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That actually is quite surprising to me. I play so many games that either let you choose your characters gender of have female leads that I'd even say for me it may even be slightly more in favour of female protagonists. I don't play so many games with female protagonists on purpose, there's jut a lot on female protagonists in the games I happen to enjoy like Tomb Raider, Horizon Zero Dawn or The Last of Us Part II. Of coerce, in the The Last of Us part one the protagonist is male, but that held no relevance to my enjoyment of the game. I suppose the survey will include a lot of sports games (like FIFA and Madden) and military shooters (like COD and Battlefield) that I don't tend to buy and they come out every year, and since so few of those games (especially historical ones) have female protagonists that could be part of the reason why the scale tops the way it does. Look at it this way, there has been 3 Tomb Raider games released in the same time period as 7 COD's. So as alarming as those statistics are, I don't think they are truly reflective of what gamers choose to play. It's ultimately up to publishers/developers what gender they make thier characters, not gamers. EDIT: I Just had a skim through my installed games on my PC and I genuinely do have more games installed from my library's than have female characters than male, but vast majority are games that let one choose or have a mixture of both. So whilst I can accept the survays numbers as real, I don't think it demonstrated what, in general, gamer's attitudes tend to be.

Here is an article discussing a study on diversity in video game characters. https://www.newsweek.com/nearly-80-video-game-characters-are-male-according-new-diversity-study-1616389 “Nearly 80 percent of video game characters are male, according to a new survey by gaming website Diamond Lobby. Over 100 games from 2017 to 2021 were surveyed, including 10 of the highest selling games from each of the respective years.” I have to admit that is actually a larger percentage than I thought.

I find it interesting that you ask why this is an issue, to then bring up "inclusion for the sake of inclusion without it making sense" to then use Battlefield V as the example. You know, that time EA and Dice decided to have the characters equipped with artificial limbs that didn't even come close to existing in WWII, but everyone lost thier shit because "A WOMAN ON THE FRONTLIES! YOU CAN'T HAVE THAT! BECASUE THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN!". Yeah, I remember what was ACTUALLY stupid about that. Nobody took the narrative of a Battlefield game seriously for years until a woman appeared in the trailer, then suddenly that was all that mattered. It was one of the most hypocritical backlashes I've ever seen for a game. The worst part about it was there actually was a justifiable means to the backlash that the haters could have used but didn't, and I'm going to explain exactly what that was right now. If they wanted to have a female character in the game based on WW2, why not take inspiration from the real examples of how woman served in combat during WW2 instead of making something up? The uprisings in Warsaw, the French rebels, the 588th Night Bomber Regiment of the Soviet Air force AKA the Night Witches (That would make a brilliant map for a Battlefield game btw. If you don't know what I'm talking about, look it up). Of course, I didn't see a single person say anything like that during the whole fiasco. On the contrary, most of them flat out denied stories of woman serving in the war, even the stories that were true. I know exactly why EA didn't want to base the female characters on real people, because that would mean basing the game on something other than the Western Front, something western media, not just in gaming, seems very reluctant to do. I described recently in a thread discussing Call of Duty Vanguard my frustrations with western media for never exploring anything in WW2 that wasn't the American perspective of the liberation of France, and Battlefield V is prime example of that. They wanted to have woman in the game, but they wouldn't dare do anything other than the liberation of France and post D-Day as if that's the only place anyone fought in that fucking war. Because they, as usual, didn't want to go anywhere other than the Western Front, the had to "make up" a woman to be in the war rather than take inspiration from the real history. But nope, none of the pre-pubescent, insecure keyboard warriors used this justifiable problem with EA and Dice's plan for the game against them, mostly because they too busy denying woman served in WW2 completely. Honestly, I was embarrassed to call myself a gamer during this shitfest.

I think one of the reasons that the vast majority of game characters are male is due to gaming history. In the early days of gaming, starting with the Atari in 1977, gaming was targeted at a male base. They knew that guys didn't want to play as a girl. That was too effeminate and would challenge their masculinity. The first game that ever featured a female lead was Ms Pac-Man. And all that was, was Pac-Man with a bow. Other than that, there was literally no difference in the two games. But at the same time, we had games like Custer's Revenge. It was nothing more than a rape simulator, as that was the goal of the game. Look it up if you don't believe me. And then you have to look at the beginning of games with female leads. The first Tomb Raider showed o woman with a 10" waist and tits bigger than her head. Every 17 year old boys fantasy woman. Thankfully they have gone more realistic with their depictions. We also got Barbie dolls more realistically designed as it gave an unrealistic standard of beauty to young girls. But that's getting off topic. So since in the early days gaming was targeted to a male base, that mentality has carried over to gaming today. Sure, the amount of games that feature female leads are a billion times more than they were in the beginning, they're still not anywhere near the amount of games with male leads.

I made a comment recently about the idea of using games to make a positive impact on people, and here we've got someone actually doing it! Thanks for sharing this, I'm sick and tired of media constantly trying to convince everyone that "people do bad things because video games". Yet these same assholes never mention "people do good things because video games". It's a proven fact that video games and other entertainment media don't change people in such extreme ways as to turn them into killers, but it might dissuade people from drugs or other addictions.

Probably they didn't meet up with their plans and the reason why they also didn't say anything earlier was they weren't certain.

Here, here. I think as with a lot of things, gaming can become an addiction which is obviously bad, but gaming in itself can be a stress-reliever and an escape from the goings-on around: I know during some of my darkest moments I've turned to games to take my mind off things for a while. Whilst I wouldn't advocate always doing that, it can be a great help sometimes, and even more generally if you're a bit bored/low during the day - especially with lockdown at the moment

Addiction is actually a disease and not a lack of self discipline. Many addicts aren't given proper help due to society's failure to see it as a disease and treat it. In the sense of gaming, porn, or anything people do that doesn't require putting substances in their bodies still needs to be diagnosed as a disease. A gaming addict may be sleep deprived, eat little, nutrition deficient, poor social life; can interfere with their work and they lose their jobs or career. It's the same for any addiction. Of course, every case is different. Last thing an addict wants to hear is lacking self discipline as if you really have a choice. In a state of full blown addiction, you no longer have a choice. They usually need medical or psychiatric help. But it's not like a gamer will have life threatening withdrawals, so they won't need medical help. A good psyche evaluation may help find the deeper problem that led to gaming addiction in the first place. It could very well be this pandemic as an example, and anxieties that has worked its way into a person's life. Maybe they lost someone and just wants to do nothing but play games so they won't face it. It just could be anything. Addictions are not normal unless it is a chemical itself inducing it from drugs or alcohol. Otherwise, it's a definite psychological problem that may be at the root of it. But know, it isn't necessarily the psychological problem that is the disease, it is the psychological problem that led to the addiction, where the addiction itself is a disease. Many of us may feel addicted to gaming at times. But if your gaming interferes with your wellness (just like anything else, not excluded to gaming) it becomes a diseased state. Sure, we had the choice in the first place to put something in our bodies or stay up late gaming, but not being able to break the habit is no longer a self discipline issue. If you are into prolonged gaming and consume your required nutrition and get required exercise, and keep your work ethics, social life, etc. then you don't really have an addiction problem. Addiction literally = disease.

So true. Video games give you an avenue to help take your mind off things for a while or even work it out in your head. The only real downside to gaming is addiction and that isn't really a gaming related issue as it is a lack of self discipline which causes that.

I personally fired up games lot of times to get out of depression, you literally feel nothing once you're playing but better moral situation, it comes back less harsher than it was once you are in bed and overthinking but your console/PC is always there to fight it!