In findings even the study itself calls not surprising, game characters aren t diverse enough. Reported by New Scientist, the study conducted jointly by several universities including University of Southern California says that games are doing a poor job of representing the real population in the US. Using the top 150 console games and 2000 US census population figures, researchers found that male characters outnumber females nearly nine to one. African Americans and Hispanics are underrepresented ethnicities, with the percentage of Hispanics most grossly out of whack. Based on real US population, Hispanics are underrepresented at the rate of 78 percent. Conversely, Asians are overrepresented in games by 25 percent.
The researchers said that most of the games used in the study were produced in the US but that they didn’t take country of origin into account.
Read more at New Scientist.
