Jane Jensen, creator of the Gabriel Knight series and upcoming PC adventure Gray Matter, reckons so. “In general, people don’t want characters that insult their intelligence. As women become a bigger force in the consumer market their choices will influence the kinds of games that are made - including gameplay interaction and puzzle types, the types and amount of story and also the characters - male and female alike.
“If you think about it, female gamers probably have different tastes in their male characters than male gamers do. An ideal model would be like mainstream TV or film where you have characters that can appeal to both genders - sexy and smart and also be real people.” Females in games tend to be divided between ditsy bimbos and violent sluts, or scary deformed nurses that make boys say “ooh,” then “ew,” and then feel all confused.
