Representing Women is "Too Much Effort"

Ubisoft have axed their playable female avatar for Assassin's Creed Unity, which is to be released in October, because it would "double the work" and they wanted "the best experience for the character". While still deciding to release 4 different special edition box sets of the game, they are unable to 'find the time' to create a character which represents 53% of the population. As a women who plays games, and really appreciates the "novelty" of being able to play as a character who represents me, I am completely upset. I always indulge in being able to play as a women, because I am a women and it upsets me that men, as always, take premise over women in gaming.

Alex Amancio told Polygon that the inclusion of the now long forgotten female protagonist would mean "double the animations, double the voices, double the visual assets." As well as level designer Bruno St-Andre's estimating that more than 8000 animations would have to be recreated on a different skeleton for her to be a functioning avatar. However, these claims were later completely debunked after Jonathan Cooper, the animation director of Assassin's Creed 3 took to twitter to tear Ubisoft apart. He explained that in his educated opinion, to create a new skeleton would take one or two days rather than replacing 8000 animations that Amancio predicted. He also went onto explain that game animators are aware not to create unique animations for every single character, comparing it to Mass Effects' character design, where playing with a female avatar was an option; "It's the same on the [Assassin's Creed 3] build... They share animations. I think the assassin shares lots of animations with NPCs as well. For Connor, I know we gave him some of his own unique jumps and kind of things to give him a lot of character."

Fun fact #2: Aveline de Grandpré shares more of Connor Kenway's animations than Edward Kenway does. pic.twitter.com/lFHHnBfLht
— Jonathan Cooper (@GameAnim) June 11, 2014 

My argument to Ubisoft is that you have the ability to render the French Revolution with intricate beauty, yet you lack the supposed time and man power to create a playable female character. Despite director, James Therien, telling VideoGames.com that “[they] have huge teams, nine studios working on this game” and their previous creation of Aveline de Grandpre, are they still really unable to harness previously used animations? Especially after being criticised by their own previous employees they still stand by their choice not to incorporate a female avatar.




Of course many (men) are arguing that it's not a gender issue but a technical one and in the end Ubisoft had to make a decision of male or female. As it is an RPG game, you are not meant to play as a direct avatar of yourself but as a fictional character, so why would playing a female really matter all that much? The reason is because this is a huge problem in itself, within the gaming industry, men always take precedence over women. Why is there an overbearing priority to appeal to the male audience in gaming when women make up 48% of its audience? Why do we automatically assume the protagonist must be male when we know female led franchises are just as successful? See Portal, Lara Croft, Mass Effect, Bioshock Infinite, The Last of Us and many more soon to be released.

Ubisoft are definitely not spoilt for inspiration either! We know that women did have a very active position in the French Revolution and women revolted as much as men and were at the forefront just as their male counterparts were. There are plenty of cases of female killers who would be able to partake alongside or even replace Ardo, Assassin's Creed Unity's protagonist. One notable infamous case was the assassination of radical journalist and politician Jean-Paul Marat by Charlotte Corday, who was hailed as the 'heroine of France' after killing the radical monster.

Furthermore, we know that despite Assassin's Creed III: Liberation being released on PS Vita, the female led game was no less successful than the rest of the Assassin's Creed series. Some even hailing it as the reason to pick up the Vita. However this, and so many other examples like it, have cemented for female gaming fans that men ultimately come first and women aren't worth investing in.

The gaming industry still remains a highly sexist area where there is either a huge lack of playable female characters or a huge serge of misogynistic portrayals of the female characters which are included in games and Assassin's Creed is no exception. The most highly utilised inclusion of female game play besides Aveline is the hire of courtesans from the streets of all of the Assassin's Creed games. Here you are able to buy women to help you blend into the environment around your male avatar or distract guards with their womanly charm. As Anita Sarkeesian mentions in her newest edition to the Tropes vs Women series, entitled Women as Background Decoration, this feature in Assassin's Creed is a key example of instrumentality linked the comodification of women. This ultimately epitomises the idea that women in games are only as useful as other usable tools throughout the game. They are not a unique structure to the game and are no more important than the hedges or hay bails which can also be used to camouflage you against your enemies. All female NPCs are completely interchangeable with every other female NPC too, holding no stylistic or personal features to distinguish them from any other character that holds the purpose in which they do. This function dehumanises women, where their worth as a character is completely measured by what benefit they are to the player. There is no emotional relationship with these characters, and this why it is important to include female playable characters. There is a necessity for emotional relationships with characters that are found when playing as a playable male character. If we continue to only include women in video games as tools for utility, their worth as a characters will diminish completely.

Ultimately, I believe it alienates women from an industry which they already have difficulty in claiming. Women are bullied for their interest in niche markets such as gaming and when their depiction is normally sexualised or abusive, if at all, it is hard to see why they feel alienated or under-represented. As Tim Clark mentions for PCGamer.com, the decided drop of a playable female character also highlights that women are just an "optional extra". To play as a women in a game is not something many women really expect when they pick up a game they really want to play, but to hear that it's been dropped feels a lot like being a woman is just another something that can be cut from the finished product because it's not something that's really important.

Women need women characters because women need to know they're included in an industry in which they invest time, money and their hearts in. To immerse yourself into something wholeheartedly which doesn't seem to want to represent you is painful. To hopelessly sit by while images of men fight the battles, build the kingdoms, wear the armour and win every victory is unfair and eventually the message begins to hit home that you are not just incapable of wearing the armour and winning the victories but you're not allowed to be a part of something that should include everyone who wants to be a part of it. No one should be allowed to make anyone feel like that because they aren't born with a penis. I, like many other women, feel a strong lack of self worth when I am led to believe that my importance as a woman is something that can be cut from a finished product because I am too much effort. I believe my enjoyment of a game is just as important as any other man's enjoyment and my own expectations of a game deserve to be met because I am invested in this game as much as any other man and I believe my enjoyment and many others, male and female, will be increased if I am represented in the media in which I choose to invest myself!