http://quanticfoundry.com/2017/08/29/just-important-female-protagonists/The availability of female protagonists in video games and the push for more playable female characters has been a hot topic in recent years. For example, articles on the gender breakdowns at E3 or reasons that game companies provide for not having playable female characters often engender a great deal of discussion.
In this blog post, well use survey data from 1,266 gamers to explore just how important female protagonists are to gamers, and how this varies across gamer segments.
Data From the Gamer Motivation Profile
Here at Quantic Foundry, in addition to the Gamer Motivation Profile, we also have additional research surveys that gamers can participate in. These surveys tackle a variety of game preference questions, and allow us to link gamers responses back to things like their motivation scores, gender, and age. 1,266 gamers participated in this research survey.
In the survey, we asked gamers to rate the importance of Having the option to play a female protagonist on a 5-point scale from Not Important At All (1) to Extremely Important (5).
75% of Female Gamers Rated Female Protagonists as Very or Extremely Important
The majority of female gamers (56.8%) rated the availability of female protagonists as being extremely importantthis was more than 3 times higher than the number of male gamers who selected this response option. The most commonly selected response among male gamers was that female protagonists are somewhat important. Overall, 75% of female gamers rated female protagonists as very or extremely important.
Despite the gender disparity in the response, it still bears pointing out that roughly 1 out of 3 male gamers rated the availability of female protagonists as very or extremely important.
The Importance of Female Protagonists Doesnt Change with a Gamers Age
The correlation between age and the importance rating of having a female protagonist option wasnt significant (r=.05). This means that older gamers are not more or less likely than younger gamers to care about having a female protagonist.
Casual Gamers, Whether Male or Female, Are More Likely to Care About Female Protagonists
In the Gamer Motivation Profile, we ask gamers to self-identify as a Casual/Core/Hardcore gamer and provide the descriptions below for the categories. There isnt a standardized industry-wide definition of these categories; in our survey, we decided to define the categories along an axis of gaming frequency and dedication.
Overall, casual gamers are most likely to rate a female protagonist as being important. The more hardcore a gamer is, the less importance they place on the availability of a female protagonist. Between the casual and hardcore gamers, there is almost a full 1-point drop on a 5-point importance scale.
This difference holds true for both male and female gamersi.e., this finding isnt simply because more female gamers identify as casual. Note that among male gamers (the second chart), the percentage of gamers who selected the extremely important option drops by almost half when we go from casual to hardcore (from 21% to 12%). And even though the importance of a female protagonist does decline among hardcore female gamers, roughly 2/3 of them still rate the availability of a female protagonist as very or extremely important.
Gamers Who Want Female Protagonists Score Higher on Design, Fantasy, and Story
In the Gamer Motivation Profile, we measure 12 gaming motivations, identified via statistical analysis of how gaming motivations cluster together. Thus, were able to examine how gaming motivations relate to the importance of having a female protagonist option.
Gamers who care more about the availability of female protagonists scored higher on Design (lots of customization options), Fantasy (being someone else, somewhere else), and Story (interesting plot and characters). The correlations ranged from r=.14 to r=.26, and were similar for both male and female gamers.
This combination of motivations suggests that the range of customization options helps to enhance these gamers sense of being immersed in a role in an alternate world and engaging story. In this light, the availability of a female protagonist is less about the presence of a female body, but more about the immersive possibility space within which to explore. Or with a Lego analogy, the problem with not having blue Lego blocks isnt that its missing blue specifically, but that its missing a primary color. And in hindsight, it would have been good have also asked about male protagonists to have a direct comparison.
The Opportunity in Action-Adventure Games
The motivation findings suggest that the availability of a female protagonist would have the largest impact on games that already target Fantasy and Story. This would include story-driven Open World games, many Action-Adventure games, and MMOs. Given that MMOs almost always provide gender choice, this opportunity is already tapped there. But since story-driven Action-Adventure games (which dont always provide a female protagonist option) attract gamers with higher Fantasy and Story scores, the availability of a female protagonist would likely have a large impact in these games in terms of audience appeal, especially among female gamers.
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Quantic Foundry: Just How Important Are Female Protagonists?
- Thread starter Malyse
- Start date
Giolon
Member
I'd be interested to see how this compares to the question "How important is it to have a male protagonist option?"
I generally prefer games that don't give an option - this is this character's story - go (exceptions obviously, such as RPGs and games where creating your own character and adventure is the point)! It's hard to create an iconic character when their appearance is fully malleable.
I'm 100% for games starring more female protagonists though.
I generally prefer games that don't give an option - this is this character's story - go (exceptions obviously, such as RPGs and games where creating your own character and adventure is the point)! It's hard to create an iconic character when their appearance is fully malleable.
I'm 100% for games starring more female protagonists though.
Agreed. I don't always play the games that have (well-developed) female leads, but I do take notice, and it always warms my heart to see more of them.
It's that attitude that led to lead protagonists being dominated by men.
Gotta tackle the issue head on instead of being apathetic.
Giolon
Member
I think the fallacious attitude "Games with female main characters don't sell" and bad focus testing is what led to protagonists being dominated by men. Ugh, that story about the Bioshock Infinite cover.
hikarutilmitt
Member
So how does it cut that some of us don't care whatsoever about the gender?
I mean I'm kind of turned off when the hero of the story is super generic regardless of gender, and that tends to be more common with male protagonists, but I don't put any care into the gender, race or whatever of the character.
Saying that, my interests these days will at least be piqued by a female protagonist and I tend to steer towards female characters in fighting games.
I mean I'm kind of turned off when the hero of the story is super generic regardless of gender, and that tends to be more common with male protagonists, but I don't put any care into the gender, race or whatever of the character.
Saying that, my interests these days will at least be piqued by a female protagonist and I tend to steer towards female characters in fighting games.
Because apathy is the greatest enemy of empathy. If you don't care, care for the people that do.
Yea it always kind of rubbed me the wrong way when people say stuff like that. Like, I dunno, they're not wrong, but I dunno lol
TGO
Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
I don't think it matters, people who prefer Male or female characters is just their preference.
I had no preference regarding Uncharted vs Tomb Raider other than the personality difference
And I've been playing The Lost Legacy and it's still Uncharted despite not playing as Nate, I love Drake and Chloe just as much.
But that's just me.
I had no preference regarding Uncharted vs Tomb Raider other than the personality difference
And I've been playing The Lost Legacy and it's still Uncharted despite not playing as Nate, I love Drake and Chloe just as much.
But that's just me.
Garrett Hawke
Member
Yes!!! Slay.
It's pretty damn important to me that half our population is actually represented in my favourite medium. I don't think every single game absolutely needs to have a female (or male) protagonist as an option, but at the least some good female characters that aren't pushed aside should be possible in the vast majority of games.
Danjin44
The nicest person on this forum
Hell yeah bring on more female protagonists. most my favourite games this year all had female lead.
NieR Automata
Gravity Rush 2
Uncharted Lost Legacy
I love to see Persona 6 have female protagonist and I don't want them give us choice between male and female version instead more like Persona 2: Eternal Punishment.
NieR Automata
Gravity Rush 2
Uncharted Lost Legacy
I love to see Persona 6 have female protagonist and I don't want them give us choice between male and female version instead more like Persona 2: Eternal Punishment.
Ryouji Gunblade
Member
Not just protags, I want female coders and artists too.
benicillin
Banned
Representation matters. Diversity matters. So they are both very important.
Triggerhappytel
Member
Completely agree dude. Honestly, this is applicable to almost any non-white-male protagonists in games of either sex. If I can create a character I'll usually go female, and I'm generally more drawn to female protagonists as well. Let's get more diverse representation in games. I want more of Faith from Mirror's Edge.
Jawmuncher
Member
Sign me up in the extremely important category.
Giolon
Member
We also got Aloy in Horizon Zero Dawn this year (if you didn't play it you really should).
TrueDefault
Member
Same here. I almost play exclusively female characters aside from fighting games or occasionally 2D platformers.
Danjin44
The nicest person on this forum
I did play Horizon. I like her design but I personally don't like her personality at all.
What does "extremely important" mean? Does it mean it is important for the industry to create more female protagonists? Or does it mean the existence of female protagonist determines one's enjoyment from a certain game? Personally I do not judge a game based on if it has a female protagonist (or really, any gender or race). I judge a game based on what is there, not what is not there. For the industry overall though, I do think we need more diversity.
I mean, does it matter?
Yes. They are two completely different questions for me and I have completely different answers to them.
NathanDiego
Member
I really don't care,I just want a good game,having fun,I don't care if has a female or a male as main character,when I can choose like in RPGs I always choose male,just because is more imersive for me,but funny is in Uncharted multiplayer I mostly play with Elena or Chloe over the others and Ellie has probably the best character development ever in the Last of Us,love this girl,but the industry in a whole needs more examples.
Nekketsu Kõha
Banned
This.
Whenever there is choice I always chose something different and I enjoy games being different in every way so for that reason alone I think it is important just as I don't just watch the same movies that portray one type of character starring same looking actors all the time, I would get bored and I have already a couple of times in the past.
More of everything please.
Selection bias means that many "hardcore" gamers who care a great deal about diverse representation in gaming have probably stopped identifying as "hardcore" gamers for quite some time. As a result, simply controlling for gender doesn't diminish the importance of a greater breadth in protagonists in AAA gamingsomething I think will be necessary to expand beyond the core audience who would be totally cool with an infinite parade of DudeBro space marines if the gameplay was good.
I'm all in for female protagonists of any kind, tbh. Not just well developed/written ones. Most male protagonists aren't well written and I don't expect the same for female protagonists. I would be just glad to have more female protags all around, which is bound to result in more better written female protagonists as well.
No wonder, if you've been following the culture war by gamer bigots you'd see that many (white) men are actively resisting the presence and importance of other genders (ciswomen) to the point of terrorism and exclusion.
Male players are primarily the initial cause and reason of why you have shit like the online hate movements and the turn to neo-nazism and bigotry. Because they can't handle women having an opinion.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
Aye. Not all games need super-fleshed-out protagonists, where are the silent/mute heroines?
And where are the female anti-heroes, dammit? Okay, we sorta got something like that with Chloe in Lost Legacy, but I want more, and maybe more sinister female protags. That'd be dope.
The à¹ÛBronx
Member
I'm not fussed personally whether any specific game has a male or female role, but across games as a whole I'd certainly want there to be a similar distribution. Women in gameplay and narrative can be every bit as compelling as men and I wouldn't want any factor of supposed popularity to deter from that.
I think it's disgusting that something like H:ZD can be revealed and among the first comments are people suggesting that the lead is a woman just because of some political agenda. So disappointing to see each time.
I think it's disgusting that something like H:ZD can be revealed and among the first comments are people suggesting that the lead is a woman just because of some political agenda. So disappointing to see each time.
And people keep saying gamers are "just as bad as other hobbyists". 24% is abysmal and proves that gamers are just as sexist as they're perceived to be. No other hobby downvotes trailers in droves when the protagonist isn't white male, not in the same scale at least.
So you're telling me that the less someone is inundated in 'gamer culture' the more that person cares about representation? Color me not surprised.
Ahh, the "I don't see color" equivalent to gender issues.
You don't have to care because the industry is likely built to be catering and pandering to you. Just back up others when they want to feel a little of that love as well.
That number was higher than I was expected, honestly. As a dude, I knew we were thoroughly in the ain't shit territory, but I didn't think it was that widespread (I figured it would be closer to 20%, yes). Yes, even after Gamergate. I was hoping it wasn't that endemic.
We got a ways to go.
Ahh, the "I don't see color" equivalent to gender issues.
You don't have to care because the industry is likely built to be catering and pandering to you. Just back up others when they want to feel a little of that love as well.
That number was higher than I was expected, honestly. As a dude, I knew we were thoroughly in the ain't shit territory, but I didn't think it was that widespread (I figured it would be closer to 20%, yes). Yes, even after Gamergate. I was hoping it wasn't that endemic.
We got a ways to go.
Nekketsu Kõha
Banned
And gaming is bigger than all other media right and has biggest demographic of young males. Isn't it likely a problem in society at large with young men and those happen to spend most of their time with games?
Danjin44
The nicest person on this forum
rochellepaws
Member
It's extremely important in games where self inserting as a named or designed character is required, it was very disappointing playing Pokemon as a child and being forced to roleplay as "Ash" while my male friends could name their character after themselves and pretend it was themselves in Kanto becoming a Pokemon master. Thankfully gaming has become much better in this regard since the 90's.
SixMachine
Member
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
There u go.
Barf, no thanks.
Mihos
Gold Member
It's not apathetic if you seriously don't care either way.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
"Personally I don't care." -Said the person who was likely represented to an absurd degree already.
But yea there really is a lack of women in gaming who're anti heroes or just straight up evil.
Dishonored 2 lets you make Emily go scorched earth.
But yea there really is a lack of women in gaming who're anti heroes or just straight up evil.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
"Personally I don't care." -Said the person who was likely represented to an absurd degree already.
Dishonored 2 lets you make Emily go scorched earth.
But yea there really is a lack of women in gaming who're anti heroes or just straight up evil.
Yes, I'm playing Emily in high chaos
Though I still don't murder every NPC and all, but despite my not-so-best efforts at stealth I end up with high chaos on every level. Oh well. I think the problem is storytelling as a whole.
Storytelling in general needs more female leads. Female leads that aren't hyper-sexualized and are more than plot-devices/romantic interests for the main protagonist.
Like just write a normal story you would for any male protagonist just with a female. Mass Effect is decent example of this in action.
Storytelling in general needs more female leads. Female leads that aren't hyper-sexualized and are more than plot-devices/romantic interests for the main protagonist.
Like just write a normal story you would for any male protagonist just with a female. Mass Effect is decent example of this in action.