Anyone else chuckle at that guy's story? "A black woman on the cover means you can be anyone you want!" How does that even make any sense? If you want people to think they can be different characters then you put different characters on the cover, not just one. His entire argument sounds kind of silly.

I used to do the ordering for a video store. When people are browsing, they're drawn to titles that are marketed toward them. That's a fact of life and common sense. I've seen it a billion times. It's why we had minority led titles grouped together--not because it's what WE wanted but because it's what the CUSTOMER wanted. Is a black person who rents four movies about black people being racist? No, they're just drawn to material they feel reflects them personally. With a game like Fable, the marketing people were marketing toward the group they feel would buy the most units. I see nothing controversial about that.

Developers might be the ones making it, but the publishers are the ones paying for it. They're the ones on the hook for lost sales if having a black woman on the cover resulted in the game selling less. That's why it's their call.

I like the responses to this post a lot more than the story itself. 

I think the developers point is that black women are not often protrayed as heroes in games/movies as such the point would be that anyone can be a hero which is representative of a key feature in the game.

The marketing people often don't know shit either. Today's audience doesn't care about this stuff, if a game is good they'll buy it. The best selling game of the last several years is Grand Theft Auto V (which is going to sell like 50 billion copies at this rate) which has had playable black lead characters.

Not trying to defend the merketers in the article just commenting on the black James Bond thing.
I think it's annoying when characters who are already established are changed. I wouldn't want a black James Bond for the same reasons that I don't want a white Blade.

It's almost as if video game development is a business where the primary objective is profit

And the same reasoning could be used for any localization choice that people seem so discontent with, like changing outfits to be more more appealing to a broader group, to get the rating they want, or to avoid controversy. Those are all marketing and calculated business decisions as well.

We can't have it both ways. Either you accept that this is a business and they'll sacrifice artistic liberty for the sake of profit, or you condemn these actions for putting these choices in the hands of people that have no part in the creative process.

I don't care which. I'm just annoyed by the hypocrisy I'm seeing (not directed to you in particular, since I don't know your opinion on censorship). 

I wouldn't have much of a problem with a black Bond, simply because there's been varying Bond's already, some are Irish, Scottish, British, Australian different hair color, totally different physical looks and the character had been rebooted several times to change with the times. It depends on the actor too, Idris Elba as Bond I would have no problem with. If James Bond is simply a MI6 agent from modern Britain, then him being black in the modern context is not really unbelievable.

It depends too how much the ethnicity of the character is relevant to the character as well ... like the Prince of Persia ... not looking Persian is kind of problematic, lol.

If I remember reading that part correctly, the marketing firm their were working with was not part of MS. It was just a company they hired to help them get the project done. Either way, I am sure all marketing firms are pretty much the exact same way. Marketing cares nothing about the product instead its concerned about reaching the most consumers within a target market which definitely goes against creative development.

I haven't watched many Bond movies, but I always took the concept of Bond being more alias than person.  Like, agent 007 is James Bond and that is it.  If that agent dies, another rises to take his place.  If it were a female it would probably just be changed to Jane Bond but still be 007.

Is there anything in the movie continuity that debunks that?

Also, random factoid, when I worked at a Chinese food restaurant when someone wanted chicken fingers the order went through to the kitchen as 007.