That's probably a good thing though, I think there's a sweet spot in game budgets where the budget is small enough that it can rely only on a niche audience, but large enough that it has decent production values. When games get really huge AAA budgets, they have to make the game more simple to appeal to a broader audience to pay for the expanded cost of the budget.

AAA games are always going to be horrible shit because they are targeted at the broadest audience, they are the McDonald's and Reality Television of video games. The same reason mainstream music, television and movies are (mostly) horrible shit.

That's good. If they were making games they hate, I can't seem they would be good games.

But if you want to believe batallions of peopple hired by Ubisoft, Activision, Rockstar, EA don't know what they're doing, it's your free choice. But the numbers of the games sold made by those companies grow every year.

The same people say about Hollywood - "they don't know what they're doing! the same movies every year, shitty blockbusters made for idiots!". And somehow stupid movies like that earn more and more money every year.

I don't understand why people like you want so much to be a part of the mainstream, anyway. I don't listen to mainstream music, I don't watch most of the mainstream cinema, I don't care about most of mainstream games. Why do you?

Oh LOL. Every year or so another one of these crops up. I'm waiting for the *really* big news, when male gamers realize that duh, lots of women play games too.

Exactly, but that doesn't mean "they don't know what they're doing". They know exactly what they're doing, and the numbers prove they are correct. That doesn't mean you have to like what they're doing. In the industry what's good and what's wrong is a difference between what's giving profits and what is not.

And I will gladly stick to my "niche" games, occasionaly playing some AAA game.

The same kind of discussion was made on GOG about DRM over and over again. Many claimed that "people prefer DRM Free! and the industry doesn't know about it", when the reality is, most of the gamers don't care.

To believe video games are made like that because CEOs are racist is among the stupidest things you've ever said. I hope you know what you're saying is racist as well.

"It's obvious why they don't put coloured people on the lead, because CEOs are white" is pretty damn racist.

Well than I am sorry for saying that, and I apologize.

I don't feel offended, but I don't like when people accuse someone of racism while being racist themselves. I know you didn't do that intentionally, so don't worry. And I am sorry for my harsh words towards you.

I can't give you a good answer why in most games the lead is still generic white male in his thirties. Maybe industry is aferaid to change. You know, they figured out that generic male leads in their tihrties are what is a safe bet, and they are just afriad to risk their money and change.

As long as those game are keep selling well, it's gonna be hard to change.

Television is changing, gladly, and there are more and more new movies and TV shows that cast black leads and it didn't kill them. But it took years for them to realize casting a black lead acotr, or a female actress as a lead is not a risk at all.

Believe me, I hope as much you do, that's going to change.

edit: as for GTA... Well, Rockstar is a band of retards. I am almost 100% positive that in GTA5 most women will be portrayed as naive, stupid, slutty, annoying etc etc. I know that for sure, because even though they made 3 leads this time, there still is not a single lady among them. But well, maybe the mainstream GTA audience are retards too, because GTA5 will be a major sales hit regardless of how misogynistic their game will be. ( please ignore this side rant :P)

Just so you know what I mean was that it's not that game developers and CEOs are racist, I meant that they don't seemknow how to make a realistic average non white person without falling to sterotypes.

And lets not forget that there is some racism in gaming, I mean look at online gaming, it even happened to me, I was playing Counter Strike Global Offensive and one guy called me a Mexican and I speak Mexican :P

There is, but just as you've noticed, most of this is not intentional. I am sick and tired of playing as the same dude over again (it's one of the many reasons why I'm sick of AAA games in general), and whenever the game gives me a chance, I usually play as a woman :P

So Elmofongo.... do you think the Avatar was white?

I know that yes and again I said I apologzed, I realized what I said was racist and I learned my lesson.

I just liked the image of a guy turning his head like that.

Lol wut.... I wasn't having a go at you man

Nah, it was mostly misunderstanding. I thought you said that because CEOs are white, thus they don't want to create anybody but white people in their games. And you didn't mean that. Don't worry about that anymore.

Although, when you think about it, depiction of white male with short brown hair in his thirties is pretty stereotypical as well.

You're moving the goal posts and making a new argument now, which is fine. The original point of contention was that saying "50% of gamers are women" is useless unless you break that down and define what it means. You told me breaking it down was pointless. Now all of a sudden you meant they have that data from elsewhere? I'm not stupid, I know that, I was talking about THIS STUDY.

As for genres being irrelevant and only "content" mattering, I couldn't disagree more. As discussed a couple pages ago a lot of the difference between casual games and "core" games is often rooted in investment, both mental and time. That's rooted in genre, it's probably the biggest definer of the casual genre, to be honest. You could break a game like Skyrim down into two minute chunks that don't take much attention to complete but then it wouldn't be Skyrim anymore, it wouldn't be an open world RPG anymore, it would be something else. Genre is at the core of the difference between games men appreciate and women appreciate.