Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Gender representation in video games
Summary
The portrayal of men and women 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. The portrayal of women in games often reflects traditional gender roles, sexual objectification, or stereotypes such as that of the "damsel in distress". Male characters are often stereotypically depicted as big and muscular, and LGBT characters have been slow to appear in video games as a result of the heteronormativity of the medium.
Research indicates that how genders are portrayed in games can influence players' perception of gender roles, and that young girls prefer to play a character of 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.
Women and video games#Demographics of female players
A 2008 Gallup poll indicated that men and women each make up half of all American video game players. In 2014 in the UK and in Spain, women comprised 52% and 48% of video game players respectively. According to a 2008 study by the Pew Research Center, "Fully 99% of boys and 94% of girls play videogames."
Both men and women play video games, but studies suggest differences in platform and game genre preference. The Entertainment Software Rating Board reports that in 2010, 80% of female console gamers played on Wii, 11% on Xbox 360 and 9% on the PlayStation 3. By comparison, 38% of male console gamers in the year 2014 played the Xbox 360, 41% played the Wii and 21% played the PlayStation 3.
A 2013 study by Flurry looked at the different mobile gaming preferences between men and women. Women made up 60–80% of the solitaire, slots, social turn-based, match-three / bubble-shooter, management / simulation and quiz game markets.
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.