NEWS
by Mark Barley
BioWare: Industry won't support female stars until there is financial backing
Dragon Age 3's lead writer David Gaider recently stated that the video game industry won't accept female heroes until the money is there.
Speaking at GDC, Gaider stated that the view, as a whole, is that female action heroes don't sell video games and that's something that he would like to see changed.
“The thing about accepted industry wisdom is that you can’t question it. Everyone just agrees. It’s weird. The things that the industry decides are treated as incontrovertibly true until someone else comes along and proves them definitively wrong in a way that we cannot ignore. Then, of course, everyone jumps on it.”
“To say that about female protagonists – that they just don’t sell [is myopic]. Over the last ten years, how many titles have had female protagonists? And we’re supposed to accept, from those particular titles, that a) that constitutes a pattern, and b) the only reason those games were unsuccessful is because they had female protagonists? That is a real leap of logic… There is lots of that in the industry.”
Gaider said that a change in attitude is possible but it would have to be something substantial. “To say that about female protagonists – that they just don’t sell [is myopic]. Over the last ten years, how many titles have had female protagonists? And we’re supposed to accept, from those particular titles, that a) that constitutes a pattern, and b) the only reason those games were unsuccessful is because they had female protagonists? That is a real leap of logic… There is lots of that in the industry.”
“If you were to ask me what would make the industry change its mind about female protagonists, it would take some game coming out and being completely financially successful such that people in the industry couldn’t say, ‘Well, it was just because of this. Not because female protagonists are suddenly marketable,’”
He added, “It has to be something they can’t ignore. The only way the industry can’t ignore something is when money is involved.”
It's a trend that has been challenged lately; Tomb Raider - while being a good game - didn't sell as much as Square Enix thought it would, Naughty Dog recently revealed that their Last of Us heroine Ellie would not be on the game's front cover, and Quantic Dream's upcoming Beyond Two Souls is said to be using the game's main character holding a gun on its cover. He added, “It has to be something they can’t ignore. The only way the industry can’t ignore something is when money is involved.”
Most recently, BioShock: Infinite's cover depicts the game's main character dual wielding guns but it's no secret that the game's character, Elizabeth, is more important.
What do you think? Can female character's sell games?
Via GI.biz