Comm 344: Female Game Characters

     In our modern age, one would think that having female characters as main, playable characters, would be fairly common; unfortunately though, for all the social progress that has been made, games are very strongly a man's world still. Nearly every game character is male, which, to be fair, is the demographic that is being marketed to, however, there has been a growing female presence in gaming, and with all the games out there, you'd think that there would be plenty of options for playing as a female character. Instead, there's a plethora of male characters, to the point that they are many times similar to male characters of other games.

     This to the point, to where in games like Assassin's Creed, the multiplayer characters are just different versions of the same male character. The Mary Sue points out that Ubisoft originally intended to create a female character to play as, but decided to go with different clothing swatches for the male character, because it was easier. Ubisoft claimed they would have had to create separate movement systems for a female character, however, The Mary Sue points out that they could have used the same engine for the character for movement, or similar; or even that they could have made the main character a female, which, in a game about the French Revolution, would be revolutionary in the gaming industry, considering that one of the only famous playable characters in said industry is Laura Croft in Tomb Raider. There have been several Assassin's Creed games already, so making the main character a female in this one might not have been a huge risk, considering their loyal fan base, and the people in might draw in. It wouldn't be all that different from the series either, considering that the series has female assassins already. It just seems like laziness or playing it safe of Ubisoft's part.

     The Flounce cites Jonathan Cooper from Naughty Dog, a big name animation directer, who on twitter, said, "Man, if I had a dollar for every time someone at Ubisoft tried to bullshit me on animation tech ;-)". I feel as though if other animators are calling out Ubisoft for this, that there is clearly a case to be made.

     Whether or not Ubisoft decides to respond to these criticisms by actually creating female characters as playable or even main characters, remains to be seen, but there doesn't seem to be any evidence for that so far. Perhaps some other company will be more innovative and decide to do something different? Only time will tell...