Mike Laidlaw leaves BioWare

[Thac0]

This was from 2017, and it seems mostly on point. I assume numbers went up on the lower end with especially the new casual shooters like Overwatch having much higher female player % than usual short time to kill military shooters.
Takeaway in general is that stress is the biggest turnoff for women in gaming. RTS, which has to be the most stressfull genre, has almost no female gamers and is not even on this chart.
Classical WRPGs and especially JRPGs are usually pretty laidback experiences, since most of them are turn based, and even those that are real time are not exactly driving your heartbeat to the maximum due to slow pace and the addition of a pause.
RPGs are thus a surprisingly female frequent genre, the most frequent "real" genre, since I struggle to call Match 3, Family Sim, Casual Puzzle and Walking Simulators real games.

 

[Xeon]

Isn't League of Legend considered an RTS? I think a lot of girls play that.

 

[Silly Germans]

This was from 2017, and it seems mostly on point. I assume numbers went up on the lower end with especially the new casual shooters like Overwatch having much higher female player % than usual short time to kill military shooters.
Takeaway in general is that stress is the biggest turnoff for women in gaming. RTS, which has to be the most stressfull genre, has almost no female gamers and is not even on this chart.
Classical WRPGs and especially JRPGs are usually pretty laidback experiences, since most of them are turn based, and even those that are real time are not exactly driving your heartbeat to the maximum due to slow pace and the addition of a pause.
RPGs are thus a surprisingly female frequent genre, the most frequent "real" genre, since I struggle to call Match 3, Family Sim, Casual Puzzle and Walking Simulators real games.

Sry but what on earth is Match 3 ?

 

[Avarize]

demanded the game had to be "better than Tolkien".

Demanding it be better than Tolkien is not something someone who dislikes Fantasy would do. I'm getting the feeling he just wanted quality (according to ubi's metrics, naturally), and that rubbed the snowflakes the wrong way.

Sounds like he was based. King Arthur is a potentially extremely shitty setting. How much you wanna bet that Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot drama was a huge part in their narrative. It's the whole reason I avoid Arthurian derivations like the plague these days. People really like to tell stories about an unloyal knight and a cheating slut for some reason. Gawain>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Lancelot.

 

[Thac0]

Isn't League of Legend considered an RTS? I think a lot of girls play that.

Counts as MOBA together with Dota 2. Although from the MOBAs league and HOTS had the highest female % iirc. RTS is only stuff like Warcraft, Starcraft, Age of Empires.

Sry but what on earth is Match 3 ?

Faggotry.

Ultra common in mobile games, I think Candy Crush counts as match3, which explains the high%.
Almost not present in the PC market, except for a few strange games like Puzzle Quest and Might and Magic, Clash of Heroes.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

The fuck even is a Match 3, I honestly don't know what that genre is supposed to be. Atmospheric exploration, lol? Interactive drama? What is that, like FMV games or what? I unironically don't even know what a MOBA is. Have heard the term a million times but never bothered to look it up. I am getting too old for this video game shit.

 

[Thac0]

The fuck even is a Match 3, I honestly don't know what that genre is supposed to be. Atmospheric exploration, lol? Interactive drama? What is that, like FMV games or what? I unironically don't even know what a MOBA is. Have heard the term a million times but never bothered to look it up. I am getting too old for this video game shit.

Once again for the oldfags here:
Moba is a word specifically made for Dota 2, now extends to all Dota clones. Three lanes, minions and a bunch of heroes are typical moba elements.
Match 3 is bejeweled and Candy Crush.
I am pretty sure Atmospheric Exploration is a walking simulator like Gone Home, Everyone has gone to the rapture etc. So adventures without combat and only very little puzzles, if any at all. Also probably games like Journey
Interactive Drama are games like Heavy Rain, Telltale Games and Detroit become human. Basically a game that is all cutscenes and you make decisions to get different endings inbetween.

 

[Bad Sector]

Ultra common in mobile games, I think Candy Crush counts as match3, which explains the high%.
Almost not present in the PC market, except for a few strange games like Puzzle Quest and Might and Magic, Clash of Heroes.

Bejeweled Deluxe was one of the first match 3 games and was originally released on PC in 2001 where it had millions of copies sold over the years. During the earlier indie game years of the early 2000s, when casual games were still mainly made by indie developers and the mainstream press had practically no idea about what indie gaming was, match 3 games were one of the most popular genres.

When iPhone was introduced and smartphones pretty much sucked in all casual games, match 3 games also moved on mobiles. Though their true origin was on PC and while Bejeweled was the most popular one on PC, there were earlier similar games like Shariki from 1994 running on MS-DOS.

Also FWIW match 3 is a subgenre of tile matching games, like tetris, columns, etc.

 

[Trojan_generic]

So, the games are dumbed down for women and not because of kids? Interesting.

 

[mikaelis]

I would love a good King Arthur game, or anything set in the Crusades. I mean, I don't think Ubisoft is the company to deliver said game, but I'd still like one.

The last good King Arthur game was Conquests of Camelot.

King Arthur Collection

Darth Roxor Didn't you make Let's play of this? Where is it? Or am I remembering wrongly?

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

demanded the game had to be "better than Tolkien".

Demanding it be better than Tolkien is not something someone who dislikes Fantasy would do. I'm getting the feeling he just wanted quality (according to ubi's metrics, naturally), and that rubbed the snowflakes the wrong way.

Could be since Assassion's Creed has always been a mix of sci-fi and fantasy, and For Honor is set in a fantasy world despite the fact it doesn't even really need to been.

 

[Xeon]

Man, I really wish if they get rid of the modern age shit in Assassin's Creed, normally I hate historic and fantasy shit in games and prefer modern and futuristic shit but in here it just takes you out of the moment with meaningless crap I don't care about.

 

[deuxhero]

All of the gaming companies have the telemetry data on this. People pick male protagonists when they have a choice, by a large margin -- both men and women players. Female-fronted games like Tomb Raider, etc, also sell well. This confuses idiot marketers but the data are pretty clear.

1) If you give people a choice, they tend to pick "Male."
2) If you don't give them a choice, and make them play a as a woman, most gamers will still play the game if it doesn't suck.

This bothers a certain type of person because you're not choosing what they want you to choose, but will still likely play a game as a female. Overall what it indicates is that most people don't give a shit, which runs contrary to their thesis that video games are a battleground for the culture war. Without this belief, Anita Sarkeesian et al have nothing to talk about and nothing to do, and nobody to scam on YouTube.

You get more people playing as a female if the girl is cute. Splatoon had 73% of players pick female.

 

[Avarize]

All of the gaming companies have the telemetry data on this. People pick male protagonists when they have a choice, by a large margin -- both men and women players. Female-fronted games like Tomb Raider, etc, also sell well. This confuses idiot marketers but the data are pretty clear.

1) If you give people a choice, they tend to pick "Male."
2) If you don't give them a choice, and make them play a as a woman, most gamers will still play the game if it doesn't suck.

This bothers a certain type of person because you're not choosing what they want you to choose, but will still likely play a game as a female. Overall what it indicates is that most people don't give a shit, which runs contrary to their thesis that video games are a battleground for the culture war. Without this belief, Anita Sarkeesian et al have nothing to talk about and nothing to do, and nobody to scam on YouTube.

You get more people playing as a female if the girl is cute. Splatoon had 73% of players pick female.

Kids games function a little differently.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Man, I really wish if they get rid of the modern age shit in Assassin's Creed, normally I hate historic and fantasy shit in games and prefer modern and futuristic shit but in here it just takes you out of the moment with meaningless crap I don't care about.

Yeah, the modern stuff in Assassin's Creed was interesting when they started it, back when it seemed like the series was working it's way up to you doing the Assassin's Creed stuff in the present. Playing the first one I figured the end point would basically be what they did with Watch Dogs, but instead they took the idea of where Assassin's Creed was going and just turned it into another series: Watch Dogs. Now the modern day stuff, and the Assassin's Creed themed stuff, it's just some annoyance that gets in the way of the other game they seemingly want to make under the title of Assassin's Creed now.

Having every member of the round table with a small playable campaign would have solved the issue of players having to pick only one class.

Could even have skills learned there feed back into Arthur as a form of character progression.

Thinking about it a bit I'm guessing it would've just been a bunch of stuff they tried in Dragon Age Inquisition. The Round Table probably gets used as the War Room in Inquisition. If I were to imagine what their King Arthur game was, I'm thinking Inquisition 2.0, with better combat since Ubisoft is better at that than BioWare, maybe the original cut version they showed of how castles were going to work in Inquisition, and maybe castle siege stuff like Shadow of Mordor...or the upcoming Assassin's Creed Valhalla.

The interesting thing about this King Arthur game that was in-development is they were even trying to make some King Arthur themed RPG instead of doing something with the Might and Magic brand they've just let languish for years. Like that seems weird to me, it seems like they wanted a RPG, but instead of building up an IP they own (Might & Magic) they were going to create a new one with a public domain character anyone can use. That just seems fucking weird.

 

[Immortal]

Yet Laidlaw quit in January 2019, and the project was cancelled due to the interference of Hascoët. The exec allegedly disliked the fantasy genre, and demanded the game had to be "better than Tolkien". Those who worked on the project told Bloomberg they were shocked the project stalled because Hascoët didn't like the fantasy setting, and attempts to switch the theme to a Greek mythology or sci-fi setting were all shot down.

Executive: "I don't like Fantasy!!"
Artist: Uhh.. hmm... *Swaps Horse Mesh with Mini Spaceship* How about now?
Executive: "I don't like sci fi!!"
Artist: *Adds a Roman Spear Sticking out the Window of Spaceship* What about now?

 

[InD_ImaginE]

The fuck even is a Match 3, I honestly don't know what that genre is supposed to be.

Match 3 is old as fuck. It was there when I was a kid using Windows XP or something on year 2000.

It is generally a puzzle game where stacking blocks with the same color makes them disappear (the objective is usually to make #number of blocks disappear within limited move, so you need to kinda consider on making what blocks move where when you do removes some colored blocks to be as efficient as possible), consider it as coffee break games like Minesweeper or something. My dad and mom's office had that on their PC installed by the IT guy so people have something to do during lunch break or when nearing 5 pm. (or when they just being lazy in general) and were bored with Solitaire or such games that was on XP by default.

The genre if you can call it that, gets a big resurgence in smartphone gaming with the most famous being Candy Crush. Heck my dad and mom (55 - 60 years old range) had them on their phone and just play them before sleep.

 

[DalekFlay]

I play female characters in 100% of cases and not being able to play as a female makes me less likely to buy the game (instead putting it on the wishlist for the next sale and choosing a game where I can play a woman this time)

Female rogues and mages, male warriors.

 

[Wunderbar]

- a King Arthur game
- led by Dragon Age creative director Mike Laidlaw.
- made by a team at Assassin's Creed Odyssey studio
- Avalon would have featured a cooperative multiplayer world similar to Capcom's Monster Hunter series

nothing of value was lost

 

[Riddler]

This was from 2017, and it seems mostly on point. I assume numbers went up on the lower end with especially the new casual shooters like Overwatch having much higher female player % than usual short time to kill military shooters.
Takeaway in general is that stress is the biggest turnoff for women in gaming. RTS, which has to be the most stressfull genre, has almost no female gamers and is not even on this chart.
Classical WRPGs and especially JRPGs are usually pretty laidback experiences, since most of them are turn based, and even those that are real time are not exactly driving your heartbeat to the maximum due to slow pace and the addition of a pause.
RPGs are thus a surprisingly female frequent genre, the most frequent "real" genre, since I struggle to call Match 3, Family Sim, Casual Puzzle and Walking Simulators real games.

If (generic)you think 10% of MOBA players are female then you are delusional.

 

[Thac0]

If (generic)you think 10% of MOBA players are female then you are delusional.

The fuck? I am below 25 you know, and a lot of friends of mine have their girlfriends playing League of Legends with them. There is even a sizeable amount who play it just by themselves for fun.
10% is absolutely believable for Mobas, I assume League is closer to 15% while Dota2 is below 1%. But since most of the market share belongs to League 10% average is absolutely true.

 

[Darth Roxor]

I would love a good King Arthur game, or anything set in the Crusades. I mean, I don't think Ubisoft is the company to deliver said game, but I'd still like one.

The last good King Arthur game was Conquests of Camelot.

King Arthur Collection

Darth Roxor Didn't you make Let's play of this? Where is it? Or am I remembering wrongly?

Negative, RK47 LP'd King Arthur. I had a let's play of Lionheart: Kings' Crusade.

 

[Immortal]

- a King Arthur game
- led by Dragon Age creative director Mike Laidlaw.
- made by a team at Assassin's Creed Odyssey studio
- Avalon would have featured a cooperative multiplayer world similar to Capcom's Monster Hunter series

nothing of value was lost

Round Table.. AWESOME.. Knights.. AWESOME.. sword in lake.. AWESOME.

 

[AW8]

Button = awesome, connected now in King Arthur.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/artic...nd-ubisoft-veterans-create-yellow-brick-games

Bioware and Ubisoft veterans create Yellow Brick Games
Mike Laidlaw, Thomas Giroux, Jeff Skalski, and Frédéric St-Laurent B want to focus on a "craftsmanship approach"

A group of industry veterans from the likes of Bioware and Ubisoft founded independent studio Yellow Brick Games.

Based in Québec City, Canada, the founding team includes Mike Laidlaw, former creative director of the Dragon Age franchise at Bioware, where he spent 14 years of his career. His most recent experience was as creative director at Ubisoft.

He's joined by Thomas Giroux, Jeff Skalski, and Frédéric St-Laurent B, who collectively have experiences at Ubisoft, Bioware, Electronic Arts and Activision Blizzard.

Yellow Brick Games will be led by Giroux as CEO, with Skalski appointed COO and executive producer, Laidlaw chief creative officer, and St-Laurent B game director.

The new studio promised to "further cement the region's leading role in the global entertainment scene" with its first original project, which hasn't been revealed but already has a team of 15 employees.

It seems like the team is not solely based in Québec City, with Frédéric St-Laurent B noting that the rise of remote work has "rewritten the rules," giving them opportunities to recruit outside of the city -- he for instance mentioned Montreal and "other countries."

Yellow Brick Games also said it wants to prioritise a "craftsmanship approach" with its projects, moving away from the type of AAA structure they all have experience with.

"We want to emphasize a 'back-to-basics approach', centered on the pleasure of crafting new game experiences, in a flexible and more personable environment that an independent studio can provide," Giroux said.

Skalski added: "We have learned a lot from working on world-class, multi-year projects with thousands of colleagues and we want to take a different approach. Leveraging a smaller talented team where people come first, we will create amazing worlds and experiences for all others to enjoy. The market is moving fast, and we have no desire to play catchup and chase it when we can influence where it goes. These goals drove us to found Yellow Brick Games."