Why are there so many HGs genderlocked to male?

Whoa, I was not expecting that! For some reason I thought it would be more of an even split or even slightly more female users. Maybe it’s the threads I frequent, like the original thread says. Maybe the numbers indicate that more male users would necessarily mean more male genderlocked games? :thinking:

Orrrr there’s no correlation, haha.

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There was a few on that thread that were surprised too :blush:

My guess was about matching with the polls, mostly because there are a lot of lurkers.

Question for those of you wishing for a female gender locked game. Would you still consider it one if for half the game the protagonist was a cat?

I never even saw that poll. I hardly ever go in the Off Topic section. I don’t think that poll can be taken as wholly accurate.

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Noteworthy that I believe a lot of male readers come from TGT (and other free games which are usually easier reads and power fantasies), and are disproportionately young and don’t actually purchase games.

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There are currently 5 female locked works in progress that I am aware of and have been updated within the last month. At least 3 of those I’m fairly sure will be finished and published games (+Gwen which is a long term project). Support those writers if you really want to see those games completed. Show that there is a strong interest there if a female or non binary locked Wip turns up on the forum. It’s all very well to say they’re wanted in a topic like this, but writers do watch how much attention various types of wips get and that’s where it actually matters if you want them done.

I think I’m going to leave this thread here as I don’t have anything else I think I can say on the topic.

Edit: it looks like the author of twin flames has actually finished his gender locked female game so there is one all set to go to HGs if it hasn’t been submitted already. It saddens me that his Wip topic only got 19 comments. (This one almost has 500). (WIP) Slayer of Evil

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I write small stories and I’m male, so its harder,for me anyway to understand a women’s perspective. And i don’t attempt to do so in fear of something like a “weak writing of the character” that why I don’t write special routes for females. Its more like copy and paste for me.

Thank you very much @Jacic. Yes, in Slayer of Evil you get to play a lady. When I was thinking of the MC, I had in mind Astra from another game of mine, Spacing Out, and yet it will be wrong to say that it is really her because she is placed in a setting that shows her in a very different light. So, I guess it will be easier for the reader to consider her a totally different character.

What was important for the character to be female was the connection to the two very different divine (or demonic depending on what the reader makes of it) feminine entities that she meets on her journey. And, there are quite a few other notable ladies that she befriends… or not quite.

Slayer of Evil is indeed in the queue and if all goes well with the review we may see it coming out in late summer of early fall (I guess).

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Y’know, if anyone expects you to write perfect upon first try they can go drink dishwater.
As said, worldbuilding, characterbuilding and a healthy dose of empathy are a good start. And you have lotsa people here who’ll quite likely improve your craft if you ask for feedback and help.

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Congratulations on getting Slayer of Evil finished Mayday :dizzy: . Looking forward to seeing it published :slight_smile:

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I’m honestly a bit confused why you seem to be assuming that I’m not doing both? Unless I’m misunderstanding you entirely? Very possible, it’s been a long day! :sleeping: If it was directed at me specifically, I assure you that I loudly and enthusiastically support any creator who catches my eye, but it’s not always here and not always a female exclusive game.

And Guen had nearly hit the 10,000 comments cut off point before it was closed. There’s no reason for anyone to assume that their game might be ignored just because it was female genderlocked. As for this thread, it’s been quite a bit more contentious than the average WIP thread which leads to more comments (as well as it not being exclusively about female-locked games). I do think the subject in and of itself is worthy of discussion and it’d be weird and rude to do so in someone’s WIP thread.

I’ve said it before, but I’m not out to stop people from creating whatever makes them happy or to make anyone feel badly about it. I realize that I can get a bit intense on this subject, and I hope that I haven’t offended you in any way. It was never my intention to single anyone or their creations out, just to discuss the topic at hand.

Well, I can say that I ignore genderlocked male games out of hand for the same reason I don’t read books with male protagonists unless they come very strongly recommended by the people I trust most, or else have something special to recommend them. I was an avid reader as a child and a teen and I’ve read a lot of books. I feel like I’ve seen plenty of male perspectives. Female perspectives I can always use more of, of differing types, ages and backgrounds, in different times and settings. Nonbinary perspectives would also be nice, but those are vanishingly rare. I would write a nonbinary-locked game myself, if I wasn’t busy with other writing. Besides, if I wrote it, it would probably end up being the sort of thing I keep to myself.

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No, I meant it as an across the board thing. No specific person intended. And I still mean it. If the same amount of energy that has gone into this thread went into giving useful feedback on female-locked stories it could make a big difference to the authors producing them and get them into the stores sooner/make them more attractive for writers to produce. There is no mandate that says anyone has to beta test, much less support one kind of game over the other, but the more attention they get, the more likely they are to be produced. (Look at the number of superhero games at the moment, they’re popular, so they’re being written, finished and making it to the stores.)

I never intended it that way, however it was a completed game that was female locked and seems to have unfortunatley got comparatively little attention. It will be the first one on the stores of it’s type and I do think it is a shame that it didn’t get more interest at the time it was a WIP. (I have beta tested for Mayday in the past and like the stories he produces. They’re unusual and often quite different to what the average HG story is like. Unfortunately I currently only have a couple of games I’ve been testing of late due to serious time constraints otherwise I’d take on more. In saying that, not everyone likes the same thing otherwise this would be a boring world.) It was more more that it has been stated in this thread that no one is wanting to complete female locked games, and if you (used loosely here to encompass anyone interested, not you specifically) look under the female locked tags, there are actually several I am fairly sure will make it to the stores since they’re moving across at a good pace and are often being produced by authors with pre-existing books and games. They are out there and being written.

That’s fine. As I said earlier, I don’t love the implication that has been brought up in this thread that being that everyone who writes something genderlocked is doing that due to being sexist or doesn’t care about half their readers as I can assure you that is not always the case. (I have seen WIP’s where it has, and if they’re written gender locked on either side simply to perpetuate sterotypes I’m not a fan, but that doesn’t mean it’s always that way. It has been pointed out, mine has strong female characters. I wrote it that way deliberately and don’t believe my work is sexist in nature.)

As someone quite acutely aware of sexism, having experienced varying levels of it more times than I could count (yes I am female), and having against my good judgement deciding to explain my point of view here, it seems there is no way to make myself understood and I really need to leave the thread is it only ends up making me upset.

I understand why others are upset as well, but that doesn’t mean that the insinuation needs to be there that the source comes explicity from sexism. That does tend to offend. A positive supportive message (aka- we really want to see non-male locked games! Please write them. We’ll be super supportive.) is sometimes better than a negative one (Why are male-locked games being produced? It must be because those authors don’t care about us/are sexist/are lazy.) That is what I was getting at: honey vs vinegar. If anything this thread has made me less keen to write something female locked to avoid drama.

I really don’t want to argue this further at this point. I’ve got a relatively thick skin when I put my mind to it, and am not offended by anyone in particular, and I hope no one has taken offense to anything I’ve said as it’s not aimed at anyone in particular. I was just stepping back into this thread to clarify that at no point am I specifically targeting anyone, my comments have been largely general and observational in nature unless stated otherwise. I understand where people are coming from and agree, I’d like to see a range of games and viewpoints on the stores. I also believe that to achieve that, it needs to come from support rather than critisism.

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As the OP I feelt like answering to this one. I have to admit that you are right in a way. I could have worded it another way so that it would come off supportive for the people who create female/nb genderlocked stories instead of a criticizm to those who create male genderlocked stories. For that I’m sorry. But I must say that maybe my and some other peoples wording here shows the frustration. And that this imbalance is too much.
Also lets not forget about all the female gender locked WIPs which got shoot down by mostly male members of this community. Well sure this community is great way more accepting than some others I’ve seen, but even this has it’s flaws. And the biggest flaw in my opinion is still that it’s most supportive towards male genderlocked games than anything else.

Also I saw that post about the numbers of male readers and well any other readers who is female and nb, but I still think that isn’t enough excuse for the balance in generlocked games what we have now (released male genderlocked games 5 or 6 and released games for any other genderlock 0). And I’m still pretty sure that there wouldn’t be so much female genderlocked WIPs getting abondoned if many of the male members of this community wouldn’t show their dislike right away when they see the genderlock. Not sure about others but I feel like I waited pretty long before I let my frustration take over and created this thread. I didn’t post my disapproval in male genderlocked WIPs, I just decided to stay away from those unless I feelt like I have some other to say than “this is male gender locked, I don’t approve”.

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Only Great Tournament Samurai, Doomsday, Infinity, Lords and Steampunk are locked. That is not that many when you count all the games that are available under the brand. Also for most of these games it makes sense from world building and storytelling perspective to be gender locked as male. Well except Doomsday that one in my opinion could have both male and female option.

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Are you referring to Samurai of Hyuga? I think SoH was the only CoG/HG title with the word samurai on its title. Anyway, SoH is not gender locked though. =)

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Maybe I counted all parts of the Infinty series separate games. But that doesn’t changes the point that there are several male genderlocked stories released than there are any other genderlocked (which is still zero).
Also I gave a chance to some of the male genderlocked games but they didn’t work for me. Still I wouldnt blame the author just for the tames they choosed. i tried the Infinotx series bc of all the peraise it got and bc I like the authors COGs, but I couldn’t even get to the end of the demo stage. I guess thatmeams something

Also to @Mayday I saw your post about female genderlocked game and I’d like to let you know that I appreciate you idea. Actually I would say thank you, but I must say that I probably wont buy it. Even whenit comes to the COG games I don’t buy short games. And your games are short no matter how I look at them.

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Thank you @Cari-san. I totally do get where you’re coming from, and I am very much looking forward to some female-locked games that I suspect will be turning up on the store within the next year or so. All I ask is that people who write male locked games for reasons that are not sexist stereotyping platforms aren’t given a hard time over it which is what you’re saying there so I can agree.

I guess I kind of got a bit upset as Gwen has been held up by many as an example of a genderlocked game that is “ok” because it’s a) A well known pre-existing figure and B) female, where as mine which is a well known pre-existing figure is not simply because he’s male. Male writers are encouraged to write female MC’s to improve on writing good characterisation, but as a female writer, it seems as if it’s unacceptable for me to write male characters when the situation is switched. So yep, the gender locks may be unbalanced at the moment, but I felt like it wasn’t fair to make people feel bad for writing a male character if there are good reasons for doing so.

Just as an aside, all my other games are gender unlocked, even the WIP about Orpheus as he’s a lot less well known than Oedipus, and since he spends most of the time in the underworld and most of the characters with the exception of Hades and Persephone are pretty malleable into whatever I want to make them I think I can make it possible. Published wise I have 3 gender choice choicescript games, WIP (including short stories) I have 6 unlocked, 1 male locked, and one out of those 6, one was originally going to be female locked but I made it gender choice because I decided I could warp the mythology enough to do so since it wasn’t a specific figure from mythology. (In Abysm’s veil- mythological wise, all rusalki are actually female.) So yep, I’m not exactly churning out heaps of male locked stories for no good reason either :slight_smile:

I haven’t seen female based games get shot down just because they have a female MC. I hope they aren’t. I have seen male locked games critisised, especially if they’re catering to harmful stereotypes which is fair enough, but I’d say the same thing if a female locked game did the same thing.

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I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having a place to express frustration. If we were all running off to harass authors to write what we want then that’d be a problem! Do people really not complain about male genderlocks in those threads? I never go in them so I hadn’t realized that might be one-sided.

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I mean there is nothing wrong with genderlocked game it just happens that for those games it makes sense that you would play as male.
Lords of Aswick - you are playing in medieval times and during this time women were considered to be homekeepers and matriarchs taking care of home and children. Altough there were exceptions like Eleanor of Aquitaine, Theodora, it still doesn´t make it norm.
Study in Steampunk is set in Victorian era and altough much advanced society is still abading by the smilliar rule. It is also the fact that you play former soldier and during this time there were obviously no female soldiers.
Tournament and Infinity series has genderlocked option from the same reason.

It just happens that all those aouthors were writing stories that require you to play as male character but if there is story that has female gender locked character it is perfeectly alright as long as once again it makes sense for the story. In fact Courting of Miss Bennet based on Pride and Prejudice is locked as female

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