Forum - View topicThe X Button - Vanishing Point
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Northlander
 Posts: 901 |
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Fair enough, but I'd like to reiterate that my point was that the Chao part being in the game didn't bother me because it was optional. The Big the Cat part of the game did because it was not. I can't really speak for the popularity of the Chao raising part of either Sonic Adventure game, but I'm pretty sure at least some people would be annoyed if that, too, was a forced aspect of the game instead of an optional one. Or, on the flip side, if the Big the Cat part of the game also was optional and you only had to play the parts with Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, ED-... 208? ....and the Amy stages to get to the last part with Super Sonic, I'm pretty sure people wouldn't be so volatile about Big being there. Or maybe they would. I don't know.
I've played neither of those. Are you talking about Chao raising or Big the Cat? |
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Stuart Smith
 Posts: 1298 |
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Whenever I mention I play video games, 99% of the time the response is something akin to "Ah, like Call of Duty?" around my work and my former campus. It then often leads to an awkward conversation of me trying to explain I don't play shooters, mainly RPGs. More than once someone mistook RPG for the rocket launcher gun. I've also heard a few mentions of video games being the cause for the latest mass shooting in the news. So no, people in the real world don't really care about this issue, they're more concerned with violence and thinking games are all shooters or murder simulators.
At the risk of being "that guy", just because someone makes up a certain percentage of the overall population doesn't mean they make up the same percentage of a subculture. I know there's that one study floating around that says most gamers are female, but that included Facebook and mobile games like Candy Crush Saga. In terms of home consoles, specifically the PS4, Xbone, and Wii U in this case, only Nintendo has ever released demographic statistics. I believe they mentioned only around 15% of Wii U users were female. As nice as it would be to be marketed too, it's a business. It doesn't make much sense to market towards someone who only makes up a small minority of your consumer base. Of course, if we're talking about Japan that's something else entirely. Japan has no issue making games for niches. Japan makes a lot of games for female audiences, but they almost never get released in America presumably due to a small market not worth the effort of localizing them. Perhaps this is one of the instances where Kickstarter could be beneficial. But at the end of the day, does it matter if something is a 'girl game' or 'boy game'? Maybe my judgement is a bit skewed because I'm also an anime fan, so I see men and women crossing boundaries all the time. Men watching shoujo shows, women watching shounen series. I never really care who a game is intended for, I play what I think looks interesting. I picked up Moco Moco Friends in addition to Yokai Watch. -Stuart Smith |
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faboo95
 Posts: 92 |
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1000% this. I'm totally for having discussions/debates/arguments regarding...well, anything really. as long as it's constructive. But doing it to the point that you deprive people from enjoying something that isn't deserved of being taken away, gotta draw the line there. If there are people out there who are truly so offended by games like these (or any form of media), I just hope they know they have the option to simply not view it. |
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H. Guderian
Posts: 1255 |
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They counter that argument about not having to play them by going Full Jack Thompson and declaring video games are warping your mind to commit crimes, thusly games are shamed. A lot of shame. So much shame to pass around.
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Lili-Hime
 Posts: 569 |
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@Rivailloli
Thanks, it's good to see that someone else saw that the response clearly didn't read my post. It's a common tactic though to shut down discourse by mis-characterizing an opinion as extremist and setting up a strawman. Not worth responding to really. People like that have their paranoid narrative and will cling to it with all they've got; I'm not the only woman in this thread to be accused of ridiculous things after posting a calm, moderate opinion.
I'm sorry, but you are misinformed. The 15% figure is far too low. Here are a few studies. 2015 Pew Research Poll indicating women own more game consoles then men. Please note that this survey does not include cell phones or portable gaming devices as consoles, they have separate catergories Study showing 48% of gamers are women. Another 2014 study showing women still make up 40% of 'active' console gamers and 45% of active handheld gamers. So people can go on saying gaming is a 'boy's club' type hobby, but science just doesn't bear that out. You may as well categorize voting as a female activity because female voter turnout is 6% higher than male turnout; or reading as a female activity because women are 13% more likely than men to read books. Also catergorizing cell phone and browser games as 'not real games' is moving goalposts as well as disregarding an entire section of gaming. If women who mostly game on cell phones aren't gamers, then neither are Japanese people because they've largely left behind consoles for mobile. Yet I don't see men putting down Japanese as 'not real gamers' because of mobile... interesting. |
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Primus
 Posts: 2761 Location: Toronto |
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I've definitely seen criticism about Japan's mobile shift. In fact, you'll find tonnes of articles claiming their games industry is dead as a result of it. So there's definitely a sense that they're not "real games", and that's not a gender exclusive sentiment.
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meiam
Posts: 3442 |
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That pew survey is an absolute joke. First of all the question was "do you own a game console like xbox or playstation" which does not exclude cell phone and portable. In fact the less someone know about video game the more likely they would answer "yes" thinking about a cell phone or tablet. The correct way to hold this survey would have been to ask them exactly what they own and then to categorize them. But they would have failed extraordinary at that since they apparently believe that a sega genesis is a portable gaming platform (something that take 0.5 second to google is still on there website to this day). Even then console ownership means very little, my parents technically have a wii, they just have't touched it 4 year, if my mom had answer she would have been classified as "yes" even though for all purpose she's a no. Similarly most survey are absolutely terrible at this because they just don't understand video game and the distinction between mobile gaming and console gaming. Merging the two makes as much sense as merging movie and tv show and then asking for movie to change based on trend in tv series. There different experience. In this case the subject in question is DOAX, definitely not to be considered in the same way one would consider candy crush. |
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ValwinZ
Posts: 5 |
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that survey is pretty bad especially when you can ask my mother is she owns a console and she would say yes because we have one at home but in noway means she plays it lots of people analyze why that survey is bad |
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Lili-Hime
Posts: 569 |
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My post as well as the survey itself clearly defines portable devices and cell phones in a different catergory. Again, another case of someone not reading my post and ignoring stats. I wonder why I even bother sometimes. The other 2 studies were also ignored. You know, the ones that said 40% of active gamers on console are female. Or the other one that shows gamers on the whole is pretty much 50/50. But hey guys keep ignoring science and statistics that go against your pre-defined narrative. Let me know how that works out for you |
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nobahn
 Subscriber Posts: 5120 |
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OK, people:
Lay off of Lili-Hime (or, at the very least, completely read her posts  -- and the articles that she links to -- before belittling her).
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meiam
Posts: 3442 |
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I can't access the second study, the link in the article is dead (never a good sign for a study that's not even 2 year old). Similarly the second one doesn't actually link to the study itself and chose to only present the results. Hence why I ignore them. I did indeed read her entire post and the article she linked. And again if you look into the pew study the question didn't ask people to state what they owned, it simply asked people if they owned one. If someone think that a tablet constitute a console they would answer yes and be counted as such. Sorta like if someone think that a Mazda is a sports car and was asked if they owned a sports car they could answer yes even they though they don't. The actual question of a survey is incredibly important (even the pew study itself comment on that) and can cause very wide variation. |
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Stuart Smith
Posts: 1298 |
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I might be reading these pages wrong, but I think they seem to be reinforcing what I mentioned. Particularly the second one. "So what games have women been playing all these years, now that we know they haven't just been wasting time trying to get their Facebook friends to give them free lives on Candy Crush? Casual computer games, mostly. The report ranks online and mobile puzzle games, board games, trivia games, and card games as coming in second to the boom in social games, which more than doubled in popularity between 2012 and 2013." To me that reads as the demographic playing things like Pogo.com and online poker sites. Not on mobile, though, I'll agree. For the record, I never said mobile gaming wasn't 'real gaming'. I never use that term because I also wouldn't be considered a 'real gamer" since I don't play CoD, GTA, or other dudebro games myself and that seems to be what gaming is considered these days. What I did say was that there's a difference in markets and demographics. It's the same logic people say when a Japanese game gets censored for boobs or something in hopes that your average Call of Duty gamer will now buy it because it doesn't have cute girls in it. Certain people only play certain games. In one of those articles, for instance, shooters are ranked far lower for women than men, so it makes sense why shooters pander to men more. Conversely, RPGs seem more popular with women, which is about what I expected given my experience with the Final Fantasy, Tales, Neptunia, and Dragon Quest fandoms. Edit: I found the report I was reference. I actually over-estimated it by over double. http://mynintendonews.com/2014/08/28/nintendo-reveals-demographics-of-wii-u-eshop-users-males-account-for-93-and-females-only-7/ I'm more inclined to trust that one because it comes from Nintendo themselves. Polls and surveys can be skewed by who takes them and what the participation sample was like. Internet polls should always be taken with a grain of salt compared to consumer reports if you ask me. I wish Sony and Microsoft would release some numbers because I would find it very surprising if they appeal to females more than Nintendo does.
If I'm being honest I always did assume reading was more popular with women than men. Most book clubs and groups I've encountered were run by women or had far more women in them than men. Plus all the biggest book franchises you hear about tend to be aimed at women, so it always struck me as women were more interested in reading than men were (not to mention most manga demographic statistics I see show more females than males) -Stuart Smith |
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steelmirror
 Posts: 342 |
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Thanks for the article, a good read as always.
I only skimmed through the discussion here, so apologies if I restate something that has already been said. 8 pages is a lot to read! I don't claim any special knowledge about this DOAX game at all, in fact this article is the first time I've heard of its existence. I have a soft spot for the franchise in general, sleaziness aside, because I used to play the original DOA (and get my ass stomped) with my friends back in high school quite a bit! In my ignorant opinion, they aren't releasing this DOAX game in the US for a simple reason: they realize that it probably won't sell very well. Different regions will have different tastes, and tastes will change over time as well. Right now in the USA is not a good time for a game that relies on blatant and tacky sexualization, because we've been having a lot of contentious discussions on these issues for a while and because those people who are just there for boobs can just go online and get them for free rather than spending 60 bucks to convince their PS4 to render some bad jiggle physics. So the market just isn't there, and people are moving away from this sort of game slowly but steadily (IMO). Lost on the wayside in this battle are those people who play DOAX for the volleyball, but I feel confident that there are very few of those out there. 
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TarsTarkas
 Posts: 5824 Location: Virginia, United States |
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It is not the first time that Japan has blamed western complaints for their actions. I see no problem in accepting what Japan has said as the reason for their decision. It makes sense considering what has gone on before.
And yes, perhaps if they thought the game would have made boat loads of money, they still might have pushed the game out. I don't think they believed the game was unprofitable, just that the amount of profit wasn't worth the amount of grief they would have received. Just another 'chilling effect' of our current PC culture. |
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MajorZero
Posts: 359 |
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I understand concerns about some rather creepy titles from Vita, but DoA? I mean, sure someone will be offended by content, but I don't see big differences between this game and Magic Mike for example and I don't see complaints about this film for oversexualization of male characters.
As for supporters of social justice in video games, when you complain about lack of female protagonist in GTA V and then say that you won't buy a game because of this very reason, you must understand that good chunk of gamers will be against you and your position. Why? Because you stomp on creative freedom. |
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