jaspv.blogg.se

Reviewers described female characters substantially more on their sexual appeal than male characters, along with many images of female characters being sexually suggestive. Researchers analyzed how male versus female characters were represented in online reviews for video games, discovering that written reviews and images mentioned male characters more often than female characters, both as an active and playable characters. Video games portray female characters in a hypersexualized and gender-stereotypical manner during the rare occurrences that they are depicted on-screen. For instance, extensive research has showcased how video games primarily target a male audience, creating a simulated experience that appeals to the male gaze. However, video games have been a frequent, controversial discussion in the video game industry particularly because of the imbalanced gender representation in these games. Video games are an important medium of entertainment to study because of their influence on children’s and adolescents’ socialization and education. Keywords: video games, gender, characters, masculine women, non-traditional women Introduction

These results suggest that players do prefer non-traditional female video game characters who appear more masculine over feminine female characters. Our results showed that participants rated the character’s traits and the video game quality more positively when the female character appeared more masculine and that this effect was amplified for participants with high egalitarian values. Participants then rated the character on heroicness, satisfaction with playing the character, and relatability to the character, along with the anticipated quality of the video game.

To test this, we randomly assigned 425 people ( M age = 23.81 SD = 5.71) to imagine playing a female character in a third-person, single-player, RPG video game, where the character either had a more traditionally masculine or feminine gender presentation. Research has explored the sexualization of women and limited portrayal of gender non-traditional women characters, though it is unclear what the effects are of including non-traditional women in video games. Video games have become notorious as a male-dominated and heteronormative environment, where gender non-traditional women characters have little space for equal representation.