Via Tumblr, the former lead developer of Minecraft, Markus “Notch” Persson, has created a post discussing his mindset regarding gender roles prior to Minecraft’s release.
The post in question covers how the skin used to venture around the vast landspace was created with no specific gender in mind. The post even goes on to explain how its name “Steve” came about as a joke.
“If it wasn’t for the fact that the default Minecraft character is referred to as “Minecraft Guy” and that I once jokingly answered “Steve?” when asked what his* name was, Minecraft would be a game where gender isn’t a gameplay element,” writes Notch.
“The human model is intended to represent a Human Being. Not a male Human Being or a female Human Being, but simply a Human Being. The blocky shape gives it a bit of a traditional masculine look, but adding a separate female mesh would just make it worse by having one specific model for female Human Beings and male ones. That would force players to make a decisions about gender in a game where gender doesn’t even exist.”
The lack of gender, or ‘labels’ doesn’t just stop and the player controlled character. It even applies to all forms of life in Minecraft.
“All the other mobs in the game are genderless and usually exhibit the most prominent traits of both genders. Cows have horns and udders (even if I’ve later learned that there are some cows where the females do have horns), and the chicken/duck/whatevers have heads that look like roosters, but still lay eggs. For breeding, any animal can breed with any other animal of the same species.”
He ends the post with a rather refreshing, and jovial jab at all the anti-gay rights idiots out there.
“Also, as a fun side fact, it means every character and animal in Minecraft is homosexual because there’s only one gender to choose from. Take THAT, homophobes!”
Wesley Copeland
Aside from his work for Continue Play, Wesley also writes for Pocketgamer, NowGamer and other publications.
@wesley_copeland
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