One individual or group might believe his view/point is superrior to that of the artist (which makes the game,) but that doesn't say it actually is. The artist must produce within the boundaries in the law, but not including a race in a game isn't by defenition racism or discrimination, unless that person says I didn't put a female gay black etc. in my game because I hate them. In this case the artist remains superior since he has the power to do whatever he thinks is best for the game. I f a certain individual is not going to play it, that would be his loss as sometimes forcing a certain character in a game negatively affects the story and reviews resulting in more then one thousand less copies sold.

If the artist simply says this type of character didn't fit in my vision of this product, he shouldn't be (profesionally) critisized for that, that some action groups do, that is there right but an artist shouldn't be in any right obligated to bow for them and addapthis work to their vision. Imagine a God of war with censored boobs or a partly black cast in lord of the rings or partly white Africans in Resident Evil 5 (oh wait they did do that). By adding things that seemingly don't belong there, you get kicked out a game which sucked you in at first. Sure later on you get sucked in again, but why should we get kicked out in the first place, an atmosphere must seem natural at all times. Having some races which don't belong somewhere is almost  as bad as putting a rainbow and colourful flowers in a Bloodborne area.

if we take lord of the rings for example a black elf, or even Aragon, Boromir, Frodo being black would be disturbing at fist, we might grow to love or hate them but at first everyone would be a bit dazzled for the first 10 minutes, which is something an artist shouldn't want to. Games are eventually an art form and at no point art should be restricted to political corectness which would limit the hard fought freedom of western countries in which most devs are making games anyway. So even if a group might think they have to by law and otherwise they are discriminating, we can still say they are luckily not. 

I disagree with your notion that discrimination is inhumane. Discrimination is a required filter to help our brains process the extremely complex world out there. Everybody discriminates, and there's no point in trying to fight that. Honestly, the only way to properly reduce a type of discrimination is to spend a large amount of time with the group that you're discriminating against.

Before going to Uni, I had all kinds of prejudices against Middle Easterners (mostly negative, I will admit), however, most of my new friends at Uni came from that part of the world, and those prejudices melted away. Similar thing happened when I emigrated to Hong Kong (though my prejudices weren't necessarily negative to begin with... basically, after moving to HK, I realised that there's as many fucking idiots and dolts here as there was back home, whereas I always had had this impression that Chinese were like these super-humans who could excel in anything that they do.*)

On one hand, sticking people of different races or whatever into games could help to "melt" that prejudice for some people. But, here's the thing: there ARE differences between people, and between groups of people. People are not random events, and they are molded by the culture that they grew up in. There's a habit in media to depict everybody as "normal" (ie, a straight, white person), no matter what race or sexuality they are, in a hope to be "politically correct". I don't think this is helpful at all, and, frankly, can be quite offensive in itself.

When looking at video games though, whether a character is gay or straight or a different race or whatever doesn't have that much impact on the overall game. Disability will effect the playable characters (sometimes awesomely.... I'm looking at you, Sly Trilogy), but no effect for the player for NPC's. If it makes some people out there feel better about themselves, to feel included, to see that in games, I don't see why not. I just very much doubt that they'll be an accurate representation, so don't expect it to be beneficial in "teaching" society.

* Actually, the difference is, their culture just celebrates the super talented far more than our culture does.

I think you're misunderstanding the debate. The question is more "is being forced to include certain demographics for the sake of having those demographics" restricting creativity?

The very definition of creative freedom is that the creator can put whatever and leave out whatever they want. Saying you can do this, but must also have that, restricts creativity.

I still don't see how sexuality is even a factor in most games though. Is Mario straight or gay? How would you ever know this? Same for such as Link. Unless the game has a sex scene you don't really know and it doesn't come into it. Even a same sex relationship could be 2 bisexual characters for example. Its just irrelevant to most games.

I think this is very important - unless a character acts like the homosexual stereotype, we all just assume they're straight (unless its stated somewhere ofc). In general though, we really have no idea. You could claim that most games have homosexual characters and say that straight people aren't included enough. :)

1.  I just answered the question.  Sounds like some other people are debating a different question.  The question asked if catering to women, homosexuals and minorities restricts creative freedom.  No, it does not.  The creator may do so without "being forced to include certain demographics for the sake of having those demographics".   Acknowledging the broader audience does not manifestly require that males, heterosexuals and the majority be removed from the equation and said acknowledgement is not indicative that the creator was "forced" to do so.  

2.  The creator may cater to women, homosexuals and minorities without having been forced to "do this, but must also have that".  As you said, the creator can put in whatever.  That very well may cater to women, homosexuals and minorities.

3.  This is irrelevant to what I said.

My answer remains unchanged.

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

Not one iota as much as catering to the stereotypical white heterosexual male teenage gamer.

1.math is hard and you dont learn it in gender studies or popculture critic curses at college.

2. im talking in a language i teached myself, i never learned english at school or college.

You're answering the thread title, rather than what the thread itself is discussing though. So your answer is irrelevant to the thread in that case.

From OP: Using threats and false accusations is the tactic of a bully. This is why developers are beginning to feel pressured to include females, homosexuals and minorities in their games, even though creatively, they may never have intended to do so. That I believe, is infringing on the creative freedom of game developers and it should be exposed for what it is.

3. wasn't aimed at you, that was my thoughts.

"If the issue is simply us not getting what we want, then we should not accuse. What we should do is judge the person’s actions/motives and see if the individual is discriminating. If the individual is found guilty, we should act immediately because no one has the creative right to discriminate."

As we can clearly see, you may not have read my article thoroughly, despite my urging for all readers to do so. If you did, you would not have taken my statement in a vacuum.

1. The thread title is the subject of discussion for it is that which the OP tries to answer.  If an attempt to answer the question is irrelevant to the thread, then the thread has veered off-topic rather disastrously.   

2. That is a rather illogical train of thought and, in addition, erroneously suggests that acknowledgement of women, homosexuals and minorities in games is the result of coercion.  The end product, creatively, may have intended to acknowledge women, homosexuals and minorities from the get-go without such ambitions being owed to threats, false accusations, etc.  

3. Ah.  Gotcha.