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What Women Want (in Games)

🕑 Added 2025-08-28 11:19:16 +0000 UTC

Comments

Brenton Clark

Fascinating!

Fenrir Wolfganger

I just watched that and I'd like a review too. 👍

Winslow

Science of vision territory there +1

niadhf .

No, continue the rviews! Here is one I would live to hear your thoughts on. I know mine based on your reviews. https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1BxgFfG7Pv/

Crochet4Joy

1. Ooh, missed the sword "Done" needlepoint and George next to it! And is that the pair of little cheeses next to him, from her book signing??? I'm not sure what's on the top shelf though... 2. Yeah, a lot depends on how the question was phrased - if it didn't focus on gameplay (or these were not veteran gamers), then "which do you like the most?" would indeed resolve to aesthetics. Or in this case "which looks most like a normal human being"!

StephanieGail

1. Is that a sword needlepoint on the shelf behind you? Perfection. 2. Absolutely the lady in the dress is whom I would have picked, for this most blatantly obvious reason you have articulated quite well. And there you have it, love it!

Crochet4Joy

Yeah, I was noticing the same thing - and the "aggressive" scores seem significantly higher than the other two scores. I wonder if they looked into why that is... Also, it wasn't until Jill mentioned the size differences that I even noticed, since there's not much scale context, so I wonder how that might have played into the results.

Sagitta

I think in all three ratings, the difference between the highest and lowest character was about half a standard deviation. So no sign of any strong effects at all. It's a long time since I've needed to calculate a two-sample t-test, so don't ask me if the results are even significant.

LT Ellis

Ah yes, the I've-made-up-my-mind-don't-confuse-me-with-the-facts crowd. I appreciate the intelligent discussion of a study and putting it in the real world. Also, I really have a good time with the armor reviews. Very entertaining and informative.

Suly

Also one thing that stands up for me as a woman and i studied game concept design, it feels a bit staged. the red dress is the only one other than black purple that stands out from the background on these. The black purple is sooo dark you can hardly see any details. Silverplate is the most details and because the backgraound is so meeh it stands out so much more

Natalie Arnold

As an asexual, I can honestly say I don't prefer sexy characters. "Sexy" is meaningless to my evaluation of a character. So there, "study" pushers (also hello cat tail)

Jill Bearup

I somehow get the feeling, and I could be totally wrong, that this result was not the result the people running the study wanted. I feel like they wanted to conclude that "Women LIKE less sexy characters", but turns out...women like all of these kinds of characters. But the most popular one is the one that has the nicest outfit., regardless of the size of her boobs.

Sally4th

Forever exhasperated at "what women want is..." statements. We are not a monolithic hive mind. Personally, I want to play realistic characters and find overly sexualised toons irritating. If a game only offers manga-girly toons I'm very unlikely to buy it.

Jill Bearup

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/00936502241279625

Alex W.

I think you hit the nail on the head with "sexy + aggressive" on the sexualized scale. It's a lot more forward than the other character options, especially toward the classic male gaze in game design.

Ekij

Character 1 is wearing ... shorty pajama shorts? I suppose that technically means it's 'bedroom attire' but so would it if she was wearing bunny slippers.

What If Brigade

Props to the communication majors for correctly associating armour with being formidable.

tzxazrael

in surprising news, it turns out that people are attracted to attractive people. this follows the revolutionary study suggesting that water might be wet.

Eva Schiffer

"Which character do you want to play?" in a game about fighting... maybe the one who looks like she could fight? *sigh*

Lisa Prolman

Kitty!

Anders

Do you have a link to the studies?

Cassandra

Had to laugh, because when I saw the pictures I internally picked the lady in the brown dress, and then the one in armour.

Ann Brookens

Oooh... Yeah, as a non-gamer girl looking at random pictures of characters, without stats or any other direction, I, too would choose the one that looked nicest, nothing to do with sexiness or formidability. That dress looked nice. The armor was second.