A group with members from the gaming and hygiene industries have launched a new female self-esteem campaign to encourage more inclusion and diversity among female characters in the gaming world. The team at Real Virtual Beauty, made up of activist group Women in Games, Israeli-based game studio Toya, Epic Games’ Unreal Engine Education Team, and skin and hair-care manufacturer Dove, aims to build the confidence of female and femme-presenting gamers, which it feels are grossly misrepresented in games.
According to the group’s figures, 60 percent of all girls will have played video games before they reach the age of 13, and 1.3 billion women and girls comprise half of all gamers. This data comes close to tracking with a study last month conducted by DataProt, which concluded that there are 3.24 billion gamers worldwide and 46 % of U.S. gamers are female.
The campaign, launched September 23, will be utilizing a variety of methods to increase awareness of lack of representation across female characters in gaming and its effect on players. One of the most visible and familiar will be inclusion in Dove’s well-known Real Beauty campaign, which features images of a variety of women and femme-presenting people who go beyond the Hollywood-ized definition of beauty and groups them together against a plain, white background. Already, the group has released a few such images, which depict real-world women mirrored against computer-generated avatars that actually resemble them. The collection of Real Virtual Beauty artwork will be made available on the Epic Games’ Art Station platform.
For a more technical spin, the group has also put together an online training program for games industry professionals, covering such topics as body functionality, appearance, costume, and performance, with the hope of influencing character designers to be more mindful of the way they depict female characters appearing in their games. “What’s so important here is that the innovative tools, and training reach the target audience, where there is the opportunity to make a real impact,” said Women In Games CEO Marie-Claire Isaaman via press release. “Women in Games are resolutely behind supporting that to happen.”
Although the outsider in a group of games-centric businesses and organizations, Dove is offering grants and awards for what it deems the best Real Virtual Beauty artist. “As part of Dove’s social mission in confidence and self-esteem, we are taking steps to tackle negative stereotypes in the rapidly growing games industry,” Dove Global Vice President Leandro Barreto said in a prepared statement.
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