Jimquisition: Let's End the FPS Sausage-fest

[DrunkOnEstus]

I know this thread is specifically about FPS, and potentially multiplayer as it has been brought up a bit, but I have a confession.

I am a male who will at any opportunity roll female in any video game. My mind kind of tells me that since I'm entering a fictional world where I have the power to change things and am completely different from my real persona, I gravitate to female as I know what it's like and am comfortable with male.

I rolled femshep through 3 epic journeys, a girl named Talora survived Demon's and Dark Souls, there's a craaaaazy woman who blew up more than one Saint's Row city, there's a female lvl 72 Blood Elf lost in Blizzard's servers...I think I've made my point.

I hate to say this, but judging by the marketing and overall tone of the "real-war" FPS games, they seem to be catering to dudes, men, guys. There's no reason why there couldn't be female character options, but I really don't imagine a massive demand for it, lest there be a petition sizable enough that the wargame devs would comply.

Really though, outside of the wargame FPS sausagefest, there is a plethora of options for a female to experience a fantasy world as her gender. Publishers and Developers aren't completely pants on head retarded yet, they do market research and focus group testing and I get the impression that this sausagefest is no coincidence.

 

[Vampire cat]

-snip-

I don't get why you would feel worse about killing a female in a game than a male. Maybe I'm just uncommonly detached when it comes to videogames? I'm never bothered regardless of gender, race or age (old lady, DIE!!!). I don't understand why some consider certain people of higher value than other based on trivial things such as age.

Am I as cold in real life? No, I struggle giving one of two friends a slightly smaller piece of cake than the other! It doesn't matter which gender they are though, or where they are from. If they are good people I value them equally.

In a game there are no consequences of shooting the other one, regardless of their gender, age or race. I'll gladly blow their brains out if it means extra points. It's so detached from real life that I don't even think twice about it. I would certainly like the option of a customizable character including race and gender, but it wouldn't affect how I acted towards other players any!

 

[cervie]

Jim, may I say just what a frankly stunning woman you make. Has anyone ever suggested that you make the change more permanent?

Oh and yeah, good episode as well. Speaking as a dude who is usually more comfortable playing as a dude... needs more chicks.

I must agree, quite striking really, its the big curly hair that does it.

 

[Phasmal]

Really good point well made.
I'd love to have more options to roll a female character, but I do get told often that the market for female gamers is so small it doesn't matter.
I will still (obviously) play games where you can be only male, but having the option is preferable.

 

[cervie]

Jim, I will pay you ALL of the money to never dress like a lady again.

ALL of it.

For shame, it wasn't that bad... Watch some Eddie Izzard, sir, you'll get over it.

Oh, tangentially related, did you know that Playboy has put men on the cover occasionally in the past decade? Granted, they have not been posed in a sexual way, more like a role model, but still. Progressive thinking wins!

 

[Bindal]

Funny, how BLACK OPS II of all games seems to try to change that, at least for the singleplayer portion, in MMS (Modern Military Shooter), by giving you support-characters, which are women. One we can even "see" in the clip Jim showed - the pilot of the jet we see there is female.
Black Ops 1 already changed that with "Call of the Dead" in the Zombie mode (which not only featured four new player-models - one female - but also new arm-models, new dialogues ect) and in an indirect way in the map "Moon" (you get a female character in a male body after they swap bodies near the end of the story... don't think too much about it, it only makes sense in context) and it's very likely that in BO2 Zombies, we again get a female model considering the return of a good amount of characters as well as a unknown woman in the promotional pic for the mode. So, the only "missing part" would be the Multiplayer - and I wouldn't be surprised, if we see a gender-toggle there for each loadout.
Regarding "Aliens: Colonial Marines" - yes, Gearbox did kind of a screw-up here, but they were probably thinking too much from a developer-side than from the Alien-side when approaching the MP - and with that, they were unfortunally thinking like most devs regarding Multiplayer-FPS and only made males (as far as we know, at least - considering how much developement-time is left and was already spend, I wouldn't be surprised if they simply were just not able to add the female players to their preview-builds or do so after the topic was mentioned for the first time)

And in other FPS-subgenres, we already have female characters (Zoey, Rochelle and Chell from Valve, even Chell is slightly a strech due never really 'shooting' - Samus in the Metroid Prime games - the mentioned Killzone 1 even), so it most the MMS, which are dropping the ball on this.


However, I can sort of understand the cost-issue. While a new model might not cost as much, espically if you put them into tons of gear and already have a buckload of playermodels in the MP, a VOICE-ACTOR is needed at times aswell. Depending on how chatty the player-characters are in the respective situations, that might cost more than the new model. That was even one of the reasons, why Tripwire, for a long time, didn't add a female playermodel to Killing Floor, despite having like 30 playermodels to pick from (but only two voices in total) - in the end, their EUROPEAN RETAIL-PARTNER created that female model (and paid all costs related to it) in the end. While already avaible for people buying the boxed Gold-Edition for about 3 months, everyone else can get her next week, August 1st - it's a bit complex, why other people have to wait for it, check the KF-Forum (with 5$, it's for a single model quiet a lot, but 1$ of each purchase will go to charity and... well, it's the only female model so far, most people will buy it for that price - I know I will.)

Christ, that was longer than I expected. So, I guess I end this now - finding some brain-bleach to get the pic of Jim in women-clothes out of my head. FAST.

 

[ex275w]

Come on Jim, you shouldn't have thanked God this time, thank Mother Gea, when dressing a feminist womyn, you don't need to thank a phallocentric Male God, thank a female one, for Gea's sake.

Is it ever mentioned which God we are thanking for Jim? I can't seem to recall him ever specifying, so no why can't it be female! Thank God for Jim ^^

Well from what I know from religion God (with an uppercase), usually refers to the male Christian god, occasionally known as YHWH or Yahweh. While god (with a lower case) usually means gods like Zeus, Aprhodite or Artemis.
Still, he really should have referred to Gea, since apparently that's what some radical feminists do, and not referring to a explicitly female deity is misogynist and cissexist.

 

[Littaly]

That is a surprisingly convincing drag

 

[Twinmill5000]

https://images.nonexiste.net/popular/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/This-is-why-I-dont-like-knifing-people-in-BF3.jpeg

Look at this guy. Look at his eyes. He's almost like a puppy.


Now imagine if that guy was replaced with a in game version of this: http://i.usatoday.net/news/_photos/2011/04/24/women-soldiers-afghanistan-0I3D7RJ-x-large.jpg

I bet you couldn't knife that, could you?


That's why alot of people don't want female characters in grungy, realistic FPS multiplayer.


It's alittle more serious than this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9Bf6-OfULQ

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS487US487&q=s4league&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.,cf.osb&biw=1202&bih=543&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&authuser=0&ei=XYsNUMgQyLStAYvKzZIL

 

[Worgen]

Good point Jim, but actually in Call of Duty, they do show women, well actually, a woman in CoD4 as she's hear in the mission, Charlie Don't Surf, then you have to rescue her from a downed helicopter in the mission, Shock and Awe

While that was the example I was thinking of, I can't get past the fact that it's throwing up an easy target for the militant feminist, who will no doubt point out that the fact that the one female's sole purpose is to be rescued isn't all that much of a step forward.

Still, a woman in CoD is a woman in CoD.

Militant Feminist... now there is a strange term, is that a feminist who is in the military or one that enforces gender equality with a gun and doesn't take shit from anyone?

 

[sideshow]

You forgot Halo! Look at the difference between Spartans!

Female:

Male:

..........................WHAT DIFFERENCE?!?!?!?

 

[Something Amyss]

Funny how old games like Unreal, Aliens vs. Predator 2 etc. had female characters in multiplayer... Modern games are a step down in many directions. Look at Duke Nukem 3D level design for example.

Games have become about cutting as many corners. the relative cheapness of the FPS is one of the reasons it is so prevalent.

So it's no shock it trickles down to the naughty bits.

Speaking as a woman who likes shooters, I agree. It would be nice to have the option, at least. And the lack of a female option has led me to not buy at least one game. (Brink - because seriously? Over a quadrillion customization options and not one of them is female? Because it would have cut down on the options available? Could you not have not half a quadrillion male options instead? I don't think anyone would have been unsatisfied.)

That's also a more general problem. People always look at someone else being given an option as them having an option taken away.

Why is it a thing that women have to be petite and short?
They have body sizes that differ as much as men do, sure they have less natural muscle than men do, but that doesn't mean they all have the physique of a 16 year old with two watermelons duct taped to them.

To be fair, a 6' woman is up there on the curve.

Then again, in games populated by hulking refigerators of men, I think the argument that there are too many tall women is kind of...What's the word I'm looking for...Ridiculous.

While that was the example I was thinking of, I can't get past the fact that it's throwing up an easy target for the militant feminist, who will no doubt point out that the fact that the one female's sole purpose is to be rescued isn't all that much of a step forward.

Still, a woman in CoD is a woman in CoD.

Is she playable in either single player or multiplayer? Because that's the crux of the issue here. Jim may have started with the lead-in that you might think women don't exist, but the main thrust here is less about NPCs and the like.

Also, if you think that's "militant feminism," I think you're using both of those words wrong.

 

[gamegod25]

I'd say that gender equality is still as big a problem in games as is racial equality. While progress has certainly been made over the years, more often than not games are a sausage fest of white men (with varying degrees of muscles and ruggedness) with only the odd token woman and/or minority, usually in just a minor support role or comedy sidekick.

Personally I'm all for seeing more female characters in games and any reason not to is just BS or laziness on the part of the developer. After all if Valve has all that free time on their hands to make 50 million stupid hats for TF2 why not make some playable female versions of each class?

 

[Falterfire]

@ the all female FPS: Please no. Because there is no way you can convince me that there is a company out there right now with:
A. the necessary personnel, experience, and funding to make it properly
B. a solid enough marketing team to avoid it becoming Dead or Alive: Beach Volleyball: Guns edition
and
C. the perspective to realize that female main characters doesn't mean it needs to be 'girly'

I'm not saying the game concept is flawed. I'd like to see such a game if it could be done well, but I don't have enough faith in any specific game company right now to believe it could actually happen, and if it isn't a financial success you'll end up taking a step backwards instead of forwards.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Ok I'm going to have nightmares tonight about Jim in drag. X(

 

[Rad Party God]

Well, Halo is the only FPS series wich I can think of having equal number of gender.

Also, Jim with boobs...

 

[Twinmill5000]

Don't read me wrong, I want to see a grungy FPS integrate female avatars.

I'm just explaining the logic, with my own logic, that entails why people wouldn't want to see it.

It irks me too, guys. It really does. I've explained that, like, three times now. Shooting a realistic female in a realistic game (read: Not Saints Row 3.).

On that same note, I'm not gonna hide behind the fact that it 'costs more to develop female characters and male characters' and 'balancing issues'. It's okay to be a softie. It's less okay to nitpick something so frivolous to hide it.

But no matter how much it irks me, I want to see it happen, because after enough traumatizing myself, it'll irk me less.


Still, I'll explain one more time. It's not shooting females that people don't like. Or killing females, for that matter. If that was the case, we'd see alot more complaints about that in games like League of Legends. It's about the realism of it all. As games start to blur the lines between fantasy and reality, and truly immerse you (I've fucking jumped irl when a grenade went off next to me in BF3 in a firefight), actually, fuck finishing my thought, I'll just leave it at that. Take that thought, and apply it to females in multiplayer.

 

[Bindal]

You forgot Halo! Look at the difference between Spartans!

Female:
http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/110/1100653/halo-reach-20100621020443589-000.jpg

Male:
http://www.gamerdna.com/public/images/user_image/set201/image/201809/playermodel.ashx.png?1225157443

..........................WHAT DIFFERENCE?!?!?!?

Kind of the point - those two models are ALMOST the same (female has a slightly slimmer hip and bit sexier butt - but that's only noticable when they are next to each other in idle).

 

[Bobic]

Good point Jim, but actually in Call of Duty, they do show women, well actually, a woman in CoD4 as she's hear in the mission, Charlie Don't Surf, then you have to rescue her from a downed helicopter in the mission, Shock and Awe

While that was the example I was thinking of, I can't get past the fact that it's throwing up an easy target for the militant feminist, who will no doubt point out that the fact that the one female's sole purpose is to be rescued isn't all that much of a step forward.

Still, a woman in CoD is a woman in CoD.

Militant Feminist... now there is a strange term, is that a feminist who is in the military or one that enforces gender equality with a gun and doesn't take shit from anyone?

The second one, though the gun is considerably more metaphorical than your description makes it seem. Basically, anyone who shoves the argument down your throat when it isn't needed. I thought it was a common term. One separating the average feminist (good) from the raving nutjob feminist (bad). But anyway, read below and you'll see the true meaning behind my statement! Are you excited?

While that was the example I was thinking of, I can't get past the fact that it's throwing up an easy target for the militant feminist, who will no doubt point out that the fact that the one female's sole purpose is to be rescued isn't all that much of a step forward.

Still, a woman in CoD is a woman in CoD.

Is she playable in either single player or multiplayer? Because that's the crux of the issue here. Jim may have started with the lead-in that you might think women don't exist, but the main thrust here is less about NPCs and the like.

Also, if you think that's "militant feminism," I think you're using both of those words wrong.

I'd say picking a fight about it over the internet would be pretty militant. Anyway, I was just being ironic, if you didn't guess (which is fair enough, I could/should have been more obvious), I was the militant feminist, and that was the flaw that I came up with against my own argument that there was a woman in the armed forces (briefly) in CoD.

 

[Scrustle]

Jim, I will pay you ALL of the money to never dress like a lady again.

ALL of it.

For shame, it wasn't that bad... Watch some Eddie Izzard, sir, you'll get over it.

Eddie Izzard doesn't look that bad. At least not next to Matt Dillahunty. [http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/wp-content/blogs.dir/470/files/2012/04/i-e2be17853a0174fd8db08a0245c9d9e6-matthilda_dillahunty.jpeg]