Sigh. Considering the current climate, we did consider whether we should post this story in the first place – but then we figured that we'd be behaving just as badly as the publishers in question. During its recent developer diary, DONTNOD has hinted that some companies wanted it to make Life Is Strange's lead character a male. Fortunately, the folks over at Square Enix didn't care.
"Square Enix is basically the only publisher who didn't want to change anything about the game," creative director Jean-Maxime Moris said. "We had other publishers telling us to make it a male lead character, and Square didn't even question that once." We'd assume that the Parisian developer was sucking up to the people paying its bills, if we hadn't heard about this sort of thing before.
What really frustrates us is that it's all so stupid. We daresay that there's probably research out there that publishers are using to inform these gender decisions, but we're more inclined to purchase a game with a female on the box, purely because the medium is infested with more than enough angry skin heads. Would you ever overlook a great title that stars a lady? We're guessing not.
[source youtube.com, via gamespot.com, playstationlifestyle.net]
Comments 6
I dunno. I wouldn't be surprised if its just a marketing ploy given the current climate as no doubt the Gawker SocJus conglomerate would run this story at the forefront of their websites and rejig it as some kind of proof of progressiveness within game development. Easy & free marketing. Not naming a publisher, or at least offering a hint if they don't wanna rustle feathers, leaves me skeptical.
"the medium is infested with more than enough angry skin heads" That's just a bonkers statement though
Don't much care, whenever there is a choice in a game I'll quite often choose to play as a female character, kind of balances out all the times I'm stuck as a male.
As a kid I fantasized myself as being the characters in game (in pixilated 8-bit glory) so I usually leaned toward male characters. As an adult however I realize I am playing video games and find that a lot of games with female leads tend to have more unique stories or think outside of the box in ways. Honestly I never really thought about it much though ... I never really cared if the game had a male or female lead as long as the game itself was good, I'd play it.
Didn't DONTNOD have this problem with Remember Me as well?
I'm more likely to buy it with a female lead. Normally choose a female when creating a character. Glad they found a publisher that supported their artistic vision.
I usually play games that involve killing people, and killing people as a woman I find even more enjoyable. Makes her seem badass XD
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