Is Catering To Women, Homosexuality and Minorities Restricting Game Developers' Creative Freedom?

[teigaga]

I'd like think its the opposite in that devs actually open up their horizons and don't just follow a rigid formula, but it will of course very by case

The worst case of this in recent memory actually came from the dude bros forcing Suckerpunch to change the design for Infamous 2's character because they thought he looked "gay". I thought suckerpuch submitting and literally changing the character entirely+voice actor was so weak. I wasn't in love with what they revealed at E3 but I want devs to follow their own creative ambitions. Would have actually loved for them to go for one of their earlier more "riske" designs with the platinum hair.



Back to your specific point, In some cases omitting certain things isn't down to "creative freedom" as much as oversight/not caring. I mean people are allowed to complain about lack of beards in character creation so why can't we ask for gender/race/sexuality options too? Sometimes development teams simply aren't diverse enough for these things to really arise as meaningful question. Fable is one of those games where the lack of character freedom made no sense, your character never speaks, has no personality, can marry men+women. has completely customizable attire but you can't be female or black in spite of their being black+female character assets in the game. That to me seems like oversight, something the developer simply couldn't be bothered to address.

If the dev made their game being very self aware, conscious and forthright of their choices in what they're offering and what they're not offering, then power to them!....but I'm not sure how often that is the case. And people should be vocal about changes they want to see, but again devs shouldn't feel forced into it and should have some backbone.

Underlying the question in the OP, is actually another more interesting quetstion.

Is feeling that they must first cater to white, heterosexual males restricting developers creative freedom?