Teamworking

I can tell you why most western games do not cater to other ethic groups is because publishers do not want to take risk on alienating their core base which is the white male gamer.  Its really not political but business.  Developers will need to take the risk and make it successful in order to change publishers mindset.

What I am actually proposing is something that get gamers, publishers and developers out of their confort zone and embrace a society that is made of more than one very limited sex and race.  This does not mean you or any woman or any different ethic group does not like the current games we play today.  I happen to love the current games we play today but I also recognize how limited they are.  RPGs have always been the area of diversity because developers what to create a character you can create and role play but even those can be character swap unles the developer wants to go beyound the template.

As to the OP, you have to remember that he is a narrative writer and he probably has come up against the very things he is talking about.  The way I see it, he is voicing his fustration with the industry that will not budge on presenting more diverse characters in games thus limiting the type of stories he would like to create.  It sounds more to me that it's these limits to what he do as a writer than making some statement about women in genral and he only use women to make his point.  The point I believe is that just catering to a small limited player base hampers the expansion of games in general and thus misses a huge untap market.  

I do not see this type of change made with big publishers because making AAA games are very risky but the indie scene is probably where you see the playground for such diversity and then once it shone that the market is there, the big money hats will go there as well.

I remember when I played morowind, and went to like the kind of RPG events and it was full with male nerds...

I remember when Halo CE released and we had an lan event with around 200 people and the only girls their were the gf's of the players...

I remember when Gears of war had an event and when I was at the event their were only two girls one was an journalist and the other one served us drinks.

I went some time ago again to an RPG fans event and the female demographic was atleast 20%..

When Halo 4 released and we had an small lan event and again atleast 20% was female with some who knew everything about the lore of the game...

And on my last Gears of war evenement their was a huge % girl players... (see sig).. it is just a pic of a few but yeah the last years we saw a big grow of female gamers.

Do you understand context.  Think about the audience of this GDC presentation and the people Tom is speaking to.  He is not speaking to consumers but developers and publishers. H doesn't have to make a statement about Kinect because developers and publishers already have dev units so they know MS stragety on that matter.  He is making a statement that developers and publishers are missing out on a market that would grow the industry and developers and publishers should embrace more diverse characters and gaming concepts to promote that growth.

Why this has anything to do with Kinect is not only silly but far reaching.  Context comes into play again when you consider that this is a narrative writer.  Yes, stating that women are core gamers where it would be good and not great to embrace them as lead characters in stories means developers must use Kinect to accomplish this task.  As a narrative writer will create his story and plot lines based on how a character jumps, flail or more in front of Kinect.

Just maybe this guy is looking for the industry he creates his work to stop putting limits on his craft and allow him and other writers to create stories that embrace different cultures from the actual culture point of view instead of the current one we see in games today.

You really need to get off this Kinect crap because it shows an agenda or just a lack of looking outside the box.  Its obvious you have embraced the notion that the next MS console will be a casual device and your comments show it but try to be objectionable.

You know what's going to sell your game? Making it interesting, innovative and enjoyable, taking care to show people footage ahead of time and marketing well.

Having a female or nonwhite character doesn't really affect the quality either way, so go for it if you like, but don't do that with the expectation that it is going to improve your game or make people love it.

Nowhere in the article is Kinect even mentioned, why the picture Kinect Joyride?

Exactly what do you consider a core gamer because most people have a different opinion.  In my opinion, a core gamer to a business is someone who regularly plays and purchase vidoe games.  Its not the type of games they play but their willingness to invest their time to playing games.  Games are an investment to business and to consumers.  If a group grows larger like women, they they would be a new core group of gamers.  

Have I heard of Bayonetta, I still play it today.  One of my favorite action beat-em up games and probably still the barometer for those types of games today.  With that said you make my point without even knowing it.  So is the question that good games do not sell on current cosoles because the majority are white males or is it that the genra that the game is made does not have enough diversity to warrant a lead character that is female.  Anyway there are a lot of reason that Bayo did not sell that great but placing it on the character will be hard.  Most games in that genra barely sell over a million and the Only one I could find based on my limited search is God of War.

Anyway, I have a Vita and played both Gravity Rush and Assasin Creed so I am doing my part :)  On another note, I do not care if the character is male or female but then again, in RPGs I do not make female character because I do not see myself female.

There was a big uproar about a Hip Hop mix with Dubstep on the Battlefield 4 demonstration video. This for me just shows how immature and intolerant is the gaming community. That just go hand to hand with machismo, xenophobia and racism on online gaming
Most of the video gamers in US that I know are anti-social and know so little about social aspects of the "real" society. I grew up playing Killer Instinct with 10 people in my living room and video game was just a fraction of what we did because we didn't like to stay at home.
I used to love GTA because Rockstar caters to a wide variety of cultures not just ethnicity. The other devs are just grown up gamers that reflect the gaming community IMO.

I think you can see from my comment who I consider core gamers. It's people who are like us in this forum - really interested in their games. It's people who drive the sales of consoles and buy them because they know what these consoles stand for and not just because "a friend told me this Wii/Kinect thing is fun" or just because everyone is buying it or cause Oprah told them to do so. It's people who will wait a whole night in front of a shop to get the next console day 1. People who play the consoles really often and play regular old-fashoned games and don't play exclusively (or mainly) games like Mario Party, Singstar or Just Dance to have fun while friends come over. If you only or almost only play games when friends come over and aren't interested in playing games when you're alone - you're a casual player. Core gamers are also people who are willing to talk about games to friends or read about games - some news or reviews, even just from time to time. To sum up - people who consider gaming as part of their lives.

Good to hear you're supporting these games and Vita :) Hope you're also going to get Bayo 2 and Gravity Rush 2 if it comes out. I don't know what the reason for poor sales of Bayo 1 is, but it clearly shows that there is no core female crowd interested in regular games more tailored towards women. Especially since Bayo seems to be the perfect character for the ladies to like. A strong, independent woman, neither a sexual object (like Lara used to be), nor just an asexual person given a female face (Samus Aran). Girls really should like her, still the sales are what they are...

I also don't care if the character is male or female, white, black (CJ and Aveline are awesome) or asian (just recently - Wei from Sleeping Dogs). I've just platinumed ACIII:L and started GR :) Still, just like you, when I create a character - he's male and white, but that's cause it's easiest for me to identify with such a character :) The only thing that's different from the template standard is blond hair and blue eyes that I also transfer from myself onto my protagonist.

come on, girls dont play games.