[ SECRET POST #2169 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2169 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 078 secrets from Secret Submission Post #310.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[saku]

i never said it was easy, and it's not. people treat women like shit even within the industry. but if you're actually interested in getting more women leads, you'd put forth that effort.

those creators aren't going to change. it's not a matter of them changing though. it's a matter of generating more creators that have different ideas, so that these ideas don't get buried under rejection.

but yeah, i'm sure telling designers "fuck you" is gonna do the trick

[(Anonymous)]

da - why in the everloving hell would someone possibly change their career aspirations/trajectory just to manufacture change from within. that sort of suggestion is the lazy, apologist way of saying "yeah, too bad for you. sorry about that."

i don't even care about games. i can't stand games where i have to do anything other than shoot something with a remote that abstractly resembles a real gun. i saw that assassin's creed 3 game with the girl main character on tv, though, and seriously thought about it. maybe game companies should stop thinking solely of pandering to their existing audience and think about the audience they could be creating. i'm pretty sure their existing audience will survive with 5% less pandering.

[saku]

i'm not asking people to change their career paths, i'm only saying that's the only way things are going to start changing for the long term. bitching about a lack of female leads isn't going to sway very many minds. the easiest way is to be, or get in touch with, someone working in the industry, so your complaints aren't just coming from some random off the streets. it just takes a little more than making a fandom secret about female leads to generate more of them in the industry.

if i recall correctly the idea for a female lead in ac3 had been mulled over but the creative director, aka the brains behind the entire project, said that the setting didn't suit a female lead, and he's right. so instead of half-assing it, they've included a playable female character in ac3 liberation. that's one example of the industry doing things right, and i can imagine this was aided by the fact that the ac team has a lot of female designers.

the thing you don't seem to understand about the gaming industry is that it's innovative, but at the same time it's totally not. the industry is infested with designers looking to make "fast" money, and by that i mean making easy cash off an idea that has sold well in the past, because consumers will buy it every darn time. so for a lot of these designers, there's little incentive to change their target audience when the one they have is throwing money at them already. once again, that's why change needs to happen from the inside. i'm just saying it's not easy to generate changes in an industry like this when you're only a consumer.

[(Anonymous)]

1. Saku didn't say that people should change careers/their trajectories anywhere. What they did say was that there needed to be more creators in general to increase the chances of someone getting past/overcoming the mound of rejection. They never said *where* those creators should come from.

2. The focus on their audience [and what's probably the bigger problem, certain types of games] because that's what they know will sell. Love it or hate it video game companies are out to make money, and having a game flop means a major loss in money usually - so when it comes to something that's risky they're probably going to play it safe. The best way to change that is to buy games that *do* take a risk - or offer whatever it is you'd rather they do. For example, the girl in the PSP Assassin Creed's game? People buying it would be a good way to encourage that to continue. If no one buys it then, as likely as not, it's going to be blamed on the lead being female.

Another route, which was mentioned, was going straight to the company. If enough people end up asking for it, then they might decide to try it out - but honestly? The chances of that happening aren't the best since, while Devs do listen, they've been known to basically give the finger too [and I can't say I blamed them in those cases.]

[(Anonymous)]

if you want to change things i suggest getting into the industry, that's a good start. otherwise things won't change.

"I suggest getting into the industry" sounds like "I suggest beginning a career in the industry."

[(Anonymous)]

A suggestion =/= You have to do this!

[(Anonymous)]

SA

Also, you do realize that there are indy devs who don't give up their day job to work on games, right?

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, but on the other hand, those indie developers aren't going to be making much of an impact on the industry.

[insanenoodlyguy]

Then your opinion is worthless.

No really. You just made it clear you aren't going to spend money on anything. Why make anything for you?

Social Justice will never beat capitalism. It can only convince it there's money in appealing to it.

[(Anonymous)]

You do realize that criticizing these sexist decisions that game creators make actually IS putting forth that effort, right

[saku]

i'm sure game designers all over the world are rushing to heed the embittered cries of a faceless woman gamer on fandomsecrets.dreamwidth.com

go to the industry directly, and try a different approach. they can and often DO listen to consumers, but it's going to take more than this.

[(Anonymous)]

how do you know that people aren't doing more than this?

and how do you know even talking about it on fandomsecrets doesn't make a difference? I used to believe incredibly sexist and harmful things when I was younger. Watching people discuss it through the internet taught me a lot and motivated me to get involved.

[saku]

i'm assuming people would be telling me otherwise if i've responded to them with that sentiment and it has been wrong. few people go beyond the basic online petition because they think they've done their fair share of contributing to change but then most of the time it just stops there. such as it is with a lot of things, not just sexism in the gaming industry.

i'm not saying it doesn't make a difference here, i'm just saying it's not going to make a big splash in the industry. and trust me, that's a given. the gaming industry is brutal. like i said, if you want the creators to hear you out and consider your ideas, don't go through a middleman. go to them.

[(Anonymous)]

You are vastly underestimating the power of the internet.

The industry HAS changed and IS changing BECAUSE people are not shutting up about it in comments, blog posts, e-mails, and everywhere else! More and more creators have direct access to user comments and complaints, and they DO listen. Things like Bioware's response to the outcry at Mass Effect 3's ending or the response to the gross Tomb Raider rape thing.

You're just being condescending at this point. We know what we're doing, and we're not going to stop doing it no matter how pointless you seem to think it is.

[saku]

i'm not asking you to stop, i'm just letting you know that the guys at the top of the food chain in the industry aren't going to be swayed on this issue that easily. knowing that there are more effective ways of invoking change, i just find it moot to be whining anonymously on a secrets community, as if that holds up to actually getting actively involved in the issue from a hands-on perspective.

[insanenoodlyguy]

>and how do you know even talking about it on fandomsecrets doesn't make a difference

http://youtu.be/FopyRHHlt3M

[(Anonymous)]

exactly. the game designers are listening to fans and consumers. but we have to take the conversation to them. they are not going to seek it out.

[(Anonymous)]

But it's already more than this?
I mean, yeah, this post is a single post that's going to last a day on a page nobody sees; but it's one in many, and yeah, after lots of repetitions of the same critic again and again in different places, it's what make people realize that, gosh, a lot of people do care about this issue!

You can see it as the same principle as voting, if you want.

[saku]

voting is way different but i know what you mean.

don't get me wrong, being vocal does get things changed sometimes. but the issue of gender selection for playable characters in the gaming industry, of all industries, is gonna need a little more push than that. it's a male-dominated industry, they don't have much stake in this.

[(Anonymous)]

ahah yeah, voting may not have been he best analogy I could have made.

There is a lot of people working in the industry who have blogs (often even on tumblr, I think I've seen DA's head writer though it'd need fact-checking)and they do listen to what is said on the Internet, since it's an easy way to know how the fanbase reacted to certain things in a game. I remember some designers of Mass Effect talking about how they'd actively look for fanarts of the game to see what the fans remembered the most, what stayed. I think I've also seen an article about the (straight) guy writing the gay romance options (male and female) in ME3 researching people's reaction (still on the Internet) to other gay romances in other games to see what brought positive reactions, what people liked and found believable.