General News - Stop Being Scared!

Myrthos · March 21, 2014

In a speech at GDC2014 BioWare Montreal's gameplay designer Manveer Heir had a talk about "Misogyny, Racism and Homophobia: Where Do Video Games Stand?" and received a standing ovation for it. In his talk he wants the indstry to demolish the many stereotypes that exist in video games and accept "a social responsibility to mankind".

One of his statements is: it's "very cynical" to assume the audience isn't capable of embracing a gay hero or heroine, or "more exclusive women protagonists in games that aren't glorified sex objects and actually have personalities beyond supporting the men in the game".

More to be found on this topic at the summary of it that Eurogamer made.

More information.

Sumerisle · March 21, 2014

The problem is... they hire shitty writers for their AAA titles, they try to do a cheap date sim on a million dollars budget (honestly Winterwolves do a far better job with no budget and no writers), and they neglect the real base of success of the franchises. And then when the shitstorm get to them the only damn thing they do is saying "You people don't support gay relationships, it's your fault", and thats all. It's our fault. Not theirs, not at all.

SonOfCapiz · March 21, 2014

Misogynists, ,racists, and homosexuals exist irl so I see no reason why they shouldn't be in games. But I've seen people applaud a gay character then complain that Gothic or the Witcher is sexist. Sexism exists, homosexuality exists. Why only allow one to be represented in games and not others?

Couchpotato · March 21, 2014

We didn't turn into RPS or Polygon overnight die we?

Anyway I stay out of these discussions as no one wins. :lonely:

holeraw · March 21, 2014

The funny thing is that games have enough trouble having even male protagonists that aren't glorified sex objects (at least according to a teenage boy's view of a sexy man)

Writers that don't try to appeal primarily or think like teenage boys don't seem to have such issues.

joxer · March 21, 2014

I'm really not sure what all of it is about. Bioware's games are most liberate on things (not going into debating the quality of it) while others thend to avoid going into relationships direction completely.
IMO it's not a some phobia, somethingism or somegyny. It's dictated by money.

Devs' funds are not endless and they just can't afford things like romances, slave/master or other relationship possibilities at all (Obsidian). Also, not enough cash simply doesn't allow devs to keep some features in the game (samesex marriages in some tolkienbased MMO were dropped).

I'm sure we'll all agree that the player should have all options open, but seriously, how can devs be "correct" if there's not enough funds?

Couch we can win. By supporting devs that don't scam us with DLC and buying only their games. This two faced Bioware designer is talking about fairness on one side and in the same time he is not saying, yea, we're selling separately cutout majorstory related content. Ovation? That hypocrite should get only hatred back and never talk about fairness and correctness publically again.

azarhal · March 21, 2014

joxer said:
I'm really not sure what all of it is about.

The panel was about game developers/marketing using real-life excuses to include or not certain things (like homosexuality or black/female protagonist) in games/marketing.

BioWare devs should forward that panel to their marketing department though, they really need it, especially with the only white male protagonist sale box part.

Bubbles · March 21, 2014

This would make a lot more sense if they didn't give Ashley high heels in ME3. She was awesome in 1, my favorite character of any game. I really liked her. She was a warrior and had a warriors sensibilities. Then BioWare fancied her up, dumbed her down, and gave her high-heels. Making the best female character ever exactly what the are supposed to be against as stated above.

crpgnut · March 21, 2014

They're selling to their market is why the stuff isn't prominent. Simple. What percentage of the game buying public is white, male, and heterosexual? 80% or even higher? What percentage of RPGWatch is white, male, heterosexual? 80% or even higher? Simple. It would be like making a game only in German. You've just seriously limited your market. Why doesn't Bioware demand that everyone accept German? Are we afraid of German?

Now, do you take a chance on a large portion of the 80% being uninterested in your game if they're not the primary focus? I think that's why you see either male leads or sexy female leads. That's what the 80% want. What would happen if the protagonist didn't have a sex at all? What if the lead character is a sexless, non-humanoid robot. Would that game sell?

daveyd · March 21, 2014

SonOfCapiz said:
Misogynists, ,racists, and homosexuals exist irl so I see no reason why they shouldn't be in games. But I've seen people applaud a gay character then complain that Gothic or the Witcher is sexist. Sexism exists, homosexuality exists. Why only allow one to be represented in games and not others?

To be fair I don't think they're necessarily saying you can't portray sexism, racism, homophobia, etc., just that you shouldn't portray it in a positive light or inadvertently condone it by making all of your heroes white straight males.. For ex: American History X is a movie about racism, but it certainly doesn't glorify it.

I'm not sure why The Witcher game is singled out as being sexist… While it's possible to play Geralt as a womanizer (especially in the first game where he can sleep with basically every single female character), you certainly don't have to play it that way. If you want you can remain faithful to Triss throughout both games… The Witcher series also has very strong female characters so I think I actually find it less sexist than certain Bioware games.

JDR13 · March 21, 2014

*Yawn*…

@daveyd- Good point about The Witcher. I always get a kick out of hearing people talk about how sexist and immature that game is. :roll:

screeg · March 21, 2014

The reason AAA developers are "risk averse" is that they're running multi-million dollar projects for listed companies. They don't give a shit about art. As far as gay protagonists go, I could really care less if an avatar on a computer is gay or straight. I personally am not interested in sexuality in video games anyway. It's always seemed like something best experienced in RL.

rjshae · March 21, 2014

daveyd said:
I'm not sure why The Witcher game is accused of being sexist… While it's possible to play Geralt as a womanizer (especially in the first game where he can sleep with basically every single female character), you certainly don't have to play it that way. If you want you can remain faithful to Triss throughout both games… The Witcher series also has very strong female characters so I think I actually find it less sexist than certain Bioware games.

Somebody should do a quality mod of The Witcher in which we can play a female protagonist, while the gender of most potential NPC partners are switched to male. I think that would give the story a completely different flavor.

ChaosTheory · March 21, 2014

Bubbles said:
This would make a lot more sense if they didn't give Ashley high heels in ME3. She was awesome in 1, my favorite character of any game. I really liked her. She was a warrior and had a warriors sensibilities. Then BioWare fancied her up, dumbed her down, and gave her high-heels. Making the best female character ever exactly what the are supposed to be against as stated above.

I loved Ashley (I think, really.. *looks around uncomfortably*) for the same reasons you mentioned-- but other than giving her sexy hair and a tan in ME3, how else did they dumb her down? I thought she was still a pretty kick-ass warrior. *shrugs*

JDR13 · March 21, 2014

Ashley wore high heels in ME3? I guess that shows how much attention I pay to stuff like that…

Aubrielle · March 21, 2014

I think reading through these comments has shown me what the problem is. Most people are just…clueless. Most gamers simply don't know that there's an imbalance at all.

There's our problem.

Thankfully, the speaker in question can make a lot more waves for change than most people. That's encouraging.

DArtagnan · March 21, 2014

Give me interesting and plausible characters, and I won't give a shit if they're gay, female, alien or feline.

But don't make their sexual orientation or gender the point - because people are not their gender or who they want to fuck - no matter what Bioware seems to think.

Also, don't force me to play characters I can't identify with - which has nothing to do with sexism.

As for standing ovations when people say politically correct things in a crowd, well, that only serves to make me nauseous.

Farflame · March 21, 2014

crpgnut said:
I think that's why you see either male leads or sexy female leads. That's what the 80% want. What would happen if the protagonist didn't have a sex at all? What if the lead character is a sexless, non-humanoid robot. Would that game sell?

Actually it sounds kinda funny. You know, there were times when sex was non-existent in games. And players still loved to play, they still bought games. From EA/Bioware's point of view you can say - how is that possible?! Unbelievable! :biggrin:

Farflame · March 21, 2014

DArtagnan said:
Give me interesting and plausible characters, and I won't give a shit if they're gay, female, alien or feline.

Agreed. It almost seems like they focus more on "controversy" or "popular themes" (that could be used for PR campaigns and "artistic" promotion) than on more important things like quality and plausible characters.

rjshae · March 21, 2014

Sex became an inevitable element once developers found value in adding character interactions and changing relationships to games. It's here to stay... but it's probably always going to be somewhat controversial.

Developers can't please everybody; they just need to stay focused on the 80% they can please.

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