At the heart of this issue lies this fundamental question – what sort of society do we want to create? Every other question concerning media – audience, tradition, sales, etc. – should be secondary. As such, we return to that first question and I would argue that the majority of us want to see a world based on equity, justice, and respect where an individual feels equally valued by society regardless of gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, culture or any other label we have created to divide humanity. So how do we do this? There are so many issues we need to address but for the purposes of this IP, I will look at the gaming industry and the progression towards a female protaganist.
There are a few online role-playing games that come to mind that have allowed the user to choose the gender for which they want to play. These games include World of Warcraft and The Elder Scrolls. My first memory of meeting women who enjoyed video games was through World of Warcraft. Surely, the ability to choose to play as a female character would entice more females to play but this is just my own experience and ponderings.
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The game I want to focus on for this IP is one I have had more experience with than with most – the Assassin’s Creed series. Here is a story driven game where the game makers painstakingly create a story for the protagonist. The gamer then gets to experience the story through the eyes of the protagonist and for the vast majority of the games in the series, that character is a male.
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Criticism of Ubisoft, the studio behind the game, made headlines when the game Assassin’s Creed Unity was released in 2014 with a lack of gender options – particularly in the multiplayer modes of the game. For the next game in the series, Syndicate, a pair of protagonists were presented, a brother and sister combo that the user would move back and forth between depending on the mission – while a step forward, it didn’t seem as yet that the studio felt a female protagonist could carry the series alone (notice her placement in the game poster to the left).
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Finally, in 2018, Ubisoft released Assassin’s Creed Odyssey in which the player could choose to play the entirety of the game as either a male or female protagonist. The game explained that these two were siblings, but it did not affect play style in any way. Another important step forward in my estimation – good for Ubisoft. I selected the male character as that is who I would identify with and began happily playing the game. Then came the moment that I was unprepared for – an added twist from Ubisoft I was not expecting. It was the moment when you meet one of the main antagonists of the game as shown in the video below:
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That antagonist is your sibling, the gender you did not select at the beginning of your adventure. It was my initial, emotional reaction that I must deal with now; disappointment – not from the story but from the fact I did not feel threatened or challenged by a female warrior: As a mage or a priest, perhaps a politician behind the scenes I would not have given it a second thought. This is difficult for me to admit, particularly in this course, but in doing so I know that I need to confront my own deeply ingrained gender biases that my idealistic, enlightened part of me would struggle to admit exists. This game has shoved this bias into my face and forced me to confront it and I found that to be an extraordinary moment in my gaming history. I can listen to speakers such as Anita Sarkeesian and read articles by Lisa Nakamura and logically understand what it is they are saying. Yet it is this emotional reaction that I had from playing this game that jarred my sensibilities and made me reflect on how I feel. This will be something I continue to process long after I am done writing this IP.
So, to my original question – what sort of society do I want to help create? When I watch my younger daughter playing the discovery tour version of these games, free to choose to play as a female (which she always does) it makes me happy that she has been given this opportunity to experience one small bit of freedom that is not defined by her gender. However, based on my reaction as revealed above, I believe games need to go much deeper than just providing options – they need to make us confront our stereotypes and biases.
Ubisoft has recently been hit with a slew of controversies concerning the working environment of their studio in regard to how women are treated – it is important to realize that even a studio that is making strides forward in this arena still has a long way to travel. We should still recognize the effort made here and encourage gaming not just to give us options but to challenge our thinking. This is how we move towards that society we dream of.
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