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Divinity: Original Sin Dev: “Where Are The Women?”

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Divinity: Original Sin developer Swen Vincke, head of Larian Studios, has written a fascinating blog post asking “where are the women?” He’s referring to the female fans of Divinity: Original Sin. The game was a massive success on Kickstarter a couple of years back, and after its release in 2014, the old-style RPG grew quite popular. Now, Larian Studios has run a Kickstarter campaign for the sequel, Divinity: Original Sin 2, and Vincke has noticed some stark statistics.

Vincke happened upon the statistics of his most recent Kickstarter campaign and found that just 4% of visitors to the project’s page were women. Similarly, only 9% of the game’s Facebook fan page are women.

“One of the blind assumptions I’ve always made about Divinity: Original Sin is that many women play it,” Vincke writes. “My feeling that many women play D:OS is further reinforced by the people I meet at trade shows. For every two or three male fans, there’s always at least one woman. Based on that, my lazy mind concluded that at least 25% to 33% of our audience is female, if not more (given that trade shows are not exactly gender balanced).”

To Vincke, the low number of women shown in the analytics and his anecdotal experiences just “didn’t compute at all.” So the first thing he did was check Kickstarter’s overall gender statistics. What he found, and what my own research found, was that around 70% of Kickstarter users are male as opposed to around 30% female. This left Vincke still feeling rather confused about why less than 5% of his project’s visits came from women.

Sadly, Vincke was unable to find gender statistics from the Steam analytics for Divinity: Original Sin. “This seriously sucked, because it could’ve validated (or invalidated) an idea that had formed on our group chat i.e. The women who play our games will play the hell out of them, but they will only take an active interest when the games are released or about to be released.  Our male audience on the contrary might be more interested in backing us sooner, for what I guess will be a variety of reasons.”

It’s worth noting here that Google Analytics’ method of determining the gender of a site’s visitors can often be quite inaccurate, but even with that in mind, 4% does still seem low.

Vincke told Polygon that Larian Studios “put a lot of effort in so that it’s equally appealing to men and women, and it would be really sad if that did not reach its target audience.” They actually redrew the original concept art (shown below) so that the female character wasn’t showing as much midriff later on in the game’s development.

Divinity: Original Sin Art

Rhiannon likes video games and she likes writing, so she decided to combine them. As well as writing about video games, she also belts out the occasional science fiction or fantasy story, edits videos, and eats strawberry oreos. In that order.

Gaming

Joker’s Free Suicide Squad DLC on PS5

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There hasn’t been much buzz surrounding Suicide Squad since its release in February. Warner Bros. was let down by the game’s underwhelming sales, but they remained committed to turning their live service vision into a reality. An exciting new DLC update has been released, introducing The Crown Prince of Crime to the game.

As the game’s first live season begins, players will have the chance to take on Green Lantern and, in the end, unlock The Joker as a playable character. Which Joker are you referring to? This is quite intricate. Furthermore, players can look forward to the inclusion of a Battle Pass, a variety of new shop items available for purchase, exciting Incursions and Strongholds to partake in, as well as an expanded selection of Infamy Sets and Notorious Gear to amass.

What are your thoughts on this? Does the allure of The Joker entice you to return to Suicide Squad, or have you remained a loyal fan all along? We value your feedback and would love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below.

 

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Documentary Explores the Making of the Highly Praised Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth for PS5

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Square Enix has launched a captivating documentary series that explores the intricate process behind the creation of the highly praised Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. In the first episode, titled “Shaping the World,” the developer delves into the process of reimagining the expansive PS1 map of the original game into a vast sandbox for the PS5. The film includes personal stories shared by directors Naoki Hamaguchi and Tetsuya Nomura, as well as other important members of the team.

This reimagining of the all-time PlayStation classic was truly enjoyable. In our review, we praised Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth for its ability to enhance the already impressive combat system of Remake. The game truly shines in its portrayal of an iconic RPG setting. If you have a deep appreciation for the original PS1 game and found enjoyment in Remake, then Rebirth’s character-focused adventure will surely captivate you from start to finish.

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Gran Turismo 7 for the PS5 and PS4 shows continuous improvement

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While Sony may not classify Gran Turismo 7 as a live-service game, the team at Polyphony Digital certainly approaches it with a similar mindset. The game continues to impress with every new update, and although v1.44 may be smaller compared to previous versions, it still manages to enhance the already extensive content of this simulation racer.

The update, now available worldwide, introduces three new cars: the Audi R8 Coupé V10 Plus ’16, the Lamborghini Urus ’18, and the Toyota GT-One (TS020) ’99. Furthermore, it introduces three fresh events to World Circuits, an extra menu to conquer in the GT Café single-player campaign, and a collection of livery stickers inspired by the upcoming Highspeed Étoile anime, set to debut next week in Japan.

If you’re not already acquainted with Highspeed Étoile, you can watch a trailer right here. “Sony has announced that a collection of 26 stickers, consisting of 8 title logos and 18 main character stickers, will be made available for a limited time,” stated Sony on the PS Blog. In addition, Fukushima will be included as a backdrop in the title’s beloved photography mode.

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