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More xenos.

Tau should have human auxilalries, and even more than they do now.

We also need another two Xenos races added with their own codices. They don't necessarily need to be super big factions like others. Think of AoS's one off races which all look great and hopefully occasionally get the occasional model.

 Desubot wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:

 #1ShieldBrother3++ wrote:
The last thing 40k needs is more "diversity". Focus on satisfying the current demographic before you start pissing everyone off by saying "nvm lol anyone can be space marines k thx".

Uhh, Overwatch is a video game with a degree of diversity in its cast that many people consider to be gratuitous.

It sold 15 million copies in under 4 months.

To be fair

overwatch doesn't have you buy a 40 dollar book, and 3-500$ worth of miniatures to play each character

My point was that there's clearly a market nowadays for a more diverse cast of characters.

Also, you don't have to buy literally EVERY army in WH40k.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

Qlanth wrote:
More diversity means more people playing the game. Even putting the obvious social implications totally aside, it has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that making your game more diverse means more people will play it. That means more money in GWs pocket which means a better game for everyone overall.

There is literally zero negative impact to GW or fans if they make the game more diverse.

In a game where the players can make their models how every they want, and create any chapter, regiment, band, ect ect ect they want.

The game does not need forced diversity, the game is already diverse through the player base, that does not need to be force represented in the game. No one likes when that kinda stuff is shoe horned into a game.

I would like to see female options for guard that said, like i said, LT Mira, my 40k waifu.

The only reason that Space Marines have ever been male-only has been, "Because I said so."

There's nothing saying you can't do an equivalent process to a female human that you do to a male human to make a Space Marine.

But fine, keep the Space Marines male-only. Even keep the Orks male-only. Just start adding more female parts to the armies that lore-wise have females as an option.

Craftworld Eldar have very few models that are actually female. Apart from the Banshees, which aren't actually female-only in the lore, none of the other Aspects have any female models. Dire Avengers don't even come with female torsos anymore (which they used to). Farseers and Warlocks have no female models.

Start adding female parts to the Imperial Guard kits. Or offer a plastic conversion kit you can buy separate from the main kit, if you don't want to alter an existing kit.

Start actually supporting the one all-female army you actually have.

Are you trying to say that people bought Overwatch solely because of the inclusion of female characters?

Because that's the only way you could justify arguing there was a market for it. Otherwise it's likely just a tiny percentage of the development costs dedicated to offering a wide variety of choice for the player as one designer spent a couple of afternoons adding in some options.

Miniature games aren't as simple as left for bloke, right for a woman.

Besides, there's a market for everything, the issue is whether it offers sufficient return on the costs of tapping into it.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Are you trying to say that people bought Overwatch solely because of the inclusion of female characters?

Because that's the only way you could justify arguing there was a market for it. Otherwise it's likely just a tiny percentage of the development costs dedicated to offering a wide variety of choice for the player as one designer spent a couple of afternoons adding in some options.

Miniature games aren't as simple as left for bloke, right for a woman.

Besides, there's a market for everything, the issue is whether it offers sufficient return on the costs of tapping into it.

The gaming industry for the past 15 years has proven time and time again that diversity only helps sales.

And no, the developers of Overwatch didn't spend a couple of afternoons cranking out some random female models to use. They put a hell of a lot of effort into them.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Personally I'd like to see Chaos varied a bit more. It's been so heavily codified into the 4 gods only, and apparently all working together most of the time now, that Chaos really feels quite bland. Where are the innumerable smaller Warp entities? Where are all the big scary warp monsters that eat spaceships? We have some non-dedicated units like Furies, but they're crappy afterthoughts. Get some more animosity in there between the rival gods and get some more unaligned units in.

Likewise, it'd be interesting to see more of the smaller Xenos races like the Hrud or Enslavers.

I can't agree more. Chaos is THE arch enemy. They should be the second more diversified faction, just after the Imperium. We NEED Chaos xenos, not just humains worshipers.
And then, just one or two more xenos species (like the gencult codex, or some units added in the Tau Empire codex).
It is really that easy to do. They have tons of xenos backround lying into their lore, they should use some.

And make plastic vostroyans, steel legion and mordians (just the basic infantry, the heavy weapons team and a crew sprue for the tanks. I'm not asking for a lot !!! )

 Pouncey wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:

 #1ShieldBrother3++ wrote:
The last thing 40k needs is more "diversity". Focus on satisfying the current demographic before you start pissing everyone off by saying "nvm lol anyone can be space marines k thx".

Uhh, Overwatch is a video game with a degree of diversity in its cast that many people consider to be gratuitous.

It sold 15 million copies in under 4 months.

To be fair

overwatch doesn't have you buy a 40 dollar book, and 3-500$ worth of miniatures to play each character

My point was that there's clearly a market nowadays for a more diverse cast of characters.

Also, you don't have to buy literally EVERY army in WH40k.

Twas meant to be a semi sarcastic joke.

 Pouncey wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Are you trying to say that people bought Overwatch solely because of the inclusion of female characters?

Because that's the only way you could justify arguing there was a market for it. Otherwise it's likely just a tiny percentage of the development costs dedicated to offering a wide variety of choice for the player as one designer spent a couple of afternoons adding in some options.

Miniature games aren't as simple as left for bloke, right for a woman.

Besides, there's a market for everything, the issue is whether it offers sufficient return on the costs of tapping into it.

The gaming industry for the past 15 years has proven time and time again that diversity only helps sales.

And no, the developers of Overwatch didn't spend a couple of afternoons cranking out some random female models to use. They put a hell of a lot of effort into them.

Yes, but I think most people (I have no statistics to support this, but nor do you) who bought Overwatch got it because:
A) It looked good with the graphics and gameplay
B) It would have lots of multiplayer opportunities because...
C) It's new

I don't think the dealbreaker at all was "It has multiple non-offensive ethnic and gender representations" - if that was the case, would we not see a massive decrease in the popularity of games like Call of Duty and Battlefield, which pump out very similar, very popular, hyper-masculine*, American-centric games?

*Yes, I will note that in Black Ops III, there are compulsory genders assigned to certain callsigns.

Again, all I can ask for in diversity is in the Imperial Guard range, in the form of new regiments and optional gender packs, and in xenos (Tau auxiliaries, Hrud, Barghesi, Slaugth).
I don't need to see SM changed. I don't want that. SM are all male, SoB are all female. Guardsmen can be both. Tau can be both. Eldar can be both. Everything else is just neutral.

 Pouncey wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Are you trying to say that people bought Overwatch solely because of the inclusion of female characters?

Because that's the only way you could justify arguing there was a market for it. Otherwise it's likely just a tiny percentage of the development costs dedicated to offering a wide variety of choice for the player as one designer spent a couple of afternoons adding in some options.

Miniature games aren't as simple as left for bloke, right for a woman.

Besides, there's a market for everything, the issue is whether it offers sufficient return on the costs of tapping into it.

The gaming industry for the past 15 years has proven time and time again that diversity only helps sales.

This smells an awful lot like you're making an assumption. Got any studies or other solid data that games sell better when there's diversity in the protagonists? Remember, that means that the diversity is a key reason people by the game, not incidental to the fact that the game was already a AAA title that people would have bought even if the main character was a chipmunk.

And no, the developers of Overwatch didn't spend a couple of afternoons cranking out some random female models to use. They put a hell of a lot of effort into them.

Again, smells rather assumptiony. But I was exaggerating for humour and/or effect, it's a thing.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Are you trying to say that people bought Overwatch solely because of the inclusion of female characters?

Because that's the only way you could justify arguing there was a market for it. Otherwise it's likely just a tiny percentage of the development costs dedicated to offering a wide variety of choice for the player as one designer spent a couple of afternoons adding in some options.

Miniature games aren't as simple as left for bloke, right for a woman.

Besides, there's a market for everything, the issue is whether it offers sufficient return on the costs of tapping into it.

The gaming industry for the past 15 years has proven time and time again that diversity only helps sales.

And no, the developers of Overwatch didn't spend a couple of afternoons cranking out some random female models to use. They put a hell of a lot of effort into them.

Yes, but I think most people (I have no statistics to support this, but nor do you) who bought Overwatch got it because:
A) It looked good with the graphics and gameplay
B) It would have lots of multiplayer opportunities because...
C) It's new

I don't think the dealbreaker at all was "It has multiple non-offensive ethnic and gender representations" - if that was the case, would we not see a massive decrease in the popularity of games like Call of Duty and Battlefield, which pump out very similar, very popular, hyper-masculine*, American-centric games?

*Yes, I will note that in Black Ops III, there are compulsory genders assigned to certain callsigns.

Again, all I can ask for in diversity is in the Imperial Guard range, in the form of new regiments and optional gender packs, and in xenos (Tau auxiliaries, Hrud, Barghesi, Slaugth).
I don't need to see SM changed. I don't want that. SM are all male, SoB are all female. Guardsmen can be both. Tau can be both. Eldar can be both. Everything else is just neutral.

As with most things in life it's much more subtle than that. Of course no one decides to buy Overwatch because there are women in it. They decide to buy Overwatch because they think it looks fun to play like any other person buying a game. The difference is that unlike commercials for Call of Duty, commercials for Overwatch have a lot of women in them. Which women watch. Which leads them to think this thing looks cool, simply because the person on screen looks like they do. Call of Duty never had a commercial with someone who looked like they do. So they didn't care about it.

Next time you watch TV pay special attention the commercials. You'll probably find that the TV commercials for a given product are a lot more diverse than your typical store selling those exact same products.

This isn't something I'm making up. This is the science of advertisement. Making something appear more diverse makes more diverse people interested in it. it works for movies. it works for TV. it works for video games. It works for yogurt. It works for popular board games. I promise it would work for Warhammer 40k as well.

 Pouncey wrote:


The only reason that Space Marines have ever been male-only has been, "Because I said so."

There's nothing saying you can't do an equivalent process to a female human that you do to a male human to make a Space Marine.

But fine, keep the Space Marines male-only. Even keep the Orks male-only. Just start adding more female parts to the armies that lore-wise have females as an option.

Craftworld Eldar have very few models that are actually female. Apart from the Banshees, which aren't actually female-only in the lore, none of the other Aspects have any female models. Dire Avengers don't even come with female torsos anymore (which they used to). Farseers and Warlocks have no female models.

Start adding female parts to the Imperial Guard kits. Or offer a plastic conversion kit you can buy separate from the main kit, if you don't want to alter an existing kit.

Start actually supporting the one all-female army you actually have.

I tend to agree with all of this. All male marines is a real interesting issue in itself. There's clearly historical reasons for this aspect of the fiction in the first place, but modernity has continued to erode all of those precedents for the better. Which makes all male marines in the future a backwards concept, but culturally backwards is sort of the entire premise of the Imperium. In a way it's right because it's wrong. (maybe not 'right' but OK?) On the issue as a whole I'm a little split.

All those other factions though? Eldar, IG, Tau. Every faction that actually has 'gender' should have ample representation of diversity. I really appreciate that Eldar Guardians have at least some female torsos, and they should have more. TBH half (or all) Tau Fire Warriors could be female under their armor. Sort of a double edged sword with the potential with female models though. . . you don't want "female" to simply be "this one has bewbs" (as is the case with the Guardians). I've seen plenty of tasteless "female soldier" models. I'll take Vasquez over Barb Wire. Just some alternate heads for Guard would go a long way. Just release them in the same way that chapter specific shoulder pads were, for starters, until updating the basic box set.

IMO one of the best things about the SOB line is that the aesthetic is sexualized but in what I feel is an empowering way. It's both obviously femenine and very much not "come hither", and much more "I will take no **** and put my boot in your face." I think it's a real win for design. I'd be interested to hear others thoughts about it though.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Are you trying to say that people bought Overwatch solely because of the inclusion of female characters?

Because that's the only way you could justify arguing there was a market for it. Otherwise it's likely just a tiny percentage of the development costs dedicated to offering a wide variety of choice for the player as one designer spent a couple of afternoons adding in some options.

Miniature games aren't as simple as left for bloke, right for a woman.

Besides, there's a market for everything, the issue is whether it offers sufficient return on the costs of tapping into it.

The gaming industry for the past 15 years has proven time and time again that diversity only helps sales.

And no, the developers of Overwatch didn't spend a couple of afternoons cranking out some random female models to use. They put a hell of a lot of effort into them.

Yes, but I think most people (I have no statistics to support this, but nor do you) who bought Overwatch got it because:
A) It looked good with the graphics and gameplay
B) It would have lots of multiplayer opportunities because...
C) It's new

I don't think the dealbreaker at all was "It has multiple non-offensive ethnic and gender representations" - if that was the case, would we not see a massive decrease in the popularity of games like Call of Duty and Battlefield, which pump out very similar, very popular, hyper-masculine*, American-centric games?

*Yes, I will note that in Black Ops III, there are compulsory genders assigned to certain callsigns.

Again, all I can ask for in diversity is in the Imperial Guard range, in the form of new regiments and optional gender packs, and in xenos (Tau auxiliaries, Hrud, Barghesi, Slaugth).
I don't need to see SM changed. I don't want that. SM are all male, SoB are all female. Guardsmen can be both. Tau can be both. Eldar can be both. Everything else is just neutral.

Call of Duty actually has playable female characters nowadays. Not sure about Battlefield though.

Also there's a game called Rust where many people have left negative feedback about how the game wouldn't let them play as a character that looked like themself. Often in the context of why they're not playiing it anymore.

And yes, fine, Space Marines can stay male. And yes, Guardsmen and Eldar and Tau can be both, but that's not actually represented in the official models outside of a handful of special characters, 20% of Eldar Guardians, and one Aspect.

 Azreal13 wrote:

Again, smells rather assumptiony. But I was exaggerating for humour and/or effect, it's a thing.

As a member of the gaming industry, and as a guy who has overseen character production, I'll tell you that it's a HUGE amount of work. Definitely not something you can crank out in an afternoon or two, and much more something that takes months of intense effort.

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Are you trying to say that people bought Overwatch solely because of the inclusion of female characters?

Because that's the only way you could justify arguing there was a market for it. Otherwise it's likely just a tiny percentage of the development costs dedicated to offering a wide variety of choice for the player as one designer spent a couple of afternoons adding in some options.

Miniature games aren't as simple as left for bloke, right for a woman.

Besides, there's a market for everything, the issue is whether it offers sufficient return on the costs of tapping into it.

The gaming industry for the past 15 years has proven time and time again that diversity only helps sales.

This smells an awful lot like you're making an assumption. Got any studies or other solid data that games sell better when there's diversity in the protagonists? Remember, that means that the diversity is a key reason people by the game, not incidental to the fact that the game was already a AAA title that people would have bought even if the main character was a chipmunk.

Nope.

There's actually a case which might counter it. City of Heroes. It was a superhero MMO with the most diverse character creation options out of any game in existence, not just in looks but in gameplay, and it died fairly quickly.

And no, the developers of Overwatch didn't spend a couple of afternoons cranking out some random female models to use. They put a hell of a lot of effort into them.

Again, smells rather assumptiony. But I was exaggerating for humour and/or effect, it's a thing.

Every character in Overwatch has completely unique graphics, backstory, personality, weapons and abilities. The female characters in Overwatch aren't just female versions of a male character, they are completely unique.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

Again, smells rather assumptiony. But I was exaggerating for humour and/or effect, it's a thing.

As a member of the gaming industry, and as a guy who has overseen character production, I'll tell you that it's a HUGE amount of work. Definitely not something you can crank out in an afternoon or two, and much more something that takes months of intense effort.

And as an overall percentage of the development of the whole game?

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:


The only reason that Space Marines have ever been male-only has been, "Because I said so."

There's nothing saying you can't do an equivalent process to a female human that you do to a male human to make a Space Marine.

But fine, keep the Space Marines male-only. Even keep the Orks male-only. Just start adding more female parts to the armies that lore-wise have females as an option.

Craftworld Eldar have very few models that are actually female. Apart from the Banshees, which aren't actually female-only in the lore, none of the other Aspects have any female models. Dire Avengers don't even come with female torsos anymore (which they used to). Farseers and Warlocks have no female models.

Start adding female parts to the Imperial Guard kits. Or offer a plastic conversion kit you can buy separate from the main kit, if you don't want to alter an existing kit.

Start actually supporting the one all-female army you actually have.

I tend to agree with all of this. All male marines is a real interesting issue in itself. There's clearly historical reasons for this aspect of the fiction in the first place, but modernity has continued to erode all of those precedents for the better. Which makes all male marines in the future a backwards concept, but culturally backwards is sort of the entire premise of the Imperium. In a way it's right because it's wrong. (maybe not 'right' but OK?) On the issue as a whole I'm a little split.

All those other factions though? Eldar, IG, Tau. Every faction that actually has 'gender' should have ample representation of diversity. I really appreciate that Eldar Guardians have at least some female torsos, and they should have more. TBH half (or all) Tau Fire Warriors could be female under their armor. Sort of a double edged sword with the potential with female models though. . . you don't want "female" to simply be "this one has bewbs" (as is the case with the Guardians). I've seen plenty of tasteless "female soldier" models. I'll take Vasquez over Barb Wire. Just some alternate heads for Guard would go a long way. Just release them in the same way that chapter specific shoulder pads were, for starters, until updating the basic box set.

IMO one of the best things about the SOB line is that the aesthetic is sexualized but in what I feel is an empowering way. It's both obviously femenine and very much not "come hither", and much more "I will take no **** and put my boot in your face." I think it's a real win for design. I'd be interested to hear others thoughts about it though.

Regarding the Marines being male, the Imperium actually was at its most progressive when Space Marines were created by the Emperor.

And regarding the aesthetic of Sisters of Battle being heavily sexualized, I too love that about it. I really like it when a design of female armor manages to be sexy without being demeaning, and fully-covering plate armor that still makes the woman wearing it look sexy is awesome in every way.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Are you trying to say that people bought Overwatch solely because of the inclusion of female characters?

No, but their portrayal did tip the balance for me, from a pass to a get.

Pouncey wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Are you trying to say that people bought Overwatch solely because of the inclusion of female characters?

Because that's the only way you could justify arguing there was a market for it. Otherwise it's likely just a tiny percentage of the development costs dedicated to offering a wide variety of choice for the player as one designer spent a couple of afternoons adding in some options.

Miniature games aren't as simple as left for bloke, right for a woman.

Besides, there's a market for everything, the issue is whether it offers sufficient return on the costs of tapping into it.

The gaming industry for the past 15 years has proven time and time again that diversity only helps sales.

And no, the developers of Overwatch didn't spend a couple of afternoons cranking out some random female models to use. They put a hell of a lot of effort into them.

Yes, but I think most people (I have no statistics to support this, but nor do you) who bought Overwatch got it because:
A) It looked good with the graphics and gameplay
B) It would have lots of multiplayer opportunities because...
C) It's new

I don't think the dealbreaker at all was "It has multiple non-offensive ethnic and gender representations" - if that was the case, would we not see a massive decrease in the popularity of games like Call of Duty and Battlefield, which pump out very similar, very popular, hyper-masculine*, American-centric games?

*Yes, I will note that in Black Ops III, there are compulsory genders assigned to certain callsigns.

Again, all I can ask for in diversity is in the Imperial Guard range, in the form of new regiments and optional gender packs, and in xenos (Tau auxiliaries, Hrud, Barghesi, Slaugth).
I don't need to see SM changed. I don't want that. SM are all male, SoB are all female. Guardsmen can be both. Tau can be both. Eldar can be both. Everything else is just neutral.

Call of Duty actually has playable female characters nowadays. Not sure about Battlefield though.

Did you miss the part where I said that? I *did* mention that Black Ops III has female characters assigned to callsigns. However, it is still very much male dominated, not to mention that the most popular Call of Duty games are ones which are male-only (Modern Warfare 3, according to total units sold).

Also there's a game called Rust where many people have left negative feedback about how the game wouldn't let them play as a character that looked like themself. Often in the context of why they're not playiing it anymore.

Well, considering Rust doesn't put you in the role of a character (a la Overwatch or even CoD campaign), rather an unnamed nobody, I'd say it a valid critique that the player can't alter something about their devoid shell of a 'character'.

And yes, fine, Space Marines can stay male. And yes, Guardsmen and Eldar and Tau can be both, but that's not actually represented in the official models outside of a handful of special characters, 20% of Eldar Guardians, and one Aspect.

Which is what we, at least myself, are asking for. I haven't seen anyone yet saying "NO FEMALE CHARACTERS ALLOWED IN MY 40K NO SIR"

 Pouncey wrote:

Regarding the Marines being male, the Imperium actually was at its most progressive when Space Marines were created by the Emperor.

Yeah that's very true, and it's also one of the more interesting aspects of the fiction. But his "Space Marine vision" was intensely patriarchal, regardless of whatever other enlightenment ideals he was pushing. For better or for worse. . .

 Azreal13 wrote:

And as an overall percentage of the development of the whole game?

That's sort of a complicated question, since games are tremendously varied, and as such, the importance of characters or avatars is also tremendously varied. A game like Counter Strike can afford a lot less effort on the characters, since they are all effectively the same basic skeleton with a different mesh and textures, and share all the same animations. While Overwatch puts a huge amount of emphasis on having very different characters with a whole load of different abilities, proportions, aesthetics, animations, etc. For Overwatch, I would honestly not be surprised if each character involved literally thousands of hours of work, from concept through to final product. Blizzard is known for iterating until they feel it's really "right".

As a percentage? I really couldn't guess, I haven't played the game (to try to observe any balance of effort, which believe me, could be quite faulty in itself) and I don't work there (teams can be balanced for production in many different ways) but since characters play a central role I'd say relatively high when compared to other games.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Are you trying to say that people bought Overwatch solely because of the inclusion of female characters?

Because that's the only way you could justify arguing there was a market for it. Otherwise it's likely just a tiny percentage of the development costs dedicated to offering a wide variety of choice for the player as one designer spent a couple of afternoons adding in some options.

Miniature games aren't as simple as left for bloke, right for a woman.

Besides, there's a market for everything, the issue is whether it offers sufficient return on the costs of tapping into it.

This.

Honestly bringing up overwatch and trying to compare that to table top is really really bad, its apples to oranges.

And on why spacemarines are only men

The Big E made 20 son, said marines where modeled after said sons, ergo, all marines are men.

They already tried to tap into the space marine women with sisters which as we already know did not do so well.

Aside from that, almost all other races have a vast male to female diversity, or are incapable of it, IE nids, orks, necrons.

I would not even try to bring race diversity into it because again, they are paint able toy soldiers, you can make em what ever race you want.

Further more at the end of the day, when im charging my terminators at a group of Chaos, im wondering if that guy with the plasma gun is going to take out one of my terminators, the last thing im going to care about is if they have tits on their models. Besides they never last long enough on the table for me to give a crap.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

And yes, fine, Space Marines can stay male. And yes, Guardsmen and Eldar and Tau can be both, but that's not actually represented in the official models outside of a handful of special characters, 20% of Eldar Guardians, and one Aspect.

Which is what we, at least myself, are asking for. I haven't seen anyone yet saying "NO FEMALE CHARACTERS ALLOWED IN MY 40K NO SIR"

Why do you think I'm asking for something different then?

 Pouncey wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

And yes, fine, Space Marines can stay male. And yes, Guardsmen and Eldar and Tau can be both, but that's not actually represented in the official models outside of a handful of special characters, 20% of Eldar Guardians, and one Aspect.

Which is what we, at least myself, are asking for. I haven't seen anyone yet saying "NO FEMALE CHARACTERS ALLOWED IN MY 40K NO SIR"

Why do you think I'm asking for something different then?

I think most people, my self included dont want diversity for diversities sake in the story.

Peolpe could care less about diversity on the game. But things like shoe hornning in female space marines for reasons always leaves a bad taste in peoples mouths.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

Honestly bringing up overwatch and trying to compare that to table top is really really bad, its apples to oranges.

Sort of. . .

But in some ways it can look worse. The cost of diversifying a video game like Overwatch would, at least outwardly, appear to be much, much greater than sculpting some female heads to be put on Guardsmen, er Guards-people.

Then again, maybe they can look at a release of SM shoulder pads and say "these will sell", and look at the prospect of doing female Guards-people heads and say "these will not sell." Although they could include some with whatever the next guardsmen set it, whenever that will be.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

Peolpe could care less about diversity on the game. But things like shoe hornning in female space marines for reasons always leaves a bad taste in peoples mouths.

Some people care about diversity, you can't argue that. Of those that do care, I don't think a majority of them are asking for female Space Marines though.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

Honestly bringing up overwatch and trying to compare that to table top is really really bad, its apples to oranges.

Sort of. . .

But in some ways it can look worse. The cost of diversifying a video game like Overwatch would, at least outwardly, appear to be much, much greater than sculpting some female heads to be put on Guardsmen, er Guards-people.

Then again, maybe they can look at a release of SM shoulder pads and say "these will sell", and look at the prospect of doing female Guards-people heads and say "these will not sell." Although they could include some with whatever the next guardsmen set it, whenever that will be.

The reason i think the overwatch comparison is silly is because over watch was built with it in-mind, 40k has been around for 30 years and injecting it with the muh diversity for diversity sake always ends up getting handled very very messy.

Really the onlything they need to change is add a extra sprue with female healds in the guard box. BOOM done!

But in some ways it can look worse. The cost of diversifying a video game like Overwatch would, at least outwardly, appear to be much, much greater than sculpting some female heads to be put on Guardsmen, er Guards-people.

So if it's ok to just stick new heads on male models and call them female, it's ok just to reskin the head of a male video game avatar and call it done?

Women are proportionately different, and for them to look 'right' then the whole model needs to be redone, even without going down the cheesecake route.

I'm 6'5", but as a proportion of height, my 5'2" female friend has longer legs than me.

Then we have different body fat distribution, different musculature, pelvis carried and configured differently etc etc..

A lot of this would be lost at tabletop scale, but most detail is lost on the tabletop, it's in promo pics and when we look closely that this stuff becomes relevant.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
I think most people, my self included dont want diversity for diversities sake in the story.

Peolpe could care less about diversity on the game. But things like shoe hornning in female space marines for reasons always leaves a bad taste in peoples mouths.

There are cases, though, where females are supposed to make up roughly half of the fighting forces of various factions, and the official models do not actually represent anything close to that.

And how many times do I have to keep saying that you can keep Space Marines male-only? Because I've said it a lot and people seem to think I've been asking for female Space Marines.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

The reason i think the overwatch comparison is silly is because over watch was built with it in-mind, 40k has been around for 30 years and injecting it with the muh diversity for diversity sake always ends up getting handled very very messy.

Really the onlything they need to change is add a extra sprue with female healds in the guard box. BOOM done!

Well I guess we're in agreement about the guard heads then, move along...

The uncomfortable thing about the history of our 30 year old company is that there used to be more diversity (when Sisters were a supported faction) to where we are now. The ratio of human female models in the 40K universe seems to have dropped. There might be more dog-men (Wulfen) models than ladies.


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 Azreal13 wrote:

But in some ways it can look worse. The cost of diversifying a video game like Overwatch would, at least outwardly, appear to be much, much greater than sculpting some female heads to be put on Guardsmen, er Guards-people.

So if it's ok to just stick new heads on male models and call them female, it's ok just to reskin the head of a male video game avatar and call it done?

Women are proportionately different, and for them to look 'right' then the whole model needs to be redone, even without going down the cheesecake route.

I'm 6'5", but as a proportion of height, my 5'2" female friend has longer legs than me.

Then we have different body fat distribution, different musculature, pelvis carried and configured differently etc etc..

A lot of this would be lost at tabletop scale, but most detail is lost on the tabletop, it's in promo pics and when we look closely that this stuff becomes relevant.

I'm not entirely sure what you're saying. For a video game it depends tremendously on the aesthetic of the game. For a game where everyone is in a space suit, just having a different head on the model, inside the helmet, would work fine.

For a miniature game where the models are small scale and everyone is wearing some sort of bulky standardized uniform, a head swap also works fine. It's totally dependent on the aesthetic direction of the case involved. If you compare an image serach between "sci-fi female sniper figurine" and "woman combatant in the peoples army of china figurine", there's a stark difference in treatment of body proportion.

And as a rule, women don't necessarily have longer legs by proportion than men. It's more that culturally it's a preferred aesthetic, so you see it get more exposure. High heels and waist-fit clothes are intended to visually lengthen the legs, even though biologically there is more variation between individuals than between gender overall. On the flipside, pants hung low and long shirts are intended to lengthen the torso.

If we start getting all PC with 40k then you'd have no option but to AoSify it completely. First it would be female space marines, then trans etc. Then someone would suggest the Imperium should stop with the (by our standards) war crimes and be nicer by adhering to the Geneva Convention and maybe adopting pacifism and becoming vegans, as well as welcoming Chaos worshippers into their new multi faith society. Eventually it wouldn't be Warhammer 40,000 it would just be 40,000, where games involve taking objectives but no weapons or violence of any kind, just a kind of tabletop sport like Subutteo.

No thanks.

Qlanth wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Are you trying to say that people bought Overwatch solely because of the inclusion of female characters?

Because that's the only way you could justify arguing there was a market for it. Otherwise it's likely just a tiny percentage of the development costs dedicated to offering a wide variety of choice for the player as one designer spent a couple of afternoons adding in some options.

Miniature games aren't as simple as left for bloke, right for a woman.

Besides, there's a market for everything, the issue is whether it offers sufficient return on the costs of tapping into it.

The gaming industry for the past 15 years has proven time and time again that diversity only helps sales.

And no, the developers of Overwatch didn't spend a couple of afternoons cranking out some random female models to use. They put a hell of a lot of effort into them.

Yes, but I think most people (I have no statistics to support this, but nor do you) who bought Overwatch got it because:
A) It looked good with the graphics and gameplay
B) It would have lots of multiplayer opportunities because...
C) It's new

I don't think the dealbreaker at all was "It has multiple non-offensive ethnic and gender representations" - if that was the case, would we not see a massive decrease in the popularity of games like Call of Duty and Battlefield, which pump out very similar, very popular, hyper-masculine*, American-centric games?

*Yes, I will note that in Black Ops III, there are compulsory genders assigned to certain callsigns.

Again, all I can ask for in diversity is in the Imperial Guard range, in the form of new regiments and optional gender packs, and in xenos (Tau auxiliaries, Hrud, Barghesi, Slaugth).
I don't need to see SM changed. I don't want that. SM are all male, SoB are all female. Guardsmen can be both. Tau can be both. Eldar can be both. Everything else is just neutral.

As with most things in life it's much more subtle than that. Of course no one decides to buy Overwatch because there are women in it. They decide to buy Overwatch because they think it looks fun to play like any other person buying a game. The difference is that unlike commercials for Call of Duty, commercials for Overwatch have a lot of women in them. Which women watch. Which leads them to think this thing looks cool, simply because the person on screen looks like they do. Call of Duty never had a commercial with someone who looked like they do. So they didn't care about it.

Next time you watch TV pay special attention the commercials. You'll probably find that the TV commercials for a given product are a lot more diverse than your typical store selling those exact same products.

This isn't something I'm making up. This is the science of advertisement. Making something appear more diverse makes more diverse people interested in it. it works for movies. it works for TV. it works for video games. It works for yogurt. It works for popular board games. I promise it would work for Warhammer 40k as well.

I disagree. This notion that diversity equals mores guaranteed sales and new blood is nonsense. It does in some sectors or some markets, but you're making broad assumptions. Especially when it comes to genres that many consider iconic. The paid reviewers and hawkers in the media can butter up a product that's been altered for the sake of "muh duhversity" all they want, but that doesn't mean that people are going to bite. Just ask the comics industry's Big Two what happens when you start screwing around with iconic titles and characters.


Leave the female space marines where they belong: In lurid fan fiction and 1d4chan. If there are more female options from GeeDubs, let it be the Sororitas getting some badly needed love, or adding female options to the Guard regiments that make use of female troops (like the Valhallans and Vostroytan). Or, better yet, make generic female bits for people who want to include them in their own unique armies.


As for minorities, whats stopping somebody from painting their minis up as blacks, Asians, Arabs, etc?

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reds8n

Just to nitpick about Overwatch. You're not actually supposed to have a favorite character you play to the exclusion of the others. You're supposed to play whatever character is required to adapt to the current enemy team composition and the situation on the battlefield. Switching characters frequently is supposed to be a major thing.

But I will now drop the subject about Overwatch if you want.