"I would imagine anyone from a demographic that's consistently ignored by the vast majority of the game industry is an "outsider looking in"."

No, as there is a difference between someone who is a gamer who is annoyed by this, and someone who is into gaming/video game journalism in order to make a point regarding gender. The latter seem over-represented. The article at hand is an excellent example of this.

"This is outright untrue as I can think of numerous people that would agree that there needs to be more diversity in game protagonists that are none of what you described."

Then how come articles calling for this to happen primarily appear on feminist gaming blogs instead of mainstream outlets? The latter may discuss it, but rarely do they actually advocate the points of the feminist or homosexual movements.

"I have. There's literally no way you could've avoided the discussion surrounding Tomodachi Life. I've found it tiresome myself to play as yet another straight/white guy."

Actually, I have been able to avoid the entire discussion. I heard about it through American outlets such as this one (because this whole straight/white privilege farce seems to be the current fad in some American cities), but the few people here who actually knew about it dismissed it as a non-discussion.

It's sad, but not something I'm going to lose sleep over.

The only thing that bugs me is that I can never play Mario Kart Wii online again. Did a few online races last week as a sort of goodbye, and I had a great time. I hope Mario Kart 8 can fill this gap.

That's curious, because the people raising these issues are nearly always 'outsiders looking in' who profile themselves as writers on 'gender' and other such issues, who write about games only to be able to push their views into this playing field. The only exception I could think of was Carolyn Petit's abomination of a review on GTA 5.

I have literally never heard a female or gay gamer (so an actual gamer, not someone who primarily advocates feminism) complain that they couldn't play as a female or gay character in whatever game.

No, gender studies drop-outs care.

You see, this is exactly the problem with feminists trying to shove their propaganda into the gaming community. In the end, their sole interest lies in forwarding a political agenda. The only reason they concern themselves with games is because they think there is ground to gain in this community. Fortunately, the gaming community has cared very little for their selfish objectives in the past, but now that gaming as an activity is starting to become more and more mainstream, feminists (and other politically motivated pseudo-academics) once again try to win souls by spamming the internet their thinly veiled propaganda.

The problem? It's obvious that, in the end, they don't give a crap about games. This quote from the article makes it so obvious: "Unfortunately, Aiden Pearce's cookie-cutter image keeps it from becoming the incredible game Watch Dogs could have been." In other words, her personal ideological objections motivate her to declare that Watch Dogs will not be a great game, before it is even released to the public.

Just to clarify, I am against this anti-intellectual "it's just a game" attitude, as I'm convinced that games do have certain cultural implications that may exercise certain influences, positive or negative, over the people that play them. But even if I think the portrayal of Russians as video game bad guys is undesirable, and even if I think that the depiction of World War 2 (and war in general) in video games is downright foolish, I still recognise that the games that are guilty of presenting such elements may still be great in their own right. Why? Because at the end of the day I like playing video games. These people do not; they are merely interested in imposing their supposedly superior moral standards upon you, and that is why you should ignore as much as possible anything they have to say.

I was wondering this as well, but it would seem so, yes:

http://www.neoseeker.com/forums/62617/t2006052-single-player-vs-mode/

EDIT: more confirmation:

http://www.autoblog.com/2014/05/16/mario-kart-8-w-video/

"Single Player mode offers Grand Prix, Time Trials, VS Race, and Battle play."

So that's great news. :)

Away, not caring enough about video games.

When I read hilarious crap like this, I'm just glad I don't live in America, where, by the looks of things, permanently outraged blowhards expect each and every medium to shove their political propaganda down everyone's throats.

Are you trying to shoehorn your pseudo-scientific gender studies drop-out lingo into Mario Kart?

If so, stop trying to shoehorn your pseudo-scientific gender studies drop-out lingo into Mario Kart.

Mario Kart 64, at least in my country, was (and arguably still is) wildly popular regardless of skill level. It wasn't more difficult to be decent at it. Haven't got a clue where you got that idea from.