I've been saying this forever.
Link (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323300004578559570373710646.html?google_editors_picks=true)
QuotePlaying "Donkey Kong" this spring, Mike Mika's 3-year-old daughter Ellis asked him why it is always the mustached Mario who saves Pauline, the damsel in a pink dress who gets kidnapped by a gorilla.
The game has no option for the girl to save the boy. It just works like that, the dad told his daughter. "She was bummed out," he says.
So Mr. Mika, a 39-year-old videogame developer in Emeryville, Calif., hacked the classic game's software to make the damsel into a heroine who saves the plumber Mario. He published his version, dubbed "Donkey Kong: Pauline Edition," online, where it has been downloaded more than 11,000 times since it was posted in March.
From Damsel to Heroine
See images of videogames before and after they were hacked to turn the damsels into heroines.
View Graphics
'The Legend of Zelda'
From the Archives
Photos: Mario, Meet Master Chief
Interactive: Game Console Showdown
Many videogames have long followed the same guy-centered theme: Girl gets in trouble; boy goes on a quest to save girl. Since few of those titles have broken that story mold, a niche of gamers with programming skills makes it their mission to write their own.
With a few redrawn pixels and well-placed lines of computer code, the women crying out for rescue have become the ones who save the day. One gamer turned the namesake character from "The Legend of Zelda," a princess saved by a guy named Link, into a sword-bearing warrior. (The game's creator called it "Zelda Starring Zelda.")
Another made Princess Peach, a different kidnapped friend of Mario, throw her own fireballs as she fights her way through a Mushroom Kingdom to save the plumber.
Enlarge Image
Nintendo
In the original Super Mario Bros. game Mario saves Princess Peach.
Even the lipstick-lined Ms. Pac-Man started as a hack of the popular arcade game about her male counterpart.
The hackers do the gender switch by tapping into code from the games. They tend to focus on older titles because the programming and graphics are simpler than modern ones.
There is some debate about how far the hackers should take their artistic license. Some change a lot throughout the game, adding pink color schemes, feminine fonts and even new mystical capabilities, such as the ability to turn into a mermaid for underwater fights. One remade "Super Mario Bros." into "Hello Kitty Land."
Nicholas Elias Wilson, a videogame developer in the Los Angeles area, opted to change as little as possible when he turned Princess Peach into the protagonist in his version of "Super Mario Bros."
Enlarge Image
Nicholas Elias Wilson
In the revised version of the game, the princess is the star.
"People asked me why I didn't change 'Super Mario Bros.' to 'Super Peach Sisters,' " he says. But he didn't want a game that was unequal. "I wanted to have the same game, but now you can play as the girl."
Kenna Warsinske, a 27-year-old recent Portland State University graduate who hacked the Zelda game, said she got tired of waiting for Nintendo 7974.OK +0.94% to make the princess the game's real star. "Every time they would release a new Zelda game, I would check if Zelda was playable and it never happened," she says.
Anita Sarkeesian, who started a Web-video series in which she critiques the way women are portrayed in videogames, says the hacks play into a larger issue.
"It is sad that they have to do that in the first place," she says, adding that in the decades since many of these games were originally released, there have been few substantive female protagonists. "That's a long stretch of time not to expand the industry and representation of women in a substantial way."
ZELDA
Copyright lawyers disagree on the legal implications of changing characters in the games.
Reggie Fils-Aime, president of American operations for Nintendo, which makes the Mario, Zelda and Donkey Kong games, says the company doesn't want people using its intellectual property in this way, but supports the message. To show "there are strong female characters—I think that's a wonderful story," he says.
Nintendo says it will feature a female lead in its coming "Bayonetta 2," about a witch who shoots guns and uses magic to dispatch foes.
Laurent Detoc, president of North American operations at game maker Ubisoft Entertainment SA, UBI.FR -0.10% says that his company tends to follow what consumers buy and that it has created some games starring women, including a version of its popular "Assassin's Creed" action games.
But he says the company could do better. He says his wife challenged him as to why his company's female-focused "Imagine" games allow girls to play detectives, reporters, zookeepers and family doctors—but not president of the U.S. As for female-focused games, he says: "Should we do more of them? Yes."
Videogame developers say women are often underrepresented among their ranks. Ubisoft said 18% of its 7,100-person production team are women, as are 27% of its top managers. Nintendo declined to provide breakdowns of its staff.
It is still rare to find lead female action characters who aren't curiously curvy. Lara Croft, of "Tomb Raider," wore short shorts and a snug navel-baring tank top in earlier incarnations. (She now wears long pants and covers her mid-section.)
"Gaming culture has not changed" over the decades, says Katherine Cross, a Ph.D. candidate at City University of New York who studies the sociology of gender and gaming.
Some don't like changes to classic titles. Mr. Mika, who hacked "Donkey Kong," has received harsh criticism: Someone on the Internet "said it was like I was destroying the Mona Lisa," he says.
One of the most famous videogame heroines actually grew out of a gender hack. In 1981, after the popularity of Namco Ltd.'s 7832.TO -2.04% "Pac-Man," a group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology students made unauthorized modifications to create a game called "Crazy Otto." It featured a Pac-Man-like figure navigating mazes who, during intermissions, would meet a girl, fall in love and have a child.
The company with the rights to Pac-Man struck a licensing deal with the students, but wanted the game to be focused on the girl.
"They said make it really look female with hair and a bow and a beauty mark and lipstick," says Steve Golson, now 54, who was one of the MIT students. Eventually, they settled on a name: "Ms. Pac-Man."
A Namco spokeswoman declined to comment, saying employees who worked on Ms. Pac-Man have since left the company.
In more modern games, the hackers face additional artistic challenges.
Ms. Warsinske, who hacked the original Zelda game, investigated flipping the script on sequel "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time," the first title in the franchise with 3-D visuals. But it would take more work, such as figuring out how the princess would ride the horse in the game.
"There's the dress conundrum: does she ride sidesaddle?" she says.
Totally true. There are literally no games staring a lead female character who saves a male character...
Quote from: garbon on July 04, 2013, 12:04:46 AM
Totally true. There are literally no games staring a lead female character who saves a male character...
Doesn't Lara Croft count? :unsure:
Of course, she was nearly naked when she did it. :hmm:
Uppity woman. <_<
You've been saying that girl on top of the building should save Mario from donkey Kong? That is a strange thing to have been saying for all these years. Incidentally in Donkey Kong Mario was a carpenter not a plumber and in the first Super Mario Brothers game Mario is a plumber who saves Princess Toadstool. You can play as the Princess in Super Mario Brothers 2.
Meh, the target audience is and has always been male dominated. They make what sells.
Seems kind of weird in donkey kong, ignoring gender, that a princess would save a plumber. :hmm:
Quote from: Tyr on July 04, 2013, 02:04:18 AM
Meh, the target audience is and has always been male dominated. They make what sells.
Seems kind of weird in donkey kong, ignoring gender, that a princess would save a plumber. :hmm:
I'm not sure if "sex sells" works on those old arcade games from the 1980's.
Well there is an exception: Dragon Lair.
Quote from: Razgovory on July 04, 2013, 12:12:09 AMYou can play as the Princess in Super Mario Brothers 2.
The international version of Mario 2 was not developed by Nintendo. The original Japanese Mario 2 was considered to be way too difficult, so they took a completely different game and overwrote characters from the Mario world on top of them. As the game had 4 characters, they had to pick up two more characters to add besides Mario and Luigi, and it's only because of that that Toad and the Princess became playable.
I'd recommend to watch the videos by Anita Sarkeesian, the feminist critic mentioned in the article. IMO she puts it very clearly and in an eloquent way, and is not vitriolic at all about it. Here they are:
Damsels in Distress part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6p5AZp7r_Q (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6p5AZp7r_Q)
Damsels in Distress part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toa_vH6xGqs (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toa_vH6xGqs)
Quote from: Razgovory on July 04, 2013, 02:39:49 AM
Quote from: Tyr on July 04, 2013, 02:04:18 AM
Meh, the target audience is and has always been male dominated. They make what sells.
Seems kind of weird in donkey kong, ignoring gender, that a princess would save a plumber. :hmm:
I'm not sure if "sex sells" works on those old arcade games from the 1980's.
Well there is an exception: Dragon Lair.
I never said sex sells.
Its more a case of a male main character.
Sex sells would usally lead to a female lead ala Croft.
If Lara Croft were a man:
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.cnet.com.au%2Fstory_media%2F339344728%2Fthomas_1.jpg&hash=e6e41141dc3c5adcaef8198cab1b3a5b4afffb58)
More here, Meri :perv:
http://www.cnet.com.au/meet-larry-croft-if-lara-was-a-man-339344728.htm (http://www.cnet.com.au/meet-larry-croft-if-lara-was-a-man-339344728.htm)
Can't be Lara's equivalent without disproportionate sexual attributes. :P
Quote from: Iormlund on July 04, 2013, 05:10:17 AM
Can't be Lara's equivalent without disproportionate sexual attributes. :P
You obviously didn't click through the gallery... Though whether they've introduced a physics-correct package-bounce mode remains to be seen.
When playing the old SSI D&D games, the only female characters I created were the Clerics. With names like 'Cunt', 'Twat' or some such shit.
Quote from: Brazen on July 04, 2013, 05:12:57 AM
Quote from: Iormlund on July 04, 2013, 05:10:17 AM
Can't be Lara's equivalent without disproportionate sexual attributes. :P
You obviously didn't click through the gallery... Though whether they've introduced a physics-correct package-bounce mode remains to be seen.
I did and thought to be the equiv of Lara, he needs a much better bulge and abs.
Typical feminist nonsense. They want to enter areas that are predominantly male, and then try and ruin it.
Gamers are men and boys, and therefore the main characters in games tend to be men and boys.
Japanese make sexist games. I playes as females all the time when I was a kid in proper Western games. The only western Super Mariio, granted an adoption of a Japanese game, Super Mario2 you could be the Princess and she was the best character anyway.
Ok I am mostly kidding about the Japanese, but I found it striking all their examples were Japanese games. Weird.
I think my issue with this controversy is it seems to entirely involve games and genres I do not play. I mean in Adventure and RPGs I have had since the 80s I have rescuing dudes with ladies forever.
Quote from: Brazen on July 04, 2013, 04:56:24 AM
If Lara Croft were a man:
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.cnet.com.au%2Fstory_media%2F339344728%2Fthomas_1.jpg&hash=e6e41141dc3c5adcaef8198cab1b3a5b4afffb58)
More here, Meri :perv:
http://www.cnet.com.au/meet-larry-croft-if-lara-was-a-man-339344728.htm (http://www.cnet.com.au/meet-larry-croft-if-lara-was-a-man-339344728.htm)
Oh.... my.... :wub:
Quote from: Neil on July 04, 2013, 12:03:34 PM
Typical feminist nonsense. They want to enter areas that are predominantly male, and then try and ruin it.
Gamers are men and boys, and therefore the main characters in games tend to be men and boys.
Serious question: how would having strong female protagonists in games "ruin it"? I know you're trolling, but I've actually heard this before, and it confuses me. No one is asking that ALL games be about women or that girls have a character that saves the boys in every game. Only that there are SOME games that have that option.
It's like a girl setting up a sandbox next to a boy's and him claiming that she's ruined the entire playground. I don't get it.
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.cnet.com.au%2Fstory_media%2F339344728%2Fthomas_3.jpg&hash=f4aae03fb0816e25e13182ff67d26064bc64c91b)
Given this pic, I agree with garbon. Besides, he looks like he's an 18-year-old boy in this. :yucky:
Quote from: Neil on July 04, 2013, 12:03:34 PMGamers are men and boys, and therefore the main characters in games tend to be men and boys.
That depends on what you mean by "predominantly". If you think a 55% male, 45% female split means "predominantly", then you're correct but personally I'd not agree: http://www.theesa.com/facts/gameplayer.asp
Now, there are definitely certain types of games that tend to attract a predominantly male audience and those games do tend to have male protagonists, but the causality could go either way here. Maybe if there were some better female characters in those genres, more women would play those games. Personally I see it not in terms of ruining anything, or social justice, or media images or whatever; I see it as potential market opportunities.
Don't most games these days in fact have female protagonist characters as a choice? :hmm:
Mind you, I'm pretty limited in the games I actually play.
Quote from: Malthus on July 04, 2013, 01:28:19 PM
Don't most games these days in fact have female protagonist characters as a choice? :hmm:
Mind you, I'm pretty limited in the games I actually play.
That would be the case in the games I play. I'm either playing games like EU3, Victoria2 etc....where you play a nation, or MMOs where you get to choose your characters sex :huh:
Are you fukin kidding me?
Are we really going down this road of political correctness?
You know what? I'm gonna stay home with my baby boy, and send my wife to deploy as an infnatry squad leader and save the fukin world.
Quote from: Siege on July 04, 2013, 01:40:55 PM
Are you fukin kidding me?
Are we really going down this road of political correctness?
You know what? I'm gonna stay home with my baby boy, and send my wife to deploy as an infnatry squad leader and save the fukin world.
Does she meet the fitness requirements? :hmm::
Quote from: Neil on July 04, 2013, 12:03:34 PM
Typical feminist nonsense. They want to enter areas that are predominantly male, and then try and ruin it.
Gamers are men and boys, and therefore the main characters in games tend to be men and boys.
I find it bizarre that you are saying this considering Bioware caters to female gamers pretty extensively
Jacob has the right attitude. If there's money to be made in games with female protagonists, they will be made.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on July 04, 2013, 01:56:34 PM
Jacob has the right attitude. If there's money to be made in games with female protagonists, they will be made.
Those games have been made and they have sold, since for as long as computer games have been made. It is kind of weird why more of them are not made but that video I posted in the Games HQ sort of speaks a bit to that. That puzzle, that those games were made and did well but did not seem to lead to anything, is the weird part.
Quote from: merithyn on July 04, 2013, 01:07:43 PM
Quote from: Neil on July 04, 2013, 12:03:34 PM
Typical feminist nonsense. They want to enter areas that are predominantly male, and then try and ruin it.
Gamers are men and boys, and therefore the main characters in games tend to be men and boys.
Serious question: how would having strong female protagonists in games "ruin it"? I know you're trolling, but I've actually heard this before, and it confuses me. No one is asking that ALL games be about women or that girls have a character that saves the boys in every game. Only that there are SOME games that have that option.
It's like a girl setting up a sandbox next to a boy's and him claiming that she's ruined the entire playground. I don't get it.
It wouldn't necessarily ruin it. After all, there are all kinds of games that can be fun with a woman protagonist. I'm just saying that feminists want to ruin it, by eliminating strong men and masculinity from gaming. Mainly because they're bad people.
And while personally I have a hard time enjoying a game with a female main character, I know that plenty of other people don't feel that way. I just don't feel that every game should have both a male and female character. That way lies identity-politics madness.
Going back in history, apparently "Ms. Pac Man" was the most popular American-made arcade video game of all time, and one of the most popular video games ever. :lol:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ms._Pac-Man
QuoteMs. Pac-Man is an arcade video game produced by Illinois-based Midway Manufacturing corporation. It was released one year after the company's Pac-Man arcade game. Ms. Pac-Man was released in North America in 1981[1] and became one of the most popular video games of all time, leading to its adoption by Pac-Man licensor Namco as an official title. The game introduced a female protagonist, new maze designs, and several other gameplay changes over the original game. It became the most successful American-produced arcade game, selling 115,000 arcade cabinets.
So a game with a female protagonist always could make money, and they did exist, right back to the beginning of video games.
To be honest, I don't play many video games because there aren't many that I enjoy. I was a huge EQer - which I loved - and I really enjoyed Myst. I loved Wurm Online until it became all about the PvP. I've played Tale in the Desert, though I get bored with it fairly quickly. Beyond that, not a whole lot that I find fun. But then, I'm totally not anyone's target audience.
I have no idea what games are out there, or whether or not they're geared toward boys, girls, adults, kids... no clue. I just thought the article was interesting.
Quote from: Jacob on July 04, 2013, 01:24:17 PM
Quote from: Neil on July 04, 2013, 12:03:34 PMGamers are men and boys, and therefore the main characters in games tend to be men and boys.
That depends on what you mean by "predominantly". If you think a 55% male, 45% female split means "predominantly", then you're correct but personally I'd not agree: http://www.theesa.com/facts/gameplayer.asp
Now, there are definitely certain types of games that tend to attract a predominantly male audience and those games do tend to have male protagonists, but the causality could go either way here. Maybe if there were some better female characters in those genres, more women would play those games. Personally I see it not in terms of ruining anything, or social justice, or media images or whatever; I see it as potential market opportunities.
Yeah, you know as well as I do that the ESA iincluding people playing PopCap games, Angry Birds and Words with Friends in there. That's awesome, but it doesn't really have much bearing on the conversation. Games without characters rarely cause people to discuss gender in game characters, and games without stories seldom have characters in a meaningful sense.
Given unlimited resources and storage in game production, I would say that it's a good decision to include as much content as possible to try and cast a wide net. But given that we live in the real world, at some point you have to ask the question 'Who do I think is likely to buy my game, and how can I appeal to them as much as possible'. If you're making a AAA title, you're making games for young men. Sure, you could absolutely include the option to play a female, especially for certain types of games. You just can't put tons of resources into it, and that sometimes results in people getting mad at a 'tacked on' feeling. That can be counterproductive. It's a complex issue.
Quote from: merithyn on July 04, 2013, 02:15:31 PM
To be honest, I don't play many video games because there aren't many that I enjoy. I was a huge EQer - which I loved - and I really enjoyed Myst. I loved Wurm Online until it became all about the PvP. I've played Tale in the Desert, though I get bored with it fairly quickly. Beyond that, not a whole lot that I find fun. But then, I'm totally not anyone's target audience.
I will never understand why EQ is so special to you. It struck me as pretty similar to the other MMORPGs and CRPGs that I have played.
Quote from: Neil on July 04, 2013, 02:28:24 PMIf you're making a AAA title, you're making games for young men.
What exactly is considered a AAA title? I have a feeling I have not played one in a long time.
Quote from: Valmy on July 04, 2013, 02:33:22 PM
Quote from: Neil on July 04, 2013, 02:28:24 PMIf you're making a AAA title, you're making games for young men.
What exactly is considered a AAA title? I have a feeling I have not played one in a long time.
A title developed by a large studio, with a budget in the tens of millions, which is being made in the hopes of selling millions of copies. They're usually shooters, and they are almost always for consoles first and foremost. If you've seen a commercial for a game during a major sporting event, it's a AAA title.
So would Dragon Age count? Seems like I saw some fancy ads for that one
Quote from: Valmy on July 04, 2013, 03:12:01 PM
So would Dragon Age count? Seems like I saw some fancy ads for that one
Yes.
Quote from: Malthus on July 04, 2013, 02:12:56 PM
Going back in history, apparently "Ms. Pac Man" was the most popular American-made arcade video game of all time, and one of the most popular video games ever. :lol:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ms._Pac-Man
QuoteMs. Pac-Man is an arcade video game produced by Illinois-based Midway Manufacturing corporation. It was released one year after the company's Pac-Man arcade game. Ms. Pac-Man was released in North America in 1981[1] and became one of the most popular video games of all time, leading to its adoption by Pac-Man licensor Namco as an official title. The game introduced a female protagonist, new maze designs, and several other gameplay changes over the original game. It became the most successful American-produced arcade game, selling 115,000 arcade cabinets.
So a game with a female protagonist always could make money, and they did exist, right back to the beginning of video games.
It is mentioned in the OP's article that it wasn't developed as a game by the studio, but was a hack done by some students that only afterwards was adopted.
Quote from: Siege on July 04, 2013, 01:40:55 PM
Are you fukin kidding me?
Are we really going down this road of political correctness?
You know what? I'm gonna stay home with my baby boy, and send my wife to deploy as an infnatry squad leader and save the fukin world.
Political correctness is letting you serve in the army.
Quote from: The Larch on July 04, 2013, 03:32:20 PM
Quote from: Malthus on July 04, 2013, 02:12:56 PM
Going back in history, apparently "Ms. Pac Man" was the most popular American-made arcade video game of all time, and one of the most popular video games ever. :lol:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ms._Pac-Man
QuoteMs. Pac-Man is an arcade video game produced by Illinois-based Midway Manufacturing corporation. It was released one year after the company's Pac-Man arcade game. Ms. Pac-Man was released in North America in 1981[1] and became one of the most popular video games of all time, leading to its adoption by Pac-Man licensor Namco as an official title. The game introduced a female protagonist, new maze designs, and several other gameplay changes over the original game. It became the most successful American-produced arcade game, selling 115,000 arcade cabinets.
So a game with a female protagonist always could make money, and they did exist, right back to the beginning of video games.
It is mentioned in the OP's article that it wasn't developed as a game by the studio, but was a hack done by some students that only afterwards was adopted.
Assuming the detail in the Wiki article is correct, that detail is misleading.
QuoteMs. Pac-Man was originally conceived as an enhancement kit for Pac-Man called Crazy Otto, created by programmers employed at the General Computer Corporation (GCC).[4]
While Crazy Otto was under development, GCC settled a lawsuit with Atari over their Missile Command conversion kit Super Missile Attack. Part of the settlement terms barred GCC from selling future conversion kits without consent from the original game manufacturer. Rather than scrapping Crazy Otto entirely, the programmers decided to show it to Midway, Namco's American distributor of the original game. Midway had become impatient in waiting for Namco to release its next Pac-Man game (which would be Super Pac-Man), and were enthusiastic that such a game had come to their attention. They bought the rights to Crazy Otto, changed the sprites to fit the Pac-Man universe, renamed the game Ms. Pac-Man, and released it into arcades.[5] Shortly before release, Stan Jarocki of Midway stated that Ms. Pac-Man was conceived in response to the original Pac-Man being "the first commercial videogame to involve large numbers of women as players" and that it is "our way of thanking all those lady arcaders who have played and enjoyed Pac-Man."[6] The game was later awarded the Certificate of Merit as runner-up for Coin-Op Game of the Year at the 1982 Arcade Awards held in January 1983.[7]
After the game became wildly popular, Midway and GCC undertook a brief legal battle concerning royalties. The Killer List of Videogames notes that the game was accomplished without Namco's consent, causing both companies to eventually turn over the rights of Ms. Pac-Man to Namco. Ms. Pac-Man was reportedly the first of a series of unauthorized sequels that eventually led to the termination of the licensing agreement between Namco and Midway.[4] GCC co-founder Doug Macrae has disputed stories that the game was manufactured without Namco's blessing, claiming that then-Namco president Masaya Nakamura had even provided feedback over character artwork during the game's development.[5]
Ms. Pac-Man was later released on the third Namco Museum game; however, there is no mention of it in Namco's official archives (including the archives on all of the Namco Museum releases).
In 2001, Namco released an arcade board featuring both Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga in honor of the 20th anniversary of both games with the subtitle "20 Year Reunion / Class of 1981". It also features Pac-Man as a hidden bonus game. The later 25th Anniversary Edition allows all three games to be selected at the main menu.[citation needed]
The original "hack" was a game called "Crazy Otto", which wasn't a female-gendered game. Only when Midway got the game, having bought the rights to "Crazy Otto" did they change the sprites to female ane rename it "Ms. Pac-Man".
But hey, it's wiki. Maybe its totally wrong.
Yeah, it's more or less what it says on the article:
Quote
One of the most famous videogame heroines actually grew out of a gender hack. In 1981, after the popularity of Namco Ltd.'s "Pac-Man," a group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology students made unauthorized modifications to create a game called "Crazy Otto." It featured a Pac-Man-like figure navigating mazes who, during intermissions, would meet a girl, fall in love and have a child.
The company with the rights to Pac-Man struck a licensing deal with the students, but wanted the game to be focused on the girl.
"They said make it really look female with hair and a bow and a beauty mark and lipstick," says Steve Golson, now 54, who was one of the MIT students. Eventually, they settled on a name: "Ms. Pac-Man."
Quote from: Valmy on July 04, 2013, 03:12:01 PM
So would Dragon Age count? Seems like I saw some fancy ads for that one
Yeah, although it was somewhat niche. The real bigtime is stuff like Call of Duty or Gears of War.
Quote from: Neil on July 04, 2013, 02:28:24 PMYeah, you know as well as I do that the ESA iincluding people playing PopCap games, Angry Birds and Words with Friends in there. That's awesome, but it doesn't really have much bearing on the conversation. Games without characters rarely cause people to discuss gender in game characters, and games without stories seldom have characters in a meaningful sense.
Given unlimited resources and storage in game production, I would say that it's a good decision to include as much content as possible to try and cast a wide net. But given that we live in the real world, at some point you have to ask the question 'Who do I think is likely to buy my game, and how can I appeal to them as much as possible'. If you're making a AAA title, you're making games for young men. Sure, you could absolutely include the option to play a female, especially for certain types of games. You just can't put tons of resources into it, and that sometimes results in people getting mad at a 'tacked on' feeling. That can be counterproductive. It's a complex issue.
Not much to disagree with there.
I mean there's a cycle there, of making AAA games for men because men buy AAA games because they're made for men. Personally, I think it's perfectly fine to challenge and critique that, though it doesn't change the facts on the ground or the decisions you face when managing your resources. Like you say, it's a complex issue.
Quote from: The Larch on July 04, 2013, 04:01:24 PM
Yeah, it's more or less what it says on the article:
Quote
One of the most famous videogame heroines actually grew out of a gender hack. In 1981, after the popularity of Namco Ltd.'s "Pac-Man," a group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology students made unauthorized modifications to create a game called "Crazy Otto." It featured a Pac-Man-like figure navigating mazes who, during intermissions, would meet a girl, fall in love and have a child.
The company with the rights to Pac-Man struck a licensing deal with the students, but wanted the game to be focused on the girl.
"They said make it really look female with hair and a bow and a beauty mark and lipstick," says Steve Golson, now 54, who was one of the MIT students. Eventually, they settled on a name: "Ms. Pac-Man."
It's not a "gender hack" by some students, though. It was the
company's decision to deliberately change the gender of the character. Hence my point about the article being somewhat misleading.
Normally, when I read that a "gender hack" that created a wildly popular character, I'd assume that the students, bravely facing down the patriarchal indifference to everything female, had broken the envelope by making a character that was originally male into one that was female. The article more or less tells us that's what a "gender hack" is: unauthorized "female" versions of games made "male" by the companies.
The teaser earlier in the article says:
QuoteIn the original Super Mario Bros. game Mario saves Princess Peach.
Even the lipstick-lined Ms. Pac-Man started as a hack of the popular arcade game about her male counterpart.
The hackers do the gender switch by tapping into code from the games. They tend to focus on older titles because the programming and graphics are simpler than modern ones.
But in the case of Ms. Pac-Man, that's not what happened at all. It isn't a "hack" if the company with the rights to the title does it deliberately as part of its marketing. By that logic, every time a company comes out with a female version of a character originally male, it's a "gender hack".
Quote from: Neil on July 04, 2013, 04:05:34 PM
Quote from: Valmy on July 04, 2013, 03:12:01 PM
So would Dragon Age count? Seems like I saw some fancy ads for that one
Yeah, although it was somewhat niche. The real bigtime is stuff like Call of Duty or Gears of War.
I'd add your GTA, FIFA, Rockband/Guitar Hero (when they were around), your Drake's, Assassin's Creed. Not just shooters, at least not the way I use the word.
But yeah, if you see substantial advertising in major markets then it's AAA.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on July 04, 2013, 01:56:34 PM
Jacob has the right attitude. If there's money to be made in games with female protagonists, they will be made.
Ok, I'm sold.
If there is money to be made, I'm all for it.
Quote from: Siege on July 04, 2013, 04:21:08 PM
Ok, I'm sold.
If there is money to be made, I'm all for it.
:lol:
Quote from: Jacob on July 04, 2013, 04:15:15 PM
Quote from: Neil on July 04, 2013, 04:05:34 PM
Quote from: Valmy on July 04, 2013, 03:12:01 PM
So would Dragon Age count? Seems like I saw some fancy ads for that one
Yeah, although it was somewhat niche. The real bigtime is stuff like Call of Duty or Gears of War.
I'd add your GTA, FIFA, Rockband/Guitar Hero (when they were around), your Drake's, Assassin's Creed. Not just shooters, at least not the way I use the word.
But yeah, if you see substantial advertising in major markets then it's AAA.
Yeah, the EA Sports titles have pretty much been the definition of AAA over the long term. From what I hear, working in those studios is like being fed into a woodchipper feet-first. But my intel isn't exactly up-to-date.
Quote from: The Larch on July 04, 2013, 03:44:48 AM
Quote from: Razgovory on July 04, 2013, 12:12:09 AMYou can play as the Princess in Super Mario Brothers 2.
The international version of Mario 2 was not developed by Nintendo. The original Japanese Mario 2 was considered to be way too difficult, so they took a completely different game and overwrote characters from the Mario world on top of them. As the game had 4 characters, they had to pick up two more characters to add besides Mario and Luigi, and it's only because of that that Toad and the Princess became playable.
I'd recommend to watch the videos by Anita Sarkeesian, the feminist critic mentioned in the article. IMO she puts it very clearly and in an eloquent way, and is not vitriolic at all about it. Here they are:
Damsels in Distress part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6p5AZp7r_Q (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6p5AZp7r_Q)
Damsels in Distress part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toa_vH6xGqs (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toa_vH6xGqs)
I am well aware of that though it was still developed by Nintendo. I also know about the videos and the weird scandal around the kick starter.
Quote from: Neil on July 04, 2013, 05:34:05 PM
Yeah, the EA Sports titles have pretty much been the definition of AAA over the long term. From what I hear, working in those studios is like being fed into a woodchipper feet-first. But my intel isn't exactly up-to-date.
As I understand it, it is possible to be a comfortable cog in the machine if you're content with that, you know how the machine operates, and you're lucky not to have psychopaths in your immediate chain of command. Generally, the higher you go the more stress. And, of course, there's always the risk of being laid off to improve shareholder value at the appropriate time of the fiscal year; though apparently you often get hired back a bit later.
Quote from: Jacob on July 04, 2013, 05:42:34 PM
though apparently you often get hired back a bit later.
Well, isn't that just lovely.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on July 04, 2013, 07:09:04 PM
Quote from: Jacob on July 04, 2013, 05:42:34 PM
though apparently you often get hired back a bit later.
Well, isn't that just lovely.
It's important to deceive your shareholders. You cut the jobs because that's what predatory hedge funds like, but then you just hire them back because you can't actually sustain operations without them.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on July 04, 2013, 07:09:04 PM
Quote from: Jacob on July 04, 2013, 05:42:34 PM
though apparently you often get hired back a bit later.
Well, isn't that just lovely.
Actually, at least in Vancouver, it's not that bad because you get a significant severance package (if you've been there for a while) and then get hired back for more money than you earned before. I've known several people who stayed in purely because they were waiting for the lay off and severance. I'm sure plenty of people got screwed too, along the way, but it seems to me that Neil is right - it's much less about screwing the employees or actually saving money, and much more about manipulating some spreadsheets so shareholders and the markets feel good.
Quote from: Jacob on July 04, 2013, 08:33:05 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on July 04, 2013, 07:09:04 PM
Quote from: Jacob on July 04, 2013, 05:42:34 PM
though apparently you often get hired back a bit later.
Well, isn't that just lovely.
Actually, at least in Vancouver, it's not that bad because you get a significant severance package (if you've been there for a while) and then get hired back for more money than you earned before. I've known several people who stayed in purely because they were waiting for the lay off and severance. I'm sure plenty of people got screwed too, along the way, but it seems to me that Neil is right - it's much less about screwing the employees or actually saving money, and much more about manipulating some spreadsheets so shareholders and the markets feel good.
That's kind of a screwy system.
Quote from: Jacob on July 04, 2013, 08:33:05 PM
Actually, at least in Vancouver, it's not that bad because you get a significant severance package (if you've been there for a while) and then get hired back for more money than you earned before. I've known several people who stayed in purely because they were waiting for the lay off and severance. I'm sure plenty of people got screwed too, along the way, but it seems to me that Neil is right - it's much less about screwing the employees or actually saving money, and much more about manipulating some spreadsheets so shareholders and the markets feel good.
Fuzzy math. No wonder video game companies come and go.
Quote from: Valmy on July 04, 2013, 02:32:35 PM
I will never understand why EQ is so special to you. It struck me as pretty similar to the other MMORPGs and CRPGs that I have played.
It was my first. :wub: I'd never played anything like that before.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on July 04, 2013, 10:18:04 PM
Quote from: Jacob on July 04, 2013, 08:33:05 PM
Actually, at least in Vancouver, it's not that bad because you get a significant severance package (if you've been there for a while) and then get hired back for more money than you earned before. I've known several people who stayed in purely because they were waiting for the lay off and severance. I'm sure plenty of people got screwed too, along the way, but it seems to me that Neil is right - it's much less about screwing the employees or actually saving money, and much more about manipulating some spreadsheets so shareholders and the markets feel good.
Fuzzy math. No wonder video game companies come and go.
So long as you keep churning out hits, you can get away with it. The problem with game production (at least for the mid-size studios releasing on 3+ platforms) is that it's really expensive, and your development cycle is two years (18 months if you don't mind rushing your release, 8 months if you're doing an annual sports game). The big guys have multiple teams and can stagger their releases to keep the money rolling in, but the mid-sized guys get into trouble with cash flow, and get bought out by either the big publishers or hedge funds. Once that happens, they'll generally be ripped to shreds for their usable parts and intellectual property and closed down within a few years. That's how the system works.
Yeah, there's a serious squeeze on the mid-sized guys and there is some fear even with the big ones, I think.
Quote from: merithyn on July 04, 2013, 10:21:12 PM
Quote from: Valmy on July 04, 2013, 02:32:35 PM
I will never understand why EQ is so special to you. It struck me as pretty similar to the other MMORPGs and CRPGs that I have played.
It was my first. :wub: I'd never played anything like that before.
Nostalgia does weigh heavily on stuff that I know to be, objectively, pretty rough--especially by today's standards. I loved Ultima Online and still have a lot of affectionate memories for it, but I've tried several independent shards (servers) and they've all been pretty atrocious. I tolerated a lot more when UO was really the only game in town. EQ didn't hold a candle to it, for example.
Quote from: Jacob on July 05, 2013, 12:06:05 AM
Yeah, there's a serious squeeze on the mid-sized guys and there is some fear even with the big ones, I think.
Which does suggest the business model has flaws to it.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on July 05, 2013, 02:33:04 AM
Quote from: Jacob on July 05, 2013, 12:06:05 AM
Yeah, there's a serious squeeze on the mid-sized guys and there is some fear even with the big ones, I think.
Which does suggest the business model has flaws to it.
Yeah, there's a real problem for game studios to survive in a world of financial predators. At the same time, there will always be market space for people to make AAA games. There really isn't a lot of room for variability in your model.
My ex's company has never made a hit game, to my knowledge. What they do, instead, is make a bunch of mediocre games for name-brand companies, like Disney. They also create a lot of the engines that other companies then turn into Big Name Games.
So far, this model has worked. The company's been around for 21 years, and has grown every year, so far as I know. They do layoffs every few years to get rid of the non-productive folks ("I'm sorry, but we didn't get the game we thought we would, so we have to let a few of you guys go."), but otherwise, they're pretty stable with their staff.
What's the name of the company? Is it High Voltage games?
Well, it's High Voltage Software, but I'm fairly sure that I've mentioned that in the past.