Part of the reason I think we see so much assumption that 'the Dragonborn is supposed to be a Nord' and silly cartoons on the internet depicting the guy in the background of this screen, is because of the way Bethesda marketed Skyrim.

Some of you will say 'well duh,' but hear me out as to why I think this hurt the fan's experience a little.

In Morrowind and Oblivion (save for a random Imperial Guard kneeling and sticking his sword into the ground) had no real 'frontman' that forced us to believe that the symbolic equivalent of 'the Morrowind Experience' or 'the Oblivion Experience' was a Dunmer in ashlands or an Imperial in green fields.

And especially out of Oblivion, we got so many diverse parodies and equal use of all the races as useable choices fit to make anything funny, because Oblivion was about the world and the quests; not any ideal image shown to us by Bethesda's marketing. It also made OUR characters feel special for the choice we made.

With Skyrim, because of only showing 'that guy' in the trailers and gameplay bits instead of also showing the other races portrayed as 'an optional Dragonborn just as likely as the Nord you saw,' (although there were SOME, but not up front) the majority (especially those new to TES) are given the sub-concious idea that 'The perfect choice for playing this game or making a parody of it at maximum comedic level' is that guy.

The oh-so-original-today macho white guy with stubble. While I'm sure they wanted a Skyrim-native and a way to introduce the theme of dragons and the shouts, do you think it could have been downplayed a bit, so that the internet wasn't made to believe that this frontman is the best way to image-portray the game?

What are your thoughts on this? There is no right or wrong; I want to hear them :]

It's impractical to advertise with all ten races and two sixes evenly.

But doesn't forcing one image down everyone's throat create a rather unfair expectancy for what the average person thinks 'that Skyrim game' is about?

There's a few different Dovakiin in the trailer.

I mean it is called marketing after all? I mean I see your point and all but if your going to make money your not going to put a bosmer in heavy armer with Viking style attire in the winterlands are you now?
The only thing that was saddening was there was not enough open faced head wear to show off the effort you made your character.

None as bold as 'that guy.' And there are no major images showing anything but him, a dragon, a mountain range or the Skyrim logo.

I didn't want to say it at first, but another theory is the infamous 'the biggest market is white males' rule. In this case, because Skyrim is home to a culture that is inhabited by (and celebrates) the 'big burly man' image, I didn't want to play that card.

But... It does come to mind.

It makes some sense within the game as well, depending on your choices. I think Nords might fit more with the Greybeard side, for example. Stuff like that.

That said, I think my cooler dragonborn is a redguard. I just said in another thread, he's based off of Riddike (in the sense that he's a duel wielding killing machine/stealther). You could say a redguard doesn't have to be Nord to care about Nords... they already have experience with the Thalmor in Hammerfell. Secondly, to take another movie example: The 13th Warrior. That was a story of an outsider helping Norseman. I'm pretty sure Bethesda was inspired by some of it. The guy who voiced Ulfric has a part in that movie.

Personally, I had no such preconception. I have no problem playing as any race/gender. Making RP adjustments to 'justify' why my character is the Dragonborn is a trivial challenge. So, no, I don't think it affected my experience of the game at all.

Has it affected other people? Probably. Mostly people who are new to the series. I don't think it's a big deal to most of them, either.

Edit: On second thought, if I didn't know anything at all about the series and I saw "RPG" but only one character portrayed in all the marketing I might have thought twice about buying it. I don't like RP'ing other people's characters.

May as well pick one compelling image to market to the target audience... Namely http://i.imgur.com/QSwXF.jpg

Speaking of Skyrim comics: http://www.dorkly.com/comic/30748/skyrim-hoarders

Ah, but obviously, you do like the one in your avatar at least.

That's a perfect example; not that we need to scour the internet to find one.

If that were a Morrowind or Oblivion comic, it would have been any of the other races as 'the one we pay attention to' because there were no frontmen in their marketing and it was boldened that there were ten races to choose from.

^

Skyrim isn't the only game that has featured one protagonist in their trailers, when there are multiple choice within the respective game to choose from. Examples include some Bioware titles, such as Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins.

But what happens when the internet reacts to those games? The videos, art work, and comics generally picture the poster boys of those games as 'the face' we should recognize, no matter how much we got into our own character.

Big budget = testosterone advertising, exactly as expected. My rather daft take on it all is if the use of a cliché, instantly recognisable character has brought newcomer sales in, then all well and good, as that guy and his horned helmet have helped guarantee the production of Fallout 4 and TES VI. Everyone wins.

I haven't paid that much attention to how the internet reacts. Is it really important how the game is marketed? As long as they don't take out actual options in game, then I'm happy.

Only if you are succeptible to ideas being forced upon you. Mass Effect's Shepard has always been the default female one voiced by Jennifer Hale for me ALTHOUGH all trailers and official screenshots (Except for exactly three with a custom character) feature exclusively Vanderloo and Mark Meer.

The one thing Mass Effect's "Vanderloo" Shep has going for it is better detail. He's actually modeled and scanned from the model vanderloo. Femshep is generatd with in-game tools.. and she's not quite as realistic looking. I heard ME3 is improving her though.

Meer's voice sounds like he needs to clear his nose. That's the only factor that made me choose the femshep. But that's off topic, the point is that I don't care who is a poster boy/girl.

On a financial level, Skyrim was successful.

On a psychological level, we've paid for a game that the majority of gamers recognize the 'testosterone' and the poster child as it's alternative logo for.

I guess the only way this hurts us, the fans, is giving Bethesda the idea that everything they did here is what we want. Which, using myself and the entire forum as obvious examples, is not true. It would hurt us because the next game might do the same stuff.

And then those 'game character versus other game character' things would happen with 'Skyrim nord guy vesus Summerset high elf guy.' And all our favorite memes and in-jokes of the old days get reduced to that. But worse, we wouldn't feel like WE were special anymore. It's all about big white guy 1 and big white guy 2. Characters of a race NOT on the marketing? Eh, they're for nerds.

But, I'm not anyone important at Bethesda, so I can't say I know what they're thinking or how they see our criticisms of their game. They could be thinking 'hey, this worked, screw criticism and do it again.' Or, they could be writing down our suggestions on here every day.

I'm sure the future will be ok. Being too "limited" goes against Todd Howard's personality. That's not his vision. Have faith in the team to not succumb to something so petty.

The marketing is there only to provide a focal point, a sort of iconic image to describe the game. Even then, it seems like Bethesda has been keen to not really give him a face (other than being male and white... maybe that's enough to be offputting though). I think they've strongly tried to present iconism, while at the same time keeping the image mysterious. He's wearing a helmet, after all. It's kind of the same move that Bungie did with Halo and the Master Chief. Secondly, he's kind of a mix match of armor types. I don't even know what his "class" his.

Listen to me, I'm trying to talk like I know a lot about marketing. lol.

To which I must ask: Is there anything wrong with having "The Dragonborn" you see in the trailers as Bethesda's poster boy for Skyrim? Now, if that same character were to be featured in a game set in, say, Elsewyr, then I could see a problem.


If you believe that having him as poster boy will hurt people's chances in roleplaying, then you must not have any faith in them having any imagination. Plus, roleplaying isn't for everyone; those who do roleplay do so with the intent to immerse themselves into the in-game world, thus, need to have imagination and creativity to do so. Sadly enough, some just blaze through the game and gain little enjoyment out of it.

Lastly, I would like to remind you of something subtle, yet intentional:
When selecting a new character in any of your playthroughs in either Morrowind, Oblivion, or Skyrim, the default face will always be that of the race that resides in the province in which the game takes place. So, if we select the first character that shows up in the character selection screen, we'd play as a Dunmer in Morrowind, an Imperial in Oblivion, and a Nord in Skyrim.

Yeah, I can't stay I know all there is to know. I just know what I see. But, it was enough to get a discussion out of :]