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By Matt Kim
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EA on Women in Battlefield V: Haters Can Either "Accept it or Don't Buy the Game"
EA's chief creative officer has strong words for anyone bothered by the presence of women in Battlefield V.
News
by
Nadia Oxford,
06/12/2018.
The backlash against the appearance of women soldiers in Battlefield V's preview materials is "not okay," EA's chief creative officer Patrick Soderlund told Gamasutra in an interview at E3 2018. Sonderlund added anyone who's disturbed by the women's presence is welcome not to buy the game.
Women characters are playing a large role in promoting Battlefield V, and one even decorates the game's box art. There's been some backlash on social media about EA caving to "political correctness" at the expense of "historical accuracy" in a franchise makes it possible for four of your friends to pile on a single horse and blast through the First World War with a flamethrower.
"Battlefield V is a lot about the unseen, the untold, the unplayed," Sonderlund said to Gamasutra. "The common perception is that there were no women in World War II. There were a ton of women who both fought in World War II and partook in the war."
Women indeed fought in the Second World War, and Soviet women were particularly active in combat. But outside of commentary about historical accuracy or inaccuracy, Sonderlund is just disappointed to see a pushback against the inclusion of women combatants in Battlefield V.
"[My 13-year-old daughter] plays Fortnite, and says, 'I can be a girl in Fortnite. Why are people so upset about this?' She looked at me and she couldn't understand it," Sonderlund said. "And I'm like, ok, as a parent, how the hell am I gonna respond to this, and I just said, 'You know what? You're right. This is not okay.'"
"[T]oday gaming is gender-diverse, like it hasn't been before. There are a lot of female people who want to play, and male players who want to play as a badass [woman]," Sonderlund continued. "We stand up for the cause, because I think those people who don't understand it, well, you have two choices: either accept it or don't buy the game. I'm fine with either or. It's just not ok."
Regardless of how you feel about ladies in combat, our Battlefield V guide has everything you need to know about the game. Battlefield V comes out on October 19 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
This article may contain links to online retail stores. If you click on one and buy the product we may receive a small commission. For more information, go here.
Comments 38
WAIT A MINUTE! There's a man on the more expensive Deluxe Edition! Ok, now I get it. Pretty clever.
"[My 13-year-old daughter] plays Fortnite, and says, 'I can be a girl in Fortnite. Why are people so upset about this?' She looked at me and she couldn't understand it," Sonderlund said. "And I'm like, ok, as a parent, how the hell am I gonna respond to this, and I just said, 'You know what? You're right. This is not okay.'"
This in particular is a strange statement. Of course you can play as a girl in Fortnite, in most modern multiplayer games there are plenty of options to play as females.
The theme DICE picked for their game is based on real events that have actually happened and where a small minority of women actually fought. Is that not a good enough answer for a 13 year old girl to accept?
I don't think this backlash would of occurred had it been a shooter based in present day or a futuristic setting.
Again, playing devils advocate here; I am definitely going to buy the game and think the new gameplay changes look excellent and to be honest I don't notice that there are women in game when playing but I can understand to a degree why some people are upset.
Edit: Perhaps I am being cynical but in my own opinion I do not believe the inclusion of women is anything to do with DICE or EA's political views on equality. They have got rid of premium pass and want to run the game as a live service, and without the inclusion of lootboxes they are following the model of Fortnite with purchasable cosmetics. Adding women to the game simply increases the amount of cosmetics they can sell as certain items can be tailored towards female character models.Edited 2 weeks ago by kookycutter
Of that 16,100,000 only 300,000 were females. Of that 300,000 females only around 12 or so died in direct combat. That's just America, but I'm sure it wasn't that much better worldwide. The simple fact of history is that WW2 was an overwhelmingly male war in terms of actual combat.
If you want female representation so badly then don't make a game based on a WW2 setting, make some sci-fi shooter like Halo or something. And sure certain historical liberties have been taken with the BF series, but they were always done for the sake of GAMEPLAY, not pushing an agenda and identity politics.
That's the entire issue here and why so many gamers are upset. So not only am I not going to be supporting this game, I'm actively going to be boycotting it and encourage gamers to do the same. We can't allow these game companies to use their games to promote social justice. Make games for gamers, not political or social activists.Edited 2 times. Last edited 2 weeks ago by DrownedBurrito
You complain about how unrealisitic women in combat is, in a game when you can be shot multiple times by high caliber weaponry and shake off all the ill effects of being shot by hiding behind a wall for 10 seconds until the screen is no longer red around the edges.
Yup, the woman holding a gun is the only unrealistic thing in the Battlefield series. Totally.
No one has a problem when games feature females where it makes sense... No one has a problem with Lara in Tomb Raider, or Samus in Metroid, No one gave a shit when they let us make Nobel 6 female in Halo: Reach, in fact no one ever said anything about any of the female Spartans or marines in any halo game, no one complains about female soldiers in Planetside 2... No one says anything because it makes sense in those settings, doing it in a WW2 game just doesn't.
Trying to call the opposition to this misogynistic is a bold faced lie, because if that were actually the issue, you would see these same complaints voiced about every other game with playable female characters, but you don't.Edited 2 times. Last edited 2 weeks ago by Divenity
Pictured: 1 Sept 1918 - Soldiers from the 23rd Austrailian Infantry Battalion ( Austrailian 2nd Division) fighting for the British Empire await respawn during the Battle of Mont Saint-Quentin. Soldiers in this brutal battle had to deal with brutal respawn times and rampant spawn camping from the German LI Corps.
Yup. Realism.Edited 2 weeks ago by pdubb
Also pictured - Not ruined immersion in a video game
Personally, I don't normally follow this series, but the trailer about a Norwegian resistance fighter piqued my curiosity a lot more than most WW2 games, specifically because it's different from what I've seen before.
@EscapingBurger Again, that was done because it was interesting for the story and/or gameplay. The inclusion of females however is entirely done for the sake of virtue signalling and identity politics, that's the huge difference and why this is a major problem. What's more if they at least cited a specific group of female soldiers that were active during WW2 and made a game specifically about them, and didn't name it Battlefield then I promise you there wouldn't be nearly as much drama.
They took a series that predominantly featured men & WW2 setting and then threw women in entirely because they wanted to be inclusive and divrse, not because they wanted to enhance the gameplay and story. There's even a quote from a game designer for BF5 that confirms this. They did this for the sake of identity politics.Edited 3 times. Last edited 2 weeks ago by DrownedBurrito
I know my certainly my opinion has been changed after the goal posts have been repeatedly moved through edits and bad faith arguments.
Congratulations!
As has been carefully explained multiple times in the above posts women being in games isn't the problem & anybody who's being honest understands this. The problem is the setting and series females are being included in and the reasoning behind it, backed up by quotes from game devs themselves.
In short females being in games aren't the problem, SJWs putting women in games they have no business being in for the sake of identity politics is the problem.Edited 2 weeks ago by DrownedBurrito
Take note of the vocabulary: virtue signalling, SJW, the use of females instead of women to be pejorative, mentioning of identity politics.
This is not your audience. Or at least it's not your paying audience. These are the gamers who pirate your games and then lead a campaign to boycott your game because they don't agree.
They will always, always, always, find something to be offended by. They need the outrage because they are addicted to being faux victims.
The absolute worst thing you can do is to cave to them. Think of what happens when you give a mouse a cookie.
Their entire existence is being mad because media is being made and consumed that does not cater to their identity exclusively.
"the use of females instead of women to be pejorative"
How is that wrong exactly? Female is the correct word, as is women, they mean the same damn thing... The only way it can possibly be pejorative is if you imagine it to be so in your own head. You are projecting your contempt onto our words, taking them to mean something that they don't because you want to win an argument that you have been repeatedly given logical, factual reasoning for you being wrong on.
"They will always, always, always, find something to be offended by."
See post #8 in this comment section for why this is completely false.
"They need the outrage because they are addicted to being faux victims. "
Oh the irony in this statement.
"Their entire existence is being mad because media is being made and consumed that does not cater to their identity exclusively."
Again, see post #8 for why this is completely false.
As I said, these people aren't interested in what's good for the game, but rather what's good for their specific cultural and political agenda. Those of us speaking out against this SJW incursion are the actual gamers trying to save our hobby from being ruined by SJWs using the medium to spread their cultural gospel.
This isn't your safespace or soapbox, this is a place for gamers to enjoy themselves & be immersed in fantastical & fun environments, free from all the noise of the real world. SJWs do not speak for gamers, gamers speak for gamers. What's especially amusing is that this Game Director states gamers could "learn something about history", but omits the fact that WW2 was a war fought almost entirely by men, with women nearly being non-existent on the frontlines. This isn't history, it's revisionism for the sake of identity politics.
Also there are plenty of games the games director can play that have females, so I'm not even sure what argument they're trying to make there.
To the Devs of BF5 I can promise you that you've severely hurt your potential sales of this game by pandering to your non-gamer SJW audience.Edited 2 times. Last edited 2 weeks ago by DrownedBurrito
on another note you guys need to stop using the "not historically accurate" it makes you look like even bigger misogynists no where does this game say anything about being authentic or realistic infact they have said multiple times this is their own imagining and that its BASED ON ww2, every battlefield game is inaccurate and they are all based on their era's - being based on an era means they include weapons, vehicles, tools, locations etc from that era which they have done, this battlefield game is just as accurate and realistic as any of them, its just the fact that a woman is on the cover that the only difference, just like with battlefield 1 and the black soliders who later turned out to be Harlem Hellfighters (making the racists look like idiots)
at the end of the day these shooters are a FUN ARCADE shooter if you want accuracy go play one of the ww2 mil simsEdited 2 weeks ago by georgiawhitehead
It is also equally amusing seeing how many "yellow press" publications keep showing links which show that "women did fight in WW2"... Most gamers never disputed this fact. They actually disputed other things, like the FACT that there were no female combatants during WW2 who were running with blue facepaint and were able to handle all kind of firearms and melee weapons with ease with their prosthetic arm... Or the FACT that vast majority of female combatants in WW2 spoke a different language - Russian (as well as all languages of all USSR's republics), since there were over 800,000 of them, which is a significantly larger amount compared to any female combat participants from any allied country. How about linking to this fact instead? ;-)
Come on, "gaming journalist" people... I know that you are simply afraid that if you won't take the side of EA - you won't get invited by them to exclusive events or won't receive early review copies of their games, but in the end it's not them who pay you money, it's all the readers of the website (through the Ad views), and if you'll permanently alienate a large portion of them through your dishonesty (and always taking the side of game developers/publishers) - I highly doubt that any "exclusive EA events" will be able to cover up those losses...
2- tell your daughter that "people don't dislike the existence of women in games, for example everyone loves horizon, tomb raider and many more games that have a woman protagonist, what people really hate is being forced to something, for example the feminist or homosexual ideal, there were women in the WW2 but they didn't have that much impact nor these numbers and he said it himself that "Soviet women were particularly active in combat" even though the game showed only brits, these people really got angry over this historic inaccuracy in a game that is supposed to simulate history in the most accurate way just to please a certain type or category of people"
games are not for women or men or homosexuals or black people, they are for anyone that plays them, the only reason you think "white males" dominated the gaming industry is because:
A: you are mentally lacking.
B: you are lacking in most aspects and you have to replace it with an anger towards "white privilege"to justify and gain confidence.
C: is because back in the day they were the most people that cared about this type of entertainment most women thought it was stupid, and there were black people but not in the same numbers,
no one was discriminate against since the gaming industry was the most unstereotypical and open industry in the existence, most of the time they fought for what was right and logical and that was the work of many "privileged white" men a select few women and a good number of black people.
what is happening right now has no place in the gaming industry because its ruining it, big companies like EA are fishing for a bigger sale with these sorts of stunts and in other words they no longer care about the games they care about the cash flow far more than they did before.
one thing i learned from this article is that we should never take the word of someone who can't even answer a simple question a 13 year old asked, you shouldn't either,
these are not strong words, these are idiotic over the line lip services.