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Forums - Microsoft Discussion - Microsoft Vetoed A Black Woman On Cover For Fable II

Soundwave on 13 May 2016

I don't think gamers care who's on the cover of a game and certainly aren't shallow enough to ignore a game because it has a black woman on the cover.

Game developers and movie producers just need to grow some balls. The audience doesn't care about any of this crap, The Jungle Book was a huge hit movie with an Indian kid and a bunch of CG animals, Star Wars just successfully had a black lead, the Fast & Furious movies have a white guy as the minority character and make monstrous box office.

People do not care about the ethnicity of characters, they just want to be entertained.



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SvennoJ on 13 May 2016
CosmicSex said:
StarOcean said:
I'm sorry, but I would have to agree with MS on this. From a financial point of view it makes more sense to have a white dude on the cover versus a black woman. And its unfortunate but at the end of the day MS wants to sell a product and using a white guy on the cover is safer and ensures money than taking a risk

I have to disagree, because it makes it sound like Microsoft doesn't have faith in their developers and instead falls back on sad tired tropes.  A good game will sell itself.  Cultivate your developers and let their talent sale your games.   Also, it makes gamers look like simpleminded and thats insulting.  As a gamer, would you not buy a game because it had a black lady on the cover?  I would like to believe that most gamers will play a good game regardless of who is on the cover.    Its not the 1960s anymore.  I think they underestimate us.

Marketing doesn't want to settle for most gamers though. If most gamers don't care, then the ones that might care get targeted. Always market to the lowest common denominator.

I didn't know princess and the frog sold so badly. It's the last great hand animated Disney feature, a shame to be outsold by generic stuff like Frozen by a factor 5. Oh well, it was a great bookend to Disney's 2D animation.



CosmicSex on 13 May 2016
Soundwave said:
I don't think gamers care who's on the cover of a game and certainly aren't shallow enough to ignore a game because it has a black woman on the cover.

Game developers and movie producers just need to grow some balls. The audience doesn't care about any of this crap, The Jungle Book was a huge hit movie with an Indian kid and a bunch of CG animals, Star Wars just successfully had a black lead, the Fast & Furious movies have a white guy as the minority character and make monstrous box office.

People do not care about the ethnicity of characters, they just want to be entertained.

Agreed 100%

They want us to be so simple so they can sell us content wiithout considering its quality.  I mean, even putting a fucking dragon on a cover and saying: Thats your RPG audience is a damn disgrace.   They don't even know their market or what the market wants.  We want good content period.



Soundwave on 13 May 2016
SvennoJ said:
CosmicSex said:

I have to disagree, because it makes it sound like Microsoft doesn't have faith in their developers and instead falls back on sad tired tropes.  A good game will sell itself.  Cultivate your developers and let their talent sale your games.   Also, it makes gamers look like simpleminded and thats insulting.  As a gamer, would you not buy a game because it had a black lady on the cover?  I would like to believe that most gamers will play a good game regardless of who is on the cover.    Its not the 1960s anymore.  I think they underestimate us.

Marketing doesn't want to settle for most gamers though. If most gamers don't care, then the ones that might care get targeted. Always market to the lowest common denominator.

I didn't know princess and the frog sold so badly. It's the last great hand animated Disney feature, a shame to be outsold by generic stuff like Frozen by a factor 5. Oh well, it was a great bookend to Disney's 2D animation.

The Princess & The Frog also came out at a time where 2D animation was simply not as popular as CG movies, Frozen wouldn't have done anywhere near the same box office if it was traditionally animated film (which sucks to say, but kids love their CG).

The Princess & The Frog made more money than Disney's Atlantis and Treasure Planet (both starring a white male character).



Lawlight on 13 May 2016

Always about black and white characters. Always.



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Soundwave on 13 May 2016
Lawlight said:
Always about black and white characters. Always.

Pretty sure from the sound of it MS would've vetoed Chinese/Japanese/Latino/Indian/etc. too.



Aeolus451 on 13 May 2016
Soundwave said:
Lawlight said:
Always about black and white characters. Always.

Pretty sure from the sound of it MS would've vetoed Chinese/Japanese/Latino/Indian/etc. too.

If they could ge the chinese into console gaming, the sales and $ generated from them would trump what most of the other groupscould bring to the table.



Puppyroach on 13 May 2016

But wait a second... didn't. Fable 2 come out in 2008 and The Princess and the Frog in 2009?



Soundwave on 13 May 2016
Puppyroach said:
But wait a second... didn't. Fable 2 come out in 2008 and The Princess and the Frog in 2009?

I think the article made a typo, it's supposed to be Fable III, not Fable II, because he talks about their proposed Fable IV (R-rated) pitch as well, so I'd assume all happened around the same time (Fable III wrapping production, Fable IV being pitched).



Blob on 13 May 2016

Unfortunately I agree with them on this one. It might not be pc, but putting a black female on the cover would have been a bad marketing decision.
The informed gamer would still have bought fable 2, however the average person who skims through the gaming section would probably overlook it. I'd say more to do with the gender than the skin colour though