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[penguinofhonor]

I would say it would be pretty fucking ridiculous to pretend that black people don't face discrimination in, say, a modern day US setting though, and if a serious story excluded it then I'd question the motives of the author (are they trying to say racism is no longer a problem?).

Maybe the motives of the author are to give poc playing their games a break? Like what Vector is talking about.

[Neonivek]

Marth or Martha

I think that does matter actually with the plot of the game. At least with one of the motifs.

[Leafsnail]

You can actually select your gender in the more recent FE games.

I guess giving people a break may be a valid motive depending on the tone of the game, but I don't think it should be universal.

[Neonivek]

it's Captain Falcon or Captain Falcona

Ok I know this is technically off topic but... Falcona really?

Its still Captain Falcon male or female.

You can actually select your gender in the more recent FE games.

I guess giving people a break may be a valid motive depending on the tone of the game, but I don't think it should be universal.

How much characterization do they give this character?

I know in Soul Nomad (who by game blasphemy both genders existed... but the one with Gig is considered Female interestingly enough) you could pick your gender... but you were an outright mute. You only speak once in the entire game.

[Leafsnail]

Not too much, although there are surprisingly substantial gameplay differences between the male and female main character (you can only marry characters of the opposite gender (which does give different conversations to each gender, I guess), and some classes are gender specific).  I would actually recommend being female for Lunatic mode

[Rolepgeek]

Marth or Martha

I think that does matter actually with the plot of the game. At least with one of the motifs.

Really?
I didn't think so when I played it, but I'm genuinely curious as to where this came from, so could you explain?

it's Captain Falcon or Captain Falcona

Ok I know this is technically off topic but... Falcona really?

Its still Captain Falcon male or female.

I know, but saying 'Captain Falcon or Captain Falcon' still sounded ridiculous, and Captain is a gender-neutral term(even if it sometimes seems like you almost never hear women called it in fiction in casual situations).

You can actually select your gender in the more recent FE games.

I guess giving people a break may be a valid motive depending on the tone of the game, but I don't think it should be universal.

How much characterization do they give this character?

I know in Soul Nomad (who by game blasphemy both genders existed... but the one with Gig is considered Female interestingly enough) you could pick your gender... but you were an outright mute. You only speak once in the entire game.

In at least one game, there's both a female and a male main character(brother and sister, of course), and you play through about a third of the game before having to pick your path and follow one or the other for their storyline, which is slightly different, before it coming back to one another third of the way through or so.

[Neonivek]

One game has you pick your gender and the one you don't chose dies off at the start of the game as your motivation.

I believe in plotline blasphemy in the actual story both of them lived and both are co-heroes.

It is really odd sometimes when the "real story" has both characters who couldn't have both existed at the same time. THEN AGAIN Star Ocean 2's canon storyline has all the characters from the game, even though going one way bars off some from you (Ashton and Opera at the same time)

[alexandertnt]

I don't think the "genders should be swappable" thing is supposed to mean a "choose your own gender" option per se.

Imagine a game in the late stage development with a male protagonist. The idea is that you should be able to replace that character with a female (or vice versa) and everything should still make sense.

The game releases and none of the players ever knew about the characters original gender.

In this case you have a "gender swappable" game, but not a "choose your gender" game. You have a well defined character whose story and circumstance are not the result of their gender.

[MrWiggles]

I want a gender option in Tetris, and most puzzle games in general.

[Neonivek]

I want a gender option in Tetris, and most puzzle games in general.

Lego did it first.

What with its "Lego for girls" garbage that pisses me off because it worked.

[Reelya]

It's a difficult question, because LEGO originally was marketed completely unisex. Even back then, they were having trouble getting girls to buy it, they've had girl version initiatives since the mid 70's, well before the really boy-ish era of the 80's with Lego space etc. Anita Sarkeesian has a video on this saying Lego should go back to the Unisex version, and blaming the 1980's Lego with space men etc as turning girls off Lego. So, she creates this image of the Golden Era of unisex Lego, ruined by the evil genedered Lego marketing of the 1980's, with the solution to just go back to the unisex version.

But ... if it was working for them they never would have changed it or had "girl version" initiatives (they actually had these when Lego was already marketed as Unisex) in the first place.

so, you have another gender question, about toys that appeal to one gender or the other, even when no gender information is really apparent in the toys. If 90% of people who like a certain type of toy are boys, is that toy sexist and we need to make it gender-neutral?

[Neonivek]

Even during the "Boyish" age of legos it was mostly that there were a lot more "for guys" sets then for girl sets.

Though yeah Anita has interesting opinions but I always considered her to be a bit too far into the traditional forms of feminism without any of the nuance. The fact that she often depicts effemininity as a negative, says leagues about what she is trying to say in general.

so, you have another gender question, about toys that appeal to one gender or the other, even when no gender information is really apparent in the toys. If 90% of people who like a certain type of toy are boys, is that toy sexist and we need to make it gender-neutral?

Well... no.

Baby dolls will always appeal more to girls then they will for boys for more reasons then just society. While things like toy wrenches has more to do with society.

The problem is that looking at it from the outside is much much worse then actually being involved in the marketing process.

For example... Girls don't play with enough Bulldozers, they are gender-neutral but often marketed towards boys. So how do you get them involved? Well we could make them all "Girly".

At which my eyes would roll in their sockets and I would groan and complain. Yet from a business point of view it is perfectly sound.

[Sergarr]

Small differences x Social effects = Large divides.

[Rolepgeek]

Solution is to market them to girls. Don't just show guys playing with them, show girls playing with them too. Avoid the stigma and idea of a toy having to be 'girly' for a girl to play with it in the first place; that attitude is a significant part of the problem.

[Reelya]

But Lego had the ads showing both girls and boys playing with the blocks equally at the start, and then they started special initiatives to bring girl players in - this was back in the 1970's

So that proves that your "solution" didn't work in the first place, which is why they changed the marketing up. Later in the 1980's they made things like Lego technics and Space Lego to appeal to boys, but the company already noticed a gender gap even with completely unisex marketing a decade before that.

For example, here's a 1970 Lego ad featuring ONLY a girl:
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/society-and-culture/lego-makes-sure-that-boys-will-be-boys-and-girls-will-be-girls-20111226-1paf1.html

Even with that, they weren't getting a lot of girl players, which is why they changed things later. They're not launching special pro-girl ranges just to be bastards, but because they've noticed the things don't appeal to girls for the last 40 years, no matter how they market them.