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Protagonists: Male or Female

Jirohnagi

Braava Braava
Joined
Feb 18, 2010
Location
Soul Sanctum
Gender
Geosexual
So do you prefer the protagonists of a game to be a male or female, granted we are all used to a male protagonist in the form of Link and heck a male antagonist in the form of Ganon. But we don't often see female protagonists i don't think Fi, Navi or Midna count because they are more companions.

I actually don't mind either, i do become more invested in a game if it's a male protagonist.

What do you think?
 

Triforce King

Pathfinder for life
Joined
Jul 10, 2011
Um, are you suppose to make this thread in the General Gaming forum:mellow:?

Well since I'm clearly male, when I play a game I like to relate with the character so if the protagonist is a male I can relate with him easier than a female protagonist.
 

Beauts

Rock and roll will never die
Joined
Jun 15, 2012
Location
London, United Kingdom
It doesnt bother me. It'd be nice to see more female protagonists and I think if there were more of them that aren't necessarily on girly games it would further both the cause for female gamers who are a neglected part of the market (anyone who tries to deny this is talking out their bumbum) and probably take away the whole feeling of not feeling comfortable playing as the opposite sex because it would take the novelty out of it over time and become normal. The Tomb Raider games for example used to do well (yes it helped Lara Croft was hot) but even look at old games like Jetforce Gemini. You could unlock a female protagonist to play as once you got past a certain stage.

I do know for a fact some game franchises are definitely aiming for more female presence in the games aside from being the damsel in distress though. I don't want to spoil things that might be coming for people though
 

SavageWizzrobe

Eating Link since 1987
Joined
Jul 27, 2010
Location
The Wind Temple
The gender of a protagonist isn't important to me when I play a video game. I relate to male protagonists more easily, but playing as the opposite sex can be fun too. Not to mention some female protagonists are hot, particularly Samus Aran of Metroid and Lara Croft of Tomb Raider.

I'm not sure if this counts, but I've also been known to play as a female character in a D&D session on occasion. It feels very weird having to change the pitch of your speaking voice initially, but it's great fun after you get over that. Part of the fun in D&D is the acting, and I find the more you make your character different from yourself, the more you get to release your inhibitions and just have a good time. That's not to say that I neglect playing male characters as well, as I enjoy the game regardless of what gender my character is.

The same is true with video games. The gender of the protagonist has no impact on whether or not I enjoy the gameplay, or even the game as a whole.
 

Moonstone

embrace the brand new day
Joined
Oct 23, 2012
The gender of the protagonist doesn't matter to me in the slightest. Actually, I'm more inclined to play a male than female. I think females are great, but gender doesn't really matter to me in the grand scheme of things.
 

Emma

The Cassandra
Site Staff
Joined
Nov 29, 2008
Location
Vegas
So long as they're done well, it largely doesn't matter. I like having male protagonists, I like having female protagonists. It'd be a bad idea to hyperfocus on just one of them. That will stagnant things and it would get less interesting. Keeping a healthy mix of the two. If the game has fixed protagonists you just have to play it. But if you're given a choice, like in BioWare or Bethesda games, I tend to pick female. I just felt oversaturated with the excessive abundance of male protagonists in earlier video games and still in most movies. Choosing your opposite freshens up the experience, and takes you further out of your own reality, helping you escape more completely into a fictional world. Which is exactly what you want in big RPGs like Bethesda/BioWare games.
 

Jamie

Till the roof comes off, till the lights go out...
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trans-pan-demi-ethno-christian-math-autis-genderfluid-cheesecake
Took me like 6 hours to move this damn thread.

Anyway, I think I want the protagonist to either be optional, or more realistic. If it's a game where physicality is important, I think most of the time it should be a male protagonist for obvious reasons.

I disagree with @Matt here though, for me, picking a different gender makes little to no difference on how fresh a game feels.
 

Mercedes

つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
Joined
Nov 12, 2007
Location
In bed
Gender
Female
There's no real difference to me, it's the depth and the development of the character that's important and what many games seem lacking in. I'm not the type to think every game needs to give you a choice either, if the writer always envisioned the protagonist as male then he should remain a male, and vice versa. I don't think we should be meddling in those creative areas.

With that said, if a game does give me a choice I almost always choose to be a female. But that's purely on the shallow basis of me preferring women's hair styles and fashion and what not. #feminism
 

Dio

~ It's me, Dio!~
Joined
Jul 6, 2011
Location
England
Gender
Absolute unit
So do you prefer the protagonists of a game to be a male or female, granted we are all used to a male protagonist in the form of Link and heck a male antagonist in the form of Ganon. But we don't often see female protagonists i don't think Fi, Navi or Midna count because they are more companions.

I actually don't mind either, i do become more invested in a game if it's a male protagonist.

What do you think?

I can hardly think of a game where I have played as a female protagonist. FF13 is the only one that springs to mind and looking at my shelf I dont own any games currently with a female protagonist.
Where I have the choice in a character creator I pick a male, and that's because I'm male and it is easier to relate to a male.
 

Emma

The Cassandra
Site Staff
Joined
Nov 29, 2008
Location
Vegas
Oh the topic of non-RPG games with female protagonists, the one that springs first to most people's minds is Tomb Raider. I have to be honest, I really didn't like the majority of games in that franchise. They seemed poorly made. even for their times, and focused too much on Lara being sexy, even though I didn't exactly find her attractive. In either the original series or the first reboot. I found most of the games to be lazy, boring, and none of the characters, including Lara, were that deep or developed or interesting. The current reboot however, is something different. I found this Lara to be much more attractive, but they absolutely did not try to sexify her. And I liked that. The performance was gritty and realistic. And you could see the transformation into a normal girl into a badass happening over time. Much, much better than the old games. Though I understand longtime fans of the series consider that to be a heretical statement. Good thing I don't care.

And about meddling in games being made, to force a protagonist of a certain gender and/race/sexuality to satisfy ideological views, that I'm completely opposed to. You've got to respect artistic freedom. When it's a character they love, that they worked hard on, you know you're going to get their best work and their hardest effort put into making it awesome. But when you force them to change what they had in mind simply to suit the whims of people who won't even play the games anyway, you're going to have a resentful person trying to make work, a character they didn't even want. And you're inevitably going to be disappointed in the results. Things like this have to be planned from the beginning, not forced the other way part way through.

On a related note to both those topics, I am okay with the implied romance between Lara and Sam in the new Tomb Raider because it's a reboot with entirely new versions of the character along with entirely new characters that you can make how you want. I don't like it when you force it on an existing character where you make it look like another sexuality was something they decided on or were convinced to try out (Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer being a prime example). That I think just insults that demographic more than it helps. If you want to change an existing character's sexuality, do it on a reboot, not halfway in the middle.
 

misskitten

Hello Sweetie!
Joined
Jun 18, 2011
Location
Norway
When the protagonist is designed to be a specific character, I don't care about the gender that much. Sure it would be nice if more female protagonists emerged, and more protagonists of colour, etc. but if the game is fun to play the gender of the protagonist is not something I think about.

However, when given a choice within a game I've so far always gone with female if it's been an option. And I think that in games where the protagonist isn't a specific character, there should be choices, not just in gender, but in race, sexuality and the like as well. Some exceptions are okay, like if it's a long-standing franchise where the non-character still held specific attributes throughout each incarnation making them som (read: Link)
 

SpiteChaotic

The lazy Chaos Bringer
Joined
Mar 25, 2015
If the game has me pick my gender. I'll be male cause that is what I am. Now if the characters are different by having different stories or gameplay. I'll probably try both and if I return to the game probably play the one I liked the most.

If the game doesn't give me a choice. I won't care if male or female.
 

Sydney

The Good Samaritan
Joined
Mar 20, 2012
Location
Canberra, Australia
I've never had a problem with being a male protagonist before, and I still don't have a problem with it; however, given the choice between a male and female character I typically opt for the female. Why? Because I'm female myself and I enjoy seeing my gender and sex represented in something that I'm interested in. In multiplayer modes, I almost always opt for female characters. It's simply a preference.
 
Joined
Dec 16, 2014
Location
Milwaukee WI
Gender
half centaur
Typically male protagonists. I like bad ass muscley macho men as my main characters typically.

Doom Guy, Chris Redfield, Bryan Fury, Paul Phoenix , always play a male warrior class in ARPG's or RPG's, ect ect. I grew up on 80's action flicks with the likes of Arnold :D.

Typically I don't really like the female characters, however there are a few exceptions, like Jill Valentine from Resident Evil. Lara Croft is pretty cool, especially in the reboot, but I hate that they changed her face in that definitive version.
 

Garo

Boy Wonder
Joined
Jun 22, 2011
Location
Behind you
I so greatly prefer to play as female characters that I've begun actively seeking out games with written female protagonists, and always choosing to play as a woman when I play a game with variable gender protagonists.

I am a man. I live the experience of being a man every day of my life. Why would I want to spend my time in a game in that same experience, when games provide the opportunity to empathize with somebody who is not me, somebody who has experiences I can never have? I will never be a woman and will never know what it's like to live as a woman day to day. But I can play a video game from a woman's perspective and learn to empathize with that. Understanding through empathy. Power of games. etc. etc.
 

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