OF GAMES, REPRESENTATION, AND WOMEN'S CHEEKBONES

author=Housekeeping
To be fair, if they added a couple sizes to her bust, then there'd be an equal but opposite reaction from vocal feminists. In both cases, it's a vocal minority; the vast majority of the planet doesn't give a shit.

This. And let me officially identify as part of that vast majority what doesn't give a shit.

how exactly do you deal with creating characters that defy expectations of how individuals should look and be in our media?

I don't give a shit. Because there is actually no such thing as "expectations of how individuals should look and be" "in our media". There are only individual expectations of how individuals should look and be. And I don't give a shit about that, either.

If I write a gay character, or a black character, or an overweight character, or a disabled character, or whatever, I do so because that is not only intrinsic to their identity but because it also engages with the story I'm trying to tell. Not for the sake of diversity or inclusivity.

do you go out of the way to create well fleshed, genuine characters who belong in one or more marginalised groups? here i'm thinking broadly, but for example, fat people, black people, american indigenous people, arab people, south and southeast asian people, aboriginal people, intersex people, trans people (specifically trans women), women in general, disabled people...

You mean like, for its own sake? Like tokenism? Fuck no. Fuck that shit. Including an array of token "diversity hires" for its own sake is way worse than an all-white cast. Tokenism is actually harmful. And stupid.

is there a concern in creating characters that do not belong in our hegemonic cultural millieu? characters that would, and normally do, infuriate dudebros by being what they would describe as "politically correct", or, you know, people that exist and don't get the spotlight often?

I'm becoming less and less sure what is considered a "dudebro". My girlfriend is just as worried about the fast-spreading cultural cancer of extreme political correctness as I am, for instance, and is obviously neither dude no bro.

Anyway, of course I don't give a fuck about creating characters that would piss off dudebros. I'm an indie dev. I give zero fucks about anyone's expectations. I also am not interested in any kind of "affirmative action" of the spotlight. The spotlight will go on the characters I (and presumably the audience) will find interesting, whatever color and shape and sexual preference they happen to be.

With that said, I am positive that there is no such thing as "characters that do not belong in our hegemonic cultural millieu". Not to belabor this point, but I don't even know what the fuck that is supposed to mean. The phrase "hegemonic cultural milieu" does not scan to me at all, for any meaningful value.

and, if you do, how do you manage the expectation of symbolic violence which, most probably, will follow their announcement and development?

Way too interested in the actual fictional violence contained in my games, and making it and them awesome.

Announcement? Development? Again, no one here--NO ONE HERE--has the fanbase or the interaction pattern with it that these questions assume. By orders of magnitude our fan base is far smaller and more intimate and more reasonable than the sea of frothing, raging nerds of all political stripes that a AAA community manager has to wrangle.

people who are marginalized themselves, i'm particularly interested in your answers

As a marginalized person (with an anxiety disorder!), I don't think you should value my answers more (or less) than anyone else's. That feels yucky. People's ideas have merit or don't, their demographic identity labels/identity politics don't fucking matter.