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Configurative Dynamics of Gender in Bioware's Marketing for the Mass Effect Franchise

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Configurative Dynamics of Gender in Bioware's Marketing for the Mass Effect Franchise Volume 7 “It’s [not just] in the game”: the promotional context of video games November 2017 165-197 Configurative Dynamics of Gender in Bioware's Marketing for the Mass Effect Franchise Leandro Augusto Borges Lima King's College London Abstract The gendered marketing of videogames is an underexplored topic within the vast literature of games and gender. In this paper, I contribute to this body of literature a configurative analysis on gendered marketing strategies for the Mass Effect. I explore the genealogy of the configuration concept and propose an expansion of it based on communication theory. Subsequently, I analyse the configurative dynamics between marketing, company, and gamers that resulted in a shift from male to female focus in Mass Effect’s marketing materials in the course of 10 years since the first game’s release. Keywords: Configuration, Mass effect, Marketing, Gender, Communication theory Configurative dynamics of gender in Bioware's marketing Originally, videogames were marketed as family entertainment aimed for everyone, and usually took place at arcades or at home (Kocurek, 2015; Lien, 2013). However, the videogames industry has been historically described as male-oriented and directed toward a technomasculine audience: an idealized male gamer who is technologically-savy, militaristic, and competitive (Kocurek, 2015, p.10). From an economic perspective, marketing to everyone was the right decision at first; videogames were still new and niche, and to succeed, the industry needed as many gamers as possible. But this has changed over the years; several researchers argue that the crash during the eighties was a turning point for the industry, where practitioners in every sector had to rethink their strategies (Kline et al, 2003; Kerr, 2006; Wolf, 2008). To rise again, companies realised their marketing should be targeted more precisely, given that the financial risk forced companies to evolve with a specific public in mind. According to Ian Bogost, in an interview for Tracey Lien (2013), Nintendo was the main company responsible for this marketing shift as it chose to focus on a young male demographic, a claim also made within historical videogames research (Kline et al, 2003, p.109-127; Wolf, 2008; Ryan, 2011). Although videogame scholars often contend with matters of gender representation within games (Shaw, 2014; Leonard, 2006; Cassell & Jenkins, 1998), less work has been done regarding this political matter within videogames marketing material. Burgess et al’s (2007) study on videogame covers regarding presence/absence and portrayal of female characters, Ivory (2006) and Fisher’s (2015) studies on matters of representation within videogames review are three of the few examples of academic research in this field. This paper intends to fill this gap by considering gendered videogames marketing as part of a configurative circuit that affects companies’ marketing strategies and their relationships with the gamer community. The first part of this paper argues that ‘configuration’ is a key concept to understanding videogames in three spheres: the medium-sphere relating to the materiality of videogames, the console, the software, the controller, and the contractual aspects of this “mediatic device” (Antunes and Vaz, 2006); the moment-sphere which is the playing of the game and what surrounds and informs the game itself; and the culture-sphere which encompasses the _____________________________________________________________ 166 Kinephanos, ISSN 1916‐985X “’It’s [not just] in the game’: the promotional context of video games”, November 2017, www.kinephanos.ca Configurative dynamics of gender in Bioware's marketing different aspects of everyday life that configure videogame play: politics, marketing, industry choices and cultural backgrounds, among others. The second part presents a case study of the Mass Effect franchise’s marketing strategies and the configurative dynamics put into play during a gender-oriented shift in those strategies. Although the game presents a customisable, non-canon1 main character, who can be either male or female, the marketing for the two first games only portrayed a male version of the protagonist, Commander Shepard. In the campaign for the third game, Bioware incorporated the female character – Female Shepard or FemShep as referred to by Mass Effect’s community of players – within their marketing. However, the manner of this inclusion is also problematic according to the franchise players and fans, as the female character is perceived as very generic in terms of design. The shift to female-focused marketing persists in the campaign for the fourth game, Mass Effect: Andromeda. This case study relies on data collected from various sources, including interviews with Mass Effect players, official marketing material, and online conversations from Twitter, Reddit and BSN (Bioware Social Network – Unofficial). The data was organized and thematically coded using NVivo, and then analysed under the configurative framework presented further. The exploration proposed here has two objectives: firstly, to uncover the configurative dynamics that occur when a company's marketing discourse is contested by a share of its target audience, taking into account a gendered history of marketing and videogames. Due to the considerable penetration of Mass Effect as a mainstream game, understanding the marketing strategies adopted by Bioware and the reverberation of those strategies within its consumer base sheds light on industry practices, both in terms of repetition of strategies and its innovative, closer relationship with gamers. Secondly, the analysis seeks to present and test a theoretical framework – namely, a configurative circuit framework - to analyse videogames and the diverse elements that constitute this industry. The research fits within a broader spectrum of games and gender research, contributing to the critical analysis of the industry regarding its male-centric approach, focusing on the role of marketing in reinforcing hegemonic discourses to secure sales, and how these configurative dynamics affect videogames production and consumption. 1 Canon is a term used to describe stories, plots, characters, and events officially accepted as part of a certain universe's story. _____________________________________________________________ 167 Kinephanos, ISSN 1916‐985X “’It’s [not just] in the game’: the promotional context of video games”, November 2017, www.kinephanos.ca Configurative dynamics of gender in Bioware's marketing 1. Configurative Circuit: a praxeologic perspective of configuration As a means of communication, videogames present certain intrinsic characteristics that tell of possible interactions and modes of meaning production that distinguish them from other media. In the search for a terminology that reflects what is unique in videogames, a useful theoretical contribution is the concept of configuration proposed by Steve Woolgar (1991). Within game and videogame studies, the concept was appropriated by other authors (Eskelinen 2004, Moulthrop 2004, Dovey and Kennedy 2006, Harvey 2015) and evolved from describing a close human-machine relationship, to one that explains the relationship between game and player which accounts for the network of social, cultural and political relations that configure gaming. Woolgar's work, an ethnographic study of the launch of a new computer, focuses on the usability testing of the product and how the perception of these differs in each sector of the company. He notes that alongside the understanding of the machine comes an understanding of its potential users (Woolgar, 1991, p. 61). The hypothesis is that the machine configures certain parameters that the user needs to adjust. In setting up the machine, the user must find the perfect way for the machine to work, taking into account the needs of not just one, but a myriad of possible users - one of the company's biggest challenges (Woolgar, 1991, p. 68-69). Woolgar considers that this relationship is not unidirectional, since the machine also takes into account the capacity of the user (Woolgar, 1991, p. 68), but does not evolve to what we might call a dialogical perspective. There is therefore, according to Woolgar, a limit to the configurative dynamics between user and machine. The subsequent use of Woolgar's concept by Eskelinen & Tronstad (2003) considers the importance of the action and structure of the game system - typical elements to a ludological perspective - as vital components of a configurative performance in which “the game structure cues, guides, and constrains the player's activities (or gameplay)” (Eskelinen and Tronstad, 2003, p. 208). Moulthrop (2004) points out that the concept must also be concerned with systems other than computational systems, and that subjects should have “active awareness of systems and their structures of control” (Moulthrop, 2004, p.57). Such systems _____________________________________________________________ 168 Kinephanos, ISSN 1916‐985X “’It’s [not just] in the game’: the promotional context of video games”, November 2017, www.kinephanos.ca Configurative dynamics of gender in Bioware's marketing would be, for example, social and political structures that may also confine the gaming experience. In this sense, heteronormativity, patriarchalism, and sexism are systems that configure certain aspects of the social for certain subjects, and as presented in this paper, can manifest themselves via the marketing discourse of a company and/or an individual
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