Bethesda: No Gender Bias in Oblivion
- April 11, 2006 16:09 PM PST
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Bethesda responds to claims that The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion shows evidence of gender bias
The gaming blogosphere has been on fire over recent allegations that The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion shows gender bias.
The outcry has revolved around complaints that Bethesda's mega-hit role-playing game Oblivion gives predominately preferential treatment to male character classes.
It's a charge Hines disputes: "Males have advantages over females. Females have advantages over males. They are in equal proportion to one another within each race and across the game."
Would Bethesda ever release a patch or update that fixes the alleged advantages for male characters? Hines says no: "There's nothing to 'fix.'"
Then there's the issue that all 21 pieces of in-game character class art show exclusively male characters. "We did it intentionally so that the user could compare races across a single sex, and not be looking at females of some races and males of another," says Hines.
"I don't think this would be an issue if [Oblivion] wasn't such a big hit."
