With regard to history, which is what my words were directed towards rather than the facts about gamers etc. (I have no idea if it is a fact), I have no idea regarding Ancient times. My knowledge extends to the medieval time period, in which case princesses, for instance, were more seen as pieces on a chessboard for marriage. I don’t claim this as fact either, but it’s just my belief regarding it. What I do claim as fact though is that there would be very few women serving as soldiers in Medieval, Napoleonic and World War 2 times. Regarding World War 2, there were snipers on the Eastern Front, I believe? They were obviously present in certain areas of the conflict, but they must have just been rare. (You’d obviously get guerillas/spies like Theresa in Sharpe as well, in the Napoleonic times. Just they wouldn’t have served as frontline soldiers)
And really, if stories want to be accurate, they need to capture that. Representation be damned. Though I’m all for inaccurate stories as well, if that is what the author wants. I just think blanket rules for inclusion are very bad. It’s like the creator has no say in things, it white-washes history and well . . . yeah, I’ll stop there. You get the point.
@DavidGil - I want to perhaps clear the air a bit between us, because it seems to me ( by my individual perception of the above post) that you have taken my point and warped it to fit another narrative I did not intend it to.
Perhaps, there is an element of truth to your assertion here - that history is being rewritten or changed. History is constantly being re-evaluated and re-interpreted … Generals such as Robert E Lee and Ermil Rommel were celebrated much more in the early 20th century by historians and their many works. In today’s publications, they have both taken a hit to their celebratory status and their moral failings and beliefs that are at odds with the societal norms are often being stressed more in modern works.
Yet, there are also many recent discoveries that are made using technology and such that exist now but not before that changes our understanding. Medieval life during the “early” periods prior to the 15th century is one such field that has grown a lot within the past two decades. There is recent burial mounds information and evidence (ie DNA) that show Vikings had more women raiders during the Great Migration period then acknowledged in the past 300 years of historical writing or so …
This is great to hear. I’ve been a supporter of many authors here, providing feedback and more writing their stories as well. @Cataphrak, @JimD, @Vendetta and others can attest to my helping them on all sorts of things related to their game/story development. I would be happy to offer my help to you as well.
I totally agree with you on this - and even though it is much more work I do think it is well worth the effort, time and energy doing so. I’m hoping to follow in your footsteps in this regard with both my contest entry I just turned in to CoG this past March and on a new project I am in the process of pre-production with.
I don’t think I have given anyone flack for this … just yesterday I provided feedback on material of this nature and not once in my feedback did I say the female protagonist should be treated as the male …
This is where I feel you took my statement differently than I intended it. My statement was focused on the fact that the gaming marketplace is much different than it was 10, 20 and 30 years ago. In today’s marketplace to capture up to 45% of the people in it, inclusionary protagonists should be pursued and that many who do not want expanded protagonists use the “historical accuracy” argument in a debunked and false manner.
Let me repost what I said earlier in another thread where “historical accuracy” was brought up (this time in regards to the Roaring 1920’s USA -
In my opinion you are a member of this community which “does better” than the majority of the gaming industry.
I can’t speak for DavidGil, but I don’t think you’ve given anyone “flack” at all Eiwynn. I think this entire thread has been a bit of a powder keg and there’s been a lot of comments that could (and probably have speaking from personal experience) been taken differently to what was intended.
Allow me to clear the air as well. I have no problem with you and apologies if you thought I did. While I quoted your post, what I said was more mentioned generally. I am simply getting fed up of everything. Political correctness and censorship gone mad. It is like we live in a totalitarian world these days, which we have been warned about, and there is no room for others being offended. In fact, I say people should be offended and challenged. It is how we grow as people.
So again, apologies if you took what I said personally. Your post just allowed me to get something off my chest. Much of this is new to me, as I’m out of touch with the world and I’m anti-social, so I’ve only just found out about ‘sensitivity readers’ as well, which is another way of censoring creativity.
You can see it with people wanting to pull statues down, more than anything else really. I believe they’re wanting to change some things in Canada, regarding history and colonialism if they haven’t already, as well (it seems a cesspit there).
Regarding vikings, I have no idea regarding that. I should look into it, however. We agree that my assertions about women in more traditional armies, like the Franks and English would have been men only for the most part though? With exceptions for when non-soldiers decide to take up arms.
I mean, I’m no historian. It just makes sense to me. There is, afterall, a reason we have all this equality stuff today as well. It goes back to our history, something we are perhaps paying for today. Actually, I wouldn’t say perhaps, we are.
Apologies for that. I was again more speaking generally, however. Just speaking to people who have to force their agendas on people, you know? Not anyone in specific.
You’re right as well. While I don’t have any idea as to whether the info you gave is factual, I do know the gaming landscape is definitely different. I know there are more female gamers than there used to be. Or well, I believe so anyway. When I was in school in the 90s and early 200os, I don’t remember hearing girls talk about gaming really. I’m 33 this year, so . . . I’m really out of touch with a lot these days. The concept of taking offense at everything is alien to me too.
Also, allow me to say thanks for being civil and to again apologise. It’s good we can discuss things like adults, whereas things usually turn into petty insults at the slightest hint of disagreement these days. i honestly expected to be insulted.
Here’s a thought: how many allied special forces units were there in World War Two (not counting shock units like the VDV or the US Marines)? All of them, put together: Chindits, SAS, SOE, OSS, Rangers, Airborne. 80 000? Maybe 100 000? Out of a combined force of tens of millions. How many first person shooters and action stories put you in their shoes? What proportion of a late medieval army was made up of members of the military aristocracy? How many stories of medieval warfare star overbred louts in shining, anachronistic plate armour? How many fictional stories set in the Napoleonic Wars are based on a handful of regiments in Wellington’s small army on the Peninsula, or on the quarterdecks of that specific portion of the Royal Navy not committed to the blockade of France or the American coast?
The truth is, we are already very selective of the stories we tell, especially the war stories we tell, because those stories already fill a niche. When we tell a story centred around one part of a very expansive time, we are already distorting history, by focusing on that one point of existence to the exclusion of others. If I write a story about guild politics in the Hanseatic League, the Baltic Crusades, or the Hundred Years’ War will necessarily be out of focus. However, that doesn’t mean that the Baltic Crusades didn’t happen, and likewise, it doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be stories about Hanse Merchants because there were only a couple thousand of them, because maybe there’s an audience out there who want to hear about price-fixing ironmongery in Lubeck.
My point is, no story can necessarily be entirely historically comprehensive. Women fought in large numbers in WW2, in the Red Army as tankers and snipers and infantry and pilots, in the Volkssturm as last-ditch militia, as partisans from Cherbourg to Qingdao. Hundreds of thousands of women served direct roles in the war effort of the Western Allies, ferrying planes across the Atlantic and serving in administrative roles well within the range of enemy artillery. Speaking as someone who is a historian, we don’t hear a lot of these stories because these aren’t the stories we’re taught as children, and that’s why there’s a crying need for someone to tell them, even when it challenges our assumptions about what our honoured ancestors were like, even when it shows that our heroes were less heroic than we were taught they were. History is often passed on as myth, and as such, these myths often get perceived as “history”, to the point where other perspectives, other stories of things that happened are dismissed as false or somehow less true.
In certain contexts and certain places, dissenting opinion is thrown out kicking and screaming. Most of the time it has nothing to do with PC, sometimes it does. But more often than not, I have seen the “political correctness gone mad” thing being kicked around as a cover for people’s bad behavior. You say or do something horrible, like chanting “the Jews will not replace us” in an open setting, it isn’t censorship or political correctness for you to catch flak for it. I say this as someone who has been inadverdently called a sexist apologist on This Very Forum for supporting the right of an author to write what they want, mostly because I don’t want what happened to Vendetta to happen to other authors.
Statues of historical adversaries who promoted inhuman practices. You don’t see very many statues of Emperor Showa in Hawaii or China, do you?
I dislike the term “Viking” as a catch-all for the Norse and North Germanic raiding cultures. Especially since not all were created equally. The Anglo-Saxons allowed all peasants to own property, including women and thralls. The Normans and Carolingians, their contemporaries, were far less progressive by comparison.
Thst said, I have never gotten too hung up on historical accuracy unless that’s the most major point of the game (which applies to very few games, really).
Okay I checked the reviews (at least some of not patient enough to read all of them) on Google store for Slayer of Evil, Courting of Miss Bennett, Guns of Infinity and The Great Tournament and I wonder why it is that I didn’t read complaining reviews for the letter two about the genderlock but the previous two which are female genderlocks got complaining reviews bc of the genderlock?
I didn’t find the appropriate thread and didn’t want to start a new one, but this seemed close enough.
Perhaps there are still more male players, who play and review the games? Or maybe female reviewers are still used to being forced to play male characters so they don´t complain as much about it? Would be interesting to knew though.
Because there’s a bunch of people on the internet who go around leaving negative reviews of things with female protagonists. I have learned to basically ignore review scores for works with largely female main casts.
The Great Tournament is a Free download game… and if you haven’t notice, Magium is another Free genderlocked game , hence i don’t think many will complain when the game is already Free
I should do that too given how many people are there who give bad reviews for the stupidest reasons. Still I can’t help but check the rating even tho that’s like just a small part of the things I consider before buying a game… actually if the description seems interesting then I buy games with really bad reviews too thinking stuff like ”all these people didn’t like it but who knows maybe my tastes are just that different from what’s popular".
@Eric_knight I think the fact that The Great Tournament is a free game would just be more of a reason for female players to try it… Hell, even I gave it a try (and I don’t regret it). Still no negative reviews bc of the genderlock. About Magium I don’t know anything about that games reviews. I decided when it got released that it’s not my cup of tea and ever since then I avoid it
Edit: I think @Kaelyn’s guess might be right. Too it’s kinda sad that this is still the case imo.
Magium, eh. It’s not CG style. Linear, just different approaches based on stats and numerous ways to die. Plus, character personality is pretty much defined, same for the motive.
First of all I want to clarify this is not an attack to men as a whole, regardless, in this gamer world, some men, man-child mostly, tend to be way more self entitled that women. But I am pretty sure you already know this, lol.
I’ve been exploring some older comments and found this one intriguing. Would like to address this issue.
By writing something we never experienced, we imagine and assume. Problem is, gender isn’t exactly something one can assume and easily gloss over. The best you can do is to get a helping hand.
The problem is that gender-locking to female mostly happens to mainstream gaming genres, which is dominated by male users. The general statistics argue that the ratio is 50/50, which is true, but the the major settings that sell best and receive the best responses (shooters; racing; open-world; sports and action rpg;) are consumed by men. All of those genres count no more than 20 percent for females.
My point here is, that’s logical: if you gender-lock to male, there ought to be less complaints, since only a minority will be upset, and if you do the opposite, well, yeah…
Despite that, games like Horizon Zero Dawn sold superb, and I daresay they were mostly played by males.
But If we take a closer look, I think gender is or should not be the problem, most people I know are type based. We just assume actions or reactions to be male or female, by what we experienced or learned. I think most games could work for all genders, by making choices based on charactertraits, like shy, bold and so.
But in other non CoG/HG choice games such as Choices and other many female gender locked choice games, they are quite popular with high rating
@Cari-san there is currently an active female gender locked WIP an Office Romance Game by @CammyCamaro who need our beta test and feedback, perhaps you can give it a try ?
I don’t think is logical. Is a question of having some manners (imo) and not giving 1 start ratings to a game just because you are playing as a female.
Is simply a childish attitude and there are no excuses, to be honest.
