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Heroes of the Storm game director Dustin Browder has issued an apology for comments he made in a press interview, during which he appeared to dismiss concerns about hyper-sexualized designs of female game characters.
"In a recent interview with Rock, Paper, Shotgun, I responded poorly to a statement the interviewer made about over-sexualized character designs in games," he wrote on the Heroes of the Storm blog. "I want to apologize for that. This is a serious topic and I don't want anyone to think that I, or anyone else at Blizzard, is insensitive about how we portray our characters."
Heroes of the Storm is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game based on characters from developer Blizzard's roster of games, including World of Warcraft, Diablo and Starcraft.
During an interview with Rock, Paper, Shotgun, published last week, Browder responded to a question on female character design by saying that "we're not sending a message to anybody. We're just making characters who look cool." He added that some of the characters were already sexualized before they appeared in Heroes of the Storm. "I mean, Kerrigan is wearing heels, right?"
When pressed on the matter, he added that "we're not running for President. We're not sending a message. No one should look to our game for that."
In his statement today, Browder said that he wanted to ensure that players are not alienated by hyper-sexualized designs. "We have an amazing roster of heroes and we will always strive to make sure that everyone can have a hero that they identify with and feel powerful using. And at the end of the day, we all want the same thing. A great game where we can all have fun battling for glory and maybe some bragging rights."
