08-03-2013, 10:19 AM
No, I'm not making a thread in the vein of the "girl gamers" questionnaire thing. I'm talking about actual female characters in games.
I find it ridiculous how some publishers actually think that a game with a female lead is less likely to sell than a game with a male lead. For this reason Remember Me was almost not published in the first place when the developers of it pitched it to multiple publishers and all of them threw them out when they heard the lead character was female. It was not until they pitched it to Capcom that the game actually got the publisher interest it needed and got made.
In addition to this, Last of Us dev team was told to put Ellie in the background and move Joel to the front in the game's cover and promotional art, because the higher ups feared that a female character in front would put gamers off from getting interested in the game. The developers even had to specifically ask to have female testers in addition to male because the company that did the testing only wanted to use male gamers and could not understand why they would want women to play it.
David Gaider, who has been writing Bioware's games for 14 years, had a good point in an interview I read. He responded to the subject on games with female leads that have failed: "What about the countless games with men as main characters that have failed? I think we all know that it's just bullshit."
I honestly have no clue why this is such a big deal in the gaming industry? What does it matter what gender the main character is as long as they are well written and the game in itself is FUN. Your thoughts?
I find it ridiculous how some publishers actually think that a game with a female lead is less likely to sell than a game with a male lead. For this reason Remember Me was almost not published in the first place when the developers of it pitched it to multiple publishers and all of them threw them out when they heard the lead character was female. It was not until they pitched it to Capcom that the game actually got the publisher interest it needed and got made.
In addition to this, Last of Us dev team was told to put Ellie in the background and move Joel to the front in the game's cover and promotional art, because the higher ups feared that a female character in front would put gamers off from getting interested in the game. The developers even had to specifically ask to have female testers in addition to male because the company that did the testing only wanted to use male gamers and could not understand why they would want women to play it.
David Gaider, who has been writing Bioware's games for 14 years, had a good point in an interview I read. He responded to the subject on games with female leads that have failed: "What about the countless games with men as main characters that have failed? I think we all know that it's just bullshit."
I honestly have no clue why this is such a big deal in the gaming industry? What does it matter what gender the main character is as long as they are well written and the game in itself is FUN. Your thoughts?