These findings suggest there is an economic motive for the marginalization and sexualization of women in video game box art, and that there is greater audience exposure to these stereotypical depictions than to alternative depictions because of their positive relationship to sales. In contrast, sales were negatively related to the presence of any central female characters (sexualized or non-sexualized) or the presence of female characters without male characters present. Using a sample of 399 box art cases from games with ESRB ratings of Teen or Mature released in the US during the period of 2005 through 2010, this study shows that sales were positively related to sexualization of non-central female characters among cases with women present.
Box art adorning the front of video game boxes is a form of advertising seen by most game customers prior to purchase and should therefore predict sales if indeed particular depictions of female and male characters influence sales. In order to assess the cultural influence of video games on players, it is important to weight differently those games seen by the majority of players (in the millions), rather than a random sample of all games, many of which are seen by only a few thousand people.
However, the relationship between portrayal of female characters and videogame sales has not previously been studied. Content analysis of video games has consistently shown that women are portrayed much less frequently than men and in subordinate roles, often in “hypersexualized” ways.
0 kommentar(er)
