Poll: To Female Players - Does Gender really matter for Single-Player Games with no customization?

[GraveeKing]

PS: I don't ever remember anyone complaining about playing as a female in Tomb Raider.

I seem to recall that being a major selling point...

Well that truly and utterly sums up what I was about to say. See men will happily play as girls in games. But well this is just ANOTHER sign of sexism against men, OK maybe there should be be an option to switch genders, but God of war involves a lot of mythology - and a hell of a lot of myths had male characters, so it only makes sense to keep to that genre.
It shouldn't matter at all what character you have! It's the game-play, story and everything else that truly matters. If it effects immersion that much then really. All the recent 'gaming is dead' threads are going to apply to you.

 

[Savagezion]

Gender is part a of character. I don't want a role there simply for the sake of appeasement. If it adds nothing to the game, why waste your time?

Take Male Shep and Female Shep - Gender adds nothing to the game other than your choice of romance. It's a useless tack on. The world interacts with you in completely the same way.
It shouldn't.

I remember the merc recruiter in ME2 commenting that 'The dancers go over there' to FemShep or something.

Anyway, gender doesn't matter to me...but if given a choice, I always pick female.

If I'm going to be forced to stare at my character's ass for 90% of the gameplay, it may as well be an attractive ass.

See, I don't get this. How is that arse attractive? It's nothing but rendered data.

That aside, the merc recruit is irrelevant as it doesn't change your interaction with the world. The quest proceeds precisely the same.
In a good game, your gender would provide you with limitations.
Take Baldur's Gate 2, for example. There's a character who simply will not talk to you at all if you're male. If you're female, they have a whole slew of dialogue allowing you to ask questions about the history of the place, and gather some information. A male character locks you out of this interaction.
But a male character too has unique interactions with the world through the story - such as when in the Drow City.
There are some much better examples out there but I can't be fucked remembering them at this point.

I am with Trolldor on this. If the game plays THE SAME whether you pick male or female, why does it matter? If you are pretending it is YOU in the game, why does the sprite matter at all? For me, the point of adding multiple sexes in a game is to offer diversity - but if the game doesn't offer diversity then it is about as important as whether a shooter offers your favorite gun.

 

[kyogen]

In a single-player game with no customization options, it doesn't bother me to play a male character. I agree with everyone who has said that more developers should consider creating games around female leads, but that's a slightly different issue. When I have the choice, I often create a female character, but my primary interest is in a good story told well and supported with good game mechanics, so I'm much pickier for those reasons than for gender considerations. Gender matters, but so do genre, game mechanics, and narrative/art/sound design.

 

[Kargathia]

There are games where you don't get a choice because you're playing a character that is created for you (e.g. Kratos), and there are games where you shape your own character (most RPG's).

In the first kind I'd say gender is almost irrelevant, as you're only following the main character, not shaping it.

The second kind, however, is where things start to get interesting, as you're actually supposed to identify with the character - whether you're consciously roleplaying or not. This is also where the objectivity ends, and opinions start darkening the waters.

Everyone shall have to form his own opinion about this all, but personally I've noticed that when it comes to "identifying" with most game protagonists it's a no either way.

I'm obviously not female, nor any of the many flavors of transgender, but quite frankly I find it equally hard to identify with a roid-raging hulk.
Add a certain intriguing factor as to why a female would put in the extra effort to succeed in a very physical environment, and you've got a preference for femsheps.

Oh, and the male sounds like he's stuck in the dead-slow deadpan mode.

 

[bob-2000]

I'd by lying if I said that being forced to play as a male didn't slightly bother me, but it doesn't matter enough to me to greatly impact my view of the game.

 

[370999]

But in those cases when the character could be female without any harm to the cohesion or immersion of the game, then I do wish that more developers decided to have a female lead. I don't think for a moment that male players would turn away from a good game simply because they had to play as a girl, so why not make it happen more often than it does?

You would know a lot more about it then me but isn't it because most developers are male? And as such they tend to make male characters not as a conscious choice but rather because it exists as a default template at the back of their mind?

Same way I would probably design characters who are Irish or British or have similar cultural values because that what I am familiar with.

I agree there should be more though.

 

[nekoali]

Well, I am a female and I prefer to play characters that are female because I can relate to them better. So any game with a single character that happens to female will get my attention at least. But I don't insist on it. I am happy enough to play as a male character if the game is good, and just playing a female character won't make me enjoy a bad game...

Most of the games that I play though either give you an option of several characters to play from. In which case 9/10 times I will play a female character, unless I really really like the abilities of a male one. Or they are customizable make your own character games like Fallout, Elder Scrolls or most MMOs. In which case I pretty much always make females.. and any male characters I do make I don't play long at all.

 

[Susan Arendt]

But in those cases when the character could be female without any harm to the cohesion or immersion of the game, then I do wish that more developers decided to have a female lead. I don't think for a moment that male players would turn away from a good game simply because they had to play as a girl, so why not make it happen more often than it does?

You would know a lot more about it then me but isn't it because most developers are male? And as such they tend to make male characters not as a conscious choice but rather because it exists as a default template at the back of their mind?

Pretty much, yep. It just doesn't cross their minds.

Also, there is a belief that boys won't buy games with girl protagonists. Which is utter crap, obviously, but it exists, just the same.

 

[StBishop]

Honestly, I'd rather see games where the main character was female with no way to change it (ala Portal). There are TONS of games where you have no choice but to play as a white straight male, why not a woman?

Ultimately, I don't give a damn about customizing physical attributes, but I do wish there was more diversity. It doesn't affect whether or not I enjoy the game, but it does limit what the game can bring to play through the character.

As a dude, I agree.

I don't really see why it should matter other than the fact that it'd get tiring.I don't mind Ms. Croft being female, I don't have a problem with Samas, I like Cheren, I think that Heavenly Sword wasn't great but the lack of a male character certainly isn't one of it's problems. I don't understand why someone would avoid a game because it's got a male protagonist.

The Brink thing, I understand that, in a game where customisation is so huge, it sucks to only have males. But in general I think there should be more decent games with female protagonists.

But in those cases when the character could be female without any harm to the cohesion or immersion of the game, then I do wish that more developers decided to have a female lead. I don't think for a moment that male players would turn away from a good game simply because they had to play as a girl, so why not make it happen more often than it does?

You would know a lot more about it then me but isn't it because most developers are male? And as such they tend to make male characters not as a conscious choice but rather because it exists as a default template at the back of their mind?

Pretty much, yep. It just doesn't cross their minds.

Also, there is a belief that boys won't buy games with girl protagonists. Which is utter crap, obviously, but it exists, just the same.

Tell them to look at Portal's sale figures.

 

[jjjonesy27]

as a guy it matters for me, i tend to immerse myself in the game's reality. i havent touched Heavenly Sword or any of the new Tomb Raiders. i haven't played final fantasy XIII since i beat it, same with FFX-2, so overall it depends on the franchise. if i have a choice, i always pick a guy. if don't have a choice, it better be Final Fantasy

 

[Nudu]

Well, I'm a guy, and I love Beyond Good and Evil and the Medroid Prime series. Don't really see how it can be that different. If they're likeable characters gender really isn't that significant.

If I'm going to be forced to stare at my character's ass for 90% of the gameplay, it may as well be an attractive ass.

I know it's kind of unrelated, but I've always been a little puzzled by the so-called "ass-stareing argument". I don't really find myself involuntarily staring lustfully at all male asses that enter the screen, so to me the whole argument seems kind of like saying "Hello there! I'm very heterosexual!"

 

[370999]

But in those cases when the character could be female without any harm to the cohesion or immersion of the game, then I do wish that more developers decided to have a female lead. I don't think for a moment that male players would turn away from a good game simply because they had to play as a girl, so why not make it happen more often than it does?

You would know a lot more about it then me but isn't it because most developers are male? And as such they tend to make male characters not as a conscious choice but rather because it exists as a default template at the back of their mind?

Pretty much, yep. It just doesn't cross their minds.

Also, there is a belief that boys won't buy games with girl protagonists. Which is utter crap, obviously, but it exists, just the same.

...........Susan Arendt quoted my post? And agreed with me. Wow, I know I shouldn't be shocked but this is like ebing in secondary school and having a pretty girl smile at you.

Very very weird.

 

[Susan Arendt]

But in those cases when the character could be female without any harm to the cohesion or immersion of the game, then I do wish that more developers decided to have a female lead. I don't think for a moment that male players would turn away from a good game simply because they had to play as a girl, so why not make it happen more often than it does?

You would know a lot more about it then me but isn't it because most developers are male? And as such they tend to make male characters not as a conscious choice but rather because it exists as a default template at the back of their mind?

Pretty much, yep. It just doesn't cross their minds.

Also, there is a belief that boys won't buy games with girl protagonists. Which is utter crap, obviously, but it exists, just the same.

...........Susan Arendt quoted my post? And agreed with me. Wow, I know I shouldn't be shocked but this is like ebing in secondary school and having a pretty girl smile at you.

Very very weird.

Why is it weird? You quoted mine, after all.

 

[DustyDrB]

But in those cases when the character could be female without any harm to the cohesion or immersion of the game, then I do wish that more developers decided to have a female lead. I don't think for a moment that male players would turn away from a good game simply because they had to play as a girl, so why not make it happen more often than it does?

You would know a lot more about it then me but isn't it because most developers are male? And as such they tend to make male characters not as a conscious choice but rather because it exists as a default template at the back of their mind?

Pretty much, yep. It just doesn't cross their minds.

Also, there is a belief that boys won't buy games with girl protagonists. Which is utter crap, obviously, but it exists, just the same.

I think I remember reading a post from someone for BioWare that said exactly this. It's all about the marketing. When someone pointed out that Jade Empire had a female protagonist on the cover, he noted that Jade Empire didn't sell all that well (at least not compared to their other games).

Found one of those posts...

Spoiler

It's not really the same, since their games offer a choice rather than a set-in-stone gender. But that developers do think focus on the largest consumer group, which they say is males. Now...I need to finish Madness Returns...

 

[Saelune]

No. If the game is about Mr Sampson, or Sir Kenrick Whatchamaloo, sure. But that is when it is a single player game about a specific character made by the devs.
Id be pissed if Skyrim forced you to be male though..but Skyrim is not about a premade person.
Anyone who wishes Gordon Freeman or Duke Nukem was a girl, likely wants to change words like history into "her"story.

Brink fell into "be what you want...cept girls" and thats why it was spited. MW2 was not because it never touted customizing your own character.

 

[LiraelG]

It doesn't matter too much to me. I observe the game as I would observe a film or would imagine a novel. What's important is the story and the role a character plays with it. As long as there is a good cast, it doesn't matter.

When it comes to games which allow you to choose - Pokemon, Morrowind, Knights of the Old Republic 2 - I will choose to be female because it feels natural to me. These are games which allow the gamer to make the story, not games which tell the story. So in this case, having the choice is a little important.