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Whats with the lack of gender/race diversity in the Marvel vs Capcom Infinite Roster?

Jawmuncher

Member
With the most recent story mode trailer today (Find it here). We have found out that the roster is a total of 30 characters. Which isn't a bad number by any means until you start looking at the picks for the roster.
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(Image courtesy of Maximillian)

Disregarding anything about odd returnees (Not really what this thread is about). The game has only 4 female characters and the only black character has been regulated to DLC. I'm at a loss who at Marvel and Capcom thought this would be a good idea for a base roster. Especially when Marvel has been doing a really good job with diversifying their portfolio. You have the Black Panther movie out next year and Marvel even held a women of power event last year for a lot of their games. Then there seems to be an odd parity rule going on. Only 2 females on Capcom and 2 females on Marvel. With neither side being able to pick up the slack. Which sticks out even more when there were more female characters to use even without Xmen for both sides (Trish, Jill, Tron Bonne, Felecia, Hsien Ko, C. Viper. & She-Hulk). The fact that MvC couldn't even handle the 1/4th rule like Injustice 2 did with it's roster for female characters is sad.

Perhaps things will even out with DLC in the future. But from we know of from potential leaks. The upcoming 6 newcomers won't have any females present (Though we at least get black panther). I find this all very odd especially when SFV despite it's flaws has a very unique and diverse roster for the most part and that was obtained with a less amount of characters.

Overall it's pretty disheartening to see both companies wanting to be more diverse and then taking a step back on a title which would have benefited the most from it.
 

Neoxon

Junior Member
Given Marvel's big push for diversity, them not choosing very many females at launch is surprising. I wouldn't be surprised if the female parity rule was an actual thing, otherwise Capcom could have easily picked up the slack with their veterans.

Then again, Disney Infinity only had 2 playable women (Black Widow & Gamora) out of the 28 Marvel characters in the game.
 

CryptiK

Member
Because its a fusion of a popularity contest and promotional characters with new games and movies coming out(Unless you are Xmen of course). On the side of Capcom its clearly more about popularity where on Marvel its totally about the MCU and the only main woman from the MCU missing is Widow.
 
I'd like to say that they had to narrow it down from UMVC3 to the most popular characters, but fucking Spencer is in there so that can't be it. The characters they selected seems so random.
I really have no idea. I'll miss Jill and Trish the most. Hopefully dlc fixes this issue or does a better job balancing it out.
 
As far as race diversity goes I count 10 with out anything to do with the human race. X and Zero are reploids and not people. Rocket Racoon is a trash panda. Thanos, Dormomu, Skull guy, long eye brows guy, and flying lizard aren't even humans.
 

CryptiK

Member
Of course. That's why you have Nemesis, BioCom Reboot Specer, and Firebrand right in a neat column over there.
All recognisable characters. We have to remember Capcom lacks a lot of current successful franchises besides Street Fighter. Its not like they are overflowing in audience favourites. The whole character selection sucks anyway. Its missing Storm and Phoenix which would have been great.
 

BadWolf

Member
Honestly, I kind of felt the same way about FFXV. I thought it was weird that they didn't even have one female in your party, especially when you meet someone as cool as Aranea.

Not weird at all, the whole point was a road trip between buddies.

Didn't have a problem with it just like I didn't have a problem with the FFXIII trilogy being very much focused on female characters.
 

Jezan

Member
Probably cause they chose character from sources where there is not a lot to choose from.

I mean MCU has only 5 girls, two which are treated as damsels and one is just there cause of the smurfette principle, Black Widow could use Jill's move set from 3.

Capcom messed their side though.


Edit: OMG I forgot about Thor movies, we'll Sif could be one, but maybe they thought it would be like Gamora?
 

Neoxon

Junior Member
It's surprising to you? Really?
Even with the Fox ban impacting the base roster, there's still quite a few options on the table. That said, I also brought up Disney Infinity as an instance of Marvel skimping on the number of playable females in games.
 

JayEH

Junior Member
Jokes aside, they obviously picked functions over diversity for the roster.

All recognisable characters. We have to remember Capcom lacks a lot of current successful franchises besides Street Fighter. Its not like they are overflowing in audience favourites.

what?

Firebrand, 2009 spencer, recognizable?

Capcom lacking in audience favorites? Capcom has tons of beloved IPs that are not represented here.
 

2+2=5

The Amiga Brotherhood
You have furry skin, red skin, green skin, blue skin, metal skin, no skin... how can you complain about diversity?
/s
 

VeeP

Member
All recognisable characters. We have to remember Capcom lacks a lot of current successful franchises besides Street Fighter. Its not like they are overflowing in audience favourites. The whole character selection sucks anyway. Its missing Storm and Phoenix which would have been great.

But couldn't they have added Jill Valentine, Amaterasu (especially with Okami later this year), Felicia, or Tron Bonne? Do a lot of people even want Spencer or Nemesis?

With the Marvel side, smh, they have so many choices to choose from. I'm not sure why Black Panther and Captain Marvel are DLC.

Oh well, it's not like I'm picking this game up anyways. Hopefully fans are please with what they get.
 
I think it's the end result of:
-a smaller roster
-a lot of reuse from UMvC3 (but no X-Men)
-emphasis on F U N C T I O N S which benefits characters like Spencer, Nemesis and Firebrand
-they didn't invite Felicia back
 

Neoxon

Junior Member
I think it's the end result of:
-a smaller roster
-a lot of reuse from UMvC3 (but no X-Men)
-emphasis on F U N C T I O N S which benefits characters like Spencer, Nemesis or Firebrand
-they didn't invite Felicia back
I have a gut feeling that Felicia was axed due to her default being too revealing for TV (since MvCI tournaments will likely be on ESPN & Disney XD).

Either way, I don't blame Capcom for the Marvel side. I blame them for not using their side to pick up Marvel's slack.
 
The roster was put together by lawyers (on the Marvel side) and idiots (on the Capcom side). Also, the MCU is terrible when it comes to female representation and that is certainly reflected here. Some X-Women could have solved the problem but... Nope, because reasons.
 

Timeaisis

Member
Where are Jill, Trish and Tron Bonne? I mean, even if we limit the X-Men there are plenty more female Capcom characters they could be using.
 
The roster was put together by lawyers (on the Marvel side) and idiots (on the Capcom side). The MCU is terrible when it comes to female representation and that is certainly reflected here. Some X-Women could have solved the problem but... Nope.

I don't think that's even it. The MCU *has* female characters. Hell they could have just ported over Jill from UMVC and changed her skin and you'd have a pretty faithful Black Widow adaptation.

This feels more like idiots on both side. Marvel pushing for the most immediately recognizable legacy characters not owned by Fox (who are mostly white dudes) and Capcom... actually I have no fucking clue what Capcom is doing with their side of the roster.
 
Capcom has:

6 white guys
2 Asian guys
2 robots
1 zombie
1 Asian woman
1 white woman
2 alien guys

Marvel has:

9 white guys (technically)
2 alien guys
1 robot
1 white woman
1 alien woman
1 trash panda

Broken down, Capcom's lineup is technically more diverse but do non people really count
yet.
 

Neoxon

Junior Member
The roster was put together by lawyers (on the Marvel side) and idiots (on the Capcom side). Also, the MCU is terrible when it comes to female representation and that is certainly reflected here. Some X-Women could have solved the problem but... Nope, because reasons.
Even without Scarlet Witch (;_;), the MCU doesn't exactly have a shortage of females. Plus there's popular comic book characters like Ms. Marvel & Songbird to choose from.
 
Trish (and Vergil) are infinitely more recognizable than spencer or firebrand.

Like how the fuck does Ghosts and Goblins get 2 characters to DMC's 1.
 
I can't blame budget when they could have easily used Miles as Spider-Man with Peter as an unlockable skin, that decision either comes from Capcom not considering diversity or Marvel being more interested in MCU representation. They were even working on him in the last game before being scrapped, so it's not like he wasn't being considered.
 

Timeaisis

Member
That's where Jawmuncher's theory on female representation parity may come into play.

So, for some stupid reason Marvel only wanted two females and Capcom had to match exactly that number. Seems...very stupid, but plausible that's what actually happened.
 

Neoxon

Junior Member
I can't blame budget when they could have easily used Miles as Spider-Man with Peter as an unlockable skin, that decision either comes from Capcom not considering diversity or Marvel being more interested in MCU representation. They were even working on him in the last game before being scrapped, so it's not like he wasn't being considered.
Marvel isn't gonna axe Peter in favor of Miles. They'll co-exist like they are in the comics & cartoons, but Marvel won't remove Peter Parker (especially with him in the MCU).
 

PSqueak

Banned
Then again, Disney Infinity only had 2 playable women (Black Widow & Gamora) out of the 28 Marvel characters in the game.

They must have noticed because Infinity 3.0 actually added a ton of female characters overally, just not for Marvel strangely enough.
 

DrArchon

Member
All recognisable characters. We have to remember Capcom lacks a lot of current successful franchises besides Street Fighter. Its not like they are overflowing in audience favourites. The whole character selection sucks anyway. Its missing Storm and Phoenix which would have been great.

You might have a point if it was classic Spencer or ReArmed Spencer, but not 09 Spencer. The only people who recognize him are the people that played MvC3.

Also, SF's success right now pales in comparison to that of Monster Hunter's, which seems to be the sole thing keeping Capcom's lights on at the moment. And where's the MonHun character? Most likely locked away as a DLC character.
 

Alienous

Member
The Capcom and Marvel universes themselves aren't that diverse, especially when Capcom is restricted to MCU characters. I don't think Infinite is at fault.
 
Actually for some of the more bizarre capcom choices I wonder if Story Mode was actually the reason characters like Nemesis and Firebrand got in. The devs needed more villains that were just mooks for the heroes to fight.

We all know why Spencer got back in. Combofiend loved the character and fought for him to be back in. I wish they'd taken the Rad Spencer as his default look though. At least then he'd be a call back to Capcom's legacy instead of the generic dreads dude from that forgotten reboot.
 
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