Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson recently made some interesting comments about the game on his blog, The Word of Notch. Primarily, the fact that he believes Minecraft is a game without gender.
In his words: “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.”
He uses the game’s animals as an example, pointing out that any animal can breed with any other animal of the same species. You won’t have to find, say, a male and a female pig in order to breed them. Any two pigs will do.
“All the other mobs in the game are genderless and usually exhibit the most prominent traits of both genders,” Notch continues. “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.”
But isn’t the default Minecraft skin referred to as “The Minecraft Guy” and “Steve?” Well, yes, but Notch apologizes for all that “Steve” business. “I do regret using masculine terms to talk about the default character. These days I try to use the up-and-coming use of “they” as a genderless pronoun.”
Also, being the controversial figure he is, he takes a jab at homophobes, claiming, “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!”
Although, perhaps someone should point out that “asexual” and “homosexual” are two entirely different things.
Source: The Word of Notch