Off Topic Discussion Megathread

[Vyrerus]

If you want to sell to mainstream audiences you basically make games for dudes and focus on muscle men and design everything for male characters.

This is a blindfolded denial of reality lol.

Making games for dudes always includes putting incredibly attractive women of varying sorts into the game in various states of dress and personality. They'll put in muscle men too, because that's considered attractive, but audiences always respond far more favorably to the attractive women side of things. Or just the women side of things.

If there's customization and sex selection options, lady oriented armor is almost always designed in a way that either highlights or accentuates the female form. Highlighting is stuff like the bikini armor or platemail with titties. This involves making some sort of extra graphical design choice specifically for the female body, and it usually gets far more attention than just pasting the armor over the male body lol (like really, they don't design armor for male bodies, it usually literally just replaces the body, completely layering over it).

And what do the majority of gamers do? If the option is available, they play women.

As for your "generic derplander" assertion... If it's even still true, it has more to do with the fact that it was the default marketing for so long, that it's what people expect. Also though, more than ever before, there are many women who game. A lot of them are into that sort of portrayal of dudes. It doesn't feel like pandering, it feels like the default.

Keep in mind that times have changed, and the best selling game of all time is still Minecraft. Almost all of the top 50 best selling games don't even focus on customization or men or women. They're generally sandboxes, pokemon, or real world based. That's the real safe bet.

As far as Elden Ring goes, I'm not sure how far into the mainline of it I am. It's an excruciating blast so far, and I'm a long time souls veteran. There is nothing different about it from the other Souls games, aesthetics wise. The default armor is male, and the default enemies kill en masse are also male. Most armor is identical across sex selection. I'm willing to wager that as in past entries, there's still some specifically female sets from specifically special females. Think Ciaran, Desert Pyromancers, Sable church robes, and the Doll Clothes.

I started as a buff dude Hero. The first platemail I found was literally from male enemies twice my height, and it's oversized on my guy, too. It has a cape that's so long, it trails like 2~3 feet beyond my heels. It completely covers everything I customized about the character. That just Souls.

[SturmChurro]

And what do the majority of gamers do? If the option is available, they play women.

In this game perhaps, but in reality most 'gamers' play male characters, and male characters sell better. Companies have released actual stats of it. A lot of male players like to play idealized versions of themselves, or somebody they can relate to.

[Merrigan]

In this game perhaps, but in reality most 'gamers' play male characters, and male characters sell better. Companies have released actual stats of it. A lot of male players like to play idealized versions of themselves, or somebody they can relate to.

I'd actually be interested so see this stats ? Not because I don't believe you (and I searched as well, didn't find it), but because I would have think that most players actually prefered fem characters.

In ffXIV for example there is a majority of male players... and an overwhelming part of the characters I see IG are female.

[SturmChurro]

I'd actually be interested so see this stats ? Not because I don't believe you (and I searched as well, didn't find it), but because I would have think that most players actually prefered fem characters.

In ffXIV for example there is a majority of male players... and an overwhelming part of the characters I see IG are female.

Male characters look dumb in this game, and catgirls are a cultural phenomenon for weebs.

Just a couple examples off the top of my head:

Mass Effect: Legendary edition


AC: Odyssey

Who is played more Alexios or Kassandra?
Nearly two-thirds of the player base for Odyssey chose to play Alexios as their protagonist. In an issue of Game Informer, the game's director Scott Philips revealed that the majority of players favored Alexios over Kassandra.

There is a reason that a male midlander is the canon WoL, and the face for this game.

[Merrigan]

Male characters look dumb in this game, and catgirls are a cultural phenomenon for weebs.

Just a couple examples off the top of my head:

Mass Effect: Legendary edition


AC: Odyssey


There is a reason that a male midlander is the canon WoL, and the face for this game.

Just to be clear: I'm really curious to see the full stats, it was an unbiased question.

What you're quoting is a single player game, it's a bit different in my opinion. Do you have numbers for MMORPGs?

[SturmChurro]

Just to be clear: I'm really curious to see the full stats, it was an unbiased question.

What you're quoting is a single player game, it's a bit different in my opinion. Do you have numbers for MMORPGs?

I never stated specific to mmorpgs in the first place, I stated most 'gamers' - which is in general. For that matter, all that's needed to see is the marketing. Publishers have gone on record and stated that male characters sell better - Ubisoft specifically. I even conceded in my initial post "in this game perhaps", which I largely place the reasoning on stupid looking male characters, stupid looking armor sets, terrible hair design for males, the large weeb playerbase, and so on.

It can be seen in many games online or otherwise that male characters are favored, and if a female character is favored it's usually due to sex appeal - or a high population of female players (like in FF as well).

[Lauront]

Just to be clear: I'm really curious to see the full stats, it was an unbiased question.

What you're quoting is a single player game, it's a bit different in my opinion. Do you have numbers for MMORPGs?

You will probably have to look them up by MMO. This game isn't as skewed as it once was based on recent stats. I think it's something like a 42/58 male/female split, using the Lucky bancho figures (in the absence of anything more reliable) just before EW release, and closer to 45/55 excluding Japan, with the figures shifting slightly more favourably for male toons ever since the WoW "refugee" influx. We'll see where the next stats take us now that male Viera are out and that there's been some time for people to see if they like them enough to stick with them, or not.

WoW tended to skew more male (almost flipping the ratios 14 has) in its character distribution from when I last looked (BFA), but I don't recall if those stats accounted for alts, which are more common in WoW.

Personally I'd consider it difficult to generalise this sort of thing too much. It varies a lot by genre and design aesthetics. It's obvious that companies will focus on the desires of their main audience (and I do not consider that a bad thing), but I think that's down to the type of product in question. I personally prefer games where I like the male character design options, but there's a few where I'm also willing to play the female ones (e.g. Tekken series.)

[Merrigan]

I never stated specific to mmorpgs in the first place, I stated most 'gamers' - which is in general. For that matter, all that's needed to see is the marketing. Publishers have gone on record and stated that male characters sell better - Ubisoft specifically. I even conceded in my initial post "in this game perhaps", which I largely place the reasoning on stupid looking male characters, stupid looking armor sets, terrible hair design for males, the large weeb playerbase, and so on.

It can be seen in many games online or otherwise that male characters are favored, and if a female character is favored it's usually due to sex appeal - or a high population of female players (like in FF as well).

Ok that's on me then, I had only the MMORPG genre in mind.

You will probably have to look them up by MMO. This game isn't as skewed as it once was based on recent stats. I think it's something like a 42/58 male/female split, using the Lucky bancho figures (in the absence of anything more reliable) just before EW release, and closer to 45/55 excluding Japan, with the figures shifting slightly more favourably for male toons ever since the WoW "refugee" influx. We'll see where the next stats take us now that male Viera are out and that there's been some time for people to see if they like them enough to stick with them, or not.

WoW tended to skew more male (almost flipping the ratios 14 has) in its character distribution from when I last looked (BFA), but I don't recall if those stats accounted for alts, which are more common in WoW.

Personally I'd consider it difficult to generalise this sort of thing too much. It varies a lot by genre and design aesthetics. It's obvious that companies will focus on the desires of their main audience (and I do not consider that a bad thing), but I think that's down to the type of product in question. I personally prefer games where I like the male character design options, but there's a few where I'm also willing to play the female ones (e.g. Tekken series.)

Yes, FFXIV has always been a game that seemed to attract a lot of female audiences. To a point, in fact, where it's the male charadesign that seems to lag a bit behind (in terms of customization, but also glamour).

That being said, there's an interview from 2017 where Yoshi-P announced a 7/3 ration in favor of the male demographic. The 5/5 was on the Korean servers. I couldn't find anything more recent that would be anything other than approximations.

[ZedxKayn]

Male characters look dumb in this game, and catgirls are a cultural phenomenon for weebs.

Just a couple examples off the top of my head:

Mass Effect: Legendary edition


AC: Odyssey


There is a reason that a male midlander is the canon WoL, and the face for this game.

I don't know anything about ME but I wonder if for AC it's not because it has a history of male MCs.

I usually play females when I am given the choice in a franchise with a long precedent of giving the player a choice (ie Pokémon, The Elder Scrolls, Animal Crossing) but never could bring myself to play a female character for very long in AC because it just felt kind of wrong.

[SturmChurro]

I don't know anything about ME but I wonder if for AC it's not because it has a history of male MCs.

I usually play females when I am given the choice in a franchise with a long precedent of giving the player a choice (ie Pokémon, The Elder Scrolls, Animal Crossing) but never could bring myself to play a female character for very long in AC because it just felt kind of wrong.

For ME, I'd be part of the female demographic since the character I made was femshep - at the time I was interested in playing as the default female since they made her me3 appearance available across all 3 games. AC, probably to an extent yes, but Alexios isn't even canon, and neither is male Eivor for Valhalla. The females are put in and made the canon protagonist for current era PR, in my opinion. Like I said, most 'gamers', at least these games targeted demographics, are males, and males generally prefer to play males. In FF, the playerbase is a bit more mixed.

Like I've said before, I play both. I like playing both for whatever look or character 'feel' I am going for. So on any given day in Skyrim, for example, I'll be playing a male nord warrior, and the next day be I'll be playing a nord shieldmaiden, etc. In RPGs, I do like to go through the games as both, to see different interactions or available romances. Also, I like both to be able to be good looking or cool. So, sometimes I will favor female, like in this game, since I think male characters are ugly. For things like The Division, I played exclusively male, because the female characters looked bad.