Female marines too much like hard work for Gordon Van Dyke producer of Battlefield: Bad Company 2

I hate to say this next bit, but ‘there’s an interesting article up over at Kotaku’. Yeah I know, not something we write here often given it’s generally laced with some sort of sexist overtones, but hey, credit where it’s due. Oddly enough I think it was Stephen Totilo from Kotaku who we mentioned wrote an interesting article one other time as well, so it’s nice to know they have one staffer who isn’t afraid to write something about women without it including the word boobies or jubblies in it. Totilo fleshes out his article to good effect and even begins it by pointing out the cold hard facts, that women are in the military and are in conflict. Gordon Van Dyke, producer of the new Electronic Arts modern warfare game Battlefield: Bad Company 2 though has one of the lamest excuses in history as to why there are no women in his game and it has to do with money and technology. I’m not going to write a lengthy post here, based on a lengthy post there as that is just doubling up what you’ll need to read. Totilo’s post sadly though does little to examine the overall sexism inherent in the technology excuse, which is a shame. Instead it ends by merely posing the question: “Do female characters need to be put in virtual combat? Or, more to the point, are they more important than crumbling walls?” The answer is YES they need to be put in and if a developer can’t work out how to get the walls to crumble AND have female models, he needs to go back to other developers who seem to manage both rather well. As for the “unless gamers would want their virtual female soldiers to run and move like men.” comment, well a female character doesn’t have to wiggle when she walks, it’s not like women walk THAT different to men, especially when laden down with military gear.

• Via [Kotaku].