Also, from one of the best FPS of all time 

Like I said. Gamers/consumers aren't the ones who care about this stuff. It's marketing/"suits" who's job it is to take the risk out of anything that object to anything.

The funny thing is a large portion of the gaming community I'm pretty sure is black/latino/asian and most of the white audience is cool with anyone on the cover. Just make a good freaking game.

"I was going to buy that game, but this one has a white person on the cover so I'll buy this one" .... said no gamer ever, and if there was one he/she is just an asshole that's a tiny, tiny, tiny minority.

And how did it sell compared to the normal walking dead?  That's going to be their lame argument.

Wow... this makes it sound like Lionhead had a really bad relationship with microsoft.

Oh noes !!! The normal walking dead had a black man as main protagonist, and a little black girl as a secondary character !!!! White representation is threatened !

Love how everyone is taking this guys word for it. He's an EX employee. There's two sides to every story people. I highly doubt he's going to give the marketing guys he clearly disagrees with a fair shake. Also, his argument for having a black woman is just as retarded as his argument for NOT having one. Communicating the idea of "you can be anyone" would imply you would want a *generic* face so as not to have there be an "official" protagonist people feel like they are departing from. A black woman is immediately recognized by most people as being something significantly more specific than a white male because black females are generally a small minority in western cultures. That's not being racist, that's just doing the math.

And there's a reason, BTW, that marketing departments exist and why devs *don't run them*. Most game developers (and creators in general) are terrible businessmen and not great marketers either.

Also, you people keep talking about informed consumers who don't care about the covers and ads cause they do their research and care about the game.  Marketing doesn't care about them.  They know they'll get those consumers.  They care about the larger portion that DON'T research.

Last week? Battleborn.

Edit:

Also, Assassin's Creed Chronicles, Republique, UFC 2, Tales from the Borderlands. All from the new releases section of ebgames.com.au.

This goes both ways - plenty of people are assholes who say that they'll support a game simply because the character is a minority.

You, I, and we may hate decisions people make, but at the end of the day it isn't our company, it is their company. Companies should be able to run themselves however they see fit, regardless of how much it insults people. If people don't like it, then simply don't buy their product.

For example, I haven't shopped at Target since they announced their transgender bathroom policy, because I don't feel comfortable going to a place that values the physical safety of my wife less than the emotional safety of an incredibly small portion of the human population. But they are a business, one that I have no ownership of, so they should be entitled to do whatever they want to do. I, as a consumer, am entitled to not give my business to them.

If Microsoft only wants white men, or only wants Chinese girls, or whatever other random combination of race/gender/age, that is their decision to make. I have no stock in their company.

Unfortunately when it comes to video games white dudes on covers help to sell games and black people and women don't. I mean there are exceptions, but even Naughty Dog was nervous about having Ellie prominent on the cover and Joel in the background, because they KNOW that sort of thing normally isn't good marketing for video games.