Male Viera as a playable character! show your support

[Awha]

Male viera arent themselves but the viera race is, so it would likely be big because of that

Personally I do not think it would be as mainstream as people are making it out to be. Might catch an article here or there. Though that could just be me downplaying their importance to the overall general final fantasy community at large.

[WhiteArchmage]

I DO think it'd blow up in the media but in the clickbaity way that most gaming news sites operate: "Square-Enix Introduces Never-Before Seen Bunnymen!" "Square-Enix Caves To Pressure!" "My Journey As A Male Viera In Final Fantasy XIV!" (I can picture THIS one from Kotaku). That's what I meant with the PR: whether the news sites take a positive or negative angle, it'd be a lot of attention over the property, which would get people interested in the game (again), or just get people to check it out by curiosity.

[Awha]

Maybe, might just be out of the loop of what gets news attention in the gaming world. Though if it does get much press then like you said it would garner a degree of interest in the game even if the put a negative spin on it.

[Theodric]

Granted, I don't pay too much attention to gaming 'journalists' these days for various reasons, though within the sphere of influence that FFXIV has created, the addition of the missing genders would almost certainly generate a lot of chatter.

[Vahlnir]

I DO think it'd blow up in the media but in the clickbaity way that most gaming news sites operate: "Square-Enix Introduces Never-Before Seen Bunnymen!" "Square-Enix Caves To Pressure!" "My Journey As A Male Viera In Final Fantasy XIV!" (I can picture THIS one from Kotaku). That's what I meant with the PR: whether the news sites take a positive or negative angle, it'd be a lot of attention over the property, which would get people interested in the game (again), or just get people to check it out by curiosity.

Yeah, it would only benefit SE. I just don't think they want to invest the resources to make it happen since they seem to struggle with what they are given to work with already. That and they know that enough people are going to buy whatever they sell no matter what. Even as this game's population has grown over the years, and even more so during Shadowbringers, I feel that creativity has sort of...plateaued for the reasons I mentioned. They are getting too comfortable. I just don't think enough people would quit to force a shake up of any real significance. I'd imagine the higher ups know this all too well.

[glitteringcosmos]

(Agree or not with it, when your audiance audibly groans during your press release, that is a real bad sign.)

I agree with this sentiment but I'm curious--did this happen at one of the keynote addresses? I can't find any video of this reaction.

[zeylos]

I DO think it'd blow up in the media but in the clickbaity way that most gaming news sites operate: "Square-Enix Introduces Never-Before Seen Bunnymen!" "Square-Enix Caves To Pressure!" "My Journey As A Male Viera In Final Fantasy XIV!" (I can picture THIS one from Kotaku). That's what I meant with the PR: whether the news sites take a positive or negative angle, it'd be a lot of attention over the property, which would get people interested in the game (again), or just get people to check it out by curiosity.

Yeah it's actually quite an old saying from Hollywood I think that says 'any publivty is good publicity' and this specially applies to gaming jounralism: regardless of what you do with your game some people will not like it, but the more controversial it is, the more interest and curiosity it can generate, which can attract a lot of new players. Imo if they reveal them in the next fanfest I think that they will have likely cashed in a lot of money and a lot of good press, and press is quite important specially for an expansion of an old game, so I guess we have a bit to wait to see how this all turns out

[Yencat]

Yeah, FFXIV is definitely so washed up and desperate for press that they need to release male Viera just to get a few clicks in gaming media for their next expansion.

[Theodric]

Stagnation is very much a thing, to be fair.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

Yeah, FFXIV is definitely so washed up and desperate for press that they need to release male Viera just to get a few clicks in gaming media for their next expansion.

How are they desperate? They will generate clicks just fine once they start pushing Ads closer to release of the next Expansion.
Makes no sense to sit here and over hype the Next Expansion when we dont even have a release date yet. Which will likely be revealed at the next if not final planned Fanfest.