| Jaicee said: Well here's an example of what I mean: A decade ago, 11% of American films that were released in a given year had female leads. Today it's 28%. What explains the difference? The Hunger Games. There are many ways of illustrating that fact, but here's one that's directly pertinent to the current year: consider the case of the upcoming Wonder Woman movie, which is expected to be a hit. There had been many petitions for such a movie, but it was not until 2013 that Warner Bros. greenlit the project, concluding that there was now a market for it. What was their proof? The commercial success of The Hunger Games the previous year. In other words, there would be no Wonder Woman movie coming out this year if not for The Hunger Games. I view the laws of capitalism as similar across the board. A female-centric video game that's a hit in an analogous way can pave the way for more to be made because money talks louder than anything else in the world of business. Nothing else is equally impactful. I mean do you really think that the average person is more familiar with the name Anita Sarkeesian or the name Lara Croft? A hit carries more weight than any critic. (And we could argue that games like Horizon and TLOU II might very well not exist or be in development (as applicable), in their current forms anyway, if not for those much-maligned feminist critics, it's worth adding.) The real problem, in my view, is a shortage of hits that revolve around female narratives. This medium needs its Hunger Games, especially in view of losing the iconic Samus Aran recently. Horizon could be it. That's all I'm saying. |
I didn't say it wouldn't have an effect, i just disagree with the amount of weight you're putting on Horizon itself. If Horizon was a multi-platform title that managed to push 15 - 20 million copies, then i'd agree its effect would be substantial. You're right that gaming hasn't yet had a female focused AAA title achieve truly huge success (off the top of my head, i think FF13 has the record at 8m+), and one is likley needed to really kick start a larger push, but i don't see Horizon being it.
It could be argued it'll effect Sony themselves, but they've already had several such titles in development for a while now. They seem less concerned about if a game has a male or female lead, so much as just letting their developers tell their stories. I think that's the best way to do it.
As a side note (because i'm not sure if you misunderstood me, or i'm misunderstanding you), when i say the "media" i'm not talking about people like Anita Sarkeesian, but the media as a collective. Publishers absolutely do care what the media says, many even use review scores as the basis for their developers getting bonuses. To have more female titles, we need publishers to know it won't effect their bottom line. To increase the chances of that happening, we need them making more of those titles. To make them do that, they need to see it as less of a risk. I think the media is slowing that process.
