Refunds are usually an automated process, and will be declined if you have more than 2 hours playtime. Do it enough times and it gets flagged for manual review. Whether or not it will be approved, I'm not sure.
@EfYI As I understand it, despite intending account linking from the outset (publisher requirement), they accepted purchases from all countries on Steam - including the 121 in which PSN is unavailable. When linking was introduced in a patch, they where effectively barred from playing the game they had purchased.
@Loamy The term "immersive sim", at least originally, referred to games that pursued immersion through responsive worlds. At the time the pursuit of realism and fidelity was compromising interactivity, often to the detriment of design, and they where the counterpoint.
@kcarnes9051
> Gender is a cultural issue. Sex is a biological one. You’re trying to minimize this just to sex, and that is, again, a straw man...
To wade directly into the thorny issue, the reason I cited sex was because the aforementioned preferences conform to biological sex even when the individual identifies as a different gender. This might be why, despite facing even greater adversity, transgender women are disproportionately represented in the e-sports scene relative to biological woman. I really don't understand this obsession with ignoring evolutionary and biological factors, or the self-righteousness with which it is pursued. You understand that individual contentedness drops off a cliff when cultural forces steer people away from the proximate baseline, right? Hardly a moral victory.
As for all the additional word salad, let me be clear. I never once advocated against promoting gaming to women. To excluding anyone from e-sports. In favour of toxicity. But these are separate issues - tangential to my issue with your stance.
All I've ever argued was that natural preferences exist, that they are demonstrably influenced by biological factors, as supported by substantial reproducible evidence, and need not be "fixed". That naively forcing demographics into studios catering to these preferences based on a myopic interpretation of equality is negative sum, and that creating a more diverse market that caters to a wider range of preferences is preferable - both financially and in terms of player enjoyment. As a developer, player enjoyment is what I care about, which is why I defend my position.
> When the industry isn’t catering to female interests in AAA gaming
Except a number of studios do - quite successfully.
> you can’t know if they’d show up.
But they did - the context of this discussion is close on 50% of gamers being female.
> “girls don’t like big AAA games as much by nature”.
> business decided to target women and failed before other cultural elements had time to catch
Disingenuous, again. I stated that interests and priorities, generally speaking, are meaningfully influenced by sex. Despite significant efforts to prove otherwise, sex-based stereotypes of genre preferences, particularly in regards to certain types of gameplay and content, remain exceedingly accurate.
General consensus tends towards evolutionary factors and biological-proximate causes. It's not a perfect predictor, and there are outliers, but it also isn't a cultural issue. It's consistent across multiple cultures, multiple mediums and multiple decades.
Treating disproportionately male or female interests as a cultural "problem" is a problem. A mature market should strive to cater specifically to a expanding range of niches, not warp and conform peoples wants into a small subset of overly homogenous niches that increasingly fail to adequately satisfy anyone.
@kcarnes9051
> with 75% men making decisions about game content for an audience made of up nearly 50% women
The statistics are in regards to this - your own words. My choice in source was stated to be the most comprehensive I'd encountered, not the most recent. It provided a breakdown across genre, indicating a trend that has been well documented for some time - both in freely available (and, yes, more recent) research as well as internal surveys. Games with an emphasis on competition, challenge, motor skills and high skill ceilings consistently tend towards a disproportionately male player base, regardless of aesthetic. Accessible fantasy, emphasis on social behaviour, cosmetics and collectibles tends towards even to female dominated player bases.
Bottom line is men and women, generally speaking, want different things. There is overlap, but there are also competing/mutually-exclusive interests. Studios prioritising their primary demographic isn't controversial - it's prudent. The very same thing is done for games with a predominately female player base.
So, by your own logic, 75% men making decisions about game content for a niche with a mean male player base in excess of 80% is underrepresentation. But something tells me I won't hear any impassioned complaints from you about that...
The raw footage from the demo looks a bit slower than the early official footage - I'm chalking that up to it being from peoples first few hours with the game. It reminds me of both Sekiro ("perilous attacks" that require different actions to mitigate, emphasis on fast sequential parries for defence and high enemy damage) and DMC (fast combo orientated offense with many unlockable moves, combos chaining with instant ranged attacks, aerial combat).
@kcarnes9051 A commonly misused statistic. Women might make up close to 50% of gamers, but those studies are broad and include the likes of Match3 and Farmville.
The most comprehensive study I've found to date (https://quanticfoundry.com/2017/01/19/female-gamers-by-genre/) , which coincides with independent genre-specific surveys done by multiple publishers, put the female player base at 20% or less for Action RPGs, 7% or less for FPSs and 2% for sports games.
I play games for escapism and feel realism, outside of the handful of titles that actually benefit from it, more often than not gets in the way of fun.
Eve looks great, as does the combat - somewhere between Sekiro and DMC. Day 1 for me.
Comments 111
Re: Square Enix Layoffs Underway in US and Europe as Restructure Begins
Let's hope they started with the ethics department.
Re: Helldivers Turn on Arrowhead Following Undemocratic Firing of Community Manager
@EfYI Not sure, don't really follow the game.
Refunds are usually an automated process, and will be declined if you have more than 2 hours playtime. Do it enough times and it gets flagged for manual review. Whether or not it will be approved, I'm not sure.
Re: Helldivers Turn on Arrowhead Following Undemocratic Firing of Community Manager
@EfYI As I understand it, despite intending account linking from the outset (publisher requirement), they accepted purchases from all countries on Steam - including the 121 in which PSN is unavailable. When linking was introduced in a patch, they where effectively barred from playing the game they had purchased.
Re: System Shock Remake Will Launch at Its Very Best on PS5, PS4
@Loamy The term "immersive sim", at least originally, referred to games that pursued immersion through responsive worlds. At the time the pursuit of realism and fidelity was compromising interactivity, often to the detriment of design, and they where the counterpoint.
Re: Everyone's Talking About Eve's Outfits in PS5 Exclusive Stellar Blade
@kcarnes9051
> Gender is a cultural issue. Sex is a biological one. You’re trying to minimize this just to sex, and that is, again, a straw man...
To wade directly into the thorny issue, the reason I cited sex was because the aforementioned preferences conform to biological sex even when the individual identifies as a different gender. This might be why, despite facing even greater adversity, transgender women are disproportionately represented in the e-sports scene relative to biological woman. I really don't understand this obsession with ignoring evolutionary and biological factors, or the self-righteousness with which it is pursued. You understand that individual contentedness drops off a cliff when cultural forces steer people away from the proximate baseline, right? Hardly a moral victory.
As for all the additional word salad, let me be clear. I never once advocated against promoting gaming to women. To excluding anyone from e-sports. In favour of toxicity. But these are separate issues - tangential to my issue with your stance.
All I've ever argued was that natural preferences exist, that they are demonstrably influenced by biological factors, as supported by substantial reproducible evidence, and need not be "fixed". That naively forcing demographics into studios catering to these preferences based on a myopic interpretation of equality is negative sum, and that creating a more diverse market that caters to a wider range of preferences is preferable - both financially and in terms of player enjoyment. As a developer, player enjoyment is what I care about, which is why I defend my position.
Either way, repeating myself is tedious. I'm out.
Re: Everyone's Talking About Eve's Outfits in PS5 Exclusive Stellar Blade
@kcarnes9051
> When the industry isn’t catering to female interests in AAA gaming
Except a number of studios do - quite successfully.
> you can’t know if they’d show up.
But they did - the context of this discussion is close on 50% of gamers being female.
> “girls don’t like big AAA games as much by nature”.
> business decided to target women and failed before other cultural elements had time to catch
Disingenuous, again. I stated that interests and priorities, generally speaking, are meaningfully influenced by sex. Despite significant efforts to prove otherwise, sex-based stereotypes of genre preferences, particularly in regards to certain types of gameplay and content, remain exceedingly accurate.
General consensus tends towards evolutionary factors and biological-proximate causes. It's not a perfect predictor, and there are outliers, but it also isn't a cultural issue. It's consistent across multiple cultures, multiple mediums and multiple decades.
Treating disproportionately male or female interests as a cultural "problem" is a problem. A mature market should strive to cater specifically to a expanding range of niches, not warp and conform peoples wants into a small subset of overly homogenous niches that increasingly fail to adequately satisfy anyone.
Re: Everyone's Talking About Eve's Outfits in PS5 Exclusive Stellar Blade
@kcarnes9051
> with 75% men making decisions about game content for an audience made of up nearly 50% women
The statistics are in regards to this - your own words. My choice in source was stated to be the most comprehensive I'd encountered, not the most recent. It provided a breakdown across genre, indicating a trend that has been well documented for some time - both in freely available (and, yes, more recent) research as well as internal surveys. Games with an emphasis on competition, challenge, motor skills and high skill ceilings consistently tend towards a disproportionately male player base, regardless of aesthetic. Accessible fantasy, emphasis on social behaviour, cosmetics and collectibles tends towards even to female dominated player bases.
Bottom line is men and women, generally speaking, want different things. There is overlap, but there are also competing/mutually-exclusive interests. Studios prioritising their primary demographic isn't controversial - it's prudent. The very same thing is done for games with a predominately female player base.
So, by your own logic, 75% men making decisions about game content for a niche with a mean male player base in excess of 80% is underrepresentation. But something tells me I won't hear any impassioned complaints from you about that...
Re: Everyone's Talking About Eve's Outfits in PS5 Exclusive Stellar Blade
@Northern_munkey There's quite a bit of gameplay footage floating around. This gives a decent idea of how it plays:
https://www.reddit.com/link/1bafgx6/video/dspb4yiv6anc1/player
The raw footage from the demo looks a bit slower than the early official footage - I'm chalking that up to it being from peoples first few hours with the game. It reminds me of both Sekiro ("perilous attacks" that require different actions to mitigate, emphasis on fast sequential parries for defence and high enemy damage) and DMC (fast combo orientated offense with many unlockable moves, combos chaining with instant ranged attacks, aerial combat).
Re: Everyone's Talking About Eve's Outfits in PS5 Exclusive Stellar Blade
@kcarnes9051 A commonly misused statistic. Women might make up close to 50% of gamers, but those studies are broad and include the likes of Match3 and Farmville.
The most comprehensive study I've found to date (https://quanticfoundry.com/2017/01/19/female-gamers-by-genre/) , which coincides with independent genre-specific surveys done by multiple publishers, put the female player base at 20% or less for Action RPGs, 7% or less for FPSs and 2% for sports games.
Re: Everyone's Talking About Eve's Outfits in PS5 Exclusive Stellar Blade
I play games for escapism and feel realism, outside of the handful of titles that actually benefit from it, more often than not gets in the way of fun.
Eve looks great, as does the combat - somewhere between Sekiro and DMC. Day 1 for me.
Re: Sounds Like PS5's Stellar Blade Will Be Playing Dress Up Long After Launch
@ChrisDeku I never knew 20/20 vision was salacious.