Brink : No Girls Allowed

[Crash486]

What I meant by that was perhaps it is a valid reason for them to limit the game to just male characters. They had to somehow cut down thier workload and it was either to sacrifice the customisation which they wanted as a heavy part of their game in the first place. Or one of the genders. You can at least accept thier reasoning even if you question thier motive even on a subconcious level.

Sorry, but I don't buy it. There are really too many other factors at play here. If you need evidence of that, just take a look at some of the posts in this thread.

Well, you're obviously the expert on game design and 3-d modeling. I agree with you 100%, Splash Damage is totally sexist. Not so much the people who work there, but the company as an entity unto itself is sexist. Let's boycott them and go play WoW.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

We really don't know anything that went on outside of what they have told us themselves, and while that can work both ways I can give people the benefit of the doubt.

 

[Farseer Lolotea]

Well, you're obviously the expert on game design and 3-d modeling.

No, although I actually know a few basics.

But I take it you're an expert, then? If not, your condescension is misplaced.

I agree with you 100%, Splash Damage is totally sexist. Not so much the people who work there, but the company as an entity unto itself is sexist. Let's boycott them and go play WoW.

If you're going to strawman people, you might want to learn to do it effectively first, rather than just making stuff up.

We really don't know anything that went on outside of what they have told us themselves, and while that can work both ways I can give people the benefit of the doubt.

"Benefit of the doubt" only goes so far. After a certain point, you're giving people too much credit.

Well, generally any kind of "controversy" does just serve to help a game sell better. Gives it more exposure. Any publicity is good publicity, so they say.

Exposure does not automatically equal sales.

 

[Chibz]

Or one of the genders.

Which is cutting down on the customization. By exactly 50%, actually.

It's an indefensible decision, really.

Also, I've seen what the customization is announced to be. Nothing special. Cut what customization out? Oh, you mean the pretty shallow customization that we've seen BETTER THAN many times?

Yeaaaaah.

Oh, and I'm definitely NOT buying the game due to a lack of female characters. I don't support incompetents.

 

[Crash486]

Well, you're obviously the expert on game design and 3-d modeling.

No, but I know a few basics. Are you an expert, then?

I agree with you 100%, Splash Damage is totally sexist. Not so much the people who work there, but the company as an entity unto itself is sexist. Let's boycott them and go play WoW.

If you're going to strawman people, you might want to read up on doing it effectively first.

Ignoring than the fact that you're most likely the kind of person who enjoys stirring up meaningless drama on the internet, I'll play. You've argued against everyone's attempt to justify the decision to not include a female model in the game for just about every conceivably logical reason other than sexism. If you're not accusing them of such, what exactly are you accusing them of?

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Also, I've seen what the customization is announced to be. Nothing special. Cut what customization out? Oh, you mean the pretty shallow customization that we've seen BETTER THAN many times?

Shouldn't you wait until it's a least released to decide that?

 

[Farseer Lolotea]

Ignoring than the fact that you're most likely the kind of person who enjoys stirring up meaningless drama on the internet[...]

In light of your previous post, I'll consider the source.

You've argued against everyone's attempt to justify the decision to not include a female model in the game for just about every conceivably logical reason other than sexism. If you're not accusing them of such, what exactly are you accusing them of?

There's no good justification, but we'll skip that.

That said? To call it sexism, I'd have to think that there was malice to it as opposed to mere thoughtlessness. My guess is that they thought female characters were a "safe" thing to cut because it simply didn't occur to them that anyone would miss them.

Now, I could state that this means that Cracked was right about game companies' view of their audience. But instead, I'm just going to call it an ill-advised decision and leave it at that.

 

[Chibz]

Shouldn't you wait until it's a least released to decide that?

A lack of female characters instantly makes its level of customization worse. This isn't a small level of customization to omit, remember. Plus in trailer releases (which should be used to highlight how awesome the customization is) they utterly failed to amaze.

 

[Crash486]

That said? To call it sexism, I'd have to think that there was malice to it as opposed to mere thoughtlessness. But it was a bad call.

Or one of the genders.

Which is cutting down on the customization. By exactly 50%, actually.

It's an indefensible decision, really.

Also, I've seen what the customization is announced to be. Nothing special. Cut what customization out? Oh, you mean the pretty shallow customization that we've seen BETTER THAN many times?

Yeaaaaah.

Oh, and I'm definitely NOT buying the game due to a lack of female characters. I don't support incompetents.

The game is not a dress-up simulator, it's first person shooter. Deciding to not play a first person shooter because you don't like the customization options is akin to not reading a book because you don't like its cover. What's important is that the game plays well overall, and possibly brings something new to the table by means of gameplay and art direction.

Let's be honest female gamers are a pretty small minority, and female gamers who play first person shooters doubly so. Even so, I imagine most female gamers honestly don't give a damn about this "issue", and the ones that do, are most likely the same ones who complain that females are always portrayed in games as being "too attractive" and unrealistically proportioned. If you don't want to play a game because you're not interested in it, fine, but it's silly to not play a game because of the lack of an arbitrary feature. If not being able to play as a female somehow negatively impacted your ability to play the game, then I'd be more likely to see some controversy here. In the end, its really a non-issue.

 

[Farseer Lolotea]

Okay. This game half-assed a feature that it's using as a major selling point, and you're being rude and dismissive at people who see that as a point against it? And you're breaking out the "girls don't play video games" fallacy, to boot?

And the idea that complaints about female characters in video games comes down to their being "too attractive" is also a strawman. It pretty much adds up to "you're just jealous," which adds up to insulting a complete stranger's appearance over the Internet.

 

[loodmoney]

That said? To call it sexism, I'd have to think that there was malice to it as opposed to mere thoughtlessness. But it was a bad call.

Or one of the genders.

Which is cutting down on the customization. By exactly 50%, actually.

It's an indefensible decision, really.

Also, I've seen what the customization is announced to be. Nothing special. Cut what customization out? Oh, you mean the pretty shallow customization that we've seen BETTER THAN many times?

Yeaaaaah.

Oh, and I'm definitely NOT buying the game due to a lack of female characters. I don't support incompetents.

The game is not a dress-up simulator, it's first person shooter. Deciding to not play a first person shooter because you don't like the customization options is akin to not reading a book because you don't like its cover. What's important is that the game plays well overall, and possibly brings something new to the table by means of gameplay and art direction.

Let's be honest female gamers are a pretty small minority, and female gamers who play first person shooters doubly so. Even so, I imagine most female gamers honestly don't give a damn about this "issue", and the ones that do, are most likely the same ones who complain that females are always portrayed in games as being "too attractive" and unrealistically proportioned. If you don't want to play a game because you're not interested in it, fine, but it's silly to not play a game because of the lack of an arbitrary feature. If not being able to play as a female somehow negatively impacted your ability to play the game, then I'd be more likely to see some controversy here. In the end, its really a non-issue.

Let's break this down real simple:
"Deciding to not play a first person shooter because you don't like the customization options is akin to not reading a book because you don't like its cover." No. In this case, it is deciding not to buy a book because that book ignores the existence of a whole fucking gender. A book that introduces new narrative styles, maybe, but also a book that says 'there is a character in here for you to identify with!' and then the characters turn out to all be men. A book that is written into a genre that sees nothing wrong with having backwards views about women. Which are all perfectly good reasons.

"If not being able to play as a female somehow negatively impacted your ability to play the game, then I'd be more likely to see some controversy here. In the end, its really a non-issue." I'll start with the basics here. Sexism is bad because of the effects it has on people. It is the reason why women are worse off in so many ways--paid less on average, held to double standards &c.--and the reason why men are forced to conform with certain standards in order to be accepted. Things that promote sexism are bad for the same reasons. Brink promotes sexism by accepting this idea that gaming is first and foremost a men's club. A place where you don't have to deal with those troublesome womenfolk, where men can do manly things with other men. To the extent that FPSs fail to include women they incubate this idea that women are something akin to a different species from men; to the extent this idea is accepted it becomes so much harder to deal with sexism in the real world. So even if this doesn't impact one's ability to play the game, it is still an issue.

And Farseer has pointed out what is wrong with the rest of your post. Does that help?

 

[2ndblackjedi]

I can see why they made this decision. Whether it was right or wrong aside, I understand what went into this and only time will tell if it hurts sales significantly or if female characters will be added at a later date when they've had time to develop the same wide customization options for them that they say they need the time to make for male characters.

This has probably been said before (I'm not going through 18 pages to check 'cause I'm lazy ) but I wonder though if the same people who disagree with the choice to cut out female characters would feel the same if the developers had chosen to remove male characters. It's really the same issue, taking out a whole gender for the sake of putting as much time as possible into the other. I want to believe that they would, but that seems naive.

 

[Farseer Lolotea]

@ loodmoney: It should also be noted that popular media is often viewed as a "social barometer."

I can see why they made this decision. Whether it was right or wrong aside, I understand what went into this and only time will tell if it hurts sales significantly or if female characters will be added at a later date when they've had time to develop the same wide customization options for them that they say they need the time to make for male characters.

Rumor has it that female characters will be eventually added as DLC. Which still begs the question of why female characters were considered "extra," while all of these extra customization options were considered "basic."

This has probably been said before (I'm not going through 18 pages to check 'cause I'm lazy ) but I wonder though if the same people who disagree with the choice to cut out female characters would feel the same if the developers had chosen to remove male characters. It's really the same issue, taking out a whole gender for the sake of putting as much time as possible into the other. I want to believe that they would, but that seems naive.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I certainly would.

 

[Serenegoose]

imagine a female heavy :S that doesnt really fit.

Sorry, you were saying?

 

[Farseer Lolotea]

Sorry, you were saying?

I like her. She's not pretty, but she's...well, effective.

 

[Mastern56]

Hey, if anyone has tried to play brink yet, have you run into any problems? I try to launch mine, and all it does is go not responding. I updated my drivers, checked my files for verification, everything I could think of. Do you guys know anything I can do? Tried to make my own thread but it got 404'd.

 

[Crash486]

Let's break this down real simple:
"Deciding to not play a first person shooter because you don't like the customization options is akin to not reading a book because you don't like its cover." No. In this case, it is deciding not to buy a book because that book ignores the existence of a whole fucking gender. A book that introduces new narrative styles, maybe, but also a book that says 'there is a character in here for you to identify with!' and then the characters turn out to all be men. A book that is written into a genre that sees nothing wrong with having backwards views about women. Which are all perfectly good reasons.

"If not being able to play as a female somehow negatively impacted your ability to play the game, then I'd be more likely to see some controversy here. In the end, its really a non-issue." I'll start with the basics here. Sexism is bad because of the effects it has on people. It is the reason why women are worse off in so many ways--paid less on average, held to double standards &c.--and the reason why men are forced to conform with certain standards in order to be accepted. Things that promote sexism are bad for the same reasons. Brink promotes sexism by accepting this idea that gaming is first and foremost a men's club. A place where you don't have to deal with those troublesome womenfolk, where men can do manly things with other men. To the extent that FPSs fail to include women they incubate this idea that women are something akin to a different species from men; to the extent this idea is accepted it becomes so much harder to deal with sexism in the real world. So even if this doesn't impact one's ability to play the game, it is still an issue.

And Farseer has pointed out what is wrong with the rest of your post. Does that help?

I'm going to have to disagree with both of you here. All entertainment media is aimed at a specific target audience. Market research shows the majority of gamers are males between the ages of 18-35. To assume the decisions made in the art direction of the game were done so, intentionally or not, to promote the "sexist stereotype" that gaming is a boys club is nothing more than twisted pigeonholing of market statistics, and frankly probably pretty insulting to the art directors of the game.

The fact of the matter is, time, money, and manpower are not infinite resources. Given the time and resources Splash Damage had to create a polished, immersive, first person shooter, they made the executive decision to go for optimum appeal to their target audience, males between the ages of 18-35. Implementing robust character customization options for a second gender would have from resources which could have been spent adding more options for their target audience. Since resources are finite, they obviously felt it was a better use of their resources to appeal to the majority of their audience rather than attempt to appease a minority of female gamers (and I guess males?) who have a problem not being represented in a relatively arbitrary section of the game. If you fundamentally disagree with their decision, then I guess they lost your business, but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that they probably never had it in the first place.

Okay. This game half-assed a feature that it's using as a major selling point, and you're being rude and dismissive at people who see that as a point against it? And you're breaking out the "girls don't play video games" fallacy, to boot?

I never said "girls don't play video games" I simply pointed they're the minority of the gaming audience. If you're going to call me out for using straw man arguments, you should probably refrain from using them yourself.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

jesus this thread has gone ballistic, i might just buy brink based on the fact that it pisses off so many femi-nazi's in the process.

Well, generally any kind of "controversy" does just serve to help a game sell better. Gives it more exposure. Any publicity is good publicity, so they say.

very true i suppose, regardless of that i am probably going to get the game, it looked hella fun anyways, disregarding if the character i am controlling is male or female, the customization looks really interesting, an so does the gameplay, which is what people SHOULD be concentrating about, not worrying that its male only for the characters

 

[Chemical Alia]

As much as I'd like to say I'm not bothered by the decision not to include females, I must admit that I am. Given the option, I rarely select female characters in games; it's even more rare that I actually like them. Less personality, less variety, and less interesting. I do consider the devs' explanation a weak cop out and a missed opportunity to explore something that's rarely done well. Of course, they're free to make the game that they want, but such a blatant reinforcement of the status quo isn't winning them any plus points from me.

My views are more from the standpoint of a developer/artist than as a gamer. I want to see the industry expand and mature, bringing with it a wider audience who may then go on to contribute to it.