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[sixteen-bit]

Lol @ scum lords defending Ubi on this.

Seriously what was the last game you create your character in and couldn't change the gender? Tony Hawk 2?

 

[emalord]

I'm just waiting for people asking "why there are no gay dogs in videogames" now.
I guess this question will pop-up very soon

 

[Bucca]

Even if the character creator is co-op only, why can't I be a woman in co-op? It's not like it would be confusing as they mark your team mates so you don;t try and kill them anyway.

You wouldn't even be able to see your character though.

Everyone sees their own character as Arnaud or however the fuck you spell his name.

 

[Frolow]

That's cool, now give me the list where the protagonist is male.
What's that? It's every other fucking game ever made?

Weird how 50% of the population consists of girls/women yet they only make up like 0.5% of games huh?

So we need to meet a status quo of 50% Women as playable protagonists? I have absolutely nothing against Woman being leads in games, but I hate the mentality that every single game out there needs to have the option, otherwise it's complete inequality.

 

[Wiktor]

Weird how 50% of the population consists of girls/women yet they only make up like 0.5% of games huh?

Huh? Women are protagonists of vast majority of casual games, which just happen also be the types of games women play the most. Same thing happened to adventure games in the past where mostly german devs were creating them .

 

[EightBitNate]

Rockstar's stance

 

[Morrigan Stark]

So we need to meet a status quo of 50% Women as playable protagonists? I have absolutely nothing against Woman being leads in gamed, but I hate the mentality that every single game out there needs to have the option, otherwise it's complete inequality.

What about the mentality that more representation would be a good thing? But that's harder to demolish than "50% quota" strawmen, of course...

 

[Card Boy]

I'm just waiting for people asking "why there are no gay dogs in videogames" now.
I guess this question will pop-up very soon

what?

 

[Shinypogs]

Corday (if he's talking about her) could be an important non-playable character. Historical figures are not playable in AC games.

That would be even more hilarious, here is this famous female Assassin, isn't it cool how you can't ever be female. We could only afford to make you awesome if you were a guy.

If the main character has to be male for story reasons that's fine. However when planning the game they should have allowed for choice of a female character during campaign co-cop. You'd still have to be the male MC if it was your game others were joining but if you were jumping into someone else's you should have a choice.

 

[HalfBakedProphet]

I liked how you could recruit female Assassin's in Brotherhood. That was years ago, kind of surprised they didn't continue the trend with Unity considering you customize the character(s)

 

[TheWatchGuard]

But that's bullshit. I mean I get it, but it's still just lazy dev bullshit.
They could have just re-skinned woman characters and it would have been perfectly fine. Instead they just decided to omit them all together, which is strange.

For starters there is one character Arno, he has a story this game is about his story. Let's say you join a Co op mission, your going to be playing as Arno who you can customize is outfit and skills, there will be three other people also playing as Arno. Those three people will see you and you'll look different like a different character model but you will still see yourself as Arno and they will look different to you. It's the same thing Watch Dogs does in multiplayer. So in order to have a female character you play as they would need to essentially make the game twice.

 

[dreamfall]

We had Aveline.

It possibly can't be that difficult!

OUT OF FOUR, we couldn't even play as one?!

 

[Bucca]

I liked how you could recruit female Assassin's in Brotherhood. That was years ago, kind of surprised they didn't continue the trend with Unity.

The funny thing is, those female assassins had the same animations as the male ones, iirc.

 

[NullPointer]

If all four male characters have the same animations and can swap the same gear than I think their argument about asset creation priorities can be taken at face value.

They didn't prioritize having a female character, that seems to be true enough, but at this point I don't doubt that it would be a good deal of work to support it, and they cut it to allow them to focus.

That all seems fine to me, but if people want to criticize them for the lack of choice from the get-go that seems more than fair as well.

 

[BurnOutBrighter]

I don't know where people got the idea that devs are somehow obligated to provide female character.

^

It would be nice to have a female playable character, but Ubisoft have decided to go with male characters. They are under no obligation to cater to people who want them.

Lol @ scum lords defending Ubi on this.

Seriously what was the last game you create your character in and couldn't change the gender? Tony Hawk 2?

You must not have played many games recently. You can't even change you gender in Tomb Raider.

 

[Deified Data]

Is it because, for the most part, the stories were written for women characters and not to have interchangeable generic male/female characters?

A story written for a male character, OMG SEXIST.

Isn't your character already generic, though? That's what the uproar's about from what I gather. Generic plot written for a generic character that still has to be male, inexplicably.

 

[Hunter S.]

Oh well.

 

[TheLegendOfMart]

That would be even more hilarious, here is this famous female Assassin, isn't it cool how you can't ever be female. We could only afford to make you awesome if you were a guy.

If the main character has to be male for story reasons that's fine. However when planning the game they should have allowed for choice of a female character during campaign co-cop. You'd still have to be the male MC if it was your game others were joining but if you were jumping into someone else's you should have a choice.

You play as the male character on every system, co-op characters appear different so you don't have four of the same character running around the screen.

Isn't your character already generic, though? That's what the uproar's about from what I gather. Generic plot written for a generic character that still has to be male, inexplicably.

Why does it HAVE to be male?

They wrote a female lead for Liberation, it just happens that this story was written for a male character, whether you perceive him to be generic or not, while it would be great to have a strong female lead in more AAA games I wouldn't force the writers to do it if they have male characters in mind.

 

[Sianos]

It's okay guys, the new Zelda features a female protagonist so everything is a-okay!

I don't understand why there wouldn't be an option in a co-op game featuring a character creator that doesn't give the option for a female character. That just seems ridiculous to me, half of your potential audience unable to appear as their own gender. Its one thing for a game to not feature a female lead, but to exclude women from the character creator is ridiculous.

 

[Sai-kun]

Isn't your character already generic, though? That's what the uproar's about from what I gather. Generic plot written for a generic character that still has to be male, inexplicably.

I think in the campaign co-op, each user sees themself as Arnaud, the main character, just with a different color outfit.

 

[stufte]

i think i'm being pretty direct in calling out bad posts i've seen in this thread.

fake edit: seems that everyone sees themselves as arnaud, which i guess...makes this 'okay'. still the worst excuse i've ever heard but

As a dev, you have to make decisions that fans aren't privy to. Making a female character, with separate clothing options (if you're choosing clothing, etc.), animations, voice acting is no small feat. You may see the inclusion of a female character as trivial work, but trust me when I say that it absolutely is not. These kinds of decisions are made because of deadlines, not out of any need to be sexist or lazy. Game development is much more complicated than the fans give it credit for, which leads to shitty "lol lazy devs" posts I see in this forum day in - day out.

 

[Bucca]

It's okay guys, the new Zelda features a female protagonist so everything is a-okay!

I don't understand why there wouldn't be an option in a co-op game featuring a character creator that doesn't give the option for a female character. That just seems ridiculous to me, half of your potential audience unable to appear as their own gender. Its one thing for a game to not feature a female lead, but to exclude women from the character creator is ridiculous.

Because it wouldn't matter. Everyone sees themselves as the protagonist of Unity when playing co-op.

 

[mechphree]

Alot of people like to quote AC: Liberations in these types of post which is weird. Ubisoft clearly feels their is too much risk to put out a mainline female or even black protagranist in their games so they used the Vita as their test bed...nothing wrong with that.

Getting back to this thread, I think OP just wants choice. I wish I could play a black male lead character more often, but most likely I never get the chance. I don't understand why people seem to be so adverse to diversity and call people asking for said diversity "forcing boundaries on game devs" or whatever.

Why not just show more diversity because in the real world it is very diverse...

 

[firehawk12]

Speaking to VideoGamer, technical director James Therien said making female characters is just too much work.

"It was on our feature list until not too long ago, but it's a question of focus and production. So we wanted to make sure we had the best experience for the character. A female character means that you have to redo a lot of animation, a lot of costumes. It would have doubled the work on those things," he said, and I hope he was wiping sweat off his brow as he did it.

I'm getting The Last Guardian flashbacks now.

 

[Buzzman]

So we need to meet a status quo of 50% Women as playable protagonists? I have absolutely nothing against Woman being leads in games, but I hate the mentality that every single game out there needs to have the option, otherwise it's complete inequality.

I'm not saying we should have 50/50 for both genders. It would be nice if it were slightly more balanced than 100:1 though.

 

[bigboss370]

oh, its actually 4 different characters in Unity? So if you're not playing online co-op, the other 3 guys are AI controlled?


also, i really have a problem with this line:
Ubisoft has here trotted out a tired, stupid, constantly refuted excuse for why it has perpetuated the cycle of sexism and under-representation in the games industry


i really don't think Ubi of all people are "perpetuating" anything. They have made games with female characters, they have Ayisha do their stage presentation every year, they have a female player in rainbow six, they have women in high position at the company itself, etc...

 

[Bucca]

Alot of people like to quote AC: Liberations in these types of post which is weird. Ubisoft clearly feels their is too much risk to put out a mainline female or even black protagranist in their games so they used the Vita as their test bed...nothing wrong with that.

Getting back to this thread, I think OP just wants choice. I wish I could play a black male lead character more often, but most likely I never get the chance. I don't understand why people seem to be so adverse to diversity and call people asking for said diversity "forcing boundaries on game devs" or whatever.

Why not just show more diversity because in the real world it is very diverse...

That Freedom Cry DLC for AC4 sold pretty well I think, the one starring Adewale.

 

[HighResTomato]

Lol @ scum lords defending Ubi on this.

Seriously what was the last game you create your character in and couldn't change the gender? Tony Hawk 2?

Because people are arguing against you or your ideas? How civil.

Oh and where is the storyline in TH2 I must have missed it. -.-

 

[EMT0]

Why are you being so passive aggressive?

That's not passive aggressive, that's just rudeness.

The fact that you probably worked so hard to come out with such a miserably small list that covers over 20 years of games to do your little trolling makes a case for what the "White Knights" are saying, what a den of immature people this board has turned into.

Correct me if I'm wrong but every game on the list had a release in the PS360 generation onwards.

 

[bishopcruz]

I'm normally not one of those who bitches much about these things. But what I don't think people understand this time around is that it makes no sense that none of the Assassins in multiplayer co-op are female either. That's just plain odd. I understand that the development resources might not have been allocated for it, and that decision was probably a result of a cost-benefit analysis early on, but yeah that none of the co-op characters are female just seems like a missed opportunity.

I mean, they could have used Aveline as a base at the very least. She was awesome. And we've had some great female Assassins in the series before as well. It seems like a HUGE missed opportunity.

 

[TheLegendOfMart]

It's okay guys, the new Zelda features a female protagonist so everything is a-okay!

I don't understand why there wouldn't be an option in a co-op game featuring a character creator that doesn't give the option for a female character. That just seems ridiculous to me, half of your potential audience unable to appear as their own gender. Its one thing for a game to not feature a female lead, but to exclude women from the character creator is ridiculous.

You don't pick a co-op character, the character is the main character for the player of the system they are playing on, the other players on your system just have a different appearance so you don't have four main characters using same player model running around co-op.

 

[ComputerBlue]

Its very disappointing.

The Previous AC games Multiplayer had many strong female character designs and models. I don't understand what's so hard about adding them here. Makes no sense.

I'm sure you're already aware of it, but they removed all PVP from Unity, which is a tragedy in itself. But their reasoning for not having any female playable characters is ridiculous as all the female characters you could play as in previous titles didn't have many different animations.

 

[Totobeni]

I liked how you could recruit female Assassin's in Brotherhood. That was years ago, kind of surprised they didn't continue the trend with Unity considering you customize the character(s)

as people said, they have a half french lead character in Assassin's Creed III: Liberation (have most of Conner's animations). why can't they have playable one for Unity. there is no excuse here really.

 

[Frolow]

What about the mentality that more representation would be a good thing? But that's harder to demolish than "50% quota" strawmen, of course...

More representation is a great thing, but we don't need to negatively single out every game out there that doesn't feature the option. We should be encouraging more games to be built from the ground up with more options in mind, while not limiting any developer's vision by forcing representation.

I'm not trying to defend Ubisoft here, it's a shitty excuse for a game with a character creation system, but I hope you get my point.

 

[Orochinagis]

The funny thing is, those female assassins had the same animations as the male ones, iirc.

All MP characters and the NPCs too so there is not a real unique female moveset outside executions

 

[Bucca]

I'm normally not one of those who bitches much about these things. But what I don't think people understand this time around is that it makes no sense that none of the Assassins in multiplayer co-op are female either. That's just plain odd. I understand that the development resources might not have been allocated for it, and that decision was probably a result of a cost-benefit analysis early on, but yeah that none of the co-op characters are female just seems like a missed opportunity.

I mean, they could have used Aveline as a base at the very least. She was awesome. And we've had some great female Assassins in the series before as well. It seems like a HUGE missed opportunity.

It makes sense in that it literally wouldn't matter to the person playing because everyone sees themselves as Arnaud.

The only way you'd see a female character would be if someone else had made one, not like you could view your own.

 

[maneil99]

In my opinion games will never have a large amount of female leads in AAA because the audience is predomintly male, now if you wish to say thats because of under use go ahead. It's similiar to any media, 'Black Comedies' feature mostly black people, bollywood features indians. Now the question becomes ; how do we include more females into gaming and b) is it right to change a games direction because of that. I have a few questions, can you make your own character or are we talking the generic Co Op guys? If you want switchable protaganists for AC thats riducluious, you'd need to have 2x everyline, seperation animations, seperate cutscenes hell even seperate reactions.

 

[woen]

Did you guys understood that you will always play and see you as Arno, in SP and co-op ? Your friends will look like the 3 others Assassins, but even if they decided to create one or two female characters (w/asset &all), you couldn't have played as a female character.

http://www.polygon.com/e3-2014/2014/6/10/5798592/assassins-creed-unity-female-assassins

"It's double the animations, it's double the voices, all that stuff and double the visual assets," Amancio said. "Especially because we have customizable assassins. It was really a lot of extra production work."

(...)

Speaking with Polygon during a different interview, level designer Bruno St. Andre estimated more than 8,000 animations would have had to be recreated on a different skeleton

It is fully justified.

 

[TheWatchGuard]

All MP characters and the NPCs too so there is not a real unique female moveset outside executions

More representation is a great thing, but we don't need to negatively single out every game out there that doesn't feature the option. We should be encouraging more games to be built from the ground up with more options in mind, while not limiting any developer's vision by forcing representation.

I'm not trying to defend Ubisoft here, it's a shitty excuse for a game with a character creation system, but I hope you get my point.

There is no character creation system.

 

[Bucca]

All MP characters and the NPCs too so there is not a real unique female moveset outside executions

Female MP characters animated differently than the male ones though, that's for sure.

Running (and jumping?) animation in particular.

 

[Wiktor]

I don't understand why there wouldn't be an option in a co-op game featuring a character creator that doesn't give the option for a female character..

Ubisoft clearly explained why. I have no idea why people are assuming they're lying when the company clearly has no problem with providing female characters in their other games. There are ones in Division, there were ones in past AC games. But there's none in one new game, one that's build on new engine, has different setting, completely new multiplayer and very strict release schuedle. So OMG! Ubisoft obviously has sexist agenda here!

Seriously, their explanation are perfectly reasonable and logical given the nature of this project. It's pretty much given that in future entries female characters will appear, they just lacked time to it properly in this one game.

 

[Exploratory]

most games have only playable men. why they are making a fuzz about playable women ?

is this article written by female ?


let it go.

Also, AC on Vita had a female lead.

Most games only have heterosexual white men but as the main character. Should I...never mind I can't even finish this sentence. Just never post that again.

 

[Sai-kun]

As a dev, you have to make decisions that fans aren't privy to. Making a female character, with separate clothing options (if you're choosing clothing, etc.), animations, voice acting is no small feat. You may see the inclusion of a female character as trivial work, but trust me when I say that it absolutely is not. These kinds of decisions are made because of deadlines, not out of any need to be sexist or lazy. Game development is much more complicated than the fans give it credit for, which leads to shitty "lol lazy devs" posts I see in this forum day in - day out.

I have developed games before, I totally, sincerely understand to some extent that it isn't just a button you push.

But Ubisoft employs over 9000 people. Come on.


edit: the game is shipping in 5 months, obv female assassins aren't happening this go-round, but it's still good for us to call out companies and people that make decisions like this.

 

[Vermillion]

I genuinely don't care. Singling out developers for not including female characters isn't my speed. I prefer encouraging the industry on the whole to create more non straight white male characters. Picking and choosing targets for *not* doing so is bleh.

However!

Also:

This is pretty interesting, and a good case for pointing fingers at Ubisoft. Ubisoft prides itself on doing research when they make these games, don't they? A female assassin should have been a shoe-in.

EDIT: Oh, and Liberation is a great counter-point to the argument that they'd have to make all-new animations for a female character.

 

[TheLegendOfMart]

Most games only have heterosexual white men but as the main character. Should I...never mind I can't even finish this sentence. Just never post that again.

If it made sense for the game and the story then yes, if it was just incidental that the character was whatever you were going to end that sentence with just to fill a quota then no.

 

[ComputerBlue]

Female MP characters animated differently than the male ones though, that's for sure.

Running (and jumping?) animation in particular.

Hardly, just running and walking, everything else was pretty much the same. It's a poor excuse, even though PVP is removed they've had recruitable female assassins in SP for years now.

 

[coolasj19]

Is this one of those threads where bans happen? I think it is. Gonna say my piece and leave. The current state is only as bad as you think it is. We get female protagonist now and when we do, we usually get decently written stories made especially for that female protagonist. I don't know if I want a future where a female protagonist is simply interchangeable with a male one for comparatively arbitrary representation principles. If you're gonna do something, do it right. (This also applies to any other accept of make a female protagonist. Voice acting, animations, story, everything)

 

[Frolow]

There is no character creation system.

There isn't? Must have got confused. I've never played an Assassin's Creed game so I'm just judging off of what others have said here.

 

[mechphree]

For starters there is one character Arno, he has a story this game is about his story. Let's say you join a Co op mission, your going to be playing as Arno who you can customize is outfit and skills, there will be three other people also playing as Arno. Those three people will see you and you'll look different like a different character model but you will still see yourself as Arno and they will look different to you. It's the same thing Watch Dogs does in multiplayer. So in order to have a female character you play as they would need to essentially make the game twice.

That goes back to not being inclusive of diversity in the first place though. I dont see why more games don't adopt the way Mass Effect did with Gender how you could make a female or male shepard. I'll give you the fact that single player I guess you play as Arno, but does it really matter if it's co-op for you to just have a option to play other gender?
And their reasoning from what I read wasn't about story...it was about them being too lazy to animate for a female character because it wasn't priority for them.

 

[Puppet Shadow]

I'm just waiting for people asking "why there are no gay dogs in videogames" now.
I guess this question will pop-up very soon

Heh, wasn't Chomps in GTA V gay? Rockstar ahead of the curve again!