"Male Protagonist" Tag

[Schorl Tourmaline]

I was in the store earlier today, and I was looking at some games, and after clicking on a game that looked fairly interesting, I noticed in the tags there was one that stated "Female Protagonist". This immediately made me think "Huh, I wonder if there is a male protagonist tag", as far as I could see, there wasn't.

While I personally don't see the point of gendered tags, as I'm in the idea that the gender of the character you play as is not important, I suppose that some people would want to play as, or not play as, particular genders of characters, and since not all games that don't have female main characters default to male protagonists, it might be a good idea to have a "Male Protagonist" tag to identify which ones do, so someone doesn't accidentally play as Gordon Freeman when they were thinking that they'd be playing Alyx, or vice versa.

[Kiddiec͕̤̱͋̿͑͠at 🃏]

Nightlight の投稿を引用：

...
I personally think there should be a way to un-prioritize a tag/have a setting like "never factor in this tag when making recommendations for me." We have a way to exclude tags, but no way to quickly tell the system that you're neutral about a tag and don't want it to be factored in when making recommendations (unless they have added that and I missed it.)

This is a very good point / suggestion.
There are 2 visual novels with no sex, no 18+ content nor 18+ patches that can be downloaded elsewhere, they were made by a developer (RhinoGearz) who wanted to create modest romances with DEEP stories that don't focus on any erotic content at all.
(Some of them maybe deeper than others, but the two that I played were pretty heavily about the story.)

...AND YET... enough people in the (to put it a bit blunt / harshly) seemingly brain-dead community tagged them as "sexual content", probably just on the basis of them being VNs & VNs are traditionally sexualized.
The only thing remotely sexual that these two VNs have is partial nudity, though.

I DID get these games because they flirt with sexual themes but knew quite well that they stood a good chance of not having sexual content & lo & behold... I was right. Unfortunately, the recommendation system now thinks that I got these games for the alleged sexual content that arguably doesn't exist in them instead of for the mildly suggestive themes & deep stories.
(And the soundtracks turned out to be a very pleasant surprise. Well-composed.)

This isn't as big of an issue as I might be making it seem but it's another example of your point about the flaws in the recommendation system & how those flaws stem from how tags are handled.

ElvisDeadly の投稿を引用：

Kiddiec͕̤̱͋̿͑͠at の投稿を引用：

To be fair, we could say the same thing about all tags. :P
"What is it with people's strange obsession with 'Great Soundtracks' ? "

:mhwgood:

This is an excellent point.

I kind of feel this way about a lot of tags that go beyond the obvious gameplay/genre stuff (driving, shooter, fighting, RPG, Adventure etc).

Like for example, Gore, sure i own and play many games with gore, i don't mind a bit of gore in my computer games, I grew up playing Doom. But I would never search for Gore as a criteria when looking for a new game.

"I simply MUST find a game with GORE to play!"

See, personally, I actually do care about great soundtracks.

A slightly tangential example is Yoshi's Island DS.
I thought it would be at least somewhat like the masterpiece that was the original,
Yoshi's Island - and arguably it is when it comes to gameplay, however, the soundtrack lacks action and has literally put me to sleep, like some kind of lullaby, while playing it sometimes.
That's... not good.

...but I fully get your point about other tags like "gore" like... okay someone cares about that, but it certainly raises some questions. - And then you pair that with "Nightlight's" point and you would find the recommendation system suggesting more games with gore in them because "this is like a game that you played!" but really the gore was actually a detractor for you.

[Supafly]

Why? if it doesn't have the female protagonist tag it'd be a male protagonist. Don't really need a tag for something obvious

[Kiddiec͕̤̱͋̿͑͠at 🃏]

Supafly の投稿を引用：

Why? if it doesn't have the female protagonist tag it'd be a male protagonist. Don't really need a tag for something obvious

So Tetris Blocks are male. Got it!



Tetris Blocks, Chess Pieces, Trains, sentient Marbles, all dogs, whatever these things are :
, literally just circles, Xs & Os ...all male.

Also, "Carrion" is a game that you can find on Steam (which I'm not going to link due to gore) where you play as an unrecognizable monster that could potentially be classed as a small cosmic horror... also male - no possible question that the species might be genderless. ...& I suppose I'm suposed to believe that no female is ever a horrid monster either.


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1003590/Tetris_Effect_Connected/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/476240/KNIGHTS/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/353640/Train_Valley/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/962810/Dark_Roll/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/332580/Mimpi/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/357300/Snakebird/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/745030/Squarism/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/360870/Ultimate_TicTacToe/

> Male Protagonist.
> "if it doesn't have the female protagonist tag it'd be a male protagonist."


Also, Mini Metro, which doesn't even have a protagonist :
https://store.steampowered.com/app/287980/Mini_Metro/

...male protagonist anyways. :^)

[Supafly]

Kiddiec͕̤̱͋̿͑͠at の投稿を引用：

Supafly の投稿を引用：

Why? if it doesn't have the female protagonist tag it'd be a male protagonist. Don't really need a tag for something obvious

So Tetris Blocks are male. Got it!



Tetris Blocks, Chess Pieces, Trains, sentient Marbles, all dogs, whatever these things are :
:redsnakebird: :greensnakebird: :bluesnakebird: , literally just circles, Xs & Os ...all male.

Also, "Carrion" is a game that you can find on Steam (which I'm not going to link due to gore) where you play as an unrecognizable monster that could potentially be classed as a small cosmic horror... also male - no possible question that the species might be genderless. ...& I suppose I'm suposed to believe that no female is ever a horrid monster either.


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1003590/Tetris_Effect_Connected/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/476240/KNIGHTS/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/353640/Train_Valley/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/962810/Dark_Roll/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/332580/Mimpi/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/357300/Snakebird/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/745030/Squarism/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/360870/Ultimate_TicTacToe/

> Male Protagonist.
> "if it doesn't have the female protagonist tag it'd be a male protagonist."


Also, Mini Metro, which doesn't even have a protagonist :
https://store.steampowered.com/app/287980/Mini_Metro/

...male protagonist anyways. :^)


:8infinity_Dizzy:

Good point. No protagonists.

So need a Female protagonist, Male protagonist and a No protagonist tag

[davidb11]

Carrion is okay to link in this thread. It's not that bad.
If it's a game on Steam, you can link it on Steam.

[Kiddiec͕̤̱͋̿͑͠at 🃏]

davidb11 の投稿を引用：

Carrion is okay to link in this thread. It's not that bad.
If it's a game on Steam, you can link it on Steam.

That is false, & it's not responsible to suggest that others do things which could get them banned :
https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/12/1697169163417158987/?ctp=3938#c3203748171383537008

I'm pretty sure that the mods wouldn't want me to link most mature games or any adult-only game on the forum.
(I say "most" because some games marked as "mature" aren't actually containing mature content & everyone knows it.)

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/0/2577696996228382489/#c2577696996230185462

Spawn of Totoro の投稿を引用：

...
Forums are rated for basically PG13. Valve has to take measure to maintain that. If they feel that means filtering such words form every forum, then that is what they will do.
...

Mature games might be fine to reference by name (unless it's the OTHER Chair Simulator) but adult-only stands a higher chance of getting in trouble for even just mentioning it. I could just mention it by its game id, but that's arguably even worse than mentioning it by name since the name will cause a mix of results to come up in the Store search menu but searching by game ID will take you directly to the specific AO game being referenced.


Anyways, if you're so sure that it's okay to link directly to Carrion then you be the one to link to it & risk the ban. xD


It saddens me that the only games where you can play as unrecognizable monsters are predictably horror games or violent games.

[davidb11]

Okay. I was not aware of any of that.
I'll have to be more careful from now on.
My mistake then.

I mean, people can link Doom here, I mean the old one just fine. Without ever getting into trouble.
So, Carrion should be 100% safe.
IT wouldn't make any sense for a mature game to not being able to be linked here.

[Nomad]

It's a fair question. If there is a "Female protagonist" tag, there should also be a "Male protagonist" tag.
If we are equal and democratic than you can't have one without the other. Simple as that.

[Chocolate Pie Kitten]

Nomad の投稿を引用：

It's a fair question. If there is a "Female protagonist" tag, there should also be a "Male protagonist" tag.
If we are equal and democratic than you can't have one without the other. Simple as that.

If we are equal more games would have a female protagonist , it is on way , but you have to consider the history of the gaming history where most if not 90% of the protagonists were males.

As a female gamer the female protagonist is for me important in my search of a game and decide if or not i buy a game.

I have nothing against a male protagonist but if you choose a random game it have most chances to have a male protagonist.

If you claim equality then accept that this tag is an important tool for female gamers in a vast majority of games that have a male protagonist

[Ceana of the Crags]

Chocolate Pie Kitten の投稿を引用：

Tags are generated by users
Games at 90% have a male protagonist
Tags are here to bring the attention of a future customer on or the genre or a particularity of a game.
Having a male protagonist tag would globaly bring nothing
Personnaly i play games with female protagonists, the female protagonist help me then to find games.

Simply untrue. Most games let you pick which sex you want to play.

As a 50+ year old female, I'm sick and tired of the double-standards. What we had back when was bs. What we have now is also bs. The goal was equality, not setting females aside as something special. Both sexes are important and have their own value.

I play a male or female in most games.

As to tagging, why? Are people incapable of watching the videos during their research phase to see what sex the main character is?

Gender is a language concept. Masculine, feminine, neuter. Sex is the reality of your piping. Gender-roles are what kind of man or woman YOU choose to be.

[Crazy Tiger]

Ceana of the Crags の投稿を引用：

As to tagging, why? Are people incapable of watching the videos during their research phase to see what sex the main character is?

Tags provide an easier way of searching. Generating a filtered search list is simply easier than having to go through each game to see whether there is a female protagonist if one is merely interested in that.

There is nothing wrong with having tags that help creating a more accurate filtered search list for people.

[Tito Shivan]

Nomad の投稿を引用：

It's a fair question. If there is a "Female protagonist" tag, there should also be a "Male protagonist" tag.
If we are equal and democratic than you can't have one without the other. Simple as that.

Maybe one should read the thread instead of bumping it backfrom january with a comment that has already been replied at in the first posts of the thread, bringing back the discussion to square one.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Nomad の投稿を引用：

It's a fair question. If there is a "Female protagonist" tag, there should also be a "Male protagonist" tag.
If we are equal and democratic than you can't have one without the other. Simple as that.

Well frankly the realm of videogames is neither equal (as there have been far more male protags than female protags) nor democratic (as games aren't subject to some sort of plebiscite vote).

Anyhow I agree that there should be a "male protagonist" tag for the same classification convenience as "female protagonist".