Video Game Insider Says Devs Changed His Attractive Character Pitches
An insider in the video game industry has confirmed what many gamers have been saying for quite a while. Del Walker is a “principal game artist” who has worked for companies like Naughty Dog, Rocksteady, and Respawn and on games such as Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Batman: Arkham Origins, Batman: Arkham Knight, The Last of Us Part II: Remastered, and everyone’s new favorite, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. Earlier today, Walker made a few X posts talking about how some of his pitched video game characters were changed so much that they barely resembled his original concepts – specifically attractive black women:
https://twitter.com/TheCartelDel/status/1803034803261890860
https://twitter.com/TheCartelDel/status/1803046843611578579
Walker makes another post saying his statements are being “warped,” but I’m not sure how that can happen. He’s pretty clear in those posts: the developers don’t seem to want attractive black women in their games. And we’ve all seen that, but not just with black women – with all women. And we don’t need to look for other game artists like Walker for proof; we all know what Mary Jane Watson looked like in the comics and other visual mediums before the new Spider-Man games dowdied her up. Lara Croft’s last few incarnations have downgraded her previously sexy look to make her less appealing to the male gaze, lest we think Tomb Raider games are supposed to be fun. And the new Perfect Dark game has made Joanna Dark much less glamorous, eschewing the classic spy fantasy aesthetic for something more acceptable to perpetually offended college activist groups, which are totally the audience for Perfect Dark.
And Walker is absolutely right when he says, “There is room for both.” Not every character needs to be a sex bomb; some are better with a look more suited to their role in the game or the story. To hop out of video games for a moment, as much as I like the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies, I don’t care for them making Aunt May attractive; it’s the wrong aesthetic for the character, and all that really came of it was that romance with Happy Hogan, which was mostly played for laughs anyway. In the video game world, the original Perfect Dark had Joanna facing an evil corporation (and… more as the game went on) headed by Cassandra de Vries, whose look was a typical rigid businesswoman; she contrasted with the sexier, more feminine Joanna, which made her a distinct character and helped identify her as the villain. A similar character is Nicole Horne in Max Payne, the head of the evil pharmaceutical company who is an older woman who looks like she’s spent her life in boardroom meetings, hardening her heart to the suffering she causes. On the other hand, Mona Sax is a femme fatale, and she shows that with her sultry looks and swagger, swinging her hips and parting her lips as though she leaped out of a hard-boiled detective novel along with Max.
But it can’t all be on one side, especially when it’s the toned-down one. Then, the games stop being fun escapist fantasy; you can feel the developers lecturing you through their characters, daring you to say something about how none of the women are attractive. And, as the reeling gaming industry is learning, the way gamers speak is with their wallets.
Comments (2)
This is why Ai will takeover. Ai makes more beautiful people. I watch Ai trailers of various movies set in like the 50s and the people look stunning.
The vast majority of people in gamedev don’t actually do any work. Project managers, concept artists, writers, massive swathes of QA staff. The tech industry just got so big with so much money they decided to start doing social engineering. They wanted to empower people and hire based on demograhpics so they started inventing positions. Then once all these game companies were filled with intersectionals and those who kissed their rings, they could inject all their socialst brain washings into their products, they didn’t even have to invest or have creative control, they simply created financial hardships on companies that didn’t toe their line… they control all the storefronts after all. It’s a bunch of people playing house, pretending to do quality work, pretending to create systems that make quality games, everyone faking it till they make it and valueing the ass kissers and brown nosers who will blow smoke up each others’ asses and safegaurd one anothers worthless jobs over quality. It’s partly why they’re so idiologically driven, if they didn’t believe everyoe around them was evil, they’d have no purpose in their lives. They sit around at their desk, watch youtube all day and upvote Michelle Obama videos while looking down on their racist, biggoted customers and canceling and getting fired any coworkers that aren’t hard left. It’s been satisfying watching this industry burn to the ground and I have little feelings of remorse for these liars, fakes, and back stabbers.