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[RionaaM]

I can only speak for myself here, but at least if I say something like that, what I mean is that, whichever gender they choose, it should be because that's what they want for the character, not just to make people happy. When I say "I don't care," I literally mean that I don't give a damn about what gender I'm playing as. It's not something I think about or feel that I need to think about. When talking about "PC crap," I mean that they shouldn't make a character female just for the sake of saying, "Look at us! We're so inclusive and progressive!" It doesn't add anything, and the characters often end up being flat or counter-stereotypes. If you need to do something to prove that you're not sexist, then that's just evidence that you are.

If thinking this way makes me sexist in your eyes, then that's just how it is.

I'd rather get a female protagonist for the sake of devs bragging about being progressive than yet another muscled male space marine for no reason at all.

Male characters are often flat and don't add anything either, why are women or minorities being singled out here? Would it really be that terrible to give them a bit more representation in video games?

they should, so sick of having all these forced straight dudes and the woes of being a man shoved down my throat

You know, devs shouldn't shoehorn male characters if they can't write them well. I only want them if they fit the story, not for anti-sexism reasons. Stop pandering to the PC brigade!

It's funny how this double standard works. It's OK for male characters to be the default choice, however poorly they may be written, but women have to prove their reason to exist in a game.

 

[TM94]

Don't see why they should.

 

[Audioboxer]

I'd rather get a female protagonist for the sake of devs bragging about being progressive than yet another muscled male space marine for no reason at all.

Male characters are often flat and don't add anything either, why are women or minorities being singled out here? Would it really be that terrible to give them a bit more representation in video games?


You know, devs shouldn't shoehorn male characters if they can't write them well. I only want them if they fit the story, not for anti-sexism reasons. Stop pandering to the PC brigade!

It's funny how this double standard works. It's OK for male characters to be the default choice, but women have to prove their reason to exist in a game.

Pretty certain that point at least is to do with the skill of the writers bringing a character to life, and the voice acting chosen.

I agree with your last points though, saying you can't write a female character is ridiculous considering a good portion of your studio will be female, as well as friends and wives.

If it's the fear of the developers being attacked for writing a female character in a role for a set narrative/gameplay type they are good at making (shooter/RPG/etc) then they need to grow a spine. Discrimination is saying a certain gender can only be written one way, or has to be written one way, where to be equal is to be able to be female and as shitty an anti-hero as many male characters are. Which the characters in GTA tend to be. The point there being don't expect a studio known for writing a certain way or creating a certain style of game to have to backflip backwards for PC if they do a female lead. If they want to do it, and people are saying we need more female leads, then accept that many video game characters are written as video game characters with tropes and all. Not educational saints decorating the world with flowers and puppies.

That's not to say games can't break the mould, but many games involve shooting, killing and some sort of entertainment based around violence. Not all, but many. Male characters get written into those roles all the time, so if we want more female leads we have to expect equality and that female characters will be written in in similar fashion.

What I've said above has been written with GTA in mind, given the title of the topic. Rockstar do Rockstar and Rockstar push the boundaries of offence, violence, satire and mockery. They're adult games, written for adults and only supposed to be played by adults.

 

[partyphone]

hmm. if they were to have a female protagonist what movie would they rip off? i unfortunately can't think of very many. might be a natural born killers situation or something.

 

[Amory]

Doesn't really matter to me. Could be cool. But I don't want a female protagonist just for the hell of it. If the story fits, great, if not a guy is fine.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

But I don't want a female protagonist just for the hell of it.

Like fucking clockwork

What is "for the hell of it"?

And why not make a woman character "for the hell of it" anyway?

And can anyone ever cite an example of a female character that was created "for the hell of it" and why it was bad?

'S'all horseshit concern trolling as far as I'm concerned.

 

[borghe]

Does making Trevor/Micheal/Franklin women change anything at all about the game? Are you saying there are soooo many difference between men and women that there can't be women who act like them? C'mon, let's not get all biological determinism here.

And it is 0% valid for several reasons;

• It is a double standard. It is rarely if ever applied if the creator wants to put a straight white man in a role, always on women or minority characters.
• It assumes that male is the "default" and that women/minority characteristics are just "extra features" to spice a character up.
• "Don't force it" implies that a character must reach a certain threshold of "appropriateness" before they can "become" a woman/minority character. Otherwise, it is implied, they should just be male, which isn't "forcing it".
• People do not have to justify their existence in the real world, they just exist.
• What constitutes "forced"? Given people's reaction to just having a trans character say she's trans, it seems that just being a character other than a straight white cisgendered man is "being forced".
• It needlessly puts women and minority characters up on a higher standard of writing quality, which, again, is a double standard.
• What is a "male" role? Sure, there are certainly roles that are more appropriate for men in a story, Brokeback Mountain is explicitly about masculinity, same thing with roles that inherently speak to the female experience, but for a good majority of games and media it does not matter.

While your post has great points... it's severely crippled by basically implying "they're just video games.. not serious works of art"

also

"Don't force it" implies that a character must reach a certain threshold of "appropriateness" before they can "become" a ... character.

slightly edited this. There is a ton of shitty writing in video games. Arguably majority. We've come to accept the generic white male characters in these shitty roles because it's standard. My argument is "let's raise the quality of writing for ALL characters", rather than "let's keep the shitty writing, but now apply it to all characters."

I would love to see tons of women and minority leads.. putting them into the current shitty written roles "just because" IMHO is the wrong way to go about it, even if "it's just a video game"

edit - I do think a problem is the number of studios doing these huge narratives these days are very small.. and most ill equipped to write good roles (for anyone). Naughty Dog can write awesome women and minorities. R* is.... so-so. Quantic Dream is so-so.. kind of poor all around.. but does give time to women and minorities without making them "poorly written little-context" roles. though not really great roles..

 

[partyphone]

Doesn't really matter to me. Could be cool. But I don't want a female protagonist just for the hell of it. If the story fits, great, if not a guy is fine.

uhhh. wouldnt any random dude be "for the hell of it"? why is a dude the unquestionable default?

 

[Morrigan Stark]

While your post has great points... it's severely crippled by basically implying "they're just video games.. not serious works of art"

That's one way to dismiss something when you run out of arguments huh. And yet..

I would love to see tons of women and minority leads.. putting them into the current shitty written roles "just because" IMHO is the wrong way to go about it, even if "it's just a video game"

Oh suddenly video games are important and we must improve the condition of its writing...

How convenient.

 

[borghe]

That's one way to dismiss something when you run out of arguments huh. And yet..


Oh suddenly video games are important and we must improve the condition of its writing...

How convenient.

???

my desire is the same in both cases.. a bit confused as to your point.

I just want quality writing in video games.

 

[Fjordson]

Yeah, the fact that a female character has to be "shoehorned in" is the problem I think. That the "default" in people's heads is a male (probably white) character. Need to start working to reverse that thinking, even it does mean "shoehorning" in female / minority characters.

 

[potatohead]

Yeah, the fact that a female character has to be "shoehorned in" is the problem I think. That the "default" in people's heads is a male (probably white) character. Need to start working to reverse that thinking, even it does mean "shoehorning" in female / minority characters.

Justify my chromosomes.

 

[Sayad]

I'd rather get a female protagonist for the sake of devs bragging about being progressive than yet another muscled male space marine for no reason at all.

Wouldn't say it's for no reason at all in a GTA game.

 

[Balb]

I would love to see Rockstar make an attempt at least. They're in a position (especially with GTA) where they can try pretty much anything without the risk of taking a sales hit so it'd be great to see.

 

[borghe]

I would love to see Rockstar make an attempt at least. They're in a position (especially with GTA) where they can try pretty much anything without the risk of taking a sales hit so it'd be great to see.

FWIW, a female protagonist would work perfectly in GTA. I was only commenting on RDR, and the general state of feminism during that era.

 

[Amory]

uhhh. wouldnt any random dude be "for the hell of it"? why is a dude the unquestionable default?

male characters aren't the "unquestionable default", but they are the norm. If they're going to change it up and make the lead character female, cool. But I would just hope that the story then offers a different perspective.

If they wrote the story independent of the character being female and then just happened to go with a female lead, fine, but it'd be a bit of a wasted opportunity.

 

[Zojirushi]

My guess is that without The Benz Rockstar will simply be happy if their next game isn't a burning car crash. So maybe that speaks for sticking to familiar stuff for the time being.

Or maybe this is exactly the right time to switch things up I dunno.

 

[Audioboxer]

FWIW, a female protagonist would work perfectly in GTA. I was only commenting on RDR, and the general state of feminism during that era.

But it's Rockstar, they can do whatever the fuck they want. Maybe 0.5% of the audience will put on their historian hats, light their pipes and say "this isn't realistic".

The rest of us would enjoy playing a female lead who puts a bullet in the head of a sexist bandit or enemy commenting on the genitalia between your legs and somehow linking that to ability/notoriety in the wild west. Which is why it would be pretty entertaining to say the least to write a female lead for RDR.

 

[Alienous]

I wonder what the Feminist Frequency view is on this.

On the one hand, female protagonist. On the other, one of the stated goals from their perspective is improving female representation in games. So is a reprehensible female protagonist in line with that? It's an interesting thought.

 

[CazTGG]

hmm. if they were to have a female protagonist what movie would they rip off? i unfortunately can't think of very many. might be a natural born killers situation or something.

I could see them do a sort of RDR situation by way of Kill Bill, i.e. said character is on a quest for revenge rather than the redemption John Marston sought out. Whether their writers could make said story interesting in its own right or just a boring rehash of RDR is another matter entirely. Either way, i'd say leading woman would be a good idea for the next Rockstar game, doubly so if it's for Red Dead 3 since there's a good amount of women who were outlaws in North America during the Old West, assuming they go with that setting for the next game in that series.

 

[partyphone]

male characters aren't the "unquestionable default", but they are the norm. If they're going to change it up and make the lead character female, cool. But I would just hope that the story then offers a different perspective.

If they wrote the story independent of the character being female and then just happened to go with a female lead, fine, but it'd be a bit of a wasted opportunity.

the implication here is that a shitty story with a dude in it wouldn't be wasted. this line of argument is silly and amounts to concern trolling.

 

[JP_]

ding ding ding.

If it's the RDR follow up.. hell no. Likelihood of being historically accurate with a female protagonist is near impossible.

If it's NOT the RDR followup.. then sure.. give us a good story and I'm down with a female protagonist.

I think it'd be even more interesting in an RDR followup -- the woman protag has to pretend to be a man in a man's world. Could otherwise be more or less the same, but with an extra layer of risk involved. And sometimes she could play the part of a more typical woman of that time -- useful for going undercover etc. Easy opportunity to give more variety to the gameplay in interesting ways.

and I'm still curious

Why can we discuss what city GTA should take place in but when someone suggests a different protagonist gender there's so much "we shouldn't 'force' Rockstar to do anything" reactions?

 

[Audioboxer]

I wonder what the Feminist Frequency view is on this.

On the one hand, female protagonist. On the other, one of the stated goals from their perspective is improving female representation in games. So is a reprehensible female protagonist in line with that? It's an interesting thought.

Devs gotta grow a spine there and take the flak IMO. If we all want equality we gotta accept the way in which many games are written. I'm not saying games writing can't and shouldn't improve, but as I said above many games are written for entertainment first and contain copious amounts of violence and fantasy. Devs known for other styles of gaming should incorporate female leads as well, but in this topic specifically we're discussing GTA and Rockstar in general (RDR). We've come to know what to expect from Rockstar, so we should expect that with a female lead if so.

 

[Zyzyxxz]

Maybe they should concentrate on making a game as fun as GTA San Andreas again.

 

[karasu]

For some reason I think that if Rockstar did this, the protagonist would not be feminine, they would male-ify it with mannerisms of a dude and a bunch of tattoos and short hair. I would be glad to see a female character though!

a female can have, and often does have, all of these things.

 

[Raist]

That wouldn't be very realistic. Everyone knows that criminal murderous psychos are always male.

 

[Audioboxer]

a female can have, and often does have, all of these things.

Yup, and as I said in the case of Rockstar, they tend to write with offence, violence, satire and mockery. Guess you can throw stereotypes to that list as well. These are the things people shouldn't expect Rockstar to do differently, at least not if we're dealing with the GTA franchise.

 

[Bluenoser]

Would love to see a fresh take on the GTA formula. A female protagonist would be ideal for many reasons, and after the long running GTA sausage fest, it makes sense to try something new, but this is Rockstar... they will sell a billion copies no matter what they do.

 

[deriks]

Rockstar could do a walking shit as a main character and they will sell a lot

 

[JP_]

I wonder what the Feminist Frequency view is on this.

On the one hand, female protagonist. On the other, one of the stated goals from their perspective is improving female representation in games. So is a reprehensible female protagonist in line with that? It's an interesting thought.

Not that specific question, but related (referring to female enemies):

Talk of gameplay brought Sarkeesian to her final point. She said she'd spoken with "well-meaning" game developers about how to handle female enemies. Many games use violence as their main means of interaction, she noted, and some developers were uneasy about if or how to put female enemies in harm's way.

"Simply putting women in the line of fire is not in and of itself a problem," she said. "Everything depends on framing, right? So, with that in mind here are two things to keep in mind when designing female characters. One: avoid violence in which women are framed as weak or helpless. When we critique violence against women, we're often talking about violence in which women are being attacked or victimized specifically because they are women, which then reinforces or perpetuates a perception that women as victims and men as noble, brooding heroes...

"Two, avoid violence against female characters in which there is a sexualized element."

She praised BioShock Infinite's presentation of a Columbia police force whose male and female cops wear similar uniforms. "The ideal here," she said, "is to design combatants who just happen to be women."

Basically, it seems like she'd probably be in favor of it as long as the character doesn't focus too much on being helpless and/or sexualized.

http://kotaku.com/how-anita-sarkeesian-wants-video-games-to-change-1688231729

 

[Baldwin_the_First]

How about just making multiple protagonists same as in GTAV? 2 or 3 protagonists and have a woman in the mix. I'd love to have a indian, a cowboy and a woman in the next Red Dead.

 

[Lime]

Not only should they, but they should also make it all-female playable characters.

We've gotten like 5 major 3D GTAs with only dudes now, so it would only make sense to have the exclusive dominance by women for a good while.

 

[UrbanRats]

Not only should they, but they should also make it all-female playable characters.

We've gotten like 5 major 3D GTAs with only dudes now, so it would only make sense to have the exclusive dominance by women for a good while.

That is never going to happen, i'm sure you know that.

 

[Jumplion]

While your post has great points... it's severely crippled by basically implying "they're just video games.. not serious works of art"

also


slightly edited this. There is a ton of shitty writing in video games. Arguably majority. We've come to accept the generic white male characters in these shitty roles because it's standard. My argument is "let's raise the quality of writing for ALL characters", rather than "let's keep the shitty writing, but now apply it to all characters."

I would love to see tons of women and minority leads.. putting them into the current shitty written roles "just because" IMHO is the wrong way to go about it, even if "it's just a video game"

edit - I do think a problem is the number of studios doing these huge narratives these days are very small.. and most ill equipped to write good roles (for anyone). Naughty Dog can write awesome women and minorities. R* is.... so-so. Quantic Dream is so-so.. kind of poor all around.. but does give time to women and minorities without making them "poorly written little-context" roles. though not really great roles..

Wanting better writing for characters is what everyone wants, sure. But my point wasn't "it's just a video game", my point was that the criteria of "wanting better written characters" is often unfairly held up against women/minority characters for being "shoehorned in".

Being "shoehorned in" means that you're forcing something where it doesn't belong. That's the insidious part that people don't realize.

We could totally discuss whether the trans character in the Baulder's Gate game was a good character or not, fairly representing trans characters or not, but that's not what these types of criticisms are.

In a sense it's "let's write good characters (implying male characters by default) in general before we write women/minority characters" which, on the surface is all fine and dandy, but really ugly when you take it apart and see the "implying male characters by default" part of it.

Putting aside the fact that few things are "just because" when creating media, even if it was "just because", so what? A lot of things are still good when forced into them, that's how creators get, well, creative. Restrictions, caveats, and requirements are all par for the course.

 

[Lmo911]

I think it depends on the game. Red Dead could totally rock a female protag or a New IP, but I don't know about GTA.

GTA is a satire of the world around us and that's a man's world unfortunately. If you make the protag female, you might have to change the whole direction of said game because do we need a game where we tear down women? Of course even saying that is kind of over protective. The character should stand on it's own. If people don't know what GTA is by now, I dunno.

It could be a Thelma and Louise type thing or maybe a female version of Falling Down or Breaking Bad. Something subversive but fitting? San Andreas kind of did that.

It can be done, but you could totally screw it up.

 

[Amory]

the implication here is that a shitty story with a dude in it wouldn't be wasted. this line of argument is silly and amounts to concern trolling.

I'm not trolling, i'm not sure what in my (pretty innocuous) posts would give you that idea

I don't think it matters if the next main character is female or male. it makes literally no difference in and of itself. Plenty of games have had female leads or let the player choose. Rockstar wouldn't be breaking any molds with a female main character that otherwise has a generic story. Flip a coin.

if they built the story and dialogue around a female lead and it offered a different perspective, that makes a female lead significant, IMO. I would definitely welcome that kind of change.

I'm not arguing for a male lead by default, I'm saying if it's just the physical appearance of a female vs a male on the screen it's whatever.

 

[Xumbrega]

Yes, new Red Dead with a female protagonist.

 

[Henkka]

Like fucking clockwork

What is "for the hell of it"?

And why not make a woman character "for the hell of it" anyway?

And can anyone ever cite an example of a female character that was created "for the hell of it" and why it was bad?

'S'all horseshit concern trolling as far as I'm concerned.

Can't think of an example in games, but that female Thor comic looks kinda bad. When your character is literally spouting the comic writer's political beliefs and the villain is written to sound like your average gator, that's just... cringey, as over-used as that word is. Even if you agree with the general concept of what she's saying, goddamn they're pushing it hard in this.

 

[keltickennedy]

No. People would just get offended by whatever Female protag Rockstar would create.

 

[Messofanego]

FWIW, a female protagonist would work perfectly in GTA. I was only commenting on RDR, and the general state of feminism during that era.

Uh, you've played Red Dead Revolver/Redemption? Annie is a badass in her own right, along with Bonnie.

Annie Stoakes was inspired by Annie Oakley. She was a great sharpshooter just like in the game.

Female outlaws were a thing (and they often disguised as men), too, like Belle Starr who ran with Jesse James. She robbed, drank, gambled, organised robberies, and harbored criminals. She died in a very cinematic fashion, coming back home from the shops she was shot in the back.

Laura Bullion joined the Wild Bunch gang along with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Pearl Hart the "Bandit Queen" (who was inspired by Annie Oakley) robbed men and a stagecoach. Escaped jail but got caught afterwards. Released this quite feminist statement: "I shall not consent to be tried under a law in which my sex had no voice in making."

You don't need to be about feminism to have a female protagonist. It's not a game about civil rights and protesting the status quo. But speaking of, women were involved in the suffragette movement back then such as Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton during July 1848. The National Woman's Suffrage Association was formed in 1869.

Rockstar doesn't even need a historical justification for a woman as the protagonist.

 

[Black Mantis]

hmm. if they were to have a female protagonist what movie would they rip off? i unfortunately can't think of very many. might be a natural born killers situation or something.

Top of my head, is Set it Off. Snoop from The Wire also comes to mind. Apache (RIP) would have been happy with one of them as his Gangsta Bitch

As for RDR, some of the real life people in the article below could serve as a good template for some characters, not necessarily the protagonist. Lucy Eldine Gonzalez and Mary Fields being the ones relevant to this topic.

http://allday.com/post/8302-youve-p...source=SMM172&utm_medium=TWO&utm_campaign=HIP

 

[RionaaM]

Wouldn't say it's for no reason at all in a GTA game.

I would. As much as I enjoyed playing as the murderous, psychopath Tommy Vercetti, I don't see how Vice City would have suffered by replacing him with an equally deranged woman. The story didn't require a man in the main role, so why was he shoehorned in that game just because?

 

[visiblemode]

Rockstar's next protagonist should be whatever one that suits whatever story they intend to tell.

I like male and female protagonists equally. Not crazy about people placing artificial emphasis on one direction or the other, though. A great story, with great characters is all I want. I don't care what gender, if they have gender or are even human at all, so long as it serves the narrative.

 

[Moon_frogger]

Rockstar's next protagonist should be whatever one that suits whatever story they intend to tell.

I like male and female protagonists equally. Not crazy about people placing artificial emphasis on one direction or the other, though. A great story, with great characters is all I want. I don't care what gender, if they have gender or are even human at all, so long as it serves the narrative.

But the stories in their games aren't so complex that they would be dramatically different with a female protagonist. The story certainly Doesn't revolve around the gender and if anything it Would be a dramatic breath of fresh air to have a female protag. This isn't about meeting some politically correct status quo and if anything it would help make amends for their ridiculously throwaway portrayals of females in past games. You can't honestly tell me they have had little to no interesting or even decent female characters for almost every single game they've made because it 'suits the story' or because of some artistic purity.

 

[Corronchilejano]

...so long as it serves the narrative.

The problem is men can do everything, but women need to fit the narrative.

 

[Staf]

Don't care what gender we play. If the gameplay is good i'll buy it.

 

[ALLseeingEYE]

Thankfully, Rockstar is likely one of those companies that will do what's best for the game, instead of sacrificing their vision for some political agenda.

I would love to see a Rockstar game with a female protagonist, but only if the Houser's are inspired to do so, and it makes for the best game they could make. At the very least, it would be awesome to see GTA 6 or Red Dead Redemption have another 3 protagonist system, and at least one character be a woman, but I want them to do whatever is best for the art.

 

[Zekra Dezivad]

Should? I don't think so, but they easily could and I'm sure it would be a great game as always.

I would love more a classy professionist man first, instead of the usual crazy psychopath sociopath.
However with the multiple protagonists route I can clearly see a female proagonist together with more traditional R* characters.

 

[Blues1990]

There are some pretty terrifying female criminal crime lords in the real world, so I can't see how Rockstar would be incapable of creating a pretty mean piece of work in a future GTA game.

 

[Gbraga]

Sure, that would be nice. If we have to choose one franchise for it, though, I feel like Red Dead would be more interesting with a female protagonist than GTA.

Both would be great.