Every time I play a video game, I picture a whole variety of people playing with me, race, gender, etc.. Every time I hear about how girls do not play games, it confuses me and possibly gives other negative emotions. People can choose what they want to do as long as it does not harm anybody and mainstream culture does not seem to understand this. Masterpiece or not, Mass Effect showed me that race can be quite vital to a game’s storyline.
That is why this news saddens me. According to a soon to be published Escapist Magazine interview with Neil Druckman, Naughty Dog developers had to change a mindset as to the “only boys play video game” marketing of the game, despite having a girl in the game! “My big surprise during this process is that the research group wasn’t planning on focus-testing female gamers – it’s something we had to specifically request. I hope this is a relic of the past that will soon go away,” Druckman explained.
So apparently, the title The Last of Us referred to girl gamers?
There was also mention of moving the female character, Ellie to the back of the box from a marketing stand point. Naughty Dog refused, and kept her on the front of the box. At least something is right with the industry.