No playable female in Deep Down discussion

Over-the-top blog opinions aside, it's always nice when games give you the option to customize your character. All RPGs should have flexible character customization.

I remember when a game forcing you to play a character of a certain sex didn't get forum threads and articles.

What a load of wishy washy bullshit.

I find this quite weird.

For western RPGs sure. For JRPGs no thank you.

JRPGs aren't worth playing, so it doesn't matter what they do.

@carryboy: Yeah, but I was always player 2 in Gears, so I was Dom!!! My husband was always player 1, Marcus. I admit, Dom was annoying by the third game, but man he was my guy. So yeah, I had an emotional connection to him, mainly because I was him for the three games... But yeah, that's probably the most shameful gaming related crying thing I've admitted to. :D

@jadegl: I played as Dom as well, but when he died, it didn't affect me. It was probably because I thought the writing in the franchise was terrible.

@jadegl: I gotta little close to tearing up when Dom died... but then when it's got the ever manipulative Mad World playing in the background, it won't take much to get me bawling! Plus I genuinely felt sad for Marcus.

...And I also genuinely really like a lot of the Gears cast!

That's how I feel about WRPGs, so I only play JRPGs.

For what it's worth, I would also the character was customizable a la Skyrim as opposed to whatever this Assassin's Creed nonsense stuff is. However, I also like it when characters have more defined traits, that allow the story to be tighter and more personal (all Commander Shepards are alliance marines with some default characteristics, all Nameless Ones did all the shit he did).

Sexism exists in the gaming industry, but this is not that. This is a "journalist" trying to find a hot button issue before they knew all of the facts.

A sensationally worded social justice warrior article hoping to attract page views? Then you should clearly make a post about the article, and give the author tons of attention! That'll show 'em!

That seems to be some circular logic. First of all, you just criticized the authors article. Secondly--even if you didn't--by suggesting that people should wait for the full story before they judge the game, you are indirectly criticizing articles that jump to conclusions before all the details are known.

I'm just interested to see what story element Capcom has dreamed up that would prevent women from being playable characters. Then I'll judge the situation from there.

NOT EVERYTHING IS A BIG DEAL

Well the have since said there are no playable ladies because you play as a set story charater.

Yep, I just pulled this off of Joystiq:

"I was informed by a representative of one of our overseas branches that an article containing misleading information regarding Deep Down has been recently circulating and drawing some attention," wrote Sugiura. "This article makes the claim that the game has 12 playable characters, all of whom are male. As producer in charge of this project, I would like to respond and clarify."

"While the main character of Deep Down is indeed male, he is the only playable character in the game. The story focuses on him and a group of allies known as the Ravens."

That's much different than a character creator that doesn't allow you to pick a female character.

I guess I don't really get the controversy surrounding the vg247 article. Yeah, it's a little incendiary and over-the-top, but that seems justifiable when you consider the shit that any woman who writes about gender in video games gets on a regular basis.

As for the meat of the actual argument, Deep Down is straight up missing a feature that it's predecessors have had for a while, now. Skyrim, Dark Souls, and maybe even Dragon's Dogma are the recent marks of success in this genre, and all of them had the ability to choose the gender of your character. If Titanfall came out with 7 maps, game sites would be well within their rights to go "WTF, Respawn? CoD's most recent release had 14 maps!"

The story justification also seems like bullshit to me. You can have a compelling story where the player character's gender doesn't matter. Just look at the Mass Effect series.

If this is indeed the case, this makes sense. Theres a difference between "why cant I make a female character" and "this game is about this guy". It's like asking for genderswapped Solid Snake or Lara Croft. It can be done - Mass Effect did it - but at great cost. The story has to be written with this unknown in mind, and the voice acting is doubled - many other non-playable characters would need to be written and voiced to have different reactions based on gender.

I support what you are saying but this is bullshit. The Notebook was not written or directed with the male audience in mind, clearly I can not possibly enjoy that movie. What? There are much better argument to be made here, like inclusivity or people just prefer choices. This article like many articles in this vein before it, tried to start this conversation in the worst way possible.

Hey I think that restaurant should put none spicy food on the menu to be more inclusive -

What reasonable people would so - maybe call the management/waiter aside and gave them some feedback

What this article and many others did - go on twitter, use #fuckthiselitistplace to vent his "concern" and when people got angry, the author call them elitist prick.

This is the real definition of click bait.

No, it is not justifiable to allude that a developer or publisher may be sexist for any reason other than they have facts proving so. Not having a female character that they can play does not justify the reaction she has in this article. A person getting shit for something doesn't justify that person turning around and giving somebody else shit.

She shouldn't be paid to write articles any more.

I wonder when a writer in this industry is going to have the balls to tell people to calm the fuck down about feminism. There are far worse things happening in this industry and in the wider world regarding the treatment of women than Deep Down having a male protagonist.

I was more referring to the tone of the article and the misandry quote that people have been complaining about in this thread.

In terms of the allusions to Capcom being sexist, it honestly doesn't make much sense to create a modern third-person action RPG in the vein of Dark Souls with a male character and no gender options in a world where Dark Souls, Dragon's Dogma and Skyrim exist. Capcom had three options, spend the money to make two character models, have a female protagonist, or have a male protagonist. Capcom went with the industry standard of having a male protagonist.

People are ignoring that this isn't just about Capcom and Deep Down. The title of the article states it pretty clearly, there is an ingrained industry sexism when it comes to gaming, this game and this decision are just another drop in the bucket. In order to make any sort of change something has to be said when these decisions get handed down, however seemingly innocuous they might be.

I like both genre's very much. IT is my most favorite genre in general. But I would cringe about a JRPg with customization option except costumes etc. JRPG's are about a narrative story while in JRPG you are playing a custom made character witch choices etc.

@ramone: Eh, the conversation will just shift into another attention grabbing issue. The real problem with game journalism at the moment is that the journalists are not satisfied with the level of respect that video games garner. Its just another sign that video game journalists(most of them; not all of them)feel that the industry they cover is too marginalized.

So even though the gender issue may come and go inevitably, it will just get replaced with another thing.

Except as I understand it, this is not a Dark Soul, this is not a Dragron dogma or a Skyrim. They might share the medieval setting and the fantasy world but who's to say that every fantasy world must have a character creator? As I see it (and like everyone else I did not see that much of the game) it's a story driven game in a fantasy world. We don't know how much story there is in the game but you're litterally asking to double down on every animation/voice over so you can have both gender. That's great when game allow that but I don't think it something we should expect from every game.

Example that come to mind would be me that like let's say Hunger Game (I do) but think that the story would be better with a male as the protagonist and ask that a book would be made with that in mind. The same thing could apply to movie, one with a guy and one with a girl as the hero. This may sound ridiculous but adding this take a lot of time and money. Like it would take a lot of time and money to change/remake a book/movie with an other character.

Not to say it should not be done, but that it's not a good expectation to have for everything you see. Sometime (most of the time), you're just playing the game for entertainment and the character only serve for the story the creator did, like movie or book.

You do realise that Capcom were the developers of Dragon's Dogma, right? Yes, you could say Capcom have gone for the 'industry standard' for their Deep Down protagonist (though this game overall really doesn't sound like anything I'd call ''standard''), but that shouldn't suddenly exclude all of their other games that have pretty evenly featured male/female characters, if not just a female.

@yummylee: Yeah it is pretty much laughable in itself to accuse Capcom a company that has created so many games with strong female characters of sexism when suddenly one games does not have an option to play as a female character.

See this is something I can totally understand and respect. If you look forward to building your own character, female or not, and end up not being able to make that choice it's understandable that you're disappointed.

It should still be up to the developer to decide if they want to only include a character of one gender without having to deal with articles that accuse those developers of being sexist. You can express your disappointment and even criticise the game if you feel like it could have worked just as well with the option of playing both genders. I just don't get why you have to make everything about sexism before you even played the game. Not including a playable female character in a game isn't straight away sexism.

I personally don't care if my character is male or female. If I have the option I almost always play as a male because I'm a dude myself but it wouldn't bother me in the slightest to play as a female.

@spaceinsomniac: I'll be the first to admit I'm not the smartest guy on the planet, but I'm not sure I get what your point is. Yes, I think that if you are getting extremely upset about something and decide to write a furious article about it, it's probably wise to know you are basing it on the truth and not assumptions; especially those that later appear to be untrue.

I get that people think they should've shared the information about the story purposes in more detail from the get go, but I still think the outcry over it is too much and too crazy.

It's the internet, there is no such thing as "too much and too crazy" those two things are the baseline upon which everything is built - because games are either the best thing ever, the worst thing ever or in this case the most sexist thing ever, possibly misgynistic because that word has lost all meaning over the past two years.

The difference between having a female and male character in this game would only be cosmetic.

I'm not a big fan of criticizing videogames for stuff they don't include. I think criticism should be left for things that actually exist rather than because it doesn't hit every single checkbox in your wishlist.

Everything can't appeal to everyone and I hope for the sake of art that people stop trying to make everyone happy. It's okay for people to not get what they want sometimes.

On the other hand, a female main character option would be a good thing. It's just completely uninteresting by itself and including a female main character would do nothing to further any kind of feminist awareness.

I don't. I don't even think, even from a journalistic standpoint, the developers owe anything to anybody. Either they want to release information or they don't. Either they want to do this in their game or that. We, as a customer, judge with our wallet. Journalist merely report what is given(and if their smart don't jump to conclusions).

Do not care.

@flindip: I remember when Resident Evil 5 was announced with the first couple trailers some people were up in arms about the game being racist because you play as a white guy who was (in the trailers at the time) exclusively punching black dudes in the face. I didn't think it was racist, I just thought: 'okay, it's set in Africa, it makes sense that most if not all people are black', but I also thought it probably wouldn't have hurt if they also come out at the same time and said it is just one area where the game takes place and there are other area's as well.

At the same time though, I can't help but think about a South Park episode where the moral was that people who do not see a white guy punching a black guy in the face as racist, might just see a guy punching a guy in the face; not judging on color at all. Still, probably wouldn't have hurt to share a bit more information, but yeah, I do think it's overreaction.

You care enough to comment.

Right, and the vg247 article acknowledges that. One past decision to give players an option doesn't make this decision any less problematic in the grand scheme of things. Like I said above, the problem is not solely with Capcom, this is an industry-wide thing. This one game with this one protagonist seems like a small, unimportant thing, but in order to make any sort of change in the continuing trend of the video game industry focusing on and heavily featuring male protagonists, these seemingly small decisions need to be examined and discussed.

The argument Brenna is making is that doubling down on the animation/voice work (if there even is voice work in Deep Down) is ultimately worth it. The vicious cycle of women not playing games leading to female characters not being featured prominently leading to women not playing games can be ended if more publishers and developers are willing to feature female characters more prominently in their games.

From what we've seen so far, I'm not buying that Deep Down is highly story-driven, although I could definitely be proven wrong. The main character is in a suit of armor and it's an online co-op multiplayer game. It just seems like the sort of thing that would benefit from variety.

Why can't I play as a Jewish black man. This is bullshit. And these people making these games are fucking monsters for not including that option in their games. TIME TO RAGE!

Even if there aren't story reasons (lots of people are assuming this without knowing anything about the story) for only having a male player character, it would just be a nice feature to include... not something that should be thought of as a requirement to be forced into any individual game. Constantly turning the topic into a toxic, antagonistic mess over trivial shit like this does not help things along. It breeds resentment, poisons the movement by association, and makes it look like you have no legitimate cause for concern. Focus this energy on encouraging women to get into making games and heaping praise on positive examples if you really want to speed up the process. If you want to get angry about something, save the rage for the egregious negative examples rather than simple omissions.

Ding ding. We have a winner folks. The objective shouldn't be modifying what we got, but adding to what we have. There is plenty of room for male focused video games without screaming some sort of social injustice. Just as there is plenty of room for female driven games as well. Art can be as inclusive or exclusive as it chooses to be. Expand the medium(give more options to the consumer); don't try to pigeonhole every game to follow some sort of social checklist.

@russman588: As I understand it there is support in the industry that female leads in games do not sell well. I believe it may be more the fault of the quality of those games rather than who is in the lead; Tomb Raider is a good example of a good quality game that also sold very well (at least everyone else besides Square thought so). Nevertheless, it's probably hard to pitch to all the businessmen that you're making a game with a female lead when they have advisers telling them those don't sell well.

Beyond Good and Evil or Mirrors Edge just to name two Or how about the fact that I think it was like 80 of people who played Mass Effect played a male character instead of a female on. There are endless examples for this.

If there's genuinely a good reasoning why you can't choose between Male and Female, like an involved narrative in which having two player "characters" would be way too much work, I understand.

If this is just them deciding not to let people customize their generic hero to be a lady, that's super lame.

@russman588: Capcom also published Remember Me, a game the developer themselves said other publishers turned down because it had a female protagonist. DONTNOD felt that it had to be a female protagonist for their story, and it wasn't changed. So now we're supposed to nitpick when Capcom decides to publish a game that the developer feels that the protagonist has to be male?

Yes, as I'm saying: there are examples like that, that probably make it hard for a developer to pitch a game with a female lead as there are sales figures that show those do not sell well. That said, I totally love Mirror's Edge, it's one of my favorite games of the past generation; but it was very obviously a unique and niche game. It's more on those factors that it didn't sell well, than there being a female lead. I could name Tomb Raider as a counter example of a game that is very much aimed at a larger audience and did, in fact, sell really well.

But yeah, it's clear that high budget games will probably stay away from female leads as it is just one more chance to take on your investment. I understand it financially, but I really don't think it's true.

@zevvion: For some reason, your and @darji's more recent comments weren't showing up. Regarding the difficulty of pitching games with female protagonists, I don't think Capcom is one of those publishers where it might be hard. While Remember Me might give that perception off after the fact, they still published it, and I think Deep Down was already in development before we knew how the former sold.

So, I decided to read that vg article thing in a little more detail, and... I'm just surprised anyone has really managed to take her seriously. Like, what the fuck? She basically comes across as the stereotypical depiction of ''the internet''; loud, comically angry, and just really, really antagonistic overall. That she's really making that much of a fuss over something so minor... Bloody ridiculous.

Female characters are getting better representation within games; it's a fact, it's happening, however slow it may be. And like @chrisharris said, it's better worth spending one's energy in highlighting the games that do good by female video game character representation rather than simply throwing temper tantrums because this one game has a male protagonist. That one game that, again, comes from a company that is primarily pretty even-scaled as far as male/female representation goes for their products.

For as utter shite of a game it is, the Capcom published Operation Raccoon City had six classes, each of which were available for both genders. Well, not always by choice since they're separated by faction; the assault class for the USS is female, while for the spec ops it's male, and so on and vice versa for every other class.

@sergio said:

I kind of already covered this in response to yummylee and darklight above, but like I said, it's not just about Capcom, it's about a larger trend of male protagonists being in the vast majority of games. You and I both know that Remember Me is a very rare exception to what's usually released. When you get a game like Deep Down where it isn't announced up front that the protagonist is exclusively male, has very little characterization in the promotion of the game so far, and features online co-op multiplayer (which is a mode that benefits from character customization and variety), this reaction doesn't seem unjustified to me.

If it turns out that Deep Down has an in-depth story that requires a male protagonist, this will be a case of poor marketing and not a case of a lack of features.

As an aside, vg247 has posted an article about the Deep Down producer's clarification of there being only one protagonist if anyone is interested.

Except this "vicious cycle" is complete conjecture on your part and has never even come close to being proven. Some girls like to play games as girls, sure. I also usually play as female characters when I can, so I like the option too in games that suit that choice. But the idea that a lack of female characters actually causes girls to not play videogames in general is absurd and I'd say even a little offensive to the intellectual capacity of a woman to enjoy an experience through an avatar different than herself.

Tomb Raider is a bit special because in Europe especially Lara Croft was objectified like nothing else back than. People grew up with her totally naked just covered in some bed sheet as an advertisement for example. People did everything to see her naked in the game but also outside of the game. She became a Videogame Sexsymbol. Today's Lara Croft is way way better in this regard. She has way more character now and most importantly she feels much more human than before. Yes she kills hundreds of people but she did that since the beginning as well. It is just more explicit these days because that is how games changed.

Also people like Naughty Dog are showing that female main protagonists can be sold. For naughty dog games it is not about the gender but how good written these characters are. But still even the Last of Us was accused of being a male power fantasy even though Ellie was the person that grew the most in this game and even killed the main villain in this game as well. Personally I think we do not need gender discussions but rather we need better writing in our games. And the writing is getting better and better and therefore also the female characters.

Edit: Sorry Josh^^

@darji: Darji! Spoiler tag! Come on!!!

Edit: (Thanks) ;)

@russman588: I read your responses, and didn't really find them valid. Are we to forever point at developers and publishers for every single game they produce with a male protagonist now and question whether they are sexist? Even when they themselves have included female characters, main characters even, in the past.

The article was driven by this developer for Capcom's choice of having a male protagonist, not by the industry in general. If this were about the lack of female protagonists in general and not calling out Capcom themselves, she's done a very crappy job. This is the correct approach. I agree with almost everything there. (Obviously not Brenna's article being enjoyable.)