No Female Assassin's in Unity Because It Was "Too Much Work"

New Member
Joined
Jun 9, 2014
Messages
16


As we all know, Ubisoft recently dropped the new "Assassin's Creed: Unity" at E3. It was revealed that there are 4 new protagonists. All of them male, and all of them white. This has a sparked a bit of an outrage among fans via social media sites, because it was very unrealistic to have all the protags be white, scruffy, 30 something year old males. They even had planned for a female assassin in production, but dropped it because it was "too much work". A lot of fan have called bullshit on this.

"The French Revolution (French: Révolution française) was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France from 1789 to 1799 that profoundly affected French and modern history, marking the decline of powerful monarchies and churches and the rise of democracy and nationalism."
It was also the people of the working class who made that change possible. Women and POC included. So not includeing them in their quartet of new assassin leads is not only annoying but very unrealistic. There also was a real life female assassin during the French Revolution! Charlotte Corday was a prominet figure of the French Revolution, and yet another reason that they should have included a playable female assassin character.

What do you think of them making the new assassin's just four more scruffy white males? Do you think they should have broaden the range of assassin's? Or do you not care? :cool:

UPDATE: Now there are people who worked on Assassin's Creed 3 and Watchdogs also calling out Ubisoft on their bullshit.
 
Last edited:
Member
Joined
May 21, 2014
Messages
51
If they're going to do it that way, then they should just do it. That's the way they roll. But they shouldn't make excuses for it, like, "Ugh, it's just too much work to create and program another character." They should just admit the real reason, that they're uncomfortable with a greater representation of female characters, especially female characters with agency, autonomy, and ability. Or that their vision for the target audience is one with no female gamers around ever who would appreciate reflection and identification with the characters they play. Or simply that they hate their jobs because of the work involved!

Not everyone is of the perspective that if you don't go the extra mile to subvert particular tropes, in every aspect and angle of a medium, then not only does it support existing systemic inequality in society, but it also plays into formulaic cliches. Not everyone is up for unpacking the societal context of identity politics. A lot of creators would rather coast on a formula that works, or seems to work, when it comes to sales--and a lot of the target market and audience will take it, because we're used to it and it doesn't bother us.
 
Member
Joined
May 22, 2014
Messages
49
On the contrary, I think it's all about business and economics. Just like how CN have revealed that they have a bias for producing cartoons that targets a male audience rather than producing cartoons for girls because 'girls don't buy toys'.

Redoing the game/scenarios and adding extra scenes for a female character do actually take lots of time and they would have to pay everyone involved that much more $$$ for all the extra hours put in. Furthermore, gamer girls don't represent a large percentage of the gamer population and most of them aren't feminist enough let the fact that there are no female characters to deter them from playing a game they like. So it's only reasonable why they did what they did.

IF gamers don't like it, they should coordinate to vote with their money and not buy the new game until they release an expansion pack to include female characters. Are you guys willing to fight for this?
 
New Member
Joined
Jun 12, 2014
Messages
1
On the contrary, I think it's all about business and economics. Just like how CN have revealed that they have a bias for producing cartoons that targets a male audience rather than producing cartoons for girls because 'girls don't buy toys'.

Redoing the game/scenarios and adding extra scenes for a female character do actually take lots of time and they would have to pay everyone involved that much more $$$ for all the extra hours put in. Furthermore, gamer girls don't represent a large percentage of the gamer population and most of them aren't feminist enough let the fact that there are no female characters to deter them from playing a game they like. So it's only reasonable why they did what they did.

IF gamers don't like it, they should coordinate to vote with their money and not buy the new game until they release an expansion pack to include female characters. Are you guys willing to fight for this?

That's about as accurate as it get's. Contrary to popular belief, it's not a personal thing against women. It's just business.

I personally don't have an opinion on this matter. But simply put, if you want change, you'll have to fight for it.
 
Member
Joined
May 21, 2014
Messages
51
Contrary to popular belief, it's not a personal thing against women. It's just business.
I disagree. It can be both a business move and a move that perpetuates and stems from cultural biases against women. Just because the people involved don't hold any vitriol against women as a concept or against individual women in real life, doesn't mean that they aren't making damaging decisions that oppress a marginalized group of people--and ought to take responsibility for that ignorance.

You're right about fighting for it, though--only because those in a position of privilege have only ever listened to disruption. But I'd rather support other gaming companies and teams that have been more conscientious, that's a more positive way of fighting for equal representation in media.

From what I've seen, the social justice movement is "in" now--it's catching fire among the hearts and minds of the target demographic. Dystopias, the reasons behind poverty, behind ableism, identity politics via ethnic heritage and sexual orientation, has all struck a chord and resonated and is getting louder--I'll be the first to say that it's so "in" that media criticism sometimes disappears up its own arse in analyzing everything through the filter of its impact on society.

Games that continue to be lazy about that aspect are going to be left behind and lose a lot of potential earnings. The actual earnings might still be enough to keep them going and then some, but there are a lot of people who will push back and not as positively as I proposed. It might not change the vision or the formula any more than the "video games promote violence" wave that's so 1990, it could be that negative attention inadvertently turns into free advertising and/or stirs up curiosity from apolitical gamers about whether it's really that bad, but nobody really wants as much scrutiny and negativity around their work.
 
New Member
Joined
Jun 15, 2014
Messages
9
Of course, leave it to Ubisoft to deliver lazy, unfinished games every year. They've been getting sloppier each year, especially since the launch of their bastard son, uPlay.

I still can't believe that they're supporting uPlay even after its catastrophic reception. You'd think smart people would pull the plug on it.
 
New Member
Joined
Jun 15, 2014
Messages
11
I think that having more female protagonists in games would definitely be a great thing. And I think that it IS economically viable. There is so much untapped potential with games regarding new and unique story lines. No to mention, I know plenty of guys would would love to play a female protagonist and especially see on in AC. There are games out there that do male/female protagonists very well- and they are VERY popular.

Using the whole "we don't have time, it's too much work" excuse is sad and weak. They should have known better. Everyone can see right through that excuse. And if it WAS too much work, which it definitely isn't because they could use those same animations for future games, then they are outright celebrating their laziness which I find to be a shame.

And as far as the above statement that gamer girls do not comprise much of the population, that is just wrong. "According to a study conducted by the Entertainment Software Association in 2012, "Forty-seven percent of all game players are women. In fact, women over the age of 18 represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (30 percent) than boys age 17 or younger (18 percent)." (study is online, brief facts here: http://www.theesa.com/facts/index.asp )

The fact of the matter is, there are plenty of female gamers out there. Almost half of the game population. Game companies need to start being aware of that or they will start losing out.
 
Top