Well, just when I thought the games industry couldn't get any more backwards and downright stupid, along comes Epic with yet another reason for me to bury my head in my hands. Gamespot posted an article (taken from an OXM interview) where Chris Perna, art director at Epic, talks about the potential for Gears to one day have a female main character. Here's the article:
Art director Chris Perna says idea for female hero is "interesting," but unlikely due to negative sales implications. Gears of War 3 brought female playable characters to the franchise for the first time, but it is unlikely that a lady would ever be a protagonist in a future installment.
That's according to Epic Games art director Chris Perna, who told OXM that a future Gears of War game with a female lead would hurt the title's sales potential.
"That's certainly interesting but I don't know," Perna said. "If you look at what sells, it's tough to justify something like that."
Perna also spoke about positive reactions female gamers have had to Epic's portrayal of women in past Gears of War titles at cosplay events.
"They feel empowered," he said. "They put on that armor and they walk around with these massive weapons and I think they get a kick out of it; I get a kick out of seeing it.
"From what we've heard, when they play the game they feel empowered and they feel good," Perna added. "Some of the feedback I've heard from women that I talk to is that if we'd made these women more feminine and more stereotypical it wouldn't have been so nice."
So there you have it ladies. The reason you won't be seeing a female Gears protagonist anytime soon is because your gender is actively holding back sales of games. After all, it's not like Tomb Raider, Portal, Lollipop Chainsaw, The Longest Journey and Mirror's Edge were all succesful games with female main characters, right? Right?
I think the real problem here is that Epic decided to market Gears as the most testosterone fuelled of bromances. Maybe if the whole thing didn't feel like one massive dick-swinging contest between a bunch of meat-headed gorillas, having a female main character wouldn't feel so out of place. I mean, it's kind of a problem if your game setting is so skewed towards male power fantasy that even the idea of having a female lead could negatively impact on sales. Comic books are primarily marketed towards teenage boys, and they still manage to make room for female superheroes (though that has had negative implications in itself).
I dunno... the idea that simply the presence of a female lead could negatively hurt sales really gets my goat. Not only does it say bad things about the games themselves, but also the type of gamers they're being marketed for. Gaming already has enough of an issue with how we treat the different genders, and stuff like this just seems to be adding fuel to the fire. Thoughts?