Sinister Design - Latest Comments

Re: Why I’m using female lead characters

SmartyPants — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 16:34:39 -0000

I never put that much thought into why all the protagonists are male. I always just assumed that most men are the ones creating games, so they make male characters because they know their own gender best.

Re: Why I’m using female lead characters

JR — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 15:53:18 -0000

I don't think your points are off-base, but I do question the necessity of needing to address the fact that a role is being filled by a type of character who doesn't fit the stereotypical (or even statistical) expectation. Isn't the goal to move beyond marked gender/race/sexuality/ethnic differences? To write women who take on "men's roles" without needing special qualification in the plot line? Writers and developers have the power to stop assuming that the audience will be surprised by seeing a female protagonist, which in time will lead the audience to stop being surprised by female protagonists.

Re: Why I’m using female lead characters

Andrew_Mc — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 18:05:22 -0000

Actually, Guest1 (Why is it always the most egregious trolls that remain anonymous?) it's because we men--I doubt a woman would respond like this--aren't subjected to the kind of discrimination that women are. We get to bask in male privilege.

I can't guarantee you without actually experiencing it, but I can be pretty damn sure that if the shoe were on the other foot, we would be every bit as hurt by this as women are. Hell, I'm hurt by this because I know that this is the experience of all the female gamers in my life. My girlfriend is one of them. A little empathy wouldn't hurt.

Re: Why I’m using female lead characters

CMFTW — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 14:44:56 -0000

You're an inspiration! There should be more people like you! :')

Re: Why I’m using female lead characters

Robyrt — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 14:25:41 -0000

I don't think the realism argument really holds up here. While female rulers, fighters, etc. are not unheard of in history, they remain quite rare, and certainly any historical military-themed game that swaps out a male character for a female one would need to provide some explanation of how that role came to be filled by a woman. In many cases, like your Civil War example, any women involved in the battle would be posing as men the entire time, so there wouldn't even be a name or character model difference for the less than 1% of combatants who were women. Even modern armies which accept women in front-line combat do not exhibit anything like a 50/50 split, which is what tends to happen when games try to be gender-inclusive.

In a fantasy or science fiction setting, none of this applies, of course. That's part of the fun of creating a fantasy world.

Re: Why I’m using female lead characters

Feathers — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 11:32:47 -0000

Wonderful! As a (fiction) writer, I use writing as a creative outlet. Why would I want to write the same old stories over and over again, when there are so many other ideas out there? And why would I want to play the same games, ditto?

Re: Why I’m using female lead characters

Jo Yardley — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 09:48:41 -0000

That's cute dear.
Now go build us a little bridge and climb a little mountain, don't you worry your pretty little head about this kidnapping thing.
We'll rescue you.

Re: Why I’m using female lead characters

Namaste — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 08:52:15 -0000

Thank you so much for this thoughtful, thorough and positive piece. I'm a longtime female gamer (e.g., GoW, Fallout, Bioshock, Skyrim, Mass Effect; MMOs like Wizard101, DCUO) and I always invest more time in and derive more enjoyment from games where my character is female; I am more likely to buy a game where I have the option to customize my character and choose to be female. Yes, let's honor all!

Re: Why I’m using female lead characters

sherirubin — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 08:15:34 -0000

To add to Craig's thoughtful reply...

You said:

"Moreover, what incentive do video game developers have to produce more
games with female leads when half of their video game sales already come
from females?"

My answer:

Because if games are already making over 5B a year in the US with half of gamers being female think how big the industry could grow, how many more games could be made, how many more developers could be employed, and how many more gamers would exist (which in turn would make games more mainstream, accepted, and less vilified) if we created more of those games?

The market was getting saturated and growth was stagnated (there's been declines/plateaus in sales off and on for a bit now in many areas) because of how little it could grow until developers and publishers started catering to more diverse audiences (see WiiFit and WiiSports, for example, in opening up games to so many age ranges). By creating games that more audiences would be interested in it's just good for everyone (except TV and film who lose some of their audience time to games :>).

Re: Why I’m using female lead characters

Fan of CraigStern — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 01:10:55 -0000

Awesome article. Thank you for being part of a better world <3

Re: Why I’m using female lead characters

scortched earth — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 01:07:35 -0000

This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. If there's one thing I know for sure, it's that a majority of men cannot handle being the target of sexist discrimination. It's amazingly predictable how guys will get upset when they hear "I don't need a man's opinion" or "You wouldn't understand, you're a man." Women deal with that kind of discrimination every single day. But god the way you guys whine when you have to go more than a few second without being the center of the universe.

Also, what are you even arguing? That men don't care about the content of video games? That men would enthusiastically embrace a world where their precious video games were marketed almost exclusively to women? Are you some kind of moron? How completely devoid of self-awareness must you be that you could say something so idiotic?

Re: Why I’m using female lead characters

missdk — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 00:54:20 -0000

Says person who has never lacked representation.

Re: Why I’m using female lead characters

CraigStern — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 09:48:01 -0000

Actually, I did not say that women can't derive the same amount of enjoyment from a game starring a male character. This isn't about any given game and its choice of a male protagonist--it's about an overall industry trend of using women as props for advancing the stories of heroes that are themselves almost never women. Those are different problems.

I'd be careful about drawing unwarranted conclusions from the data up there. We know that roughly half of all gamers are women, but that tells us nothing about which games woman gamers buy! It's quite possible that they skew heavily toward games without exclusively male protagonists (games with female protagonists, games where you can pick your gender, games without a gendered protagonist, games without any sort of protagonist at all, and so on).

But even if they don't--even if women buy the exact same sorts of games that men do, and in the same proportions--that doesn't mean that they don't have a right to be upset about the fact that they're never portrayed as heroes in those games. You can both love something and still have a problem with it. After all, if women didn't care about video games, I doubt they'd bother complaining. ;)

Re: Why I’m using female lead characters

IvoShandor — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 01:03:50 -0000

Aren't you making an assumption about women when you suggest that females cannot derive the same amount of enjoyment from video games as men unless women can also play as a lead character matching their gender?

Don't the numbers you cite suggest this is not the case?

If 50% of game purchases are made by females, and only 3% of titles include female protagonists, then doesn't this suggest the lack of female protagonists is *not* a barrier for females when purchasing games?

Moreover, what incentive do video game developers have to produce more games with female leads when half of their video game sales already come from females?

Re: Why I’m using female lead characters

Guest1 — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 00:47:08 -0000

"I can assure the reader that men would not be happy in a world where male characters were constantly getting kidnapped or killed in games to set up the plot, and yet were actually heroes in only 1 out of every 30 titles."

Wrong. Men would not care give a crap about this. Why? Because men are not women. There's too many bridges to build and mountains to climb to worry about something stupid like this.

Re: Why I’m using female lead characters

Ninja Corn — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 00:09:07 -0000

Insightful and brave!
Thanks for honoring all genders...
Hugs from the female didgeridoo player that recorded with Ryan!

Re: Telepath Tactics May 2013 Update

ScrObot — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 15:22:45 -0000

Maybe this could be a use of the right click button, which sounds like doesn't really do anything now? Right click to the side of the selected character to turn them that direction?

Re: Telepath Tactics May 2013 Update

CraigStern — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 13:58:03 -0000

I believe the Rotate button is what you're looking for. ;)

Re: Telepath Tactics May 2013 Update

OrangeFuzzy — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 13:35:25 -0000

Everything looks Great! I have one suggestion, this coming from playing an old demo of the game, if it doesn't exist already can you add the option to position your current character in any of the four directions after completing the move and action phases? That way you can be strategic with placement of weak and strong defensive characters backs where they are weakest to attack. And thanks on the updates.

Re: Telepath Tactics May 2013 Update

CraigStern — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 12:48:59 -0000

Nope; the campaign currently in the game is a sort of sample campaign. I'm going to start from scratch with a brand new, much more compelling campaign starting this month.

Re: Telepath Tactics May 2013 Update

dodell92 — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 03:03:14 -0000

Man, those animations are fantastic, very smooth. There may not be a
huge amount of campaign advancement here, but the features like talk,
exploration and such are just as good to me, and I'd imagine especially
so for those using the editor. As always, looking forward to the next update!

Re: Telepath Tactics May 2013 Update

Guest — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 00:08:51 -0000

Has anything in the campaign been updated?

Re: 6 more ways to improve turn-based RPG combat systems

Kastur — Fri, 10 May 2013 22:58:44 -0000

You really should try playing Valkyrie Chronicles

Re: The battle system I wish RPGs would stop using

Tuco Benedicto — Tue, 07 May 2013 16:21:48 -0000

Which is as pertinent as pointing that smoked fish tastes better than cheesecake: in other words, it's completely idiotic as they just don't compare at all.

Re: The battle system I wish RPGs would stop using

Howard — Tue, 07 May 2013 15:44:51 -0000

Dark Souls > DnD Combat