Why I'm not really bothered I can't play as a woman in some games
I've been really into the Assassin's Creed series since last year, so it's no surprise that I was watching and reading all of the announcements last week regarding the newest game, Assassin's Creed: Unity. So of course I saw the articles about how the developers said that they couldn't skin the characters in the co-op because of technical constraints. And my reaction was... well, I'm not angry. Maybe disappointed?
In short, I felt more pain and disappointment over finding out that the protagonist of Watch_Dogs was another boring white guy than I did at finding out about no women in co-op mode in AC:Unity. Like, I felt an actual sock in my gut when I was reading about Watch_Dogs, a game that is supposed to be about hacking in the present day. I really wanted to play the game but now it's like... does it have to be a guy? Is there anything intrinsic to him being male in the story? I admit I haven't played it, but reading the reviews, apparently a lot of people who have played it find the character himself boring. Which probably means weak characterization... which means gender probably isn't really an irreplaceable part of the character.
And that's important to me. I don't mind playing guys in games, but there's criteria that have to be met.
The character cannot be a blank slate that I'm supposed to project on to.
The character has to be interesting or at least likable.
The character's identity has to be somewhat intrinsic to the story. That is, don't just make them X because you don't know any better or because someone told you you must.
If a game is story-light, or at least, a story where the main character's identity is swap-able, there is no excuse for not having gender as an option. If you let the player specify their hair color, eye color, height, weight, and race, gender better damn well be an option. If I am the hero in the game, you better make sure that I am the hero. And plenty of games do this already; I can pick my gender in games like Animal Crossing and Pokémon and it doesn't really do much except make me more comfortable in my role in the game. Not that these games are perfect-many Japanese games still have an issue with cross-dressing, for example. And of course, there was that whole thing with same-sex marriage in Tomodachi Life...
If a game has a very set story arc with a well-defined character that you're meant to guide rather than inhabit, whether they're male or female doesn't matter as much to me. Oh, I'd love to see more women protagonists in general, but I'm not going to begrudge a male protagonist if the story is well-told and I actually want to follow his story. Assassin's Creed tends to fall into this-I do like the characters and I think who they are matters to the story and its setting. Of course, Ubisoft completely boned when one guy said that the French Revolution was "the story of men," because that's just not fucking true. But on a general level, I understand what they're trying to do and I respect that.
This whole thing has been irksome to me because at least Ubisoft addressed it, unlike the other 98% of the industry. How many game companies won't say anything, or when they do, it's something like, "we're not trying to make a statement, can't we just have fun?" As if serving more of your player base or experimenting with story options is somewhat antithetical to having fun. Some of the greatest games of all time feature women as protagonists: Metroid, Portal, Tomb Raider. It may be a handful of titles, but it does show that being inclusive does not make a game bad. Not being inclusive just shows a lack of imagination, if anything.
Of course, hearing a developer on Far Cry 4 also say they wanted to include women but couldn't due to technical constraints makes me think that someone is running around Ubisoft smacking the devs with a rolled-up newspaper every time they think about aiming for better gender representation. "No! We tell men's stories! No!"
And that's a thing the entire industry needs to work on-it's not that we need more women featured in games, but we need to be telling their stories, too. A woman isn't just a man with tits in a dress. Just as with race, it affects how you look at the world and how people look at you, and that kind of thing is important to address in all storytelling, not just games. I remember a piece on Polygon where the writer was complaining that she couldn't play as a girl in South Park: The Stick of Truth, and I just rolled my eyes, because South Park is an established universe where the protagonists are young boys who treat girls a very specific way, and to have them treat my character like it's no big deal that she happens to be a girl... well, maybe it's progressive, but it's also not very realistic and it's not South Park. In contrast, one of my greatest gaming memories was watching an ex play Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and there was a part where he walked into a bar, and I remember telling him, "Oh! That guy in the corner is going to come up to you and offer you a great job!" And then... nothing. The NPC completely ignored my boyfriend, and I was confused, until I thought back to my own experience playing the game and what the NPC said to me, and I realized that his dialogue was very gender-loaded. I was super jazzed when I realized it was because I played as a woman and my ex was playing a male avatar. I loved it because it validated my experiences and it was unique to playing as that gender (not sure if there were any male-specific missions).
So yeah, playing as a woman matters to me, too. I don't mind playing guys once in a while, but I'd like to mix things up, and I'd like to have it matter. You know who else it matters to? Kids.
Too often I see comments on posts about gender representation that say things like, "I play as women all the time all the time, I don't see why having to play as a guy bothers you." Well, as it's been pointed out, the guys who play as women "all the time" are choosing to play that role, as opposed to being forced. But I'd say that even being forced doesn't bother me...that much. But it does bother kids! There's a study I read (which I really wish I could have linked but I can't find it) that said that children are more likely to create avatars that look exactly like them, as opposed to adults who might do almost anything. And it said that this was because children have a weak sense of identity and tie it to their appearance very heavily, while adults value actions and accomplishments more. So what does it say to a kid if they can't make an avatar that looks like them? It says that their identity doesn't matter, and that's the kind of thing that sticks with you. So despite how I feel about specific cases, representation is important.
Going forward Ubisoft has promised to be more inclusive of women, and have them in future games, and I'm going to take them at their word. Because at a rate of one game per year, it's not going to be long 'til we see if they're ready to put their money where their mouth is, or if they're completely full of shit.
In short, I felt more pain and disappointment over finding out that the protagonist of Watch_Dogs was another boring white guy than I did at finding out about no women in co-op mode in AC:Unity. Like, I felt an actual sock in my gut when I was reading about Watch_Dogs, a game that is supposed to be about hacking in the present day. I really wanted to play the game but now it's like... does it have to be a guy? Is there anything intrinsic to him being male in the story? I admit I haven't played it, but reading the reviews, apparently a lot of people who have played it find the character himself boring. Which probably means weak characterization... which means gender probably isn't really an irreplaceable part of the character.
And that's important to me. I don't mind playing guys in games, but there's criteria that have to be met.
If a game is story-light, or at least, a story where the main character's identity is swap-able, there is no excuse for not having gender as an option. If you let the player specify their hair color, eye color, height, weight, and race, gender better damn well be an option. If I am the hero in the game, you better make sure that I am the hero. And plenty of games do this already; I can pick my gender in games like Animal Crossing and Pokémon and it doesn't really do much except make me more comfortable in my role in the game. Not that these games are perfect-many Japanese games still have an issue with cross-dressing, for example. And of course, there was that whole thing with same-sex marriage in Tomodachi Life...
If a game has a very set story arc with a well-defined character that you're meant to guide rather than inhabit, whether they're male or female doesn't matter as much to me. Oh, I'd love to see more women protagonists in general, but I'm not going to begrudge a male protagonist if the story is well-told and I actually want to follow his story. Assassin's Creed tends to fall into this-I do like the characters and I think who they are matters to the story and its setting. Of course, Ubisoft completely boned when one guy said that the French Revolution was "the story of men," because that's just not fucking true. But on a general level, I understand what they're trying to do and I respect that.
This whole thing has been irksome to me because at least Ubisoft addressed it, unlike the other 98% of the industry. How many game companies won't say anything, or when they do, it's something like, "we're not trying to make a statement, can't we just have fun?" As if serving more of your player base or experimenting with story options is somewhat antithetical to having fun. Some of the greatest games of all time feature women as protagonists: Metroid, Portal, Tomb Raider. It may be a handful of titles, but it does show that being inclusive does not make a game bad. Not being inclusive just shows a lack of imagination, if anything.
Of course, hearing a developer on Far Cry 4 also say they wanted to include women but couldn't due to technical constraints makes me think that someone is running around Ubisoft smacking the devs with a rolled-up newspaper every time they think about aiming for better gender representation. "No! We tell men's stories! No!"
And that's a thing the entire industry needs to work on-it's not that we need more women featured in games, but we need to be telling their stories, too. A woman isn't just a man with tits in a dress. Just as with race, it affects how you look at the world and how people look at you, and that kind of thing is important to address in all storytelling, not just games. I remember a piece on Polygon where the writer was complaining that she couldn't play as a girl in South Park: The Stick of Truth, and I just rolled my eyes, because South Park is an established universe where the protagonists are young boys who treat girls a very specific way, and to have them treat my character like it's no big deal that she happens to be a girl... well, maybe it's progressive, but it's also not very realistic and it's not South Park. In contrast, one of my greatest gaming memories was watching an ex play Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and there was a part where he walked into a bar, and I remember telling him, "Oh! That guy in the corner is going to come up to you and offer you a great job!" And then... nothing. The NPC completely ignored my boyfriend, and I was confused, until I thought back to my own experience playing the game and what the NPC said to me, and I realized that his dialogue was very gender-loaded. I was super jazzed when I realized it was because I played as a woman and my ex was playing a male avatar. I loved it because it validated my experiences and it was unique to playing as that gender (not sure if there were any male-specific missions).
So yeah, playing as a woman matters to me, too. I don't mind playing guys once in a while, but I'd like to mix things up, and I'd like to have it matter. You know who else it matters to? Kids.
Too often I see comments on posts about gender representation that say things like, "I play as women all the time all the time, I don't see why having to play as a guy bothers you." Well, as it's been pointed out, the guys who play as women "all the time" are choosing to play that role, as opposed to being forced. But I'd say that even being forced doesn't bother me...that much. But it does bother kids! There's a study I read (which I really wish I could have linked but I can't find it) that said that children are more likely to create avatars that look exactly like them, as opposed to adults who might do almost anything. And it said that this was because children have a weak sense of identity and tie it to their appearance very heavily, while adults value actions and accomplishments more. So what does it say to a kid if they can't make an avatar that looks like them? It says that their identity doesn't matter, and that's the kind of thing that sticks with you. So despite how I feel about specific cases, representation is important.
Going forward Ubisoft has promised to be more inclusive of women, and have them in future games, and I'm going to take them at their word. Because at a rate of one game per year, it's not going to be long 'til we see if they're ready to put their money where their mouth is, or if they're completely full of shit.