For me, personally, it's Ubisoft's reasoning behind it. I'm sure the guy who got asked wasn't prepared for those kinds of questions, but damn he dropped the ball. I never really expected ACU to star a female protagonist so I wasn't disappointed, but the lack of representation for women and minorities is definitely something that's on my mind fairly often.
Developers call out Ubisoft on their stance regarding playable female characters
- Thread starter MagicWithEarvin
- Start date
For me, personally, it's Ubisoft's reasoning behind it. I'm sure the guy who got asked wasn't prepared for those kinds of questions, but damn he dropped the ball. I never really expected ACU to star a female protagonist so I wasn't disappointed, but the lack of representation for women and minorities is definitely something that's on my mind fairly often.
The Librarian
Banned
Watch Dogs does this.
Wiktor
Member
Reasoning, because it's dumb one to give, no matter if it's true or not.
Not being able to become female assassins is fine for me. I don't think any developer has any obligation to provide female or male charcters, even in multiplayer. If they do, it's a reason to praise them, but if they don't I don't see any reason to bash them.
Interfectum
Member
Ubisoft seems to do better than most major publishers in that regard though so one would think they are owed a little slack on this issue.
The lame excuse mostly. I find it hard to believe the Ubisoft worldwide multi-studio machine that churns out video games didn't have the ability to add a female character model.
As an aside (and I've read the Mod edit in the OP so don't think I'm shifting gears) doesn't AC3 feature a minority as its MC? Liberation featured a woman and the AC4 standalone game (who's name escapes me) features a minority as its MC as well doesn't it?
I think you're right though - I think whoever answered the question fumbled this big time. Ubi have never struck me as a company who seek to exclude people (you could go through their back catalogue and discuss it as a whole I guess, but I wouldn't want to stray too far from the topic at hand)
Zoe
Member
But that IS a lot of work. It's one thing for them to work in the other players displaying as female, assuming the models aren't treated as complex as your own character. In order to have a dual protagonist, you have to double the work with all the parts that require a live body.
I went down the quote chain and didn't see that directly, must've been in response to a post I didn't see. I made the same error I've been chastising others for making, my bad.
Port in the female assassin model as the one base build and then use clothes from female NPCs as her outfits and gear. From there only some new animations need to be created, ones that can be used to make the NPC from which this is based look more polished as well.
Whatever work was done for the female assassin co-op partner could be applied to the single player experience as polish to NPCs.
Fair enough. This is what we're engaging in right now. But until you brought it up I hadn't heard in this thread that the core issue was the single player campaign features Arno who is a male.
But no one argued that the core of the problem was that Walter White was male. Or that the problem with Mad Men is that Don Draper is Male or hell the problem with Weeds being that Nancy Botwin is female. Well realized characters can't just have different features swapped out from one to the other and gender is one of those features.
I'm always up for more reading material.
Wiktor
Member
I think your idea is ridiculous and I don't even care much about lore of this series. So I guess we can agree to disagree?
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
1.They did say this, the same day as they said the other thing. Although the articles that stated that didn't get as much attention.
2.The fact that Arno is motion captured by a male, an actual person, who has his owns quirks and things that he does that were translated onto the model. Just like how Aveline's running animation was motion captured by a woman.
3.I have no idea where you got the idea that BF3 reused anything from Mirror's edge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3VnWYt9flM definitely not the same animations.
The Illiterati
Member
Honestly, all Ubisoft has to do is announce that one of the 4 characters is transgender and self identifies as female. The era does not allow him to transition, so she remains visually a bulky male with an axe on her back.
Gold_Loot
Member
I think the problem with this particular case is that the multiplayer is a of the " drop in drop out " variant. I think not only would it be jarring to the player to transform multiple times within a given mission, but also the players voice changing as well. I would also imagine multiple hours of dialog having to be recorded not just for your character, but the other npc's as well. Now, if co op mode was more of a separate entity, I could understand some of the grief UBI was getting, out of this ordeal .
I'm going to have to side with UBI on this case. It's rather unfortunate that due to some people giving them such a hard time of this, we can probably kiss this mode goodbye in the future. This makes me sad.
For me, it's both.
Aveline was great. But the problem is that a series like Assassin's Creed is, in my opinion, pretty diverse in almost everything from the historical settings, to the various nationalities of the main characters. Hell, they've blurred the line between what's right/wrong and good/evil in a few of their games.
Now you're telling me you don't want to animate a woman, now or in the future because it costs time and money?!
wtf am I sitting through all these credits for then if you can do something like that?
plasmawave
Banned
Can't they just tweak the animation from Liberation and use that?
Interfectum
Member
No, it doesn't work like that.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Poorly. Do you like when game developers do things poorly? I don't.
(It's the first person viewmodel animation, Battlefield 4 and Mirror's Edge are both primarily first person games, but they do have different third person worldmodels as well)
I definitely think the explanation is the bigger problem, as I've said several times in this thread.
Saying that women would be included if it wasn't for technical limitations and budgets rather than as a design decision that might not be part of the game concept next time suggests that women will ALWAYS be left out because there just won't be enough money or time next time either. Talking about it this way implies that the problem will never be fixed, because it's never going to be considered a priority.
It also suggests that the fact that the question might be asked -- that representation might actually matter -- never even really crossed their minds long enough for them to have a proper response prepared.
Both of these are a huge problem.
Spring-Loaded
Member
And if they believe it's not worth the trouble, Ubisoft can say that, or admit they could've done things differently form the outset. Providing excuses and acting like the matter is completely out of their hands ignores that it's entirely because of their decision making process.
Well put. Even if their decision is in some way "justifiable," that they've set themselves up for it is still problematic.
Supposedly they went back and recaptured all the animations from the ground up, so no.
Glass Rebel
Member
Well, it is to you. I think the way co-op is laid out with everyone thinking they're playing as Arno instead of their own character lowers the product. There are different ways to implement seamless co-op but Ubisoft chose this specific solution and have to deal with the consequences.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Thank you. People are misunderstanding the issue in development. They didn't wanna do it poorly.
The only thing I found problematic about ACIII was how boring it was
But yeah, AC as a series hasn't done too bad of a job on the representation front. Having the woman of color get basically relegated to a handheld (and the Vita, of all things) still seems a bit weird...but I'm not in a place to get too upset about it. Nah, I don't think so. Maybe I'm just a bit more of a hardass when it comes to things like this, but companies who make mistakes like this deserve to be called out just like any other company. I'd like to think of myself as a pretty decent guy, but if I said some shit that was just plain offensive to someone and I didn't know it, I wouldn't want them to just think "well, okay, he's usually not like this", I'd want them to speak up and tell me! That's part of how we learn and grow as a community!
so..tell us how, I guess? instead of just saying someone's wrong?
Yeah! Totally agreed! You nailed it.
So because something was done poorly once, no future installments can improve upon it?
Whatever extra animations that are done could be then reapplied to the female assassin NPC in the game to add polish to the single player experience. You want developers to make the NPC's well and not poorly, correct?
i'm asking a leading question but i feel like its pertinent here, okay :<
Sorry man, but his sounds like an argument from someone who has never made a game before. I haven't either but one of the nice things about this new kickstarter era is that we're seeing far more into the nuts and bolts of how hard it is to make a game and none of your posts reflect that knowledge at all. For reference see the crowdfunding for skull girls where they explained why it takes hundreds of thousands of dollars to add new characters to a somewhat low production value 2D fighter.
Making games is *hard*. And the limitation that the AC team is probably running against is TIME rather than money.
ab.aeterno
Member
Whoa, what? No. Not even a little bit. Are you really suggesting that the entire field of art criticism is based on attacking creative people and their works? Because I doubt very much anyone would agree that film or literature criticism is about attacking works, but dissecting them.
No one's (as far as I see in this thread) badgering creators to say they can't make what they want, so stop framing it that way. What people are criticizing are the creative choices they made. Sorry, but when you create a product or piece of art for public consumption, you open yourself to people's opinions and criticisms of whatever that is.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
So is MGS
eacewalker also a lower product in your eyes because everyone sees themselves as Snake?
ExFalsoQuodlibet
Member
Excellent recap that pretty much justified your nickname.
I'd also like to add a few more general points about the other things that have been discussed in the thread.
When it comes to female representation in videogames, it's not about a particular game, or about historical reasons, or about realistic setting, or about confrontation with that other game with a female lead; the entire point can be resumed in a simple sentence:
Game designers and writers should design more games that include the possibility of choosing the gender of the main character, or if they really want to write a story about a specific male or female lead, they should take care of representing other genders in the game in a realistic, neutral and inclusive way.
This is called good videogame setting design: videogames are different than, to say, movies, because in videogames you control the main character and become it, suspend your disbelief, immerse yourself in the game world, so the choice of the character's gender matters.
"But that particular game has a male lead and they cannot swap the gender without consequences!". Are you sure about that? Are you sure that they couldn't design the game with a choice in mind, considering a story and setting that could work with both a male and a female lead? Even if the game has sex scenes, and even the those scenes feature exclusively women, that doesn't necessarily mean that the main lead has to be a man. It's an added cost? True, but consider this:
- you can find the money by reducing the budget in some other areas, it's a choice like any other;
- half of your potential buyers are females, have you considered the possibility of the additional purchases because of your gender choice feature?
Videogames should be more gender-neutral, that's the point, and the choice of gender for the lead character would be just a natural consequence of gender neutrality. But the real problem, as always, as few understand, is the fact that everything is usually designed with the male gaze in mind, even if the writer is female; everything is designed to please more the point of view of a man, even if the lead character is female. A series like Mass Effect, that features a strong gender neutrality, clearly shows that it's not like a game is forced to be sexist: even if Mass Effect lacks choices in romancing people (the male gaze is still there, sadly), males and females don't have different roles just because of their gender, and they are just humans (or other races), with their tastes, their passions, their visions of the world, and their respective gender could be swapped without a problem, like it happens for Shepard.
But also a game like The Last Of Us has strong gender neutrality, even if the story is about a man: in The Last Of Us people are different because they are different, not because their gender is different; gender is perfectly balanced and equally represented; females don't have have standard token attributes; both genders do what they have to do to survive, exactly like it is in the real world.
The french revolution setting is a perfect historical setting to create both a male and a female lead, better than a lot of others, so this was a missed opportunity from Ubisoft, and then they tried to justify their disattention with bullshit arguments, that shifted from one to another at the first turn of the tide. Ubisoft is not excusable in this behavior and people who care about videogames have all the right to talk about the matter: this is not a non-issue.
If you don't care about videogames, just go say it somewhere else, and not in the one forum that, arguably, covers videogames with the highest level of passion.
On a side note, I'm glad that more than a few female users have stated their opinion in this thread: a lot of times here these matters are almost only discussed by men; I suspect female users prefer not to bother with these kinds of threads, assuming that they will find the usual barrage of "who cares", "this is a non issue", sexist gibberish.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
What ubisoft is saying is that they couldn't do it correctly in the timeframe that they had when they had other priorities.
Spring-Loaded
Member
They didn't decide to make a game in which female playable characters would be able to be included in accordance to their budget/time constraints/multiplayer model.
They didn't start out thinking "let's have players be able to choose a male or female character" and then thought "we only have enough resources to do one or the other."
That they put themselves in a position to not be able to have female player characters in the multiplayer is subject to criticism.
And those priorities are not gospel. They are entirely up to Ubisoft, meaning if there aren't women in the game, it's because of Ubisoft. In turn, criticims can be levied at Ubisoft for this.
I don't think anyone has mentioned how it seems like multiplayer co-op was a minimum effort addition to the game. It was probably presented as a low cost way to add value to the game. Get some networking code going, make a couple scenarios using nothing but existing assets, maybe some minor additional voice work and just change the face of the existing Arno models on other people's screens.
I think they had it in mind that people would be like "Wow, that's a great addition to the game." It's easy to be myopic when creating stuff without outside input. Then they get to E3 and people were expecting it to be a fully fleshed out mode.
I think they had it in mind that people would be like "Wow, that's a great addition to the game." It's easy to be myopic when creating stuff without outside input. Then they get to E3 and people were expecting it to be a fully fleshed out mode.
And that's the problem. That gender inclusiveness in co-op was not a priority to them. That's what I've been saying all along, that's the whole point of the argument and why people are less than enthused with this response.
As far as I can see that's what this entire thread is about.
Never said they weren't. But if i think the criticisims/attacks/whatever are misguided then I am free to say that as well. Critiquing the lack of a female projection that doesn't affect the view the player has at all as a part of a co-op drop in to a single player campaign feels incredibly misguided to me combined with the fact of how crazy hard games are to make.
Just to refresh people's memories, AC3 allowed you to play as three different people. If it's a priority to the development team they could find the resources to do it. Folks are disappointed with these responses not just because they seem overstated, but in particular because this is a series that from the start represented the under-represented, and advertised itself as being produced by a multi-ethnic and diverse team. To not even have a coherent response to an obvious question is alarming.
I could be wrong, because honestly I'm not buying the game and don't have much of an interest in keeping up to date with all the features and stuff, but isn't the co-op just a part of the campaign? Like how in Halo 3 you could have up to 4 people doing the regular campaign? Or is the co-op campaign separate from the single player one?
There aren't womem in AC U?
MagicWithEarvin
Member
This is pretty much how I feel about all of this. Could've easily been avoided with a few choice words.
Spring-Loaded
Member
Then it's time to go back and read through the thread again.
Ubisoft essentially said "we can't do this," implying that they couldn't have included this, even though they can/could have. People are saying that's bogus, which it is.
Female playable characters in the multiplayer. That's what this thread is about and that instance you quoted was one where I didn't type out "female playable characters."
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Because gender inclusiveness isn't a priority of the franchise in the first place. And it doesn't have to be. Some AC games we play as a male, some games we play as a female, some games we played as a baby, and some games we played as a decrepit old man. But people acting like this series have never represented females or minorities are either misinformed or completely ignoring the history of the series.
The Librarian
Banned
I think your idea is ridiculous and I don't even care much about lore of this series. So I guess we can agree to disagree?
It's ridiculous for me to want to play as a girl in a game's co-op mode?
Gaf/Gaming has been inreasingly over reactionary, everythin now is a issue to "suposed" far cry racism to lgbt chars and the constant parade of "me to gaming"
Honestly its becoming a joke and not enjoyable to even read past a couple post down here, devs made the decision n shouldnt be hung by it , they have had female assasins a leads recently and yes they made up a really crappy excuse not to include
Gaming had become a checklist of things like this and its going to suffer in the process, as things will be forced and out place (not pertaining to this exact issue but overall)
When i see these headlines from websites first thing i think of is click bait$
Honestly its becoming a joke and not enjoyable to even read past a couple post down here, devs made the decision n shouldnt be hung by it , they have had female assasins a leads recently and yes they made up a really crappy excuse not to include
Gaming had become a checklist of things like this and its going to suffer in the process, as things will be forced and out place (not pertaining to this exact issue but overall)
When i see these headlines from websites first thing i think of is click bait$
Spring-Loaded
Member
Apparently the story about ancient aliens and assassin memories isn't as ridiculous as Monty Python.
You're misreading people saying "Ubisoft could've done this" as "Ubisoft should/must do this."
The game doesn't have to do anything at all. There are people who want it to do this though, and Ubisoft could have done it. That's it.
Under the time and budget constraints that they have they said they couldn't do this.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
The co-op is like in Watch Dogs, seamless. People come into your game and you play together. Every player sees themselves as the main character but can see the outfit and gear that the other players are wearing in their game. Outfits and gear catered to the character model of the main character. The only difference is that the face of the characters are different.