A Mass Effect 3 writer has spoken about the difficulties faced within the games industry when creating "engaging" female characters.

BioWare scribe Ann Lemay described a particular experience when creating the game's Omega DLC and its key character Nyreen Kandros - the first female member of the turian race to be shown throughout any of the series' three games.

Kandros was originally written as a much blander character, an asari with no relation to the storyline's focal character Aria "or anything to make her stand out", Lemay wrote on the EA blog.

Lemay's input helped change Kandros into her final form, meaning that if players have a female Shepard, the DLC stars a party of three strong female leads.

"It was never an issue," Lemay recalled. "Which is just as it should have been."

But the smooth approval process for these changes was something of an exception, rather than the norm.

"In all of my years in the video game industry, this request process was the simplest and smoothest I'd ever gone through, particularly for the creation of a significant female character.

"Creating diverse and engaging female characters - or any character that isn't both white and male - should not be such an issue."

"Are we requiring the female protagonist to work harder and sell more in order to prove herself?" asks Dragon Age lead writer David Gaider, in this GDC 2013 video about sexism and sexuality in games, free courtesy of GDC Vault.

In examining his own career, Gaider takes a brief look at how romantic characters evolved from Baldur's Gate II to the Dragon Age series. While he recognizes not all games can or should be all things to all people, he believes the industry could be less dis-inviting of players who would otherwise be paying customers.

He urges those who choose to design minority characters to consider their roles and purpose in the game. Additionally, he suggests those of privilege to seek out possible groups affected by design choices and talk to them, or if security requires it not leave the office, to hire diversely. Their unique viewpoints, he said, should be considered "assets," not "affirmative action."

Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson has shed additional light on why Minecraft will no longer be developed for the Oculus Rift, following Facebook's acquisition of developer Oculus VR earlier today.

Following the announcement, Notch tweeted that plans for a Minecraft version of Oculus had been cancelled as a result of the deal.

Writing on notch.net, the developer states, "Facebook is not a company of grass-roots tech enthusiasts."

"Facebook is not a game tech company. Facebook has a history of caring about building user numbers, and nothing but building user numbers. People have made games for Facebook platforms before, and while it worked great for a while, they were stuck in a very unfortunate position when Facebook eventually changed the platform to better fit the social experience they were trying to build."

Oculus didn't expect such a negative reaction to Facebook deal
"I don't think we expected it to be so negative," Oculus VR executive Nate Mitchell says.

Rust, a 2013 indie survival game from Facepunch Studios, plays like a cross between Minecraft and Grand Theft Auto. Players find themselves “born” into a mysterious wilderness, naked and alone, forced to forage for resources and to craft clothing, supplies and shelter for themselves. They must contend with starvation, hypothermia and animal attacks, but by far the most dangerous threat comes from other players who roam the island.

When the game was first opened up, all players were given the same default avatar: a bald white man. With the most recent update, Rust’s lead developer, Garry Newman, introduced different avatars of different racial origins into the mix. However, they did so with a twist — unlike typical massively multiplayer online role-playing games, Rust does not allow players to choose the race of their avatar. Instead, they are assigned one at random. Newman explained the change in a blog post: