GTA 6 is Beyond Woke

[MrPeery]

In a shocking turn of events, the highly anticipated GTA 6 is shaping up to be a prime example of excessive "wokeness" in the gaming industry. Recent leaks suggest that the game is going to extraordinary lengths to cater to the overly sensitive ideas of the modern players, and it's anything but good for those of us who appreciate the based nature of the Grand Theft Auto series.

Firstly, GTA 6 introduces a pronoun system, supposedly to make "all players feel comfortable." This move reeks of pandering to the politically correct crowd. Gamers should be able to enjoy a game without being burdened by a pronoun choice. We're here to play, not to be constantly reminded of the social justice agenda. Most of us already deal with this daily in the corporate world.

They've also included a trans character. It's becoming painfully clear that this inclusion is driven by a desire to check boxes rather than to enrich the narrative. It's like they're using characters as tokens to gain approval, which is just plain insulting to the gaming community.

The main protagonist, a Latino woman, is now referred to as "Latinx." This absurd linguistic concoction is forced political correctness at its worst. Why mess with a perfectly fine and widely accepted term like "Latino"? It's unnecessary and irritating.

Worse yet, the game is heavily censored to avoid offending modern players. The beauty of GTA was its willingness to push boundaries and challenge players to confront uncomfortable themes. Now, it seems like they're more interested in playing it safe in a "safe space" than delivering a truly immersive experience.

[barrybarrington90]

These companies just fundamentally don't understand why the female market eludes them. They think shoehorning a girlboss in the leading role is going to suddenly make women interested in committing virtual acts of violence. Less than 10% of FPS players are female specifically because the POV is impossible to separate from you committing acts of gun violence against others. No matter how much propaganda corporations pedal, unless they discover a way to remotely inject women with testosterone, the majority are never going to be interested in this kind of thing.

[OyajiBR☕]

lol English is a self-insecure language indeed.

[NetshadeX]

Originally posted by barrybarrington90:

shoehorning a girlboss in the leading role

This got hilariously awkward in Starfield where literally 90% of all factions and companies had non white female leads. And that's coming from a dude that plays as female V in Cyberpunk and my favorite game series of all time for nostalgic reasons is the Tomb Raider series.

[Longhaul]

And every single ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ person who is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, whining, and crying will buy it!

[barrybarrington90]

Originally posted by Longhaul:

And every single ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ person who is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, whining, and crying will buy it!

Nah. If I'm forced to play as a woman for half the game I won't bother. If I can pick which of the two then I will, but that isn't how the last game worked. I found it cringe-inducing enough to play as Trevor in the last game because he was such a silly character, but at least he was only 1/3rd of the missions. 1/2 (or more judging by that trailer) playing as a girlboss like Sadie from RDR2 just holds no interest for me.

[BORG]

Originally posted by barrybarrington90:

These companies just fundamentally don't understand why the female market eludes them. They think shoehorning a girlboss in the leading role is going to suddenly make women interested in committing virtual acts of violence. Less than 10% of FPS players are female specifically because the POV is impossible to separate from you committing acts of gun violence against others. No matter how much propaganda corporations pedal, unless they discover a way to remotely inject women with testosterone, the majority are never going to be interested in this kind of thing.

OK so first I'd like to touch on the population of female and male gamers. Have a look at these statistics below.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/232383/gender-split-of-us-computer-and-video-gamers/

There are a lot more active female gamers than people usually consider, but it is true that male gamers do slightly outnumber female gamers by a bit.

That's not the issue however. The real issue is putting (as you said it) girl boss in the foreground and this is what Rockstar seems to be doing with GTA 6 rather than making Jason and Lucia equals in the foreground, together. Instead Jason is behind her in almost every scene in the trailer and toward the end, Jason is on his back on a bed with her postured over top asking him, "Trust?" as he responds with, "Trust." as if he's obeying her or under her wing so to speak. The last scene is her kicking through a door and being the first to run in. Then there is the fact that Lucia got more voice line time in the trailer than Jason. See the problem here?

The 'strong woman' role is immediately thrown into the players face. By player I mean both male and female. It really doesn't matter male or female either. It's the fact that they are throwing it in the player's face and it's blatantly visible. The agenda Rockstar is trying to push. Again, don't get me wrong - I think it's fantastic girls are getting more roles in video games and quite frankly it should be happening a lot more. It's not that having a female protagonist is an issue. The issue is Rockstar's (as with many other companies out there) presentation is that the female takes the front seat and the male takes the back seat so to speak. it wasn't portrayed as an equals thing where both are just bad ass characters who are equals - just like Bonnie and Clyde. That's not what Rockstar portrayed though.

They want the game to have a Bonnie and Clyde-like love story as its central narrative, but they didn't stick to the facts that Bonnie and Clyde were inseparable and they were always side by side rather than one standing behind the other. They couldn't even get that right because it was more important to these companies to put her in the foreground as a sale snag from the ladies. So, it's only natural people are going to call out that BS out for what it is. That's where Rockstar seriously F'd up. So if they've F'd up so easily this early on, we can only assume the rest will be the same BS. Thus that's one among many reasons people are saying the game will be woke and/or PC. (on top of the other things discussed farther up in the discussion)

[Iggy Wolf]

Originally posted by barrybarrington90:

These companies just fundamentally don't understand why the female market eludes them. They think shoehorning a girlboss in the leading role is going to suddenly make women interested in committing virtual acts of violence. Less than 10% of FPS players are female specifically because the POV is impossible to separate from you committing acts of gun violence against others. No matter how much propaganda corporations pedal, unless they discover a way to remotely inject women with testosterone, the majority are never going to be interested in this kind of thing.

I mean, it's possible they made the protagonist a female just to mix it up. I don't see why that's a problem. We're really going to act like male gamers DON'T size up and sexualize their character when it's a female either because the devs made the protagonist one, or gave you the choice to create one yourself? Please. Saints Row 2-4 had as many male characters as female characters, and I can assure you, probably MORE MEN made their characters a female than females themselves. I was one of them.

Just watch. When players see they can give Lucia outfits that further sexualize her body or let them make her look even hotter, they won't be complaining. If anything, Rockstar knows EXACTLY who their audience is. Hell, for all we know, we'll get to play as both Lucia and Jason, so everybody wins. It's NOT always about an agenda or trying to appeal to a bigger demographic.

[Iggy Wolf]

Originally posted by BORG:

OK so first I'd like to touch on the population of female and male gamers. Have a look at these statistics below.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/232383/gender-split-of-us-computer-and-video-gamers/

There are a lot more active female gamers than people usually consider, but it is true that male gamers do slightly outnumber female gamers by a bit.

That's not the issue however. The real issue is putting (as you said it) girl boss in the foreground and this is what Rockstar seems to be doing with GTA 6 rather than making Jason and Lucia equals in the foreground, together. Instead Jason is behind her in almost every scene in the trailer and toward the end, Jason is on his back on a bed with her postured over top asking him, "Trust?" as he responds with, "Trust." as if he's obeying her or under her wing so to speak. The last scene is her kicking through a door and being the first to run in. Then there is the fact that Lucia got more voice line time in the trailer than Jason. See the problem here?

The 'strong woman' role is immediately thrown into the players face. The agenda. Again, don't get me wrong because I think it's fantastic girls are getting more roles in video games and quite frankly it should be happening a lot more. It's not that having a female protagonist is an issue. The issue is Rockstar's (as with many other companies out there) presentation is that the female takes the front seat and the male takes the back seat so to speak. it wasn't portrayed as an equals thing where both are just bad ass characters who are equals - just like Bonnie and Clyde. That's not what Rockstar portrayed though.

They want the game to have a Bonnie and Clyde-like love story as its central narrative, but they didn't stick to the facts that Bonnie and Clyde were inseparable and they were always side by side rather than one standing behind the other. They couldn't even get that right because it was more important to put her in the foreground as a selling point for the ladies. So, it's only natural people are going to call out that BS out for what it is. That's where Rockstar seriously F'd up. So if they've F'd up so easily this early on, we can only assume the rest will be the same BS. Thus that's one of the reasons people are saying the game will be woke and/or PC.

None of what you said seems to make sense in terms of somehow "forcing" Lucia into a "strong woman role". Like, she's literally the protagonist. She's EXPECTED to take the lead and charge because we PLAY as her. If anything, more people would have complained if she was playing second fiddle to ANYONE else. There's no agenda here. People knew WAY back ahead of time that Lucia was gonna be the protagonist. Let's not act like some people haven't asked for a female protagonist.

It's not the end of the world when you make one. If anything, people have called out other companies like Ubisoft for NOT being able to commit when they do introduce a female character because said character has to play alongside a male character just to be given recognition or even considered equal (e.g. AC Syndicate had Evie, but she was Jacob's twin sister, which really made her presence less of a big deal, cause people can just pretend they're playing one and the same person, just with a different gender.)

As for Jason somehow not being her "equal", nothing about the trailer really indicates that. People can try to LOOK into that as being the case, if that's what they're TRYING to see. That doesn't mean that that's the case. Either way, whether the protagonist and Jason are likable is yet to be seen. People got to play as Trevor in V, and yet many people were put off by his character for being unnecessarily cruel, an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, and an annoying douchebag who hates hipsters for some reason. Even though his character was meant to represent the typical "GTA protagonist" that just shoots and blows ♥♥♥♥ up.

[barrybarrington90]

Originally posted by BORG:

Originally posted by barrybarrington90:

These companies just fundamentally don't understand why the female market eludes them. They think shoehorning a girlboss in the leading role is going to suddenly make women interested in committing virtual acts of violence. Less than 10% of FPS players are female specifically because the POV is impossible to separate from you committing acts of gun violence against others. No matter how much propaganda corporations pedal, unless they discover a way to remotely inject women with testosterone, the majority are never going to be interested in this kind of thing.

OK so first I'd like to touch on the population of female and male gamers. Have a look at these statistics below.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/232383/gender-split-of-us-computer-and-video-gamers/

There are a lot more active female gamers than people usually consider, but it is true that male gamers do slightly outnumber female gamers by a bit.

That's not the issue however. The real issue is putting (as you said it) girl boss in the foreground and this is what Rockstar seems to be doing with GTA 6 rather than making Jason and Lucia equals in the foreground, together. Instead Jason is behind her in almost every scene in the trailer and toward the end, Jason is on his back on a bed with her postured over top asking him, "Trust?" as he responds with, "Trust." as if he's obeying her or under her wing so to speak. The last scene is her kicking through a door and being the first to run in. Then there is the fact that Lucia got more voice line time in the trailer than Jason. See the problem here?

The 'strong woman' role is immediately thrown into the players face. By player I mean both male and female. It really doesn't matter male or female either. It's the fact that they are throwing it in the player's face and it's blatantly visible. The agenda Rockstar is trying to push. Again, don't get me wrong - I think it's fantastic girls are getting more roles in video games and quite frankly it should be happening a lot more. It's not that having a female protagonist is an issue. The issue is Rockstar's (as with many other companies out there) presentation is that the female takes the front seat and the male takes the back seat so to speak. it wasn't portrayed as an equals thing where both are just bad ass characters who are equals - just like Bonnie and Clyde. That's not what Rockstar portrayed though.

They want the game to have a Bonnie and Clyde-like love story as its central narrative, but they didn't stick to the facts that Bonnie and Clyde were inseparable and they were always side by side rather than one standing behind the other. They couldn't even get that right because it was more important to these companies to put her in the foreground as a sale snag from the ladies. So, it's only natural people are going to call out that BS out for what it is. That's where Rockstar seriously F'd up. So if they've F'd up so easily this early on, we can only assume the rest will be the same BS. Thus that's one among many reasons people are saying the game will be woke and/or PC. (on top of the other things discussed farther up in the discussion)

Now look at game statistics by genre. At that point you'll discover why it works out near 50/50 with the loosest definition of a "gamer"; including mobile games. Mobile games are a 70/30 ratio of female-to-male, dragging the average up massively. As I mentioned before, less than 10% of FPS players are female. (14% open world games, 7% FPS, 6% racing games - add these up and you can see why so few women are interested in GTA).

But yeah, regarding the rest we're in agreement.

[barrybarrington90]

Originally posted by Iggy Wolf:

It's NOT always about an agenda or trying to appeal to a bigger demographic.

Of course it is. Capitalism 101.

But at some point they're going to finally realise the elusive female market simply doesn't exist. These guys see the box office for movies like Barbie and salivate over all the potential money they could be making if that demographic ever got into their games, failing to understand that there is literally no way to sell violent escapism to them, because they have no interest in wanton mayhem and never will have.

[vunn]

who cares? if it takes away from your criminal experience then get a life, many more things to worry about that actually effect you

[Iggy Wolf]

Originally posted by barrybarrington90:

Now look at game statistics by genre. At that point you'll discover why it works out near 50/50 with the loosest definition of a "gamer"; including mobile games. Mobile games are a 70/30 ratio of female-to-male, dragging the average up massively. As I mentioned before, less than 10% of FPS players are female. (14% open world games, 7% FPS, 6% racing games - add these up and you can see why so few women are interested in GTA).

But yeah, regarding the rest we're in agreement.

I mean, that's the thing, right? You don't really make protagonists based on who your demographic is. When we've got characters like Amanda Ripley, Lara Croft, Jill Valentine, Chell, Faith, Claire, Ellie etc. People aren't going to care whether they're male or female. Only that they're written well and play well. Hell, Chell is the protagonist of Portal, a game so old that the only reason someone might forget they were playing a female character was cause she didn't talk. But GLaDOS didn't let you forget.

In the end, if anything, the BIGGER criticism I've seen is when said female characters had to be "sanitized" for a possible female audience by NOT making them "sexy" or "attractive" but instead giving them all the typical "Lara Croft" outfit: tanktop, jeans, combat boots, small breasts and no makeup. Cause God forbid the female protagonist is ATTRACTIVE. So in THAT regard, you might say they're being too "PC".

[BORG]

@Iggy Wolf the point is both of the characters are the protagonists. Lucia isn't the main one. She's just one. You're not understanding the point I'm trying to convey when I talked about Bonnie and Clyde.

They stood side by side as equals and the trailer doesn't depict that in any way. It immediately sets the tone that she is the main focus in the game. Lucia nor Jason should be the second fiddle, but again, that's not what the trailer portrays. Not one time in that trailer did they have them side by side to show the audience that they going to stay true to the narrative the game is supposed to be based on. That should have been the first thing they depicted the moment they showed the two. It's not a case of people trying to see what they want to see.

The fist trailer paid no homage to the narrative of Bonnie and Clyde in no way what so ever and that is something that Rockstar should have conveyed right away with the first trailer to show people that they are taking the narrative seriously and try to stay as true to it as possible. First impressions are everything.

We are on two separate pages again with completely different perspectives. I think this is another one we're going to have to agree to disagree on.

On another note I have a question. Have you ever read the Bonnie and Clyde books? Ever watched the movies (old and new)? If not, maybe you should. Perhaps then you would be able to understand exactly what I'm getting at with this games very first trailer presentation.

[Iggy Wolf]

Originally posted by BORG:

@Iggy Wolf the point is both of the characters are the protagonists. Lucia isn't the main one. She's just one. You're not understanding the point I'm trying to convey when I talked about Bonnie and Clyde.

They stood side by side as equals and the trailer doesn't depict that in any way. It immediately sets the tone that she is the main focus in the game. Lucia nor Jason should be the second fiddle, but again, that's not what the trailer portrays. Not one time in that trailer did they have them side by side to show the audience that they going to stay true to the narrative the game is supposed to be based on. That should have been the first thing they depicted the moment they showed the two. It's not a case of people trying to see what they want to see.

The fist trailer paid no homage to the narrative of Bonnie and Clyde in no way what so ever and that is something that Rockstar should have conveyed right away with the first trailer to show people that they are taking the narrative seriously and try to stay as true to it as possible. First impressions are everything.

We are on two separate pages again with completely different perspectives. I think this is another one we're going to have to agree to disagree on.

On another note I have a question. Have you ever read the Bonnie and Clyde books? Ever watched the movies (old and new)? If not, maybe you should. Perhaps then you would be able to understand exactly what I'm getting at with this games very first trailer presentation.

I mean, what else do you call them being "side by side" than when they literally smash through a convenience store, SIDE BY SIDE? I'm not sure how much you want the trailers to make them "equal". Because nothing is indicating that one is following the other. This is all pure speculation based on what people THINK is going on. And at that point, you might as well assume they're brother and sister while you're at it.

That wouldn't exactly be an "inaccurate" assumption either. Also, I wouldn't be basing Rockstar's decision to make Lucia and Jason the protagonists as some kind of "homage" to Bonnie and Clyde. Otherwise, every freaking couple that decides to be criminals and steal ♥♥♥♥ might as well be "Bonnie and Clyde". They're just two of the most FAMOUS criminals in history. Probably NOT necessarily the ONLY ones.

YOU choosing to see it from that narrative is NOT Rockstar's fault. They didn't have any obligation to push in that direction, nor did they ever indicate that that's where they want to take it. The only thing we CAN be sure of is that both Lucia and Jason are criminals, and apparently lovers. And that's IT.

For all we know, maybe one of them will betray the other in the end, as a sort of deconstruction of Bonnie and Clyde or simply breaking from conventions in order to surprise players. Hell, since it's GTA, and knowing Rockstar, I wouldn't be surprised if like GTA V, you're given a CHOICE to kill one or the other, or possibly torture one or the other. It would certainly fit with Rockstar's habit lately of trying to "shock" the players and presenting a sadistic, if not at least realistic choice.

[BORG]

Originally posted by barrybarrington90:

Originally posted by Iggy Wolf:

It's NOT always about an agenda or trying to appeal to a bigger demographic.

Of course it is. Capitalism 101.

But at some point they're going to finally realise the elusive female market simply doesn't exist. These guys see the box office for movies like Barbie and salivate over all the potential money they could be making if that demographic ever got into their games, failing to understand that there is literally no way to sell violent escapism to them, because they have no interest in wanton mayhem and never will have.

Agreed on all points and you're correct about the genre percentage statistics.

It takes a special girl to be into certain genres the guys are and as the statistics show, guys and gals definitely tend to play different genres and that's why some genres favour the guys and others favour the gals. It just works good that way.