> Well, I did not expected this level of honesty about what target audience really want.
IIRC it was the other way around, the pitch document went overboard with that because it was what the executives/publisher believed audiences would want :-)
Remember this wasn't the design document but the document to convince those with money to spend that money to make the game.
The lead designer (Chris Avellone), who I think was the primary author of this document, is often playful and energetic/hyperbolic with his language, yet is extremely focused and professional in his approach to the actual game design. (I.e., this exact type of disconnect between the energy/tone of this document and the energy/tone of the game is consistent with what I know of him. The self depreciation, noted in the comment below by ricardobayes, is also on brand for him.)
Source: I've worked with Chris very directly on three games and indirectly on several others. We've talked about this document in passing before (though I didn't know him until a few years later).
This might be widely inappropriate to bring up, but do you know how Chris' lawsuit against his cancellers is going? Like many players I used to look up to his work, and then was of course taken aback by the serious allegations against him; it's one of the messiest he said/she said cases I've encountered, though. Still very curious about the ultimate outcome.
IIRC the game does have a couple of female characters that could be seen as catering to that kind of a stereotype, at least in terms of appearance if not necessarily the story.
But I also got the overall vibe that the pitch document goes overboard in terms of emphasizing that aspect as well as other kinds of shallow badassery such as the violence of the game.
The pitch document also makes a big fuss about "ego masturbation" and the "player's power fantasy", and how the main character and his destiny are the centrepieces of everything. But that's not the vibe I got from the game at all. The main character is obviously at the centre of a lot of things, and I think the games does allow you to play selfishly. But I don't think the game really directs you towards that, let alone glorifying the character or the results of his past actions. Those parts of the pitch document read really weird to me.
The game does of course make a point of being morbid and gruesome, even macabre. But I think the game does that with a lot less bravado than the pitch document suggests.
But then, it is a pitch document, and not even marketing for the finished product.
The disconnect between the look and the actual description of the two main female characters, Fall-from-Grace and Annah, is interesting.
Annah looks like a bimbo in her 3D model, but in game most NPCs find her repulsive or at least off-putting. She's not sexualized in-game, but her portrait is that of a "sexy babe".
Conversely, Fall-from-Grace is described in-game as a tempting succubus (though she doesn't behave like one) and is supposed to be extremely attractive, yet her 3D portrait is rendered in shadows, very skinny, with scary bat wings and no hint of "babe" characteristics. She is not "sexy".
I wonder if the people who drew the character portraits were going by the early pitch draft, because the disconnect with the actual characters is extreme.
IIRC it was the other way around, the pitch document went overboard with that because it was what the executives/publisher believed audiences would want :-)
Remember this wasn't the design document but the document to convince those with money to spend that money to make the game.