Like @LanaRose said when I am reading a novel or a manga, I am reading the main characters story and I don’t immerse myself in their shoes because I lack control over their actions unlike with HG or CoG, I was given a choice how I would react to a certain situation.
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I mean no. That’s not. No. there are dozens of women in this thread alone that are telling you you’re wrong, so please read what we’ve been saying.
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I wasn’t aware that there were over 10 genderlocked games. I knew the Infinity Series, Study in Steampunk, Swamp Castle, Lords of Aswick and both Great Tournaments were gender locked. Skimming the catalogue, I found at least two more where you are explicitly regarded as male: Treasure of the Forgotten City (which is a double-threat, giving you a predefined name and character as well) and Sons of Cherry.
As for why there are so many, I dunno. Cata has a specific vision for how his story goes, and considering it goes beyond the wartime segments, having the MC be a woman pretending to be a man in wartime would completely fly an already very branch-y story off the rails in the peacetime segments so that’s reasonable enough. I don’t understand many of the others. Treasure of the Forgotten City could just as easily give you the option to choose superficial bits like name and gender, for instance.
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@Cari-san I get that non-interactive fiction is a different kettle of fish, that’s why I was asking 
. But even if you enjoy Percy Jackson, do you actually imagine you /are/ Percy Jackson in his role as you read it, or just as an observer?
@anon4518890 Please do me some justice. I’m not missing that point at all. I AM female. Yet that is simplifying things a lot. Not all locked fiction is written for that reason.
Hmm interesting! You’ve all given me a lot to think about. Not with all things I read, but with some universes I can actually imagine myself into the story even with non-interactive fiction. Thanks for replying.
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you should be the one to read what i writed, let me point myself,
how many females will actually play shooters¿? not that many, probably about 70% will be male so when it comes to make the game, they will go for the one that get them more sales.
im the type of guy who likes dating games, but lets be reasonable and say that there is more female audience than male, so thats why many companys like pixelberry (choices stories you play) make the dating games gender locked female.
what i mean to say is that even though there will be people that like certain types of games are more likely to go one side, either male or female.
The amount of women playing competitive shooters is actually vastly underreported. Mostly because they shy away from divulging their identity online, due to the vast amount of sexual and gender-based harassment they face.
There are a lower number playing and engaging in communities online, but not nearly low enough to be statistically irrelevant to game development
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Yet again. Maybe those are “more attractive” to boys bc majority of them are still written for the male audiences.
(A bit off: idk how other girls feel about it but tbh I find most of those dating sims ridiculous.)
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You’re not the only one. I am sure. ヽ(´▽｀)/
@anon4518890
But don’t you think that for a niche game like CoG and HG this already limit the already small market?
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I probably dont want to debate based on pre-conceived notions like girls dont like to play video games or Girls generally dont play FPS or Guys dont play dating games. Since these type of notions exist, dont you think it is high time for developers to enter the market and capture the ignored side of the audience too?
By the way, does a developer even do research on whether the other gender will play the game before they decide on the protagonist? (I am genuinely curious)
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Just an observer, but the same goes if I’m reading a non-interaction fiction featuring a female protagonist.
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So as a girl who enjoys dating sims and visual novels I’m going to have to call bs on that one. Most visual novels are made for male audiences to an absurd degree. Women in most of them are barely more than sex objects with minimal dialogue. Even the games staring a woman protagonist have so much of this idea that the protagonist and love interests are all there to appeal to making the game more sexually appealing.
I’ve found, out of hundreds, around a dozen visual novels that either have minimal sexualization of the women characters in the game, or with scenes like that so sparse that it’s usually easy to ignore.
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I’ve been following this conversation, trying to soak it in.
Can anyone explain why gender is a bigger “game-breaker” to them than is race, or ethnic identity, or religion/philosophy, etc? It’s like the message is, “I’m fine playing a dragon, as long as I can be a female (or male) dragon.” Why is that?
I ask this in the nicest possible way; no judgments here.
It seems that (most?) folks on this thread are open to playing protagonists (cats, demons, dragons, human/animal hybirds) who don’t share the player’s humanity, race, ethnic identity, religion/worldview, all of which are commonly viewed as pretty damn essential parts of who we are, but when it comes to gender and/or sexual orientation, things get more complicated? I’m just asking why this is. It seems worthy of exploration.
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im not saying that there is not many girls that play those type of games, is just that the male audience of those type of games are much much largest than the female so thats make it more viable for companys to develop what they think will generate more money in the long term,
is bc and all that, but if you also see things like sports, there is not many people that support female football for example, is bc ? yeah but since they dont generate the same amount they will never get same level of exposure to the world.
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I’ve always found notions like that to be incredibly self-defeating. If you make no attempts to reach out to a demographic, they obviously will be less likely to play your game, watch your movie, read your book etc. If you systemically make no attempts to reach out to that demographic, over the course of years or decades, it’s obviously hard to make an audience grow overnight. Cause-effect fallacy at its finest.
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If you look into the Japanese society, women are still underrepresented so this kind of reflect with the games they are producing.
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visual novel and dating sim are not the same, what you mean is probably japan visual novel, and yeah ofcourse it will be more gender locked as male (you should know why too). 
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I am from India. So, when you said the word sport, I can only relate to cricket. As you say, women cricket doesnt have much of a fan following. But a lot of women follow men’s cricket. But in India, there is a notion, that girls dont like outdoor sports and that thought is so rooted in that female representation in sports is so minimal and the support(both monetary and moral) they receive is very minimal compared to the men. Since support is very minimal, quality of the sport played by men and women differ vastly thus affecting the fan following between the two. It is a cycle which goes on and on.
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Trust me, it’s not exclusively limited to Japanese or Eastern-style visual novels. 
The biggest reason for pushback against the visual novel genre on Steam (aside from the vocal but still fairly minor “gaming purists”) is the fact that so many visual novels translated from Japanese to English, or even made OEL, are moebait and fanservice vehicles to an extreme, sporting characters that range between single-trait character cutouts and pieces of set dressing. There are exceptions, sure. Some of those exceptions are even found in weird places. But if you’re going to spend $15-30 USD looking at pretty pictures and reading text, both parts of the equation should be appealing.
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Gender is rooted in a lot of who we are. Race and culture are something one can (relatively) easily adapt to in different environments. Someone from Vietnam won’t be impossibly hopeless at adapting to life in America, it would just take some time.
The other stuff is, if not easy, then acceptable to imagine and understand. It also benefits from the fact that when you play as what you listed it’s still written with human thought in mind. You can’t play a game from the perspective of an actual cat because actual cats can’t write. At its core you are still reading this from a human point of view, it’s just more cleverly disguised.
When playing as someone of the opposite gender from what you identify, you are constnatly told by the game that you are the opposite of who you are. You are a man. Your manliness is mentioned, you have no choice in the matter.
If I want to be called a man and told “you have no option but to be a man” I’d go meet with my dad’s mom again and deal with her.
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I think I might be coming at this from a different direction than you, but as someone who has difficulty empathising, connecting, and I guess understanding other people, I like to play as a character similar to myself. So that means I pretty much always play as a gay male white human, either with my personality (shy) or the personality I wish I had (not shy).
I guess it depends on the person, but I know a lot of people view their gender as one of the biggest parts of their identity. I suppose I do to some extent, but the order in which I listed my traits above is the order of importance to me for the most part. I think also gender’s a much bigger topic than it was say five years ago, so people care about it more.
(PS, I hope my points make sense. My mind feels like it’s not working too properly today.)
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