how not to sell a game to me

[meganbmoore]

So, I'm sitting here catching up on my Captain America comics, and I turn to a 2 page spread advertising Fable II.  Normally I'd just skip past it, but there was what appeared to be a pouty nobleman with a vampire lurking behind him, and I was curious.

So, I know nothing about Fable, really.  Either one.  But this ad  features what looks to be a bar full of men from all walks of life.  And no women.  Not even a barmaid.  There could be a plot reason for this.  A good one.  I don't know.  But from the image and description, it seems to be a normal medievaloid fantasy adventure.  Mind you, 27-year-old women aren't exactly the target audience for Captain America in the first place, but my reaction to what appears to be a large, exclusively male, ensemble, is "no thanks," even if a few of them a quite good looking.  Hi there, Mr. Strategically Posed Swordsman and Mr. Hooded Man.

See, if I see one or two men and no one else, or vague background characters, my mind will go "ok, main characters."  If I see a full room, I'm going to take that room as representative of the entire world in the game.  (And yes, even a buxom barmaid in the corner would influence that impression.)

I suppose it's the flipside of things titled Male's Daughter and Male's Wife. (If the title of the work is defining the female by her relation to a male, there better be a pretty good reason.)

Comments

[desdenova.livejournal.com]

I have not played Fable or Fable2, but the first one was infamous (for certain values of "infamous") for billing itself as the game where you could be anything you want! Anything! Except female.

I'm given to understand this has been rectified in the second one. I haven't played it because it is new and thus expensive, and it doesn't sound too much like my sort of game.

Video game marketing is AWFUL, even for good, non-sexist games. It really does piss me off that for a hobby which is ~50% women, all the marketing is skewed towards horny 18-25 year-old white men. Which is why I pick games based on (1) what my friends say about them, and (2) familiarity with the studio putting the game out, and not on ads.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I honestly spent a couple minutes staring at the image, wondering what was striking me as being so wrong about it, before I realized that I was looking at what appeared to be a standard medievaloid fantasy bar that didn't even have a barmaid. And yes, now I know why, but that doesn't remove the "boy's only" club feel. And if there is a female option, and you can be anything, then wouldn't a wiser marketing ploy to have a page of male versions, and then a mirror page of the female versions?