Note
to game developers: how a character looks matters. Next year’s Wildstar is
already having its own mini-crisis on the ‘sexualization’ of some of the races in
the MMO by Carbine studios. Call of Duty developer Infinity Ward made headlines
earlier in the year by announcing that it would allow female avatars in the
multiplayer section of its game for the first time. Mass Effect 3 had a
firestorm of controversy for allowing fans to pick the face of ‘FemShep’.
Accusations flew that BioWare was rewriting history and sexualizing the female
version of Commander Shepherd. And the list goes on, gamers have a great deal
of emotion in the way the characters they play are portrayed and made to
appear.
