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alias_sqbrPlaying as a Female Character - does it matter?
Hex [Presenter, ABC TV], Siobhan Reddy [Studio Manager, Media Molecule], Peter Hines [Vice President of PR & Marketing, Bethesda], Aidan Scanlan [Assistant Director of Design, BioWare], Randy Pitchford [CEO, Gearbox Software], Rex Crowle [Creative Director, Media Molecule]
This was a MASSIVE panel in the huge main theatre, I barely got in. I had to sit right in the back with another guy in a wheelchair, but there was a big screen and decent microphones so it wasn't too bad. It was cool seeing so many people caring about this!
Some men really enjoy playing as women.
Hex said she likes playing as a cooler version of herself.
Female protagonists who are set? (yes, past self?)
Games let us do impossible or dangerous things
Zero and Claptrap from Borderlands have no defined gender. Randy initially referred to Zero as "he" but said that said more about him than Zero.
Siobhan said calling "Sackboy" from Little Big Planet something so gendered was a mistake.
Localisation includes letting people choose the right pronouns.
You make a contract with the player to respect their character (this was probably Aidan again he said that a lot in the customisation panel)
Chell's gender has no effect on the game and you identify closely with her. In other games the PC has more of an identity. (I actually disagree with whoever said this, there are better examples of games with vaguely defined protagonists you just think of as "you", at least in Portal 2 Chell felt like a distinct person)
You play within a box (see customisation panel) Gender is fundamental to identity and your internal narrative.
The lack of gendered markers with Shepard in Mass Effect worked out pretty well for that specific character.
People tend to choose the default. Realising this, Bioware has randomised the initial character in Dragon Age Inquisition and are very curious to see how gender/race choices play out. (Curious to see if they randomise skin colour too, given the mess of whiteness that is The Keep)
The same thing happened with devs creating NPCs: the default NPC in the generator is male, so people just used that.
In Borderlands people choose the African American character first, then the woman, (then the white dude?) The non gendered Zero was most popular in Borderlands 2, and the most useful gameplay wise was the LEAST popular.
Most Borderlands players are male. Proves a mainstream AAA game can be diverse and players will like it. See also: Tomb Raider.
Adding customisation is extra work.
Girls hit their teens and tech becomes uncool.
You have the pink toy floor and the lego/"ungendered" toy floor.
Randy: to entertain the world you need to represent the workd, which needs diversity. He wants to hire more women, and will hire women over men all other things being equal. Said that as more devs do this female programmers will have an advantage, which I disagree with, but mostly seemed pretty cool. Except when Hex brought up race and he changed the subject back to gender and NOONE EVER MENTIONED RACE AGAIN.
In the UK coding is on the curriculum.
Easier to find women in non-tech game dev disciplines like art design.
We need visibility, women need role models. Why Siobhan does panels like this even though she's a bit shy.
A woman getting hurt as in Tomb Raider feels more uncomfortable. Doesn't necesarily mean we shouldn't do it, and can create useful debate (I have heard criticisms that the stuff that happened to Lara WOULDN'T happen to a male character, wasn't really addressed)
Need to explore more tropes with a wider variety of characters.
Male PCs are motivated by bad things happening to female NPCs. Female PCs are motivated by bad things happening to them or female NPCs. (Sophie says FRIDGE MEN FOR GREAT JUSTICE)
Siobhan meant well but kept saying "male/female/trans" like those were the three strict catagories who need inclusion. At least she remembered non binary and trans people exist?
Games tend to be violent, this violence is often treated in a very shallow way.
Tomb Raider addressed the weight of killing someone in a way most games don't.
Once again I wanted to ask about Echo Bazaar and Glitch and other games where "not woman OR man" is an explicit or implicit choice. But people were asked to line up on the stairs to ask questions lol lol. The questioners were mostly male but the questions weren't too bad!
Someone pointed out that game protagonists tend to all be the same KIND of character, even if a few get to be female. eg Shepard from Mass Effect. Lara Croft is "more feminine" because she gets to be caring, hmm. Can also have "feminine" cities and other aspects of design beyond the characters. Again, need more female game devs to shake things up.
People tend to make characters based on themselves. All male dev teams leads to all male characters.
Very few older women in games. The Graveyard was given as an example. The panelists got weirdly defensive when a guy asked why there aren't any gender-flipped versions of the Last Of Us dynamic with an older guy caring for a young girl. The literally said "Make it yourself" what.
Someone asked Hex, who said she finds it easier to identify with female characters, how she felt about ungendered characters like the protagonist of Journey. She said she imagines them as herself eg female, and this does make them more appealing than male ones.
Most of our life experiences are universal and not very gendered. If the character creator/PC says YOU ARE A MAN that makes it harder for women to identify with these experiences even if the story itself isn't very gendered.
More companies are realising this is a problem.
Probably not going to be any women on the front cover of Call of Duty any time soon.
Using a male persona gets you taken more seriously. In an online game, even if the character creator lets you play as a woman and is generally inclusive, other people's peeceptions and behaviours affect things.
Hex [Presenter, ABC TV], Siobhan Reddy [Studio Manager, Media Molecule], Peter Hines [Vice President of PR & Marketing, Bethesda], Aidan Scanlan [Assistant Director of Design, BioWare], Randy Pitchford [CEO, Gearbox Software], Rex Crowle [Creative Director, Media Molecule]
This was a MASSIVE panel in the huge main theatre, I barely got in. I had to sit right in the back with another guy in a wheelchair, but there was a big screen and decent microphones so it wasn't too bad. It was cool seeing so many people caring about this!
Some men really enjoy playing as women.
Hex said she likes playing as a cooler version of herself.
Female protagonists who are set? (yes, past self?)
Games let us do impossible or dangerous things
Zero and Claptrap from Borderlands have no defined gender. Randy initially referred to Zero as "he" but said that said more about him than Zero.
Siobhan said calling "Sackboy" from Little Big Planet something so gendered was a mistake.
Localisation includes letting people choose the right pronouns.
You make a contract with the player to respect their character (this was probably Aidan again he said that a lot in the customisation panel)
Chell's gender has no effect on the game and you identify closely with her. In other games the PC has more of an identity. (I actually disagree with whoever said this, there are better examples of games with vaguely defined protagonists you just think of as "you", at least in Portal 2 Chell felt like a distinct person)
You play within a box (see customisation panel) Gender is fundamental to identity and your internal narrative.
The lack of gendered markers with Shepard in Mass Effect worked out pretty well for that specific character.
People tend to choose the default. Realising this, Bioware has randomised the initial character in Dragon Age Inquisition and are very curious to see how gender/race choices play out. (Curious to see if they randomise skin colour too, given the mess of whiteness that is The Keep)
The same thing happened with devs creating NPCs: the default NPC in the generator is male, so people just used that.
In Borderlands people choose the African American character first, then the woman, (then the white dude?) The non gendered Zero was most popular in Borderlands 2, and the most useful gameplay wise was the LEAST popular.
Most Borderlands players are male. Proves a mainstream AAA game can be diverse and players will like it. See also: Tomb Raider.
Adding customisation is extra work.
Girls hit their teens and tech becomes uncool.
You have the pink toy floor and the lego/"ungendered" toy floor.
Randy: to entertain the world you need to represent the workd, which needs diversity. He wants to hire more women, and will hire women over men all other things being equal. Said that as more devs do this female programmers will have an advantage, which I disagree with, but mostly seemed pretty cool. Except when Hex brought up race and he changed the subject back to gender and NOONE EVER MENTIONED RACE AGAIN.
In the UK coding is on the curriculum.
Easier to find women in non-tech game dev disciplines like art design.
We need visibility, women need role models. Why Siobhan does panels like this even though she's a bit shy.
A woman getting hurt as in Tomb Raider feels more uncomfortable. Doesn't necesarily mean we shouldn't do it, and can create useful debate (I have heard criticisms that the stuff that happened to Lara WOULDN'T happen to a male character, wasn't really addressed)
Need to explore more tropes with a wider variety of characters.
Male PCs are motivated by bad things happening to female NPCs. Female PCs are motivated by bad things happening to them or female NPCs. (Sophie says FRIDGE MEN FOR GREAT JUSTICE)
Siobhan meant well but kept saying "male/female/trans" like those were the three strict catagories who need inclusion. At least she remembered non binary and trans people exist?
Games tend to be violent, this violence is often treated in a very shallow way.
Tomb Raider addressed the weight of killing someone in a way most games don't.
Once again I wanted to ask about Echo Bazaar and Glitch and other games where "not woman OR man" is an explicit or implicit choice. But people were asked to line up on the stairs to ask questions lol lol. The questioners were mostly male but the questions weren't too bad!
Someone pointed out that game protagonists tend to all be the same KIND of character, even if a few get to be female. eg Shepard from Mass Effect. Lara Croft is "more feminine" because she gets to be caring, hmm. Can also have "feminine" cities and other aspects of design beyond the characters. Again, need more female game devs to shake things up.
People tend to make characters based on themselves. All male dev teams leads to all male characters.
Very few older women in games. The Graveyard was given as an example. The panelists got weirdly defensive when a guy asked why there aren't any gender-flipped versions of the Last Of Us dynamic with an older guy caring for a young girl. The literally said "Make it yourself" what.
Someone asked Hex, who said she finds it easier to identify with female characters, how she felt about ungendered characters like the protagonist of Journey. She said she imagines them as herself eg female, and this does make them more appealing than male ones.
Most of our life experiences are universal and not very gendered. If the character creator/PC says YOU ARE A MAN that makes it harder for women to identify with these experiences even if the story itself isn't very gendered.
More companies are realising this is a problem.
Probably not going to be any women on the front cover of Call of Duty any time soon.
Using a male persona gets you taken more seriously. In an online game, even if the character creator lets you play as a woman and is generally inclusive, other people's peeceptions and behaviours affect things.
