80 Days developer says depiction of women in games is ‘a disaster’

The creative director of iOS hit 80 Days has lashed out at the typical depiction of female characters in most modern games.

Telling Develop that the situation was a disaster” Jon Ingold blamed what he described as the circular logic” of execs using sales data as evidence that male-led titles are a sounder commercial proposition.

Multiply that by an astronomical budget, and it starts to look like lead females will costs hundreds of thousands of dollars – not in animation cost, but in actual lost revenue,” he stated.

I imagine Hollywood does exactly the same calculation when creating big budget movies. It’s irrefutable logic, and also, complete madness.”

Ingold is not hopeful about any immediate improvement, either.

I think any exceptions – The Last of Us: Left Behind DLC, or Tomb Raider, or Beyond – will be seen as proof that female leads are a risk,” he added. But then, all the interesting narrative stuff is being done outside triple-A now, because the same sales logic is also forcing games to be gun focused and driving focused, and guns and driving don’t make for very interesting narratives.

Hell, people praised Joel from the Last of Us as being an unconventional lead, which just shows how narrow the distribution is,” he said.