In 2020, more than 70 people in the gaming industry, most of them women, came forward with allegations of discrimination, harassment, and sexual assault in the gaming industry. They posted their experiences on Twitter, YouTube, Twitch, and other social media platforms, causing a ripple in the gaming community.
In 2021, Reach3 Insights conducted a survey with 900 women gamers in the US, Germany, and China.
The survey found that 71% of the 900 women experienced some form of discrimination when playing games online. This included name-calling or insults, inappropriate sexual messages, patronizing or dismissive comments, and much more. Some women are forced to disguise their identities or change their online characters to appear more masculine or gender-neutral in order to avoid harassment.
The study also found that while women are mostly satisfied with the representation of women characters within games, they are not content with how these characters appear. Women characters in games like “Mortal Kombat” and “Overwatch” are hypersexualized and appear in more revealing clothing than their male counterparts.
But gamers are not the only ones facing sexism in the gaming community.
Indie game developer, Zoe Quinn, moved to Seattle from Boston after facing threats of rape and murder by online gamers. She wears a key around her neck that she uses to access her computer server; its contents are backed up onto a computer chip implanted in her left hand.
Recently, The Seattle Times sat down with Quinn to observe what a day in the life of a woman game developer looks like. Quinn begins her day by checking to see how many attempts have been made to break into her private server.
“Here it is, there have been 40 attempts made on my site,” Quinn told the newspaper.
Quinn had email notifications turned on to track every time someone tried to take over her site, but it happened so often that she opted to receive one summary report at the end of the day.
While the awareness of sexism in the gaming industry is a starting point, more needs to be done.
Representation matters but game developers must be mindful of how women are portrayed in video games. Creating a safe space for women gamers to interact is also important. The gaming community must come together to support women and call out inappropriate behavior in gaming for the space to grow and become more inclusive.
