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

[tianneh.livejournal.com]

I actually failed at Kyou Kara Maou, although I did try to pick up the novels quite a few times. I even went as far as to give the anime a try before going back to the novels.

I did like Zetsubou Sensei (almost completely female cast with the exception of the main character and a few random appearances), but that doesn't count.

I don't like harem manga at all either. It's either a 100% male cast (hence my fondness for historical series) concentrating on action/friendship/sacrifice etc or a series going the other way and focusing on the female cast with the males being there only to carry on the plot (e.g. Ooku).

Actually, after all the wordiness I think it's just me being averse to explicit romance.

I did like Honou no Mirage, though, but I tend to think of it as historical fiction (it is Shueisha, after all, famed publisher of Jump and other healthy mags).

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

The problem I've been having the last year or so is how so much fiction seems to be defaulting to tried and true male archetypes without much to set them apart from the heard. Especially when it comes to angsty backstories. Female characters have the benefit of focus on them being relatively new, as opposed to centuries of primary focus on them being the norm, so even the tried and true archetypes tend to not be as tried and true.

[tianneh.livejournal.com]

Which genre are you referring to in particular? Or is it just a general sense you're getting from fiction? Is there a cultural context to it? I do understand what you're getting at, though, because that's what I feel about most protagonists regardless of gender.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Fiction in general.