Obviously since I have not seen the game I cannot tell you, but Sam and Dan Houser are excellent writers so presumably all three character serve a purpose which is serviced by the plot.

Perhaps they would have to recreate certain scenarios or re-do scenes, I honestly have no idea as I have yet to play through the game.

At any rate, I have no intention of ever telling developers to put in X or Y character to appeal to W or Z demographic, gender race, whatever as in my opinion it legitimizes the medium

If Rockstar wants to, all the more power to them, but I am hardly going to sit hear and tell them what to do. After all, I, for any reason disagree with the direction I preceive them taking, I can always just not buy the game and my refusale to purchase would tell them they need to do something diffrent.

It seems that you must have no read bko’s post correctly. So I will re iterate, it is their creative license, not ours.

I never said the mere act of creating a woman character is pandering, did I? Please actually read what I wrote. I said there seems to be an expectation that every game must, whether it wants to or not and whether it’s better served by it or not, include a woman in a leading, playable role. If GTA V replaced one of its three characters with a woman just to placate people rather than fulfill whatever storytelling ideals it has, that would indeed be pandering. It’s the definition of the word.

I love this notion that including a female character must mean someone is “pandering” to “insane feminism”. I guess having a black guy as one of the three means they’re pandering to “insane” race equality activists?

But this is Grand Theft Auto, a series that has a different protagonist every game. So what’s being “rewritten” exactly if one of the new protagonists were to be female? What exactly would change of one of the 3 for V was female?

While I can see what you are saying I must say that I disagree. I do not believe should bring telling developers how to make their games.

You see, if we ever hope to have video games taken seriously as medium we cannot go around telling studios who or what can be put in what roles.

Equally as valid, I do not think that we should Crystal Dynamics, Ninja Theory or Capcom that they need to put male protagonists in Tomb Raider, Heavanly Sword or Remeber me.

If this were a game like Skyrim or Mass Effect where the player is meant to imprint on the main character and the lead is more interchangeable I would compltlty agree.

But I like to believe that all three characters are vital to the narrative and as such serve a purpose that is serviced by the story.

After all we don’t go around telling Suzanne Collins to rewrite the hunger games with a male lead or tell JK Rowling to remake Harry Potter with a girl do we?

If we ever want games to be taken as seriously books or movies we cannot tell develops what they can or cannot include and that certain people must be put in certain rules.

Very much the same, I also believe We cannot tell Ninja Theory or Crystal Dynamics that they must put male protagonists in Tomb Raider or Heavanly Sword.

If this were a game like Skyrim or Mass Effecg, where the player is suppose to imprint on the character and the lead role is more interchangable I would completely agree, but I would like to believe that all 3 characters serve a purpose in the story.

After all we don’t go around telling people to rewrite Katniss as a man or that Harry potter needs to be made again, except with a girl, do we?

That does not make sense. How would one be forcing those characters into those spaces in new IPs…if they are new IPs without a tradition, past, or methodology? The argument is that it is forcing when you just put women into well established IPs…just because they are women and it is the new politically correct thing to do.

You must have the painters in.

“You have strippers and prostitutes in GTA.”

Oh my god, this is a joke right? Also, none of them are main characters.

” Lastly, Making new IPs with characters of varying races is a great idea…”

You do realize that people could just make the exact same argument that you did – that it’s “forcing” minorities into lead roles. Like, do you really not get it?

Uh…what? I never mentioned race, nor do I really care about it at all in video games. Secondly, comparing race to gender is just foolish. Lastly, Making new IPs with characters of varying races is a great idea…so I actually agree overall with your message. Nice try though…well not really.

I will never understand the drive to just force black characters into games, especially long standing IPs. Make new IPs with black leads…or just make games that are aimed at blacks…by blacks. Problem solved.

“females are not going to like being used to create chaos”

You know women already play GTA right? I guess you think we prefer “being used” to be strippers and prostitutes?

Why would a female have to be token? You couldn’t see someone like Elizabeta from GTA 4 working as a protagonist?

Isn’t that kind of the point though? In the game industry, developers are too afraid of “changing long-standing IPs” that they don’t change anything, don’t move the medium forward and rehash the same topics over and over again. The fact that people think they should just “make something new” makes the problem worse. That concept implies that they have to be in separate games and separate ideas, but why can’t they coexist? I would LOVE to play a game with multiple protagonists like this, that also had a female in the mix. It would add so much more dept to the stories, in my opinion.

To each his/her own, but I’d like to see Rockstar take more chances. This was a perfect opportunity.

Not about Heroes, is about Anti Heroes.

If it has to be a Rockstar game, I would really like to see a female lead for the next Red Dead or L.A. Noire. I think a female lead in either of those games would be more meaningful and the payoff would be more interesting. I think they’ll eventually make a female lead in one of the GTA handheld games just as a way to see what the reaction would be and then take it from there.

I think Rockstar creating a gay protagonist in the next GTA would be a much more bolder take on the franchise–since we don’t see much of LGBT community displayed as leading roles in Video Games–or at least none that I can think of. (Mass Effect aside). I somewhat agree with your viewpoint, but I think Rockstar has always pushed the boundaries of what you can do in games. I also think they generally just don’t give a fuck about the consequences. Rockstar does what Rockstar wants.

There isn’t a sausage-fest.

You have strippers and prostitutes in GTA.

Plus, GTA is all guns, machismo and dick jokes. Female character would be a huge L.

I would say you made some valid points with your argument. In the case of GTA V though, there are three playable main characters that are all males. i don’t think it’s too much to ask for a little bit of variety as far as the cast is concerned. Besides they have never dared to try something like this and the fact that you can play as a female in Saints Row but not in GTA is silly. GTA is supposed to be the absolute best in the business so i’m expecting innovation here, not a sausage fest lol.