It seems that this week has been pretty jam packed with discussions regarding female characters in gaming, and how they’re treated differently than male lead characters. After a Capcom employee talked about how many publishers passed on Remember Me because they didn’t feel that a female lead could lead game to success, it sparked up a lot of controversy.
In a recent interview, Tomb Raider scriptwriter Rhianna Pratchett discussed how female characters in video gaming are treated differently in the media. She stated that the games industry needs more female characters, with different ages and ethnicities, and so on. ”We are very narrow when it comes to our characters,” Pratchett said.
“But also you’ve got a situation where female characters do get scrutinized more than male characters do, and in some ways can be seen as holding a banner up for female characters. A lot gets heaped on their shoulders. Lara Croft gets a lot more scrutiny than Nathan Drake [of Uncharted] does, as a female. Nobody talks about how well Nathan Drake is representing men, or male characters in games. I think there is actually a genuine nervousness amongst developers about straying outside those familiar grounds,” Pratchett said. “That is why we get so many dudebros in suits — or Whitey McStubbly, as I call him — repeated over and over again.” You can read the full interview after the break.
Source: Kill Screen
