Brink No Girls Allowed!!!!

[migo]

Crying "sexism!" in regards to a form of entertainment that is overwhelmingly consumed by males is a bit silly. I realize in a perfect world you'd have male and female player characters, but the decision to cut the girls for budgetary reasons is completely reasonable, when you take into account the fact that the overwhelming majority of the people who play this game are going to be male.

As an aside, does anyone have a link to any sort of statistics on the gender breakdown of serious gamers? Or gender breakdown of gamers by genre?

I don't know about statistics, but anecdotal evidence does suggest female gamers who are serious gravitate towards games with female characters. One of my exes really liked Beyond Good & Evil, Bloodrayne, Heavenly Sword and Dead or Alive Xtreme, along side games with customisable characters such as KotOR.

My current girlfriend kind of enjoys Bayonetta thanks to her getting butterfly wings on a double jump.

Another one of my friends favourite KoF character is Mai Shiranui (no she doesn't look anything alike), and she considers Terry and Iori cheap.

What you might want to look at rather than breakdown of gender based on serious gamers is look at breakdown of lead character gender among female gamers, and see if there's a predisposition towards female characters. That would show if not having a female lead turns female gamers off of playing a game.

 

[migo]

I think that they should have girls in Brink.
Why not?
And girls are usually (and please, please don't tell me I'm stereotyping because generally, genetically) girls are lighter, faster, and more agile.
And in a game that has climbing and running as a core mechanic, I don't see why the developers couldn't just have made that extra push of effort to add girls.

Lighter yes, but not faster and not more agile. Speed and agility comes from muscle. There's a reason Marion Jones and Maurice Greene have the same build and can wear the same shoes.

Climbing requires upper body strength, something women are severely lacking in.

I know it's politically correct and all to say that girls are faster and more agile, but in reality the only physical advantage they've got over men is spreading their legs wider. Otherwise they're weaker (by a fair bit in lower body, and to a massive degree for upper body), slower, have less endurance, are less explossive... everything that matters for the type of situation people in Brink would be found in. In all likelihood if there were any women fighting, by the time it hits the point that Brink is set in, they'd all be KiA.

 

[TehChuckles]

GAH! damn this thread is filled with so many opinions without solid evidence to back them up (I'd only expect this in a religious forum actually), Splash Damage thought the Customers would love to see a much more deeper customisation rather than to have maybe a third (if they were lucky) of the possibilities with a "female" option tacked on. Get over it, it's their decision, I thought James from Extra Credit already explained this quite thoroughly to be honest./thread

Gah! Damn this post is filled with so much dribble!

Solid evidence? Of what? I challenge you to scour through the 76 odd posts, or at least 1 per user, and find some evidence thats in favour of YOUR argument, rather than demanding that of other people. Fact is, we're not in any sort of environment to find out EXACTLY what everything is, and we shouldn't be criticised because of it. Opinion and speculation is the simplest way to get a discussion rolling, and that's exactly what we have here - I don't see you offering much else besides a "look at me I watch a show here, better argue that this topic is not one for debate and entirely decided by somebody with a show on t3h int3rn3ts".

My argument in this is that Splash Damage made the decision and now it's our turn to reward them or punish them for it. so if you really don't like it, don't buy the game. or even better get into the development industry and make games that in fact have female avatars as an option. just don't put your energy to waste, don't go screaming out in agony within the unheard realms of the Internet. Do I need much research to say this is probably a good idea? I may have been a little less civil about it than I could of, but it was still the idea I was trying to put forward.

also. if I think what you're saying is what you're actually trying to say, How am I going to get solid evidence of what happened during this decision from only browsing this particular thread? there's surly a few people who agrees with me on here. but solid evidence of the truth? it's impossible. so in response I'll ask you, where is your source of information? If you present me with a couple of Reliable links or references to the source of your conclusions on this thread I will humbly back down. allowing you victory to this small quarrel. (common sense is not a reference, for your information.)

one more question before I go to bed for tonight. why pick on my post? did I offend you in some way? I simply stated there were some posts in this thread that claimed the possibly true to be completely true, that and one or two where the author must have thought s/he already knew all there is to be known (and possibly that his/er opinion is the only one that mattered).

 

[Alon Shechter]

The budget was chosen to be spent making the actual game instead of a bigger customization menu?

 

[Corkydog]

No one cared you couldn't play as female soldiers in any other multiplayer game...

Brink is now joining the list of all shooters that don't offer female avatars:

COD, Battlefield, Halo (unless pink armor counts as female), Team Fortress 2 (sorry, gents), Counterstrike, Unreal Tournament, ect.

So, what's the problem again?

EDIT: It has come to my attention that Unreal Tournament has female avatars. My bad.

 

[Shoelip]

The budget was chosen to be spent making the actual game instead of a bigger customization menu?

According to the OP the budget was chosen to be spent on a bigger customization menu for male characters to the complete exclusion of female characters.

Look, even if I don't even talk about sexism, I personally like looking at weapons more than I like looking at men. If I'm going to dress up a dolly I rather it be visually appealing to me.

 

[gxs]

quote="Cavan" post="9.268436.10284211"]Do you want a valid reason why not?

Female chars are almost universally smaller and are thus harder to see/hit, and so used by people who do not want to be hit by bullets.[/quote]This

I usually pick a girl avatar for one of two reasons:
The first is that they are usually smaller and harder to hit.
And the second reason is that most guys usually think that if you're using a girl avatar that you're a girl and play worse because they want to be gentlemen. It doesn't matter if you're male as long as you have a girl avatar you'll be hit on by adolescent boys. Maybe it's not a fair thing to do but it's an interesting social experiment.

 

[migo]

No one cared you couldn't play as female soldiers in any other multiplayer game...

Brink is now joining the list of all shooters that don't offer female avatars:

COD, Battlefield, Halo (unless pink armor counts as female), Team Fortress 2 (sorry, gents), Counterstrike, Unreal Tournament, ect.

So, what's the problem again?

UT has always had female avatars, and still does. You must be thinking of a different game.

 

[Shoelip]

No one cared you couldn't play as female soldiers in any other multiplayer game...

Brink is now joining the list of all shooters that don't offer female avatars:

COD, Battlefield, Halo (unless pink armor counts as female), Team Fortress 2 (sorry, gents), Counterstrike, Unreal Tournament, ect.

So, what's the problem again?

Um, you do realize that unreal tournament has tons of female avatars right? No I guess not or you wouldn't have said that.

 

[Alon Shechter]

The budget was chosen to be spent making the actual game instead of a bigger customization menu?

According to the OP the budget was chosen to be spent on a bigger customization menu for male characters to the complete exclusion of female characters.

Look, even if I don't even talk about sexism, I personally like looking at weapons more than I like looking at men. If I'm going to dress up a dolly I rather it be visually appealing to me.

Oh, right. My bad.
Personally I think the whole customization stuff is useless when you can put it to, y'know, improving gameplay.

 

[Shoelip]

WTF? Did I say weapons instead of women? Where did that come from?

Oh well, same difference.

 

[conflictofinterests]

I don't understand why it's females OR clothes. Wouldn't it make more sense for the most powerful customization engine to have females ONLY?

Or do you not have the tech for all the customization even using only female characters would require?

Also you know that even though the lack of female PC's would make it make sense for there to be a ridiculous amount of gay men, there will be less of them there than at the WBC.

 

[conflictofinterests]

No one cared you couldn't play as female soldiers in any other multiplayer game...

Brink is now joining the list of all shooters that don't offer female avatars:

COD, Battlefield, Halo (unless pink armor counts as female), Team Fortress 2 (sorry, gents), Counterstrike, Unreal Tournament, ect.

So, what's the problem again?

The pyro is a girl.

 

[Shoelip]

They reproduce in vats. It's the only way they can keep up with the death toll.

 

[Auxiliary]

Only men succeed in swimming to The Arc.

 

[kittii-chan 300]

It'd suck if they do add females as DLC you have to pay for. How's that for fun, you need to pay more just to have a gender fittings yours.

yes. not very fun at all.

 

[TheHecatomb]

Good call. Their art direction of exaggerated proportions and faces that really have a life drawn into them works better on male heads anyway.

 

[Auxiliary]

I am personally hoping they focus on the actual game rather than just paying attention to the looks. They also said that Brink will be a series in the future. So I am assuming the option will become available in the next game.

So far I am quite interested in the game. But even though they promised an extensive singleplayer component, I remain quite unconvinced in that respect. It does look like it is going to be extremely fun in multiplayer. Perhaps I can finally leave the hat-mania known as TF2.