White men over-represented in games

White adult males are over-represented as central characters in videogames, according to a study by American universities that a nice man emailed us about. Thanks, nice man.

Comparatively, black people, old people, women and children rarely ever take the limelight.

The study, finished in 2006 but only just published, had gamers play 150 best-selling games for 30 minutes. Researchers filmed and then picked apart the evidence, according to NewScientist.

It compared results with the 2000 US census and found that African Americans were under-represented by 13 per cent and white people were over-represented by seven per cent. More dramatic, however, was that Hispanic/Latinos were under-represented by 78 per cent, while Asian people were over-represented by 25 per cent.

One of the conclusions was that videogames were missing a trick with such a narrow focus, and that they may cause "identity-based problems" for the people playing them.