Multiple AAA franchises regularly starring a female protagonists now and forever

[white_wolf]

Yeah that would be great to have as many fem hero choices and genres to pick from as we do with the men but at this point its just an uphill battle to get 30% of the titles in all genre types to have a fem lead heck they even have difficulties just adding options for MP so I'm not holding my breathe its always one step forward and two or three steps back.

 

[white_wolf]

I mean, there's
http://www.themarysue.com/e3-games-female-characters/
that offers a list of 31 games that, at the least, have gender select, and it's not terribly complete, but lemme ask you this, how many have you honestly heard of?

Of that list alone I know: 17

Of those I didn't even know you could play as a woman for 3 of them. Devs however need to stop assuming players will know that you can pick your gender (in SP or MP) games and advertise it on every commercial, article, on their own websites, during interviews potential players can't be expected to figure it out post launch when pre-launch is the place to do that.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

I mean, there's
http://www.themarysue.com/e3-games-female-characters/
that offers a list of 31 games that, at the least, have gender select, and it's not terribly complete, but lemme ask you this, how many have you honestly heard of?

Of that list alone I know: 17

Of those I didn't even know you could play as a woman for 3 of them. Devs however need to stop assuming players will know that you can pick your gender (in SP or MP) games and advertise it on every commercial, article, on their own websites, during interviews potential players can't be expected to figure it out post launch when pre-launch is the place to do that.

Not necessarily that far, but yeah, I agree that advertisement can often make or break a game. It's not like GTA, CoD, and Battlefield became juggernauts of the gaming industry by not having commercials that are getting bigger and better.

 

[Dark Knifer]

EDIT: Addressed down below

The main thing with video games is that common triple A gameplay is focused on combat and comparing it to other entertainment mediums like movies that's an area that does not do well with a female demographic and therefore doesn't feature female characters.

Now keep in mind we are on a website dedicated to knowing as much about video games as possible so it makes sense diversity is being sought here but we are not the majority. Triple A is basically the big dumb action movie equivalent, which in movies have very few important females, such as the transformers movies.

If you want a significant female demographic there needs to be triple a games that are not focused on action, combat and killing. In a weird way, something like romantic comedy or something like that would work.

 

[Pogilrup]

The main thing with video games is that common triple A gameplay is focused on combat and comparing it to other entertainment mediums like movies that's an area that does not do well with a female demographic and therefore doesn't feature female characters.

Now keep in mind we are on a website dedicated to knowing as much about video games as possible so it makes sense diversity is being sought here but we are not the majority. Triple A is basically the big dumb action movie equivalent, which in movies have very few important females, such as the transformers movies.

If you want a significant female demographic there needs to be triple a games that are not focused on action, combat and killing. In a weird way, something like romantic comedy or something like that would work.

Are you seriously suggesting we replace the native prejudices of this industry with the prejudices of the film industry?

 

[Dark Knifer]

The main thing with video games is that common triple A gameplay is focused on combat and comparing it to other entertainment mediums like movies that's an area that does not do well with a female demographic and therefore doesn't feature female characters.

Now keep in mind we are on a website dedicated to knowing as much about video games as possible so it makes sense diversity is being sought here but we are not the majority. Triple A is basically the big dumb action movie equivalent, which in movies have very few important females, such as the transformers movies.

If you want a significant female demographic there needs to be triple a games that are not focused on action, combat and killing. In a weird way, something like romantic comedy or something like that would work.

Are you seriously suggesting we replace the native prejudices of this industry with the prejudices of the film industry?

Well if you wanted good characters we wouldn't be discussing this with the triple a industry now would we. They can't and don't do characters they are designed to be the most safe, broadly appealing type of game.

And is it really prejudice if that's what sells? I would love it if what was popular was exceptionally well written with consideration of females that are unique, dynamic able to express feminine issues without falling into tropes and cliches but that's not what most people want from triple A so realistically its inevitable. Games like the sims do appeal more to a wider female market so maybe more games like that and perhaps nintendo should be made for them.

Thankfully if you want good writing for females it will come from indie or lower a studios. Perhaps Valve.

 

[MidnightRaith]

The main thing with video games is that common triple A gameplay is focused on combat and comparing it to other entertainment mediums like movies that's an area that does not do well with a female demographic and therefore doesn't feature female characters.

Now keep in mind we are on a website dedicated to knowing as much about video games as possible so it makes sense diversity is being sought here but we are not the majority. Triple A is basically the big dumb action movie equivalent, which in movies have very few important females, such as the transformers movies.

If you want a significant female demographic there needs to be triple a games that are not focused on action, combat and killing. In a weird way, something like romantic comedy or something like that would work.

Really? Romantic comedies aren't even making the top ten lists in the box office right now. In many ways, the other genres like action, super-hero flicks and comedies in general have picked up the good things about rom-coms and threw them into their formulas. There's a reason why women seem to come out in droves for the newest Marvel movies and it's not because they're dragged there by their boyfriends. Hollywood is slowly beginning to realize that they don't have to pander to women's "feelings" and only that to get them into movie seats and I really don't want the gaming industry go through that same evolution.

Women like games that don't over-sexualize women. In my opinion, this is the issue that has kept a lot of women from getting into "hardcore" games as we view them and not just sticking to mobile games. They also view the industry as that of one that panders to men and teenage boys. They know that games is a boys club for the most part and I think this can be traced back to things like advertising. Mass Effect is a great example of a game that is progressive with LGBT characters and a woman protagonist. Femshep is even voiced by an icon of the VA industry. Yet, EA woefully underutilized marketing on that regard. I remember that the Bioware forums had to actually campaign just to get a reversible cover featuring Femshep for the last game. Unfortunately, I think only 20% of players actually played as her and I have to wonder if that's because the game has a primarily male audience that prefer Manshep, if the lack of advertising and marketing affected the stat or both.

The games industry itself can be sexist. There's the Aris Bakhtanians scandal, the community manager Meagan Marie and the female Tomb Raider fans she cosplayed with at PAX East getting harassed, and just Googling sexism in gaming can bring up a lot of anonymous women in the industry complaining about sexism in their workplaces. Whether it's true, I don't know, but this is something that I think affects how female gamers, even those that are already "hardcore", feel when they consider whether they're considering important of an industry that really takes in their preferences. We want female protagonists, but are constantly told by other gamers, male gamers (note that I know that not all male gamers are dismissive of female gamers), that women do not make up the majority of sales for a game, our preferences are not as important. They don't sell as well. But if publishers don't market to women to gain larger female audiences, how do we grow as an audience to make our sales more important and our preferences matter more? It's a cycle.

Fact of the matter is, AAA gaming is all about being safe. No one wants to publish a game about an untried female protagonist. Not when the female audience is something publishers are unwilling to market to and women in general are wary of getting into because of the lack of attention from both games as a whole and advertising. And I have to wonder if sexism is something that is there in some game companies that make some developers unwilling to create games about women.

Captcha is change the world. Hopefully the indies will be the driving force of change.

 

[Something Amyss]

Seriously , if games with a female protagonist sold as well or better than ones with male protagonists, we would see a lot more games with female protags. Hell female protagonists could even become the majority if it sold enough.

Since games with female protagonists tend to see a fraction of the promotion, that's more or less a self-fulfilling prophecy.

 

[Dark Knifer]

Snip

This I agree with and maybe it was wrong for me to suggest romcoms but those other genres adapted other things besides action to make them interesting towards females. Sure some females like the action but I imagine a lo of the appeal for females towards the avengers is not because of the action since its very run of the mill but the characters, particularly robert downey junior and tom eiddleston, who both of them seem to be really popular among females.

That's all well and good but a game is much longer then a movie and most triple a games fill that content with action so if triple a wants a substantial female market maybe they need to focus less on combat and more on other things. Bioshock infinite did the blend fairly well.

Didn't mean to offend or anything but I think we can agree Triple a needs changing and its more then just adding female characters. Even I'm sick of triple a being synonymous with action. I think it would be a loss if we didn't change anything in design or gameplay to include females and I don't think progression will come if inclusion can't occur in every level of game design.

 

[Eve Charm]

At the end of the day it's how many people have jumped on Ubisoft's back with the " Not including women in assassin's creed" and how many of those people Didn't buy Assassin's creed Lib HD an only 20 dollar vita remastered. Obviously not enough to even give a female assassin a second thought.

I could point my finger at people that Stick up their noses and scuff and have scuffed at the very idea of them purchasing games like "AC.L, Drakengaud 3, Beyond two souls, Remember Me, Wet, Bullet Witch, Hyper Nep, and Atelier games"

Ya they aren't everyone's cut of tea but for not one game to get any traction anywhere while Garbage like Duke nukem and Aliens CM out sold them By at least 4 times. If at the end of the day the ones screaming the loudest won't even open up their wallets for something At least TRYING why would anyone else would.

I'd Recommend Drakengaud 3 to anyone cause that game is an Experience and Zero is a Female character alright.

 

[Pogilrup]

Tell me would anyone like to play an Duke Nukem-like (not Duke Nukem Forever though) shooter starting a female protagonist who has the same nonchalant attitude about blowing up enemies?

 

[MidnightRaith]

Snip

This I agree with and maybe it was wrong for me to suggest romcoms but those other genres adapted other things besides action to make them interesting towards females. Sure some females like the action but I imagine a lo of the appeal for females towards the avengers is not because of the action since its very run of the mill but the characters, particularly robert downey junior and tom eiddleston, who both of them seem to be really popular among females.

That's all well and good but a game is much longer then a movie and most triple a games fill that content with action so if triple a wants a substantial female market maybe they need to focus less on combat and more on other things. Bioshock infinite did the blend fairly well.

Didn't mean to offend or anything but I think we can agree Triple a needs changing and its more then just adding female characters. Even I'm sick of triple a being synonymous with action. I think it would be a loss if we didn't change anything in design or gameplay to include females and I don't think progression will come if inclusion can't occur in every level of game design.

Action is very iffy to me on whether women enjoy it. My gut reaction is yes, we enjoy it, it's not just a guy thing, and while I think that's true to a certain extent, I have to acknowledge that I'm very biased on this subject. I tend to like things guys like.

You didn't offend me, the gaming industry tends to offend me when I actually sit down and think about how things really are. I definitely agree that things need changing on a variety of fronts. I don't think AAA will really change until women get hired for these companies on both the developers' side and the publishers'. It's going to take more than having female journalists or reporters, more than community managers. While they help, things won't really change until we get both men and women in on making the actual decisions in games. Thankfully it looks like some companies are already starting to head in that direction.

 

[Dark Knifer]

Snip

Its confusing for myself as a male what women think of action. My best experience is my girlfriend who can't stand things like the avengers, transformers and the like but she is quite happy with the matrix, amazing spider man and all that like. I think there is a certain style of action girls find a bit harder which is when the action starts being meaningless and lacking tension. Its when people can take so many hits and the hits don't injure them at all. She explained to me the avengers was boring because it felt like every character could be slung through half a dozen buildings and be completely fine, same with transformers.

This is true with modern triple a as well, being able to take explosions to the face but you get better hiding behind a rock. Maybe it is tension because horror is a bit of a unisex genre even though its incredibly violent. Maybe its tension that Triple a should look towards.

I guess its hard to generalize but when you make generic things you sort of have to due to their nature of being generic and broadly appealing, its just the way they have generalize gaming is pretty actively excluding any interesting female inclusion so they really need to adjust to capitalize on that market.

 

[Saetha]

The main thing with video games is that common triple A gameplay is focused on combat and comparing it to other entertainment mediums like movies that's an area that does not do well with a female demographic and therefore doesn't feature female characters.

Now keep in mind we are on a website dedicated to knowing as much about video games as possible so it makes sense diversity is being sought here but we are not the majority. Triple A is basically the big dumb action movie equivalent, which in movies have very few important females, such as the transformers movies.

If you want a significant female demographic there needs to be triple a games that are not focused on action, combat and killing. In a weird way, something like romantic comedy or something like that would work.

Really? Romantic comedies aren't even making the top ten lists in the box office right now. In many ways, the other genres like action, super-hero flicks and comedies in general have picked up the good things about rom-coms and threw them into their formulas. There's a reason why women seem to come out in droves for the newest Marvel movies and it's not because they're dragged there by their boyfriends. Hollywood is slowly beginning to realize that they don't have to pander to women's "feelings" and only that to get them into movie seats and I really don't want the gaming industry go through that same evolution.

For the record, Hollywood isn't "realizing" anything. The portion of movie tickets bought by women is 52%, and has been since 2009. Those numbers have been holding steady, they haven't increased recently (This may have changed in the past six months, as the most recent data we have is from 2013) They aren't going through some sudden realization that women will watch something besides rom-coms, because women have always been watching things besides rom-coms. They've always made up the slight majority.

(Source: http://www.mpaa.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/MPAA-Theatrical-Market-Statistics-2013_032514-v2.pdf ) Check pages 13 and 14 - women make up 52% of moviegoers (Which the study defines as people who see at least one movie a year) And the Marvel thing might be false as well - the last bullet on Page 2 notes that the ticket sales for Iron Man 3 and Man of Steel were overwhelmingly men, though it doesn't give exact numbers. Family films pulled in the most women, probably from mothers taking their kids to the movies.

Besides, while I obviously can't pull up on stats on this, from what I've witnessed of the female Marvel fans, it's not the action and plot that's pulling them in, it's the hot leading men and the steamy slash fiction they can write about them later.

 

[MidnightRaith]

The main thing with video games is that common triple A gameplay is focused on combat and comparing it to other entertainment mediums like movies that's an area that does not do well with a female demographic and therefore doesn't feature female characters.

Now keep in mind we are on a website dedicated to knowing as much about video games as possible so it makes sense diversity is being sought here but we are not the majority. Triple A is basically the big dumb action movie equivalent, which in movies have very few important females, such as the transformers movies.

If you want a significant female demographic there needs to be triple a games that are not focused on action, combat and killing. In a weird way, something like romantic comedy or something like that would work.

Really? Romantic comedies aren't even making the top ten lists in the box office right now. In many ways, the other genres like action, super-hero flicks and comedies in general have picked up the good things about rom-coms and threw them into their formulas. There's a reason why women seem to come out in droves for the newest Marvel movies and it's not because they're dragged there by their boyfriends. Hollywood is slowly beginning to realize that they don't have to pander to women's "feelings" and only that to get them into movie seats and I really don't want the gaming industry go through that same evolution.

For the record, Hollywood isn't "realizing" anything. The portion of movie tickets bought by women is 52%, and has been since 2009. Those numbers have been holding steady, they haven't increased recently (This may have changed in the past six months, as the most recent data we have is from 2013) They aren't going through some sudden realization that women will watch something besides rom-coms, because women have always been watching things besides rom-coms. They've always made up the slight majority.

(Source: http://www.mpaa.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/MPAA-Theatrical-Market-Statistics-2013_032514-v2.pdf ) Check pages 13 and 14 - women make up 52% of moviegoers (Which the study defines as people who see at least one movie a year) And the Marvel thing might be false as well - the last bullet on Page 2 notes that the ticket sales for Iron Man 3 and Man of Steel were overwhelmingly men, though it doesn't give exact numbers. Family films pulled in the most women, probably from mothers taking their kids to the movies.

Besides, while I obviously can't pull up on stats on this, from what I've witnessed of the female Marvel fans, it's not the action and plot that's pulling them in, it's the hot leading men and the steamy slash fiction they can write about them later.

Hollywood has been and always will follow the money, yes I realize that. Saying that, I think there is a reason as to why rom-coms are not being made with the same zeal as they were in the past. If women are and have been watching things besides rom-coms that pretty much pander to them, why focus on that genre when you can make an action flick that will interest women as well as men? Which is what I think Hollywood has been doing.

Having actually read a lot of the fanfiction that is written by these women, you would be surprised at how many actually make note of the plot and characters' traits from their movies for their fanfictions. Some are written for, well, erotic purposes and only that, but there are enough that actually care about the source material that make me believe that women do actually like the Marvel movies. I don't know. What they do after they watch the movie doesn't really seem relevant to me. If they're willing to spend money to watch it, spend hours writing about it, or making gif sets on Tumblr about it, then they probably gain some enjoyment out of it. Their motivations as to why they come out for the movies shouldn't really matter so long as they enjoy it, people prefer different things for different reasons and all that, getting dismissive on the why is silly especially considering how guilty men and women are for enjoying hot actors and actresses.

 

[Saetha]

Snip

Hollywood has been and always will follow the money, yes I realize that. Saying that, I think there is a reason as to why rom-coms are not being made with the same zeal as they were in the past. If women are and have been watching things besides rom-coms that pretty much pander to them, why focus on that genre when you can make an action flick that will interest women as well as men? Which is what I think Hollywood has been doing.

Having actually read a lot of the fanfiction that is written by these women, you would be surprised at how many actually make note of the plot and characters' traits from their movies for their fanfictions. Some are written for, well, erotic purposes and only that, but there are enough that actually care about the source material that make me believe that women do actually like the Marvel movies. I don't know. What they do after they watch the movie doesn't really seem relevant to me. If they're willing to spend money to watch it, spend hours writing about it, or making gif sets on Tumblr about it, then they probably gain some enjoyment out of it. Their motivations as to why they come out for the movies shouldn't really matter so long as they enjoy it, people prefer different things for different reasons and all that, getting dismissive on the why is silly especially considering how guilty men and women are for enjoying hot actors and actresses.

Hmm, true. And I'm probably in no place to get all dismissive of Marvel slash writers, considering how I have three tabs of Dragon Age fan fic open. Just pointing out that superhero movies still tend to pull in more men than women.

 

[Eve Charm]

I could point my finger at people that Stick up their noses and scuff and have scuffed at the very idea of them purchasing games like "AC.L, Drakengaud 3, Beyond two souls, Remember Me, Wet, Bullet Witch, Hyper Nep, and Atelier games"

Maybe they don't purchase them because they haven't heard good things about them (or even heard of them)? Now I've seen pretty positive things about Drakengard 3 and decent things about Atelier games, but I don't have the appropriate systems and I find Zero's outfit off-putting.

The rest though? Nothing but bad or mediocre things. AC:L is a Vita game made by a different studio that got an HD skin, where the only positive things I've heard about it are that the protagonist and some of the story ideas are good. Beyond Two Souls seems to have been universally panned, Remember Me was average, Wet I only know through Yahtzee's condemnation, and Bullet Witch through an Unskippable episode mocking it. Hyper Dimensional Whatever Neptunia I've heard is only good if you can overlook the poor... everything in favor of gaming references, fanservice, and yuri and I've only heard of it because a blog I visit mentions it occasionally.

Combine their mediocrity with the abysmal marketing (of the games you listed, I've only really seen advertizements for Beyond Two Souls), and it's a wonder they do poorly compared to the greatest game ever come again, Duke Nukem Forever, and the super-hyped with lies Aliens CM.

Then at the end of the day it comes down to , You don't want it bad enough. If you know these games exist and you have a platform to play them on and haven't bothered at all just means ya, Female protaginst is a nice choice, but It's not going to gain any sales but it sure will lose them.

Blazblue, chrono barely any advertisement, sold well with the fighting crowd, People are already talking about the new guilty gear. Jrpg comes out it sells enough, even ones starting Lightening, Hell even ones exclusive to vita!

Think about it like this, As a gamer, do you want to risk your favorite studio or series because " It sure would be nice to have more games with female protag" knowing it's a shot in the foot and maybe you'll buy it, Or do you want to be in that company risking their jobs and lively hood, making that game.

 

[McMarbles]

Of course, this future may come with a price.

Franchises typically featuring male protagonists being permanently rebooted with a female protagonist.

Tell me is that something you as a fan are willing to risk?

Personally, I am not really much of a fan of anything but I am very concerned for the medium overall.

EDIT: Also this scenario of opposite sex reboot is very unlikely but not impossible.

Oh, how would we ever survive with one less male-led franchise and one more female-led franchise? Truly, the living would envy the dead.