Minecraft: Mojang makes female character available to all players

Alex joins 'genderless' character Steve, as he 'doesn't really represent the diversity of our playerbase', explains gaming company

Just as Tom was everyone's first friend on MySpace back in the day, so Steve is everyone's first character skin in Minecraft. Now he's getting some competition for that role: a female character named Alex.

From this week, Alex will be a free default skin across all the game's console versions, in what developer Mojang says is an effort to better represent its audience.

"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."

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