Notch has been chatting about gender in the world of Minecraft, relating how the protagonist was never meant to be a man or a woman, and only became known as Steve due to a random name choice. See Minecraft recognizes neither sex, but in doing so, creates a world where same-sex procreation is the only answer.
“All the other mobs in the game are genderless and usually exhibit the most prominent traits of both genders,” explains the developer. “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.
“Obviously, I’m not saying this is a good way to deal with gender in all games, as the better your graphics are, and because of how quickly the human mind tries to identify the gender of other humans, you are going to have to make a decision as a developer about gender, but I felt we could get away with it in Minecraft.”
As a side note, Notch points out that the one-gender natural law makes every single creature in the Minecraft world a homosexual, adding, “Take THAT, homophobes.” And here I was thinking I couldn’t like the cut of this man’s jib anymore than I already did.
