TOPIC: Gender inequality and discrimination in the gaming industry can lead to sexism in video

games. To what extent is it true?

Today, video games have become popular around the world. As the increasing demand for entertaining activities,
the gaming industry is continuing to significantly grow in almost all developed countries and brings back a large
amount of revenues every year. In fact, this business makes the average of $139 billion a year, which is larger than
worldwide box office, music streaming and album sales, and sporting events ticket sales all combined (Minhaj,
2019). On the other hand, sexism in video games remains to be a large issue. Throughout the history of this
industry, various female characters have been designed to fit in the image of damsel in distress, sidekick, or being
background decoration, with exaggerated body and provocative clothing. Moreover, female protagonists in video
games take account for a significantly low percentage. According to Sarkeesian and Petit (2019), from 2015 to
2019, at the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) conference, where hundreds of gaming companies choose
to announce their new titles, the number of video games which have female protagonists is never higher than 10%.
Therefore, this paper’s aim is to evaluate two factors that seem to be the cause of that issue: gender inequality and
discrimination, from chronological and social views.

The history of gaming development seems to provide a foundation for gender inequality and biases within the
industry. Back to 1972, when Pong, one of the earliest video games created, became commercially successful,
games were meant for family experience. Although the industry was in its infancy with mostly male developers,
women were also welcome (Lien, 2013). Nevertheless, since game sales decreased because of low quality, there
was a marketing strategy that shaped the gender bias lasting until today. In late 1985, the large Japanese brand
Nintendo decided to put their gaming console in the toy section for boys with the introduction of the Nintendo
Entertainment System (NES) in the United States (The Strong, 2016). Becoming successful, the strategy was then
copied by other gaming companies, and thus games were meant for boys only. Consequently, it led to not only the
attraction of more male developers to the industry, but also the focus on designing games to appeal to more male
players. Therefore, the concept in game started to become more male bias. Many famous franchises such as Mario
or The Legend of Zelda were based on the notion in which a powerful masculine character has to rescue the
princess who may only contribute as a reward at the end of the gameplay.

In modern days, despite the fact that the situation seems to be better since the number of female gamers is almost
the same as male, at 46% in 2018 (Entertainment Software Association, 2019), the industry itself does not have
enough space for women. From 2014 to 2019, female developers only took account for the average of 22.4%,
according to Gough (2020). Because of gender stereotypes since 1985, many women may feel uncomfortable or
uninterested in technology and gaming, leaving the industry to be dominated by men. As a result of this inequality,
game development keeps being affected by male fantasies. Although many female characters nowadays are
designed to have backstories, value, and are playable, their appearance is somewhat unrealistic. For example, in
most blockbuster games (or AAA games), such as Grand Theft Auto V, The Witcher 3, Devil May Cry 5, Resident
Evil 2 Remake, Final Fantasy VII Remake, or Cyberpunk 2077, females are described as attractive with tight fitted
clothes, or sexualized with exaggerated figures (Polianskaya, 2019). The similar situation happens with the
concepts, posters, and artworks of some esports games like League of Legends, Overwatch, and Fortnite. There are
some exceptions like Mirror’s Edge, Portal 2, Tomb Raider (the reboot trilogy), or The Last of Us Part II, which
have female protagonists and are designed in a more body-realistic way, but in general, sexism in character
representation is common.

On the other hand, in some companies, female game makers still have their voices. In an interview, Nina Freeman,
a game designer in Fullbright, stated that AAA games should not represent the whole industry (Polianskaya, 2019).
In fact, in recent years, the number and quality of indie games as well as independent creators have been strongly
increasing. Two typical examples are Monument Valley 2 and Florence, winners of mobile games in The Game
Awards 2017 and BAFTA Games Awards 2019, respectively. Although the development teams are small, and the
budget for these games is limited, the game design was equally influenced by every member regardless of gender
(Ustwo games, 2017; Frank 2018). In addition, the female creators who are involved in these titles, Lea
Schönfelder and Kamina Vincent, are talented developers with self-awareness about the necessity of diversity in
the gaming industry. Nonetheless, because each player has their own favorite genre of games, they may not care
about other gender’s preference and related issues. Most female players are more interested in puzzle games,
family and farming simulation, or match 3 (Campbell, 2017); therefore, they pay less attention to sexism which
occurs more often in action adventure, open world, or first-person shooter games. This may make the situation
worse despite the effort of many independent female developers.

From the social view, gender discrimination in gaming industry may be another reason for sexism in video games.
Within the workplace, this problem is initially considered as significant, but also raises controversy. For example,
the large salary gap between male and female developers is a prevalent issue among companies. Especially in
Rockstar North studio in Scotland, women earn the average of £0.36 per hour compared to £1 per hour earned by
their male peers (Gach, 2018). In contrast, by doing research, Lau (2019) concluded that this situation does not
impact women’s job satisfaction. The reason can be due to the lack of females who are in high paying roles.
Because of gender biases, many of them cannot overcome the glass ceiling to earn higher positions in the
companies, thus contributing less value to the industry. To deal with the issue, in recent years, there have been
more workshops to encourage women to be more confident as well as reduce the impact of biases on them (Stokes,
2018). As a result, lots of females have decided to stand for their rights, and the major example is the lawsuit of
two women against Riot Games for discriminatory behaviors in late 2018. The company finally agreed to pay at
least $10 million to settle this legal action (Dean, 2019). Therefore, it can be concluded that discrimination within
the workplace is not a major factor contributing to gender stereotypes in video games in present days.

In fact, the major discrimination is coming from outside the workplace, and it can be linked to the continuing
sexism in today’s video games. There will be no controversy if women raise their voices to protect their rights in
the workplace environment, but the large number of gaming communities, especially men, can feel offensive when
these females criticize the ethics in their favorite games. This discrimination started in 2014, represented by the
hashtag GamerGate, to attack any women who talk about sexism in video games. According to Wu (2019), since
this online attack began, hundreds of anonymous individuals have harassed women in gaming industry with rape
and death threats for writing or making a speech about this sensitive topic. Any related journals will receive
aggressive spam comments, and any related videos, even TED Talks, will receive spam dislikes. The privacy of the
authors or speakers is also heavily violated. The aim of this discrimination is to force these women to quit their
careers, and many of them gave up. GamerGate hence has become the barrier for female developers who want to
share their thoughts, and most of them chose to keep silent. Inevitably, sexism continues to rise in video games
without being criticized.

In conclusion, within the workplace, inequality may have stronger impact on the gender stereotypes in video games
than the discrimination. However, from the social perspective, the problem may come from gender biases which
were created since the early days of this business, as well as the raging behaviors that have happened since 2014.
Although there are some spotlights in the industry, it is hard for female developers to eliminate all these issues in
the near future.
REFERENCES:

Campbell, C. (2017, January 20). Which games are women and girls playing?. Polygon. Retrieved from
https://www.polygon.com/2017/1/20/14337282/games-for-women-and-girls

Dean, S. (2019, December 2). Riot Games will pay $10 million to settle gender discrimination suit. Los Angeles
Times. Retrieved from
https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2019-12-02/riot-games-gender-discrimination-settlement

Entertainment Software Association. (2019). 2019 essential facts about the computer and video game industry.
Retrieved from https://www.theesa.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/ESA_Essential_facts_2019_final.pdf

Frank, A. (2018, February 16). Take a look at how Florence became an unforgettable game. Polygon. Retrieved
from https://www.polygon.com/videos/2018/2/16/17020198/florence-game-ios-making-of-mountains-studio

Gach, E. (2018, April 5). Women earn significantly less money than men at Rockstar North, among other gaming
companies. Kotaku. Retrieved from
https://kotaku.com/women-earn-significantly-less-money-than-men-at-rocksta-1825019271

Gough, C. (2020). Distribution of game developers worldwide from 2014 to 2019, by gender. Statista. Retrieved
from https://www.statista.com/statistics/453634/game-developer-gender-distribution-worldwide/

Lau, S. S. (2019). Gender differences in job satisfaction and organizational commitment in the video game
industry. ProQuest. Retrieved from
https://search.proquest.com/openview/fd3ce195e1fbe711dfa5d3c885a374e2/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18
750&diss=y

Lien, T. (2013, December 2). No girls allowed. Polygon. Retrieved from

http://www.polygon.com/features/2013/12/2/5143856/no-girls-allowed

Minhaj, H. (2019, August 5). The dark side of the video game industry [Video file]. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLAi_cmly6Q

Polianskaya, A. (2019, February 20). Are video games inherently sexist? Designers and game makers discuss.
Design Week. Retrieved from
https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/18-24-february-2019/are-video-games-inherently-sexist-designers-and-
game-makers-share-their-views/

Sarkeesian, A., & Petit, C. (2019, June 14). Female representation in videogames isn't getting any better. Wired.
Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/story/e3-2019-female-representation-videogames/

Stokes, C. (2018, March 12). The road to game industry diversity: Phil Spencer’s 5 steps from DICE. VentureBeat.
Retrieved from
https://venturebeat.com/2018/03/12/the-road-to-game-industry-diversity-building-on-phil-spencers-5-steps-fr
om-dice/
The Strong. (2016). Video game history timeline. Retrieved from
http://www.museumofplay.org/about/icheg/video-game-history/timeline

Ustwo games. (2017, June 5). Monument valley 2 – Behind the scenes [Video file]. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=271&v=6gzygG3MTgk&feature=emb_title

Wu, B. (2019, August 15). I wish I could tell you it’s gotten better. It hasn’t. The New York Times. Retrieved from
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/15/opinion/brianna-wu-gamergate.html