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Horizon Zero Dawn is one of the best selling female lead game of all time. Will at least this convince more publishers to do the right thing?

Toriko

Toriko

Member
Dec 29, 2017
7,683
So if I am not wrong, with today's news I believe Horizon Zero Dawn is now one of the best selling female lead game of all time after having sold over 10 million copies ( as per officially communicated data ).

https://www.polygon.com/2019/2/28/18244721/horizon-zero-dawn-sales-ps4

Fantastic that GG rightfully decided to go with a female protagonist. Now no more excuses for more Publishers to push for more female leads in games and not just in multiplayer but also single player games.

Come on Rockstar, do the right thing here. If you do it with a GTA or Red Dead every publisher will follow. If we have an exclusively female lead game hit 50 million copies worldwide from Rockstar, that alone wiill shatter any myth that Publishers cling on to.

I remember reading this article that covered the penny arcade report on video game female protagonists many years ago and feeling sad

https://www.themarysue.com/why-game...ont-sell-and-what-it-says-about-the-industry/

In terms of pure sales numbers, in the first three months of availability, games with only a male hero sold around 25 percent better than games with an optional female hero. Games with exclusively male heroes sold around 75 percent better than games with only female heroes.

By looking at these trends two things become clear: games that give you a choice of gender are, on average, reviewed slightly better than games with male-only heroes, but the games that sell very well are almost all led by male heroes. If you're funding a large-budget game and you see these numbers, you see that you lose sales by adding the capability to choose a female hero, and you lose significant sales by releasing a game with a female hero.
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Zatkin found that female-led games received roughly 40 percent of the marketing budget as male-led games. And the reason for that, as I'm sure you've already guessed, is a story we all know by heart.
There is a sense in the industry that games with female heroes won't sell. "I think that there is general feeling from marketing that it's hard to sell a mass-market game that's a female-only protagonist," Zatkin agreed. "This may be changing greatly with mobile and social, where you're expanding the audience, but in core console land, there's a lot of marketing thought that it's hard to sell a game with a female-only protagonist in a core genre. The question is, is this something that really doesn't happen, or do marketing budgets get gimped?"
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Without too many data points the sales potential of female protagonists was dismissed by most publishers.

The day Rockstar makes an exclusively female lead GTA game, it will be the true watershed moment. Until then more please!
 
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etta

etta

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
3,512
So which is it?

"So if I am not wrong, with today's news I believe Horizon Zero Dawn is now probably the best selling female lead game of all time"

"Horizon Zero Dawn is now the best selling female lead game of all time" <- title

??
 
BigWinnie1

BigWinnie1

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Feb 19, 2018
2,757
Its more that they wrote her as an actual character with wants and flaws. Aloy was great because she was allowed to eat shit a bit and her brash personality got her in trouble but they never under wrote her. Also she allowed her to be surrounded by decent characters and have some of most real flirty dialogue between men and women in awhile. Every dude with a crush on her didn't come at her the same way and they each got different reactions from her in a nice way.

She is one of the better female characters to come out in a long time for AAA games and I hope other publishers take note that is okay to play as a women and have men flirt with her if you don't write it like shit.
 

Deleted member 1413

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
8,617
WestEgg said:
Has a tomb raider broken 10 million?
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The reboot eventually did
Ms Croft's rebooted adventures have certainly delivered strong sales since. Today, the 2013 Tomb Raider has sold more than 11 million units worldwide. The 2015 sequel Rise of the Tomb Raider has shifted nearly seven million units - and remember that it wasn't available on the market-dominating PS4 for the first year.
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via
 
Garlador

Garlador

Banned
Oct 30, 2017
14,131
Gosh, I sure hope so.

Reminds me of when Hollywood refused to do female-led action movies because Catwoman, Elektra, and Charlie's Angels Full Throttle bombed, and they blamed female leads, not the quality of the movies.

I'll play great games with great female leads any day of the week.
 
OP
OP
Toriko

Toriko

Member
Dec 29, 2017
7,683
WestEgg said:
Has a tomb raider broken 10 million?
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Nothing officially communicated. Might have with the remastered edition combined with last gen editions for the 2013 reboot. No numbers to say for sure. I think last figure was 8 million or so lifetime around the release of the definitive edition.

RecRoulette said:
Pretty sure it's still lower than the Tomb Raider reboot
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Not as per official figures AFAIK. Also eitherways Horizon will be well past it most likely when done.
 
truly101

truly101

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Oct 29, 2017
3,245
Happy for Aloy and HZD, but not sure this is correct information. Tomb Raider long proved that female leads sell. Technically so did RE, Claire and Jill are incredibly popular.
 
OP
OP
Toriko

Toriko

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Dec 29, 2017
7,683
OrdinaryPrime

OrdinaryPrime

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Nightengale said:
It's probably not apple-to-apple comparison ( shipped v sold ), but TR2013 has shipped in excess of 11 million units, so nah.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/ri...ider-2013-ships-11-million.8293/#post-1428562
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Well the PlayStation Blog says it sold well over 10 million, whatever that means. For the purposes of the topic, I don't think it matters if it's the best selling or second best selling female lead game ever. The question is, are publishers looking at it?
 

lucablight

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,552
Publishers should do it if it fits the product they are trying to create. They shouldn't have to do it arbitrarily to fill some kind of female protagonist quota. Calling it the "right thing" is a very bizarre take.
 
Memento

Memento

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
8,129
If the current best selling female lead game is Tomb Raider 2013 at 11 million, I am 100% positive Horizon Zero Dawn will eventually surpass it.

In any case both will be dethroned by TLOU2 which will set the record very high. I am expecting 20 million for that one.
 

Deleted member 249

User requested account closure
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Oct 25, 2017
28,828
Regardless of whether or not the title is accurate, the game selling 10 million demonstrates that the larger market WILL gladly buy a game with a female lead, and I hope we start seeing more of that going forward.
 
DigitalOp

DigitalOp

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Nov 16, 2017
9,277
Kenagain said:
So if a game doesn't have a female lead it's not doing "the right thing"?
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Straight White Men make up damn near 90%+ of human leads if the lead isn't some animal or creature instead. Is it hurting you that much to have other games that have other types of people as leads?

On topic to the thread, This is why I was interested in Control. Female led Psi Ops successor looks sweet. Just switching up the lead for once goes a long way for generating interest.
 
OP
OP
Toriko

Toriko

Member
Dec 29, 2017
7,683
Nightengale said:
Your thread title and OP did not put any preconditions comparing number of SKUs and re-release consideration.

Amended the title to be... less affirmative.
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Fair enough.

iscodisco93 said:
nice for white females, it would be nice to actually see poc though
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Lost Legacy was a good step in that regard. Far Cry New Dawn does not have a POC protagonist but has an Antagonist predominantly covered in marketing so we will hopefully get there soon.

Rockstar doing it would be the big. It would be such a huge statement. I am still holding out hope for GTA6 to have a female protagonist.
 
-Pyromaniac-

-Pyromaniac-

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Oct 25, 2017
7,363
It should show that it's OK to put women as your lead if you're confident in your game. The problem the latter part of that sentence. Horizon is a hell of a game, and the lead happens to be a woman. I feel like studios are more hesitant when they aren't that sure of themselves, sadly.

Love me a badass lady though. In all my games. And all my genres!
 
OP
OP
Toriko

Toriko

Member
Dec 29, 2017
7,683
Kenagain said:
So if a game doesn't have a female lead it's not doing "the right thing"?
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I did not say that? I meant publishers funding more female lead games. Not that every game has to be female lead.

DigitalOp said:
Straight White Men make up damn near 90%+ of human leads if the lead isn't some animal or creature instead. Is it hurting you that much to have other games that have other types of people as leads?

On topic to the thread, This is why I was interested in Control. Female led Psi Ops successor looks sweet. Just switching up the lead for once goes a long way for generating interest.
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Control looks so badass. Have not seen much. Going in as blind as possible.
 
R dott B

R dott B

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,136
I mean...

Aloy is a generic character that happens to be female. They could have "Did the right thing" and actually made her not so "safe" if we're being honest.
 
Kenagain

Kenagain

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Oct 27, 2017
217
DigitalOp said:
Straight White Men make up damn near 90%+ of human leads if the lead isn't some animal or creature instead. Is it hurting you that much to have other games that have other types of people as leads?

On topic to the thread, This is why I was interested in Control. Female led Psi Ops successor looks sweet. Just switching up the lead for once goes a long way for generating interest.
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Uh no.... A. Not what the topic is, this is solely about women being the lead, nothing to do with race and B. Making it a female lead is awesome, but shaming companies for not doing so is flat out dumb
 
B.O.O.M.

B.O.O.M.

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Oct 25, 2017
8,757
Silky said:
White female appropriating native cultures contextualized differently for the sake of a video game at that

But I'm sleep
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OK can someone explain to me what exactly about Horizon that is 'appropriating native cultures'? You guys do know there were people in Europe and other parts of the world back in the day too right?
 

Deleted member 8861

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I mean yeah perhaps "right thing" is too strong of a phrase perhaps but whatever, semantics, not the main point of this discussion or this thread.

Given how few high profile games are led by female characters, I hope we'll see more releases like Horizon. Because even as a white-passing straight guy who gets directly pandered to by like 80% of the games I play, I'm bored of male protagonists being everywhere.
 
OP
OP
Toriko

Toriko

Member
Dec 29, 2017
7,683
Kenagain said:
Uh no.... A. Not what the topic is, this is solely about women being the lead, nothing to do with race and B. Making it a female lead is awesome, but shaming companies for not doing so is flat out dumb
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Not shaming at all but dont you think it is disproportionately male driven. Would it not be nice to have more representation? Publisher portfolio could do with having more woman representation than what we have now imo
 
jacks81x

jacks81x

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-Pyromaniac- said:
It should show that it's OK to put women as your lead if you're confident in your game. The problem the latter part of that sentence. Horizon is a hell of a game, and the lead happens to be a woman. I feel like studios are more hesitant when they aren't that sure of themselves, sadly.

Love me a badass lady though. In all my games. And all my genres!
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The most important thing will always be making a good game first and foremost. HZD was a great game. Hence it sold well. A studio that isn't confident about its own game is not going to be able to save it just by having a male lead. Are there bigoted people out there that won't buy a game because the lead is of a certain gender or race? Sure, but I don't think that's the majority. Devs just need to focus on making great games. If the game is great, there's no reason to be afraid of having a female protagonist.
 
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