@Smokescreened84, read your blog and commented. Though I stand by my point. Equality is a term often thrown around when people should be saying "special treatment". You are unfortunately in a minority of the market, and demanding that you be catered to as much as for the majority means that you want your voice to matter more than the rest. That is not equality. You are in a very sad situation, and I sympathize, but as I said in my comment on your blog, you play games for a vastly different reason than most.

@Smokescreened84, that's exactly what I mean - stop yelling for someone else to do it, you're not going to be heard with the market the way it is. Change isn't going to happen as long as there is a large majority of male gamers, end of story. It has nothing to do with "growing up" or "perceived sexism", it's a pure result of capitalism: publishers want to make money, and they only bet on a sure thing. Do you honestly think that Mirror's Edge having a female lead had ANYTHING to do with its success or failure? Even if it had a male lead, or if it allowed you to choose, I will bet you it would have had the exact same result. None of the reviews I read ever said anything like "If only it had a male lead". My biggest question: Why on earth do you care whether you can pick your gender or not?! I don't give two shakes whether a game allows me to choose the gender of the lead character. I play a game because of the experience or adventure I feel like having, if I want to race I grab Motorstorm, if I want to shoot someone in the face I go for Bad Company 2, if I want strategy I'll play Shogun 2. In Borderlands I play as Lilith because I like her stealth abilities and high damage. It has nothing to do with whether I play a male/female character. Who's fault is it that there's about 50 more types of shoes for women than there are for men? Is that sexist? Should we write up articles about how women should change the fashion industry to include men in equal amounts?

@Smokescreened84, the problem is that any female gamer who doesn't buy it because of that lack of choice just does not put enough of a dent in the bottom-line to warrant spending extra time to allow for a female choice (Think extra voice-acting, script and joke adaptations, custom look and outfits, additional testing). Sorry, but the only way the gaming industry is going to adapt to a more equal setup is if women actively try to change it. As the article says, the AAA section is already so damn risk-averse they won't take a single step into the 'unproven', so you'll have to. All-in-all I think it's pointless to complain about the current situation if you're just sitting around waiting for "someone else" to fix it for you. Stop trying to separate games from other entertainment forms, I've yet to hear a single complaint about Stephen King using mostly male leads, or how there's a clear stereotype about action movies and "chick flicks". And keep the story and setting in mind as well, as it will be the determining factor in whether there will be choice or not. I still remember nearly falling off my chair laughing because a woman was complaining that The Witcher didn't allow her the choice of a female lead (In case you didn't know, the game is based on a book).

@PenguinIzzy, Hahaha, wow, that was one entertaining post! But I feel like I should apologize, you see, I DO have control over my hands, which explains why I scored 45 on my MCAT. I'm also a neurosurgeon, with an elevated interest and intricate understanding of quantum science, fluent in 30 languages and a 6 figure IQ. I managed to cure cancer years ago, but a particular fund that shall not be named bought out my research and is paying me on a monthly basis to keep mum on the subject. PS - I have also declined a Nobel prize in science. PPS - Just because you can type it, doesn't make it true. It must be such a blow to your over-inflated ego when you realize you have to resort to pseudo-intellectual bragging and insults as opposed to keeping to the discussion. You only speak to others on your level? In that case you should probably strike up a conversation with a wall. But then again, the wall probably has more sense than to think that a delusional braggart could provide any kind of intelligent conversation. I guess you're out of luck. Have fun in your thoughts, I'm sure they must be quite entertaining.

@PenguinIzzy It seems you misunderstood my analogy, you were talking about 5700 people downloading Pong, I just pulled that back into perspective because that is a disproportionate example. As an aside, I was also talking about piracy and lost sales, not cheating. And I agree, the cheaters are a pain in the ass, but that's not Hotz doing it, it's the people cheating. Does anybody hunt down the person who taught the latest drunk driver to drive and blame them for the accident? Or how about the car salesman who provided the car? Or the liquor store that sold the alcohol? Or was the drunk driver at fault? We have cheaters in MW2 on PC as well, strange how another game doesn't suffer that much from cheaters (And they even allow dedicated servers run by the public). Might it be that laziness on the developers'/publisher's side have helped the situation? Sure, it's not the developers'/publisher's fault that people are cheating, but I'm pretty sure that you still lock your house when you go off to work, even though it wouldn't be your fault if your stuff was stolen. In any case, how is anything I've said 'wrong' by your standards? And I do own a PS3. I just said I'm primarily a PC gamer, doesn't mean that I don't own a console. :)

Just because you CAN pirate a game, doesn't mean you automatically WILL. I'm primarily a PC gamer, and even though I could download any game under the sun without paying for it (Because the PC is an open platform) doesn't mean that I do. If you could have a look at my collection, you'll see that the only pirated games I have are abandonware, stuff I cannot actually buy (Syndicate, Dungeon Keeper, etc). @PenguinIzzy, 5700 people didn't download Pong, but 50 million people didn't own an Apple II either. It's not subjective, it's relative, if your pack of rice had 10 grains less than the next one, will you complain to the store manager about being ripped off? Just to be clear, I don't support piracy and I'm not defending it, I'm saying that just because you CAN pirate it, doesn't mean that you will. Unlocking a PS3 doesn't equate to lost sales for Sony, pirating a game does. If someone uses Hotz's hack to do something amazing, what then? Did anybody see how Microsoft reacted when someone 'hacked' the Kinect and wrote drivers for Windows? They encouraged people to do something with that, do more, innovate, do what they hadn't thought of. Why can't Sony encourage people to do something constructive with it? As opposed to vilifying Hotz because of what people COULD do wrong with his hack. And besides, didn't Sony promise Linux and all that for the PS3 way back when? What happened to that? PS - There's no such thing as a 'wrong' opinion, brush up on the definition.

Yes, it definitely won't make good business sense not to overcharge for Aussie games. You can keep charging your ridiculous prices and later moan about how sales have dropped because gamers are importing their games for half the price. Makes much more sense... /sarcasm Newsflash - Any economy is inherently volatile. The US dollar can take a dive at any time, but that doesn't stop them from charging 'normal' prices now does it? Should Aussies be paid salaries equal to double the market rate because they could lose their jobs at any time? That's just a moronic excuse for exploiting (Or, attempting to exploit) your consumers.