Brett, I think it was clear what your intent was, even if I didn't make it clear in this post — you were getting at the industry perspective (which is supposed to be Gamasutra's thing, as you point out). Ultimately I think this post could've used some editing, since it sounds more argumentative than I meant it to, or like I'm making claims that I wasn't.

That's really surprising to me to hear that No One Lives Forever started with a male character, since that's always been one of the standout games to me as having a well-rounded female lead. There's the predictable surface stuff, of course, like the skin-tight jacket and the spy lipstick, but more than that I really felt like it was playing as a female character. She was a capable-and-sexy female agent, not just a re-cast of James Bond or Our Man Flint. Maybe the difference is that the switch came very early in the development?

Or maybe it's easier to do it with comedy than with something that's claiming to be serious, like Perfect Dark or Tomb Raider? I know that I have a hard enough time getting over my dude-ness to be comfortable writing women characters even for comedy; I'm too self-conscious that I don't know what I'm talking about, I don't know that I'd even attempt it in a serious game.