E3 2014: Genre/Gender Breakdown

Continuing my research of video game genre and protagonist/main character gender, here is the collected data from E3 2014. The sample list of 152 video games was sourced from IGN’s Games at E3 2014, platform data mapped to a quantifiable “TRUE”/”FALSE” list, genre lists collected from both IGN and Wikipedia (limited to primary genre), and the main character gender researched to the best of my ability.

Elaborating on the gender categories:

“Multi” being either:

• multiple characters to select from (ie. Mario Kart 8 / Killer Instinct receive 1 count for “multi” although there are several characters to select from)
• customizable gender
• large customizable party

“n/a” being a:

• gender ambiguous character
• god-view game
• first-person with no direct gender association

Some key points:

• My data can be found here. (Numbers online)
• Sample size = 152 games
• 13 exclusively female protagonists/main characters vs. 47 exclusively male protagonists
• Female protagonists by year:
  • 2012: 2%
  • 2013: 6%
  • 2014: 9%

Additional reference:

• E3 2013: Genre/Gender Breakdown, along with E3 2012 data