The portrayal of gender in video games, as in other media, is a subject of research in gender studies and is discussed in the context of sexism in video gaming. Although women make up about half of video game players, they are significantly underrepresented as characters in mainstream games, despite the prominence of iconic heroines such as Samus Aran or Lara Croft. Women in games often reflect traditional gender roles, sexual objectification, or stereotypes such as the "damsel in distress". Male characters are frequently depicted as big and muscular, and LGBT characters have been slow to appear due to the cis-heteronormativity of the medium.
Research suggests that gender portrayal in games can influence players' perceptions of gender roles, and young girls prefer playing as their own gender much more than boys do. On average, female-led games sell fewer copies than male-led ones but also have lower marketing budgets.
Gamer demographics
A 2008 Gallup poll indicated that men and women each make up half of all American video game players. In 2014, women comprised 52% of video game players in the UK and 48% in Spain. According to a 2008 study by the Pew Research Center, "fully 99% of boys and 94% of girls" play video games.Lenhart, Amanda, Joseph Kahne, Ellen Middaugh, Alexandra Macgill, Chris Evans, and Jessica Vitak. "Teens, Video Games and Civics." Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech. N.p.
Both genders play video games, but studies suggest differences in platform and genre preference. In 2010, the Entertainment Software Rating Board reported that 80% of female console gamers played on Wii, 11% on Xbox 360, and 9% on PlayStation 3, while 38% of male console gamers played Xbox 360, 41% played Wii, and 21% played PlayStation 3.
A 2013 Flurry study compared mobile gaming preferences, finding women made up 60–80% of solitaire, slots, social turn-based, match-three/bubble-shooter, management/simulation, and quiz game markets. Men composed 60–80% of strategy, shooter, card battle, racing, and action role-playing game markets.
A 2014 SuperData Research study found women compose 57.8% of the mobile market, 53.6% of the RPG market, and 50.2% of the PC market (including social games). Men make up 66% of MMORPG players, 66% of first-person shooter players, and 63% of digital console players.
On average, female-led games sell less but also have lower marketing budgets. Testing the conditions under which gender representation predicts game sales is important. Adolescents who played games frequently showed less concern about the effects of negatively stereotyped images compared to those who played infrequently or not at all. Game use frequency correlates with views on gender representation in games played.
Portrayal of women
As player characters Prevalence
A 2006 study from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University found playable female characters appear less frequently than males in reviews of popular games.Ivory, J. D. (2006). Still a man's game: Gender representation in online reviews of video games. Mass Communication & Society, 9(1), 103–114. The sample was taken from the "Top Rated" and "Most Popular" lists from GameSpot on 26 March 2004.Miller, M. K., & Summers, A. (2007). Gender differences in video game characters' roles, appearances, and attire as portrayed in video game magazines. Sex roles, 57(9–10), 733–742. A 2007 study by Melinda C. R. Burgess et al. found men are featured much more often than women on console video game covers.
In a 2012 sample of 669 action, shooter, and role-playing games selected by EEDAR, 300 (45%) provided the option to play as a female, but only 24 (4%) had an exclusively female protagonist. EEDAR found in 2010 that 10% of games had a protagonist with an indiscernible gender. Downs and Smith (2010) analyzed the top 20 best selling US games in 2003, finding only 14% of characters were female.
According to Madeline Messer in The Washington Post in 2015, among the top 50 endless running mobile games, 98% of those with gender-identifiable characters featured male protagonists, 90% of which were free to play. 46% offered female characters, and only 15% for free. Playing as a girl required, on average, an additional $7.53 purchase, much more than the games themselves cost.
Evolution Namco's arcade video game Pac-Man (1980), while starring a male protagonist, was "the first commercial video game to involve large numbers of women" as players. The game's popularity among women led Midway Games, its North American distributor, to develop Ms. Pac-Man (1982) starring a female protagonist as their "way of thanking all those lady arcaders who have played and enjoyed Pac-Man." The earlier arcade game Score (1977) by Exidy represented female characters, but no screenshots are known to be available.
Samus Aran, the heroine of Metroid (1986) and its successors, is often cited as "the first playable human female character in a mainstream video game". There were several earlier, less-popular video games with playable human female characters, including Billie Sue from Wabbit (1982), Becky from Otenba Becky no Daibouken (1983),Otenba Becky no Daibouken – Review. GameFAQs. 20 March 2018. Lilly from Lilly Adventure (1983), Barbie (1984), 's (1984),Naoki Miyamoto (2017).エロゲー文化研究概論 増補改訂版 . p.35. Sogo Kagaku Pub. Papri from Girl's Garden (1984), Jenny from Jenny of the Prairie (1984), Toby Masuyo ("Kissy") from Baraduke (1985), Kurumi-Hime from Ninja Princess (1985), Flashgal (1985),Inventories: 1980s Video Game Heroines. Hardcore Gaming 101. Alexandra from Lode Runner's Rescue (1985), Athena (1986), Chris from Alpha (1986),スクウェアの『アルファ』、ほぼ全シーンでアニメーション処理が導入されたADV . Impress Holdings. 23 June 2020. Ki from The Return of Ishtar (1986), and Valkyrie from Valkyrie no Bōken (1986).
Studies of the prevalence of female characters in video games began to be conducted in sociological, educational, and cultural journals as early as the late 1970s and early 1980s. In 1979, researchers publishing in The Psychological Record (Vol.29, No.1. Pp. 43–48) concluded from the results of a 201-person survey that 90% of male subjects and 85% of female subjects perceived the computer as masculine (in gameplay versus the computer).Leroux, Yvan and Michel Pépin. "Jeu Sur Micro-Ordinateur et Différences Liées au Sexe". Revue des Sciences de l'Education. Vol.XII, No.2. Pp.173–196. 1986. In 1983, professor Sara Kiesler et al. published a study in Psychology Today finding that female characters appeared in video games at a frequency of 1 game in 7. Elizabeth Behm-Morawitz suggested that the reduced presence of female characters implies a secondary status for women in video games, and further suggested that when playable female characters do appear in video games, they are more often scantily-dressed and oversexualized than men.
In 1994, Australian Hyper magazine writer Virginia Barratt accused the video game industry of being sexist for its lack of female representation, stating that video games "are made by boys for boys who play with other boys" and that girls "rarely get a look in, unless of course there's a victim who needs to be rescued or someone needs to wear a bikini to cheer the macho men on." She also said that many female players, despite enjoying popular arcade games such as Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat, were discouraged from visiting arcades due to their status as male-dominated spaces.
Lara Croft, the protagonist of Tomb Raider (1996), is among the best-known strong, fictional women in a variety of media. Since her introduction in 1996, the character of Croft has been criticized for her "unrealistic" breast size; Lara was claimed to personify "an ongoing culture clash over gender, sexuality, empowerment, and objectification." In a 2008 Tomb Raider title, Croft was depicted in "hot pants and midriffs" and was said to look like she was "dressed by a male". However, the game's creators maintain that she was not designed with marketing in mind, and have claimed to be rather surprised at her pinup-style adoration. In Tomb Raider: Legend, Lara underwent a radical redesign, ostensibly to make her less sexualized.
April Ryan from The Longest Journey (1999) has been compared to Lara Croft, as she shows less prominent physical feminine attributes than Lara but more feminine psychological traits, as contrasted with Lara's masculine connotations like aggressiveness and force. Contrarily, Jade, the protagonist of Beyond Good & Evil (2003), was widely recognized as a strong and confident female character lacking any overt sexualization.
The year 2013 featured women in leading roles in a number of award-winning games such as The Last of Us (2013), BioShock Infinite (2013), the rebooted Tomb Raider (2013), and Beyond: Two Souls (2013). A study of these games found that although the leading female characters in these games were able to subvert predominant gender stereotypes, women were still limited by men in the narratives, in particular through benevolent sexism.
In 2014, the developers' choice to omit playable women in the latest iterations of the top-tier gaming franchises Assassin's Creed and Far Cry became a focus of discussions in gaming media. This indicated, according to game industry professionals cited by Polygon, a shift in the industry's attention towards issues of diversity in gaming, in conjunction with video games as a whole growing beyond their former core audience of younger men.
The announcement trailer for Battlefield V in 2018 was met with backlash from some fans of the series, who took issue with the potential portrayal of women in the game. Their main point of contention was with the British woman featured in the trailer, citing the character's presence as unrealistic due to women on the British side never participating in frontline combat during World War II and being mostly relegated to supporting roles.
As supporting characters Female characters are often cast in the role of the damsel in distress, with their rescue being the objective of the game. Princess Zelda in the early The Legend of Zelda series, the Sultan's daughter in Prince of Persia, and Princess Peach through much of the Mario series are paradigmatic examples. By 2013, Peach appeared in 14 of the main Super Mario games and was kidnapped in 13 of them. The only main games that Peach was not kidnapped in were in the North America release of Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario 3D World, and Super Mario Bros. Wonder, but she was a character that can be played. Zelda became playable in some later games of The Legend of Zelda series or had the pattern altered."Objectification of Women in Video Games" , Retrieved 9 May 2015. Shanon Sherman described how the illustrations on video game covers portrayed women in need of rescue. She wrote that these covers reinforce the existing gender stereotypes and sexual discrimination against women.
Gerudo women in The Legend of Zelda series returned in the 2017 game Breath of the Wild. They live in an all-female town that Link infiltrates by wearing a "an exoticized belly dancer/harem costume, complete with veil". According to some critics, the quest is transmisogynist, involving purchasing clothes from an exaggerated stereotype of a trans woman, whose face Link cringes at, before employing another transphobic stereotype: a man (Link) disguising himself as a woman to enter a woman-only space. The women there mainly discuss how attracted they are to men, which some say appeals to a presumed cis, straight male player.