Q: Is gender inclusive game design important?
A: Yes.

For anyone familiar with my blog, you’ll know already that I take the above answer as a given in most of my posts. But today I got an e-mail from my sister. She’s taking an Online Games Seminar for her law degree (you know, if they had more classes like that I might be persuaded to go to law school after all…) and gave me a link to one of her required readings: Playing with Fire: When Advergaming Backfires.

Her request? That I write a short blurb on whether or not I think it’s okay to have avatars of only one sex in a game without a darn good reason. The short answer to that is, of course, is that I think it not only ruins gameplay (for women and men who like and respect women), but it also reinforces the “no girls allowed” message that we find in so many places in society.

Since I can never just be short and leave it at that, my long answer is behind the cut. Continue reading