A letter to the Devs, Producers, and whoever else has a say

[Zeromon]

I'm not sure why SE decided to do this (we can guess but let's not get too definitive) and to be honest I don't personally care if Viera or Ronso are gender locked.

That doesn't mean I'm ok with it either. I hope the devs see the importance of having both genders available if the race is not inherently asexual. A wide range of representation in MMOs is important because this is a role playing game, and giving out poor excuses or none whatsoever isn't good enough.

[Twinsoul]

Both genders get one race. How is that biased? Keep in mind Japan is not in the culture war the west is currently in, so you can't really blame them. (You can blame their localization staff)

Neither of these races was created for women. They were both created for male consumption. Viera are hot bunny girls. That's for boys. Hrothgar are burly male power fantasies. That's also for boys. These both cater to decades-old stereotypes that society has outgrown for good reason. That and the fact that Hrothgar were created specifically to avoid creating male Viera means that SE believes men should not be bunnies. Because SE sees the the concept of Viera as necessarily feminized and cannot conceive of a masculinity that permits bunny ears. This despite the fact that male Viera do exist in lore in the exact same way that male Miqo'te do exist in lore. Thus they're perpetuating gender paradigms that are damaging to both men and women. It's textbook gender bias. From more than one angle, actually. It's egregious.

Also, the thing about Japan not being involved in a "culture war" is just not true. They have the same problems over there, and it's even worse than we have it here. This event is itself evidence of this.

[Wilford111]

Neither of these races was created for women. They were both created for male consumption. Viera are hot bunny girls. That's for boys. Hrothgar are burly male power fantasies. That's also for boys. These both cater to decades-old stereotypes that society has outgrown for good reason. That and the fact that Hrothgar were created specifically to avoid creating male Viera means that SE believes men should not be bunnies. Because SE sees the the concept of Viera as necessarily feminized and cannot conceive of a masculinity that permits bunny ears. This despite the fact that male Viera do exist in lore in the exact same way that male Miqo'te do exist in lore. Thus they're perpetuating gender paradigms that are damaging to both men and women. It's textbook gender bias. From more than one angle, actually. It's egregious.

Also, the thing about Japan not being involved in a "culture war" is just not true. They have the same problems over there, and it's even worse than we have it here. This event is itself evidence of this.

Did you ever pay attention to the controversy surrounding Bayonetta 2? People were saying it's sexist, that the main character is a sexist representation of women... when it was a woman who was directly responsible for that role, lol. Women like feeling sexy, especially in Japan. It's disrespectful to women to assume that no woman wants to play as a sexy bunny girl.

[lunar_seraphim]

Neither of these races was created for women. They were both created for male consumption. Viera are hot bunny girls. That's for boys. Hrothgar are burly male power fantasies. That's also for boys. These both cater to decades-old stereotypes that society has outgrown for good reason. That and the fact that Hrothgar were created specifically to avoid creating male Viera means that SE believes men should not be bunnies. Because SE sees the the concept of Viera as necessarily feminized and cannot conceive of a masculinity that permits bunny ears. This despite the fact that male Viera do exist in lore in the exact same way that male Miqo'te do exist in lore. Thus they're perpetuating gender paradigms that are damaging to both men and women. It's textbook gender bias. From more than one angle, actually. It's egregious.

Also, the thing about Japan not being involved in a "culture war" is just not true. They have the same problems over there, and it's even worse than we have it here. This event is itself evidence of this.

Louder for the people in the back.

[Chilliwack]

This genderlock is the first thing that TRULY has made me consider cancelling my sub in July.

Just my two gil on the matter. I am severely unimpressed.

[Gula]

That's right, keep it comin'. Let's see if we can derail this thread until it reaches Timbuktu.

[Senliten]

Neither of these races was created for women.

That's a damn stretch. You can't say that that is the case and you know it.
Also, people need to stop using male miqo's as their go to. For all we know, Male Vieras were never given a damn green light to be fleshed out. Given they are a product of FF12. Not a creation of FF14. And the concept art show is simply that, concept, ideas, expression of a vision, etc. But at the same time, when one thinks of Viera they also know its sources from 12. The Ivalice Lore placed in was done also by some of the FF12 crew, so without a doubt, that was maybe a hint at stating don't count on Male Viera.

People are so wrapped up thinking and making such outlandish excuses, that there can easily be something more simple outside of this so called echo chamber of 'sexist' accusations. Consent to create the first playable visible male viera, how they would react, look, act, etc. And maybe just simply the damn design time it would take for that if they didn't want to be cheep and do asset swaps.

There are more than a good handful of reason and logical aspects to look into, but nah, lets just jump on the 'sexisim' train like everything now and day.


And as for the genderlock, please, it's done in other thriving MMOs and yet no one puts that big a stink up about it in them. This one change isn't going to start tearing down SE's profits in the least bit.

[JackHatchet]

I don't like the concept of picking on people who get disappointed when they're expectations are high due to hype.

Blaming people for misreading hype just seems cruel when the concept of hype is for a company to emotionally manipulate their customers by releasing and controlling information. Square-Enix creates expectations based on their history and public statements. It's very reasonable for people to assume they'd get a male viera race considering that every notable MMO does both genders per race, and Square-Enix has put fourth the effort to add both genders for the previous gender-locked races. So the chance of Square-Enix to do something radical probably surprised a lot of players.

Though, I'm honestly surprised so many people have faith in Square-Enix's decision making. They've got quite a laundry list of terrible choices lately with Stormblood's two DPS classes and Eureka. It doesn't surprise me at all they'd find a way to botch yet another feature. I don't have expectations beyond the bare minimum (they couldn't even give Shadowbringers a name that's not confusing with Stormblood). So this debacle doesn't really bother me much. But I do think it's wrong to get angry at people being upset when Square-Enix is ultimately responsible for setting up the hype train and guiding it to its destination.

If they didn't want people to assume we'd get a male viera they should have mentioned the gender-lock thing months ago. Or at the very least said something against that male viera promo art they released awhile back. Way to set up the community for failure, guy!

[secretsofthelily]

Did you ever pay attention to the controversy surrounding Bayonetta 2? People were saying it's sexist, that the main character is a sexist representation of women... when it was a woman who was directly responsible for that role, lol. Women like feeling sexy, especially in Japan. It's disrespectful to women to assume that no woman wants to play as a sexy bunny girl.

No one is saying that no women ever want to feel sexy or play sexy characters. But we don't ONLY want to be sexy. We want the ability to choose how we act and feel, just as men do. I'm a woman, and I'm saying I want that choice, just as many of the women who are replying in this forum are. And you shouldn't be generalising what Japanese women feel if you yourself aren't one. I can't generalise what Japanese women want, but I can't imagine they want to have their choices taken away either.

[Kakiko]

Did you ever pay attention to the controversy surrounding Bayonetta 2? People were saying it's sexist, that the main character is a sexist representation of women... when it was a woman who was directly responsible for that role, lol. Women like feeling sexy, especially in Japan. It's disrespectful to women to assume that no woman wants to play as a sexy bunny girl.

Thank you. I'm a woman in real life and darnit I want to be a sexy bunny girl in game! That doesn't make me sexist or repressed. I do understand why people are upset with there being no male bunny race, though. Just getting tired of people championing the whole "the bunnies are inherently sexist, fetish bait etc" trope.