If for some reason you’re not already annoyed enough with Activision-Blizzard right now, GIbiz has a new piece up that digs into problems that faced Activision 10 years ago – specifically, sexism – and attempts to determine whether the company has improved in the ensuing years. Back then, the company was under fire for allegedly telling developers of True Crime: Hong Kong to “lose the chick” – an accusation Activision denied but was nevertheless evident in its actual roster of games and lack of female representation in lead roles at the time as well as over the last decade.
GIbiz’s Brendan Sinclair doesn’t pull any punches on his recap.
“To put it bluntly, that’s not a great track record. But Activision apparently took the criticism in stride, formulated a plan, and went on to ignore women even more in the decade ahead. Since 2011, we’ve only identified four Activision games fronted by female characters, all of them licensed properties. In October of 2012, Activision released Bratz Fashion Boutique and Lalaloopsy: Carnival of Friends for the 3DS on the same day and kicked up its heels on the women in games front for a couple years. In October of 2014, it released The Legend of Korra multiplatform action game and its 3DS strategy game counterpart a couple weeks apart from one another. That’s been it for Activision games and female protagonists.”
While the piece does acknowledge that Activision games like Destiny (no longer under Activision) and Call of Duty: Ghosts include women in multiplayer modes, it hasn’t actually “built an original game around a woman protagonist.” Sinclair also notes that part of the problem here is that Activision has cut way back on the games that it actually makes period, creating even fewer chances for female representation in lead roles in a “fewer, bigger, better” mandate.
If that sounds familiar to Massively OP readers, it’s because we’ve been talking about this phenomenon in the MMORPG market specifically, most notably in our piece on multiplex monotony and the death of the mid-budget MMORPG, which describes MMO publishers’ aversion to funding anything but blockbuster titles over the same time period.
It hasn’t been a good week for sexism in gaming in general; yesterday, E3 was roasted by gaming social media for approvingly tweeting out an ill-advised Parade listicle with the games women are supposedly playing right now. The list was basically stereotype city, or at least it was before Parade took it down, and rightly so. E3 eventually deleted its tweet and apologized too. But folks, the damage from screw-ups like this lasts.
I don’t want to give the article or tweet any more attention, but if you’re wondering why people are unhappy with the E-three post about online games women play, here’s an amuse bouche: pic.twitter.com/OCSk9qkVUV
— Julie Nathanson (@Julie_Nathanson) August 18, 2020
