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 daedalus wrote:
And WTF does that prove anyway?

That there are quite a bunch of people willing to play as a female character, I would guess.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 daedalus wrote:
And WTF does that prove anyway?

That there are quite a bunch of people willing to play as a female character, I would guess.

If it's only 18%, I'd wager not, really.

 daedalus wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 daedalus wrote:
And WTF does that prove anyway?

That there are quite a bunch of people willing to play as a female character, I would guess.

If it's only 18%, I'd wager not, really.

Yeah, 18% is like almost the same as 0 right? Industry could easily go without that 18%.

 daedalus wrote:
If it's only 18%, I'd wager not, really.

18% of a lot is still far from negligible.

I'd be really interested in how actual genders decided on playing characters. Those 18% on their own barely mean anything.

...because, let's face it, the female VA is SO. MUCH. BETTER. than the male one.

 Soladrin wrote:
[
Yeah, 18% is like almost the same as 0 right? Industry could easily go without that 18%.

That implies that the aforementioned 18% wouldn't play the game were there an absence of a male/female choice. Speaking for some minute fraction of that percentage who has no problem playing female characters and has chosen to do so, it's not a dealbreaker for me. I can't speak for the rest of that group of people.

18% of the total playthroughs of ME3 probably comes up with a VERY large number...

Going two pages back, I would just like to say that I personally didn't like Beyond Good and Evil. Please be gentle with the beating, I beg you.


I would also like to say that 18% of all Mass Effect playthroughs is indeed a lot.

In addition, Most chicks I see play games all talk about Skyrim, so there's that. Anecdotal, but hey, good games attract gamers.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
18% of the total playthroughs of ME3 probably comes up with a VERY large number...

As long as those were all distinct players, and that it didn't just count the number of playthroughs. Many people have completed multiple ME playthroughs, so it would be interesting to see how many of that 18% were unique players.

18% of 1.5 Million copies is still 270,000 playthroughs. Even if you cut the number in half to qualify for multiple playthroughs , that's 135,000 individual people playing as Femshep.

Sure, Cutting it in half is a bad statistic, but not every secondary playthrough would have been Femshep. In the first game I myself had 1 Fem and 2 Dudesheps.

18% is still a pretty large number.

I love it when people just outright ignore the fact that a percentage is just a lower key for an outright number.

 Asherian Command wrote:
18% is still a pretty large number.

I love it when people just outright ignore the fact that a percentage is just a lower key for an outright number.

I assure you, I understand the concept of percentages just fine. No need to climb the high horse..

The argument I was trying to make is that it was not many for multiple reasons. Some have already been touched on. Multiple playthroughs is a big one, another big consideration you need to make is that you HAVE to make a choice. You can't choose neither. Suppose you're ambivalent to the choice and pick at random.

I'm just saying that the real number of people for whom the ability to play a female character was a dealbreaker is probably not a large number of people, or at least not as large as expected.

 daedalus wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:
18% is still a pretty large number.

I love it when people just outright ignore the fact that a percentage is just a lower key for an outright number.

I assure you, I understand the concept of percentages just fine. No need to climb the high horse..

The argument I was trying to make is that it was not many for multiple reasons. Some have already been touched on. Multiple playthroughs is a big one, another big consideration you need to make is that you HAVE to make a choice. You can't choose neither. Suppose you're ambivalent to the choice and pick at random.

I'm just saying that the real number of people for whom the ability to play a female character was a dealbreaker is probably not a large number of people, or at least not as large as expected.

To be fair, how many people play using Colorblind settings in games?

Not very many, but it's nice for those who need/want them (Though why you would want Colorblind mode when you're not colorblind is beyond me).

Colourblind modes can be good for spotting things quickly in fps games. Same as playing in low res settings.

 Slarg232 wrote:

To be fair, how many people play using Colorblind settings in games?

Not very many, but it's nice for those who need/want them (Though why you would want Colorblind mode when you're not colorblind is beyond me).

Interesting point, and I wish they were available more often, but I can say feeling absolutely certain about it that the amount of effort that goes into any colorblind mode color palette swaps is microscopic compared to the amount of effort required to put a female character into any of the ME games.

That's the part that interests me specifically, really: Effort invested versus the number of users. For the amount of effort that went into ME, I don't honestly know if 18% (assuming the other factors I mentioned were 0% of that 18%) was actually worth it. I don't know how much of the development effort actually was spent on that feature.

 daedalus wrote:

 Slarg232 wrote:

To be fair, how many people play using Colorblind settings in games?

Not very many, but it's nice for those who need/want them (Though why you would want Colorblind mode when you're not colorblind is beyond me).

Interesting point, and I wish they were available more often, but I can say feeling absolutely certain about it that the amount of effort that goes into any colorblind mode color palette swaps is microscopic compared to the amount of effort required to put a female character into any of the ME games.

That's the part that interests me specifically, really: Effort invested versus the number of users. For the amount of effort that went into ME, I don't honestly know if 18% (assuming the other factors I mentioned were 0% of that 18%) was actually worth it. I don't know how much of the development effort actually was spent on that feature.

To be fair, as much as everyone hates the fact that most wimminz in games share the same body type, that does make it where if you can "afford" one woman, you can afford almost all of them.

 daedalus wrote:

 Slarg232 wrote:

To be fair, how many people play using Colorblind settings in games?

Not very many, but it's nice for those who need/want them (Though why you would want Colorblind mode when you're not colorblind is beyond me).

Interesting point, and I wish they were available more often, but I can say feeling absolutely certain about it that the amount of effort that goes into any colorblind mode color palette swaps is microscopic compared to the amount of effort required to put a female character into any of the ME games.

That's the part that interests me specifically, really: Effort invested versus the number of users. For the amount of effort that went into ME, I don't honestly know if 18% (assuming the other factors I mentioned were 0% of that 18%) was actually worth it. I don't know how much of the development effort actually was spent on that feature.

I think I can use one of my other points that I have made where a game designers duty is to ensure he is catering the largest possible audience. And if they implement a certain thing that makes a certain minority go wild, but its a feature none the less with the game.

That means we got a possible customer base and a few purchases.

The thing is, is that it wouldn't of been a big difference if there had been a fem-shepherd, but it in someway did boost sales, it catered to more people. Same reason why people play COD games over a single player only game. They want to play with their friends its a notable feature and thus increases the amount of purchases.

THE RIDE NEVER ENDS!

http://www.egmnow.com/articles/news/thousands-of-game-devs-take-a-stand-against-harassment-and-hate-with-open-letter/

Just pointing out the Source: Polygon.


Just looking at the people who signed it, you have a handful of people from Epic, some from NCSoft, one or two from Microsoft, and (I only got to 200 or so names) about 125 Independent Developers.

Meanwhile on the otherside: http://gamesnosh.com/womans-perspective-gamergate/

And over 5000 gamers have signed a petition standing against bigotry and harassment from Devs and games journalists.
http://www.change.org/p/the-gaming-industry-please-stop-the-hate

If you like vidya. Sign this frakking thing already.

I'm not arguing that femshep was a mistake, or that they should have just removed that option with just a black hole where that effort was spent. You have a certain amount of hours allocated to a project, and you use them. I'm wondering if there weren't other parts of the game that could have been improved at the cost of that feature such that it would have been a better game. I.E. Did it boost sales the most out of any of the possible things they could have spent that effort on? That's not something that the 18% figure can really give you, I guess.

I don't really like the "catering the largest possible audience" concept. I think there's more to it than that, otherwise that Pumpkin Online game would be the most successful game ever.

I thought this was an interesting image. Even the horse doesn't look too happy lol

I always play as a female character in any game that offers it, especially ones with a more rpg element. Femshep made ME much more enjoyable for me than maleshep (my wife played through a couple of times as maleshep so I know how it plays going through as a male PC).

Games with a female PC are always of interest to me... generally because they tend to be games with an actual story

Also, loved Beyond Good and Evil... looking forward to the second one

Do you guys think if we as a collective basically Dart Boarded a Dev and spammed their Twitter with that link listed a while back that explains the outrage that would do any good?

lol no, you so silly Slarg.

May I ask why?

Do you think they wouldn't read it, wouldn't care, are being blackmailed into it, or what?

To be completely honest, I doubt they'd care and use it to help out their platform of how we're horrible. Because we come with facts.

The corruption inherent in the system is pretty damn strong when one side is playing relatively nice and the other's resorted to name calling because they need some way to demonize the community.

Polygon, kotaku et al are banished from my facebook feed, and I made damn sure to tell facebook why when it asked. Why read a site that's content discussing gamers in the way they do? I think these sites will lose readers over this whole thing and I'm sure self identifying feminists with addictions to playing candy crush will like totally make up the difference. Before you know it these sites will have editorial boards telling you who to vote for.

Don't forget to report death threats and hatespeech from authors and developers to the companies they work for. A few dev's backpedaled hard upon discovering that "Oh hey, the things I say can hurt my job position!"

I wonder how many job openings are going to be open soon. I wouldn't mind the extra cash.

I keep looking at the hate on gamergate, from that tumblr. I keep checking with twitter thinking "no this has to be a over reaction" but it isn't.

How on earth can someone feel like you can tell people to literally feth off or get mudered and be "on the right side of history". Its seriously mind boggling for me