We are excited to announce Claribel Caamal Amodei as our first-ever Writer of the Month! Claribel’s piece on representation in video games, created for the KQED Youth Media Takeover Challenge, highlights the importance of inclusivity and the impact of media on young minds.
More Than a Game: The Power of Representation in Gaming
According to the National Library of Medicine, 90% of kids older than the age of two play video games at some point in their childhood. This shows how influential a simple game can be to a young child still learning about the world. Unfortunately for these young generations, most video games have problems with racial representation and gender representation. A 2021 study from Newsweek showed 80% of video game characters were male and 60% were white. Since the main character usually represents the player in these games, it seems unfair that most of the time the character is a white male.
Although back when I was a child I may not have noticed, most video games I played had a male main character. If there was a female character, she was usually portrayed more as an object or the “damsel in distress.” A big example of this is Super Mario Bros, where the whole objective of the game is to save Peach from Bowser.
Having a lack of representation in video games seems at first to not be a big deal but, every generation, more and more kids play games. Video games can really affect how a child understands or sees the world. Not only that, children who aren't included in these games may feel left out. Some games can even show a negative narrative of people of color or women which can leave young kids with the wrong impression. Furthermore, video games where you can personalize your character usually have a lack of hair options for black people. Recent video games have had better and more diverse options, but, for a long time, there has only been one or two black hairstyles to customize your character. An example of this is in Elden Ring, an adventure fantasy video game where you fight bosses in a high-quality world and explore. This game has very good graphics and you can customize your character with many options. The only problem with this is, despite all the well-designed hairstyles, there are not even more than two black hairstyles. Kids or even older people who play this have complained about this and do notice it. The feeling of not being able to customize your character to look like you can make people feel like they don't belong or have to settle for customizations that just aren't right or are way off.
In addition, the “damsel in distress” has been a theme in older video games for some time, and female characters have been normalized as being weak in games. And it's not only in games, online games where you can voice chat usually have a negative reaction when a girl is playing. This is usually in shooting or competitive games where you can hear all your teammates talk through a microphone to help with strategy. But this often ends in bullying or harassment if they hear a girl or woman speaking into the mic. This stigma of girls playing video games can discourage girls from playing the games they enjoy, just because of their gender.
Video gaming is something young children, teenagers, and even adults do. It's even become some people’s full-time jobs. With this range of people playing video games, it doesn't make sense to leave out a bunch of hairstyles that belong to a whole community. It shouldn't be allowed for girls or women to be constantly bullied online just because they enjoy playing games. Video games can affect and change our opinions on the world, and our community, if the same message is repeated over and over. I think that there should be a change in how women and people of color are represented in these games. It's the modern world, and companies should be encouraged to make a change and give everyone the same amount of fair representation. It wouldn't be difficult, and I think more people would play if companies started doing this. It is an easy issue to fix in so many different games, and I can't think of a logical reason for videogames to not change, for everyone to enjoy.
Author bio: Claribel is fifteen and was born in San Francisco, California. She likes to draw and write chapter books as well as play video games. In the future, Claribel wants to be a published full-time author. She has two twin sisters, who are two years old, and an older stepbrother. Her favorite winter activity is going to visit her grandparents in New York and go sledding.