A little defense for Ubisoft for the female assassin discussion.

[CrazyBlaze]

I think a lot of the anger comes for the way Ubisoft responded to the original question. A giant game company saying it's a lot of work is like a multi-billionaire saying that his taxes are too high. There is no sympathy and it comes off as whining and being completely disconnected from reality. Maybe it is a lot of work, but that's why you have a huge team and are a multi-million dollar studio. You have the resources to make this happen, you just didn't allocate them correctly.

What's weird is that they did have female characters in Assassins Creed III's multiplayer and yet chose not to put it in Unity, a game that is based on mutliplayer. I don't think they'll be making this same mistake again.

The difference being that in the past MP you picked a character and played with it. Here you are bringing in your SP character directly in from the campaign. There is no choosing of character, only skills, clothes and weapons. This whole issue really is a case of Ubisoft not being clear on that point from the start. If they had made it clear in their demo that everyone played as Arno with other players just having a face change than I think this whole mess could have been avoided. Same with the person who said it would take too many resources. I think he did not understand the question fully and answered incorrectly.

 

[CrazyBlaze]

. But we're talking about the player's appearance specifically in the co-op mode, where none of this applies and your character, for the duration of the co-op mission, is no longer main character Arno Dorian but instead switches to a no-name assassin helping out another player's Arno.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but this debate isn't about the main character, per see.
The story is set for a male and that is fine.
The problem is that when going multiplayer, the additional options for player two three and four are pallet swaps of the main character, but there is no option to switch to a female model.
This player Two character has no unique personality they have to come up with. It's just a avatar for player Two.

The thing is you don't pick a character. You import your Arno into the coop and see everyone else with different faces but wearing their Arno's gear, clothes and weapons. So you are always the main character. I think this is why it was so diffuclt for the team to add a female skin. Unless they kept her the same size and similar build as Arno (not unheard of for females to be the same height as men, or the same build with a few changes) than it might have been easier. But if they made her smaller than everything that happens to that character has to be synchronized and when everyone is seeing a different person as the woman that could get hard.

 

[go-10]

I only played Brotherhood so maybe I'm mistaken but wasn't there an Assassin Creed for the PS4 that started a black female?

people seem to be making a big deal of not being able to play a female in Unity but seem to ignore an entire game with a female assassin

 

[Batou667]

you know I wouldn't even care

oh I mean I think Ubi should pull its head out of their ass and I could explain why Ass Creed is THE prime candidate to give us a female protagonist

but the real issue here was Ubi saying it was "too hard" was essentially a middle finger to female gamers everywhere and everyone else considering the amount of BS they pack into the series

Heck, I agree. Not every game *needs* a female character. I'm not particularly in favour of shoe-horning in women or minorities into settings that don't really suit them. But "lolnope, it's too hard" is blatently bullshit - Ass Creed games in the past have had a great diversity of male and female multiplayer characters, and in Revolution-era France there'd be plenty of suitable material to work with. It's not the fact that this choice isn't present that's baffling, it's the fact that it has been present in past titles, and now they're taking that choice away. It makes no more sense than them saying "Er, yeah, there's no free-running in this one. Next-gen buildings have more polys, so it'd be too difficult to do. Impossible in fact. Why do you want free-running anyway? Let's look at all the great things that are in the game!"

Maybe there's a good reason. Maybe it was a genuine oversight, in which case I'd respect them more for admitting it. Perhaps they could add female characters through DLC. Ah heck, I don't know. The fact that they've put hardly any effort into visually differentiating the playable characters is weird in itself.

 

[anthony87]

I don't understand why people think Ubisoft needs to justify their character creation to anyone. Not having a female character is indicative of nothing, and having a female character is also indicative of nothing.

All this is is volunteer victims playing at offended for...some reason I can't grasp.

it's partially the period the game is set in, leading the french revolution were women, one of the most prolific assassinations of the time was done by a woman.

just with these two, I would hope that Ubisoft, being a French developer, would of at least tried to have some sort of history to their game.


but nope, more plain white guys.

Oh please, you're making it sound as if there's no women in the game at all.

 

[White Lightning]

you know I wouldn't even care

oh I mean I think Ubi should pull its head out of their ass and I could explain why Ass Creed is THE prime candidate to give us a female protagonist

but the real issue here was Ubi saying it was "too hard" was essentially a middle finger to female gamers everywhere and everyone else considering the amount of BS they pack into the series

I don't know why but that "too hard" comment irked me. Do you know how hard it is? I don't. I admittedly only read the OP and guy under him before I got bored and started skimming but from what they said it sounds pretty hard.

If you had a kid and an elephant fell on him, it would be hard to get it off. Especially if the elephant was being a douche about the whole situation. Are you flipping off your kid because it was too hard to pick up an elephant? No, you're not, because as far as I know elephants are kind of heavy. Yeah, that's right. Think about it.

Anyways I couldn't care less whether my playable charter has a dick, vagina, or triceratops between their legs. I just want a game with good graphics, game play, story, level/enemy design, and AI.

 

[DoubleU12]

Words

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but this debate isn't about the main character, per see.
The story is set for a male and that is fine.
The problem is that when going multiplayer, the additional options for player two three and four are pallet swaps of the main character, but there is no option to switch to a female model.
This player Two character has no unique personality they have to come up with. It's just a avatar for player Two.

People want to be able to pick a female when they play multiplayer, the option should be there, it's not that hard.
(again, please correct me if I am wrong)

Personally, I always found it odd that Call of Duty and Battlefield didn't let me pick a female either.

If that is in fact true then yes I agree with you 100% XD Ubisoft is being problematic and that isn't good.
I personally didn't mind that Call of Duty and games like those didn't have females, mostly because I if I was in a real world war scenario would have lots of personal issues with shooting a gun at a woman that I would not have when shooting at a man, but that is a personal issue and I certainly was in no way against adding women to Call of Duty Ghost's multiplayer.

 

[CloudAtlas]

Not only that but other characters treat her like a woman, and she has woman mannerisms. (...) Women have very different priorities, wants, needs, concerns and means of dealing with problems than male characters and bringing these details out strengthens a character's design. I don't want the main character in my game to be male, I am telling a story in my game and I chose the genders of each character for specific reasons among everything else about their appearance and personalities.

As a simple example, a female characters that want to feel beautiful and noticed by men around them but get very self conscious around women who are confident with their bodies which discourages them. (...) A tough girl who obviously isn't the delicate little flower like the other girls around her able to keep up with all the tough male characters she interacts with. She always puts on a strong front, always ready to kick ass, always 100% about buisness. Then it is nice to see her hide, break down for just a small moment to cry over something simple that the tough male characters wouldn't really understand. She's still a woman, maybe on occasion she wants to be pretty delicate flower like the other girls around her but that just isn't how she is and every time she's tried she winds up just
looking foolish and wondering why she ever thought she wanted this to begin with.

No offense, but when reading statements like this, I get the feeling that the portrayal of women in your game will be very cliché, stereotypical, cringeworthy, and probably sexist.

Edit - on topic: So what exactly is your "defense towards UbiSoft" here? That they don't care much about story anyway?

 

[Verlander]

The outrage should be more focused on how they're this far into the series with so few changes to formula. If it ain't broke don't fix it, but don't expect me to buy it either.

 

[Maeshone]

If that is in fact true then yes I agree with you 100% XD Ubisoft is being problematic and that isn't good.
I personally didn't mind that Call of Duty and games like those didn't have females, mostly because I if I was in a real world war scenario would have lots of personal issues with shooting a gun at a woman that I would not have when shooting at a man, but that is a personal issue and I certainly was in no way against adding women to Call of Duty Ghost's multiplayer.

It isn't true. When you play coop, you always see yourself as Arno, while your friends appear as their version of Arno except with another face. All their gear, their outfits and weapons still remain exactly the same, becuase in their version they are Arno and your Arno gets a new face.

 

[Sarah Kerrigan]

I was hoping Far Cry 4 would have an interesting protagonist this time around but it's just a lame white guy again. At least the villain looks to be highly entertaining.

Uh, no. Ajay Ghale is not just some white guy. He is a Kyrat native, grew up there, and is an indian protag. Just, uh, fixing your comment there.

OP;; As a female who has played the entire Ass Creed series, loving every one of the games (don't talk to me about 3 though) I personally don't care. As long as the character I am playing as is interesting, I don't care if they are female or male. Yeah, it's cool if they are female or if I can pick the gender, but I really don't care.

Granted, there is a big rumor (that holds some significant going around) that the modern protag is actually a female russian assassin, but that is just a rumor that I would love to be true.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Ubisoft is just butting heads with the political hydra that is "-ism".
Their response sounds absurd because it's either true, or false depending on how you approach it.

If I were feeling especially angry and dickish, I could make a case that Ubisoft is not only being exclusionary towards women, but everyone save Caucasian adult white dudes.

And while their preference for 30 year old white dude player characters is a demonstrably strong trend in their productions (there are exceptions, but are pretty weak) there are some obvious flaws in using that reasoning.

The same people decrying Ubisoft for their strong aversion to non-grizzled 30 something white dudes would probably not be so quick apply their same line of thought to say, making a game where the protagonist is a member of the Somali Pirates, or the Ku-Klux-Klan, or any other nasty "unrepresented" group. Any objective argument for equality requires true representation, so where's the outcry for those?

Well, obviously the argument isn't purely objective, nor does it have to be. Representation is dependent on population and appeal, and women are increasingly becoming involved in the gamer population, and yet are underrepresented.

Now, Ubisoft isn't obligated to provide equal representation as it is a creative medium, though one could argue based on their own success it's in their best interest to try.

Yet there's the rub: Ubisoft as a company, is trapped by their own cycle of success.
Grizzled white dudes sell so well, that even with the AAA market being flooded with games featuring them, they still sell strong; strong enough that dedicating resources (in an already bloated budget) to other options is unappealing and risky.

Of course, that's the heart of the matter: Ubisoft's success is based entirely on their aversion to risk right down to the philosophical level. Their business model is based on inbreeding its own success endlessly (by their own admission, Ubisoft refuses to producing anything except milkable franchises going forward) just like damn near every other AAA game producer.

Ultimately, they have absolutely no reason to actually address this issue because from their perspective, the gender issue isn't genuinely threatening to their profit margin. Business does not care about equality, ethics, or anything unless legally required (and even that may not stop them).

SUMMARY: If you're tried of grizzled white guys being the only option for playable characters in Ubisoft's games, don't buy games that only feature them.

Revenue rates are the only things that Ubisoft is concerned with as far as design and appeal go. Their marketers are paid to identify that. Any other notions, like "creative license" or "artistic vision" are arbitrary and completely meaningless to them. At best, Ubisoft considers "artistic vision" a quaint phrase to use only when it makes them look better.

Remember: DuChamp's Urinal had a very specific "artistic vision" behind it too: one to deliberately mock an entire culture out of spite.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I was hoping Far Cry 4 would have an interesting protagonist this time around but it's just a lame white guy again. At least the villain looks to be highly entertaining.

Uh, no. Ajay Ghale is not just some white guy. He is a Kyrat native, grew up there, and is an indian protag. Just, uh, fixing your comment there.

My fault. I barely saw any of him in the trailer since it's 1st-person. He just seemed to be the same kinda character archetype as Jason from Far Cry 3, which is disappointing.

 

[wulf3n]

You know it's kind of funny, with all the talk of surrounding the "entitlement" of 30 something straight white male gamer, that people haven't bothered look at their own arguments under a similar lens.

I mean take a look at the Retake Mass Effect campaign a little while ago, it shares a number of similarities to the current issues. Developer/Publisher does something fans don't like. Fans react by insulting developers. Fans get labelled entitled whiny children.

So why do so many feel "entitled" to female characters? Why aren't we calling out the abhorrently abusive reactions to these issues as the rantings of entitled whiny children like was done for the Mass Effect fans?

There's a common theme running through these threads.

Person A:If you want more female characters why don't you start making games yourself?
Person B:I have a life. It's not my responsibility to make games, I just want to play them.

Person B:Game with Female protagonist #31 didn't sell because the Publisher didn't market it!
Person A:Why didn't you tell your friends? Blog it? Twitter It? spread the word yourself?
Person B:I have a life. It's not my responsibility to market games, I just want to play them.

Person A:Did you hear Indie game X has a female protagonist.
Person B:Indie games don't count, they're not AAA
Person A:What?

Person A:Did you hear AAA game Y has a female protagonist.
Person B:You mean the one that only got 75% on metacritic. You expect me to waste my money on anything less than 95%
Person A:What?

Person A:Did you hear Publisher Z is making a game with only white male protagonists.
Person B:Those sexist misogynist assholes, I'm going to tell all my friends, blog it, twitter it and make a dozen threads abusing the developers.
Person A:What?

I mean why does anyone actually expect Publishers/Developers to add female characters when the only thing the community does to get them is abuse and harrass the developers?

 

[DoubleU12]

Not only that but other characters treat her like a woman, and she has woman mannerisms. (...) Women have very different priorities, wants, needs, concerns and means of dealing with problems than male characters and bringing these details out strengthens a character's design. I don't want the main character in my game to be male, I am telling a story in my game and I chose the genders of each character for specific reasons among everything else about their appearance and personalities.

As a simple example, a female characters that want to feel beautiful and noticed by men around them but get very self conscious around women who are confident with their bodies which discourages them. (...) A tough girl who obviously isn't the delicate little flower like the other girls around her able to keep up with all the tough male characters she interacts with. She always puts on a strong front, always ready to kick ass, always 100% about buisness. Then it is nice to see her hide, break down for just a small moment to cry over something simple that the tough male characters wouldn't really understand. She's still a woman, maybe on occasion she wants to be pretty delicate flower like the other girls around her but that just isn't how she is and every time she's tried she winds up just
looking foolish and wondering why she ever thought she wanted this to begin with.

No offense, but when reading statements like this, I get the feeling that the portrayal of women in your game will be very cliché, stereotypical, cringeworthy, and probably sexist.

Edit - on topic: So what exactly is your "defense towards UbiSoft" here? That they don't care much about story anyway?

Just that it seems like everyone isn't buying their excuse when they say it would take a lot of resources to add a female character at this point. I don't know how true that is but even on the small project I'm working on it would be quite a taxing task and I'm sure it would be much worse for their game.

As for the previous statement. Bleh, I am not AT ALL surprised you assume that (Despite I pulled those examples from popular female characters) I gave cliche examples so whoever is reading can get the point I was making quick and easily. I'm not going to sit here and justify the content of my game since this is just something I do for fun and because you appear as thought you'd only go into it with a negative point of view so I'd just set myself up for failure.

I guarantee if you were to make your own game or story you'd get uninformed negative assumptions from other people like you regardless of your intentions. So whatever, don't worry, No offense taken.

 

[DementedSheep]

Women have very different priorities, wants, needs, concerns and means of dealing with problems than male characters and bringing these details out strengthens a character's design.

Nope.

I agree it's sometimes cool if they have these things, but there's also something to be said for the Femshep approach. The idea that women are and have always been irreconcilably different from men reeks of bad essentialism. Often, for everyday purposes, there's really nothing particularly mysterious or complex or difficult to understand about human beings having slightly different genital configurations.

So really, much of the expected difference between male and female characters depends on the priorities of the audience, since the audience are ultimately the ones who decide what is and isn't a good character. If the audience expects all female characters to be snivelling, squealing ultrafemmes obsessed with shoes and babies then fine, but I think there's a good deal of evidence that isn't the case here.

Deciding in advance what the audience wants is a self-fulfilling prophecy, and like most such prophecies is not particularly clever.

: ) Maybe, I'm not saying making a character gender neutral is bad. There is definitely something to be be said for gender neutral characters, but there are plenty of behaviors that both men and women can relate with that a large majority of the other gender cannot and it is ok to explore these.

I like Zelda's design in Hyrule Warriors because she looks strong, confident and sensible on a battle field but she also gave it quite a girly side. It still has a long pink skirt and tight wearing leggings. She clearly didn't dress to be mistaken for 1 of the many male soldiers around her, she dressed to stand out and be identified as a woman.

I think it is important when writing a character, even a character with a very small part to consider the tiny details and emotions that they are feeling.

As a simple example, a female characters that want to feel beautiful and noticed by men around them but get very self conscious around women who are confident with their bodies which discourages them. Making a male character who messes around and does a lot of gross jokes all day to the point where you are genuinely surprised when he suddenly steps up and proves himself quite admirably. This is behavior that a lot of real world men would understand and can relate with, likewise with the female character. A lot of real world women would be able to relate with this despite it being something that men in a real world sense can't really relate with.

Even if your goal is to make a character that is gender neutral and simply all business all the time. It's good to see a small hint that they have human emotions.

A tough girl who obviously isn't the delicate little flower like the other girls around her able to keep up with all the tough male characters she interacts with. She always puts on a strong front, always ready to kick ass, always 100% about buisness. Then it is nice to see her hide, break down for just a small moment to cry over something simple that the tough male characters wouldn't really understand. She's still a woman, maybe on occasion she wants to be pretty delicate flower like the other girls around her but that just isn't how she is and every time she's tried she winds up just looking foolish and wondering why she ever thought she wanted this to begin with.

Same with male characters, this applies to all characters you are writing your story for.

A very shy boy who is dragged along by his very aggressive female friend to places he doesn't want to go and do things he doesn't want to do, but then when the time comes where it's time for him to step up he is hesitant but he doesn't disappoint those around him.

What I'm basically saying is I think when you are able to capture those tiny details that real women and real men can relate with you put more human in the characters you are telling your story about and hopefully allow the audience to connect with them better.

"tough girl" is secretly pathetically emotionally fragile, obsessed with her body, the attention of men and has to run off and have a cry confusing all the big strong men. How inspired, after all she is just a woman and this is what women are like. Guys don't have these issue and not wanting to disappoint or wanting to prove yourself are male motivations.

 

[DoubleU12]

"tough girl" is secretly pathetically emotionally fragile, obsessed with her body, the attention of men and has to run off and have a cry confusing all the big strong men. How inspired, after all she is just a woman and this is what women are like. Guys don't have these issue and not wanting to disappoint or wanting to prove yourself are male motivations.

I assuming most of this statement is being sarcastic. : ) I mean the 1st statement almost contradicts the 2nd. These are simply broad examples I was giving so readers wouldn't have to think too hard.

Everyone has stress, especially when they're in a situation they don't fit in well, women relate more to crying and stress when portrayed through a story than men. This is IN GENERAL a fact.

Men are in general more competitive than women but not wanting to disappoint and wanting to prove yourself is a very gender neutral motivation, I think you are thinking in either too narrowly or broadly when you say that but I have seen both sexes absolutely CRUSHED emotionally when dealing with situations like college exams (As well as not caring less how poorly they did) and both genders are willing to jump through hoops to maintain a failing friendship or relationship.

But once again these are simply broad examples, there are several ways real world women would strive to prove themselves and not disappoint as well as endless ways big tough men can feel helpless and weak.