E3 and Gender: Gaming Still Has a Woman Problem
LatestThis year’s E3 was full of reveals, surprises, and razzle-dazzle. Just as we’ve come to expect strong showings from AAA and select indie developers alike, we also expect that this large a meeting of industry minds will produce a conversation about the state of games culture. Gender representation found itself once again at the forefront of these conversations.
On Monday, the major press conferences were heavy on pomp and circumstance but light on the ladies. One reporter from industry site Polygon commented that severed heads in demos and trailers outnumbered the amount of women actually talking about games.
Brighter spots included the trailer for the newest Lara Croft joint, “Rise of Tomb Raider,” and the raucous applause it received, as well as the amount of women playing games during the Xbox press conference in particular. Aisha Tyler totally brought it as the host of the Ubisoft press conference.
On Tuesday, Ubisoft took a considerable amount of heat for not having playable woman assassins in the co-op portion of “Assassin’s Creed: Unity” (and later for saying they came only thisclose to having a lady protagonist in “Far Cry 4”).
It wasn’t so much the lack of a playable woman but the reasoning behind it that had so many up in arms—-they just didn’t have the resources. It would be double the work. They had considered it, but couldn’t make it happen. It was inches away. These were excuses many fans and developers alike could simply not abide.
Of course, that doesn’t mean this wasn’t happening:
::sigh:: It’s getting better, but we still have a ways to go.