With female characters in games it's a veritable minefield for game makers (when it comes to SJW Critiques) & even leaving them out isn't really a good option anymore IMHO

This Humble Weekly Bundle doesn't seem like extremely good value for money, but other than that there are no reasons to freak out. We should be reasonably suspicious, but not intellectually allergic.

Statistically there are a lot fewer women in game development. That could be for a lot of reasons, but many people think that women face more obstacles than men in terms of getting into the field. Something like the Fine Young Capitalists contest or a female-only game jam is kind of an experiment to see if that's true. If there are none of the usual obstacles, then what quality of work will come out of it?

So as an experiment I don't really see anything wrong with it. It's just another way to try to analyze the situation and explain it, and at least it's constructive. I'd rather get a good game made instead of have a bunch of articles telling me I suck for liking games :P

Having said that, I wouldn't have even heard of the Fine Young Capitalists if Zoe Quinn hadn't tried to sabotage them and shut their project down, so the whole controversy did play into my decision to throw $5 at them. It seemed like a decent enough project and it wasn't fair to see it treated like that, so I wanted them to succeed.

I'd prefer to see it focused on good characters. Hell doesn't Mrs. Explosion Man (I think that's the name of the game off the top of my head.) fit another trope?

That's a double standard there. If you promote a female character, or hell, any minority character for being a minority, then you marginalize them and tokenize them. And I. HATE. THAT. I'd much rather have a really good character no matter what they are, then this mess because people are complaining about diversity. I mean, seriously, aren't we all human? Or does all of our similarities mean nothing because there's a difference in how we look.

But on the other hand, people have really started getting upset about that, then they get even more upset when you try to force a character who didn't have a place, into a spot that seems off. I'm not entirely sure you can win there.

I think it would be nice if marketing didn't play a role in what characters developers were allowed to make. I don't think developers should be forced to include a character they don't want to (as you said, that won't turn out well). But on the other hand, I've heard that a lot of developers really do want to make different characters but their publishers force them to "play it safe" and stick to the generic character that the marketing people claim sells better. I think if there was much less pressure like that, the problem would probably solve itself because the people who really want to write a different character will be free to do so, but nobody would be forced to if they didn't feel comfortable writing from a different perspective.

The problem with that is part of the larger problem of shoe-horning in female/trans/gay/minority/alien characters into game stories. A boring female or gay character is still just that... boring. You can't add subtext and depth to a character by simply throwing on a different coat of paint (or genitals). So, to pander to the SJW crowd by inserting a strong female character that is still cardboard and two dimensional isn't really solving any story or game problems, it's just that... pandering.

Characters in games, especially RPGs or narrative driven games, should be there to enrich the story and add depth to the game play, not mindlessly inserted just to please this or that social/political group. But that of course violates one of the fundamental beliefs of political correctness, the one that says it's not possible to have a boring or pointless female/trans/gay/minority character. It is quite possible and happens all the time.

Your right of course, she’s a Mrs Male Character (like Mrs Pac Man) even down to being pink and having a bow she fits it too a tee. Its possibly a parody of the trope though.

I think its a paradox, your trying to make whatever it is more inclusive, wither its highlighting female leads in games or adding an 'ethnic' character to a tv series, or even having things like positive discrimination when it comes to interviewing for jobs, but by doing that they are then reduced to the one thing you are trying to avoid them being defined by. I can think of lots of otherwise good tv shows and movies that were ruined or lessoned by the addition of very one dimensional characters who simply filled a token role. Sadly we haven't yet reached the stage where humans can just be human.

Totally agree. I do think it depends on (in gaming terms at least) the type of game it is. If you look at Mass Effect, the player character could easily have been left a male with the excuse being not having the money to hire a second lead voice actor, but they made it a choice, male or female, pick your own skin colour, and by the final game, pick your own sexuality. Not all games can do that of course, but I do think a lot more could than do, and without it having any adverse affect on the game itself. It would be nice if games developers thought outside the common white male lead role, and I think they should consider other options, but at the end of the day it needs to be whatever is right for them, a character they can best bring to life. Better standard well written white guy than different but extremely one dimensional and boring Afro-Asian girl. And I seriously hope that doesn't sound racist or sexist. Anyway think I let my thoughts get away from me there.

I'm not going to lie, that's depressing and disappointing. I'm interested in games, I don't care if they're safe, I just want them interesting. And yeah, that does make it sound like there is a problem with marketing there, and I wonder if marketing, and not gamers are really the problem with diversity in games. It's just easier to blame on gamers because marketing can easily axe any ads on their site.

As far as TFYC game jam goes, I heard a bit about the game and it sounds like a lot of fun, I'll probably be checking it out when it's released, just gonna need to write myself a note, I didn't have the cash to donate.

Yeah. I don't think gamers or developers are sexist. However, I think that marketing people think gamers are sexist, so they put a lot of pressure on developers to pander to their view of what gamers want. And then of course, if they repeat often enough, "Don't blame us, we're just giving gamers what they want!" then other people outside of gaming begin to believe it.

Yeah, I was happy because that's the one I wanted to win :D I hope it turns out well.

Never played the game in all honesty, I still have to get through Explosion Man, which was fun, but it didn't really hold me for too long.

I have a hatred against token characters because of this. You're absolutely right. For me it's a simple belief that not every character fits every story, but that's more based on personality, and token characters tend to have more stereotypical personalities that just don't make sense at all. It's easy to see in TV and movies because I have seen a tendency to write for specific actors when they can. In books, you rarely see skin color unless it's important, or something that's just very different.

I do like seeing choice where it fits, and I think we would all be blind to say it fits everywhere. I did like how Mass Effect did it, but they also took out the raw moral choices, it was simply 'Be Nice', or 'Be a Dick' at times, at least to my view. Granted, for most of those games, especially Fantasy based ones, I make myself, because I always had these daydreams of being in a fantasy novel with swords and sorcery, and for me it's a way of acting it out.

To point out what Jennifer said though, a lot of that does come from marketing then from people just not wanting to make certain characters. Marketing likes playing it very, VERY safe to a stupid degree most of the time, and it's always very behind on the times because it looks at trends and data that goes back a ways.

I'm not even sure that marketing sees us as sexist, I think they simply look at very basic factors, that when put together don't tell the whole story. I think they're also adding in old data and that makes it harder for them to react to quicker trends.

So do I. It should prove to be pretty interesting.

I'd be more interested in a fascinating alien philosopher character of unknown gender and out of the box thinking than any human stereotype, am I a racist?
In any case, I don't really care for minor character traits like planet of origin, gender, height, boob size, clothing etc... as long as the character inside it isn't a trope in itself and nothing more, except in purely comedic approaches.

Actually, the transdimensional character you get into your party in Planescape:Torment if your wisdom value is very high and you give him answers to think about was to my liking and I'll definitely get him again when playing completely through it some day.

That could be, but either way I really don't think average gamers are biased in the way that a lot of people claim as justification for marketing decisions (or those attack articles for that matter). I think as games have become more expensive to make, a lot of companies have become terrified of failure and listen too much to marketing ideas which compromise the creativity of the game developers.

This includes issues like not being able to make a female player character (or in some cases being allowed to make a female character but having to cut her love interest out of the game). But it also includes a lot of other issues which have nothing to do with politics (like a developer being pressured to change major plot points due to focus testing). I think it's a bad trap where most developers can't get the funding they need for their game without agreeing to give up a lot of freedom about what they're allowed to put into the game.

If you mean Ignus, I killed him less than five minutes after meeting him XD If you mean Vhailor, I mostly kept him around because Keith David :P My favorite party members were Morte, Grace and Nordom.

To be fair, Tropes can be a trap too. If you have knowledge of them and go looking, you can probably break down any character, and any person into tropes. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife

You hit a point where you can't stop looking critically at things and it ends up ruining your ability to enjoy things. It's a definite trap with anything that goes into things from a critical standpoint, and a lot of people who look too deeply forget to look into the framework beyond the trope when it's used, and instead criticize the trope itself. As much as anything can be art, not all art needs to be looked at under severe microscopes.

Sometimes, you gotta let it go. "If you're wondering how he eats and breathes and other science facts. Then repeat to yourself 'It's just a show I should really just relax." MST3K

Nope, Dak'kon.
I have no problem with a butch barbarian or a 90/60/90 female thief if they have anything else to offer and am well able to look beyond the trope/class, but in many cases devs are lazy and the barbarian doesn't know many words beyond "fight, eat, mate, sleep" etc... and the like. Sometimes, there isn't anything beyond the tropes and that's just boring although I don't really have anything against that.

Oh, right, I get confused sometimes with how the terminology is used in Torment (you said other plane, my brain jumped straight to Elemental Plane of Fire, and you said talking to the character to make him think and I thought of talking to Vhailor about whether he exists :P).

I think Dak'kon was a good character too. They clearly put a lot of thought into him and his backstory. I felt kind of neutral towards him in the game though. I liked talking with him and finding out more, but the whole time I had a paranoid suspicion that he didn't like me so I never really felt at ease around him.

Yeah, I think that's a problem too. I mean, Minsc is freaking awesome :P But I forget pretty much every other stereotypical barbarian character that I've seen in games because they're really flat and unmemorable. And that goes for pretty much every archetypal character. The writers really have to do something special with it to make it worthwhile.

Like for example, "the old crone" is a typical archetype and some characters could be described as such. However, Ravel is so much more than that (Kreia too for that matter). A character really needs that extra depth, some kind of interesting characteristic that makes them memorable and worth thinking about.