As gaming got swallowed up by the global commercial machine, it’s been run straight into the ground, with companies rushing to hire liberal women and feminist allies to replace the talented, creative developers they once had since 2012.
The result? Gaming’s been gutted and softened up, as we’ve seen with the push to scrub out traditional femininity and replace it with gender-inclusive characters who supposedly represent “real women” by being overtly masculine, visually unappealing, and aesthetically challenged.
For years, chronically online critics have set out to shake up and dismantle the games industry, constantly decrying its so-called rampant sexism, misogyny, and the “objectification” of women in games.
From today’s game developers to transgender journalists to feminist figures like Anita Sarkeesian, they’ve loudly insisted that attractive female characters are not only “harmful” to society but that real-world women find such designs outright appalling.
Many consumers are starting to feel that their escapist enjoyment has been undermined by an influx of activists, feminists, and industry-driven mandates for inclusivity and censorship. In response, some are pushing back in the only way they can by refusing to purchase products perceived to cater to these agendas, which align with corporate ESG criteria like those promoted by firms like BlackRock.
Meanwhile, journalists have often circulated narratives claiming that most gamers are women, or that attractive female characters are somehow detrimental to real women. However, recent research counters this assumption.
In a study led by Ohio State University’s Assistant Communications Professor Teresa Lynch, with OSU PhD students Annie Dooley and Matthew R. Erxleben, titled “Examining How Sex Appeal Cues and Strength Cues Influence Impressions of Female Video Game Characters,” researchers set out to understand players’ reactions to “oversexualized” characters.
This study specifically aimed to examine whether strong, well-defined personalities in sexualized female characters would enhance their likeability among players.
The study highlights the significance of character design in today’s gaming environment, illustrating how sex appeal and perceived strength influence player perceptions. Interestingly, it found that these perceptions vary depending on whether players are passively observing or actively engaging with the character.
“I think it’s important to understand how gender socialization and prejudice like sexism inform video game development and player experiences,” noted study author Teresa Lynch, an assistant professor of communication technology at The Ohio State University and director of the Chronos Laboratory.
“Sexism pervades gaming. For example, game content overwhelmingly features male characters to the exclusion of central female or gender minoritized characters. Games that do feature female or gender minoritized characters often unfavorably stereotype and objectify these groups. In online gaming experiences, men and boys target women, girls, and gender minoritized individuals with sexist and harassing communication.”
“I want to know more about why, when, and how these kinds of outcomes happen. At the same time, many women and girls and people who identify outside of the binary enjoy gaming a great deal. I count myself among them. Understanding why these people enjoy games in spite of (or even because of!) the challenges sexism presents in gaming is fascinating to me. This study is one part of answering those big questions.”
The researchers carried out two controlled experiments to explore how design elements impact perceptions of female characters in video games. For these studies, they utilized customized character designs in SOULCALIBUR VI, presenting participants with a selection of female characters that were systematically varied in levels of sexualization and indicators of physical strength.
This approach allowed the team to analyze how these distinct traits affected players’ responses to each character type.
In the first experiment, 239 undergraduate students from a communication program participated, most of whom identified as female. The age range was 18 to 51, though the group leaned younger overall.
The researchers developed four distinct female character types in SOULCALIBUR VI, each crafted to reflect a unique combination of sexualization and strength levels: high sexualization with high strength, high sexualization with low strength, low sexualization with high strength, and low sexualization with low strength.
This setup allowed for an examination of how varying these two traits influenced participants’ perceptions and attitudes toward each character.
To achieve these variations, the team adjusted specific visual traits. Characters with high sexualization were crafted with features reflecting prior studies on sexualized portrayals: they had larger breasts, a lower waist-to-hip ratio, and wore more revealing outfits. In contrast, low-sexualization characters featured more modest proportions and less revealing attire. Strength cues were also customized—high-strength characters appeared larger, more muscular, and wielded heavier weapons, while low-strength characters had smaller builds and less imposing weaponry.
Participants then watched four pre-recorded video clips, each showcasing a different character type in a short combat sequence. After viewing each clip, participants rated the characters on dimensions like perceived sexualization (e.g., whether their attire seemed revealing), strength (perceived physical power), femininity (alignment with traditional feminine traits), and likability (how much they’d enjoy playing as the character).
At the session’s end, participants completed a selection survey, choosing the character they’d prefer to play as.
Lynch’s team observed that adding “strength cues” to a sexualized character didn’t significantly alter the perception of that character’s sex appeal. Characters with high sexualization were often viewed as more traditionally feminine, but were generally less liked, particularly among female participants.
“Strength cues, by contrast, did not independently influence likability,” they further noted, “suggesting that the perception of likability may be more influenced by sexualization cues than by physical strength.”
The team’s findings threw a wrench into the expected narrative. Contrary to assumptions often held by radical feminists who criticize gaming and gamers, it was female participants who tended to prefer characters displaying “high femininity traits” (often linked with higher sexualization cues).
Meanwhile, male participants leaned towards choosing characters that were strong yet less sexualized.
It’s worth noting that the study’s participant pool largely consisted of Ohio State University undergraduates, a demographic that likely reflects the influence of current academic and cultural narratives. Many young men around this age are attending institutions where discussions on representation, gender, and inclusivity are central topics.
This academic environment may shape their perceptions, including a tendency to view traditional femininity and sexualized character traits through a more critical lens, potentially influenced by modern discussions that associate these traits with outdated or harmful stereotypes. This shift may also reflect a growing diversity in identity among young people, where gender and sexuality are discussed heavily.
Rather than interpreting these results as a sign that the conversation around sexualized characters may be overstated or no longer as divisive, Lynch took the findings in another direction. She suggested that this preference among young women highlights the deep-seated impact of “social beauty standards” on their perceptions, viewing it less as a neutral choice and more as an indication of internalized societal expectations.
“I wasn’t surprised by the fact that participants in our studies disliked the sexualized female characters,” Lynch told Dolan. “I think, especially among younger generations who have grown up with social media and intuitively understand how media perpetuate impossible beauty standards, there’s increasing scrutiny and critique around sexual objectification.”
“That said, I was surprised to see that in our first study women still selected the most sexualized character when asked which character they would choose to play,” she continued. “It’s important to remember that this character was also rated as the most feminine, so it’s possible that women were just selecting the character they most identified with.”
“However, this finding highlight why this research is so important,” Lynch continued. “If women are conflating sexual appeal with femininity, then can they disassociate those two concepts? And, if entertainment media like video games continue to portray female characters by emphasizing sex appeal, how does that shape expectations of women and women’s value in society?”
With these findings in hand, Lynch’s team proceeded to a second experiment, this time involving 438 undergraduate students from similar demographics. Participants were asked to provide their opinions on the four character designs after actively playing a match with each of them, rather than merely watching clips of their actions.
The results revealed that while “high-strength” characters were rated as “more competent” in their abilities, they were also perceived as “less warm” in terms of personal appeal. This suggests that players may appreciate the prowess and capabilities of strong characters but simultaneously feel a disconnect in their emotional or interpersonal warmth, highlighting a nuanced dynamic in how character traits are perceived and valued in gaming contexts.
Further, the findings indicated that “female participants viewed high-strength characters as more competent compared to low-strength characters,” while this distinction was not significant among male participants. This is particularly notable as it undermines the common narrative that men do not appreciate “strong female characters,” revealing instead that such traits may not resonate with male players as much as a character’s personality or play style.
Wrapping up her team’s research, Lynch emphasized to Dolan that the primary takeaway from the study was that “playing video games positions people with a different orientation to the content on-screen.” This suggests that the act of engaging with characters in gameplay can shape perceptions in ways that passive observation cannot, further complicating the discourse around character design and player preferences in gaming.
“It can involve you in a way that simultaneously makes you feel like you’re part of the content and game, that you are the character,” she explained. “So, if you are a character that has attributes that you appreciate and enjoy embodying, then you probably will experience some positive outcomes and interpret the experience similarly.”
“And, because games require you to engage in action, you may find distinct things enjoyable in games compared to less interactive experiences like watching movies,” said Lynch. “Instead of just seeing a hero defeat a horrible villain on-screen, you feel part of the experience of vanquishing that villain. That can be really awesome.”
“But, if the character has attributes that aren’t so great — maybe they are sexually objectified or portrayed as cute, but helpless — then that stands to diminish you in the same way that the heroic portrayal elevated you,” she further argued. “Our findings suggest that people are paying more attention to the powerfulness of female characters who they can play as, whereas this factor wasn’t so important when they were just watching the game video. Being able to translate those characteristics of the visual portrayal into actions the player was actually taking shaped the experience.”
“One big point is that we know that other content elements such as backstory and narrative can influence the way that people understand a character’s portrayal,” she posited. “This study didn’t get at that, so it’s possible that if these characters were more fleshed out that would affect the results of the work.”
“In the long term, my lab group and I are trying to understand longer-term effects of interactions with female characters in games,” the assistant professor asserted. “We’re interested in understanding beyond initial impressions and looking at how distinct interactions with characters through story or varying modes of play might disrupt or strengthen effects.”
Concluding her thoughts, Lynch affirmed, “We’re also very interested in understanding the positive impact of female characters on players, not just the drawbacks or negative side. People play video games because they like them and find the experiences entertaining, but also because they have meaningful experiences. We’re exploring that side of things because it’s all part of the same question.”
While Lynch seems hell-bent on digging into this topic until the research finally backs up her pre-determined assumptions, general players should take these results as solid proof that the entire counter liberals who demonize attractive female characters in gaming.
Of course, feminists will whip out yet another excuse for why they won’t “trust the science” on this issue. Sexuality is as integral to our nature and lives as food, art, or competition, so it’s no surprise that gamers, whether male or female, will naturally gravitate towards and prefer those who are attractive and appealing, regardless of sex, in fantasy environments and media entertainment.
