First off, I'm sure you've heard of how bad the marketing was for PS:T, right...?
For the casual store browser like I am, a box with a big wrinkly face on it and with the words "You have a raw animal magnetism that drives women wild" on the back isn't exactly going to get on a must buy list.
Yet, I did end up trying out the game when others claimed it was good, so before you accuse anyone of being superficial and shallow, you should put more thought into your rantings.
Somewhere along the way you managed to forget I am straightish female. I had no idea that Yuna was showing her butt on the FFX-2 cover, but hey... since you obviously took a good look what does that make you?
It makes me an average consumer. One of my female friends was put off by the front cover of Sudeki, and that was tame in comparison with FFX-2's cover. While games continue to be developed with teenage boys/men in mind, a large majority of women won't feel welcome at all. But now I'm contradicting myself because as long as third party developers et al continue to view the female (console game) market as too negligable to be worth their time, nothing will change.
If most women are "straightish" like you claim to be, the mere sight of games that predominently cater to male tastes won't be enough to drive you away when they are shoved in your face. Did you know that when it was implied that Raiden in Metal Gear Solid 2 might be a repressed homosexual, male players went absolutely berserk? I wonder when we will see anyone like him again?
The failure of PS: T to take off is, in actual fact, the symptom of a far deeper problem. What RPG introduced you to the genre? For most so-called modern-day RPG fans that RPG would have been Final Fantasy 7 even though RPGs far more worthy of anyone's time were available at the time of its release.
PS: T simply didn't meet the requirements set out by the casual gamers who have taken over the games industry. Beyond Good & Evil also flopped despite being one of the best Action/Adventure games in recent years starring none other than a female lead character.
As a hardcore Sega fan myself, I've watched the games industry change over the years, and I' almost sad to say that I hate the direction it is now going in. Ever wondered why the God-awful Final Fantasy games have become so popular? They are interactive soap operas which cater to the casual gamer's every whim. That's why.
Baldur's Gate succeeded where Planescape: Torment failed simply because Baldur's Gate balanced huge amounts of easily accessible combat with limited branching dialogue where PS: T did the complete opposite. Casual gamers generally don't have the patience to read through one branch of dialogue after another; they'd rather be hacking and slashing their way through one horde of fanged creatures drooling with venom after another instead. Even if Interplay advertised the hell out of PS: T (like Ubi Soft did with BG&E) it would have flopped anyway. We may never see anything like it again because games publishers aren't in the business of making games that don't sell. Even if PS: T sold well, there's a much larger market for Diablo-clones like Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance.
You could argue that making the Nameless One a female in the beginning would have drawn more attention to the game, but men generally don't want to role play females characters (with very few exceptions like FFX-2 where the female lead characters are barely dressed porn stars), which is why the main characters in most Japanese RPGs are almost always male.
PS:T was written for a male Nameless One. But that doesn't mean that the immortal can't be a female...
As you are no doubt already aware, aside from obvious physical differences, men and women think differently. For example, men tend to be innately aggressive which gives them all the incentive they need to wage war on each other, while women tend to be innately compassionate. I can see a woman doing everything the Nameless One did, but it simply wouldn't be the same.
Could you see Tyler Durden as a woman? Would a female Fight Club be believable?
In the game world itself, I didn't see the streets littered with male prostitutes, did you?
As far as I'm concerned, the now defunct Black Isle Studios shouldn't have to make apologies for not giving players the option to play as a female character.
One final point: Longius please MODIFY your language. Calling people shallow on a public forum, with no real knowledge of them, or a true understanding of their opinions, is not only wrong, but disgraceful. Please add a little RESPECT to your language, because even if you aren't offending others, you are offending me. It doesn't take much. Your views are as valid as anyone else's, and posting them is fine, but don't drag the character of those who you disagree with into the debate, please.
My choice of words is actually rather subdued when compared to the violent language some posters have unleashed on others here in the past.
Personally, I feel that the Infinity Engine modding community has always been way too liberal for its own good. The people here take pride in it being a diverse community, but truth be told, you have to lean quite far to the left of the political spectrum to tolerate the vast majority of ideas that are conceived in this place.
Yes, let's make the Nameless One a woman, and make all of his female traveling companions bisexual! Jesus, what's the point? I can understand not wanting to role play a male character, but not all female players will want to role play a gay/bisexual female character either.
