![]() ![]() ![]() A choice to play as a male character is not a choice at all, particularly when it comes to something as intimate as an avatar in a game. The long history of leaving out options for players-particularly in games with a character creation engine-needs to end, whether those options limit choices based on race, gender, or other factors. The tendency to reuse assets, designs, and engines leads to cycles of poorly designed worlds that reflect few options and often less reality than they should. Call of Duty was apparently unable to insert female characters until recently due to engine limitations (something some have questioned) representatives of Ubisoft famously indicated women were simply too difficult to program.īut when developers tell us that they can’t make female characters due to technical issues and/or difficulties, that in and of itself is a problem of an industry designed for and by white males. We’ve been told frequently that this lack isn’t due necessarily to reflections on the industry (though if this is the media, wouldn’t similar pictures of development teams be interesting), but instead to technological limitations. While I’ve talked about a few better examples of diverse games, like State of Decay, typically these discussions revolve around a lack of options, particularly for female characters. As a woman who prefers to play as a woman whenever possible, this is an issue close to my heart, and it’s one that I think speaks to the vast untapped potential in the gaming industry. I’ve been doing a lot of research in the past months into representation in video games, particularly gender representation, with a few forays into racial representation. ![]()
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