Do boys play video games and do girls watch?
Despite the great variety of types, adventure, role-playing, simulation, sports, educational, puzzle or visual,
the world of video games seems to be tailored for men.
In fact, 60% of girls and 62% of women do not feel represented in video games.
Avatars far from the female audience, dynamics and
contents full of stereotypes outdated for a long time
, even prejudices in their design.
It was 1996 when Lara Croft
entered the macho world of virtual characters
, athletic and advanced Tomb Raider archaeologist.
It was certainly a turning point but, although from the 2000s onwards heroines have sprung up much freer from stereotypes and less necessarily sensual than the 'old' Lara, since then sexism and machismo have certainly not disappeared from the world of video games. of many they are still designed primarily for men.
Over 1.3 billion women and girls play
games and 60% of them started fiddling with video game consoles and keyboards at the age of 13, coming into direct and immersive contact with images and dynamics that, for example, still include beauty models based on old rigid standards and that the new generations would tend to exceed.
"It happens in this way that the female gender does not feel represented and self-esteem can drop especially among adolescents".
The worrying sentence is the result of a substantial investigation carried out in England by the Dove brand together with
Women in Games
, a UK company of community interest to recruit more women in the video game sector and thus protect their interests, and the Center for Appearance Research. , an extensive research group dedicated to body image.
"Video games still reflect models of beauty based on rigid standards, such as to make many women feel underrepresented and thus damage the self-esteem of girls," the report reads.
Research still shows that
60% of female players feel underrepresented and recognize the lack of diversity as a key issue in video games,
35% of girls report that their self-esteem is negatively affected by seeing a lack of diversity in characters and avatars, 60% of girls young women admits that she would feel more confident in herself and her appearance if she saw real-life characters in video games.
Finally, more than 50% of parents fear that these problems could negatively influence the behavioral habits of their children during growth.
With the Center for Appearance Research (CAR), the Dove brand, of the Unilever group, is now starting the
'Real Beauty in Games Training
', a training course to encourage electronic game designers and developers to represent the diversity and authenticity of everyday life in avatars and to avoid contributing to the spread of stereotypes and prejudices in design.
The works will be published in an online gallery of "Real Virtual Beauty" characters (available on Epic Games' Art Station) to help raise the standard towards an authentic, diverse and inclusive representation of women and girls in the gaming world.
With the same intentions, the 'Dove Self-Esteem' project with the launch of SuperU Story, the world's first Roblox experience - in collaboration with the award-winning game studio Toya founded by women - designed to educate self-esteem.
“The representation of women in gaming platforms, products and services has long been a problem, - explains Marie-Claire Isaaman, CEO of Women in Games.
- As activists we support women and girls and, in general, all those who play.
We are therefore delighted to see this issue addressed with the introduction of the Real Virtual Beauty Library and the Real Beauty in Games Training Program, as well as the launch of
Super U Story.
.
What really matters is that the innovative tools and training reach the target audience, where there is an opportunity to make a real impact.
Women in Games strongly supports this goal to make this happen ”.
“We are honored to collaborate to create the Real Beauty in Games training course and hope that together, as a community, we can make authentic beauty a reality in the digital worlds,” said Julie Lottering, Director, Unreal Engine Education, Epic Games.
"With the training course we intend to make videogame developers known and informed of the research made available, so that artists understand why representation in game design plays a crucial role,