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Outbyte PC Repair FREERepair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Outbyte Driver Updater FREEScan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →When Call of Duty: Ghosts added female character selection to multiplayer, Infinity Ward executive producer Mark Rubin said the goal was not to recruit women who did not already play the series. It was to recognize players who were already there. In a 2013 GamesBeat interview, Rubin described the option as part of a wider push for character customization—not a change to the campaign or a claim about every Call of Duty game.
Rubin said the feature recognized existing players
Dean Takahashi interviewed Rubin for GamesBeat about the upcoming Call of Duty: Ghosts; the interview was published on August 17, 2013, and its page records an update on June 18, 2025. Asked about adding women to multiplayer, Rubin drew a distinction between representing an audience and trying to acquire a new one:
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“For me, adding women wasn’t an attempt to expand our user base so much as it was an acknowledgement of a user base that was already there.”
He described the decision as recognition of people who already played and enjoyed the series. That is Rubin’s explanation of the studio’s intent in the interview, not an independently documented internal decision record or evidence about how players responded.
#1 Best Overall
- The franchise that has defined a generation of gaming is set to raise the bar once again with the all-new Call of Duty: Ghosts.
- A brand new Call of Duty Universe
- The next generation of multiplayer
- Introduction of a new next-gen engine
What players could customize in Ghosts
The interview discussed choosing a female character for Ghosts multiplayer. Rubin situated that option within a broader character-customization effort and said the team wanted to be inclusive:
“When it came to character customization, it was obvious that we should make sure to be as inclusive as possible.”
Rubin connected the expanded customization to technical changes in the game engine and its memory handling. He said the system needed to support more than 20,000 character combinations. That is his 2013 description of the design and engineering target, not an independently verified benchmark.
The feature belonged to multiplayer. The interview does not establish that players could choose a female character in the campaign, nor does it support generalizing the option to every title in the series.
Rank #2
- A new Call of Duty Universe
- The next generation of multiplayer
- 60 frames-per-second across all platforms
- A completely new one to four player, co-op game mode featuring a unique blend of fast-paced survival gameplay, base defense, player customization and class leveling.
- Build your team and take up to 6 of them into battle in the all new Squads mode.
Unlocks gave players more choice over progression
Rubin also described a planned progression redesign. As players leveled, they would earn squad points and spend them to unlock items, rather than having a particular item become available only upon reaching a particular level. The idea was to give players more control over which parts of their loadout to unlock.
In the same discussion, Rubin described perks with different point values and a standard loadout with eight perk slots. Giving up equipment or a secondary weapon could free points for as many as 11 perk slots. These are descriptions of the system planned for Ghosts in 2013, not statements about later games or current multiplayer rules.
How to read the interview’s player statistics
GamesBeat’s 2013 introduction reported that women made up 45 percent of players, but it did not identify an underlying study or explain the figure’s methodology. Treat it as a claim reported in that article, not a verified industry statistic or a measure of players today.
The interview also cited Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg’s statement that Call of Duty had 10 million multiplayer players daily. The source gives no measurement method, geography, or exact measurement date. Both figures are historical claims in the interview’s 2013 context; neither establishes a present-day player count or demographic breakdown.
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- Officially licensed Call of Duty video game merchandise. This first person shooter military game series has been a fan favorite for over 20 years. There's a solider in all of us.
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Why the broader redesign matters
Female character selection was one part of Rubin’s account of a wider multiplayer redesign, which also covered modes, maps, AI-controlled squad members, and asynchronous squad challenges. The interview helps explain the design rationale and the systems Infinity Ward said it was building, but it does not measure player outcomes or provide a controlled comparison with earlier multiplayer games.
Its lasting point is narrower and clearer: Rubin framed the option as making an existing audience more visible in Ghosts multiplayer, while connecting it to a larger effort to give players more ways to shape their characters and loadouts.
Read Dean Takahashi’s GamesBeat interview with Mark Rubin.
Quick Recap
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