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Forums - Gaming Discussion - GDC Rant: "The medium is not adolescent, you're ****ing adolescent"

Gamerace on 28 March 2009
Khuutra said:
Gamerace, Zelda and Final Fantasy are also enormously bad examples. Tremendous amounts of women play those two franchises.

Would you mind looking at the post where I replied to the OP?

 

 That was my point.  Women do enjoy them, so it's obvious that games can be designed that have broader appeal than just adolecent males but at the same time, even Zelda and FF could do a lot more from the very conception stages to have even greater appeal to the female market.    The fact that they have any female audience (Tomb Raider too) is almost incidental (to be fair I've never played FF, so feel free to correct me if it's more female centric than I think)



 

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Jagg-off on 28 March 2009

What the fuck is up with the Wolf/Chihuahua analogy? Isn't a wolf like an apex predator? Isn't a Chihuahua like a little shivering ratty bitch dog? A dog you can cuddle with and spew all your bitch emotions to? So wouldn't this cunt prefer these dudes to be faggy Chihuahuas. The way I see it, they are already being wolves making badass man games....fuck yeah!!!!!!



dib8rman on 28 March 2009

So people here believe games should be made to pander to demography?



I'm Unamerica and you can too.

The Official Huge Monster Hunter Thread: 



The Hunt Begins 4/20/2010 =D

Rainbird on 28 March 2009
Gamerace said:
Rainbird said:
In many ways I agree. But this is a little over the top, it's not like there are only games with male fantasies in mind made.

And splitting gamers by age only is very narrow minded. There has never been, and will never be, a game that appeals to everyone.

And for every great movie there is, there will be a ton of shitty movies. The problem in the game industry I think, is that there are too few great games, compared to the "bad" games, and too few of these great games are given the attention they deserve by the media, compared to the bad games.

There is no reason a game that appeals to everyone cannot be made.   I mean it won't appeal to 100% of the public naturally, but certainly a game that appeals equally to men and women, young and old could be made.  Just like the great classic movies or great classic songs do.

But not with the current reality of geeky males designing games that appeal to only geeky males.  They need to get writers and designers from other industries to come into this one to bring in new ideas and expand the market.  Particularly females writers and designers.

Well, I think you could turn this upside down, and say that for every game, you can always find someone who the game appeals to. Men aren't just men in terms games that appeal to them, as it is with women and children as well. No matter what group you go out to, you will find someone who likes Mozart or Charlie Chaplin movies, but that doesn't mean these things have universal appeal.

The Wii doesn't appeal to everyone, because there will be people who thinks motion controls are stupid, or much prefer another controller, and a game like Wii Sport would never have any appeal to people like this, but that doesn't mean there are no people of their age and gender who it does appeal to.

I also think you are wrong, in the industry needing professionals from other industries. I think that videogames need to come up with these people for themselves, if we are to set us apart from the others. It's us who deal with the industry, that must also change it.



Gamerace on 28 March 2009
Khuutra said:
Reasonable said:

 

Actually, while its good for a videogame, Halo I would argue that its characters and situations are typically oversimplistic (even allowing for Cortana and Captain Keyes).  In truth they are more standard plot points that anything of a truly narrative nature.

I think the points made were fair enough - even if the Hero who makes a mistake is a cliche that's still a heck of a lot more of a character than the eternally calm Master Chief.

The truth is that most games like Halo, Gears, etc. do play to certain very rigid and adolescent archetypes.  The young guys who love MC do so becuase he's cool, wins and never makes a mistake as such.

Almost no videogame I can think of have characters with true arcs and narrative discovery.  I believe this is possible, if only based on a title like Silent Hill 2 which does take the lead character through one heck of a voyage of self discovery, to some very unpleasant places.

But while I would rate Halo very highly as a game, as a narrative it is a set of elements taken from other works (both film and literature) to provide a strong background to an extremely simple plot in the service of a lot of cool videogame mayhem.

I agree that Halo is lacking as a narrative, I was referring specifically to how gender roles functioned in the game (the entire Halo universe is like that - it's not an inherently male fantasy unless you believe that war is inherently male). Gamerace was referring to the role of women in the game.

For the record - I recommend the Mother games, the work of Fumito Ueda, and certain Zelda titles.

Actually, no.  I was referring to the game having some character development and romance.  I don't think MC and Cortana are ever going to get it on.   MC has essencially no character at all, and certainly no character development.  My point could just as well work with a male soldier inspiring MC just taking out the romance (or leave it in if your so inclined).

Same is true for most any popular franchise, not picking on Halo here.  It's just the archtypical example.

 



 

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Reasonable on 28 March 2009
Khuutra said:
Reasonable said:

 

Actually, while its good for a videogame, Halo I would argue that its characters and situations are typically oversimplistic (even allowing for Cortana and Captain Keyes). In truth they are more standard plot points that anything of a truly narrative nature.

I think the points made were fair enough - even if the Hero who makes a mistake is a cliche that's still a heck of a lot more of a character than the eternally calm Master Chief.

The truth is that most games like Halo, Gears, etc. do play to certain very rigid and adolescent archetypes. The young guys who love MC do so becuase he's cool, wins and never makes a mistake as such.

Almost no videogame I can think of have characters with true arcs and narrative discovery. I believe this is possible, if only based on a title like Silent Hill 2 which does take the lead character through one heck of a voyage of self discovery, to some very unpleasant places.

But while I would rate Halo very highly as a game, as a narrative it is a set of elements taken from other works (both film and literature) to provide a strong background to an extremely simple plot in the service of a lot of cool videogame mayhem.

I agree that Halo is lacking as a narrative, I was referring specifically to how gender roles functioned in the game (the entire Halo universe is like that - it's not an inherently male fantasy unless you believe that war is inherently male). Gamerace was referring to the role of women in the game.

For the record - I recommend the Mother games, the work of Fumito Ueda, and certain Zelda titles.

 

Sorry, missed that connection.  Yes, Halo is definately goot from a gender perspective (even multi-cultural in the end).

Sadly, as with other industries videogames skew to certain demographics.  Of course not all titles are aimed at men (dare I say boys?) but clearly a majority of certain genres are.  But then you know, I'm a big believer in the 'get out and change it' mentality - i.e. while I sympathise to an extent with the rant in the OP, just shouting doesn't help.  Do something yourself to change it.

I mean on current form CliffyB (sorry dude, can't be bother with all the name change stuff) isn't going to decide that Gears needs a huge injection of compassion and introspection.  Someone else if going to have to stand up and deliver that if they want to.

Totally agree on Ueda, Ico and SOTC are two of my absolute favourite games ever.



Try to be reasonable... its easier than you think...

Kasz216 on 28 March 2009

Well... yeah.

Though i wouldn't say all...

Just most.

Really the problem is more the lack of diversity in creators i'd think.

Comics have the same problem.



Star Scream on 28 March 2009

Heather Chaplin:

 

She probably didn't even write the book (Smartbomb), her fucking husband is a coauthor.

 



bardicverse on 28 March 2009

Better question for Heather - does she want to be laid or a nun? She needs to get a real job, not being a nerdy author. She needs to get a real job instead of coming down on devs, who basically fought their way into the industry to get their dream job.

Hurry up, Heather, that's your biological clock ticking. Btw, Dylan, the Beatles and Citizen Kane all sucked. I'll take Ozzy and Dawn of the Dead ANY day of the week. Thanks.



Gamerace on 28 March 2009
Rainbird said:
Gamerace said:
Rainbird said:
In many ways I agree. But this is a little over the top, it's not like there are only games with male fantasies in mind made.

And splitting gamers by age only is very narrow minded. There has never been, and will never be, a game that appeals to everyone.

And for every great movie there is, there will be a ton of shitty movies. The problem in the game industry I think, is that there are too few great games, compared to the "bad" games, and too few of these great games are given the attention they deserve by the media, compared to the bad games.

There is no reason a game that appeals to everyone cannot be made.   I mean it won't appeal to 100% of the public naturally, but certainly a game that appeals equally to men and women, young and old could be made.  Just like the great classic movies or great classic songs do.

But not with the current reality of geeky males designing games that appeal to only geeky males.  They need to get writers and designers from other industries to come into this one to bring in new ideas and expand the market.  Particularly females writers and designers.

Well, I think you could turn this upside down, and say that for every game, you can always find someone who the game appeals to. Men aren't just men in terms games that appeal to them, as it is with women and children as well. No matter what group you go out to, you will find someone who likes Mozart or Charlie Chaplin movies, but that doesn't mean these things have universal appeal.

The Wii doesn't appeal to everyone, because there will be people who thinks motion controls are stupid, or much prefer another controller, and a game like Wii Sport would never have any appeal to people like this, but that doesn't mean there are no people of their age and gender who it does appeal to.

I also think you are wrong, in the industry needing professionals from other industries. I think that videogames need to come up with these people for themselves, if we are to set us apart from the others. It's us who deal with the industry, that must also change it.

Sure.  If you want to target a specific demographic go ahead and there's always room for that in any media, movies, music, games, you name it.  Ubisoft is a master at this approach.

Nintendo in contrast tries to cast a wide net and bring in a huge cross section of all different demographics with their games.   As I said, you'll never get everyone, some people have very particular tastes, but ultimately you'll sell to a whole lot more people.   Results speak for themselves.

But Nintendo's games are also very base.  A lot of 3rd parties like to do meatier stuff than Nintendo touches and there's nothing wrong with that and no reason why they couldn't be more taylored to a broader audience.  But not every game needs to be either.

As for the industry doing it for themselves without outside influence.  Sure!  If it can and if it'll let itself.  I'm sure developers have loads of great ideas publishers fear to touch.