Support NeoGAF

[BlackBuzzard]

We may hate focus testing but it is necessary and its feedback. Its market research this is a 50+ million game it would have been extremely dumb if they did not focus test. People really, bashing Yoshida? He greenlit it same as Dreams so i don't know why we get comments like fuck Yosp.

 

[FalconLorenzo]

I would've figured a young female protagonist with a bow would've been seen as a safe choice. The Hunger Games gross millions every time one of them is released don't they, so what's the big deal? I guess a lot of the people in power still think that only young men play video games.

Also, Brave was pretty huge and one of the best Pixar films to date (dated yesterday).

 

[Juraash]

The one thing they should worry about is writing her (and the rest of the game) well.
The narration and character "chat" in the gameplay trailer was corny as heck, and didn't do an otherwise decent-looking game any favours.

*Stabs robot raptor*
"Shh... I'm sorry little one..."

Oh please! Just get back to rolling around and stabbing more robuts!

Find it somewhat humorous that you say they should worry about the writing and also not like that line. In a clip that was almost all gameplay it gave a neat insight into the type of character she is. I think the line is great. I could also see her being overly chatty as a way to sort of...explain what she's doing in this clip so we all understand. Maybe in the final game we'll see less combat dialogue.

Unrelated to the quoted post. It seems reasonable to evaluate many aspects of a game, especially from a new IP. The bottom line is that neither Shu, nor some committee or anyone else made GG change her to a dude. If her design stays true to what we've seen, she's shaping up to be an awesome character.

 

[The One and Done™]

Lara Croft.

 

[deim0s]

Glad they pushed thru with it as it is one of the standouts from the whole show.

 

[Respawn]

Thank goodness she made it through the storm. Very refreshing and hopefully a new start for the industry.

 

[Callibretto]

Also, Brave was pretty huge and one of the best Pixar films to date (dated yesterday).

I think the fear is more about demographics. Hunger games and brave are huge, but how much of those audience plays videogames.

Anyway, we got quite a lot of female protagonist this e3. So things are improving. And even among all the new female protagonist announced this E3, Aloi is still my favorite. She just stand out imo.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Lara Croft.

Yet the CD/Eidos narrative would have you believe MSFT needed to rescue it for a sequel to be made (which we know is a lie).

This is also a little different. RPG-ing as a female lead that is not overly sexualized has a much tougher time in gaming demographic statistically. Lara took off not just because of the gameplay, trust me, it was because for decades she was the Boob Raider.

I am just ecstatic that it is receiving all the praise, and shows they made the right decision. It also shows how awesome Shu is for despite the data that says otherwise, he rolled the dice and let his studios retain their creative freedoms.

 

[ugh_the_boot]

The main problem for the western publisher (and I know this) when it comes to female characters is that male teenager prefer to play male characters. You know, things like puberty, sexual insecurity etc. It's something pretty well know ...

Careful with your assumptions, maybe it has something to do with the fact that male gamers might be able to more easily identify with a male protagonist e.g. roleplaying etc. I know that is the reason I prefer to use males, and the fact that it's actually more realistic to be using a male in an dangerous/action oriented role. I'm not saying women can't be represented like this as well but it would be a much rarer occurrence.

 

[FuturusX]

I think we can all agree that Shu is awesome...

 

[7DollarHagane]

She looked awesome and the game looked awesome.

The problem is not with sony it's with their market and people buying games.

If they have reasonable data that a female protagonist will cause sales to be lower by X amount and risk X amount of people being laid off or future projects cancelled, they should avoid that risk.

The real question is why is there an aversion to female protagonists by the people who buy games?

 

[Callibretto]

Yet the CD/Eidos narrative would have you believe MSFT needed to rescue it for a sequel to be made (which we know is a lie).

This is also a little different. RPG-ing as a female lead that is not overly sexualized has a much tougher time in gaming demographic statistically. Lara took off not just because of the gameplay, trust me, it was because for decades she was the Boob Raider.

I am just ecstatic that it is receiving all the praise, and shows they made the right decision. It also shows how awesome Shu is for despite the data that says otherwise, he rolled the dice and let his studios retain their creative freedoms.

Actually the data from focus testing is positive. So GG is justified from that alone.

 

[John Harker]

To reiterate:

- They're braids, not dreadlocks.

- Focus testing is ubiquitous and done on nearly every product and piece of marketing you can think of, from movie posters to snack food to political candidates. They're not some special team you go to when you want opinions on something like a female or minority protagonist.

- Focus testing is not "bad". It doesn't "ruin the developer's vision". It's feedback. The choice to change anything remains with the developer.

- Focus testing is vital because people are launching products and they have no idea how they will be received. It's a huge investment and they have to reduce risk.

Yea... If some of you think developers themselves don't bring people in early on projects for both focus and play testing fairly often, you're only kidding yourself.

That's on top of what marketing will do once a product is closer to market. Dev's do it to make a product and marketing does it to position the product.

It's just kind of a weird thing to bring up in an interview... But it's NOT a weird thing to do.

Especially when financial investment is so high, lots of jobs on the line and ROI for focus testing is almost always worth the low spends. Up to the stakeholders to decide what and what not to implement though.... It's silly to NOT get consumer data.

And yes having female leads in big budget games is still very often considered a risk. Not that it isn't financially viable... Just that it's an added risk. So it's good they are testing the market reception for it to support or discredit their decisions to make the best possible product.

 

[CrazyHorse]

The best thing about her is that she doesn't dress like most female video game characters. Well done to the creators.

 

[Alex_Mexico]

I was watching the trailer live all I could think was "oh I hear a woman's voice! Please let me play as her and not an ugly bald male from past Guerilla games, please".

Then it became clear she was the main character and before the gameplay started as the camera was positioning itself behind her my mind shifted to "please dont be in First Person, please, please please PLEASE".

And then the camera set behind her, the HUD appeared and I may have yelled a bit in excitement.

Don't change a thing about her, Guerilla. She's awesome.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Actually the data from focus testing is positive. So GG is justified from that alone.

And that is a very good thing. Also a testament to their talented art department.

I was referring to sales Data Shu had access to.

I think we can all agree that Shu is awesome...

Oh man I never seen this. I am rolling.

I was watching the trailer live all I could think was "oh I hear a woman's voice! Please let me play as her and not an ugly bald male from past Guerilla games, please".

Then it became clear she was the main character and before the gameplay started as the camera was positioning itself behind her my mind shifted to "please dont be in First Person, please, please please PLEASE".

And then the camera set behind her, the HUD appeared and I may have yelled a bit in excitement.

Don't change a thing about her, Guerilla. She's awesome.

This. So much this.

 

[I-hate-u]

Ellie grew up.

 

[Bad_Boy]

i think the female character is cool. would be awesome if you had the option play as that bearded guy that trains her though

cant wait to see dlc character models, if there will be any.

 

[Suzushiiro]

Lara Croft.

There are two very obvious reasons why Tomb Raider (especially pre-reboot) sold well among the male demographic that don't apply to Horizon's main character.

In general, the industry's common belief seems to be that guys are okay with playing as females who are blatantly designed to pander to them in some way, it's the female leads who aren't highly sexualized/super moe/etc. that the suits get nervous about.

 

[Alex_Mexico]

The bolded is the only one that had enough sales to justify a game as big as Horizon, & even then the scope of TR is nowhere close to Horizon, which is probably the most expensive first party project ever.

Regardless, I'm glad the game is still happening, & I hope it becomes this gen's Uncharted.

Do we have anything to back that claim or are you making it up? I do see potential for this being a huge and expensive new game but until I hear more I'll never be sure if it can end up being more expensive than, say, Uncharted 4 or The Last of Us. as far as first party IPs are concerned.

 

[FATALITY]

I couldn't care less who or what the protagonist is as long as the game is good. Would never buy/not buy a game just based on the protagonist.

kratos wouldnt

 

[kyser73]

Unsurprisingly the robots just want to play as robots.

'When I come home from a hard days work at the starship assembly plant, I want to feel empowered and play as a terminator, not some sack of talking meat.'

 

[Alo0oy]

Do we have anything to back that claim or are you making it up? I do see potential for this being a huge and expensive new game but until I hear more I'll never be sure if it can end up being more expensive than, say, Uncharted 4 or The Last of Us. as far as first party IPs are concerned.

It's an open world RPG, & it will be the first ever open world RPG with a fixed female protagonist. Unless the world is incredibly small for some reason (possible, but extremely unlikely), this game is far far bigger than Uncharted or Tomb Raider.

The game has also been in development for 4.5 years.

 

[SolidSnakex]

Do we have anything to back that claim or are you making it up? I do see potential for this being a huge and expensive new game but until I hear more I'll never be sure if it can end up being more expensive than, say, Uncharted 4 or The Last of Us. as far as first party IPs are concerned.

They haven't commented on the budget, but it's been in development for four and a half years. That's longer than any Naughty Dog game. If it releases late next year like many of us are expecting, that would mean its dev cycle would be longer than Gran Turismo 5, which is known to be Sony's most expensive game (60m).

 

[FATALITY]

But. Tomb Raider...

tomb raider is older than the most dickheads ignorants.
so they cant complain

Oh, sony managed to sell freaking kratos. They'll be good.

dude kratos is awesome

 

[Aureon]

Oh, sony managed to sell freaking kratos. They'll be good.

 

[Acrylic7]

It would be bad management to not look into things. As others have said, this is going to be an extremely expensive project. One that if it fails could possibly lead to people being laid off. And anytime someone is laid off at Sony, guess who fans point the finger at? Yoshida. Because he's running that ship. It's important to make sure that what's being made is going to sell, particularly when there's a lot riding on it. Not just the IP itself, but jobs as well.

I know all of that I was just pointing it out.

I understand that its a business but I still think its wrong.
I'm black; and an artist. if I was working on something and I made the main protagonist female and black I would get super pissed in anyone walking up to me second guessing the decision on either the gender and of course if it was related to the race. Its pretty much not respecting me as a person and or the project/goal that I'm trying to achieve.

But like I said I understand why they did it. Millions being throw around so its kinda like investor and resource insurance and whatnot.

 

[Jaeger]

I hate that this is even something to feel nervous about. But good for them. This game is gonna kick ass.

 

[B-Genius]

Find it somewhat humorous that you say they should worry about the writing and also not like that line. In a clip that was almost all gameplay it gave a neat insight into the type of character she is. I think the line is great. I could also see her being overly chatty as a way to sort of...explain what she's doing in this clip so we all understand. Maybe in the final game we'll see less combat dialogue.

I guess if the game is less tutorialised it would help for the characters to be chatty and "engage" with the player in some ways.

But I can't help feeling spoiled by character banter from the likes of GTA and Uncharted's Drake and Sully. When I hear it elsewhere, it just ends up feeling forced.

If the insight to her character is so great, why is she sympathetic towards the poor widdle baby raptor bot and not the huge stomping chomping bot?
(P.S. The raptor was going to call for backup, so it's not like it was harmless.)

I know I'm being picky about a "cavegirl hunter-gatherer who's in touch with nature" archetype. I'd just like to see devs doing well-written characters, male or female.

 

[toddhunter]

I figured they just noticed lots of people like Game of thrones.

But then I know nothing.

 

[Rhazer Fusion]

It's weird to me that this is still a concern. What kind of data are they looking at?

They are probably looking at sales data to some past games and basing it of their success or lack of success where unfortunately most games with female protagonist do not sell as well as games with male protagonists. You know this industry still has a lot of maturing or growing up to do if that is still a concern in 2015. I think it is silly that gamers will refuse to give a game a chance based on the gender of the character. I plan to buy this game and hope it does really well and break the tradition.

 

[Juraash]

I guess if the game is less tutorialised it would help for the characters to be chatty and "engage" with the player in some ways.

But I can't help feeling spoiled by character banter from the likes of GTA and Uncharted's Drake and Sully. When I hear it elsewhere, it just ends up feeling forced.

If the insight to her character is so great, why is she sympathetic towards the poor widdle baby raptor bot and not the huge stomping chomping bot?
(P.S. The raptor was going to call for backup, so it's not like it was harmless.)

I know I'm being picky about a "cavegirl hunter-gatherer who's in touch with nature" archetype. I'd just like to see devs doing well-written characters, male or female.

Fair points. My interpretation of the situation was that the little raptor thing was a lookout for the grazing ones. Since that what she was there for the little guy was necessary collateral damage. Course that theory isn't as nice if it's the lookout for the predatory creatures. I guess I still get the vibe that she isn't a fan of harming things when it isn't necessary. But who knows. I too, hope they write the characters well.

 

[Rhazer Fusion]

Oh, sony managed to sell freaking kratos. They'll be good.

I think Kratos is the type of character that really appeals to the male "gamer" demographic with his masculine, no nonsense, angry, rough and tough demeanor. Most females characters do not fit that description.

 

[ZoddGutts]

Fair points. My interpretation of the situation was that the little raptor thing was a lookout for the grazing ones. Since that what she was there for the little guy was necessary collateral damage. Course that theory isn't as nice if it's the lookout for the predatory creatures. I guess I still get the vibe that she isn't a fan of harming things when it isn't necessary. But who knows. I too, hope they write the characters well.

Hope they hired good writers for their game this time, heck Chris Avellone is available right now.

 

[SolidSnakex]

I know all of that I was just pointing it out.

I understand that its a business but I still think its wrong.
I'm black; and an artist. if I was working on something and I made the main protagonist female and black I would get super pissed in anyone walking up to me second guessing the decision on either the gender and of course if it was related to the race. Its pretty much not respecting me as a person and or the project/goal that I'm trying to achieve.

But like I said I understand why they did it. Millions being throw around so its kinda like investor and resource insurance and whatnot.

It'd be completely understandable if you were pissed about it. I'm not trying to say it's right, but once you start dealing with massive budgets it's going to make companies start to look closely at things that may potentially turn consumers away. That's why the fact that their focus group didn't react negatively to it is such a good thing. It shows that things may be changing for the better.

It's also why it's important to support games that do step out of the box. Sales send a big message to publishers. If something like this sells well, a big budget new IP with a sole female lead, that's going to say a lot to other publishers. No longer can they point toward something like Wet or BG&E as proof that gamers aren't willing to buy games with female leads. But if it doesn't sell well...that's most likely going to lead to some very bad things. That's of course all assuming that it's a great game that's properly marketed.

Hope they hired good writers for their game this time, heck Chris Avellone is available right now.

They hired the writer of Fallout: New Vegas.

 

[The Crimson Beast]

If the insight to her character is so great, why is she sympathetic towards the poor widdle baby raptor bot and not the huge stomping chomping bot?
(P.S. The raptor was going to call for backup, so it's not like it was harmless.)

Seriously? its much harder to feel sorry for something that isn't a direct threat to your life. You gotta be Na'vi level synced to the world to feel sorry for something trying to kill you lol.

Seriously though, I think the line is a very important lore wise. It shows that they consider these robots to be living things that suffer. When she damaged the robots they reacted like they felt pain. I want to know where they come from.

 

[Acrylic7]

Hope they hired good writers for their game this time, heck Chris Avellone is available right now.

I think they are already good writers its just that they never had the opportunity to utilize it in Killzone.

There's a big ass document somewhere with Killzones plot and a timeline floating around somewhere that Im really impressed with.

 

[Phreak47]

The only negative thought I came away with on this was, "does every damn slightly larger/more menacing enemy have to do a fucking godzilla roar by law in videogames?"

 

[DeepEnigma]

They haven't commented on the budget, but it's been in development for four and a half years. That's longer than any Naughty Dog game. If it releases late next year like many of us are expecting, that would mean its dev cycle would be longer than Gran Turismo 5, which is known to be Sony's most expensive game (60m).

They were also bouncing back and forth between Shadow Fall as well. So it was not straight 4.5 years on this game.

Also The Last Guardian says hello.

 

[Rats Off To Ya]

The only negative thought I came away with on this was, "does every damn slightly larger/more menacing enemy have to do a fucking godzilla roar by law in videogames?"

I mean.

If it's a dinosaur, yeah. It probably should.

 

[B-Genius]

Fair points. My interpretation of the situation was that the little raptor thing was a lookout for the grazing ones. Since that what she was there for the little guy was necessary collateral damage. Course that theory isn't as nice if it's the lookout for the predatory creatures. I guess I still get the vibe that she isn't a fan of harming things when it isn't necessary. But who knows. I too, hope they write the characters well.

Ah yeah, I suppose it could have just warned away the grazers.
But she said "can't have you calling for help" (i.e. the big guys that part of the whole gathering troop.)

Seriously? its much harder to feel sorry for something that isn't a direct threat to your life. You gotta be Na'vi level synced to the world to feel sorry for something trying to kill you lol.

Seriously though, I think the line is a very important lore wise. It shows that they consider these robots to be living things that suffer. When she damaged the robots they reacted like they felt pain. I want to know where they come from.

Hadn't really considered that. Could be interesting for sure.
I dunno what exactly I'm bothered by to be honest, hehe. Maybe I'm just bored of the "hunter-gatherer with a soft side" deal, like with Lara Croft and Ellie in TLoU. Pulling arrows out of dead things and apologising just seems a little tired ^^;

The only negative thought I came away with on this was, "does every damn slightly larger/more menacing enemy have to do a fucking godzilla roar by law in videogames?"

The roar translates to: "Hello."

 

[Nightengale]

4.5 years

3 of said years were only around 20 or so people

It's only after Shadowfall shipped that the whole studio is on-board.

It's hard to measure development cost when a large bulk of the time they're basically an internal indie team

 

[Alo0oy]

4.5 years

3 of said years were only around 20 or so people

It's only after Shadowfall shipped that the whole studio is on-board.

It's hard to measure development cost when a large bulk of the time they're basically an internal indie team

From what they've said, they started as 20, then they grew more as time went on, & then scaled back to ramp up the production of Shadow Fall. So they didn't remain 20 for the entirety of the time they were developing Shadow Fall. & the game looked much further in full production than just 1.5 years.

This is just a guess, but I think they started as 20, & then grew to about ~100 in mid-production, but scaled back to around 20 during the final months of SF's development.

 

[Phreak47]

I mean.

If it's a dinosaur, yeah. It probably should.

I mean yeah, dinosaurs are OG with this shit and all, but it's been played.

The roar translates to: "Hello."

Lies

 

[TheChundertaker]

She looks really cool. I like basically everything about her design. Her braided red hair really stood out to me though. Its a striking feature. Overall I don't really care if a game makes me play as a female as long as the character is interesting in at least some way.

 

[Cave Johnson]

Did people forget about Lara Croft? God the amount of shallowness coming from the industry's side is outstanding.

 

[The Crimson Beast]

Did people forget about Lara Croft? God the amount of shallowness coming from the industry's side is outstanding.

Actually, the reboot sales were considered disappointing by Square enix so thats not a good argument to bring up.

 

[Tinfoilhatsron]

I would've figured a young female protagonist with a bow would've been seen as a safe choice. The Hunger Games gross millions every time one of them is released don't they, so what's the big deal? I guess a lot of the people in power still think that only young men play video games.

Cynical me says this. Hunger Games and the TR reboot.

0Also she looks like grown up Brave lass.

 

[Bitch Pudding]

The only negative thought I came away with on this was, "does every damn slightly larger/more menacing enemy have to do a fucking godzilla roar by law in videogames?"

Well, better roaring Godzilla style than "cockadoodledoo"...

 

[Forkball]

They should've focus tested that hair. I immediately thought of the guy from Bionic Commando.