Guilty_AI
Member
That was nightmare inducing though, hard to deny.
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I don’t like female protagonists.
- Thread starter DoubleClutch
- Start date
PeteBull
Member
Yup, and surprisingly no1 has problem with female preferences, it actually makes sense to every1 and no1 denies logic, but when it comes to male preferences, all of sudden its crime against humanity.Loved this survey, thanks for sharing.
It basically states that female characters are present not because some woke agenda or "cultural war", but because the vast majority of male gamers don't mind playing as a female character. Only ~25% answered they don't think it is important to have the option. And since women think the option is very important, giving the choice would attract more players.
"According to analysts, adding female protagonists to such titles will attract a new audience in the face of female gamers."
In the end of the day there is just a very vocal minority of gamers who complain a lot and try to make they look like the industry is going against the interest of the community.
Seriously, this survey is just
Just like with dating, if u dont wanna date(or rather date seriously, pump&dump is another story, here we, guys got requirements at the floor lvl
) a hoe who's bodycount puts john wick to shame, u are insecure, mysogynist, rude, 0 emphaty person etc, just like woke crowd called OP here.Yet woman can prefer(which means instant disqualification if preference isnt met ) her potential date to be tall, rich, go-getter, goodlooking, charismatic, funny, of specific race and can even disqualify a guy for something so trival like wrong brand of a smartphone(only apple, all android phones are a no-no ;p ).
All those feminists here- i understand u guys believe(or at least pretend to believe, deep down who really knows
) in this nonsence but at least be consistent, isnt it all about euality after all?Female gamer preferes to play as a female=yiss, slay queen.
Male gamer prefers to play as a male= u dirty rude offensive mysogynistic patriarchal pig waste of a human being!!!
Zathalus
Member
Since you are using the word here, I assume you are referring to this forum/thread. In that case nobody in this thread claimed this.All those feminists here- i understand u guys believe(or at least pretend to believe, deep down who really knows
Female gamer preferes to play as a female=yiss, slay queen.
Male gamer prefers to play as a male= u dirty rude offensive mysogynistic patriarchal pig waste of a human being!!!
JohnnyTropics
Member
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Matsuchezz
Member
I don’t understand why the character needs to be relatable to me. I don’t watch movies to relate to main characters, we can relate to situations, feelings and other shit as human beings without being gender specific, I don’t need to be a woman to understand how painful is to lose a parent, to be broken hearted, to feel joy and feel happy or anger, if you are attracted to male or females that’s ok. if the character fits the universe and how this character relates to other characters within a game, that is what it makes games experiences. I don’t play games to escape reality. I don’t think at all that I am living through the character, I am well aware I am playing games, if the story, acting, music and dialog is good and also the gameplay. I will enjoy the game no matter what. I don’t care what people prefer to play with.
PeteBull
Member
Come on bro, thread has 14 pages, i saw plenty users call the OP names, not like he cares about it, he is a man so like all(or hopefully at least majority of) men, we learn to be resistant against this stuff
If u think men and women are equal i encourage u to make a thread- i dont like male protagonists and check if waterfall of "hate" and "internet voilence" will happen there too, hell even if same thread as this one happened but it was made by female GAF user- no1 would make a squeek
I use quotation marks coz dont really believe in that shit, at least not that it can affect adult person to any sygnificant degree, hard to say how it affects kids, some of them nowadays are super fragile with all kinds of helicopter parenting happening even durning their teenage years
Zathalus
Member
People have been calling out the OP for some remarks that have clear misogyny behind them. That’s mostly it as the language used was clearly not neutral or supposed to be a balanced take. Nobody has been stating you can’t prefer male characters or female characters in your games. It’s been aimed at some dumb takes in this thread like how woman protagonists don’t sell, or that woman gamers don’t exist.Come on bro, thread has 14 pages, i saw plenty users call the OP names, not like he cares about it, he is a man so like all(or hopefully at least majority of) men, we learn to be resistant against this stuff
If u think men and women are equal i encourage u to make a thread- i dont like male protagonists and check if waterfall of "hate" and "internet voilence" will happen there too, hell even if same thread as this one happened but it was made by female GAF user- no1 would make a squeek
I use quotation marks coz dont really believe in that shit, at least not that it can affect adult person to any sygnificant degree, hard to say how it affects kids, some of them nowadays are super fragile with all kinds of helicopter parenting happening even durning their teenage years
And yes, if you create a thread here stating you don’t like male characters here with the same intent the OP used you will swiftly get piled on by basically everybody, don’t even try and pretend that won’t be the case.
PeteBull
Member
I know it wont be the case, as long as its made by a female, coz i know males and females arent equal, they are treated differently in society, and that includes online too
And guess what, there is reddit topic about it and u can see responses there, tons of females agree with the woman who is "tired of male protagonists", tons of men agree and encourage her too
The takes the female op had in that topic are straight up garbage, full on misandry, but thats perfectly fine
Guilty_AI
Member
Did he use the wrong pronoums or something?
Zathalus
Member
I know it wont be the case, as long as its made by a female, coz i know males and females arent equal, they are treated differently in society, and that includes online too
And guess what, there is reddit topic about it and u can see responses there, tons of females agree with the woman who is "tired of male protagonists", tons of men agree and encourage her too
The takes the female op had in that topic are straight up garbage, full on misandry, but thats perfectly fine
It’s not perfectly fine, as misandry is also shit. But we are talking about Gaf are we not? Reddit has got nothing to do with what will occur here.
Create a topic here stating you hate male characters in games and nobody is going to award you gold and almost everyone will call you an idiot and pile on to you. Be you a woman or not.
Read the thread. If you don’t see some questionable takes then good for you.
Guilty_AI
Member
its 14 pages long. I took a look at the first page and saw nothing special or "mysoginistic".
Zathalus
Member
OK.
Arachnid
Member
U.S. gamers by gender 2023 | Statista
What percentage of gamers are female? Almost half of gamers in the United States are women, with the share of female gaming audiences increasing every year.
www.statista.com
ESA REVEALS LATEST US GAMER DEMOGRAPHIC DATA
www.womeningames.org
At least with me personally, that statistic is actually pretty accurate. I'm open to you changing my mind, but do you have anything to back that up?
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Mister Wolf
Member
U.S. gamers by gender 2023 | Statista
What percentage of gamers are female? Almost half of gamers in the United States are women, with the share of female gaming audiences increasing every year.
ESA REVEALS LATEST US GAMER DEMOGRAPHIC DATA
I'm open to you changing my mind, but do you have anything to back that up?
No one in this discussion or board in general cares about mobile games. So when we see them included in demographic surveys it is dismissed. Everyone has a cellphone. Women playing cellphone games is meaningless to this conversation. If women were really playing in mass the type of games we discuss on this forum then Dragon Age nor Star Wars Outlaws would not have bombed.
Arachnid
Member
Link says 41% of PlayStation 4 and 5 owners are female.
Those also might have just bombed because they're ass. Not like TLOU2 or Horizon bombed, for example.
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Zathalus
Member
Doubtful. The games are still mediocre. Star Wars Outlaws wasn’t even marketed to woman, other than having a woman protagonist. It’s a standard Ubisoft game with a Star Wars skin. Change her to a male and the game still sucks.
Mister Wolf
Member
Those games bombed because men opted not to support them. And were vocally saying they wouldnt all throughout the internet. While games like Warhammer thrived because men chose to. Its the male dollar that makes or breaks these games. How can that be the case if almost half of Playstation players are women.
Mister Wolf
Member
Zathalus that Outlaws isn't anymore mediocre than all of the Assassin's Creeds and Far Crys Ubisoft shits out. You know why it bombed. The game was dismissed before it even got in players hands.
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Arachnid
Member
Seems like women opted not to support them either. You've got to give me something to go off of like statistics rather than feelings, man.
In that case, why did males support TLOU2? Would you buy an ass game just because the main character is male?
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touchfuzzy
Member
Exactly, these statistics that show that are always pointless and the actual market proves it. "Half of all people that have played any type of game at some point are women" is about as useful as saying "Around half of all people are women" -- everyone is a gamer to some degree, but the core audience of "gamers" is overwhelmingly male.
Zathalus
Member
It bombed because it was a medicore Star Wars game with a pretty bad main character. Avatar was similar and it bombed as well. Games starring woman do not inherently sell badly, as we have plenty of games that prove that. Two from this year even.
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VulcanRaven
Member
I think it would have sold better with a male protagonist. Even better if it was mandalorian. I'm not saying that is a good thing.
Edit: fixed typo.
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Mister Wolf
Member
Games that's starring women that men do not consider unattractive do not sell badly. This all comes down to appeasing men at the end of the day. Be it through a male MC that men can transpose themselves on to or a woman thats easy on the eyes pleasing men from an attraction standpoint.
Zathalus
Member
Probably would have sold a bit better with an attractive woman character as well. Or if they had released in a much better state without all the glitches everyone was making fun of.
Zathalus
Member
An attractive protagonist certainly helps, but there are already several games out there that sold heaps with a woman protagonist that can best be called average. Aloy really doesn’t have that much sex appeal.
But you’re shifting the argument here. Your original point was that woman gamers don’t exist in large numbers because Star Wars Outlaws sold poorly, which is unsubstantiated because A) It was a mediocre game, B) It wasn’t marketed to woman at all, and C) We have quite a long list of games with woman protagonists that sell extremely well.
Bad games with bad characters usually sell badly. Good games with good characters (be it male or female) usually sell quite well. There are exceptions to this of course, Indiana is apparently a great game with a well liked male protagonist and it doesn’t appear to have lit the sales charts on fire.
Zacfoldor
Member
Guys, don't be so obtuse. There is a thing called rizz. A game can be the best shit ever and the MC have low rizz and it will be a classic game but maybe not sell well and be a disappointment. A game can be the shittiest ever but have a character with great rizz and be an instant classic.
Let's look at Max Payne. If you substituted Max Payne for the woman in Star Wars Outlaws, the games would have been not as popular, no? Even if they were the same game, no? Because they would be missing Max's rizz. Now women in general seem to also be capable of generating the rizz of a Max Payne or a Solid Snake or a Geralt or Kratos or Joel or Nathan or Batman or Indiana Jones or James Bond or Vegeta or Vito Corleone or Tony Soprano or Al Swearengen, or Arnold, or Clint, but it is just a little rarer for to see these types of characters in our society for whatever reason(I'm sure I don't want to speculate). Think I'm copping out? Wrong. Here is WHY they don't have the rizz.
Writing is limited for females to keep them from looking certain ways, such as dumb, inept, ugly, selfish, mean, ect, but the best parts of the above male characters are their flaws. People are scared of making women weak or flawed in writing because it may come off as sexist. There is no such filter with male characters so they can be better by default since no restrictions are put on them. What is hard to get everyone to realize is that making characters be failures is a LOT more effective than making them mary sues when it comes to rizz. For example, all characters, male and female, have rizz in Always Sunny in Philadelphia because they are not afraid to write all characters with glaring flaws. The flaws make the characters. Batman is the best super hero because he is the most deeply flawed. Flaws help us relate to a characters. Perfection makes us reject them.
That is why Harley Quinn became such a breakout star. Her origin story exposes her mental illness and her flaws. She has a broken mind and is a deeply flawed character which makes her violent and unpredictable. That is good writing and she is a great female character concept.
Let's look at Max Payne. If you substituted Max Payne for the woman in Star Wars Outlaws, the games would have been not as popular, no? Even if they were the same game, no? Because they would be missing Max's rizz. Now women in general seem to also be capable of generating the rizz of a Max Payne or a Solid Snake or a Geralt or Kratos or Joel or Nathan or Batman or Indiana Jones or James Bond or Vegeta or Vito Corleone or Tony Soprano or Al Swearengen, or Arnold, or Clint, but it is just a little rarer for to see these types of characters in our society for whatever reason(I'm sure I don't want to speculate). Think I'm copping out? Wrong. Here is WHY they don't have the rizz.
Writing is limited for females to keep them from looking certain ways, such as dumb, inept, ugly, selfish, mean, ect, but the best parts of the above male characters are their flaws. People are scared of making women weak or flawed in writing because it may come off as sexist. There is no such filter with male characters so they can be better by default since no restrictions are put on them. What is hard to get everyone to realize is that making characters be failures is a LOT more effective than making them mary sues when it comes to rizz. For example, all characters, male and female, have rizz in Always Sunny in Philadelphia because they are not afraid to write all characters with glaring flaws. The flaws make the characters. Batman is the best super hero because he is the most deeply flawed. Flaws help us relate to a characters. Perfection makes us reject them.
That is why Harley Quinn became such a breakout star. Her origin story exposes her mental illness and her flaws. She has a broken mind and is a deeply flawed character which makes her violent and unpredictable. That is good writing and she is a great female character concept.
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Mister Wolf
Member
How do you market to women if supposedly they play the same stuff as us? Would not a woman MC who isn't sexualized in any capacity be marketing towards women. It certainly isn't marketing towards men. Far Cry 6 sold over 10 millions copies. Check its review scores. Star Wars bombing had zilch to do with it being mediocre.
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Zathalus
Member
So if Star Wars Outlaws wasn’t marketed to woman then why do you believe woman gamers should have supported it? Because it stars a woman protagonist that is not attractive and has little sexualisation? So, by the same logic, Horizon: Zero Dawn was marketed at woman and thus sold 25 million copies? Aloy is not sexualised at all in that game. There is a reason Star Wars Outlaws bombed and Horizon Zero Dawn didn’t.
Mister Wolf
Member
Aloy is not considered unattractive. Especially not in the first title. The character for Star Wars Outlaws is considered unattractive with many men thinking this was done intentionally because apparently men liking attractive women in their entertainment is problematic. That doomed Outlaws.
Zathalus
Member
Aloy is not unattractive but she is certainly not overly attractive or even sexualised. She’s like middle of the road, kinda average really.
Mister Wolf
Member
Which is why i keep stressing the word unattractive. Unattractive female MC is a death sentence. Men won't support it. At the end of the day what we want dictates success in this market. If we have so many female console and PC players like they say, why should that matter? Far Cry 6 was mediocre Zathalus, and it moved over 10 million copies for Ubisoft. Why?
Zathalus
Member
Yes, unattractive doesn’t help sales at all. I’ve noted that several times. But why would woman support unattractive characters if men don’t? We know woman gamers exist and buy a number of AAA genres, although the number appears to hover around the 15-35% mark (depending on genre) so they are in the minority. I don’t see what that that has got to do with supporting Star Wars Outlaws. Sure if the main character was attractive it would likely have sold more. If the game was good it could likely have sold more as well.
As for Far Cry 6 selling well, it’s one of the worlds most popular FPS and has endured for almost two decades. It has the strength of the name and brand behind it and just came off the rather good Far Cry 5. I’d personally say Avatar was the slightly better game vs 6, but that bombed in comparison.
PeteBull
Member
Agree on almost everything except women having rizz, 99,9% of women irl have 0 rizz, for the simple reason they never had any need to have it.
Proof here
Mister Wolf
Member
Unattractive to us men from a sexual attraction standpoint is not equivalent to women finding another woman visually unappealing. Same way we men have no qualm playing as male characters women would not find sexually attractive.
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PeteBull
Member
Yup, even Starkiller from Dark Force Unleashed(from 2008, it even had ps2 version) wasnt an ugly guy by any means, definitely more attractive for a guy vs SW:O female mop protag for a woman
Personally dont recall ugly male protag here, at least not since hardware was powerful enough to show it, coz ofc u will find ingame pics of squall looking ugly, ofc in cutscenes he was a chad
Tetsuya Nomura makes sure his protagonists look attractive because people don’t want to look ugly in the game world too - AUTOMATON WEST
Nomura reveals his philosophy for creating protagonists and how he came up with the designs for Final Fantasy VII's distinctive cast.
automaton-media.com
DoubleClutch
Gold Member
A lot of women gamers feel underrepresented when there aren’t enough fat avatars.
Meanwhile no male would care for a fat female avatar.
PeteBull
Member
They did the study, women prefer to play as sexualised and most feminine characters, even when they say they dislike it, female nature isnt simple
Research shows women prefer to play sexy characters
A new study titled "Examining How Sex Appeal Cues and Strength Cues Influence Impressions of Female Video Game Characters" was recently published which sought to examine how men and women reacted to…
nichegamer.com
Games of Today
Member
Just give me female characters like Faith in Mirrors Edge.
Palabragrís
Member
About the OP, it's a matter of tastes in the end. I really enjoy stories, movies and games with female protagonists.
For me, in the end, it doesn't come to what reproductive organs the main character has, but its construction, relevance and development.
This is why I despise forced inclusion, because they tend to create shallow characters whose only characteristic is how inclusive they are (e.g. Thaash, from Dragon Age: Veilguard).
For me, in the end, it doesn't come to what reproductive organs the main character has, but its construction, relevance and development.
This is why I despise forced inclusion, because they tend to create shallow characters whose only characteristic is how inclusive they are (e.g. Thaash, from Dragon Age: Veilguard).
Generic
Member
People used to mock japanese games but this isn't a thing anymore.
vodka-bull
Member
I don‘t like women in my gym.
Goalus
Member
OP needs to announce their pronouns first, if they want me to take them seriously.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
I’m curious if you take issue with female oriented media still being dominated by female protagonists?
Firestartah
Member
I know it wont be the case, as long as its made by a female, coz i know males and females arent equal, they are treated differently in society, and that includes online too
And guess what, there is reddit topic about it and u can see responses there, tons of females agree with the woman who is "tired of male protagonists", tons of men agree and encourage her too
The takes the female op had in that topic are straight up garbage, full on misandry, but thats perfectly fine
The answer to their questions in that reddit thread is simple. One of them kept asking, "why do we have to settle for multiple characters, why cant they commit to just a main playable woman in Assassins Creed". The answer is simple, because you dont represent but a minor fraction of the gamer population. Why would a huge publisher that puts 200mil into a game, want to cater to you, instead of the vast majority of player which are males.
I dont think I'm exagerating when I say that if women stopped gaming on core games (non-mobile games), the industry would barely feel any difference, thats how little of the pie they represent. I said this before, but people forget that not long ago they kept saying in media that a dude being a gamer is an "ick". Women dont game on core games (consoles/pc), they are a very small minority made to feel bigger due to social media circles, you cant make a product successful in the AAA space by catering to them.
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