I know it's not about difficulty, but even then I don't agree that visual design has an effect on sense of accomplishment. If an enemy dies after one hit it does not matter how it looked.
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The producer of Tales of Arise thinks female players might not like the change towards more intimidating monster designs
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I know it's not about difficulty, but even then I don't agree that visual design has an effect on sense of accomplishment. If an enemy dies after one hit it does not matter how it looked.
Exactly. A sizeable portion of their female audience likes the cuter monster designs, and they use those in merchandising. He worries said players will be turned off by the more savage designs and won't want to play or buy merchandise. That makes sense.
Though likes Castile pointed out, he said there will be cute designs, and it is an anime jRPG so even in a "grittier" world there's still room for cute things.
So I hope Arise does well, because though I don't want all future Tales games to be dark and "mature", I definitely want more variety in the games.
I have ~data from surveys~ that suggest women are sick of seeing clever little comments about how bad it is to have to "tiptoe around a minefield" to not be sexist, as if subsequent criticism of it is irrational and dangerous. Try thinking of that perspective.
He is talking about monster designs, as he feels that the large abandonment of cute designs may put off female fans. This has nothing to do with the difficulty of fighting said monsters.
Okay... That, er, doesn't make his comments any better. Would probably have been better served not including that part in the interview at all...
I think what's astonishing is how the producer's braindead ignorance comes out of nowhere, with no rational prompt.
I went through the exact same U-turn on this.
I went through the exact same U-turn on this.
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My GF finds more accomplishment in JRPGs than I ever will.
How can someone say something so stupid?
How can someone say something so stupid?
I would think that the big female following is exactly what informs this comment.
I wish OP would put all the extra info and context that people posted in this thread into his opening post. Judging by the last few responses I feel like his statement is being misinterpreted in several ways.
Just to make it clear again:
He means that he is worried that part of the female Tales fanbase might be put off by less cutesy monster design as this seems to be something that their female fanbase likes.
I understand that even this statement can be seen as problematic, but it should be noted that he is not arguing that
Just to make it clear again:
He means that he is worried that part of the female Tales fanbase might be put off by less cutesy monster design as this seems to be something that their female fanbase likes.
I understand that even this statement can be seen as problematic, but it should be noted that he is not arguing that
- Women don't like difficult games
- Women don't want to feel a sense of accomplishment
- Women don't like Tales of games
It was done to reisure the playerbase that cute designs will still be a thing in this game, as not everyone there reacted kindly to this game moving towards monstrous designs and abandoning of old iconic monsters. As for the female part that can be a grammar thing as they could've used 彼女たち, meaning a group of woman, but can be used when talking about a group mostly comprise of woman. But that's just my guess.
I know its easy to post hot takes and move on, but atleast understand the actual context of the comments, even if you still disagree
The problem is that if you have context and attempt to empathize with the designer you'll realize that it was a nothing comment not even worthy of debate or discussion. And that obviously goes against the intent of the thread, to stir up controversy.
I don't really think there's any context that makes the comment look good for people who are put off by gender generalisations. He says that they have made the monsters more intimidating in design so you feel more accomplished when you defeat them, but they were initially afraid that the female fanbase would not like scary monsters. It's no different from saying "we used a lot of blue in designing the game and were afraid that the girls playing it would prefer more pink".
The context is that a man thinks that girls don't like fighting scary monsters but boys wouldn't have a problem with that. :)
I'm not saying it makes the comment look good, but I think the other implications look even worse.
Does it really though? Is it worse to suggest that girls don't like hard games? It's all about preference right? "Girls don't like scary monsters" and "Girls don't like difficult games" are both about preferences in design (visual design and game design) that are gendered. That's how I see it.
People might think that not liking difficult games is a suggestion that a person might suck at games, hence it is worse because the suggestion is that girls suck at games, but I don't really see these sort of gendered comments as being that deep. In the end, as long as you think of people having preferences based on their gender, you are thinking of your audience as gender demographics with general taste defined by your gender first, before being individuals where the demographic is defined by their actual preference. (Ie: Players who like cute monsters might be unhappy with this change, vs Girls who like cute monsters might be unhappy with this change)
I think that was because they literally translated otome into english, as it means games for young women in Japanese.
Otome just means young girls. They're called otome games because they're games aimed at young girls. Otome doesn't mean a video game.
Gotcha, that's what I get for not googling beforehand. A horrible mistake for someone who is studying Japanese for his second semester.
The context is an executive for a franchise which's' most hardcore fanbase are japanese women should have focus group knowledge of what they like and dont so they can exploit it to get more money out of them, since thats the primary reason why the company exists. To get money.
The same thing happens with atelier, its a series with cute looking monsters for the most part, stories about cute girls doing cute things and being ambiguously gay and to us it might seem they are pandering to men, but in fact their most hardcore fanbase are again, japanese women.
Its blunt as all hell but different regional markets have different wants. Its like when a magazine did a survey on most popular female SNK fighter and women picked the big titty ninja (Mai) and men picked the demure ainu priestess (Nakoruru). One is assertive often times rude and doesn't give a fuck the other is a doll-like waifu.
The same thing happens with atelier, its a series with cute looking monsters for the most part, stories about cute girls doing cute things and being ambiguously gay and to us it might seem they are pandering to men, but in fact their most hardcore fanbase are again, japanese women.
Its blunt as all hell but different regional markets have different wants. Its like when a magazine did a survey on most popular female SNK fighter and women picked the big titty ninja (Mai) and men picked the demure ainu priestess (Nakoruru). One is assertive often times rude and doesn't give a fuck the other is a doll-like waifu.
But I want to outrage dammit!
I kid, I kid, I'm sure something was lost in translation as well
I totally get where you're coming from and I might really think too deeply about this, but it is indeed the implication that girls lack the ability of playing a difficult game (if they dislike difficult games) that makes me feel that it is worse than not liking a certain visual design even though it might not be that big of a difference.
And yes, it would have been better to just state that players regardless of their gender who like cute monsters might be unhappy.
I wouldn't want to rule out the possibility that Bamco has user survey data that shows that it's primarily their female user base that puts any kind of significance on cute monsters, but I'd agree that even then you should not single them out as if none of the male players would be bothered by it.
This is one of those threads where the original thing isn't great, like maybe it's based on their marketing research or whatever and just stated tactlessly, but then I see defenses which bring up stuff that isn't in the interview or highlight individual words of a translation from a language without articles or plurals and am like, maybe the thing in the title of the thread isn't the worst thing here.
乙女 (Otome) means young girls.
乙女ゲーム (Otome games) are games aimed towards young girls.
So, ザキングオブファイターズの乙女ゲーム when literally translated would be KoF for young girls.
This is a mistranslation in my (hobbyist reading level) opinion. Here's the original quote:
あまりにも怖い敵を作ると、女性ユーザーの皆さんには嫌われてしまうかも……という考えもありますが、やはりRPGのバトルというのは、敵を倒す達成感が重要だと思っていますので、そこをPVでも感じてもらえればと。
Even though there's this idea [that], if you make enemies too scary, women players might dislike that, (I) think it's important for an RPG battle to have a sense of accomplishment. Maybe it can even be felt in the preview video.
A charitable interpretation could be, *despite* the common view that female players might not like that, they are including them in the game regardless, because everybody enjoys that sense of accomplishment.
A pessimistic interpretation could be: "Even though we/I believe women players might dislike us making scary characters..."
whether the speaker/company is being sexist here is ambiguous to me, but I lean toward the benefit of the doubt here. Partially because 考えもあります is distancing himself from the idea, "there's even an idea that"
By the way, I also think "some" may be a mistranslation, "皆さん" is absolutely all, as far as I know. Even if it *can* be interpreted as "some", it doesn't really make a difference in the end, as it's still referring to a stereotype.
I'm willing to be wrong on any of this but I wouldn't hold the original translation up as damning evidence.
あまりにも怖い敵を作ると、女性ユーザーの皆さんには嫌われてしまうかも……という考えもありますが、やはりRPGのバトルというのは、敵を倒す達成感が重要だと思っていますので、そこをPVでも感じてもらえればと。
Even though there's this idea [that], if you make enemies too scary, women players might dislike that, (I) think it's important for an RPG battle to have a sense of accomplishment. Maybe it can even be felt in the preview video.
A charitable interpretation could be, *despite* the common view that female players might not like that, they are including them in the game regardless, because everybody enjoys that sense of accomplishment.
A pessimistic interpretation could be: "Even though we/I believe women players might dislike us making scary characters..."
whether the speaker/company is being sexist here is ambiguous to me, but I lean toward the benefit of the doubt here. Partially because 考えもあります is distancing himself from the idea, "there's even an idea that"
By the way, I also think "some" may be a mistranslation, "皆さん" is absolutely all, as far as I know. Even if it *can* be interpreted as "some", it doesn't really make a difference in the end, as it's still referring to a stereotype.
I'm willing to be wrong on any of this but I wouldn't hold the original translation up as damning evidence.
Read this post and looked at the included Japanese text. I agree with this assessment.
Painfully overliteral versions of the bits you highlighted might be:
"everybody of female users would be made to dislike"
"even though the thought exists that [...], but"
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Lol.
Trying to think of any mistranslation that would make this feel reasonable...
...having a tough time...
Trying to think of any mistranslation that would make this feel reasonable...
...having a tough time...
I might be wrong with this, but while 皆さん literally means "all/everyone" isn't it also used as a polite plural indication?
I speak Japanese :x And I'm not sure what the difference is anyway? It still means this KOF is for (young) girls, as opposed to regular KOF.
Yup, in this context he's just referencing the female userbase that they were afraid of upsetting. It's a general plural and not something that can be dissected as "some" or "all" like in English.
I assume what that member is trying to get at is that there's a genre of games aimed at girls which are called otome games, so "King of Fighters Romance Game" might sound less presumptuous...
except from what I can see, ザキングオブファイターズの乙女ゲーム isn't actually the name of the game, because when I try googling that I just bump into a Famitsu article about キング・オブ・ファイターズ for ガールズ (literally just "King of Fighters for girls", in English, but written in Japanese). So I think the whole thing's kinda moot anyway.