Women in Video Gaming

Not sure if this has been discussed already but just wanted to see what you guys think after there were some sort of controversy and criticism regarding under representation of women at E3. One writer goes as far as to suggest that there were more severed heads than female characters in the show.

They often quote a study made by ESA that states that early 48% of gamers are women.

Thoughts?

I'm sure 48% of gamers are women, but I'd say the percentage of women that watch/attend e3 is closer to 20%. So I don't think there is anything wrong with appealing to the larger demographic that is watching the event. I didn't see or hear about anything that I think should legitimately warrant any sort of backlash

As for girls in games, I think theres more of an issue with main characters in games being all the same. There isn't even a good variety of men, let alone both sexes.

Most big budget games these days its like developers are terrified of making the main protagonist anything but a 6 foot, 29 year old looking white man with spiky black hair and a little stubble.

Yeah that's the thing. Most of the games, especially in the action genre, has a male protagonist as you have just described.

I don't see anything wrong with that necessarily. From an economic POV, as long as there's enough demand for that it shouldn't be an issue. Maybe we might eventually get bored of such characters and ask for something different but I see no point in changing something if it's not broken.

I also think that the 48% quote is quite misleading. The report includes mobile and fb's casual games such as farmville and candy which I believe really distorts and inflates the percentages.

I'm not a white Caucasian male but I still enjoy playing major games without feeling that they need to be of the same ethnicity as me. As long as the character fits into an interesting story line, take Lee from the Walking Dead, it doesn't matter IMO