A screenshot from Guild Wars 2 featuring a statue of Kalla Scorchrazor, Charr Feminist Revolutionary.
Edit: This contest is now closed. Congratulations to the winners, who have all been emailed with their keys!
Darketower, Josh, Chris, Tyler K, Rillifane, Gralsh Oon, Henry, Skennedy, XvShadow, Hyacinth, Ehsan Kia, Ramenhotep, Primal Zed, 3Jane, chooseareality, DystopianGibberish, Richard, Ashelia, Eccentricity, washuu, Rabab, Romulus Hawk, Augusto Mendes, Sabrina, TomW — congrats!
The great folks over at ArenaNet have been so gracious as to allow us to give away 10 beta keys to the upcoming FINAL Guild Wars 2 beta event, which takes place July 20-22. This is the last chance to try out the game before it releases on August 28th. We’re big fans of Guild Wars 2 over here and we know many of our readers would love the opportunity to try out the game.
How to enter:
We’re going to make you work just a little bit to be eligible to win. Hypothetically, let’s say that you’re a consultant for a large game studio who has employed you to help make their upcoming game more inclusive to marginalized groups (women, LGBT gamers, disabled gamers, people of color, etc.). What is one tip that you would offer to this game developer to help them achieve their goals?
We will be choosing the 10 winners at random from the comments and will be giving these keys away on Monday, July 16. You must have a real email address associated with your comment so that we can send you the keys if you win.
Good luck!
Note: Leaving a comment here with your tip is giving The Border House permission to use the tip (credited to you) in an upcoming compilation post of all the entries.
Give people options besides playing a character who is a walking Ken or Barbie.
This! A real disappointment, is that there is an old Norn cutscene floating around that has at least one large Norn woman in it kicking ass, yet her body type is not available in the actual character creator.
Why not!
My tip would be more body sizes, faces, and make up styles. They have some great customization and I love the races so far, but they would gain a lot more by adding even more sliders.
(Note: not entering to win.)
I would also add that it would be fantastic if all options were open to either sex (in particular, I would be a fan of more games allowing men to wear makeup).
Agreed. I always play female characters, but often find myself craving a hairstyle, clothing option or whatever that only exists for male characters.
Absolutely, to all the above. It is great when a game allows for appearance customization for both sexes, but it is even better when both sexes have access to ALL the appearance option possibilities. As in, ladies can wear any of the ‘dude hairstyles’ and vice versa, men can put on any of the makeups that women have (I love having eyeliner/smudged mascara on my guys for the scene/underground punk edge look, and sometimes putting a faint dark eyeshadow on mens’ eyes helps their eyes pop even more in cutscenes). etc etc etc.
I’d even like it if men and women could share wardrobes in-game, too. Like Saints Row, men can wear anything women can and vice versa. It allows for options. It offers further customization of our characters’ identity, allowing us to create our characters’ own *gender identity* beyond the pale of common societal constructs.
How about doing away with all arbitrary limitations on character attributes?
Skin or hair color? Pick any colors you want, real or imaginary.
Height, body proportions, waist-hip ratio, muscles? Anything goes, no slider affects the others.
Hair type/length/style, breasts, beard/moustache? All adjustable to your liking, nothing excluded because of other choices.
Sure, you’ll end up with some unusual-looking characters on your servers, but who are we to decide what is allowed?
(Half off-topic – Is Guild Wars 2 playable on Linux actually? If not, you can give my beta key to someone else, okay?)
Learn about section 508 and the implications thereof. Make sure that every text can be spoken if not by your application than by a screen reader like JAWS.
Ensure that your website is compliant, and use an index on it that includes “jump to” links so that users who have a screen reader will be able to easily navigate your site.
Provide a key or keys that magnify critical parts of your interface; magnify the screen by 5x (a magnifier like MAGIC comes in handy) and ask yourself what you need to see to be able to effectively play the game and cope with the data that comes in during it.
Even if it’s primitive, provide keywords that users of a product like Dragon NaturallySpeaking can use to get around the screen – being able to say “heal 1″, “shield 2″ and similar can be very important for people who can’t use the mouse to get around.
(Not entering to win, either.)
My two big wishes and suggestions:
1) More diversity and less stereotyping in-game. This includes choices for character creation as well as representation and portrayal of NPCs. Don’t have straight white cisguys be the “default” when creating your setting, narrative and characters, while adding women and “minorities” only when you can think of an explicit “reason” for them to be there. We don’t need a “reason” for existing anymore than you do.
2) Do your best to create a friendly community from the very beginning. Have solid harassment policies for your forums and, if applicable, in-game chat channels. Be pro-active about enforcing those policies, otherwise they’re worthless.
Direct them here?
This is hard cause the only game co I think about working for makes big buck hunter. (100% serious). I guess they should remove those ladies, although ethnically diverse, from the game and just put in a talking deer to tell you the score and cool tips.
If I was making a differnt game? Indepth character creators the way to go and include options for differnt races and genders.
o_O;
…how about a duck or some other animal that would totally be okay with it being deer season?
Reverse the gender of every main and supporting character and see if your narrative is still compelling.
Remember that all the characters, even though they may be NPCs in this game, would consider themselves the main characters of their own lives, which would not necessarily even come close to revolving around the player character. Let them all have their own lives and desires and goals even if they are mechanically just there to help the player, and treat those desires and lives with respect. They’ll be far more memorable and meaningful if they aren’t just the easy off-the-shelf stereotypes.
…and don’t even THINK about making the only choice for player character Yet Another White Manly Man.
For FPS’s, how about a male lead NOT built like Slab McBeefy? Not even physically strong guys all look like that. Look at Olympic weight lifers. A lot of them are downright portly.
Also consider the possibility of of a disabled Player Character. I’m sure a way could be found to make this fun. Strap a rocket launch on to your wheelchair, add navigation puzzles? There was that game with no video, only sound.
Work with AbleGamers and similar groups on accessibility for those with disabilities or using alternative control schemes or those who are colorblind, etc. Even building the most inclusive game in the world won’t matter if people can’t actually play it.
work with /multiple/ groups, not just one or two notable ones. ablegamers has screwed up on accessibility before, namely in terms of mental disabilities. and many times companies will go with one token organization and call it good. mental conditions absolutely need to be taken into consideration when so many games fall back on the ‘crazy bad guy’ trope. accessibility is not just a matter of whether or not one can physically play the game. if the player is going to have a panic attack while playing it, then something is seriously wrong. too often is this ignored in multimedia.
Don’t make all the women wear platemail bikinis while the men get more coverage in the way of clothes. That being said, put all the men in what the women are wearing and if it looks silly on them, it looks silly on the women. Unless both genders get the same outfits Basically stop making the game for the perceived white het. male.
(However looking at this: http://borderhouseblog.com/?attachment_id=7986) GW2 is a lost cause in that department, maybe next time)
Oh how about more than the binary on genders/sexes too.
Different body sliders, lots of hair options that are not one gender only, subtitles, different spoken language options as well as written language options (not everyone speaks English in the US/Canada), Difficulty sliders, the better ability to report and block trolls, banning of trolls instead of giving them a hand wave, learning to apologize properly when your called out for things (not part of the game BUT it’s part of the gaming and company), Probably things other people have mentioned above.
I wouldn’t totally write off GW2 in the armor style department. It has many ‘respectable’ options as well:
http://imgur.com/a/MK9Q1#0
I don’t disagree that it also has some stupidly gendered female sets, but I think the game is getting more of a bad wrap for those than it deserves.
The scaly one with the feathers omg *_* the medium armor is so, so good.
Armour should be equivalent for all sexes. That is, if it covers everything for the men, it should cover everything for the women. If it is a fur loincloth and bandolier for the men, then fair enough make it a fur bikini and bandolier for the women.
I do agree that the more I see of GW2′s armor and clothing, the more I see how skewed it is toward engendered and sexy-only-for-women attire. Even if some of those skimpy and unrealistic sets might be really pretty? It doesn’t negate what sort of message and representation it is conveying, imo. That’s just me, though. Not going to knock anyone for liking something, but I have yet to see much of any armors being skimpy fetish-y for men for sexualization purposes, or engendered for sex appeal to the user’s eye.
It reminds me of the article and chat we had on BH not too long ago. How even if men and women are showing equal amounts of skin, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are equal in being sexualized. Posturing, stance, attire and how it emphasizes what parts of the body and where, etc. all play into it.
Establish community guidelines early on and enforce them. If you have a good community, you’re going to be more inclusive by definition.
Take the first draft of your narrative/game concept and do a genderswap, change ages around, everything – jettison your assumptions about what works and how.
And do the research. It’s not hard to get a fresh set of eyes on something you think might be questionable.
It really isn’t that hard to work in a color blind mode, really I am a developer and I know it isn’t. I don’t have it bad, but I once knew someone that would regularly get destroyed in EQ because that green mob he attacked was actually a red one.
Oh and how about including updates to accessibility in patches and expansions since the biggest argument is always how they have to get the game out the door. Once it is out the door and making money doesn’t it make business sense to expand your market?
I know that was two, but I couldn’t help myself.
Not entering to win, but with games featuring characters, it’d be neat to see them try something like blind casting. Write the story and characters (including any relationships) without referencing their gender/race, then roll dice to determine the character’s attributes after the fact.
Also, I’d second comments above about community guidelines. Be really harsh – any kind of aggression towards other members of the community should be a huge no-no and grounds for a quick temporary ban (or permanent after a few offences).
Design everything in greyscale and make sure the interface and characters work and look right in that before adding the colour back in.
Then apply that same thinking to gender.
My tip would be that if they want to appeal to specific groups then the game developers should be comprised, at least in part by people who are parts of these specific groups. At least one of the senior designers should be, for example, female. One or more should be disabled, LGBT etc etc. A game cannot be in touch with issues if they don’t have inherant knowledge of them at the level of senior developer. These are not token positions lower down the food chain where they can be paid lip-service but largely ignored or disregarded – these would be (qualified) senior designers/developers with direct knowledge and experience of the issues that gamer subtypes you are intent on attracting have to face and deal with.
I definitely agree that diversity behind the scenes and in the workplace from the top on down is needed. Absolutely.
That said, I will note that just because someone is a minority does not make them any more qualified or social justice-y or in-tune with their group/demographic’s own struggles, past and present, and what’s needed. Internalized misogyny and internalized homophobia, for example, is an easy symptom byproduct on can fall prey to in our society.
Sometimes I think a social justice-y human relations type of department/think tank/freelance group would behoove the industry…
1) Write stories as usual. Then swap around genders, races, sexual orientations and dis/abilities of both the PC and NPCs. Check which swaps feel weird or make you uncomfortable: this is where you unconsciously followed stereotypes and where you need to have someone else (possibly from appropriate minorities) double check your work. Do your best not to swap back. Work with the limitations.
2) Popular opinion isn’t inclusive. Don’t poll for the most popular options. Good games will sell even if they have potentially “unpopular” characters. It will also make your game stand out from the others and be more interesting by comparison.
The swapping genders of characters suggestion is a good one. A pretty cool writer I used to hang out with online once described how she picked gender and sexual orientation for each and every character where it wasn’t plot-essential by simply flipping a coin. Okay, so this was a fantasy setting where sexual orientation was spread out evenly, and it would leave out trans- and intersexual characters, but I thought it was really cool nonetheless.
One tip? Hmmm… let’s go with something more core rather than just the superficial then.
Give your non straight-white-male characters actual depth and personality beyond simply being identified as a minority character. They can absolutely struggle with the social norms and perceptions based on that identity – whether it’s female gender roles, sexuality, racial background and upbringing, gender identity, and so on – and even have that struggle represent their primary character arc. (Those social norms and perceptions can also be different in your fictitious setting than they are in your home culture.) You can also (and should!) have characters where their minority status doesn’t factor into what makes them an interesting character at all – characters that would be just as interesting and whole whether they’re male or female, white or black or Asian or Hispanic, and so on.
Just make sure there is more going on with them than their gender, race, disability, or whatever it is that makes them a non-standard straight white male character. A character’s minority status should not be the single defining trait of the character; if it is, you’re left with the “token” character rather than a believable one.
This is absolutely crucial too, yes, and it plays into my “don’t act as if marginalized people need a ‘reason’ for existing” request. I wasn’t sure how to phrase it better, so thanks for doing just that.
My tip is to hire more people from these marginalized groups to make the game. Often the best way to create a game that speaks to these communities is to actually have a variety of representatives from these communities on your team.
If your game isn’t set in the US, don’t make your protagonist American.
As a not-for-entry additional rant for a gaming company that is dear to me: assuming that large games company I was hired by was Crytek: don’t make Alcatraz white. I know we never got to see his face, and I know you’re open to diversity seeing as your protagonist is black (albeit a black man in a – probably – not black man’s body). Hispanic, black, Asian, it doesn’t matter. Just not white.
The last thing the FPS genre needs is yet another 30-something brown-haired white guy. This trope is so widespread and all-consuming it would be surprising to see a blond or ginger white guy, at this point. I mean I get it, especially for “realistic” military shooters; the largest military in the world doesn’t allow women into frontline combat. I’m okay with this, especially since several franchises make an effort to include playable women anyway either by using other branches of the military (e.g. BF3) or by using other militaries that do allow women into combat (e.g. SOCOM4). But that being said, why are the protagonists always white guys? Why are men of colour relegated to Navi or Captain Doorkicker status? There are plenty of men of colour in the army. You know that, because they show up everywhere in the game. You just never make them playable.
Even when it can’t possibly matter, where the protagonist is in fully-concealing body armour for 99% of the game, that 1% will be a flash of his face revealing him to be a 30-something brown-haired white guy. It’s difficult to describe the depths of my disappointment when this happened with the Master Chief (who up to that point had been a true Everyman). And in Dead Space 1, this was completely unnecessary – besides which, Isaac’s not even a grunt. He’s an engineer. Have you walked into an engineering class lately? They’re pretty diverse. Even utilizing an “oh we’re just playing the numbers” argument, we’re as likely to see an Asian or East Indian Isaac.
Same principle goes if the company is Acti: if we ever get to see his face, do not make Ramirez white.
Putting female, POC, and/or LGBTQ characters into positions of power and NOT having them be criticized constantly by characters in the story for not being straight cis white dudes but instead praised for their positive traits and heroics would be nice. The same applies to figures of legend. (How cool would it be to have the dragon-slaying knight of old, revered by all the land, be a buff, Hispanic lesbian, for example? Well, that’s just what I think.)
Also, you don’t HAVE to make the world of the game a hostile place for marginalized groups, story-wise. I mean, you can, but if you don’t want to or you don’t think you can handle it well, it’s okay to just make things nice and inclusive, believe me. Some of
us could use the break.
Very basic stuff, but that’s all I can think of at the moment.
My tip:
I would suggest using setting where for example racial or cultural minorities (as are perceived in US) aren’t actually minorities. Something similar to GW:Nightfall or Jade Empire but with less premise on exotic and orientalization. If using futuristic theme set your action not in New York but in futuristic Nairobi or Bombay where majority characters are PoC, whether scientists, soldiers, traders , office workers etc. When using fantasy setting do the same like for example Dragon Age but with majority of characters being PoC, both PC and NPCs but without changing theme to be more “exotic” or “African”. In short make game where PoC are majority but don’t add any “explanation” for this, make this as natural as it actually is. ( something like U.K. Le Guine “Earthsea”)
Here’s a very idealistic suggestion that only really works if members of the company are capable of empathy and introspection:
Many programmers include extraneous code that simply checks to make sure that the program is performing within specification and isn’t doing expected things. From a strictly business perspective lines of code that do nothing for the consumer don’t make much sense on face value, but their cost/benefit ratio is in fact highly skewed towards benefits. Code that checks itself is less likely to break and do odd things that may take hundreds of person-hours to fix. I propose a similar practice when dealing with any issues of privilege or marginalization. Much like encoded assumptions in code that must be checked with yet more code, privilege takes conscious effort to recognize and alleviate. If everyone in an organization took a few moments every day, perhaps in a structured manner, to evaluate how their product interacted with different selections of their consumer base be they minority or not, then we might avoid some of the ridiculous designs and characters of the last two decades. I do mean everyone in the company, too, as danah boyd’s research shows that even code can introduce constraints far beyond a programmer’s expectations. For example, if accessibility was brought up according to protocol at every design and implementation meeting on an equal level to aesthetics and utility, then it wouldn’t emerge later as the immense challenge of adding accessible options onto a product that by then may not even be able to support them.
The key is building institutional routines so as to reduce the perception that being ‘accommodating’ to marginalized people is costly or aberrant.
I think the big one would probably be “the most extensive character customization possible.”
Have a staff devoted to monitoring reports for harassment in in-game communication. Make your guidelines strict, and make sure your staff follows them. This is NOT something that should be crowdsourced to your players. Finally, followup your threats: players who are especially bad should be banned, maybe even made an example of. This is something you must do to create a welcoming environment. You have no obligation to protect “free speech” in your game, and even if you believe you do, silencing a few so that many can speak is doing just that.
Oh man, Guild Wars. I’m so bummed that I missed the open beta, because it was the only chance to see if this game will perform on my comp [cause while I want to buy it badly, I don't want to get stuck with game I cannot play]. Sooo, yeah taking my chance at this.
Soo, trying! Excuse me for my english, I’m still learning
I’m probably echoing what many people already said, but extensive character customization is my dream. Giving only various shades of fair skintone, and mostly light-hair? You’re doing it wrong. Variety is needed. In skin color, in hair, and also in body-build. And when I say body-build, I don’t mean, pick one of those three types – muscled, very muscled, and totally giant muscled for men, and three types of breats size for women. Because that’s doing it wrong, very wrong.
Sometimes I think that perhaps the best way of customizing character, wouldn’t be “pick female or male option, and get two different character creators, but get the WHOLE creator at first, with all hairstyles, or face-models availible, with slider, to alter elements of body as well. Also this means one clothing for all. As in, in many games if there is a long covering robe with a hood on male model, it turns into a skimpy bikini on female model.
That doesn’t mean don’t make skimpy bikini at all though, just make it a choice, not a mandatory feature you cannot change – if the armor is a fully covering plate, let it look the same, on all variations. And if it’s some kind of skimpy clothing with thong, and high boots, then make it look exactly like this on ALL character models.
[TRIGGER WARNING] The more important one, would probably be…please please, do not play with sexual assault for teh dramaz, realisticillizm, and “but it’s magic! you character was seduced by this NPC, regardless of their orientation!”. Do not play with it at all.
I just am not able to write about this particular issue, well enough in my not native language, but I find it to be one of the most important ones, especially since it’s been surfacing a lot in recent games. It does not make your game more ~~mature~~
Simple but often overlooked, make your GUI and color scheme colorblind friendly. Considering that 20% of males and some female are color blind, this is a big issue many games have.
I think a great way to make minorities feel included through changes in the game itself are to create great story lines that include NPCs that are representative of these minority groups. Make an quest for a woman looking for her lost love who happens to be another woman. Have a story about a physically handicapped young man who wishes to join the ranks of those fighting and refuses to give up despite his physical limitations. The best way to make people feel welcome is to give them something they can relate to. Tell a fantastic tale about a person they can relate to, but don’t let the quirks define who that person is. The story should be about someone strong in character, strong in spirit, who simply happens to also be handicapped or homosexual. Keep in mind that it’s only one facet of who they are as a person. I think ultimately all anyone wants is to feel included and recognized for *who* they are, not what they are.
Mostly, I would suggest that each person involved with character development heavily researched tropes and did what they could to avoid utilizing them. Truly creative character development can produce inspiring, memorable, well-made characters without relying on the kinds of plot devices and character motivations we’ve seen time and time again.
My tip would be: Take a step back and look at the big picture of the population to see if it’s biased and adjust accordingly.
Too many white characters? Change some of them into black or Asian or Latino. Too many straight couples? Change some of them into same sex couples with or without adopting children. Too many male characters in the main roles? Change some of them into woman or non-gender characters.
Those are some example I can come up on the top of my head, of course when making change they have to make adjustment to make it smoothly. It’d be bad to have a female character referred to as “he” because they don’t fix how people around address her after changing her gender.
One of the things I’ve always wanted to see in a game is a type of control that’s friendly to those who might have difficulty maneuvering the muscles in their hands. For instance, in GW2, the F1-F8 keys are difficult to quickly tap if you haven’t remapped them, but having a setting in-game specifically for those with dexterity problems I think would be a welcome relief. Exactly how that would be implemented, I’m not sure, but I would love to see the ground-breaking company that does it.
They should include multiple NPC protagonists from these marginalized groups. The storyline can help the player empathize.
In storytelling, leaving more open spaces for the mind to fill in with his own ideas is a very good way to satisfy more groups, as they can associate themselves easier.
Be very in touch with your fanbase. Constantly listen to what people are saying on your forums (if you don’t have a forum, get one), social media, and in-game feedback. Always try to talk to the community, whether it’s about your game or the studio itself.
Make characters more custom and life like. Let you control more of their personality and persona.
I would suggest that the awesome people at ArenaNet would rotate a person to be a sort of living NPC that people could talk to in-game. They could give special quests, or rewards as well as make the game not seem quite so scripted. I think that would be amazing. If Queen Jennah would be a real human, and send us to battle in the mists… ooooooh myyyy gaaaaawd….
I just wish they would stop making females in fantasy games perceive that apparently less apparent armor is better stats. It’s kind of aggravating that a video game company, a genre that started mostly underground, still feels like it has to have a sexual artistic appeal to be successful.
Simply or not so simply design a highly customizable UI with features to accommodate more users. Sell more graphically intensive UI elements,
My tip is: To add character customization that usually isn’t available in other games. Then in cinematics/advertisements use a variety of these customizations.
I would incorporate a much more customize able character design scheme, controls for every type of console controller and maybe much more bindable key options for those that may be disabled. Also many newer games come with a “color blind” mode which helps those with color blind issues.
Encourage cooperation and positive interactions amongst players, and heavily discourage (through automated means) any sort of abuse or harassment.
We have reached the technological point where certain kinds of statements about other people should produce an automatic warning, and trolling should lead to a person having their right to communication cut off. Or worse, like the cheaters who get punted to their own server, make a griefer spend a few hours, days or weeks on a Poor Impulse Control shard where the only people they can talk with are also jerks.
Be creative ! Let us work for the fun
The best way to include these marginalized groups is to allow them the ability to choose how they want to play. By not pigeon-holing players into a gender-dichotomy, or ability level you allow the players to be themselves and not settle for gameplay designed on the greater majority. This value must be maintained from the character creation screen all the way to the last dlc release in order for it to truly work. Show gamers a world that welcomes them as they are and let’s them be themselves during gameplay.
My tip: Strong Color Mode for Colorblind people. This is a mode in which the range of colors is much simplified and in addition the colors are much stronger and sharper than in the standard mode. It’ll make graphics annoying for regular people, but will aid colorblind a lot. This thing is very likely to work since it was already tested and approved by Blizzard for SC2 (fan-made mod for now, but will be implemented in the next expansion).
I would interview the people that the company is trying to reach out to. Learn from them and find out what they want in a game that will satisfy their needs. I would also suggest that the company listens to the suggestions really consider them. Customer service and client loyalty will always help you succeed. Look at Arenanet… They listened and now their game is probably one of the most anticipated game this year and the last few years.
Looks, Looks, Looks.
Character Customisation being a rather intensive given you would want to cover your ethnic groups so bases being the different ethnic groups with customisation of the various skin tones, how much lift the eye corner’s would have, the general complaints have been of the female avatar’s all being bimbo like, let them be so or let them be normal, basic and extremely advanced customisation.
imho you should not tread them any special. ppl are ppl. no matter what sex, religion or origin.
Give people oportunity to make their character special and different. More body customizations, colors upon armor and more. People want to play with the look of they characters. They dont want to use only black armor, but want to have choice how the look.Not only how strong they are or will be.