Mon, Jul 30, 2012 | 01:38 BST

Notch: There’s no gender in Minecraft

Mojang founder Markus “Notch” Persson has answered criticisms of MInecraft’s lack of official female avatars by saying the survival adventure exists in a genderless world.

According to Notch, the player character, nicknamed Steve, is representative of all human beings rather than a male human being. Not only that, but even the animals in Minecraft are mono-gendered.

The lack of gender seems to be not so much politically motivated as a response to the difficulties of distinguishing between character models with Minecraft’s blocky graphics.

“I’m not saying this is a good way to deal with gender in all games, as the better your graphics are, and because of how quickly the human mind tries to identify the gender of other humans, you are going to have to make a decision as a developer about gender, but I felt we could get away with it in Minecraft,” Notch said.

Thanks, Joystiq.

13 comment-trail-alt Posted in: Development, Mac, Mojang, PC, Simulation, indie
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13 comments

#1

Talkar
30/07/12, 2:37 am

Even though i despise both Minecraft and Notch i agree with him here. People try to find sexism everywhere now. I don’t know why but it is getting really annoying that some feminist and feminist supporters can’t just let go and enjoy the entertainment, or just ignore it.

#2

Ireland Michael
30/07/12, 3:12 am

You “despise” him?

#3

KodyxDestroyer
30/07/12, 3:36 am

This idiot has no clue what he’s talking about. First he says they are genderless, then he says that they are homosexual. This is absolutely ridiculous that it’s even news to be honest.

#4

Ireland Michael
30/07/12, 4:31 am

@3 “…as a fun side fact…”

Mountains out of molehills. He was joking.

It amazes me how much hate and animosity people feel the need to hold against individuals on the internet that they don’t even know.

#5

Cobra951
30/07/12, 5:42 am

Notch, brilliant as usual. He renders the entire sexual special-interest bullshit moot by keeping every bit of sexuality out of his game. Excellent.

#6

klewd
30/07/12, 7:06 am

@3
???
It makes perfect sense that they are homosexuals. Do you know what a homosexual is? Someone who has attraction to the same gender. In this case they’re all the same gender because there is none.

#7

silkvg247
30/07/12, 9:02 am

Well considering you can make your avatar look how you want I don’t see how it matters. How on earth anyone thought to criticize it in the first place is beyond me.

#8

Mineral4r7s
30/07/12, 9:26 am

This whole sexism thing thats occouring everywhere nowadays really reminds me on this one south park episode…

The episode is about the flag of south park, showing 4 “white people” hanging 1 “black people”. People go enrage about racism. And the kids don’t understand why, in the end the kids say all they see are 5 human on that picture. So the real racists are those that see racism everywhere…

And thats the same with sexists.

#9

Da Man
30/07/12, 9:27 am

It amazes me how much hate and animosity people feel the need to hold against individuals on the internet that they don’t even know.
… says the person, whose more than half of posts between 2008 and 2011 had to do with the same person. Careful not getting an aneurysm there.

—

Anyway why was this a question in a level editor.. Is there no way to make racing videogames anymore without specifying the gender?

#10

OrbitMonkey
30/07/12, 10:10 am

The someone complaining about the lack of female avatars in Minecraft, was obviously some guy desperate to build a 8 bit porn palace. Feminism has nothing to do with it :-)

#11

Talkar
30/07/12, 10:53 am

@8
Well i seem to remember you criticizing TF2 for not having females at one point too, even though we don’t actually know if it does or doesn’t :P

#12

DSB
30/07/12, 12:40 pm

@11 Been there, done that. Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards.

#13

Mineral4r7s
31/07/12, 12:25 pm

@11
I dont even play Team Fortress 2. You confuse me with someone else.

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