Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Swen a reply to Where are the women? Post

http://www.lar.net/2015/09/07/where-are-the-women/
Was a great read!

I cannot speak for others, but I will put my feelings on it. Most games struggle with a female player base and I think it's out of fear. Female gamers are often looked down on.. I mean look at eSports. Do you see any female teams? Now I am not saying it's these forums! but most gaming forums when a female shows interest and shares her ideas on the game.. they are often met with "that's stupid? why even worry about that?" Since most gaming companies go by fan popularity in their forums.. it can cause a gender disconnect.

Then there is the "Mans world" view tons of gamers have which makes it hard to fit in. You have no idea how delighted I was to see Swen posted that on lar.net! that a company actually cares about the female gamers!

I guess I will post here what draws my friends and I to games. Please remember these are personal views and I am not saying every single female feels the same.

My friends and I often look for games with great character creation where we don't have to play the game as that angry >=| face character. Which is why in D:OS I was on the forums asking for the character creation stuff and now going to be on here asking the game. We also look for games that support a gentle type gameplay where we don't have to be all "do my bidding or I will kill you" which is the huge turn on for males it seems..

Divinity Original Sin was a great game for options from what I saw.. I will admit I quit playing after a week..the empty map (no respawns) stuff bothered me to badly as the game felt like a ghost town and the toolkit was to hard to use.

Divinity Original Sin 2 I think will be ever better and given time will attract more female players.. even though I personally think there is a larger female player base who will be playing it then the numbers show.


*End lil rant and rambling*
*hides*
Fixed spelling errors

There is nothing inherently male about video games, like there's nothing inherently male anything. Yes, there are some genres that are preferred by women, like RPGs, adventure games or the Sims, but that's such a broad stroke I'm ashamed I'm typing it. I have plenty of female friends who play a variety of genres, from RTSes to FPSes to RPGs to everything else. You have to realize that gender (apart from the purely physiological i.e. babies and related) is a social construct that is internalized by members of our society. So "men" and "women" tend to do what is expected of them, not because of peer pressure, not really, but because they have so internalized the concept of "man" and "woman" that their wishes coincide with that. Though video games aren't that polarizing, there are plenty of female gamers, there is still a huge skew towards casual gaming for women. Why is that? Many women aren't introduced to gaming, or don't want to try at all. They perceive the casual market as a time waster that isn't any deeper than that. What is to blame here? I don't really know. My circle of friends are really open minded about anything, so I can't comment on what society at large sees video games as and I don't care. Maybe I just think video games aren't polarizing while they, in fact, are and are considered "male-centric"? Maybe? If so there is your answer. Most people don't go against the flow. Why you, specifically, play games is incidental and doesn't tell us a whole lot. Many people play games for a variety of reasons.

It's interesting that Swen doesn't talk about "making a game that appeals to women", but he wonders if they can't reach a female audience. And I think he's on the right track. Mostly because nobody knows what "a game that appeals to women" is and there shouldn't be such a thing. That is setting back feminism at least 50 years. Like I said, most women aren't introduced to gaming and when they are, they aren't willing to try or they don't know what "gaming" is and aren't sure if that's something for them.

Hey Ellary,

I know what you meant about "ghost town" that was some of the complaints D:OS had, that they want enemy's to respawn but I think the best way to fix that is adding monster hunter quests, bounty, fishing (I know everyone got disappointed when they picked up that rod in the docks :P) and so on so the world will not feel empty once you have explored and interact with everything in the area.

My suggestion here: http://larian.uservoice.com/forums/...dynamic-and-engaging-gameplay-system-ple Go find this part: "Now lets talks about more ADDICTIVE activities to do in the game" - Please leave a comment as I would like to hear your feedback.

The suggestions I made was for most players to keep enjoying the game instead do this, that and move on to the next area without any fun activities for the players to keep enjoying especially now they have 4 players.

They have an arena which was in my list too, so the more activities for the players to do the more players will enjoy it.

Yeah I gave up on the toolkit when they added tutorial for dialogue as some files were needed. Though I know some moders got it to work but yeah I gave up as it was getting tedious and complicated, though I made a farm with it lol

Oh the arena is purely PVP, I doubt they would do anything else with it.. gotta draw in those pvpers some how. I like the idea of monster hunting, but again I don't see it being a thing. The Divinity Community is strongly against any form of mechanic that might add monsters to their world! -_- trust me.. I went through all this on D:OS 1 forum. If they do take a look at your idea and it's something they implement or some form of way to enjoy the game without just rushing forward..they would have my money as long as they want it lol.

Damn, I must be a women inside somewhere then ^_^

I guess it's a similar question to "where are all the women in IT?" Which is something that's left me scratching my head as there was nearly a 50/50 gender split when I started back in the late '80s, but over the years I watched the number of women dwindle and dwindle: it seems that as the older ones moved on to other things, there were fewer and fewer younger women coming into the industry. Anyway, I could pontificate about that but as I do so I suspect it may become of decreasing relevance to the subject!

In terms of gamers I know personally, loads are women. I haven't really attempted to count up the number of guys vs. girls I know who are into gaming, and my social circle will be somewhat self-selected anyway, so even as anecdotal comments go, it's pretty, well, anecdotal. One thing I'm wondering might be a common factor is that many of the women I know who are into games are around my age group, 30s, 40s and 50s (I'm 47) but I don't know if I can draw any conclusions from that or not.

One thing about D:OS that does occur to me is that the retro themes of a turn-based, isometric view might just have some sort of automatic male bias in there since as a general stereotype, chaps tend to be more into that kind of detail, perhaps, and for me personally those elements kinda put me off a bit. I play D:OS in spite of them rather than because of them. It has other things that appeal to me more such as playing as a party (I don't necessarily mean with other players: I actually prefer to avoid online gaming) but that element didn't receive so much prominence.

Is any of this relevant at all? Dunno really, I'm just pontificating randomly, and it's hard to say if today's stream of consciousness provides any enlightenment at all. :P

A summary from Star citizen shows pretty much a similar trend. https://www.instant.ly/report/54a985dde4b0cea5d72c8c2a


I just think currently the male demographic Has much more disposable income. I'd take a guess and say that if the average woman playing games is >30 yrs they would be spending money on their House/Kids/Car/Food/Bills compared to the younger age of the male demographic.

Another problem is that crowd funding a game isn't mainstream where most of the women gamers are (and men because hardcore gamers are a minority (yet have huge spending power)) personally i think unless game studio's are willing to spend a fair chunk on advertising, the initial consumer will tend to be male with a smaller number of hardcore women gamers. Then once advertising kicks in the larger female audience will take note. I noticed that trend when World of warcraft first came out, once it got very popular and profitable enough to advertise the female demographic started to take notice. Also by then nerd culture was becoming more mainstream.

I also think that the way we are tackling 'sexism' in video games is wrong, if you look at a female dominated consumer base like (literature) or even tv/film, you will notice the male will be over sexualized. My thoughts is that maybe when using art for covers etc, make the male character appealing to women, currently most Art/pictures of males is tough and bruised ( which appeals to the male demographic), make the male character appeal to women and not focus so much on the female character to attract the women demographic and vice versa for men. When studio's go to con's they should also make use of male cos players. When i go to con's its mostly women who dress up ( a lot of them sexily, not that i mind ^^). If sex sells for men why can't it do the same for women? obviously the game should be more than about pretty people , but people are still attracted to Handsome and Beautiful. Its all about getting that initial intrigue of the game.

Sexualizing any gender for mass appeal is cheap and I can't take anything seriously if they do that. It works only if that's the point, like the paintings of Luis Royo or Frank Frazzetta etc. Yes, people like beautiful people in general, that's a fact, but there's a huge difference between beautiful and sexualized. Roderick and Scarlet, to use a thematic example, are attractive but aren't sexualized in the art. Though, to be fair, Scarlet WAS at one point, but they changed her design when a lot of fans pointed it out. I don't think anyone with a modicum of self-awareness is attracted to something just because it has a pair of tits or a six-pack on the cover. Unless it's porn. Everything has to be taken by itself AND how it's related to the big picture. It's very hard to explain the whole thing, but suffice to say studies have been made regarding this gender split and are freely available to be found on google. I have no idea how to proceed with this topic, because it's just so convoluted and complicated that I'd have to write throughout the night to be able to touch the most basic of principles. If anyone wants to read up on these things can look up gender studies in general and those related to video games. Though even that's not a great idea because people are so polarized regarding this that it would be hard extracting the reality from the tangled mess.

Larian (Swen) always said that what ever they do with multiplayer, single player will still have a much better experience as the majority of people only play in single player. They already have a mode like hunger games (work in progress) but for single player I'm sure we will have modes like waves, levels, and so on.

I am also hopeful if these suggestions will be added as I think it's a good valid point that areas tends to go empty when you have explored, interacted with everything then move along.

Though yeah I know what you mean with the community but yeah my suggestion will work as it does not force the players to do these quests, they are more like activities to do more in the world

Funny thing, in the CGI industry, it's quite the opposite : there more and more women. True, they still stick to specific roles like animation or compositing, which are the less "technical" and more "artisty" roles, but the occasional tech-girl can be found in R&D/scripting, FX, rigging...



I've been doing a lot of mmos, and women are indeed ( as pointed out by Drsnoozer ) a fast growing pool of players. I think I also personnaly know more females from my WoW days than males, at least among the people I kept in touch with. On the other hand, people I couldn't bear the most were also females. It's often a matter of age, don't ask me why. 30+ were fine, stable, either more discreet or with more interesting things to tell. Around 20yo though... Well let's say it was easier in the end to just avoid this age group entirely :p
As for males, well, age wasn't a factor. They could be the most stupid thing from 10 to 50. Thankfully, there still are nice people, but I never really found a logic.

PS: Oh and this topic title definitely forces me to post this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqc7mVZQNFo
I leave you to this French jewel of a song.

This is the same here in the Video Game industry.
Women tend to go to more artistic roles or management.
There are a few female programmer and even less female designer. Especially Level Design, they are so rare it's incredible.

I do programming for a living and have done some level design on my own mods, though it tends to be somewhat random and chaotic. Not sure I could ever work in a high-pressure environment like games or other entertainment, though: tech companies were bad enough!

I was not saying they were not existing. But after 10 years I saw a few of them.

I followed a long discussion on that (on a devs forum), but it's in French
And by the way, in 87, 42% of devs were women.

PS : found the original article, and it's in English.
http://blog.fogcreek.com/girls-go-geek-again/

Thanks for posting that, it was really interesting: partly because it validates my perception that other women were much more involved in IT in the early days, but also because it reflects my observation that the overall atmosphere in IT changed (and largely for the worse, IMHO) with the rise and rise of the PC. In the UK, that also coincided with the banking industry becoming a dominant force in computing and, though I can't speak for anyone else, I found the culture to be rather nasty, aggressive and off-putting.

It's encouraging to see that more women are going back into IT: not just in itself, as I'm not a believer in quotas or whatever, but I think maybe it represents another change in culture and perhaps those elements that I found less appealing are on the wane. I'd love things to be more like they were when I started off. Which of course means fewer PCs on desks and more green-screens connected to mainframes and Unix-based minis. PCs and their fancy graphics should be relegated to their proper domain: gaming!

Can't say I find myself in there. Of course I generally browse RPG forums, and all of them had/have a pretty hefty female presence, and no one, seriously, gives a damn unless they go "I'm female. I'm surpresssed by you males. You have to do what I want" (fortunately I only saw this once and the OP soon went away, wheter it was really a woman or just someone trolling).

So I have to ask you what forums you frequent that would have given such an impression?

Can't really speak too much from experience, but most woman just gamed around as regular as male counterparts. Some more, some less... just as one expects. My own girlfriend rather likes casual games, and some hack&slash. She likes Fate more than Torchlight since it's simpeler. I'm not a fan of either, but there are several H&S out there I do like. There are several Facebook games that I never would have played if she didn't. And when she stopped, I pretty much did too.

So yeah, it's really not easy to give an answer to since there is no answer. Everyone is unique in their likes and dislikes. I like RPG's. Still plenty I hate, even if some are "universally loved" (Witcher II, I hate you). I know a lot of people love 3D RTS, but I can't. Stand. A. Single. One. Not a one. 2D RTS though, totally love them.

So, again, I think just putting out certain points as 'the cause' is trivalising it too much, and making stuff more prone to error.

well I clearly put this was my view on things. Everyone has their own view on it. As for the forums I frequent.. it's quite a few different games and I only know of a couple of other girls on them.

If you ask an american they would gladly point out that all canadians
It was very polite of you to create this joke opportunity. SCNR.

Hmmm, just to point out something:

I do know there were females who played games on Atari and C64, especially interactive fiction like Zork and others. Or even games like Mario and Pacman. It seems some of them went on to play Adventure games while others, due to real life commitment like job/family/etc., stopped playing games.

What's really interesting is at least some of them have gone into casual games(hidden object games) including the latter group who decided to come back and play games again.

It's a shame humans love to innovate but then they sometimes leave the others behind.

I remember my cousins had a C64: I remember it well because they kept on reminding me how much better it was than my computer. Since my computer was a Dragon 32 it was, well, rather crap at games, to be honest. But it was still my first gaming machine!

I got out of games in 1986 because I was at college and discovered the internet. Which also managed to supplant other things I should have really been doing, like my coursework and stuff. Since then my gaming has gone through peaks and troughs, largely dictated by whether I could afford a gaming PC at the time. Mortgages generally meant that, no, I couldn't, but happily I've since jettisoned that particular burden. Never had kids, which makes me feel a bit broody, but y'know, I'm bad enough at looking after myself. And kids would've just got in the way of gaming and probably used up my entire budget for unnecessary footwear that I need to have.