• News

  • TV & Film

  • PlayStation

  • Xbox

  • Nintendo

  • PC

  • Reviews

  • News

  • TV & Film

  • PlayStation

  • Xbox

  • Nintendo

  • PC

  • Reviews

  • Advertise
  • Terms
  • Privacy & Cookies
  • LADbible Group
  • LADbible
  • UNILAD
  • SPORTbible
  • Tyla
  • UNILAD Tech
  • FOODbible
  • License Our Content
  • About Us & Contact
  • Jobs
  • Latest
  • Topics A-Z
  • Authors
Facebook
Instagram
X
Snapchat
TikTok
YouTube
Threads
Submit Your Content
Video game study finds male characters speak twice as much as their female counterparts

Home> News

Published 10:16 18 Apr 2024 GMT+1

Video game study finds male characters speak twice as much as their female counterparts

Largest-ever video game study finds male characters speak twice as much as their female counterparts.

Angharad Redden

Angharad Redden

We all know that it has been a long road for female characters in video games. Whether they don’t feature at all, only exist as love interests or die within the first hour, good female character representation has not always been easy to find.

With recent years slowly improving with characters such as Lara Croft still as loved as ever as well as the arrival of Horizon Zero Dawn’s Aloy, Final Fantasy’s Tifa and The Last of Us’ Ellie and Abby respectively to name a few, things are looking up.

Check out our The Last of Us Part II Remastered review below!

However, according to a study by the University of Glasgow, it has been discovered that male characters still have twice as much dialogue as their female counterparts.

Advert

Discovered after carrying out the largest-ever study of video game dialogue, researchers have revealed that out of 13,000 video game characters, men speak twice as much as women in over 94% of the titles. So much so, that this imbalance still occurs even when the main character is female.

The study also acknowledges that although this imbalance is slowly increasing, it would still take over a decade for female dialogue to reach that of the men’s. Additionally, this discovery did not only pertain to main characters, but also side characters.

“While we expected to find a larger proportion of male dialogue overall, we were surprised to discover how few games – just three of 50 - had more than 50% female dialogue,” said Dr Rennick, research associate in philosophy, School of Humanities, at the University of Glasgow.

Players seem to share our surprise: when surveyed, they anticipated the general pattern of more male dialogue, but overestimated the number of games where women spoke the majority of the time.”

Advert

However, how do we fix this? The researchers suggest that this imbalance can be resolved by introducing more major and minor female characters in video games. However, just because a game features multiple female characters, it does not mean the amount or quality of dialogue will improve.

Overall, it is a sad but unsurprising study which will hopefully be rectified in the future as more and more complex female characters join the video game sphere.

Featured Image Credit: Sony Interactive Entertainment

Topics: PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch

Advert

Advert

Advert

  • LEGO Party preview: building off the competition
  • BAFTA poll reveals most influential video game of all time
  • Sonic Racing CrossWorlds preview: Mario Kart World has competition
  • Xbox drops surprise free download available now, no Game Pass needed

Choose your content:

2 hours ago
3 hours ago
  • 2 hours ago

    Nintendo issues important warning for new Switch 2 owners

    Switch 2’s are dying, sort of

    News
  • 2 hours ago

    Star Wars fans unite over General Grievous prequel show

    This will make a fine addition to my collection

    News
  • 3 hours ago

    Steam RPG skyrockets up charts, and it's free to claim

    It's time to gamble

    News
  • 3 hours ago

    GTA 6 accidental leak roasted by fans

    Another leak surfaces

    News