Hearthpwn

Quote from Maukiepaukie >>

Honestly, let's focus our attention on something that really matters. Sorry to put it our there, but sexism isn't a problem in Hearthstone. I think this should only be a topic worthy of discussion if one gender was HUGELY underrepresented. I can think of female cards off the top of my head (gadgetzan jouster, alex, kezan, holy champion). And you have to realise this game is based off WoW. Honestly, I really don't want to make gender representation an issue in Hearthstone, just enjoy the card game as it is.

Quote from fabisco >>

Quote from sillyandrew >>

I recently introduced Hearthstone to a friend of mine, who, for the most part, has really enjoyed the game. I saw her earlier this week, and asked her if she was still playing. Her response was "yes, but..." and casually mentioned how she was a little turned off by the under representation of female characters in the game. This is something I have noticed as well, and had the idea of sitting down and calculating the percentage of male to female to gender-ambiguous/neutral minions that exist in hearthstone. 

As it is, it turns out someone beat me to it. A quick Google search turned up this. I found it in the context of a reddit post (which is now locked, and archived) in which the original poster was criticized rather harshly for voicing their opinions on the matter. (Which, is another matter completely, and I won't get into it.)

I've only really glanced at this spreadsheet, and mostly focused on the totals, so I can't speak for the majority of this data, and I make no claims to it's accuracy, the methodology, or any decision making (ie, the thought process behind assigning each minion a gender) but from what I've seen so far, it appears to be pretty accurate. 

I (and the friend whom I mentioned earlier) have our own opinions on why this data is important, and why it matters in the context of Hearthstone specifically, and I feel it's of significant value to discuss. (At least enough so to include it on the Hearthpwn forums, if for no other reason than this being the only Hearthstone related forums I actively post on.)

More than anything, I just wanted to get this information out there to anyone who hasn't already seen it, and (leaving my own personal opinions on the matter out of it) see how people feel about this fairly obvious imbalance. 

 worth for debate, certainly...

And another thing that somewhat baffled me is how blatantly steretypical the female gender is represented among heroes: The hot brunette and blonde chick, rubbing her boobs right in your face...

Quote from vionicesca >>

Female player here, a feminist (a feminist, not a feminazi and not a woman who hates men) and I have to say I really, really don't care. It might be that I've been playing games for so long that I've gotten used to there always being more important male than female characters but I've never seen that as an issue.

If there's something I don't like it's how all the females have to be super attractive, yet there are so few males that are nice to look at. I get that people prefer to look at pretty characters in games, so do I, but where are all the good looking dudes then? Anyway, I feel like I'm going off topic.

I've always said that it's better to have few female characters that are well written and have a personality, than a huge amount of shallow, ditzy, uninteresting ones, or ones that do nothing but worry about their man (Tyrande in War of the Ancients). That's why I've never had an issue with WoW. 

Besides, a lot of the ladies that are in Hearthstone are pretty awesome. There are the amazing dragons, Alexstrasza and Ysera for example, both great legendaries and both important lore characters. Priests are ironically all women: Northshire Cleric, Lightwarden, Holy Champion, Cabal Shadow Priest, Confessor Paletress and many more on the spells. Sunwalker is pretty badass as well. Keeper of Uldaman is important, Elise Starseeker is one I meet pretty often lately, Sorcerer's Apprentice wins me brawls this week... And there are lots and lots more female cards in this game. 

And before I forget. This is a card game. Nobody cares if the card picture is a girl, guy, mech, murloc or an Abomination, as long as the card is good. Whether they do or don't see play is an issue of nothing but their power level.

Quote from Human_Guy >>

Quote from fabisco >>

The mere way how angry the most guys (?!) react to that pretty inoffensive thread that just tried  to open up a discussion shows that there is an issue at stake: If it really wouldn't matter, why are you so eager at defending the visuals of the game that are pretty blatantly transporting 'male' dominance?!  The far more logical response to the thread according to your own standards would be - "whatever, I don't care, make the game more diverse..."

 It does matter. PC is an abomination that is anti free speech and pro censorship. I mean you even say in your second sentence that HS suggest male dominance... WHEN IT FUCKING DOESNT!!!!!

Are you in favor of a radical movement that constantly changes media to propagate their own world view on everyone else. 

Also it is the double standard that annoys me. If you actually have a game that has majorly women in it like LoL, feminist will bitch about how all women have huge breasts and are objectified. 

Fucking feminists are never satisfied and try to find something they can be against, to justify their existence. Western societies are Emancipated! But instead of acknowledge that and try to better the stance for women in 3rd world countries they make shit up of how something can be sexist without it actually being sexist, since it is hidden within a invisible net of the patriarchy that controls everything.

counted 71 females.  this is neither a positive or negative comment.  just an observation

Quote from Human_Guy >>

Quote from fabisco >>

The mere way how angry the most guys (?!) react to that pretty inoffensive thread that just tried  to open up a discussion shows that there is an issue at stake: If it really wouldn't matter, why are you so eager at defending the visuals of the game that are pretty blatantly transporting 'male' dominance?!  The far more logical response to the thread according to your own standards would be - "whatever, I don't care, make the game more diverse..."

 It does matter. PC is an abomination that is anti free speech and pro censorship. I mean you even say in your second sentence that HS suggest male dominance... WHEN IT FUCKING DOESNT!!!!!

Are you in favor of a radical movement that constantly changes media to propagate their own world view on everyone else. 

Also it is the double standard that annoys me. If you actually have a game that has majorly women in it like LoL, feminist will bitch about how all women have huge breasts and are objectified. 

Fucking feminists are never satisfied and try to find something they can be against, to justify their existence. Western societies are Emancipated! But instead of acknowledge that and try to better the stance for women in 3rd world countries they make shit up of how something can be sexist without it actually being sexist, since it is hidden within a invisible net of the patriarchy that controls everything.

Maybe if females actually represented themselves in games, the game developers would follow as well. 

I never really watched HearthStone tournaments becasue it's too boring for me, but when I watched games like StarCraft, WoW, HotS, etc it just seemed like 95% male representation.

Quote from IhaveT_RexArms >>

Quote from acosper >>

Quote from drfelip >>

Of course that needs to be addressed, not only in Hearthstone, but in the gaming industry as a whole. It does not matter if the numbers in the table are not accurate: the differences are pretty big anyway. But, as you see, most of our forum fellows are happy guys in a guys' world, and they don't give a shit about anything related to equality, especially gender equality.

Seeing comments like yours gives me a little more faith in humanity. It is so discouraging to know that a comment thread such as this will be filled with a bunch of hateful comments without even having to look. I try to tell myself that it's just an internet problem but then I watch the news and see Donald Trump in the lead. The trolls are real. Ack! 

 Ok dude, i was being nice to you but i see there is not talking to you. I state and opinion about the game being made, and you say screw you and call me an ass. Then talk about how youve lost faith in humanity and how hateful EVERYONE else is being. You can keep blaming all the problems of the world on everything, but in all honesty you just need to look in the mirror. I am sorry man. I know that you are sensitive and that is gonna hurt.

Quote from acosper >>

Quote from sillyandrew >>

Quote from l4chsnacken >>

I sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter. Ever since I was a boy I dreamed of soaring over the oilfields dropping hot sticky loads on disgusting foreigners. People say to me that a person being a helicopter is Impossible and I’m fucking retarded but I don’t care, I’m beautiful. I’m having a plastic surgeon install rotary blades, 30 mm cannons and AMG-114 Hellfire missiles on my body. From now on I want you guys to call me “Apache” and respect my right to kill from above and kill needlessly. If you can’t accept me you’re a heliphobe and need to check your vehicle privilege. Thank you for being so understanding.

 

TL;DR : Go home, Tumblr.

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-sexually-identify-as-an-attack-helicopter

 

 Dumb and unoriginal. Keep it up.  

If anything, males should be the ones who are offended - just look at this MALE: Hemet Nesingwary. Disgusting, when will HS enter the 21st century (and not create awful legendaries like that :P)?

Quote from langarn101 >>

Quote from fabisco >>

The mere way how angry the most guys (?!) react to that pretty inoffensive thread that just tried  to open up a discussion shows that there is an issue at stake: If it really wouldn't matter, why are you so eager at defending the visuals of the game that are pretty blatantly transporting 'male' dominance?!  The far more logical response to the thread according to your own standards would be - "whatever, I don't care, make the game more diverse..."

 Music, movies, paintings and games are all art. An artist has a vision and then produce it. The issue that makes me angry is when people try to force their political views into that process. If the game had an 80 to 20 ratio with women cards the more dominant I wouldn't care and more importantly I wouldn't notice it.

First off, thank you to the OP for starting this thread. This is something I've noticed ever since starting Hearthstone, yet almost never see brought up in the community. Really, it's not as icky a subject as people are assuming.

The most visible form of representation is in the heroes, of course. With 7 male, 2 female, it's clear there has been at least some thought put toward representation by Blizzard. According to Ben Brode, Valeera was added to the game to shore up faction, gender, and (fantasy) race representation, hence her inclusion over potential male characters like Edwin VanCleef (human males already represented by Anduin and Uther). It also prevents Jaina from being a token, another problem altogether.

With alternate heroes, they now have a chance to add a female option for each class if they wanted to. We already have Alleria as Hunter alternate, and Medivh as Mage alternate, but Warrior gets Magni. We've already heard that more alternate heroes are on the way, and the pattern so far has been a gender flip, a faction flip, or both. Frankly, there's nothing stopping Blizzard from having more than one alternate for each class, so they don't have to just commit to one alternate each. Plus, with League of Explorers opening the way for non-WoW originated content, they're not even limited to WoW lore-only characters for heroes! I might give Warrior a shot if I could play as a badass adorable gnome lady fighter, for example.

Just some thoughts to consider.

Quote from sovereign1212 >>

The consumer is 99% male most likely so I'd say there is too many females based on population . Also why is there no Asian characters? No black paladins huh? What the fuck why is there no transgender heroes? WHAT THE FUCK NO GAY HEROES?!?!? 

I get it, question stuff, but kindly fuck off with these statements and questions. 

Personally, I think anyone who is keeping score is doing nothing but propagating the polarization.  Doesn't equality mean you treat both as equal?  Is 10+0 not equal to 5+5?  If 10 men are not as good as 5 men and 5 women, then how does anyone possibly argue that as equal treatment?  It shows this is not about equality, it's about bias.  It says there are acceptable ways to get to 10 and unacceptable ways to get to 10.

Equality would mean 10 always equals 10.  Equal opportunity would mean that any formula that equals 10 can equal 10.  Bias is saying 5+5 > 10.  This bias is what angers people.  When a groups of people are measured by gender ratio the most you can get out of it is a perceived injustice, not a proven one.  When it gets propagated, people get angry.  When people get angry they seek political solutions.  Political solutions, whether by protest or by legislation, forces change.  When people are forced to change for nothing more than perception, they get angry.  I would argue this also marginalizes actual injustices when it does occur because one angry side is too quick to make accusations and the other angry side is too quick to dismiss accusations.

So now we have two groups in angry opposition with artists stuck in the middle trying to balance their creativity with public perception.  This really, really should be a non-issue.  Artists have creative freedom.  Consumers have purchasing freedom.  If consumers don't share the artists creative choices, they don't need to consume it.  The injustice in this respect occurs when non-consumers are determining what artists can and cannot produce for consumption.

Finally, the only way I could see any argument to possibly make any correlation between gender representation in games and gender equality in the world would be to argue that an imbalance in games cultivates a biased culture out in the real world.  I'm more inclined to believe artists are a product of the culture, not the other way around.  Artists only thrive with consumers.  Change one artist and another one pops up.  The real solution is to change the consumer -  artists then change or wither out.

My advice to anyone concerned about gender equality would be to worry less about changing vague perceived injustices based on statistical analysis of artistic expression by means of censure and put more effort into facing down injustice in the real world when it actually does occur.

No female villains/heroes? Wow.

Heroes:
Jaina Proudmoore
Alexstrasza/Ysera
Yrel
Lady Liadrin
Garona Halforcen
Valeera Sanguinar
Windrunner sisters - Alleria/Vereesa
Tyrande Whisperwind
fucking Aegwynn
and one of the most powerful beings - Elune (well, probably, but described and worshipped as feminine)

Villains:
Katrana Prestor/Onyxia
Lady Azshara
Sylvanas Windrunner
Magatha Grimtotem

Now that you look at this list, you can both notice that it indeed has some great characters, but also kinda proves your point. Are female characters underrepresented? Definitely, but-- that's unfortunately the problem in the whole genre, not Warcraft only. Geek stuff has been considered for a long time (to some extent, still is) as a dominantly male genre and women are usually portrayed as princesses/love interests/damsels in distress.

I hope it's gonna change though, since I loved Yrel storyline, even though it is kind of based on Jeanne d'Arc.

I think the gender representation is actually generous given the player base of the game.

Quote from SanderNightsite >>

 Actually there are a lot more female players than you might think. Also since there are so many males playing, there should be more female characters. Why? Because lets be honest- most males would provably like to have a lot more female warrior characters with 'boob armor' in their deck.

Quote from aldimon94 >>

Quote from Zekana >>

counted 71 females.  this is neither a positive or negative comment.  just an observation

alexstraza
Aviana
Onyxia
Ysera
Confessor Paletress
Cabal Shadow Priest
Grand Crusader
Justicar Trueheart
Maexxna
Priestess of Elune
Reckless Rocketeer
Shieldmaiden
Sideshow Spelleater
Sunwalker
Sylvanas Windrunner
Windfury Harpy
Darkscale Healer
Nightblade
pitfighter
Arathi Weaponsmith
Auchenai Soulpriest
Baron Rivendare
Crowd Favorite
Cult Master
Draenei Totemcarver
Dragonling Mechanic
Elise Starseeker
Gnomish Inventor
Holy Champion
Keeper of Uldaman
Kezan Mystic
Maiden of the Lake
master of disquise
Violet Teacher
Wee Spellstopper
Wildwalker
Blackwing Technician
Druid of the Flame
Eydis Darkbane
Fjola Lightbane
Illuminator
Imp Master
Lil' Exorcist
Master of Ceremonies
Razorfen Hunter
scarelt crusader
Shattered Sun Cleric
Silver Hand Regent
Stablemaster
Warsong Commander
Alexstrasza's Champion
Armorsmith
Bloodsail Raider
Darnassus Aspirant
Druid of the Saber
Mana Addict
mistress of pain
Novice Engineer
Pint-Sized Summoner
Sorcerer's Apprentice
succubus
Sunfury Protector
Argent Squire
Brave Archer
Gadgetzan Jouster
Lightwarden
Northshire Cleric
Reliquary Seeker
Shadowbomber
Southsea Deckhand
Young Priestess

Oh great, a feminazi thread

If every feminazi tried to find something actually useful to do instead of whining the "non-equality of gender problem" would be over!

Quote from Taintedpure >>

 If 10 men are not as good as 5 men and 5 women, then how does anyone possibly argue that as equal treatment?  It shows this is not about equality, it's about bias.  It says there are acceptable ways to get to 10 and unacceptable ways to get to 10.