A Case in Study: Tomb Raider Lara Croft, the gorgeous heroine of the Tomb Raider franchise, is one of the most well-known video game characters in the history of computer and video games. After nine games (a tenth is due for release in the summer of 2003), hundreds of magazine covers, and a full-length, action movie, Lara Croft has certainly become an icon. The Tomb Raider series and Lara Croft are models for designers around the world. The Tomb Raider games have sold millions of copies, and Lara Croft is an international star. Although, companies and designers emulate the formula used to develop this megahit, Tomb Raider is a phenomenon that is not likely to be repeated, mainly because the game and the heroine were the first of their kind. The third-person shooter, action adventure genre has blown up since the 1996 release of Tomb Raider. Lara Croft was conceived and designed by Toby Gard who worked for Core Design of Europe. The game was published by Eidos Interactive and was released to the Sony Playstation X, Sega Saturn, and PC. Since then, the Tomb Raider franchise and Lara Croft have become one of the biggest successes of the video game industry. Tomb Raider is embraced across genders, nations, and ages. Its success and longevity raise many questions for its creators and fans. This case study will attempt to answer several questions. What is the history of the game and what did the game accomplish? Many games have been and are being released with looks and gameplay that resemble those of Tomb Raider. How has Tomb Raider influenced the game industry? Lara Croft is a smart, tough woman who serves as a role model for females, but she does not repel males in doing so. How have this game and its heroine affected gender roles in video game culture? Many other questions can and havearisen about the franchise, but these are pertinent to the culture, design, and business of the game. Work on the original Tomb Raider started in 1993, three years before its release in November of 1996. Toby Gard can be credited with the creation of Lara Croft and Tomb Raider (Blache). He conceived and designed the original Lara Croft that has gone on through several without many modifications. Adrian Smith, producer of most of the sequels, says, “She was drawn by Toby Gard, and I have to say the original drawing he did is still Lara today. It was one of those instances where everything done in the early stages was right” (Smith). The game was developed at Core Design and published by Eidos, and was released to the Sega Saturn and the PC, but it is most famous on the Playstation X platform. Before the release of the original Tomb Raider, an incredible amount of time and effort went into making the game and main character work. Adrian Smith said, “We always knew the type of game we wanted. Go back seven years; it was all about first person shooters. We wanted a title where you had more of a connection with the main character. So we went to third person, and gave the character more emphasis.” Core did give a huge emphasis on the character and were extremely successful; Lara Croft has become more famous than the actual game. Gard designed and redesigned Lara many times until he had created a character that he was happy with. Originally, Lara was named Lara Cruz, and one of the first concepts of her personality was a psychotic military type (Blache). Core wanted someone more sophisticated; they wanted a main character who is witty, athletic, possesses dexterity, and still has a certain coyness. The obvious decision was that the character would be a woman. Since Core was British (and because they knew Americans have an infatuation with the British), theyalso made Lara English and gave her the name Croft (Smith). Gard put a lot of time and used his own ideas of a character that would interest him when perfecting Croft. He says that if you are sure that you really like what you have designed, then other people have a good chance of liking it, too (Saltzman). The gameplay and appearance of the Tomb Raider game struck and enticed gamers around the world. It offered something the PC gaming community had not seen before—a 3D, third-person shooter with gameplay elements drawn from 2D platform games like Prince of Persia (Poole). Console gamers had seen a phenomenon like this a few months earlier with the release of Mario 64, but for PC gamers, Tomb Raider was the first entry of the now well-established third-person action, adventure game. Lara runs, flips, scales mountains, dives, swims, drives a motorcycle, shoots with handguns in each hand, and has a plethora of other exciting moves. Tomb Raider borrows gameplay elements from first-person shooters, role-playing games, and puzzles like those in Prince of Persia, but it manages to offer a new and different, exciting experience (Influential). Core Design’s brainchild exploded onto shelves in 1996 and has since become a cultural and marketing phenomenon. One or more Tomb Raider games has come out for several gaming platforms—Playstation X, Sega Saturn, Sega Dreamcast, Gameboy Color, PC, and Macintosh. Lara has been named to Entertainment Weekly’s “It” list featuring the 100 most creative people in entertainment, to Details magazine’s “Sexiest Women of the Year” list, and to Time Digital’s “50 Cyber-Elite” list. Paramount Picture’s $80 million feature film version of Tomb Raider debuted at number one at the Box Office and overall has grossed $275 million worldwide. The Tomb Raider franchise has already generated close to 1 billiondollars in sales, and has another movie and Playstation 2 game both due for release in the summer of 2003. What has made Tomb Raider such a hit? Is it the heroine or the game itself? The longevity of Tomb Raider’s popularity stems from both. Most of the initial purchasers of Tomb Raider bought the game because they wanted a break from playing the tough guy, so they opted for this attractive female character. Lara Croft is the perfect break from this for gamers of any age and gender. Her voluptuousness is very compelling to the male buyers, but her strength and sassiness is appealing to males and females alike. It is true she is a digital sex symbol, but she has also become a role model on the small and big screens. Croft is physically appealing, but she is also clever, agile, and courageous. To many gamers, the superficial aspects of her
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