T̶u̶m̶b̶l̶r̶ wofl Megathread

[Taboo]

Writers are expensive. Coders are expensive. Modelers are expensive. Animators are expensive. Voice actors are expensive. QA is expensive.

[Ad Bot]

[childofdarkness016]

Say you have $1000 to make a small game.
You can budget $250 towards your friendly male antagonist, $250 to storyboards, and $500 to the coding and production team.

But oh no! outcry! people want a friendly female antagonist! Now you need another $250 to cover the production of the new character, and another $250 to re-write the story.

While it may not cost more or less, if it wasn't planned in the first place, it's going to cost hours and money that people really don't want to deal with.

That I agree with, but from what I know about the Ubisoft deal, that's not the case. It was the complete opposite and I guess they dropped that idea because they could just copy the male models from past games and modify it to better fit with whatever the current expectations are for graphics and make it look like a somewhat different character. It's better for the budget but they can probably spend it on a newer looking character that's different from the previous ones.

also if someone can get me the exact numbers that would be required to calculate either argument i'm all ears

[SeventhSandwich]

even if you're better than me that's pretty egotistical of you to assume that

I think my knowledge in musical theory is above average, at the very least.

I stand corrected on that. Your music is better than some of the stuff my friends in college are doing.

i brought it up because i at least am working on a production and witness what's going on with the character designs and have a say in it?? I still see it as relevant, sorry. Maybe not to budgeting, but at least the workflow around game design is something i have limited knowledge in. And I don't see how the budget cost for a female character is any different from a male character.

It's not different, they're just both very expensive. Especially with Assassin's Creed because the amount of animation work they've done for all the jumping and climbing is insane. They probably recorded it by hiring people to perform the stunts while wearing suits covered in motion sensors. It all adds up and it all costs a stuff ton of money. Assassin's Creed 2 had one of the highest development budgets in history.

from what I was informed of, they originally had a single female protagonist. Maybe I'm misinformed??

You are. They were going to allow players to swap between characters, but scrapped it for budgeting reasons.

It's a double standard when you phrase it like that, but it's a different situation. They aren't simply cutting, they're replacing the female protagonist with a male protagonist. If they cut a major female character, fine, whatever, but when you're changing the protagonist's gender because you don't want to animate a woman, that's lazy.

See above

Yeah, misrepresentation is more important and what i think the issue is with macbeth, but I'm not even COMPLAINING about it. I was comparing the video Buu showed to it because someone didn't see why it was misogynist. Macbeth is accepted as one of Shakespeare's most misogynist plays.

You're the one making it out to be loveist. Villains are stereotypically manipulative, and you're the one who is saying that it's misrepresenting women because the female villain is also manipulative. It doesn't have anything to do with Lady Macbeth being female, she's manipulative by character.

Not everything is black and white. Sure, it's misogynist in the way I pointed it out, but if you weren't sarcastic, you were right too.

Both criticisms are pedantic garbage that has no basis in literary criticism. Nitpicking over demographics is stupid because you can always find one group that isn't 'represented enough' in media. The bottom line here is that it's not important. People aren't as stupid as you think, and just because a popular television show doesn't have a whole lot of black characters doesn't mean that a generation is growing up to believe that black people don't exist. That's hyperbole to the max.

The issue I'm trying to acknowledge is that the only portrayal of women is as victims and enemies. The former is misrepresentation, and the former doesn't really affect it positively or negatively. So that's a negative and a neutral, which is still a negative. It could really only be redeemed if there were a female character on the protagonist's side who isn't a constant victim. and even then i don't think it's that bad of an offender

That's such a dumb criticism though. If you really flesh it out, there's only 3 categories of characters in videogames. The main character(s), the villains, and the minor characters(encompassing victims). If you do not have a female main character, you will naturally have the only female characters as villains and minor character. That's because those are the only categories left. However, if you have a male main character, you'll still have 95% of the overall male characters as villains and minor-characters. So what's really the big difference here? It's that the main character is not female.

That's the writer's job to tell though. The guy writing the story for the videogame is the one who decides what's gonna happen, and just because they pick a man as the main character doesn't make them loveist.

If you're going to complain about there not being enough female heroes in videogames, make a videogame with a female hero. The solution is not to piss on otherwise respectful and talented videogame developers for using a male main character to tell their story. Fix the problem yourself if you care so much about it.

[Taboo]

also if someone can get me the exact numbers that would be required to calculate either argument i'm all ears

Let's put it into more accessible perspective for you. A competent writer with a skilled agent can be outlandishly high, but let's go with $1,500. Freelance programmers typically charge about $1,500 per week, though that will vary a lot depending on the work. A character programmer would probably be done in about a week, under ideal circumstances. A decent quality woman is about $400, and that's just premade, it would probably be somewhere more like $500 to $600 to cover a custom commission and licensing, along with that relative chunk out of your profits. If it wasn't included in the modelers contract or if it was, animation can be about $200. I can't find a decent source on this, it's just from experience. Common voice acting pricing can be about $6 per line (I'm really glad I remembered that thread existed), and while this would be a protagonist role, it's also within the theoretical context of AC, so it'd probably be somewhere in the neighbourhood of $800. Even the most mediocre of QA companies still charge some $300 per tester per week, though that's again from experience and probably varies a lot.
These are all within the amateur realm. You can probably triple these values or more to consider the scope that something like Ubisoft would be working within and, of course, the fact that people would be charging more for higher quality work. With my theoretical numbers, you're looking at about $16,200 to replace a character, probably more. And that's to replace a character, the money has already been spent once for the first go.

[childofdarkness016]

You are. They were going to allow players to swap between characters, but scrapped it for budgeting reasons.
See above

Alright, my stance has changed slightly now, but I still think it's a missed opportunity for them. If they were going to have both, why not pick a female character? Only reasons why I can see is that A: They can use older models, but that's just laziness, or B: They want to appeal to a male demographic with a male protagonist, which is more reasonable.

You're the one making it out to be loveist. Villains are stereotypically manipulative, and you're the one who is saying that it's misrepresenting women because the female villain is also manipulative. It doesn't have anything to do with Lady Macbeth being female, she's manipulative by character.

The femme fatale is a very common archetype that's considered misogynistic, and Lady MacBeth is a textbook example. Yeah, it's her character, but a manipulative woman is a negative stereotype that frequently appears in media.

Both criticisms are pedantic garbage that has no basis in literary criticism. Nitpicking over demographics is stupid because you can always find one group that isn't 'represented enough' in media. The bottom line here is that it's not important. People aren't as stupid as you think, and just because a popular television show doesn't have a whole lot of black characters doesn't mean that a generation is growing up to believe that black people don't exist. That's hyperbole to the max.

actually representation does matter

When it comes to representation and how people perceive it, the easiest group to discuss is aloveuals. It might sound strange, but especially being an aloveual, I honestly do think TV characters have a massive influence on how people perceive my own loveuality.

First, I have to ask: What are some aloveual characters from mainstream media that come to mind? Sheldon Cooper from the Big Bang Theory is a pretty well known example (and the only canon one i'm aware of). His loveuality is treated as a joke and adds to his character by making him look more alien. People seem to undermine aloveuality, treat it as a joke ("Who cares about aloveuality??"), and the aloveual stereotype is pretty much Sheldon in the first place. This is a misrepresentation, and reinforces negative stereotypes. And, yes, I'm forced to watch the Big Bang Theory, so I'm much more familiar on the characters than I want to be.

Now, since the only character that's any form of representation is negative, this puts a responsibility that's often ignored: Countering this negative stereotype. If people only see the negative in something, they aren't going to see the positive without actually interacting with multiple aloveuals.

It's different for gender because it's a broader group, yes, but it's really not different. A lack of representation is essentially a missed opportunity to do something good, which doesn't make it particularly offensive. What IS offensive about Outlast is that the women that are there are portrayed as victims (and enemies), reinforcing a negative stereotype (that isn't as prevalent as it was during shakespeare's time but that doesn't matter. it's still an issue).

That's such a dumb criticism though. If you really flesh it out, there's only 3 categories of characters in videogames. The main character(s), the villains, and the minor characters(encompassing victims). If you do not have a female main character, you will naturally have the only female characters as villains and minor character. That's because those are the only categories left. However, if you have a male main character, you'll still have 95% of the overall male characters as villains and minor-characters. So what's really the big difference here? It's that the main character is not female.

The roles in the story do matter, but it's not the main issue. The issue is that the only characters are either victims (the main issue.) or insignificant enemies and therefore don't fall into either of the 3 categories you listed.

Just a nitpick though (especially as someone who enjoys writing), I think there are more categories than that. Protagonist, (an optional) antagonist, major Ally, major villain, and side character might  be better groups.

That's the writer's job to tell though. The guy writing the story for the videogame is the one who decides what's gonna happen, and just because they pick a man as the main character doesn't make them loveist.

Obviously it won't, and that's not the issue.

If you're going to complain about there not being enough female heroes in videogames, make a videogame with a female hero.

Fix the problem yourself if you care so much about it.

well i mean that's literally what i am doing but ok

I mean, making a game with a female protagonist wasn't my original goal, but that's how we chose to tell the story. We were actually going to have a male protagonist, but we decided against that because we felt that a female protagonist would get our game's message across better.

The issue with gender in video game protagonists is that there simply aren't enough stories that tell a woman's. It's not BAD to tell a story from a male perspective, but when given a choice whether to drop the male protagonist option or the female, it's a problem if you favor the male option (especially if it's out of laziness rather than potential market).

The solution is not to piss on otherwise respectful and talented videogame developers for using a male main character to tell their story.

Criticism isn't the same as pissing on them. I haven't played Outlast myself and only watched a bit, and it looked fun. Effort was obviously put into it, and I tend not to express opinions on games I haven't played so I don't want to say it's good or bad. One of my favorite games, EarthBound, is pretty misogynist from my understanding, mostly because Paula takes on the damsel in distress role twice. It's even a debate I've had myself, because the reason she WAS captured frequently was because only she had the power to defeat the antagonist. Regardless, I think it's a great game, however, and Shigesato Itoi is one of my heroes. Finding a flaw in something is different from pissing on it and I don't believe I'm pissing on Outlast.

-snop-

Alright, but I just learned that there was already a planned female protagonist alongside the male protagonist. Unless they did the model of the male first and ignored the female, there's little reason to pick the female character to be the one that kicks the bucket.

I should also note that while I think Ubisoft made a mistake, they should not feel obligated to replace their protagonist unless it's within their budget, which it's probably not at this point.


in other news does anyone else really hate it when you lose a follower and you don't know which one?? I guess big blogs don't really notice, but someone unfollowed me a while ago and i've been trying to count my followers constantly and see who it is :C

I'm not offended that they unfollowed me, just for clarification. Personally I'm happy when people unfollow me because they don't like my content and don't want to look at it (although they should just get xhit or something idk)

edit edit: turns out the missing follower was niff :C

[Taboo]

there's little reason to pick the female character to be the one that kicks the bucket.

Selling a video game.

[childofdarkness016]

Selling a video game.

if you mean that a male demographic (and what is assumed to be the majority) isn't going to buy a game with a female protagonist, then i don't know how to talk to you

if you mean that it's too costly to have a female protagonist, I think I need clarification as to how far they were into production. If, while running with the concept of having two playable protagonists, they put more work into creating a new, original male character and put no time in the female counterpart, then sure, why not. But I haven't been given evidence that this is the case.

The way I see what's going on and understand, because their budget was running low, they had to remove a pretty cool feature and favor one gender of a protagonist. They picked a male protagonist because they can just edit the protagonist from the previous assassin's creed game. Yeah, it's good for the budget, but it's lazy character design. They're pretty much making a sonic recolor (Ok, that's a bit too harsh: maybe a pokemon splice with some editing?) of their own character. Again, I realize that this might not be the case, but this is what I've learned about the controversy and don't see evidence that disproves this.

[McJobless]

I already made a loving topic about how this entire thing was bullstuff, and yet you people are here arguing about it in the Tumblr topic. Why? Has Tumblr run out of other anti-matriarchy bullstuff?

There was no decision between female or male protagonist because the Creative Director would likely have not been even thinking about the protagonists' gender/love. Considering the fact they've already had females in multiplayer and at least one or two other AC games, PLUS the movie thing they did, I don't think Ubisoft ever saw themselves in the wrong. Their entire focus was on gameplay. When they came to do the main protagonist, they would have likely chosen to make a bloke similar enough to the other guys because of how the AC lineage has worked so far. They've only ever done male protagonists in their PC/Console-focused games, so why change now?

The amount of people crying over gender inside the video games themselves is incredibly ridiculous. Any good designer knows that a character is little more than a tool. It's great if they have a personality and convey a story, but at the end of the day, they are simply a representation of the player within the game-space. I find this notion of "loveism" to be uninformed and misrepresenting good game design.

Can we please get back to the discussion about what a good Tumblr looks like? This loving moronic discussion (not you guys specifically, but the much loud people who have no clue on what they're fighting against) makes me want to pull a Phil Fish, even though I haven't even done anything yet.

[Niff]

I got a URL change - from niffbl to shiny-starizard

if you mean that a male demographic (and what is assumed to be the majority) isn't going to buy a game with a female protagonist, then i don't know how to talk to you

Do you not know how straight 9yos work?

edit edit: turns out the missing follower was niff :C

edit 2: I'm all for equal rights of others but 99% of your blog is that and it gets annoying seeing "y cant i go to both bathrooms if im trans????????" And stuff like that.

[Niff]

Whoops

[Char]

I already made a loving topic about how this entire thing was bullstuff, and yet you people are here arguing about it in the Tumblr topic. Why? Has Tumblr run out of other anti-matriarchy bullstuff?

no, it's definitely not popular on tumblr

At least, I haven't seen anything about it on my dashboard for a while, though  I saw a lot of stuff when it happened.

[mus]

I tried reading through childofdarkness' arguments in the last 3 page but I cringed too hard.

The way I see what's going on and understand, because their budget was running low, they had to remove a pretty cool feature and favor one gender of a protagonist.

how are they favoring a gender by going with less work?

[Niff]

no, it's definitely not popular on tumblr

At least, I haven't seen anything about it on my dashboard for a while, though  I saw a lot of stuff when it happened.

when "the flame was hot," it was all over my dash I didn't really care, but evedentaly people stopped caring after a couple of days.

[Skip]

I clicked on a thread about Tumblr and got exactly what I expected.

Paragraphs of arguments about...
*squints*
I see the word "female" enough times to assume feminism.
or gender in general.
forgeted if I know! :D

[Yosher]

>wake up
>hey guys what'd i miss-
>10 page argument that took place overnight
>