When will game developers realize there are female players too?

[Sgt. Dante]

When i make a character i like to make females, especially if they're a warrior type. Especially in ye olde fantasy type games. Dunno why you see gender as some insurmountable barrier, all your doing is putting a limit on the games you play, seems a shame if you ask me, youre missing out.

 

[sammi43055]

Playing as a male or female character doesn't really bother me. I remember when Pokemon allowed the selection of gender for the first time. It was great, but it doesn't upset me too much to play as a guy.

 

[Femalegamer]

And just how many game developers give us a choice in playing male or female? Two that I can think of. Bioware and Bethesda . That's shameful!

 

[Miles Tormani]

And just how many game developers give us a choice in playing male or female? Two that I can think of. Bioware and Bethesda . That's shameful!

And Bungie.

Go developers starting with B. Hell yeah.

 

[Femalegamer]

R me. I remember when Pokemon allowed the selection of gender for the first time. It was great, but it doesn't upset me too much to play as a guy.[/quote]

It should have.

 

[Exius Xavarus]

Because many changes would have to be made, or an entirely new story would have to be done. Mass Effect did a good job on the different gender thing, but not a whole lot of game companies are going to sit there and work on every little detail that changes when the main character's gender is changed. Imagine how many changes would have to be made to several character if Harry Potter was a female.

 

[Snake Plissken]

Game developers do realize that there are female players. You act as if devs are moronic and have totally missed out on the fact that women make up roughly half of the population. That's a stupid assumption. They just don't care.

Oddly enough, I feel similar to you...I can't get behind games that feature FEMALES as lead characters. I hate Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy 13 bored me, Bayonetta just makes me want to play Devil May Cry, and don't even get me started on Onechanbara.

Honestly, how many women do you think want to be portrayed like a man? You can't just change Marcus Fenix into a girl and expect men to buy the game. Once you change the no-no parts, you have to change the ENTIRE GAMING EXPERIENCE. I don't think you really want a game with a strong female lead, you want a game with a female lead that worries about girl stuff. I don't mean to be blunt, but I can't think of a more PC way to say it. I don't want to play "Twilight: The Video Game" any more than you want to play "Tim the Tool-Man Taylor: The Game." You know what everyone likes in games, though? Shooting things. Who does most of the "shooting things" in real life? Men. It's just the way it goes.

Those games had female protagonists designed for men, why would a soldier like lightning run around flashing her thighs?
You don't need to have a female character to have a game marketed towards women i'm not saying you think that but its seems to be the general idea in this thread that thats the issue despite loads of game have female protagonist that female gamers don't seem to care for


EDit**
" lightning run around flashing her thighs?"

can't believe I missed that pun

You are correct, those are games with females designed for males, but you lost me when you claim that I must have missed to point of the thread somehow. The OP clearly states that she wants games with more females leads. Period. She doesn't state any more than that. Those are games with female leads. I didn't like them because of the fact that they had female leads. Where is our disconnect?

Apparently, according to the OP, you DO need a game with a female character marketed towards women. She clearly stated that she WON'T BUY GAMES THAT HAVE MALE LEADS. Did you even read the original post?

 

[Femalegamer]

Because many changes would have to be made, or an entirely new story would have to be done. Mass Effect did a good job on the different gender thing, but not a whole lot of game companies are going to sit there and work on every little detail that changes when the main character's gender is changed. Imagine how many changes would have to be made to several character is Harry Potter was a female.

That's different. Harry Potter is a known male character but most game characters are created for that specific game, these could easily be given gender options.

If Bioware and Bethesda can do it, why not the rest?.

 

[Hiphophippo]

Ridiculously close minded of you in my opinion I am a guy I look at the game as if I'm reading the book, and therefore I can role play any character. I don't have to have a character that is my own gender to like.

This. All of this. Every bit of this. Don't complain about things you have the power to change.

 

[Yarkaz]

Yes, not many games have female protaganists. But then again, an overwhelming majority of gamersare male. It seems to me that the statistics even out here, in the long run. Given that we've already produced a list of games with female leads (even if it isn't, oh, half of all games ever), I fail to see where there is an argument. If you can prove to me that an overwhelming percent of gamers are female, I'll admit that we need more games with female leads.

 

[jamesworkshop]

*snip*

They're still the main characters, never said otherwise (about Tomb Raider & Bloodrayne).
All in all, that's still not even half of the amount of games with male main characters.

Spoiler: Here's my contribution to the list;

!

Yes male protagonists are more common but thats not really here nor there I wasn't trying to suggest that wasn't the case.

What I am also detecting from this topic is that despite how obvoiusly 90% of female protagonists are made for men to enjoy, female gamers are looking at them and the misguided assumtion is that they were create to appeal to women and thus are offened at the suggestion that they should enjoy shallow sex objects.

I've seen the same thing with Pink, Frilly, Sillyness of the Barbie type games that adult female gamers like to knock as insipid were also being taken as being marketed directly at them rather than the under 12's that they are actually created for and again taking offence.

Since men clearly buy games with both male and female character designed to appeal to men it strike me as odd that people are soo fixated at games being marketed towards female interests as something that can only be done with female protagonists when it's clearly possible to have male (plus female) characters resonate with a female audience if created with women principally in mind even if by mirrioring female characters to be self indentity fantasy/wish fullfillment figures (like most male characters) and males as hyper sexualised fantasys figures

We all know why middle aged women went to see this movie with their daughters, it certainly wasn't a thrilling plot

 

[jamesworkshop]

Game developers do realize that there are female players. You act as if devs are moronic and have totally missed out on the fact that women make up roughly half of the population. That's a stupid assumption. They just don't care.

Oddly enough, I feel similar to you...I can't get behind games that feature FEMALES as lead characters. I hate Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy 13 bored me, Bayonetta just makes me want to play Devil May Cry, and don't even get me started on Onechanbara.

Honestly, how many women do you think want to be portrayed like a man? You can't just change Marcus Fenix into a girl and expect men to buy the game. Once you change the no-no parts, you have to change the ENTIRE GAMING EXPERIENCE. I don't think you really want a game with a strong female lead, you want a game with a female lead that worries about girl stuff. I don't mean to be blunt, but I can't think of a more PC way to say it. I don't want to play "Twilight: The Video Game" any more than you want to play "Tim the Tool-Man Taylor: The Game." You know what everyone likes in games, though? Shooting things. Who does most of the "shooting things" in real life? Men. It's just the way it goes.

Those games had female protagonists designed for men, why would a soldier like lightning run around flashing her thighs?
You don't need to have a female character to have a game marketed towards women i'm not saying you think that but its seems to be the general idea in this thread that thats the issue despite loads of game have female protagonist that female gamers don't seem to care for


EDit**
" lightning run around flashing her thighs?"

can't believe I missed that pun

You are correct, those are games with females designed for males, but you lost me when you claim that I must have missed to point of the thread somehow. The OP clearly states that she wants games with more females leads. Period. She doesn't state any more than that. Those are games with female leads. I didn't like them because of the fact that they had female leads. Where is our disconnect?

Apparently, according to the OP, you DO need a game with a female character marketed towards women. She clearly stated that she WON'T BUY GAMES THAT HAVE MALE LEADS. Did you even read the original post?

? sorry but I don't understand you

I never said you missed the point of the thread nor was I talking about the original post you've lost me completly, She might require a female protagonist but the wider market doesn't because women that are playing games are clearly through a lack of female options playing male characters otherwise they could barely play any games at all.

 

[Femalegamer]

But the op was suggesting gender options. Being able to decide if you want to play as a female or male. That's all.

 

[Plazmatic]

Maybe females don' make up a majority of players but they are out there. Every no sale of a game relects on the bottom line and I am a no sale on most current games.

Why don't they realize that most women don't want to play as male characters? I mean just switch it around, how many male players would enjoy games if most of the ones available had women as the main character?

Why is it a problem for them to develop games where gender option is allowed?

I, for one, don't purchase games that only allow a male character. I can't even role play a character like this. It's just not fun.

Usually these characters have a romantic interest. Of course the romantic interest is female.
C'mon, maybe some female players can go for this but not this player.

Maybe someone here can help me understand why gender option on MOST games, is not allowed.

first of all, you are a total hypocrite and a stereo type, your profile picture, name, and grammar tell us that much.

second,there are plenty of good games with either the option to choose, or as the sole option to be a woman, and for most games that don't, it simply wouldn't make sense to be one, for example, in both the half life and halo series (though both have the option to play as a girl online) the main characters are male, now, what book allows you to change the gender of the character and thus destroying the plot of the book? none.

also putting the gender option in games requires more work, and a lot of it, this is common sense.

Third, well I guess you're missing out on a lot if you don't play games with only male characters. And also there are not many games out today with romance in them, (at least none of the AAA titles) so I don't really see your point, unless you are talking about mass effect, but then you can play as a woman too.

Fourth, again, its not that it is not allowed, it's that it is not included, its not like the developers are hiding female characters from female gamers. Again you over estimate developers.

 

[Snake Plissken]

Game developers do realize that there are female players. You act as if devs are moronic and have totally missed out on the fact that women make up roughly half of the population. That's a stupid assumption. They just don't care.

Oddly enough, I feel similar to you...I can't get behind games that feature FEMALES as lead characters. I hate Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy 13 bored me, Bayonetta just makes me want to play Devil May Cry, and don't even get me started on Onechanbara.

Honestly, how many women do you think want to be portrayed like a man? You can't just change Marcus Fenix into a girl and expect men to buy the game. Once you change the no-no parts, you have to change the ENTIRE GAMING EXPERIENCE. I don't think you really want a game with a strong female lead, you want a game with a female lead that worries about girl stuff. I don't mean to be blunt, but I can't think of a more PC way to say it. I don't want to play "Twilight: The Video Game" any more than you want to play "Tim the Tool-Man Taylor: The Game." You know what everyone likes in games, though? Shooting things. Who does most of the "shooting things" in real life? Men. It's just the way it goes.

Those games had female protagonists designed for men, why would a soldier like lightning run around flashing her thighs?
You don't need to have a female character to have a game marketed towards women i'm not saying you think that but its seems to be the general idea in this thread that thats the issue despite loads of game have female protagonist that female gamers don't seem to care for


EDit**
" lightning run around flashing her thighs?"

can't believe I missed that pun

You are correct, those are games with females designed for males, but you lost me when you claim that I must have missed to point of the thread somehow. The OP clearly states that she wants games with more females leads. Period. She doesn't state any more than that. Those are games with female leads. I didn't like them because of the fact that they had female leads. Where is our disconnect?

Apparently, according to the OP, you DO need a game with a female character marketed towards women. She clearly stated that she WON'T BUY GAMES THAT HAVE MALE LEADS. Did you even read the original post?

? sorry but I don't understand you

I never said you missed the point of the thread nor was I talking about the original post you've lost me completly, She might require a female protagonist but the wider market doesn't because women that are playing games are clearly through a lack of female options playing male characters otherwise they could barely play any games at all.

Your confusion confuses me. You say the general idea is to make games with leads that females care about (regardless of gender/sex), but the OP CREATED THE THREAD WITH THE INTENT OF LETTING PEOPLE KNOW SHE WANTED FEMALE LEADS. That IS the general idea of the thread. If you don't understand my original post, then it probably wasn't written for you. Perhaps it was written for the OP to read...consider that?

 

[etherlance]

how many male players would enjoy games if most of the ones available had women as the main character?

Are you really asking us that question??

you know i really dont mind
i find my self more in the fps side
all you can see is hands
why do you care about hands!?

Honestly I don't care what gender I play as.
I play a female shepard in the mass effect games purely for the fact that the female voice sounds much better than the males.

In other games it all really depends on which one looks better.

 

[jamesworkshop]

But the op was suggesting gender options. Being able to decide if you want to play as a female or male. That's all.

That maybe the case but in pratical terms its not a simple as just knocking up a quick 3D model, job done

Artist spend a long time creating model before any building gets done, the voice acting budget is now doubled (its bad enought as it is most of the time), animation needs to match voices so thats two seperate cutscenes everytime, dialogue has to be rewritten, relationship partners need another new set of art assest and voice actors, FMV unlike ingame cutscene cannot switch a model but needs to be redone from scratch (tremmendously expensive/time constraints)

You might get more female characters but its going to be extremly poor and certainly won't raise the bar in terms of character quality for males or females, it really is a truly bad idea for both creator and every consumer.

Asking for more female characters is not going to get you better female characters only asking for better female characters is going to do that.

 

[XT inc]

Because it would take too much time and effort to switch things around and rewrite a character. In most cases these are character based games and have their story driven around the writing.

This would be like taking Alan wake and having to do a whole rewrite just so it would reverse Genders. Men and women don't see things eye to eye in some cases and it's just fussy to make content that changes the person around. It would be like shooting a movie twice and in the gaming industry that looks like having Rambo through the eyes of a male version and then trying to show why a female version would be in Rambo's situation.

 

[Azure Sky]

Hmm, let me try to add another 2 cents (Be warned, it is 11am, and I am very sleep deprived by this point. This could end up as total jibberish)

I am kinda forced into the middleground here, both sides of this argument are indeed making good points, but they also are being a little on the stubborn side.

On one hand, it is indeed an industry that when it began was almost completely a male dominated activity and while not to the same extent as back then, still is today. Just like many gamers will always consider some of the older games from back then to be better then many today (Metroid, Mario, Zelda for example) and a lot of developers are probably thinking along those lines. And lets face it, even if they got a Halo 9 or Gears 7, they will probably still sell, because people are predictable.

On the other hand though. It is about time that things started to equal up a little bit. I for one will never expect it to be a 50/50 but I am sure that gaming will, over time, slowly drift into a more neutral seat. There are indeed very few games where the female characters arn't some form of sex object or in a frigging fighting game, and lets face it, well over half of the characters said in this thread so far fall under one of those two, I mean hell, the princess in distress is probably more appealing than them (I'm looking at you Peach, and to a much lesser extent, Zelda) and even that is a poor excuse of acceptable female character use.

But to be truly honest, this isn't really a gaming issue. It's in TV, Movies, as well as other forms of media. Hell, even D&D is filled with this type of stigma, or do I need to crack a half elf joke to prove my point?

To summarize, While it IS an issue in today's gaming, as well as society in general. I do NOT think it is something that is worth a full on crusade, especially when it is mainly directed at the gaming medium.

Aaand it took me almost an hour to write that... Gonna go sleep or at least pass out before it actually ticks over to midday..

 

[Necromancer1991]

Frankly I don't care what gender my hero is as long as the game is good. Sure you can say most female characters are hyper-sexualized but if the gameplay is terrible that should be the least of your concerns. There are plenty of games with likeable female leads, such as Half-life (I said leads not PCs) and maybe Gears 3 (Too early to tell at the moment)