MEA male-to-female player ratio?

Let's be realistic here, a simple quick one-minute research done by casual players that are interested in the game would tell them you can be either female or female, plain and simple. Hardcore gamers, that have a wide view of the industry and whatnot, also know what Bioware has to offer solely based in their history without even being interested in the game. The marketing won't boost any gender choice by a considerable margin, it sometimes reach the most casual of gamers, but being able to choose between the only two genders won't sell the game if everything else is less appealing.

So I don't think Bioware's type of marketing is doing anything memorable to get more female players, but more that - with each year that goes by, gaming is becoming even more of a mainstream event that recent generations of young girls are also joining this ship, it's no more a boy only toy, and with the rising of female - led AAA titles, THAT gets even more of them onboard. I know you didn't say this, but I feel like grown up women who barely touched a controller in their lives aren't going to be interested because of this and that trailer, it's more about the people who already enjoy the it, and regarding females, more of them are present now.

I played as a male Shepard in the trilogy. This time I'm choosing to play as female Ryder. You know switch it up a bit.

Assuming that the rate of females playing video games is growing, they still have to choose which games to play. Most people can't afford to buy every big game that comes out. This is where marketing comes in. When I heard about Mass Effect, I googled it and watched the first trailer that popped up and it was male Shepard. Nothing about it really caught my interest in particular so I passed on it until I found out you could play a female character and that got me to look into it more deeply and decide I want to play it. Gender of the player character and other customization can definitely be a deciding factor for a lot of people when buying a game.



BioWare has earned a dedicated player base for sure, but they obviously still want to bring in more people and that's why having marketing that accurately portrays what's special about your game is important. And again if the rate of female players is growing it's important that the marketing reaches them in particular, since it's still sort of an untapped demographic in a lot of ways.

Hi Dutch!

I don't actually remember how I got into BioWare games, I think I played Neverwinter Nights 2 and got into it that way, rather roundabout. I don't remember ever not knowing you could play as a female, I think I was more concerned that you could be a wood elf.

However, more recently, I got into a game called Warframe where you can have various "avatars" of sorts, and nothing ever quite clicked until I found the Banshee, an elegant, definitely female warframe who I could identity with.

I know that I heavily prefer female characters to play as, though only when they are customisable blank slates, set characters like in Dishonored or the Thief trilogy don't worry me.

On the other hand, my brother generally runs a female redhead if he has the opportunity, so the link between character and player is pretty tenuous. Even I rolled up a male character in DA:I recently to see Cassandra's romance and play a genuinely convinced of their divinity Herald of Andraste.

Hmm...

I don't google every game I see that looks interesting with a male lead, there are just so many games. Honestly I just assume that you can't play as a female if all the pics, movies and screens are only with a guy. It is like watching a comercial on the screen for a series that is almost your thing but not quite it. It just doesn't stick for me, there are just so so many out there. But if I know that you can play a rpg with a female character I will definitely take a look.

That is just how it is for me. I have tried playing games with male leads and I just don't finish them so I've decided that it isn't a good investment for me. Oh wait, there was one game that I did play with a male lead. Nameless One in Torment. Awesome game, Morte, the morgue. Music. Everything. I have backed the kickstarter, I waited to pay for it until I knew that you could play as a female character in Torment: Tides of Numenera. It will be a great help to keep me busy until ME:A comes out. I bought the latest Tomb Raider, it wasn't my thing. Too much "horror-game" for me, for me it lacked the matiné-Indiana-Jones-feeling that I liked. However I did give it a try. I did read up on "Remember Me" but it wasn't my type.

Different strokes for different folks. If gender of lead isn't important for a player perhaps marketing won't mean much. Have no idea how common it is to prefer to play only as male or female, I might be really unusal, I don't know.  There a far fewer games with female leads than male so I won't google them all. For me, seeing just one screenshot of the female lead or just reading "can be played with a female character" means I will take a look at least.


Awesome Nameless One is Awesome!

For each girl that plays Mass Effect you have 10 boys playing it.
Of those 10 boys more than half play male for sure.

Haven't you heard?

Well, if we're talking about first playthroughs, I imagine a lot of people just went with the default.

Great sample selection there.

It's a Dutch thread™

I'm a girl and I mostly play male characters. The 1st time I played ME I took male shepard but asap I knew I could romance Garrus I play since then as female shepard. For MEA I will play male Ryder tho I hope I wont get salty with some romances choices... ;( Same happened for DAO I played female for Alistair but in DA2 and DAI I could play as male with no big issues.