The thing about RPGs having playable female characters is that most of these games have female STEREOTYPES, more than anything. Tell me if this sounds familiar: busty female magic healer with armor that neglects to cover midsection and/or cleavage.

I am not saying all RPGs support that stereotype, by far. Just an observation that while a lot of RPGs have these female characters, it might not be the best example to follow.

Playable Female Character by definition? If you mean simply that you can play a female character, perhaps. But if you mean a female character that a regular person, male OR female, might actually want to play... probably not. We'd rather have strong female characters, not stereotypical ones.

Someone's got to say this too. Categorizing female gamers as being mostly casual, such as General Entertainment, Social, and Skill & Chance games is ridiculous. If that is based on actual gathered data then you're not reaching us with your data collection utilities.

How are "playable characters" counted?

RPG games may have a few female characters, but are they counted if they're not the central "hero" character?

"Strategy" games are even worse. If the player controls three dozen diferent types of characters, and a single one of them has a female voice, does that count?

And what about games where there are no male characters either and all the action takes place as abstract (SimCity) or with genderless robots (Total Annihilation)? Are such games counted at all? Should they be?

There's no comparison against males, why? Is the assumption that all games allow male characters? Or all games that don't allow female characters allow male characters? Either way the assumption is clearly not true.

Sorry, but the methodology behind these graphs needs to be clarified better, and we need to be able to compare and contrast these female-based graphs with male-based graphs before we can really "think about this data".

I wouldn’t conclude that you could categorize female gamers as mostly enjoying the casual games. We don’t track data on which sex plays which games. But the data hypothesizes that is what our industry believes.

Furthermore, a recent studied showed that 44% of online gamers are female. Of online games, the top category is the “Puzzle, Board, Game Show, Trivia, Card games” category (47%). Only 16% of games being played online are Action/Sports/Strategy/Role-Play. Well not definite, it does indicate that most female gamers tend to enjoy more of the casual titles (as well as male). Since Casual titles target a broader audience, it would only be fair to assume they would include both male and female playable characters.

Plus, a lot of these casual games are also “family games”. Keeping in mind that family game night is no longer huddled around a monopoly board, but rather around the Nintendo Wii. Again, it would only be fair to assume that any game that is looking to target the family audience would include playable characters of both sexes.

Also, keep in mind, that age is not taken into consideration. A 40+ year old female gamer likely has a different taste in games than an 18-year old female gamer—same with male gamers.

Andy,

Great question! I will see if I can put together the same graph but with male characters. Will be interesting to see the results.

And to answer your question, yes, if at anypoint in a game, you control a female character, than we check "yes" under that box, even if the female character is not a protagonist character.

Like Jake mentioned, the stereotypes of the characters in those games would be interesting to know. What about a chart that breaks down the number of games in each category where female characters wear less clothing than the men.

What about seeing if games with female characters have more sales?

As a female gamer of the latter category, I would beg to differ on the age difference re: 18 and 40+.

Though it's true the data hypothesizes said assumption, I doubt they've touched such hard-core game sites as womengamers dot com when collecting said data.

@Jake

Yes, the fact that you can simply play as a female character does not necessarily constitute "female representation" in video games. One need only look at the upcoming Bayonetta to see that.

However I think we must take into account the cultural differences that influence a game designer's choices in character design, especially when you mention JRPG character which almost always take on traditional male~female roles in Japanese popular culture.

Are the developers to blame for portraying females in this light if it is a part of their culture? By the same token, how many Western Shooters do you play were the male characters are portrayed as a bulging sack of testosterone? Gears of War anyone? That may be a "stereotypical male" but I think it has more to do with the cultural background of the developers.

Would Gears of War be the same with a down to earth, non-stereotypical male lead? I think that contributes a large part to what makes it Gears of War. Can one argue that a female stereotype helps to define a game in the same manner? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Other than that, interesting article. A male counterpart article to this would definitely shed better light to if females really are proportionately represented in video games, though, because we don't know the level of overlap on games that have both, only one, or neither gender playable.

I was going to respond to Jake, but Michael pretty much beat me to it (and far more thorough, too).

@Teri: Do you have any data that would show that the site you mentioned would have any significant impact on a given study (with numbers)?

Heh, don't mind my bad introduction to my comment above. I did some last minute moving of paragraphs and didn't reread everything.

I think the more interesting question is how many games place female characters on equal standing with male characters?

If the game biases players toward selecting males (like if 9 out of 10 characters in a fighting game are male), then there is a clear bias. If the game itself offers the player an equal likelihood of playing female and male rolls (including games with no genders at all) there is no bias.

Terri, the article is about FEMALE CHARACTERS not FEMALE GAMERS! Erm >.

Based on the criteria outlined for judging female character representation in games, I find the data has some unexpected results. I can't think of a fighting game that hasn't had at least 1 female character.
But then, I'm thinking of versus fighting games such as Tekken, KOF et al. "Fighting games" can be a pretty broad category.

"Based on these results, can we conclude that women are being proportionately represented in video games?"
Unfortunately, I don't think we can. As Andy Lundell already pointed out, there's a giant step lacking between seeing that there is a controllable female character or not in a game, and concluding that there is proportional representation. For instance, while Final Fantasy XII features an equal number of male and female characters in your party (not counting guests), when you look at the NPCs that have an impact on the game (say, any named NPC), the males clearly outnumber the females. Moreover, the game is told from a male character's perspective (you don't get to choose when you're exploring towns or other non-fighting areas).

I think the issues come down to psychology, not physiology. More generally, they come down to personal preference like most anything else, at least as far as what any player wants their character/avatar to be or to look like.

For example, I knew guys who were big fans of Dragonball in all its incarnations, including games. I could never understand it (and I understand even less why various girls like it, but that's okay for personal preference). I asked them about it, and they told me they identify with and/or envy the guys in Dragonball. Okay... but for me, I identify with various female characters in stories, so that's what I prefer. Not all females, of course - I have preferences, too, even if there is a variety of characters I identify with and like.

Male characters are seldom appealing, let alone realistic. Even after Valve introduced Gordon Freeman as a relatively average guy, albeit a brilliant physicist who is in good physical shape (but not ludicrous and steroid-poisoned), you seldom see such portrayals except for Japanese RPGs where the male leads tend to be slimmer, sometimes even effeminate in appearance, depending on the character designer's style.

Artists such as Satoshi Urushihara (Langrisser, Growlanser, and various manga and anime) can do a wide range of male and female styles extremely well, for example. Having a diversity is probably better, anyway, but it's not necessarily true that "realistic" is preferred or better. The English market seems focused on "realistic" while losing sight of the fact that drawn characters are often most appealing when they are NOT realistically portrayed (Mickey Mouse? Pink Panther? ... most Japanese manga, game, and anime artstyles?) If we look at various male and female artists in any field, we see a wide range of styles and preferences in character portrayals, even if the drawings (or sculptures, etc) are not "realistic".

The English market needs a wider, more diverse range of psychologies in the development community because that would lead to a much more diverse range of offerings whether with respect to visual styles or other areas such as game mechanics, narrative, etc. Similarly, this might open up the English market to a wider range of products from elsewhere in the world, unlike today when many products created elsewhere are viewed as being unviable business ventures in the English market. Likewise, other markets suffer from their own shortcomings, of course, and are often lacking in certain genres and styles that are popular in America and elsewhere. More sharing would level the playing field much better than the current situation where profitability seems to determine what is offered, or at least attempted.