Off Topic Discussion Megathread

[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.