Do I believe there is an imbalance with male to female gamers? Yes I do, I don't think it is that huge but I do see it as a pass time that males will indulge in more than females. This from both experience and my own beliefs, firstly my experience, I have hardly met females who play video games, from all the females I have as friends I could count who actually game as a past time hobby on both of my hands. Out of these females as well I could narrow down that they aren't typically what I see as a gamer, by this I mean they will only play about five games all from the same franchise or gaming genre or they will only play games around once or twice a month. Why do I disregard this as gaming? Simply because you wouldn't label someone who played football once or twice a month as a footballer, you wouldn't typically call someone a doctor who fan when they've watched a handful of episodes out of the vast amount of seasons there are.
Thinking about it logically I would say males would be more interested in it then females, why? Because growing up seeing what the majority of video games offer to the public make sense why females wouldn't like it as much, the fictional worlds and fantasies that games give just don't seem appealing for females to experience. It's like video games are developed with a male fanbase in mind. Obviously though those are just my opinions on the matter, this doesn't mean I am correct or incorrect as this showcases my opinion and experiences which will differ from individual to individual.
Looking into the industry now, why there are more male workers shown then female workers. I don't think there are as many females passionate about working on video games as they are in other industries, an example to back up my case is that because I am from a games design course I can say how many females are working on the course with me and out of the two classes we have there are only 2 females out of roughly 22-26 males. However, our class shares a building with a health and beauty class which is dominated with females and no males, these two courses are completely different so as to why females don't choose to work in the industry? Maybe it's to do with passion, they find more enjoyment and fulfilment from other jobs or industries, maybe video games are only seen as a playable past time by the majority of them and they just don't see the industry as something that's serious or maybe it's to do with the stereotype of it being a male dominated industry. This might be intimidating for a lot of females as males can be stereotyped as more aggressive, rude, harassing etc. In my own opinion I would feel more intimidated to do a course littered with females compared to one with males as it's easier to make friends with males.
Finally, the gender imbalance in the gaming world itself, when people played video games as they were fresh it was hardly known for there to be a female protagonist and antagonist, the main character would always be portrayed as a male hero. This meant that 50% of the population were left out of being portrayed in this new piece of media which may have pushed a lot of them away from it in the first place. Without a memorable female character who did incredible actions such as saving the world and rescuing people not many females had a hero to look upto in gaming that they could relate themselves too. One of the first games to change that was metroid, this game featured a protagonist in a heavy mech suit which disguised the main character from being known by the publicly, a lot of games didn't show their characters gender so people automatically assumed they were male as they fought through this 2D platformer. It was only by the end of the game the player realises they were playing as a female, since Samus Aran (the name for the female) takes off her suit and shows the player who she really is. This was a huge shock to many gamers and showed the industry it didn't need to have a strong male as its protagonist to fight through the game. It also featured a female (although not easily tellable) as the antagonist since mother brain was the enemy who controlled all the enemies and was the final boss for the player to fight.
There is also an argument for the representation of females in video games with a lot of real life females being disgusted by how they are portrayed. A lot of games have the female shown with an "unrealistic body" as they have their chest and rump extended in size whilst having the stomach, arms and legs slimmed down showing off a more sexual demeanor of females. Another point that is made about females in gaming are the clothes they wear, usually they will be put into tight skinned suits, skimpy dresses or have the chest and rump exposed whilst everywhere else is in full clothing. This again treats them as a sexual object to a lot of people and so upsets them because they believe that men are never shown off sexually.
However, I disagree on this matter because the first thing is that it is unrealistic, why have a realistic portrayal of a character when you can have a more unique version and one that you and your fans really like and secondly video games were created to allow a form of escapism, the characters are meant to be what the person desires to look like, be like, act like etc. If we look at a character such as Zangief from street fighter, any male could class him as being unrealistic, the size he is with the amount of muscle he's popping, it's hard to say "that's achievable" by a lot of humans, but it probably is to some (If Andre the giant worked out enough I'm sure he could reach that potential.) Another point on this statement, if we take a look at someone like Kratos from God of War, he's someone who could be deemed as sexualised, he always has his shirt off and has bulging muscles and pectorals that I'm sure a lot of people could dream about the way others do about female bodies.
Finally, lets look at some statistics about gender in gaming. In recent years it has been shown that the amount of female gamers have been increasing. There are many reasons why, both from the internet and of my own opinion, but as this number increases it shows that one day there may not be an imbalance as highly as it once was in gaming. Along with that there have also been an increase in the amount of protagonists, antagonists and supporting characters who are female showing how the industry is evolving into being more equal for everyone.
Appendix C:
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Gender Imbalance in Gaming
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Weds 15th Feb
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