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[-Mutsukki-]

I totally agree that a good approach to this issue is for the developer to keep the choices vague and let the player decide what suits them best. I think Animal Crossing kinda does this when you're making a character at the start.

Yeah but at the same time you're supposed to be yourself in Animal Crossing. Pokémon always dealt with more like a set avatar, but I guess that's changing. I still think it'll feel very weird to have a robust character creation tool in Pokémon, but who knows.

Sure. It's still a new word for a lot of people, but that's why I wanted you to become more aware of its proper usage. Now you know, so it'll be easier to express those thoughts and questions more clearly and directly.

But I think what you'll find is that pre-puberty most children do not have the sort of gender or sex identifiers you are looking for outside of our preconceptions about hair length and clothing. It's very hard to "guess" the sex of most children in the real world. We've just been trained to think it isn't because young girls often grow their hair long or dress a particular way that boys do not.

Fair enough, I guess you're right. Still, I feel like Pokemon has been dealing with kids over 15 as MC for a time now

 

[stephen08]

I mean, I'm the same, but even if I understand people being transgender that won't mean I agree that Pokémon is reinforcing the status quo for asking a simple and innocent question.

I've had this remorse where I thought I had to right all the wrongs about prejudice after overcoming my own, but I also overcame that, mostly because at some point I realised I wasn't going anywhere and was working at all the wrong places (like this case)



Yeah and that isn't a problem but I feel like it also misses the point about... how people actually are. I always make androgynous characters in games when I can too, so I'm not foreign to the concept of blurring the line, but it also feels weird in this case.

You need to really examine if the implementation of this will negatively affect anyone. This is a simple change that could be a big deal to a few people and enforce to others that it is just another option for people.

 

[Paper Sparrow]

I think a wide-reaching franchise like Pokemon should be as inclusive as possible, and adding an option/changing the dialogue for the choice at the very least wouldn't hurt. It looks like they are already ditching the "boy or girl" line in Sun and Moon, which is cool.

A little off-topic, but I'm curious about the discussion of pronouns outside of Pokemon, where the writing isn't really important. Let's say I were to make a story heavy game with three pronoun options like the screenshot in this thread: he, she, and they. In English, this is relatively simple, but I've seen discussion in here about less neutral languages.

If I was translating this theoretical game into Spanish, would the neutral option create "worse", less-natural sounding dialogue/writing compared to the other options? How hard would it be for a translator to write a gender-neutral version of the script? What would be the best way to handle the Spanish translation?

 

[MDave]

My apologies, but is the argument being made against the 1996 release of Pokémon? Do the latest Pokémon games still ask this question?

 

[GhostTrick]

Sure. It's still a new word for a lot of people, but that's why I wanted you to become more aware of its proper usage. Now you know, so it'll be easier to express those thoughts and questions more clearly and directly.

But I think what you'll find is that pre-puberty most children do not have the sort of gender or sex identifiers you are looking for outside of our preconceptions about hair length and clothing. It's very hard to "guess" the sex of most children in the real world. We've just been trained to think it isn't because young girls often grow their hair long or dress a particular way that boys do not.



Honestly, I really feel like you're right, but people keep presenting it as a problem. But I'm pretty sure all your in game friends just use your name and most other NPCs as well, so that Nintendo didn't have to code multiple versions of dialogue dependent on whether boy or girl was chosen.

Well then again, I feel like the issue is less about Nintendo being open or not and more about Nintendo caring about options, whenever it is user related or gameplay related. No difficulty options, limited customisation options. :/
As for the 3rd choice option though, I definitely think this is something that could happen if it gained some traction and definitely something that could be taken care of by the localization team I think.

 

[Belgian Dude]

My apologies, but is the argument being made against the 1996 release of Pokémon? Do the latest Pokémon games still ask this question?

Just checked it and yeah, X/Y asks this. Sun/Moon (the ones that will release soon) might not, though, because the only picture we have from the "character select" shows 4 boy designs and 4 girl designs, so they might just go with "What do you look like?", as the original question would feel a bit out of place in that case.

 

[Laiza]

I agree there has to be something that can be done.

So, something like this? These are the options that you get when you first start up LongStory.

Yep, works for me.

"They" is a great catch-all gender neutral pronoun as it's largely already in use and keeps things nice and simple (compared to introducing an entirely new pronoun, that is). It sucks that it's both singular and plural, but English has plenty of words that operate that way, so it's not really a big deal either way.

Funny thing is that Japan doesn't have this issue because it's extremely trivial to avoid gender-specific pronouns in their language. Generally they'll refer to characters by name, and if they don't, they can use gender-neutral pronouns instead ("この子", "この人", etc.), so for them the situation is actually less complicated.

To be honest, even as a genderqueer person my level of care for this is actually extremely low, but considering how little effort it requires I'm not particularly inclined to accept the kind of wild and over-the-top objections voiced in this thread. It's really not that hard, people.

 

[stupei]

Some people brought up that apparently the french? version of the dialogue has different words for trainer/champion depending on the gender of the player. You'd still be able to change it to stuff like "You have won the tournament" (instead of "You are the champion"), but I'd think it'd be a bit of additional work on the localization/writing font.

If the French version already has to insert code to allow for that change when necessary, wouldn't this technically be the same amount of work they're already doing? Or possibly even less because it would only be a change in translation instead of an addition of code that might require testing?

Yeah but at the same time you're supposed to be yourself in Animal Crossing. Pokémon always dealt with more like a set avatar, but I guess that's changing. I still think it'll feel very weird to have a robust character creation tool in Pokémon, but who knows.



Fair enough, I guess you're right. Still, I feel like Pokemon has been dealing with kids over 15 as MC for a time now

I think the problem currently is they're doing sort of half-measures. They're making putting on outfits and dressing up a more developed part of the game, but without allowing more control over the physical appearance of the avatar. They seem to want people to feel a more personalized connection but are limiting options in other areas. The clothing choices make the other limitations much more apparent whereas before in many ways the avatar was just a means of conveyance through the world.

And as far as age, I honestly can't tell how old we're supposed to think the protagonist in Sun and Moon is. From the demo, I would have guessed 12 or 13, but I'm really not sure at all.

 

[PSqueak]

If I was translating this theoretical game into Spanish, would the neutral option create "worse", less-natural sounding dialogue/writing compared to the other options? How hard would it be for a translator to write a gender-neutral version of the script? What would be the best way to handle the Spanish translation?

It wouldn't be impossible, but the fact is it would sound a bit off on the grounds that you would word things in a technically correct way, but it wouldn't be how people "usually talk".

It also creates weird situations, like the Undertale translation project, in undertale the playable character is referred to through the game as "the human" and with the "they" pronoun, in spanish they would be referred to as "el humano" which genders the noun "human" as male, but is implicit that the concept refers to the idea of a non specified gendered human.

So yeah, it would use male pronouns to refer to an understood genderless concept.

 

[Latimer]

Don't transgender people like to be called by what gender they're transitioning to though?

 

[Alandrus]

This thread is bananas.
The game prompts you to for boy or girl so it gives you a boy or girl sprite. Usually one or both resemble characters from the show, who is in fact a boy or a girl.

For instance, May (Gen III) and Dawn (GenIV) those are what your avatars look like if you pick Girl. It's very obvious what the intention for it is.

Pokemon provides an illusion of choice in its character creation but all the characters have a specific name already that the creators have decided. (That includes gender identity and sex)

But, is it outdated? No.
The rise of Gender Fluidity, the acknowledgement of gender fluidity, the Genders after LG, the acknowledgement of those is quite new and recent. While we, as a society, are coming to terms with it. It doesn't have as much of an accepting vibe everywhere. So, while we sit in big city apartments or college classes and it seems so obvious. Not everywhere gives a shit.

For instance, you're all championing Japanese anime and culture but Japan still doesn't have same-sex marriage. So, why is it weird in their game that they wouldn't acknowledge Trans and Gender-fluid people? It shouldn't be a surprise.

Is it wrong? Who knows. It's a different culture. For most of you, you can't spout "we must be accepting of all cultures and people" then complain when their character creation isn't as open as the west.

 

[SCB3]

I think a wide-reaching franchise like Pokemon should be as inclusive as possible, and adding an option/changing the dialogue for the choice at the very least wouldn't hurt. It looks like they are already ditching the "boy or girl" line in Sun and Moon, which is cool.

A little off-topic, but I'm curious about the discussion of pronouns outside of Pokemon, where the writing isn't really important. Let's say I were to make a story heavy game with three pronoun options like the screenshot in this thread: he, she, and they. In English, this is relatively simple, but I've seen discussion in here about less neutral languages.

If I was translating this theoretical game into Spanish, would the neutral option create "worse", less-natural sounding dialogue/writing compared to the other options? How hard would it be for a translator to write a gender-neutral version of the script? What would be the best way to handle the Spanish translation?

Having "They" (or is it "Ze", not sure on that pronoun preference tbh) makes having references to a character harder no matter the language (in French, Spanish and Italian, that use masculine and feminine words) UNLESS it's in the NPC's character (such as not being aware or caring about the PC's gender for example). It's not normalised English whereas he and she are, now it will change and become more natural, but that will take years without it feeling like its been shoehorned in or not translated properly.

 

[britt0n]

This thread is bananas.
The game prompts you to for boy or girl so it gives you a boy or girl sprite. Usually one or both resemble characters from the show, who is in fact a boy or a girl.

For instance, May (Gen III) and Dawn (GenIV) those are what your avatars look like if you pick Girl. It's very obvious what the intention for it is.

Pokemon provides an illusion of choice in its character creation but all the characters have a specific name already that the creators have decided. (That includes gender identity and sex)

But, is it outdated? No.
The rise of Gender Fluidity, the acknowledgement of gender fluidity, the Genders after LG, the acknowledgement of those is quite new and recent. While we, as a society, are coming to terms with it. It doesn't have as much of an accepting vibe everywhere. So, while we sit in big city apartments or college classes and it seems so obvious. Not everywhere gives a shit.

For instance, you're all championing Japanese anime and culture but Japan still doesn't have same-sex marriage. So, why is it weird in their game that they wouldn't acknowledge Trans and Gender-fluid people? It shouldn't be a surprise.

Is it wrong? Who knows. It's a different culture. For most of you, you can't spout "we must be accepting of all cultures and people" then complain when their character creation isn't as open as the west.

Personally, I find this silly. But, as an American, I'll vote for your rights even if they are silly to me.

well said my friend.

 

[Belgian Dude]

If the French version already has to insert code to allow for that change when necessary, wouldn't this technically be the same amount of work they're already doing? Or possibly even less because it would only be a change in translation instead of an addition of code that might require testing?

Yeah, I don't think it'd be a lot more work regarding coding, but more the additional text when those scenarios pop up. You could even say that just writing future games as gender-neutral from the get-go would avoid the need to even check if the change is needed. I think it's definitely a good trade-off, even if it wouldn't be a case of simply leaving the text unchanged. I don't know exactly how much languages/how much text exactly, though, so I might be underestimating it.

I think the problem currently is they're doing sort of half-measures. They're making putting on outfits and dressing up a more developed part of the game, but without allowing more control over the physical appearance of the avatar.

I really think this is due to anime tie-ins. While they still allow you to change clothes and stuff in X/Y, if you pick the girl, you basically look like Serena the whole time. Sun/Moon seems to take more liberty with these, though, so I definitely hope they focus on expanding the options even more and have the anime cast come from other supporting characters.

 

[SCB3]

For instance, you're all championing Japanese anime and culture but Japan still doesn't have same-sex marriage. So, why is it weird in their game that they wouldn't acknowledge Trans and Gender-fluid people? It shouldn't be a surprise.

I never knew this, I would've thought with all the Anime, Manga and Hentai being around and the almost androgynous characters within those, that Japan would be among the first of the developed nations to adopt same-sex marriage and gender equality

 

[Fliesen]

I'm sorry but this doesn't look good to me at all. What if I want to play as a girl... that actually looks like a girl anatomically? Is it that wrong? I think this all overcomplicates a simple question that kids don't even think about

hah, to be fair, that's just the artist's choice of how to portray a girl going to high school. (shoulder long hair). the currently selected combination is actually a girl-who-looks-like-a-girl-and-is-referred-to-as-she
the boy and girl pic could have up/down arrows that would let you flip through various (like 10) different faces of all kinds of hair styles, skin colors and faces.

The important part of this 'concept' simply is the "i go by" part being separate from the "i look like", which in turn is still separate from "i am".

 

[A Link to the Past]

My apologies, but is the argument being made against the 1996 release of Pokémon? Do the latest Pokémon games still ask this question?

R/B didn't ask the question

 

[stephen08]

Is it wrong? Who knows. It's a different culture. For most of you, you can't spout "we must be accepting of all cultures and people" then complain when their character creation isn't as open as the west.

The acceptance is of people and their culture. ie Not demanding they abandon who they are.

Ideas can (and very much should) be criticized and challenged especially when they infringe on the rights of others.

Accepting people doesn't mean you have to condone their beliefs.

Japan not accepting gay marriage is wrong. It is homophobia.

 

[What did he mean by this?]

I swear I was going to make this thread a while back, but I thought it was too mean to bait bans about something like this haha.

I agree the gender binary thing is lame. Just let us customize however we want

 

[MegamanPoweredUP]

"Are you a boy or a girl?"
I'm a grown ass man. Does it count as a boy?

 

[Sai-kun]

This thread is bananas.

so is accepting homophobia just because it isn't your 'culture' lmao!

 

[Anne]

Don't transgender people like to be called by what gender they're transitioning to though?

It depends. Some people prefer that, some people prefer the neutral "they", and some people aren't wanting to change pronouns for reasons. There are also people that identify as nonbinary that can use he/she/they/etc however they decide to go about it.

The general rule of thumb is if you aren't sure how to use a gendered pronoun when referring to somebody is to use "they" since it's neutral anyways. Seems like that has been the simplest solution in media that lets you choose your own avatar.

 

[Loptous]

If the French version already has to insert code to allow for that change when necessary, wouldn't this technically be the same amount of work they're already doing? Or possibly even less because it would only be a change in translation instead of an addition of code that might require testing?

More things to add always = more things to do.

I'm a French game dev, and my experience with localization is that you don't usually code exceptions for different genders especially with long scripts (it's probably possible if you're only supporting the English language though). Instead, you have a script for each language / gender option, that must be translated and reviewed. This text also has to be inserted in-game (which in my case is a really tedious job) and then tested.

Now that's just my experience, and I have no idea how GF handles text, but I'm going to assume they have to do this since they support 7+ languages with different sentence construction. In any case, there's certainly a larger cost involved for the company (and they probably don't see much benefit in it since I assume they think it doesn't make much business sense) and it's certainly not just a matter of flipping a switch, as people here suggest.

 

[Rasamune]

My apologies, but is the argument being made against the 1996 release of Pokémon? Do the latest Pokémon games still ask this question?

The first Pokémon game ever to ask the question was Pokémon Crystal back in 2001, and every game since then has given you the choice to play as a boy or a girl, with X and Y offering the largest suite of character customization options to date

 

[Alandrus]

.

 

[origamipirate]

The negativity to this question confounds me. Why would MORE options ever be a bad thing for the audience?

Also, for all the BUT MUH KIDS* folks, while I speak only anecdotally, most of my friends' children at young ages (none of my own yet as I'm gay as hell) seem to blur between traditional gender roles a lot more than I think people realize? I think they'd enjoy more options. Sometimes boys dig dresses.

*I just used this phrasing as shorthand, I didn't mean to express contempt or even judgment for those folks

 

[Opto]

Acknowledging a human condition I have no personal experience with? In MY pokemon? Heavens!

(Don't tell anyone about Stevonnie or Blanche)

 

[Gator86]

The negativity to this question confounds me. Why would MORE options ever be a bad thing for the audience?

Also, for all the BUT MUH KIDS folks, while I speak only anecdotally, most of my friends' children at young ages (none of my own yet as I'm gay as hell) seem to blur between traditional gender roles a lot more than I think people realize? I think they'd enjoy more options. Sometimes boys dig dresses.

It's threatening to people for a variety of reasons, hence it is bad and should die. See: every diversity thread on GAF in the last half decade

 

[PotionBleue]

Some people brought up that apparently the french? version of the dialogue has different words for trainer/champion depending on the gender of the player. You'd still be able to change it to stuff like "You have won the tournament" (instead of "You are the champion"), but I'd think it'd be a bit of additional work on the localization/writing font.

Let's be honest for a second, you can't have thousands of lines of text without ever using pronouns to refer to the characters in such a game. Since French doesn't have a gender-neutral pronoun, it simply cannot work (that's why some people are suggesting neologisms that nobody knows about like ille). I suppose it's the same for multiple other languages as well.

 

[Rasamune]

(Don't tell anyone about Stevonnie or Blanche)

I'm thoroughly convinced that in ten years there's going to be a whole bunch of teens and young adults who can point to some episode or another of Steven Universe as their "that's when I knew" moment

 

[Paper Sparrow]

It wouldn't be impossible, but the fact is it would sound a bit off on the grounds that you would word things in a technically correct way, but it wouldn't be how people "usually talk".

It also creates weird situations, like the Undertale translation project, in undertale the playable character is referred to through the game as "the human" and with the "they" pronoun, in spanish they would be referred to as "el humano" which genders the noun "human" as male, but is implicit that the concept refers to the idea of a non specified gendered human.

So yeah, it would use male pronouns to refer to an understood genderless concept.

Huh, interesting. I remember Undertale being gender neutral, so it's a good example to look at.

How other languages handle neutral references is something I never thought about before reading this thread. Crazy what Neogaf teaches me sometimes.

 

[Pancake Mix]

Realistically, demography-wise there will never be gender pronoun options in most games. We're talking >99 of the population that does not need this option.

Sorry, but there it is.

 

[17 Seconds]

complaining about this is going way too far and just distracting from the real issues that people think they're fighting by taking issue with this

 

[Belgian Dude]

Let's be honest for a second, you can't have thousands of lines of text without ever using pronouns to refer to the characters in such a game. Since French doesn't have a gender-neutral pronoun, it simply cannot work (that's why some people are suggesting neologisms that nobody knows about like ille). I suppose it's the same for multiple other languages as well.

Yeah, I don't really know how hard it'd actually be, I was just referring to an example I saw earlier on the thread of one of the changes in other languages. Portuguese falls under the same category in some cases, because on top of it having gender-specific nouns (trainer is both 'treinador' (he) and 'treinadora' (she), even if sometimes you hear the male pronoun being used for everyone), it also has gender-specific adjectives. For example, it splits "skilled" into habilidoso (he) and habilidosa (she). While there are often other adjectives that mean roughly the same thing while being gender-neutral (competente), it's another layer of work for the localization.

I also didn't know about there possibly being whole separate scripts for the game instead of code that calls different instances of text based on a variable, so that's more work on top of it. In any case, it's far from a 1:1 translation, yeah.

 

[Laiza]

The acceptance is of people and their culture. ie Not demanding they abandon who they are.

Ideas can (and very much should) be criticized and challenged especially when they infringe on the rights of others.

Accepting people doesn't mean you have to condone their beliefs.

Japan not accepting gay marriage is wrong. It is homophobia.

Yup.

I can be accepting of their Shinto and Buddhist beliefs just fine, because ultimately they are (largely) harmless and no one's getting hurt by some occasional shrine visits.

Homophobia and transphobia, on the other hand, are completely unacceptable as those kinds of beliefs actively work against the liberty of individuals to live their lives without being infringed upon by others. Sexism, likewise, may be ingrained into a culture but I have absolutely zero reason to respect it as it marginalizes an entire half of the human population.

I swear I was going to make this thread a while back, but I thought it was too mean to bait bans about something like this haha.

Well, let's be honest about this. Those folks were running on borrowed time anyways.

 

[Mael]

More things to add always = more things to do.

I'm a French game dev, and my experience with localization is that you don't usually code exceptions for different genders especially with long scripts (it's probably possible if you're only supporting the English language though). Instead, you have a script for each language / gender option, that must be translated and reviewed. This text also has to be inserted in-game (which in my case is a really tedious job) and then tested.

Now that's just my experience, and I have no idea how GF handles text, but I'm going to assume they have to do this since they support 7+ languages with different sentence construction. In any case, there's certainly a larger cost involved for the company (and they probably don't see much benefit in it since I assume they think it doesn't make much business sense) and it's certainly not just a matter of flipping a switch, as people here suggest.

But there would be no text added really.
the translated text is already present in the cart.
After all you have both male and female trainer in the game.
So they have to make the game work if you choose a female trainer while French is selected.
It's just a matter of adding a switch at the start that change the gender of the player.
With an Action Replay it seems trivial to switch the text to female while retaining the male character for representation.
I doubt it represent more work than what they already do.

 

[Stealth_Cobra]

1 - It's a video game... Where you play a kid chasing monsters...
2 - It's a series targeted primarly for children... Not adults with complex identity issues.
3 - Male and Female choices are fine representing more than 95% of the world's population.
4 - You don't have to fully identify with video game protagonists. I'm not a woman, yet I enjoy playing female protagonists. I can enjoy playing a black protagonist, a gay protagonist, heck, I can enjoy playing protagonists totally different than me in every single aspect. You don't need to play a clone of yourself in every game you play.
5 - It's not like pokemon protagonists are well defined anyway... Can't choose age , race or anything really.
6 - If you can't handle a child game for not tackling complex gender issues, you're probably looking for something that's out of place in these types of games. Not all game have to be an elaborate social commentary on socio-economic issues, gender roles or anything like this. Can't game just be games sometimes ?

 

[Firehead]

Realistically, demography-wise there will never be gender pronoun options in most games. We're talking >99 of the population that does not need this option.

Sorry, but there it is.

"Never"? You don't believe society will continue to progress to the point where this becomes the standard option?
">99 [percent?] of the population that does not need this option." Where do you get off saying that? Who are you to say the population doesn't need this option?

End of the day, everyone was born male or female, if you feel/choose to be the other gender, no worries but lets not over complicate it further than that in games

So, everything's black and white/binary and stop adding options that you won't use? Not going to acknowledge intersex either?

complaining about this is going way too far and just distracting from the real issues that people think they're fighting by taking issue with this

In what way does it go "way too far"? How is it distracting from the real issues? You do understand that you can fight for a cause in multiple ways at once, right? You don't just fight for one thing and forget everything else. Just because weare fighting for this doesn't mean we're distracted from the real issues.
One fights for progress and rights in all areas when fighting for a cause!

 

[Pancake Mix]

"Never"? You don't believe society will continue to progress to the point where this becomes the standard option?
">99 [percent?] of the population that does not need this option." Where do you get off saying that? Who are you to say the population doesn't need this option?

I'm not trying to offend intersex people, but the overwhelming majority of people will tell you they are either male or female. This option is not going to happen.

 

[Falchion]

I assume you found out that it was a hat right?

I did right this minute. Had no clue that was a hat.

 

[R00bot]

Yep, works for me.
To be honest, even as a genderqueer person my level of care for this is actually extremely low, but considering how little effort it requires I'm not particularly inclined to accept the kind of wild and over-the-top objections voiced in this thread. It's really not that hard, people.

This is exactly my position on this. Yeah it'd be good to have more inclusive options but it's not a massive deal (that goes for the people making a big deal of NOT adding those options too).

 

[janoDX]

I think, we should just play the game and not worry about a "complicated" issue on a kids game.

I play all kind of characters, but not every game has to be 100% total customization.

 

[Opto]

1 - It's a video game... Where you play a kid chasing monsters...
2 - It's a series targeted primarly for children... Not adults with complex identity issues.
3 - Male and Female choices are fine representing more than 95% of the world's population.
4 - You don't have to fully identify with video game protagonists. I'm not a woman, yet I enjoy playing female protagonists. I can enjoy playing a black protagonist, a gay protagonist, heck, I can enjoy playing protagonists totally different than me in every single aspect. You don't need to play a clone of yourself in every game you play.
5 - It's not like pokemon protagonists are well defined anyway... Can't choose age , race or anything really.
6 - If you can't handle a child game for not tackling complex gender issues, you're probably looking for something that's out of place in these types of games. Not all game have to be an elaborate social commentary on socio-economic issues, gender roles or anything like this. Can't game just be games sometimes ?

Children can and have these experiences. It's why out of all children that commit suicide, those with gender identity issues are the highest. Understanding if you're non-binary or trans doesn't wait until they're 18. The game directly addresses the player and asks if THE PLAYER is a boy or a girl.

Excluding a group of people because of their low numbers (where did you even get that statistic) is kinda fucked up, yeah?

Maybe not race precisely (apparently you care about what's in a pokemon game but not enough to know about previous games' features), but choosing skin color has been added to the series.

"Why can't games be games" is one of the most reductionist arguments I've ever seen. No one's saying pokemon's story should tackle those issues. Understanding non-binary people exist and giving an option to exist in the pokemon world isn't the same as writing a narrative about it.

 

[Firehead]

I'm not trying to offend intersex people, but the overwhelming majority of people will tell you they are either male or female. This option is not going to happen.

It's not going to happen so long as you can see society never progressing towards that point. But for society to progress towards that point, we must fight and push for it ('It' being all rights.).
Don't say it'll "never" or it's "not going to" happen. Maybe not in the way you view society's future, but progress will get made if we continue.

 

[Gentleman Jack]

Can't choose age , race or anything really.

Every one of your points are basically irrelevant or straw men, but this point in particular is less and less true with each passing Pokemon generation. The OP merely asks if it's past due time that it also left behind the initial 'boy or girl?' quizzing and moved forward the way Pokemon Go did. Not too big an ask and causes no harm I don't think. Certainly does not interfere with the game being about chasing monsters and if it's nothing to you to play black women, then it should also be nothing to you to see new options appear. And yet you posted your list, suggesting otherwise.

 

[SarusGray]

I honestly don't see the problem, it's such a small demographic to pander to. (how many transexual children do you know?)

The game giving you the choice to identify as male or female isn't an outdated concept at all.

smh it really doesn't take too much resources ...

 

[Ekai]

I'm sorry but this doesn't look good to me at all. What if I want to play as a girl... that actually looks like a girl anatomically? Is it that wrong? I think this all overcomplicates a simple question that kids don't even think about

Can confirm I've thought about it a lot and the kids who found out I was trans did too.

Not condemning you, just saying children, trans or not, can comprehend the subject. For better or worse depending.

 

[Macleoid]

I agree there has to be something that can be done.

So, something like this? These are the options that you get when you first start up LongStory.

That looks good to me. I'd prefer something like 'my style is' to 'I look like'. But otherwise dead on.

Apart from non binary gamers why would anyone want games to actively reinforce dated gender stereotypes?

 

[PBY]

1 - It's a video game... Where you play a kid chasing monsters...
2 - It's a series targeted primarly for children... Not adults with complex identity issues.
3 - Male and Female choices are fine representing more than 95% of the world's population.
4 - You don't have to fully identify with video game protagonists. I'm not a woman, yet I enjoy playing female protagonists. I can enjoy playing a black protagonist, a gay protagonist, heck, I can enjoy playing protagonists totally different than me in every single aspect. You don't need to play a clone of yourself in every game you play.
5 - It's not like pokemon protagonists are well defined anyway... Can't choose age , race or anything really.
6 - If you can't handle a child game for not tackling complex gender issues, you're probably looking for something that's out of place in these types of games. Not all game have to be an elaborate social commentary on socio-economic issues, gender roles or anything like this. Can't game just be games sometimes ?

Can we just be done with point 6? Come on man, it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what we're discussing. The rest have been addressed throughout the thread, and are wholly unconvincing when put against the slight burden of making a slight change. I just don't really understand why you aren't willing to at least engage in this discussion, as opposed to trying to defend the status quo.

This thread is fucking depressing as hell to me, because it just shows how far we have to go.

 

[SlaughterX]

Do you guys really think most kids have an issue with this? Really?