow 30-something white dudes. This is the overarching topic of the whole article.
Yes, if they had even thought for a second about their female audience they would have found time and money in the budget to do it, and do it properly. But if they were thinking clearly they wouldn't have designed such a nonsensical and confusing multiplayer system to begin with. They didn't leave females out when they ran out of time or money at the end of the project. They left females out at the start, when they designed their everyone-is-Francis multiplayer.
A male-focused or female-focused game is fine. It's not that any one game leaves out women. It's that so many games leave out women. Ubisoft's catalog is sausagefest even by video game standards. Far Cry, Prince of Persia, Splinter Cell, Assassin's Creed, Watch_Dogs. Their big-budget headline franchises are by, for, and about dudes.
Even if you don't care about female players, this is still ridiculous from a business standpoint. Ubisoft can't argue that "women don't want to play these kinds of games" because Ubisoft has no way of knowing that. In fact, they've gone out of their way to avoid knowing about that. The one Assassin's Creed title that had a female protagonist was released for handhelds, and with such understated marketing that I didn't even hear about it until after it was already out. (Compare this to the Black Flag marketing blitz, where I was sick to death of the game before it even hit stores.) They released their one female-focused game on a different platform and to little fanfare, so that whether it sold well or poorly they would have no idea if it had anything to do with the gender of the audience or the protagonist. Even in Unity, it would have been really useful to let people choose to play as a woman, just to see how many people wanted to do that. If you insist that the article is about the technical flaws of Unity, you have a very serious problem with either your reading comprehension or your honesty.
Literally the entire first page of the article claims that adding a female model is non-trivial. Please read and make less of a fool of yourself.
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On March 12 2015 22:49 Darkwhite wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2015 22:42 Plansix wrote:On March 12 2015 22:37 Darkwhite wrote:On March 12 2015 21:47 Plansix wrote: All right, you really seem to be caught up on that use of shaming. That comment is in response to a specific statement by Ubisoft about AC: Unity when people asked by they could play female characters in the co-op. The response from Ubisoft's PR was "its to hard to render female models" which people took as a hot pile of bullshit. Rather than owning up to their dumb mistake, Ubisoft doubled down and claims they couldn't do it was because they were working on making AC Unity so "amazing".
Then the game came out and we all know that game was a buggy pile of trash. They couldn't render a second model in co-op because the game was such a piece of shit. They fabricated a bullshit reason as to why they couldn't let people play as a woman in co-op and just didn't state the real reason because they didn't want hint at how much trouble they were having with that game.
That whole event is what the shaming comment is in relation to. And if you don't think that Ubisoft should catch a ton of shit for flat out lying as to why they couldn't make a female character in co-op, when they had it in other games(for their weird death match mode), then I don't really know what we are supposed to give them shit for in your world. This is not what the article is about. Read the article we are discussing; or read the actual quote we are discussing; or just read the title of the article. For instance, the article wholeheartedly agrees that it's a lot of effort to make a female model without getting odd artifacts because of different sizes and proportions. It wants to shame Ubisoft for making a game which is too straight, white and dudish. The quote specifically states: "But I don't have to stop heaping shame on them for fumbling at PR and game design." He is shaming them for PR and game design, which is exactly what I said. How are you still confused by this? Are you going to say Unity was a good game now? And a programmer for Ubisoft said the work would take 2 days in the article. Also they had numerous female models in the previous games for the multiplier, so I don't believe them. Show nested quote +(...) and their excuses are actually more patronizing and irritating than just coming out and admitting that the only thing they want to do is make more stories about shallow 30-something white dudes. This is the overarching topic of the whole article. Show nested quote +Yes, if they had even thought for a second about their female audience they would have found time and money in the budget to do it, and do it properly. But if they were thinking clearly they wouldn't have designed such a nonsensical and confusing multiplayer system to begin with. They didn't leave females out when they ran out of time or money at the end of the project. They left females out at the start, when they designed their everyone-is-Francis multiplayer. Show nested quote + A male-focused or female-focused game is fine. It's not that any one game leaves out women. It's that so many games leave out women. Ubisoft's catalog is sausagefest even by video game standards. Far Cry, Prince of Persia, Splinter Cell, Assassin's Creed, Watch_Dogs. Their big-budget headline franchises are by, for, and about dudes. Show nested quote +Even if you don't care about female players, this is still ridiculous from a business standpoint. Ubisoft can't argue that "women don't want to play these kinds of games" because Ubisoft has no way of knowing that. In fact, they've gone out of their way to avoid knowing about that. The one Assassin's Creed title that had a female protagonist was released for handhelds, and with such understated marketing that I didn't even hear about it until after it was already out. (Compare this to the Black Flag marketing blitz, where I was sick to death of the game before it even hit stores.) They released their one female-focused game on a different platform and to little fanfare, so that whether it sold well or poorly they would have no idea if it had anything to do with the gender of the audience or the protagonist. Even in Unity, it would have been really useful to let people choose to play as a woman, just to see how many people wanted to do that. If you insist that the article is about the technical flaws of Unity, you have a very serious problem with either your reading comprehension or your honesty. Literally the entire first page of the article claims that adding a female model is non-trivial. Please read and make less of a fool of yourself. I read the article and I completely agree with it when its comes to the main lines AC games. The only thing they did differently was in AC 3, where they found a way to make the character Native American, but he was sort of dull too. Freedom Call was a good change of pace, but then they went right back to making games about boring white dudes that are not that interesting. If the characters were compelling, maybe that would be better, but Unity is a shitty game, with a shitty story.
And I don't see a problem, its criticism. You make boring, shitty characters and then make excuses why you can't put in a female model that your former employees say is bullshit, you catch some shit. And Ubisoft in the last year deserves it for the crap they pumped out in their main line titles.
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On March 12 2015 22:58 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2015 22:49 Darkwhite wrote:On March 12 2015 22:42 Plansix wrote:On March 12 2015 22:37 Darkwhite wrote:On March 12 2015 21:47 Plansix wrote: All right, you really seem to be caught up on that use of shaming. That comment is in response to a specific statement by Ubisoft about AC: Unity when people asked by they could play female characters in the co-op. The response from Ubisoft's PR was "its to hard to render female models" which people took as a hot pile of bullshit. Rather than owning up to their dumb mistake, Ubisoft doubled down and claims they couldn't do it was because they were working on making AC Unity so "amazing".
Then the game came out and we all know that game was a buggy pile of trash. They couldn't render a second model in co-op because the game was such a piece of shit. They fabricated a bullshit reason as to why they couldn't let people play as a woman in co-op and just didn't state the real reason because they didn't want hint at how much trouble they were having with that game.
That whole event is what the shaming comment is in relation to. And if you don't think that Ubisoft should catch a ton of shit for flat out lying as to why they couldn't make a female character in co-op, when they had it in other games(for their weird death match mode), then I don't really know what we are supposed to give them shit for in your world. This is not what the article is about. Read the article we are discussing; or read the actual quote we are discussing; or just read the title of the article. For instance, the article wholeheartedly agrees that it's a lot of effort to make a female model without getting odd artifacts because of different sizes and proportions. It wants to shame Ubisoft for making a game which is too straight, white and dudish. The quote specifically states: "But I don't have to stop heaping shame on them for fumbling at PR and game design." He is shaming them for PR and game design, which is exactly what I said. How are you still confused by this? Are you going to say Unity was a good game now? And a programmer for Ubisoft said the work would take 2 days in the article. Also they had numerous female models in the previous games for the multiplier, so I don't believe them. (...) and their excuses are actually more patronizing and irritating than just coming out and admitting that the only thing they want to do is make more stories about shallow 30-something white dudes. This is the overarching topic of the whole article. Yes, if they had even thought for a second about their female audience they would have found time and money in the budget to do it, and do it properly. But if they were thinking clearly they wouldn't have designed such a nonsensical and confusing multiplayer system to begin with. They didn't leave females out when they ran out of time or money at the end of the project. They left females out at the start, when they designed their everyone-is-Francis multiplayer. A male-focused or female-focused game is fine. It's not that any one game leaves out women. It's that so many games leave out women. Ubisoft's catalog is sausagefest even by video game standards. Far Cry, Prince of Persia, Splinter Cell, Assassin's Creed, Watch_Dogs. Their big-budget headline franchises are by, for, and about dudes. Even if you don't care about female players, this is still ridiculous from a business standpoint. Ubisoft can't argue that "women don't want to play these kinds of games" because Ubisoft has no way of knowing that. In fact, they've gone out of their way to avoid knowing about that. The one Assassin's Creed title that had a female protagonist was released for handhelds, and with such understated marketing that I didn't even hear about it until after it was already out. (Compare this to the Black Flag marketing blitz, where I was sick to death of the game before it even hit stores.) They released their one female-focused game on a different platform and to little fanfare, so that whether it sold well or poorly they would have no idea if it had anything to do with the gender of the audience or the protagonist. Even in Unity, it would have been really useful to let people choose to play as a woman, just to see how many people wanted to do that. If you insist that the article is about the technical flaws of Unity, you have a very serious problem with either your reading comprehension or your honesty. Literally the entire first page of the article claims that adding a female model is non-trivial. Please read and make less of a fool of yourself. I read the article and I completely agree with it when its comes to the main lines AC games. The only thing they did differently was in AC 3, where they found a way to make the character Native American, but he was sort of dull too. Freedom Call was a good change of pace, but then they went right back to making games about boring white dudes that are not that interesting. If the characters were compelling, maybe that would be better, but Unity is a shitty game, with a shitty story. And I don't see a problem, its criticism. You make boring, shitty characters and then make excuses why you can't put in a female model that your former employees say is bullshit, you catch some shit. And Ubisoft in the last year deserves it for the crap they pumped out in their main line titles. I'm repeating myself here, but the problem is that the article is meant to shame a company for designing a game for a specific demographic. There is literally nothing wrong about making a game for straight, white men, insofar as that's even what they are doing.
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If market research indicated that having a character lead that differed in any way from the stock "6 foot, white, Nolan North voice-acted white male" and excluding a sexualized female sidekick would negatively affect sales performance of your multi-million dollar budget game, would any of you really make a different decision?
At some point your females and other minorities (racial or otherwise) need to spend enough money to be worth considering beyond the scope of indie developers trying to hit a niche. Not every developer has the backing or luck to make something like Mirror's Edge.
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On March 12 2015 23:08 hariooo wrote: If market research indicated that having a character lead that differed in any way from the stock "6 foot, white, Nolan North voice-acted white male" and excluding a sexualized female sidekick would negatively affect sales performance of your multi-million dollar budget game, would any of you really make a different decision?
At some point your females and other minorities (racial or otherwise) need to spend enough money to be worth considering beyond the scope of indie developers trying to hit a niche. Not every developer has the backing or luck to make something like Mirror's Edge. Except that games like Tomb Raider sell 3+ million copies. And Mirror's edge two is being made because it was a successful game over the long run. They need to make the products before people will spend money on them and women will spend money on them. That's why developers are listening, because they would like women to buy their $60 AAA games because that's like 50% of the population.
On March 12 2015 23:06 Darkwhite wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2015 22:58 Plansix wrote:On March 12 2015 22:49 Darkwhite wrote:On March 12 2015 22:42 Plansix wrote:On March 12 2015 22:37 Darkwhite wrote:On March 12 2015 21:47 Plansix wrote: All right, you really seem to be caught up on that use of shaming. That comment is in response to a specific statement by Ubisoft about AC: Unity when people asked by they could play female characters in the co-op. The response from Ubisoft's PR was "its to hard to render female models" which people took as a hot pile of bullshit. Rather than owning up to their dumb mistake, Ubisoft doubled down and claims they couldn't do it was because they were working on making AC Unity so "amazing".
Then the game came out and we all know that game was a buggy pile of trash. They couldn't render a second model in co-op because the game was such a piece of shit. They fabricated a bullshit reason as to why they couldn't let people play as a woman in co-op and just didn't state the real reason because they didn't want hint at how much trouble they were having with that game.
That whole event is what the shaming comment is in relation to. And if you don't think that Ubisoft should catch a ton of shit for flat out lying as to why they couldn't make a female character in co-op, when they had it in other games(for their weird death match mode), then I don't really know what we are supposed to give them shit for in your world. This is not what the article is about. Read the article we are discussing; or read the actual quote we are discussing; or just read the title of the article. For instance, the article wholeheartedly agrees that it's a lot of effort to make a female model without getting odd artifacts because of different sizes and proportions. It wants to shame Ubisoft for making a game which is too straight, white and dudish. The quote specifically states: "But I don't have to stop heaping shame on them for fumbling at PR and game design." He is shaming them for PR and game design, which is exactly what I said. How are you still confused by this? Are you going to say Unity was a good game now? And a programmer for Ubisoft said the work would take 2 days in the article. Also they had numerous female models in the previous games for the multiplier, so I don't believe them. (...) and their excuses are actually more patronizing and irritating than just coming out and admitting that the only thing they want to do is make more stories about shallow 30-something white dudes. This is the overarching topic of the whole article. Yes, if they had even thought for a second about their female audience they would have found time and money in the budget to do it, and do it properly. But if they were thinking clearly they wouldn't have designed such a nonsensical and confusing multiplayer system to begin with. They didn't leave females out when they ran out of time or money at the end of the project. They left females out at the start, when they designed their everyone-is-Francis multiplayer. A male-focused or female-focused game is fine. It's not that any one game leaves out women. It's that so many games leave out women. Ubisoft's catalog is sausagefest even by video game standards. Far Cry, Prince of Persia, Splinter Cell, Assassin's Creed, Watch_Dogs. Their big-budget headline franchises are by, for, and about dudes. Even if you don't care about female players, this is still ridiculous from a business standpoint. Ubisoft can't argue that "women don't want to play these kinds of games" because Ubisoft has no way of knowing that. In fact, they've gone out of their way to avoid knowing about that. The one Assassin's Creed title that had a female protagonist was released for handhelds, and with such understated marketing that I didn't even hear about it until after it was already out. (Compare this to the Black Flag marketing blitz, where I was sick to death of the game before it even hit stores.) They released their one female-focused game on a different platform and to little fanfare, so that whether it sold well or poorly they would have no idea if it had anything to do with the gender of the audience or the protagonist. Even in Unity, it would have been really useful to let people choose to play as a woman, just to see how many people wanted to do that. If you insist that the article is about the technical flaws of Unity, you have a very serious problem with either your reading comprehension or your honesty. Literally the entire first page of the article claims that adding a female model is non-trivial. Please read and make less of a fool of yourself. I read the article and I completely agree with it when its comes to the main lines AC games. The only thing they did differently was in AC 3, where they found a way to make the character Native American, but he was sort of dull too. Freedom Call was a good change of pace, but then they went right back to making games about boring white dudes that are not that interesting. If the characters were compelling, maybe that would be better, but Unity is a shitty game, with a shitty story. And I don't see a problem, its criticism. You make boring, shitty characters and then make excuses why you can't put in a female model that your former employees say is bullshit, you catch some shit. And Ubisoft in the last year deserves it for the crap they pumped out in their main line titles. I'm repeating myself here, but the problem is that the article is meant to shame a company for designing a game for a specific demographic. There is literally nothing wrong about making a game for straight, white men, insofar as that's even what they are doing.
Nope, but that game is shit and Ubisoft did a terrible job of justifying almost every part of that game. The main character was dull as rocks and they bungled every PR move during its production. If developers can't take the heat and don't like it when critics take them to task for their artistic choices, they should go make accounting software.
And as a guy who writes short stories, I always ask myself "why is this character a guy" and it normally leads to better characters. There is nothing wrong with questioning your own work. If you are unwilling to stand behind your decisions on their merit alone and need to make up excuses like Ubi did, you don't know why you did what you did.
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On March 12 2015 20:34 Darkwhite wrote: Yes, I am really suggesting that if an artist creates a female character with astronomical breasts, and if some tiny minority enjoys this art, that you leave them be. If literally nobody appreciates the character, that actually doesn't change anything. The same goes if you find adults who play with model trains or people whose sexual preferences involve licking each other's armpits. Even if you think it's ridiculously stupid. Is this sort of tolerance of other people's preferences a radical concept?
How long are you going to keep conflating criticism and shaming? Can you honestly not tell the difference between This does not appeal to me and You should feel ashamed to have made this?
Shaming is not an unfortunate choice of words - it's just a crudely straightforward admission that it's about leveraging social pressure against the artists. I stand by calling it vile, but mileages tend to differ.
First, you're shifting your goal posts. Originally you said the artists have satisfied customers, but now it seems a tiny minority will suffice. It also went from criticizing the artist and artistic vision, to tolerating preferences of consumers. So is it artistic vision or the consumer preference? That's not very intellectually honest.
Second, people's hobbies and sexual fetishes are obviously different from art put up in a public medium. That's just an intellectually lazy comparison. The tolerance for preferences and the critical assessment of art is also obviously different things.
Criticizing is not "this does not appeal to me" by the way. Criticizing is "this is poorly done art and in bad taste".
Third, let's just throw out another example. Imagine an artist painting racists art. nazi propaganda. or something similar. that stuff out to be criticized robustly and shamed.
Fourth, and this is where I cannot help laughing, so apparently we have to tolerate the preferences of a tiny minority who like giant breasts. But when a minority in the gaming community (women) as people to be more tolerance and polite to them, it is okay to mock them, doubt their motives and so on. This sort of double think is right out of a cartoon.
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Tomb Raider's lead character has a muli-decade history and legacy across many different media platforms. It's a much smaller risk of an investment than a brand new female-led IP. Mirror's Edge 2 has been delayed for this long even though it was a surprise hit because it's still that risky. You're completely missing the point. It's not that lead females mean a game won't be successful. It's just more risky. And until you're personally willing and capable of fronting a million dollars or more to develop that kind of game it's laughable to hear random forumgoers talk like they know how to make money selling video games.
And if you think women don't play video games primarily as a factor of there not being enough women as leading characters in video games, you're completely off the mark. Many more women proportionally watch movies, television, and read books where the leads are male. The culture of video games being male-dominated is beyond the scope of what can productively be discussed here, but suffice to say the large upfront cost, not insignificant level of tech literacy required, and still existent social stigma all contribute.
Ubisoft shitting the bed with this female character PR fiasco is a symptom of Ubisoft shitting their entire house. It's not that relevant.
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Although you are correct that is seems risky, that assumes that men won't buy a game with a woman as the main character. Just like plenty of women will enjoy a show here the main character is male, there is no reason why men wouldn't enjoy a game where the main character is a woman.
If the argument is "women should be able to enjoy games where the main character is male," the argument can be applied to a game where the main character is a woman as well. And if that is the case, the game should sell well. Unless you have some other argument why it wouldn't.
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Video games at the AAA aren't made for women at all. That a character is male or female is one very, very small part of that. So yeah, maybe more games should be developed with women in mind if they want to tap that market. But it's difficult to get there and it's disingenuous to suggest that any publisher or developer should be obligated to put their livelihoods on the line to break that social barrier. It's a noble goal but I just see people who bear no personal risk attacking people who bear 100% of it.
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On March 12 2015 23:41 hariooo wrote: Tomb Raider's lead character has a muli-decade history and legacy across many different media platforms. It's a much smaller risk of an investment than a brand new female-led IP. Mirror's Edge 2 has been delayed for this long even though it was a surprise hit because it's still that risky. You're completely missing the point. It's not that lead females mean a game won't be successful. It's just more risky. And until you're personally willing and capable of fronting a million dollars or more to develop that kind of game it's laughable to hear random forumgoers talk like they know how to make money selling video games.
And if you think women don't play video games primarily as a factor of there not being enough women as leading characters in video games, you're completely off the mark. Many more women proportionally watch movies, television, and read books where the leads are male. The culture of video games being male-dominated is beyond the scope of what can productively be discussed here, but suffice to say the large upfront cost, not insignificant level of tech literacy required, and still existent social stigma all contribute.
Ubisoft shitting the bed with this female character PR fiasco is a symptom of Ubisoft shitting their entire house. It's not that relevant.
The social stigma is significant, and one of the talking points of this thread, but why would a large upfront cost and tech literacy be a barrier to women and not men? I hear women are capable of making money, and while I may be able to acknowledge that the average young man is more tech literate than the average young woman, that's probably another symptom of the very problem we are discussing in this thread.
Movies, television, and books are not video games. You are watching or reading about someone else's experiences in those media, whereas in video games you are doing the experiencing through your character. There is a reason role-playing games are so popular, people want to be invested, and relate to, their character. Now, Assassins Creed is no BioWare title, and you could imagine the outrage if Mass Effect 4 launched with no option for Fem Shep. But that doesn't mean that women wouldn't like to be able to play as female characters even in non-RPG games. And it also doesn't mean that it would help get them involved if developers would just take a little bit of extra time to allow them to play as a character they relate to better.
When given the choice, I always play as a male character in video games, and if a game makes me play as a female it needs to justify why it is doing that through the story so I don't feel like it's an arbitrary decision. I don't see why the opposite can't be true for female gamers, and many male protagonists are male because that is the default sex in video games, not because it was a thought out decision or anything.
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On March 12 2015 23:34 levelping wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2015 20:34 Darkwhite wrote: Yes, I am really suggesting that if an artist creates a female character with astronomical breasts, and if some tiny minority enjoys this art, that you leave them be. If literally nobody appreciates the character, that actually doesn't change anything. The same goes if you find adults who play with model trains or people whose sexual preferences involve licking each other's armpits. Even if you think it's ridiculously stupid. Is this sort of tolerance of other people's preferences a radical concept?
How long are you going to keep conflating criticism and shaming? Can you honestly not tell the difference between This does not appeal to me and You should feel ashamed to have made this?
Shaming is not an unfortunate choice of words - it's just a crudely straightforward admission that it's about leveraging social pressure against the artists. I stand by calling it vile, but mileages tend to differ. First, you're shifting your goal posts. Originally you said the artists have satisfied customers, but now it seems a tiny minority will suffice. It also went from criticizing the artist and artistic vision, to tolerating preferences of consumers. So is it artistic vision or the consumer preference? That's not very intellectually honest. Second, people's hobbies and sexual fetishes are obviously different from art put up in a public medium. That's just an intellectually lazy comparison. The tolerance for preferences and the critical assessment of art is also obviously different things. Criticizing is not "this does not appeal to me" by the way. Criticizing is "this is poorly done art and in bad taste". Third, let's just throw out another example. Imagine an artist painting racists art. nazi propaganda. or something similar. that stuff out to be criticized robustly and shamed. Fourth, and this is where I cannot help laughing, so apparently we have to tolerate the preferences of a tiny minority who like giant breasts. But when a minority in the gaming community (women) as people to be more tolerance and polite to them, it is okay to mock them, doubt their motives and so on. This sort of double think is right out of a cartoon.
First, I'm not shifting any goal posts. I am still defending artists with satisfied customers. I am also willing to defend artists without anybody who appreciates them. You can still put the ball in the first goal, if you prefer. I'm offering a second goal, which is by all standards also an easier target. Why does this upset you?
Second, exactly how`are hobbies obviously different from art in a public medium? Playing games is - drum roll - a hobby, after all. Nothing of what you are saying here is obvious. Assessing art is literally all about preferences, how are these different? I assume, the moment I try to make a product which caters to sexual fetishes, the tolerance goes out the window? Something like, sure, you can be homosexuals in private, but none of that stuff in movies?
Third, you know you have a good case, when you need Nazi analogies to make your argument. But I have no problem with racist art, other than as a symptom of racist people. The art police, on the other hand, evaluating art pieces' political undertones, sounds positively dystopian.
Fourth, this is a perfect disanalogy. Tolerating that others do whatever they want, and demanding that others change their behavior to accommodate you, are literally polar opposites. Why are you putting words in my mouth about mocking women and doubting their motives, though?
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