Diablo III Beta Coming This Fall
There may be no word yet of an official Diablo III release date, but Activision Blizzard did take the time during an investor call this morning to mention a testing phase beginning in third quarter 2011. It was not mentioned whether it would be open or closed beta (open! please! pick me! pick me! pick me!) but all the same, it’s a reassuring step towards release day, is it not?
Activision Says Games With Female Protagonists “Don’t Sell”
In a recent tell-all article from Gamasutra, several sources were quoted as saying that Activision has a no female protagonist mindset. Activision claims that gamers don’t want female leads, and has only published games like Barbie and Dora as female main characters. From GamaSutra:
One individual, a former employee, tells us that the original concept for Black Lotus’ protagonist had been modeled on actress Lucy Liu, whose action-heroine roles in films like Charlie’s Angels and Kill Bill formed the basic inspiration. “Black Lotus was a great project internally,” says the source. “We were all very proud of what we were trying to make and the team was excited. We made great progress.”
The source goes on to claim that they were then given “specific direction to lose the chick,” and another was told to change the female lead to male because Activision “don’t do female characters because they don’t sell.”
We could get into Activision’s Draconian short sightedness, but that would be too obvious. But just for the record, here’s a list of games featuring female protagonists, leads, or strong supporting characters that, for better or worse, have a huge fan base and/or have sold a lot of units:
Metroid
Final Fantasy
Soul Calibur
Dead or Alive
Lara Croft
Left 4 Dead
Half Life 2
Cooking Mama
Alice (American McGee)
Portal
Mirror’s Edge
Super Princess Peach sold over 1 million units. So did Bayonetta. Beyond Good and Evil is still lamented as a unappreciated gem. American McGee’s Alice, a cult classic to the core, has a sequel coming up.
Granted, this is not an extensive list, but whether the female character exists to be objectified, or exists just to exist, the fact remains the same: people still want women in games. Titles like Fallout 3 and Dragon Age have been helped rather than hurt by the gender freedom awarded to the protagonist, and games that have managed to make the lead both sexy and capable, like Bayonetta, have been awarded fans of both sexes (though not many here at GG). And let’s not forget the legions of RPGs or RPG-like games, including Baldur’s Gate and Diablo, who never made gender an issue, and were never rewarded or punished for it either.
In summation, fuck you Activision.
