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Publishers who passed on female-lead Life is Strange "hope it changes the industry"
- Thread starter chadskin
- Start date
Good on Square, Dontnod and everyone involved. I've loved Life is Strange so far and really, really hope they knock it out of the park with the next 3 episodes.
I still don't get why the protagonists gender is such a big deal, myself. I have never ever cared whether I'm playing as a guy or a girl.
I still don't get why the protagonists gender is such a big deal, myself. I have never ever cared whether I'm playing as a guy or a girl.
threelights
Member
I quite liked how they did the choice and consequence in this game. The second episode had a few weird choices (bottle catching =X), and the writing is a little weird (totally forgivable), but the overall game is very good.
Best of luck to Dontnod!
Best of luck to Dontnod!
DAREALGUMMY
Member
I hope a game changes the industry when it comes to believable dialogue.
Dialogue is hella believable
ElBoxyBrown
Banned
I'm sure it still has something to do with companies still wanting all their games to sell "call of duty numbers."
I was surprised how popular it got right out of the gate, it's really good though. Donnie Darko the game so far.
nofunallowed
nofunallowed
Modest Mauser
Member
Yeah, this game is totally stuck in the retro zone. Sadface.
Still love the game, occasionally strange writing aside.
Pie and Beans
Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
Every time this comes up it sounds like a tall tale. Something very cynical about these publisher characters that keep saying the exact perfect soundbytes and of course impossibly identifiable.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
It's strange cause they get like 60-70% of dialogue right and then insert words like hella.
HueyFreeman
Banned
I don't think looking to the original tomb raider as a source of viable female representation is a great idea. Modern tomb raider is more fair, but the original is not in line with what these developers are talking about.
I say that as a fan of the series, but it was definitely part of the problem.
I don't disagree, it's just saddled with so much visual silliness that it kind of negates any of their successes.
GrandHarrier
Member
Do we know how successful the game has been?
SolidSnakex
Member
Classic Lara as a character is much better than the current Lara.
Successful enough that the president of Square personally visited Dontnod to congratulate them on its success.
Massive Duck. C.M.
Banned
I'd be more interested to know which PR flunky said it and whether it was genuine or not
Are there any know examples of a developer who has changed the original gender of their protagonist due to push-back from the publisher?
It feels like there have been a few stories about publishers turning away games with a female protagonist but I'm kind of curious about if any developers have caved to please the publisher in this area.
It feels like there have been a few stories about publishers turning away games with a female protagonist but I'm kind of curious about if any developers have caved to please the publisher in this area.
Miles Quaritch
Member
Really want to know which publishers it is...
Edited to be more like Life is Strange dialogue, like hella accurate holmes (hamburger phone).
Talking from experience, theres a line between believable dialogue in a piece of work and real life dialogue.
You can base a character off someone in real life, and use exactly the same expressions that person does and still someone will not find the character to be believable because of how used we got to the way dialogue is treated in movies/books, etc and in our own experiences.
Its why we got a lot of people saying Ellie was a poorly written character because shes always swearing, despite the fact that any teen her age would do that in real life.
People look at other pieces of work to base their acceptance of writing on other pieces, so I tend to be very open to writing that seems "poor" at first. Chances are, its just something you are not used to.
You can base a character off someone in real life, and use exactly the same expressions that person does and still someone will not find the character to be believable because of how used we got to the way dialogue is treated in movies/books, etc and in our own experiences.
Its why we got a lot of people saying Ellie was a poorly written character because shes always swearing, despite the fact that any teen her age would do that in real life.
People look at other pieces of work to base their acceptance of writing on other pieces, so I tend to be very open to writing that seems "poor" at first. Chances are, its just something you are not used to.
Miles Quaritch
Member
Only one character uses that word. Hardly the dialogue disaster some are trying to paint it as.
Wowfunhappy
Member
The Tomb Raider that came out 19 years ago is also not a good example of a female protagonist.
Publishers have no trouble adding sex appeal into their games. What's much more rare are nonsexuallised heroines, like Max.
People do say hella, though. Shit like amazeballs and awesomesauce are what stood out the most.
Fuck your selfie still the goat. victoria and kate still my waifus
Personally it felt less horrible and more off, weird little things. There was only one bit that actually made me cringe and it comes at the end of episode 1, can't remember what it was, but it was bad.
I'm still not quite sure this is. For every game that's tanked because the protagonist was female/black/whatever, you can point to at least five that tanked despite having a straight male protagonist. This industry doesn't make any sense sometimes.
DoktorEvil
Banned
Go fuck your selfie.
Victoria is Queen Bee for life.
I really enjoy the Mean Girls-esque story that Dontnod wants to tell. It's more interesting than anything Telltale has done post TWD S1 and The Wolf Among Us.
Also, Amazeballs and Awesoemsauce deserves to be in everyone's vocabulary. Sad face.
There's a market for everything, just keep the budget low if you know you're making something that appeals to a niche audience.
Publishers are out to make money, not art. They also have no obligation to 'further the medium' or whatever. Good on SE for having faith in their vision, though.
Publishers are out to make money, not art. They also have no obligation to 'further the medium' or whatever. Good on SE for having faith in their vision, though.
I know people that use both of those words. I hate it, but I can't stop them
Dargor
Member
Really hope that the big companies get to see/realise that this industry is big enough to house all sorts of games. Its almost crazy how they can't grasp the fact that with the number of people playing games on a daily basis, there are also enough people wiling to buy all kinds of games.
They just need to be good games and people will buy them. It doesn't matter if its about WW25 or how to deal with life. If its good, there will be an audience for it.
They just need to be good games and people will buy them. It doesn't matter if its about WW25 or how to deal with life. If its good, there will be an audience for it.
Wowfunhappy
Member
I would be very curious to see an actual study comparing games + character gender (and sexualized vs non-sexualized + review scores + sales. Given that companies do in fact tend to make decisions based on data, I would imagine that (non-publlic) studies like this do in fact exist, and that they probably don't work in our favor.
I had the same feeling.
Don't get me wrong, I have no doubt that publishers are resistant to games featuring female characters, and I don't doubt that the "games starring female characters don't sell" line has been given at some point, but the way this story is written feels a little too ideal from both a journalistic and PR standpoint.
Reminds me of the scene in Season 5 of The Wire where the editor calls out the anonymous quotes for sounding a little too good to be true.
I'd love to see the data myself. "Female protagonists don't sell" seems like such a self-fulfilling prophecy considering just how rare female protagonists have been in the western side of the industry.
SolidSnakex
Member
The closest would probably be Sleeping Dogs. The story about it goes that the game was originally being developed by Treyarch under the name Black Lotus. It starred an Asian female assassin. Activision apparently told them to remove the female lead at which point the project was pushed aside. It was later resurrected under the name True Crime: Hong Kong with UFG as the developer, except it now starred a male cop.
DoktorEvil
Banned
The problem with Remember Me or remade Tomb Raider wasn't that they were female led, but rather there was problems surrounding everything else in the game.
Publishers want to push the blame on the female protagonist when in reality everything else was either too dated or not designed well enough and the female protagonist suffers because of it.
It's a crock of shit that gamers don't want female led games. Those people are the minority, not the buying majority.
Publishers want to push the blame on the female protagonist when in reality everything else was either too dated or not designed well enough and the female protagonist suffers because of it.
It's a crock of shit that gamers don't want female led games. Those people are the minority, not the buying majority.
Sho_Nuff82
Member
People say those things in real life though.
DoktorEvil
Banned
Now if there was a game that could've done a female cop story, I would've be so down with it in Sleeping Dogs.
LurkerPrime
Member
Dontnod is a great developer, so I'm glad they're finding success in their vision. I can hardly wait to play Life is Strange when it's complete! It's also nice that Square-Enix, as misguided as they may seem sometimes, can still make good decisions.
In the same vein as the OP, Dave Gilbert (developer of the Blackwell Series, which features a female protagonist) made a blog post about female protagonists and their supposed effect on sales; it's an interesting and illuminating read. It was in sorta in response to Ubisoft's big hulabaloo surrounding the animating of female characters.
In the same vein as the OP, Dave Gilbert (developer of the Blackwell Series, which features a female protagonist) made a blog post about female protagonists and their supposed effect on sales; it's an interesting and illuminating read. It was in sorta in response to Ubisoft's big hulabaloo surrounding the animating of female characters.
Hella is a hella cool word, for realsies.
GTA VI starring Catalina would be cool.
This too. I generally like to play female characters in games where I get the choice because it's getting straight out boring to always have a dude as the main character at this point. Badass female cop would be really cool.
Pie and Beans
Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
Haha, bang on. Exactly what was coming to mind. These perfect back of the box quotes that just keep happening in real life somehow.
What has made it all the more eye-narrowing, is that they tried the exact same thing with Remember Me:
http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/20/publishers-rejected-remember-me-because-of-female-lead/
We get more phantom publisher villains that turned it down because of the female protag (never mind it was ditched ultimately by Sony coz it wasn't turning out too good) and even an added homophobic layer to that nameless, perfect villain. Please buy Remember Me, show them they're wrong.
Couple years on, no longer batting for Capcom, we get the exact same soundbytes for Life Is Strange. Now, see, there aren't actually that many publishers even left in the game these days, fewer still that don't have a female protag game of their own to point to. Now SquareEnix is the only pub with the balls to greenlight this female protag game, and its all boiled down to that easy "oh it wont sell becoz female" villainy angle again on all other pubs. Nevermind the "well, your last game sold like shit/played fairly shit so its probably a pass for us" reasoning, that don't make for the sweet positive 'diversity in games' PR interview. Now we have these past sinners showing repentance and hoping Dontnod change the industry.
The 'if it sounds like personal career fanfiction' bells, they are a'ringing.
I think publishers are starting to realize this, but I don't really think this is the game doing it.
This is actually the perfect format of game for the company though as far as emulating Telltale goes. It doesn't cost as much as a 'AAA' game, so there's not as much risk, and they don't have to worry about people not buying over gameplay complaints like their last game.
This type of game has also already been shown to be really popular as shown by how well Telltale games are doing which also had a female lead in the second season of Walking Dead. Ultimately, it was a good and smart move for the company to make.
This is actually the perfect format of game for the company though as far as emulating Telltale goes. It doesn't cost as much as a 'AAA' game, so there's not as much risk, and they don't have to worry about people not buying over gameplay complaints like their last game.
This type of game has also already been shown to be really popular as shown by how well Telltale games are doing which also had a female lead in the second season of Walking Dead. Ultimately, it was a good and smart move for the company to make.