Primary Research
This primary research builds off of my previously written case study. Download the PDF here:
Introduction
Although my project had already been thoroughly informed by my case study (Appendix A), it was important to utilise primary research to aid the second half of this project. I chose to do a survey and I allocated 21 days to send it out to participants. This would give me enough time to analyse the results before creating my final designs, so they could influence the process. The survey would be qualitative, with boxes for participants to explain their answers, and share their viewpoints (Appendix C).
This did not go entirely to plan. I left my survey in several survey exchange groups, I promoted it on a discord server with 61 students and lecturers on the design pathway, and I frequently uploaded it to my Instagram story to 227 followers interested in my game design work, and my LinkedIn in survey groups (Appendix D). However, I was still not getting as many responses as I would have liked. This caused me to deviate from my original plan, as I opted to keep the survey open until the designs were finished. This gave me more time to collect results, and also allowed me to implement ideas that were shown in the results as they came in. If the project had a larger scope, I would have definitely left the survey open for longer, and then started the designs once I had satisfactory results; however, this was not something I could afford to do in time for the submission deadline.
characters
For this survey I used multiple images of video game characters, in a variety of costumes. The characters varied across different genres, from horror to fighting, but I chose games that were all rated 18. This kept similarities in the level of maturity and the visual style for each title. To ensure I did not show any inappropriate content to underage participants, I requested that only people aged eighteen or older took part in this survey, as outlined in my ethics forms (Appendix E, Appendix F). I chose two male characters, and two female characters, to keep the survey short enough to retain participant engagement.
The characters featured are Kratos from God of War Ragnarök (2022), Ada Wong from Resident Evil 4 (2023), Johnny Cage from Mortal Kombat 11 (2019), and Quiet from Metal Gear Solid V (2015). I chose these characters, as they offered a wide variety of outfits to use as examples. All of the characters had at least one outfit that featured bare skin, or was revealing in some way (Appendix C).
The survey received eighteen responses, however, one participant did not finish the survey, so their data only contributes to the first half of the study. I sent out my survey on the 27th of February, and I closed the survey on the 3rd of May. The data collected during this time is what I used to further inform my project.
Findings
My survey had a pretty even response rate from male and female participants. However, it reached slightly more female participants at a rate of 56.3% (Appendix B).
Both male and female participants chose Kratos’ default outfit as their favourite overall. Some key words found in the reasoning are ‘rough’, ‘realistic’, ‘practical’ and ‘authentic’ (Appendix B).
Male participants preferred outfit 3, but it was also fairly popular among female participants. Some key words for this outfit preference are ‘unique’, ‘attractive’ and ‘femme fatale’. Outfit 1 was most popular among female participants, and was the runner up for male participants, with key words including ‘practical’, ‘femme fatale’, ‘most protective’ and ‘most comfortable’ (Appendix B).
Female participants were much more likely to choose outfit 1 for Johnny Cage, which was the outfit that covered the most skin. No female participants chose outfit 4 where the character was shirtless. Key words to describe outfit 1 were ‘protective’, ‘tactical’ and ‘prepared’. Most male participants chose outfit 2 as their favourite, which has the character in a vest that shows his arms. Words used to describe this choice were ‘realistic’, ‘strength’ and ‘beast’ (Appendix B).
All women chose outfit 3, except 1 who clearly clicked the wrong button (she chose the most exposed outfit, but wrote ‘it’s the only one that doesn’t feel overly showing’). Outfit 3 was also most popular among male participants, with key reasons being ‘she isn’t half naked’, ‘most suitable’, ‘respectful’, ‘tactical’, ‘realistic’, ‘professional’, ‘powerful’, ‘more attractive’ and ‘least ridiculous’. One male participant preferred outfit 2, which has the characters shirt undone, and heavy cleavage shown (Appendix C). He claimed this is because 3 was ‘too cumbersome’ and ‘would make the character too generic for [his] taste’ (Appendix B).
This figure shows the percentage of how many participants chose the word ‘empowered‘ to describe this character out of the list of available words.
This figure shows the percentage of how many participants chose the word ‘objectified‘ to describe this character out of the list of available words.
This figure shows the percentage of how many participants chose the word ‘objectified‘ to describe this character out of the list of available words.
This figure shows the percentage of how many participants chose the word ‘attractive‘ to describe this character out of the list of available words.
This figure shows the percentage of how many participants chose the word ‘objectified‘ to describe this character out of the list of available words.
This figure shows the percentage of how many participants chose the word ‘attractive‘ to describe this character out of the list of available words.
Analysis
Overall, this survey has presented a lot of interesting results when comparing the language used by both male and female participants when describing male and female characters.
My survey attracted a lot of different participants. 23.5% of participants were attracted to men, 23.5% were attracted to women, and the majority at 35.3% were attracted to both men and women. Despite this, still only 11.1% of female participants found Quiet’s revealing outfit to be ‘attractive’, compared to over half of the male participants at 57.1% (figure 11).
Female participants were far more likely to refer to female characters as ‘empowered’ (figure 6), and also more likely use the word ‘objectified’ (figure 7, 10). As I proposed in my case study, this is likely due to male gamers becoming desensitised to problematic and objectified representations, as they have been commonly found in video games for several decades now.
Conclusion
If this study was continued by another researcher in the future, I would recommend using a team to help send out the survey to even more people and groups. According to Campaign Monitor, a successful campaign will get an average response rate of 10% (Marigold, n.d.). With a larger sample size, the survey may have received more responses, and I feel that further research should aim for even more responses.
This primary research has helped to further my understanding of this issue, and will be informing my final project, that you can see below:
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