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[Reelya]

Source? (not meant in a questioning-of-credibility way, just that I would be interested in reading more).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_representation_in_video_games#Prevalence

According to data gathered by Electronic Entertainment Design and Research (EEDAR), few video games have exclusively female heroes. This is in part because, according to EEDAR, "there's a sense in the industry that games with female heroes won’t sell", which Penny Arcade attributed in part to these games receiving much smaller marketing budgets than games with male heroes.[5]

In a sample of 669 action, shooter, and role-playing games selected by EEDAR in 2012, only 24 (4%) had an exclusively female protagonist, and 300 (45%) provided the option of selecting one. Examining the sales data and review scores of these games, EEDAR found that the games that included the option of selecting a female hero obtained better scores, but the ones with male-only protagonists sold better than the others. However, games with a female-only protagonist had, on average, only 50% of the marketing budget of female-optional games, and 40% of the marketing budget of games with male-only protagonists.[5]

I underestimated the size of the effect: adding a male to a female game doubles the average budget, not a 60% increase. It was 50% of the dual-gender budget not 50% of the male-only budget as I stated before. Twice the total budget for adding one extra character sounds very cost-effective, even for games with an extremely detailed protagonist.

[Retropunch]

The most interesting bit I find is:
'In a sample of 669 action, shooter, and role-playing games...only 24 (4%) had an exclusively female protagonist, and 300 (45%) provided the option of selecting one.' That's nearly half of all games in the sample that allow you to choose a female protagonist. That's pretty high really, considering that a great deal of franchises can't really have a woman character due to historical (Roman/Greek) or cannon reasons (Batman/Spiderman).

The 'female under-representation' argument really, really annoys me; especially considering some of the most loved franchises have women as a central and strong character. As far as marketing goes, Tomb Raider was heavily advertised, as was Bayonetta. While I agree there are some generalizations that can be made, I definitely don't think that women are less advertised.

[Greiger]

I've been playing a lot of Azure dreams lately.  I want an updated version of that (but for the PC since I left the console game at around the PS2.

For those of you unfamiliar with the game.  It was basically a roguelike for the Playstation 1, except the main character was a monster tamer.  You would find eggs in the dungeon which you could hatch back home to tame.  You could then bring tamed monsters with you in the dungeon.

The main character's level would reset every time you entered the dungeon, and you could only bring 5 items with you into the dungeon, (2 of those items usually being your weapon and shield, the rest usually being taken up by your tamed monsters which take an item slot and maybe a utility item).  Monster levels would not reset, and you could also find items in the dungeon that would strengthen your gear, giving you the means to get farther in the dungeon.

When you meet your limits you have to use a wind crystal to leave and head back to town or you lost all the items in your inventory (except the tamed monsters which go back home).  You could also improve your home and the city itself from your profits from the dungeon, it's a very fun game.

But it had it's flaws.  Money is pretty much exclusively for improving the town.  There is a weapon shop and monster shop, but those are basically only for selling, (you can sell anything anywhere, and your mom even automatically lets you sell items at the end of every dungeon run making them completely pointless) the weapon shop only sells the crappiest sword, and the monster shop is always 'sold out'.  The most useful item you can buy is a medicinal herb from the hospital, which costs less than a single coin stack from the first floor of the dungeon. 

Even if money is important the racetrack gave you access to easy money since you would take part in every race and it allowed you to bet for or against yourself and the payout odds don't seem to have anything to do with the performance of the horses in the next race.  43 to 1 odds for horses 2 and 3 winning?  Sure I'll just spend my entire race as horse 1 keeping horse 4 hard checked into the railing.  Don't even get me started on the casino and it's entirely too slow spinning slot machine.

Anyway an up to date version of that game where the monster shop occasionally sells a low floors egg or two, and the weapon shop has a more expansive inventory would be great.  Hell, maybe it would be nice to invest a little money in those shops to improve their inventory too.  Something to spend money on when the whole town is upgraded.

[gigaraptor487]

Starcraft : Ghost

[Karkov]

I want Warframe to have Council only servers that allow the Council Members to play around with the frames as they were when they first came out.  Like the Vauban frame with his ridiculous infinite unit Bastille, or Mirage with her Hall of Mirrors being affected by every mod on every weapon on every person (I ended up doing 790k damage consistently with one of the least damaging weapons in the game, it was sort of fixed recently).

I like watching us be ridiculously broken in PvE settings, I think that everything exploding simply because explosions are pretty fun.

[EnigmaticHat]

4 female-45 either-51 male is not indicative of balance.  In fact its the extreme opposite of that.  Imagine if a poll on a political issue reported "4 for, 51 opposed, 45 no opinion".  Where would you say opinion lied on that issue?

And before you argue that that's a different circumstance, no its not.  51% of the quoted games decided to force the players to control a male character, and 4% a female character.  Of the remainding 45% they chose to either alternate or, much more likely, give players the option.  While giving players an option is a perfectly valid path it sort of sidesteps some of the issues at hand (which would be a longer post to explain).

Also you guys are picking terrible examples (except Mirror's Edge and the 3 I didn't recognize).  WET and Ghosts bombed (was Ghosts even released?), Metroid took the simplest female character to write ever and produced the stain that is Other M, Tomb Raider's Lara Croft is (rightly) most well known for having enormous breasts and dying graphically, and Bayonetta... is complicated, there's strong arguments either way.

[RAM]

I believe that Starcraft: Ghost, was a wish for a game to exist, although that may only be because I choose to believe such. I should probably post a game that I want. Hrmmm... Oh, I know! I want a steampunk game where you can design your own gear from, like, really basic components, like tanks and valves and pipes and such, and the designs actually sort of make sense rather than just being pre-programmed arbitrary recipes... Possible with giant mecha, but there should be other aspects, or at least other options too. Like, steam-powered prosthetic limbs, and, like, steam-jet hovercrafts, and, umm, well probably not many stealth missions, unless sneaking into a place that would mask the cacophony of pressure releases and such that the average character would produce, but at least some aspect where vehicles were not appropriate...

[a1s]

The most interesting bit I find is:
'In a sample of 669 action, shooter, and role-playing games...only 24 (4%) had an exclusively female protagonist, and 300 (45%) provided the option of selecting one.' That's nearly half of all games in the sample that allow you to choose a female protagonist. That's pretty high really, considering that a great deal of franchises can't really have a woman character due to historical (Roman/Greek) or cannon reasons (Batman/Spiderman).

You have been subverted by the patriarchy. 
51% of the games do not offer you any choice- you have to play a male. That's more than half. Greco-Roman Athena was a badass, where as Diana was both badass and sexy (if you only play games with attractive female protagonists). If you meant actual history, I refer you to the other wiki. Batman has Batgirl (as a DLC/unlockable), whereas WonderWoman and Thor are female all on their own.

[Retropunch]

The most interesting bit I find is:
'In a sample of 669 action, shooter, and role-playing games...only 24 (4%) had an exclusively female protagonist, and 300 (45%) provided the option of selecting one.' That's nearly half of all games in the sample that allow you to choose a female protagonist. That's pretty high really, considering that a great deal of franchises can't really have a woman character due to historical (Roman/Greek) or cannon reasons (Batman/Spiderman).

You have been subverted by the patriarchy. 
51% of the games do not offer you any choice- you have to play a male. That's more than half. Greco-Roman Athena was a badass, where as Diana was both badass and sexy (if you only play games with attractive female protagonists). If you meant actual history, I refer you to the other wiki. Batman has Batgirl (as a DLC/unlockable), whereas WonderWoman and Thor are female all on their own.

Granted, it's not 50-50, but I really don't feel that this is bad in a medium which has a larger number (perhaps not by much any more) of male users, and history of male orientation. While I agree equality is ridiculously important, you can't expect businesses to go against basic marketing sense which says to connect with your larger customer base, which is at least 51% male. Again, it's not completely equal, but should we be forced to produce exactly equal numbers of male and female games? Even if we were to be completely equal on gender boundaries, there are still roughly more males than females.

As far as historically, yes, there were great female heroes, but they're hardly on the scale of Hercules/Ulysses/King Arthur etc. Granted, that's due to the male slant of history, but regardless, we're stuck with it.

[lijacote]

we're stuck with it.

What has been will remain so; what is, is; what will be is up in the volatile air.

[a1s]

While I agree equality is ridiculously important, you can't expect businesses to go against basic marketing sense which says to connect with your larger customer base, which is at least 51% male.

Actually, it seems I have to expect it. You see, when Budwiser sell beer (to men), they will show you a girl. When Honda sells cars they show you a woman (usually with kids, but whatever). When the NFL 'sells' their football to the viewer they show you a whole bunch of women. And yet, somehow, when EA sells you their simulated football they show you a man. Unless there's something you're not telling us (and the NFL, but EA is all up in your closet) why would that make you want to buy their game?

Men might not want to play as women (which is why you give them the choice), but they sure as all hell love them in their marketing materials.

[Retropunch]

While I agree equality is ridiculously important, you can't expect businesses to go against basic marketing sense which says to connect with your larger customer base, which is at least 51% male.

Actually, it seems I have to expect it. You see, when Budwiser sell beer (to men), they will show you a girl. When Honda sells cars they show you a woman (usually with kids, but whatever). When the NFL 'sells' their football to the viewer they show you a whole bunch of women. And yet, somehow, when EA sells you their simulated football they show you a man. Unless there's something you're not telling us (and the NFL, but EA is all up in your closet) why would that make you want to buy their game?

Because the difference is participation. In the game you ARE the player, whereas in the commercial/tv, you want something basically nice to look at. Lets say you want to Budwiser sexy/associate it with sex, do you choose lots of half naked guys or half naked girls? As a higher proportion of beer drinkers are men, and a higher proportion of men are straight, you're going to choose half naked women. Same with perfume, most women's perfume is sold with a sexy half naked man as well as a woman.

Similarly, if you've got a market that is mostly men and is all about 'being the character' are they going to identify more with being a man or a woman? Sure, some might say 'it doesn't matter', but from all the social research on how closely people relate to their avatars, I think it's a big thing for most.

[alexandertnt]

I dunno... MMO's are imfamous for their sexy, borderline pornographic advertisements (often well beyond what you would see for beer and cars), and you are the player.

[blazing glory]

Mechwarrior 5, no not that one a proper one that wasn't multiplayer only.

[Retropunch]

I dunno... MMO's are imfamous for their sexy, borderline pornographic advertisements (often well beyond what you would see for beer and cars), and you are the player.

Very true, I've heard it said that that is down to playing on the 'meeting new people' aspect of MMOs, and that, just like those 'sexy singles in your area' ads, it's all about enticing you with the prospect of possibly meeting someone like that. Obviously this is more in the sub-conscious than people thinking they will actually meet 4 breasted nympho-elf from Sexalotomere, but I can see the logic behind it.

Plus, the extreme visuals (in both trailers and the pornographic images) are usually seen as a way to distract/advertise over the poor in game graphics.

Mechwarrior 5, no not that one a proper one that wasn't multiplayer only.

God yes. I had some fun with MWO, but I realllllly want a new mechwarrior.