erttheking said:
CritialGaming said:
I suppose we could push it up to 25%. Though, to be frank, I kind of consider games where you control all the characters and one of them happens to be a woman the easy way out.
I was counting them. And while I love those games, unless it's Mass Effect, it's kind of the easy way out.
I think I'm being very generous with the industry. It doesn't have the strongest track record.
Let's do a little experiment then. Here is the release list for January 2015 from IGN. All games with an X next to them have playable women.
Duke Nukem 3D: Megaton Edition (Vita) - January 6
Woah Dave (Vita) - January 6
Warhammer Quest (PC, Mac, Linux) - January 7 X
Chariot (Wii U) - January 8 X
Funk of Titan (Xbox One) - January 9
Assassin's Creed Unity: Dead Kings DLC (Xbox One, PS4, PC) - January 13
Atelier Ayesha Plus: The Alchemist of Dusk (Vita) - January 13 X
Evolve Open Beta (Xbox One) - January 15 X
Blackguards 2 (PC) - January 20 X
Citizens of Earth (PS4, Wii U, Vita, 3DS, PC) - January 20 (this kinda counts because you micro manage characters. Half point)
Gunman Clive 2 (3DS) - January 20
Ironclad Tactics (PlayStation 4) - January 20
Planetside 2 Beta (PS4) - January 20 X
Resident Evil Remastered (Xbox One, 360, PS4, PS3, PC) - January 20 X
Saints Row IV: Re-Elected / Gat Out of Hell Expansion (Xbox One, 360, PS4, PS3, PC) - January 20 X
Grey Goo (PC) - January 23
Dying Light (Xbox One, PS4, PC) - January 27
Grim Fandango (PS4, Vita) - January 27
Heroes of Might & Magic III - HD Edition (PC) - January 29 X
Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1 (PC) - January 29 X
Pix the Cat (PC) - January 29
Supreme League of Patriots (PC) - January 29
Life is Strange: Episode 1 (Xbox One, 360, PS4, PS3, PC) - January 30 X
Unmechanical: Extended Edition (Xbox One) - January 30
As you can see 11/24 of the games in January alone have playable female characters, or roughly 46%. Which is a great deal more than your 25% estimate. And this is a very slow release month. So if we average it out, nearly HALF the games released last year have playable female characters.
I think Video games are moving right along.
EDIT: The release list for the entire year can be seen here: http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2015/07/27/2015-video-game-release-schedule.aspx for context.
ALSO NOTE: This is a rough pass. To throughly do this study, you'd have to exclude games in which you have no gendered playable characters like "Unmechanical" or "Forza Motorsports" as there technically are no player avatars. The same would apply to games like Civilization. Games can only count if the player directly controls a character, even if that control is part time.