White men over-represented in games

By Robert Purchese Published 23 September, 2009

Not enough diversity, says study.

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.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (71) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • anomagnus #1 2 years ago

    well, to be fair, i dont think gears of war would have worked as well if marcus fenix had been an 82 year old black woman

  • Fab4 #2 2 years ago

    I hope these 'researchers' werent grant funded. Fucking waste of a good research grant if they were.

  • Bitkari #3 2 years ago

    ...The study also found that Elves were over-represented by 400 per cent.

  • RedPanda #4 2 years ago

    Post deleted at 14:31:59 28-01-2012

  • glaeken #5 2 years ago

    may cause "identity-based problems" for the people playing them

    Now that is one sentence so full of idiocy its difficult to know where to start. Presumably they think you might forget what ethic group you belong too if you don't see it represented enough in game.
    Edited by 2 at 23/09/09 @ 13:47

  • lockwoodisbored #6 2 years ago

    I don't know, I killed a few brown folks in COD4... and a few black folks in RE5...

  • RedPanda #7 2 years ago

    Post deleted at 14:31:59 28-01-2012

  • duckncover #8 2 years ago

    This survey is under-representing women by 100%.

  • Zomoniac #9 2 years ago

    Oh good, someone whining about racism. Of the top selling 25 games ever, 21 have human characters, of which:

    9 are predefined as white.
    1 is unknown.
    6 are predefined as Japanese.
    1 is predefined as black.
    4 have custom characters.

    So of those 25, less than 40% have white main characters, as do less than 50% of all the games with people in them. Given that 80% of the US and Canada and over 90% of people in Europe are white, I fail to see the logic here. Also, of the 9 games with white lead characters, 4 of them have black prominent characters.

    /is bored at work.

  • bad09 #10 2 years ago

    "and that they may cause "identity-based problems" for the people playing them."

    It's true I had this problem years ago, began to believe I was a Italian plumber...good money though. Not as bad as a friend who played too much Tetris and had real difficulty fitting in.

    Sorry...

    / gets coat

  • grenade_master #11 2 years ago

    The results of this 'research' will contrast with the Aion's population where majority of population are 10 year-old green/blue girls.

  • Ornithophobe #12 2 years ago

    "i dont think gears of war would have worked as well if marcus fenix had been an 82 year old black woman "

    Or a toddler.

    Hmm, Gears of War with all the main characters replaced by two year olds...

    "Get back in your hole bitch" /puts dummy back in mouth

  • Shikasama #13 2 years ago

    The focus of the study is completely wrong.

    Instead, they should be asking why nearly every black man in a video game is a pure G/50 cent stereotype.

  • notorious_roy #14 2 years ago

    And when they put black people in games everybody is bitching about racism (Resident Evil 5 anyone?)...

  • hardtech #15 2 years ago

    Bad09 = Made of Pure Win

  • peterfll #16 2 years ago

    Tis true, I sprouted a third leg, turned green and grew wings after playing Spore.

  • xTakk #17 2 years ago

    why does everything have to be so politcally correct these days?

  • Golgo #18 2 years ago

    Why are 'white adult males' granted no distinct ethnicities of their own? There appear to be African-Americans and Hispanic-Latinos and Asians and such, and everyone else - from Jersey to Jerusalem - is 'white male'. I think the authors of this report are racialists.

  • iter #19 2 years ago

    @ Ornithophobe - awesome: "Get back in your hole bitch" has a whole new horrific meaning when the characters are replaced by babies. :)

  • Ryze #20 2 years ago

    @bad09

    [link url=http://www.instantrims hot.com/
    ]http://www.instantrims hot.com/
    [/link]

  • peterfll #21 2 years ago

    African-Americans, Irish-Americans etc etc are all... well, invented by a country with heritage issues.

    Unlike me, who's Anglo-Saxon-English (probably)...or London-Kennington-Trash .....depends on my mood, who I'm talking to at the time etc etc.

  • Skandalle #22 2 years ago

    LocoRoco disagrees with this article...

  • crazyhorse174 #23 2 years ago

    "White men over-represented in games - Not enough Diversity, says study. "

    Sounds to me like someone's still unhappy with the way the Britains Got Talent finale went...

  • the_dudefather #24 2 years ago

    Less gruff bald white guys with guns in games please

    and stop putting scars over people's eyes, it looks silly

  • tenaciousdt #25 2 years ago

    the last time i had an 'identity based problem' was when i played call of juarez the other month. i wished i was a member of techland so i could go up to the person that allowed all the tearing in the game and stab him/her in the face.

  • metalangel #26 2 years ago

    Hah! My Fallout characters are a Chinese bisexual woman and a black bisexual woman! So BAM go your figures! And my Saint's Row 2 character is a goth chick! There aren't enough of those in games, but I bet they weren't in your study! And there aren't enough sexy redheads either! Yes, there's a definite deficiency of the sort of girls I fancy in games today!

    I suppose they won't be happy until we get a quarter-African quarter-Inuit quarter-Mongolian quarter-Cape Malay pregnant single parent transsexual lesbian with cancer and a learning disability in a wheelchair as a hero.
    Edited by 1 at 23/09/09 @ 14:37

  • jonsaan #27 2 years ago

    Oh please. Give us a break. Most games let you bloody customise your character anyway.
    Edited by 1 at 23/09/09 @ 14:36

  • The_Mountie #28 2 years ago

    White men, eh?
    /tuts

    Hideously white. Hideously masculine. Or something.

  • sevenforce #29 2 years ago

    This whole thing has been taken too far, it clearly smacks of people who have too much time on their hands spending grant money on beer and then deciding that they needed something to write about show that they didn't piss that grant up the wall. Games aren't the real world, it's alternate reality, hyper-reality or complete insanity so as such shouldn't have to follow real world rules based on population and ethnic distribution. Are we going to have to get to the stage we have to randomly shoehorn in ethnic minorities just to fill a quota, to make up numbers?
    @glaeken: agreed - I'm black but i now speak in jive and now have a big gun for an arm from playing too much FF7 in my youth.
    @zomonaic: i'm bored too...

  • ondines_curse #30 2 years ago

    I feel my family is not diverse enough and so have followed in the footsteps of hollywood and adopted an orphan from a different country.

    Aidan Quin, Accountant, 46 will be arriving in the post tomorrow apparently. Hopefully we will be spared when the diversity police come knocking on the door.

  • sevenforce #31 2 years ago

    @metalangel: if the wheelchair can't turn into a mech, then i want no part of it.

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #32 2 years ago

    I would love Rockstar to make a GTA concerning a black lesbian dwarf pensioner.

    GTA3 - Unspecified generic white guy
    GTA Vice City - Italian guy
    GTA San Andreas - Black guy
    GTA 4 - Slavic guy
    GTA4 The Lost and Damned - Jewish guy
    GTA4 The Ballad of Gay Tony - Hispanic guy

    It looks to me like Rockstar are being as diverse as this report is after. Probably about time they featured a female protagonist, though.

  • spekkeh #33 2 years ago

    Yeah sure, compare the global game industry to purely the demographics of the USA, and then say that the representation of those games are skewed, instead of the scientist's paradigm.

    Oh wait, I just noticed it was published in a cultural studies journal. /ignore.

  • El-Dev #34 2 years ago

    The Prince of Persia has an American accent now. The Persians are gonna be pissed if they ever find out.

  • Demiath #35 2 years ago

    I was seriously under-represented in this article. Not a single sentence in it is about me. That's, like, so unfair...

  • schnide #36 2 years ago

    There is an argument buried in this somewhere, but the report itself didn't communicate it very well, and it probably was never enough of an issue in the first place to be worth writing a report on. Quite often you wouldn't want to fully identify with the main character anyway.

    Another poster was right to mention rap and hip-hop music. Look at the stereotypes presented in that before you come anywhere near games.

  • BabyJesus #37 2 years ago

    In other news, Aliens are also over-represented in games.

  • spekkeh #38 2 years ago

    There is an argument buried in this somewhere, but the report itself didn't communicate it very well, and it probably was never enough of an issue in the first place to be worth writing a report on. Quite often you wouldn't want to fully identify with the main character anyway.

    I read the paper and they do indeed have a point, while I maintain that it's ridiculous to expect a fair representation of American demographics from game developers all over the world, I'm not sure if that's what they're saying in the article. They seem to simply state that this is the case, and it may have an effect on how people of different ethnicities perceive themselves. If the hero is always a brave white male youngster, after a while you're bound to see white young males as being of a higher social status.

    However, they're driving the point home with the underrepresentation of latinos, and the fact that more latino kids than white kids play videogames. This still seems weird to me, latinos aren't that different from white people, in fact, for most black haired avatars, I would be hard-pressed to notice the difference even if it was intentional. I reckon a latino kid would easily identify with a white avatar. In fact, the only instances I remember of clearly latino game characters, were because of very thick stereotyping. Hardly something you would want.

  • HermitArcader #39 2 years ago

    Post deleted at 09:17:39 22-12-2011

  • Tetsuo_Shima #40 2 years ago

    I don't like the accusatory undertone of that report, which seems to lay the 'blame' for the trend on young, white, male games developers being 'racist'. Although I'd like nothing more than to see these developers broaden their horizons and serve us up some interesting multicultural protagonists (to improve the variety and interest of games, as much as anything else), surely the best way to try and 'improve' the trend would be for hispanic or black communities to encourage their youths to pursue careers as videogame developers?

  • penhalion #41 2 years ago

    Basically the way to go is to allow the player to define their character's look. I think it's really as simple as that. Given the player is the stories only real focus, it is far more immersive to have a hand in defining what your hero looks like. If games companies were more creative they could have games where (if your main hero starts as a down and out vagrant) you could even create a tramp main character that looked like you etc. etc. Depending on the story, the photo fit character creation can force the player to include traits necessary for the character to fit into the story.

    .....sorry I'm working on just such a system so I get quite passionate about such things.

  • MrScruffier #42 2 years ago

    Yeah, there's too many white stereotypes in games, what would really help is balancing it out with more black stereotypes for shizzle. Then I think our african american freinds would feel much happier word

  • 8bitMofo #43 2 years ago

    More ugly women are needed in games too.

    I enjoy cleansing the worlds I play in.

  • bobmar360 #44 2 years ago

    what a load of bullshit,

    the moment a gaem is made with millions of black people, they claim it's racist (Reseident Evil 5)

  • JensonJet #45 2 years ago

    Personally I don't take much notice of skin colour in games. It almost seems like people are desperately trying to cover up their own fear that they might actually be a little racist to even need to make a point of this. I can only imagine how annoyed fat people must feel that they're not represented in games. Or really ugly people for that matter.

    As has been stated previously, the easy answer is to allow us to customise the size, shape, face, colour, sex of the main character and these sad, waste of time individuals can shut the f**k up and leave us all alone.

  • Toadie48 #46 2 years ago

    I totally agree.

    I've always dreamt of going to anime cosplay events as Link, thats the game character I played the most and grew up with thanks to OoT and MM and Link's Awakening and Oracle of Seasons. I can't do that cause he's white and I'm black and the only other black character is the villain the 1 person I was sceared of and hated the most while playing Zeldas as a kid.

    I think other ethicities are under represented in games, I wouldn't wanna see developers insert random ethnic groups just to please numbers and statistics but a little considiration of using other ethnicities when that would MAKE SENCE and only if it MAKES SENCE in game x would be nice.

  • rhubarbandcustard #47 2 years ago

    Weirdly, I've just finished Fable 2.

    My character was white, all of many many wives were white, 99.9% of the NPC's were white and yet my first child in the game was as black as the stain on my soul.

    What is the world coming to when even your virtual other half's are cheating on you?

  • spekkeh #48 2 years ago

    I've always dreamt of going to anime cosplay events as Link, thats the game character I played the most and grew up with thanks to OoT and MM and Link's Awakening and Oracle of Seasons.

    Wait a minute, so you liked playing with a whit..ish avatar? Even though you're black? This is totally impossible, you can not identify with Link, therefore, you are a wasted opportunity for game publishers trying to sell games.

  • phatb0y #49 2 years ago

    Developers should just take a leaf out of Capcom's book and homogenize every single game.

    Game set in Africa? 'Mo white folk!

  • DrStrangelove #50 2 years ago

    As a German, I feel under-represented in games.

    I demand more Wolfenstein sequels.

  • darkmorgado #51 2 years ago

    Still no mention of the massive homophobia in games then? I don't think I have ever played a single game with a gay character (aside from exploitative lesbian characters catering to horny straight teenage boys). I don't mean it has to be shoved in your face by any means, but deliberate exclusion of minorities does breed ignorance. A gay guy is just as capable of blasting the brains out of aliens with pulse rifles as a straight guy.

    Or how about people with disabilities? Ok, I can sort of understand from a design perspective that people in wheelchairs might require radical rethinking, but that does not mean that they should be rejected out of hand. How about people with mental illnesses? Why are they always portrayed as crackpot lunatics or villains?

    When was the last time you played a game with an older protagonist? Ok, it would be stretching it a bit to suggest that someone on their pension could be capable of the same feats as Lara Croft, but again they should not be treated as though they don't exist.

    The problem is that publishers work on demographics far too much: 18-30 white, heterosexual male. They therefore assume that everyone in that demographic only wants to see characters within that demographic. Appealing to demographics is just another name for discriminating against minorities. In fairness it is the same as all media - a media which makes great big claims about being inclusive and against discrimination but then excludes anyone that doesn't conform to the young, beautiful, "normal" stereotype that is, in reality, anything from the norm.

    As a young, highly visible and popular industry that is always pushing boundaries and often prides itself on being controversial, videogames have an opportunity here to take a more moral and social inclusive stance on including a variety of protagonists. If anyone seriously says "I won't play that game because it has a gay/disabled/black character" then to be frank, they deserve to be ridiculed and highlighted for the bigoted f**ks that they are.

  • henza #52 2 years ago

    Hmm... If white males and Asian people are over represented that just goes to show who makes games. Developers tend to be made up mainly of white males in the US and Europe, and Asians in Japan. We need to encourage game developers in Africa and other underrepresented nations. Big companies could fund developers in these countries to redress the balance. But we all know this ain't gonna happen :(

  • patchbox360 #53 2 years ago

    ... and big breasted women are over-represented by 1 million percent

  • Turambar #54 2 years ago

    Who funded the study? These things can be tailored to find an answer thats tailored for whoever is paying for it.

  • scouserfuller9 #55 2 years ago

    I suppose it'll be to many games feature a plumber with a mustache soon!?

  • kissthestick #56 2 years ago

    remember kids, white is right!

  • Accordi0n #57 2 years ago

    Urgh…anyone who is truly not racist shouldnt care about this type of thing. Real equality would mean these studies were impossible, equality is impossible if we insist on categorizing people.

  • darkmorgado #58 2 years ago

    Also I doubt Homosexual people care about the apparent "Homophobic games industry" I'm sure they are more interested other things...If not...Uh...Nevermind?

    Missing my point. I'm gay (and, for the record, disabled), I play games at least 30 hours a week and, just so ya know, I'm also a huge fan of heavy metal (pop sucks!).

    The point you seem to be making is that some characters might be gay, it is just not obvious, and that somehow qualifies as "representation."

    If developers don't think that homosexual characters need to be highlighted, why do they then make such a huge point of emphasising the heterosexuality of others, or pandering so blatantly to a heterosexual audience (yes, DOA and Tomb Raider, I am looking at you).

    That, in itself, is discrimination - to suggest that it is ok to bring one character's sexuality to the forefront but to not treat other orientations with the same level of respect or representation. I am not saying that I want to start seeing gay sex, or endless comments in dialogue, but some basic recognition of existence would be something at least (as long as it ignored the tired and totally false stereotypes of camp queens and cross-dressers obsessed with sex).

    Would it have really been so bad if Mass Effect had allowed you to have a gay relationship? It strikes me that the lesbian relationship was only included because the straight, white 18-30 demographic thinks lesbians are "hot", not out of any sort of desire to provide some sort of equal representation. What if Mario suddenly had to rescue a prince from Bowser, not a princess?

    I remember reading a while back that Peter Molyneux came across problems when developing Black and White and it was revealed that male townsfolk could have gay relationships; apparently EA put massive pressure on him to remove it, stating only heterosexuality was acceptable. Despite the personal prejudices of players, or lack thereof, there does seem to be instituionalised discrimination against those of us with disabilities, different sexual orientations, or different ethnic backgrounds simply because we don't fit into the "target market".

    Oh, and speaking as a white man - RE5 had you shooting a load of black men throwing spears, wearing grass skirts and living in mud huts. Intentional or not, that did smack of racism and portrayed a very colonial-era view of the continent.

  • darkmorgado #59 2 years ago

    So your still wanting developers to flaunt the fact that someone is gay in your face...If I was gay I wouldn't flaunt it about...I'd be proud but I wouldn't feel the need to flaunt it just like I don't feel the need to flaunt around that I'm hetrosexual!

    I actually made a point of saying I wouldn't want it flaunted. My point was that heterosexuality in games IS flaunted, at every opportunity - big breasted women swooning over muscled men, videogame plots constantly revolve around men rescuing women, or women as defenceless creatures that need strong men to rescue them. So if one sexuality is being "flaunted", as you put it, it is hypocritical to suggest that giving a different sexuality equal exposure would be tasteless.

    The industry is constantly saying how it wants to convey better stories, to become more true to life, etc etc etc. If it wants to do that, then it needs to stop ignoring certain facts of life - gay people do exist, they are just as capable as straight people, and are just as suitable as protagonists as straights.

    The games are what matter, at the end of the day, but the relentless masculinity that is constantly rammed down the throats of gamers is ridiculous - which is ironic that many straight players would consider even the existence of a gay character in a game to be ramming "gay" in their face. It's double standards.

  • darkmorgado #60 2 years ago

    Plus, your comparison between RE4 and RE5 lacks something: context.

    Hispanic people were not subjected to decades of slavery and human rights abuses, or treated as second class citizens by the wider world. Nor are there still massively organised race-hate groups dedicated to their extinction. When Obama was running for President, thousands of white people lined the roads with placards saying it was a crime against God to elect a black man.

    The stereotypical, racist, colonial image of black people is of barely articulate savages, wearing grass skirts, throwing spears and living in mud huts - an image that has been used and perpetuated in racist media for centuries to demonstrate white superiority. For a game to completely represent such a traditionally racist perspective is dangerous. What if every film suddenly depicted black people in exactly the same way? Would that be racist, or just a "point of view"?

    EDIT: Just clarifying that I in no way believe that Capcom were intentionally racist; however I can understand the argument from certain outside parties that the portrayal of Africa in RE5 could be considered racist. Of course, Japan is traditionally a very zenophobic country with many cultural beliefs which we consider bizarre (can anyone genuinely defend the existence of BattleRape with western values?). With Capcom publicly courting a western audience, they should take more consideration to how their own cultural values may appear to other cultures, whether offense is genuine or not.
    Edited by 1 at 23/09/09 @ 22:08

  • Rodster #61 2 years ago

    White men over-represented in games and Black men are over represented in Rap music. The world is balanced then.
    Edited by 1 at 23/09/09 @ 21:25

  • darkmorgado #62 2 years ago

    @Zedfragg,

    I'm not cushioning anything to be honest - in an ideal world it wouldn't matter how races are portrayed, but unfortunately we don't live in an equal world.

    I hate political correctness, honest to god I do, but let's reverse the position - say that white men had been enslaved for centuries and had fought really fecking hard to be treated as equals. Then you suddenly see a videogame portraying white people as savages, presenting them as everything your race had fought really hard to get away from. Wouldn't you be a bit peeved?

    As white people who have never experienced this, it can be hard for us to understand as we have no cultural point of reference (unless you live in Zimbabwe I suppose). The only way I can think of to qualify my point is actually by your previous point - you see the world from a heterosexual point of view, so you don't necessarily see games from the same perspective as a gay person. Can the same not be true when discussing skin colour, or gender representation?

  • chrisjm #63 2 years ago

    does whoever did this pointless study approve of the bbc over representing minoroties?

  • darkmorgado #64 2 years ago

    With regards to disability, it does not even have to come down to character representation but rather allowing a disabled person to be able to enjoy the game on equal footing. Thankfully it is the norm for games to include subtitles, or visual cues as to the direction of gunfire when they are being damaged, an some games even provide subtitles for sound effects. A recent interview on this site discussed Dragon Age and its attempt to advance plot past dialogue and more towards facial and vocal expression. In what was possibly a joke comment, EG asked Bioware if they had considered the impact this could have on people with Asperger's (which is the disability I have, and means I don't notice tone of voice and facial expression, among other things - click here if you are interested). Bioware jokingly replied that they could include "emotional subtitles" allowing people with Autism to understand the emotions that are being conveyed. Small touches like this would actually open our favoured hobby up to a much wider demographic by finally providing means for those with disabilities to realise how fucking awesome gaming is.

    I guess my point here is that representation and inclusion within the industry doesn't always have to consist of the CONTENT of the game, but that the DELIVERY of that content should also be a factor.

    If that makes sense :-)

    EDIT: Bit rusty on href linking - Sorry!
    Edited by 7 at 23/09/09 @ 22:34

  • The_Inquisitor #65 2 years ago

    Hedgehogs are over-represented IMO. Worms on the other hand are under-represented... especially those called Jim.

  • emelki1968 #66 2 years ago

    #14 "And when they put black people in games everybody is bitching about racism (Resident Evil 5 anyone?)..."
    It is precisely for that reason. When they put a lot of black characters in a game they have to be "the bad guys" or zombies. A lot of the people here are missing the point of the study. Movies, t.v. and now videogames are an important aspect of how people sees others. If racism and stereotypes were not part of videogames, why is that we see the same $%^# white face in "Uncharted", "Max-Payne", "Shadow Run", etc. Whether you agree or not, videogames are as conservative and ethically backwards as the movie "Face of a Nation"

  • emelki1968 #67 2 years ago

    #68 darkmorgado.
    I agree with some of your statements, but you didn't read a lot about racisms and human rights abuses against Hispanics in USA, when they were living in 3/4 of what it is now USA....Darn, even now when you ask people about ilegal inmigrants the put a LatinAmerican face, when herds of Eastern European people enter the country illegally every year.

  • axman303 #68 2 years ago

    @Bitkari - funniest comment I've read in a long while!

  • JensonJet #69 2 years ago

    'Vertically challenged' people are represented though, well at least in one game. Go up to a door or table in Bioshock and you'll notice your character is actually incredibly short!

    Paraplegics get a raw deal in games. When was the last time you met a character with a stutter? How about pregnant women? People missing a limb (and I'm not talking about those zombies we slash in Left4Dead). Come to think of it, bearded men are underused. Flat chested women are few and far between in games. The blind and deaf are surely non existent in games too. I'm going to stop playing games til we get a one-armed, blind, pregnant lesbian with a stutter and hunchback!!!

    What next... Microsoft banning you for referencing your sexual orientation (just in case the young find out the reality of human relationships or it goes against some peoples 'belief system').

  • jynxce #70 2 years ago

    How can minorities be under represented when the white protagonist has to have someone to shoot. Just ask the folks working on Uncharted games. Plus, do we really need to go through the bitchfest on forums when people realize they have to play a minority like when GTA:SA first came out.

  • SpaceMonkey77 #71 2 years ago

    Does anyone really care about this kind of bs? I'm black and I play games for fun. This not a race to see who can get the most different racial sterotypes in games. So long as there is some degree of representation for all, at all, is something to celebrate.

    There's more women in the fashion industry, but do we care? No, because we just want stuff to wear. Yes, damn you white man, for starting the games industry in the first place.

    This is stupid, nothing to see here, move along.