Main Characters Gender in Videogames and Sales Results

[Priere]

Another thing I sometimes hear is that even when we do have women protagonists, they are doing male action hero stuff anyway, so it makes no difference.

 

I really don't understand this point. What kind of action should women do in an action video game if not jumping/shooting/climbing?

I also disagree with that point, it DOES make a difference, and i do find it shaming the female gender as it "can't do what the other gender do", and yet female can do all that, even in video games, who even made the jumping and all that stuff to "men-only" anyway? but i do know that men do that more often than women, still doesn't change a thing, i also wonder what kind of action the women should do in an action video game aside from that, and IF they do something different, they will just criticize and still disapprove of female main characters in video games.

Edited January 19, 2015 by Luka Luka

[Cruzinats94]

Life is Strange does seem like it's gonna be a terrible game, so that might be why they had a hard time finding a publisher for it.

 

Personally I don't think gender or race representation is doing too badly in video games. I do however think that everything gets 'westernized' to appeal to a bigger crowd, when playing a game that takes place in South America, Russia or China I want to hear the native language with subtitles, not some cheese English with accent of said country.

 

I literally dropped games because they only included a English dub...

[Doom]

Life is Strange does seem like it's gonna be a terrible game, so that might be why they had a hard time finding a publisher for it.

Point of view. To me it looks very interesting.

And I'm totally clueless about why would all publishers ask to change the protagonists to males.

Edited January 19, 2015 by DocDoomII

[siuilarun]

One advantage to making a male protagonist in the current state of things, is that there is no insane standard held by internet activists. A female protagonist can't win in the eyes of those who have made scrutiny, itself, the game. Male characters are just not targeted as harshly. Who would choose that headache? Gamers (people who play video games) tend to complain more about Day 1 DLC, always online DRM, broken game mechanics, shamefully tacked on multiplayer, server instability, balancing issues, repetitiousness, and a million other fists in the pummeling a game take from gamers. As a developer or publisher, would you really add to the already innumerable complaints of gamers? Of course, it's not as if NO publisher would allow a female protagonist, anyway... Some will, seeing it as a challenge or as a market they think they can win in, but big business usually takes the path of least resistance (unfortunately).

 

As far as Life Is Strange goes, I hadn't heard of it before, but a quick revving of one's search engine, and I see it's episodic, but not an established universe with built-in fan base like The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones... So I expect sales will underperform. I'll probably buy the season pass, because it does look interesting.

[KratosTheMighty]

I don't really care about the gender, race, etc of a main character. When I play a game, I want to be engaged by the story, and enjoy the gameplay. Leave everything else at the door. Do I think race/gender effects sales? Marginally at best, I highly doubt the majority of gamers are so shallow that they won't play a game with a black, asian, latino, etc, etc character. Why don't studio's make more female leads? I don't know. Depends on the franchise, depends on what type of story they're going for. Sure we could use a few more great female characters, a few more minority characters... but do you want devs to throw them in willy nilly... and be like "here you go, look how we added minorities, and women... yes all these playable women with flat boring  personality's and really detached story's.. but... it's women, and minorities!!!!" A female character shouldn't be some kind of selling point... it should just be natural. Let the devs make a great game, with great gameplay and story... whether it's a black, asian, mexican, marsian, white,  male, female, undetermined gender, and so on.