Microsoft Vetoed A Black Woman On Cover For Fable II

[SvennoJ]

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.