In terms of industry marketing categories, there’s not a whole lot of diversity in that list. I see: three games in the sports category that reflect pro sports’ exclusive focus on male players; two games targetted toward younger children; and five action titles, four of which had male protagonists (as I recall, Destiny had more choices; meanwhile, GTA 5 has three protagonists, all of them male).
Do women age 13+ play these games? Certainly. Are they marketed toward women age 13+ and developed with a gender-neutral mentality (e.g. able to pass the Bechdel Test)? Not really. When Sarkeesian dared to ask and answer the second question, she got death threats.
In regard to that kind of reaction, one doesn’t have to agree with a lying dope like Jack Thompson on causation to recognise that a correlation still exists here. This is a cultural malaise, one that exists between the industry and the core fan base of white adolescent boys of all ages that it’s catered to for decades.
The situation is getting better, but the industry is still far from the point about a decade back in our new golden age of TV where a concerted effort was made to bring more women into the traditional “boy’s club” enclaves of writer’s rooms, with a significant number of them graduating to showrunners over the last few years. I’d argue that this, along with the inclusion of a lot more openly LGBTQ writers, is one of the reasons that we’re now blessed with a cornucopia of good and diverse TV series.
A small amount of progress is being made. There are a group of thoughtful male developers and producers in the AAA sector of the industry who try to transcend the sexist mindset in both the development environment and game concept/content. But pretending that they’re the rule rather than the exception and discounting the 1980s-vintage mentality pervasive in the C-suites and marketing departments and in the coding shops of these companies does no-one – including the industry itself – any favours.
