Oh yeah, who could possibly forget the prolific, always-promoted, well-budgeted,, certainly-not-in-danger-of-being-cancelled, certainly-not-living-under-a-rug game series that is Beyond Good and Evil. It really showed great at this E3, didn't it?
Developers call out Ubisoft on their stance regarding playable female characters
- Thread starter MagicWithEarvin
- Start date
Oh yeah, who could possibly forget the prolific, always-promoted, well-budgeted,, certainly-not-in-danger-of-being-cancelled, certainly-not-living-under-a-rug game series that is Beyond Good and Evil. It really showed great at this E3, didn't it?
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
There will obviously be female characters in the game. Can we stop taking their words out of context. There's even female characters in the leaked poster art.
As a reminder to members, if you aren't interested in discussing hot-button social topics, or you think they shouldn't be discussed, you should find a different thread to post in. You won't be banned for simply disagreeing, assuming you present an actual argument, but you will be banned for coming into the thread and asserting that the topic shouldn't be discussed.
Another point: "Company X does it too!" is a terrible argument. The thread isn't about all companies everywhere, it's about this particular company and game. Pointing out that other companies also have issues with this subject doesn't tell us anything we don't know, nor does it have much bearing on what this company is doing with this game. The same thing goes for the folks that feel the need to remind us, every time, that wider society has a problem with gender representation. We already know this. But this is a gaming forum, where we discuss gaming issues, so while discussing the wider culture's problems is fine, using them as a reason not to discuss sexism in the video game industry is not.
As always, if you have questions or concerns about moderation, please feel free to PM a moderator.
Another point: "Company X does it too!" is a terrible argument. The thread isn't about all companies everywhere, it's about this particular company and game. Pointing out that other companies also have issues with this subject doesn't tell us anything we don't know, nor does it have much bearing on what this company is doing with this game. The same thing goes for the folks that feel the need to remind us, every time, that wider society has a problem with gender representation. We already know this. But this is a gaming forum, where we discuss gaming issues, so while discussing the wider culture's problems is fine, using them as a reason not to discuss sexism in the video game industry is not.
As always, if you have questions or concerns about moderation, please feel free to PM a moderator.
figadapaura
Member
No, I'm not saying that at all actually. I don't know why people keep feeling the need to put words in my mouth to make their arguments.
What? I can't criticise a game now because I don't think reskinning Arno to look like a woman is actually a good idea?
They could have made Arno female to begin with, but I guess I'll have to find out the story before I make any judgement on that.
Even if there's no character creation in said game ? Because there's no character creation in ACU.
Now a character creation system where there's no option to create a female character, especially with the AC series full of assassin women, that would be pretty shit. But that's not what's happening here.
Again I'm just not sure why this particular game is getting shit for having only 1 pre-set character.
For example would you like to have an option to play as a female character in Uncharted ? And if so don't you agree that having the possibility would require significant adaptation of the storyline ?
Again, genuine questions here. I'm trying to understand.
I think ultimately your argument hinges upon you not understanding what rigging means.
The animations might mostly be the same, but because males and females don't have the same body build in the game means the models need to be re-rigged which takes more memory because both have to be loaded into memory.
So again: The argument for lack of female assassin's in this case is different from the argument used by Naughty Dog in TLoU. I'm sure you'll find some that objected to both, but they are ultimately different arguments.
We don't know anything about Arno's backstory yet, do we? I'd say that it's foolish to presume anything before we find out more.
I wonder if it's a different mindset on this issue. Violence against females are taken in a different lights in media, mind you. Anyone remember the "concerns" raised about that scene from Tomb Raider (the new one) when it came out?
Resident_UA
Member
I think Ubi is far from the worst offender of this... Rockstar is way worse.
Intheflorsh
Banned
I'm sure as a programmer at Ubisoft you have your own perspective, but I was never saying the developers were lazy. Ubisoft does have the resources (and by that I mean ten studios that employ hundreds and hundreds of people) to make these changes. They won't not because they are lazy or incompetent, but because (I believe) that they, like so much of the rest of the industry, hold the irrational fear that adding female characters is going to scare off customers. Get it?
I guess that can be an issue, but many shooters dont seem to have a problem with putting putting women in the MP. It's only single player where all the enemies are suddenly male.
Holy shit how I hate it when people just assume it would be easy because it is for them.
Ubisoft probably had technical reasons why they didn't include a female. It's not a statement or sexism.
They might be stupid or even bad reasons, but other developers (especially that pompous dude from Naughty Dog talking about a day or two of work) commenting on this shoud've just not commented on this.
A simple "it'd be additional cost to make a female Assassin's" is good enough for people that don't know anything about how Ubisoft's pipeline works, however broken it is. And that is most of us.
This is spectacularly stupid so far.
Ubisoft probably had technical reasons why they didn't include a female. It's not a statement or sexism.
They might be stupid or even bad reasons, but other developers (especially that pompous dude from Naughty Dog talking about a day or two of work) commenting on this shoud've just not commented on this.
A simple "it'd be additional cost to make a female Assassin's" is good enough for people that don't know anything about how Ubisoft's pipeline works, however broken it is. And that is most of us.
This is spectacularly stupid so far.
figadapaura
Member
A lot of gamers seem to have a problem with killing women in games. Remember when CoD finally included them in multiplayer? That didn't go over so well with some. Mostly men, too, if I remember correctly.
Well we don't know that at all actually. They didn't show a single thing about the scenario/actual characters of the game and I think that's also part of the issue.
Black Flag had its share of female assassins/main characters for example, even though they weren't playable.
Or, you know, they could have a budget like every other software development project ever.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
ThreePiMatt
Member
Here's a question, if you don't believe Ubi when they say that adding female characters would be cost/workload prohibitive, then what do you think the real reason they're not in the game.
I just think Ubisoft's PR had a bad way of explaining it. I've always read "Customize your own Assassin" as making customization versions of one Assassin, as the trailer showed 4 visually identical people with different garbs,gear, and weapons.
There's nothing wrong with wanting a female in a game, but I think some of you guys are too eager to want to create change in a franchise, that has a set in stone character you play as as you progress in the story, that has been the most active on gender/race/sexuality issues.
Sure doing the Halo approach and just having random Spartans that aren't acknowledged is one way of doing it, but I don't think Ubisoft is doing any wrongs by deciding they want to do it this way either.
There's nothing wrong with wanting a female in a game, but I think some of you guys are too eager to want to create change in a franchise, that has a set in stone character you play as as you progress in the story, that has been the most active on gender/race/sexuality issues.
Sure doing the Halo approach and just having random Spartans that aren't acknowledged is one way of doing it, but I don't think Ubisoft is doing any wrongs by deciding they want to do it this way either.
We don't know if there are female assassins in AC Unity. Like we didn't know if there were female assassins in AC4 BlackFlag before its release.
Spring-Loaded
Member
I think the notion that it's not even worth the work is even more lame than saying it's somehow considerably hard to do in the first place.
Intheflorsh
Banned
Ubisoft has employed ten studios to make this game. Clearly their budget is exceptionally large.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
They're just generic face swaps but they all have the same rig and animations as Arno. They're "customizable" in the sense that for the first time in the series an AC game is letting you customize that way your character works ala skill points. Like in Watch Dogs.
figadapaura
Member
3 had Aveline and Black Flag had Mary Read, so no. Maybe a famous female French assassin will turn up, we'll have to wait and see.
If ubi included women in this for the character and a part of the story involves torture or severe injury, the usual tumblr insanity would spill out and talk about violence against women. You honestly cant win against these people. Ubi is doing the right thing here. Wash your hands, walk away.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
So what's the benefit of it when the person playing the game doesn't even see themselves as a female in the first place?
I believe them but the real answer is that they didn't think or set out to do it from the get go and NOW it's workload intensive to go back and "correct" it.
The scale does not really matter when you consider they allocate said budget and make decisions to include certain things over others. As others have said, it's fine to criticise these decisions, but to assert that having a large budget means having infinite resources to do everything is silly.
Galactic Fork
A little fluff between the ears never did any harm...
Just to clarify the point, the "concerns" raised about that point was about sexual assault. And using it as a cheap means of character development. Notice how they focused on that scene, while EVERYBODY on that island wanted her dead and tried to kill her throughout the game. One is not like the other.
Wiktor
Member
meh. Speak for yourself. It worked well in Far Cry 3 because it went into completely different direction. While Lara found strenght in slaughter, Jason Brody found evil and ugliness in him, indulging every worst male instinct, ending as a bloodthirsty maniac. And this narrative wouldn't really work if he was female.
figadapaura
Member
All I'm saying is what they're asking isn't as crazy as you're making it out to be.
Camp Freddie
Member
The wierd thing is that Arno is a slim-built guy in a cloak and hood.
Looking at some of the free-running gifs, you can't identify his sex.
All you need to do is give him a female face and I'd believe he was a woman.
It's not like he's some, muscle-bound macho man who wears a revealing bannana hammock with 10,000 polygons per testicle.
While some men and women do have distinct walks, there's a big middle ground where there is practically no difference.
Other have pointed out that Femshep used male animations. Odly enough, I think this is one of the reasons she looked so good, compared to the ass-shaking walk and jiggle-physics that are put into most female avatars.
Looking at some of the free-running gifs, you can't identify his sex.
All you need to do is give him a female face and I'd believe he was a woman.
It's not like he's some, muscle-bound macho man who wears a revealing bannana hammock with 10,000 polygons per testicle.
While some men and women do have distinct walks, there's a big middle ground where there is practically no difference.
Other have pointed out that Femshep used male animations. Odly enough, I think this is one of the reasons she looked so good, compared to the ass-shaking walk and jiggle-physics that are put into most female avatars.
Surprisingly there seemed to be more hubbub about the female cod characters then about the women in gears of war 3. And the latter is certainly a lot more brutal.
The Librarian
Banned
If Uncharted's gameplay was built for co-op, then yes, I would like the option for the second (or third or fourth) player character(s) to be female.
Intheflorsh
Banned
I think we are arguing about this from different perspectives. I grant you that it is probably too late to add female characters into the game at this point. Maybe, then, they should have allocated their budget to include playable female characters when they were originally planning the game.
figadapaura
Member
Well, that doesn't necessarily mean assassins, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt since it would be strange for them not to.
Yeah, I'm convinced the only reason they said it was an animation issue is because they didn't want to offend anyone by saying "they didn't feel a female character would fit the story".
Far Cry 4 is the story of a guy going to fulfill his mothers dying wish to spread her ashes in the land she grew up in. I'm interested in that already.
Arno is supposed to be a nobleman, not sure about the other guys, but assassins creed does take a lot more care than other ubi games when picking their protagonists.
There was probably no discussion for female characters, but said it was an animation issue so they wouldn't get as much flak as they did with AC3 when Alex Hutchinson said "we didn't do a female assassin because the American revolution wasn't a womens time, so a female assassin didn't fit"
Most people won't pay much attention to that idea of not being able to do female animations, but they will notice when you blatantly say no women.
Ubi probably would have been roasted harder if they said that.
Far Cry 4 is the story of a guy going to fulfill his mothers dying wish to spread her ashes in the land she grew up in. I'm interested in that already.
Arno is supposed to be a nobleman, not sure about the other guys, but assassins creed does take a lot more care than other ubi games when picking their protagonists.
There was probably no discussion for female characters, but said it was an animation issue so they wouldn't get as much flak as they did with AC3 when Alex Hutchinson said "we didn't do a female assassin because the American revolution wasn't a womens time, so a female assassin didn't fit"
Most people won't pay much attention to that idea of not being able to do female animations, but they will notice when you blatantly say no women.
Ubi probably would have been roasted harder if they said that.
This is what I would like to know.
Is it:
A.) They hate women & minorities and are trying to keep them down.
B.) They have internal biases and prejudices that they are not considering, and it presents itself in the way they write and develop a game.
C.) They are trying to appeal to a certain male demographic and are doing it purely for business reasons.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
It kind of is if you want it done well.
The Librarian
Banned
I'd say it's that, when it comes to creativity, men typically write about men and women typically write about women, because that's what they know. And because game developers are so predominately male, you'll see far more male characters than female.
They are probably referring to Charlotte Corday
Isn't that still the same issue though? Whether they're completely unique animations or the same basic animations re-rigged for different sizes and shapes of character they're still character, or in this case gender, specific animations. It would still require additional work which means time and money. Is it that hard to believe Ubisoft would value streamlining the project wherever possible to keep costs down and ensure the game is done on time over being more inclusive? That seems pretty reasonable to me. They have a budget, the have a limited time frame, tons of things are likely scaled back to stay within both of them. People should be making Ubisoft feel like it's not something they can cut for any reason instead of arguing against the reality that any additional content, however small or easily included, takes more resources.
I'm not sure if you're serious, but Child of Light and AC: Liberation are two recent examples that show it's not A or B.
figadapaura
Member
Why are you so sure they couldn't do it well?
More likely answer..
They didn't think about it and are trying to cover their butts after the fact.
I can absolutely tell you that it is nice when you get to play as someone you can identify with in a game. Being ignored for stupid reasons is frustrating when you have a game with 4-player co-op that they can't even allow for a token woman model for the rest of us.