Male characters in video games get twice as many lines as their female counterparts

The analysis covered a sample of 50 popular role-playing video games, such as Mass Effect, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Final Fantasy XIII, Kingdom Hearts, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. The research findings indicate a prevalent gender imbalance in character representation as created by developers.

In 94% of the game narratives, female non-player characters (NPCs) were found to have approximately half the number of lines compared to their male counterparts. Conversely, in only 3% of the games, female characters were allocated over 50% of the dialogue.

Experts acknowledge that while the gender imbalance in games was expected, its magnitude still leaves a significant impact. They highlight the repetitive nature of dialogue given to minor female characters, often limited to expressing a single emotion.

The experts emphasised that the full participation of women, who make up around half of the gaming population, is often overlooked. They expressed hope that developers would prioritise the creation of more inclusive games.

Earlier, NVIDIA introduced the Avatar Cloud Engine (ACE) cloud service, enabling game developers to enhance the authenticity and natural behaviour of non-player characters (NPCs).