More women protagonists in video games, 2020 marks an important result

This year Feminist Frequency has drawn up an analysis about the presence and the representation of female characters in video games, presented at events industry. Given this special year, in which there was limited live events (instead replaced by online ones), the group focused mainly on online showcases held by Sony, Microsoft, Electronic Arts and Ubisoft. And there's good news, since - compared to 2015, when Feminist Frequency started the annual survey - the games with female protagonists presented at the most important industry events is now up to 18%, compared to 9% recorded five years ago.

Its an important doubling that demonstrates how much videogame companies are moving in a direction more open to female main characters, almost reaching parity with male protagonists (this year at 23%). The study also highlights growth in video games that offer multiple choice (54%) and, encouragingly, there's also a greater presence (3%) of gender ambiguous/non-binary characters, compared to the previous year - even if down compared to 2018, when the percentage was 5%.

Finally, there's another interesting fact that emerges from Feminist Frequency's analysis, which casts some obscurity on the industry; in fact, across this year's events, there's still a small minority of women who appeared in front of the camera, i.e. representatives of development studios or companies in creative or leadership roles. The analysis reveals, in fact, that only 23% of the presenters were women, leaving ample space for male colleagues. The hope is that this trend is destined to change in the near future, given that the growth of female protagonists must be matched by a greater presence of women who work in the industry in creative departments.

You can read the full analysis over here.