…In a rather comic, yet irritating example.
I downloaded the Anthem beta (which was a demo, by the way–there’s a difference), and began the sequence with a very basic character creation. If memory serves, the character creation boiled down to a single option, which was this:
“Pilot Voice [Female/Male]”. The default was female, but who exactly was “The Pilot”. I pondered a moment, considering two implications:
- Our society seems to prefer female voices as the deliverers of information (i.e. Siri, Alexa, et al.).
- We’ve hit a point where “Girl Power” has advanced beyond the point of reason. And in fear that failure to adopt this trend will lead to both social and financial ruin, Corporate America has jumped on the band wagon and now everything marketed is pro-girl/woman.
My conclusion, then, was that “The Pilot” was either a voiceover AI (a la Cortana), or that it was the player’s voice (me). But which was it?
I debated, and landed upon an analysis of what would bother me more:
- The in-game AI would have a male voice (no real problem there).
- My character–me–would be a woman.
Were the choice made without my input, I would say “whatever” and move on. But the choice was mine, granted unto me by BioWare. What bothered me was the assumption, that the game would even make a default. Why–if the goal is equality, and the in-game choice could have been neutral through simple programming, would it choose to go to the other extreme–the polar opposite extreme of which was what caused this ongoing social battle in the first place?
The assumption for the male player-character was originally an acknowledgement of the target audience. Then we learned through market research that gamers were split pretty 50-50 men to women, so to consciously change the default to something other than neutral comes off as a bit…disingenuously pandering. You already had female gamers. You had both. Why show a preference now?
I encountered this same problem when I booted up The Division 2 demo (again-a demo). Although not as cryptic, the default was definitively a female character.
I’ve had this post sitting in my Drafts for a month now. I wish I had a conclusion with which to finally conclude this, but I don’t think it even needs one. I’ll leave it as an observation. Formulate your own opinion.
–Simon