Week 7- Gender in Video Games

                                          Week 7- Gender in Video Games

When it comes to video games  a lot of the times the characters in games are highly stereotypical especially when it comes to females in games. Females in games are normally depicted as vulnerable characters usually in need of assistance of the main character or as the damsel-in-distress. Appearances of female characters usually depicts them with barely any sort of clothing on, which kind of shows that female characters are meant to be shown and interpreted as sexual objects. Male characters on the other and are usually shown as the main characters, strong, brave and dominating characters being the focus of the whole story. In terms of people playing video games 71% of gamers are over the age of 18, 52%  are males while 48% are females as statistics show that there are nearly as much of female gamers as  there are male gamers, so why is there so much sexism? Since the 1990's the percentage of females characters as side characters or main characters has been staying at 15% and since then not that much  has been done about that. Only now in the modern-age of gaming are we seeing female characters getting bigger roles  in  big AAA games and are not being depicted as being the damsel-in-distress like they used to be shown as but instead being shown as strong willed fighters as are as much of a importance as the male character a example being  the AAA game The Last of Us. Metroid is also another example of a video game depicting a female character of being the game's heroine and main character.  But for the most part only 4% of main characters in the top 25 selling games of 2013 where the characters are female. Nevertheless the video game industry is finally understanding and acknowledging the female characters and are starting to treat them with the same respect as male characters they are slowly involving female characters in bigger and more respected roles in video gaming. Hopefully this trend goes on in the future of video gaming and future AAA games, women are respected in reality so hopefully in the future games female characters are treated with the same respect so that gamers won't get deterred from how to treat women  in reality.