Women of E3 2015: By the Numbers

Another E3 has quickly come and gone, and as I reflect back on the hours I spent watching conferences and live streams from the show floor, hunting down gameplay video, and reading the latest gaming news and updates, I can’t help but think that this year was notably different from previous years. Of course the typical things you see at E3 were there in full force: debates over which publisher “won” the event, guest stars, surprise reveals and plenty of publicity and hype, just to name a few. But there was also something at this year’s E3 that had been notoriously absent in past events – a spotlight on women. With more games featuring female protagonists or playable female character options than ever as well as more female developers and journalists covering gaming’s largest trade show, I’d argue that E3 2015 was the best year for female representation yet.

This shift to include women and also acknowledge the increasing role we play in gaming – both as consumers and as industry professionals – in what was (and, to a lesser extent, continues to be) an industry that’s largely dominated by and caters to men was surprising to me. In years past, I would watch and wait for a single featured game in which I could play as a woman. It also wasn’t uncommon to go the whole E3 without seeing a single female presenter. But this year there were a total of 57 games featured during the major publisher conferences that either had a female protagonist, allowed you to choose to play as a woman, or featured a playable female character (even if that character wouldn’t be considered the “main character”). While there were only 10 female presenters across all of the major conferences (not including pre- or post-show hosts), even that small increase compared to previous years was welcome, with it being fairly apparent that most publishers were taking some strides to improve the way women were represented in their E3 coverage.

Curious to see how women, both pixelated and real, were represented during the conferences this year, which consists of Bethesda, Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft, Sony, Nintendo and Square Enix, I carefully re-watched all the conferences and documented how many games they presented that included female characters that were playable in some form or another. I also kept count of how many female presenters were featured. Because we are limited by the information publishers and developers have released to us regarding these upcoming games, I only included games that either featured gameplay or trailers with playable women, were confirmed to have playable female characters be it in the main game or multiplayer, or who are likely to have playable female characters based on the fact that previous editions had them. If a character was non-human or their gender was not specifically confirmed, they were counted as female characters if they were “coded” female (makeup, body shape, etc.). Some conferences included a summarized reel of footage of games they weren’t discussing that may have featured a few more female characters, but if it wasn’t specifically highlighted in the conference individually or named in some way, I did not include it. My findings, sorted by publisher, are detailed in sections below with an overall analysis and description of what I personally, as a female gamer, would like to see at future E3’s serving as the conclusion.

Bethesda:

Total Games Highlighted: 6

Number of Games with Playable Women: 5

Total Number of Presenters: 9

Number of Female Presenters: 0

Bethesda easily snagged the top spot out of all the presenting publishers this year in terms of the ratio of games with playable female characters to total games presented, with approximately 83% of their games featuring a playable female character. These games are Battlecry, Dishonored 2, The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited, The Elder Scrolls: Legends, Fallout 4 and Fallout Shelter. Although none of their offerings feature an exclusively female protagonist, all but one (Doom) of their announced games seemed to allow the player to play as a woman. The most notable is Dishonored 2, which, set 15 years after the first game, allows you to either continue on as Corvo or play as Emily. Not only was this a big step forward, but I was particularly pleased with the trailer Bethesda showed us for Dishonored 2 as well, with it focusing almost entirely on Emily’s narrative and giving her the chance to shine. Tamriel Unlimited also featured plenty of female avatars wandering the new cities and worlds, respectfully highlighting and acknowledging their female players. Battlecry offers a number of character classes, all of which have a male or female option. Unfortunately, while Fallout 4’s announcer did acknowledge that you can play as a customizable female protagonist, the gameplay demo did not feature that option, instead merely showing that it existed in favor of playing with a male protagonist. With Fallout 4 being such a high-profile game, it would have been nice to have seen at least a little more footage of a female protagonist in action. Overall though, while not having a game that featured a sole female protagonist, it was nice to see Bethesda providing players with the opportunity to play as a female character in so many of their games.

Bethesda, however, did not continue that positive trend with its presenters. None of them, with the exception of a pre-show host, were women, leaving a great deal of representation to be desired in that regard. It ties for the poorest record of presenter representation out of all the press conferences this year, which is disappointing.

Microsoft:

Total Games Highlighted: 31

Number of Games with Playable Women: 15

Total Number of Presenters: 24

Number of Female Presenters: 3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6qhcxQbgwg

With some notable exceptions, many of Microsoft’s female characters were presented discreetly. Finding out whether a large portion of Microsoft’s 15 games with playable women did indeed have playable women required a keen eye and a bit of research. Halo 5: Guardians, for instance, featured a female Spartan only in a few frames. Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 seemed to have a plant character who was coded female, but she was difficult to find amongst the new zombie characters, which seemed to be exclusively male coded. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege has female avatars available at least for multiplayer, but you probably wouldn’t have noticed unless you watched the opening scenes of gameplay very carefully. This isn’t inherently a bad thing – you can interpret it as female characters having begun to be incorporated into AAA games as “normal additions” or as something that doesn’t require publicity stunts, after all. But it does still point out the fact that male characters and players are still receiving most of the high-priority marketing attention. Regardless, Microsoft took some huge steps forward this year, with announcements like Forza Motorsport 6 featuring female drivers for the first time and a number of promising AAA and indie titles featuring female protagonists. Recore, an Xbox One exclusive by Keiji Inafune and Armature Studio, is one such example. It stars the nomadic engineer Joule and her robotic pet as they journey through a mysterious, mecha-filled desert. Though we did not see any actual gameplay and a release hasn’t been confirmed, Recore was still one of the most promising female-driven games if E3 2015. Tacoma, by the creators of Gone Home, follows the astronaut Amy Ferrier as she explores what happened to the crew of the space station Tacoma. Beyond Eyes, an indie edition, features Rae, a young, blind girl who must use her other senses to guide her out into the outside world in search of her missing cat. The Flame in the Flood, another indie title, seems to have a similar storyline, following a young girl and her dog as they try to survive in the wild. Then of course there’s Rise of the Tomb Raider, bringing the much-awaited return of the rebooted Lara Croft to the AAA scene. Overall, with multiple gorgeous, promising, and high priority games featuring female protagonists and many more that offer the option to play as a female character, Microsoft’s lineup this year offers gamers wishing to play as a female character numerous titles from a variety of genres to choose from. For a full list of Microsoft’s games that match my above specifications, please see below:

• Halo 5: Guardians
• Recore
• Fallout 4
• Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2
• Forza Motorsport 6
• Dark Souls III
• Tom Clancy’s
• Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege
• Gigantic
• The Flame in the Flood
• Sword Coast Legends
• Game 4
• Ark: Survival Evolved
• Tacoma
• Ashen
• Beyond Eyes
• Rise of the Tomb Raider
• Rare Replay (Some games included in this compilation meet my criteria but not all.)
• Sea of Thieves
• Fable Legends
• Gears of War 4

While Microsoft tied for the largest number of female presenters at a single press conference, only 3 out of their 24 presenters were women. At only 13%, this number is disappointingly small. But compared to previous years’ totals and some other publishers’ complete lack of female presenters, this is still an improvement.

EA:

Total Games Highlighted: 13

Number of Games with Playable Women: 7

Total Number of Presenters: 13

Number of Female Presenters: 3

EA seemed to follow the trend of other publishers this year, offering the option to play as a female character in a number of its biggest titles. Although we did not see too much of the upcoming Mass Effect: Andromeda, given both Bioware and the Mass Effect series’ track record, it seems pretty likely we’ll get the opportunity to play as some sort of awesome galactic heroine. Star Wars: Battlefront was also confirmed to have playable female Storm Troopers. For the first time ever for an EA Sports title, FIFA 16 will feature women’s soccer teams, which I hope will be one step towards more sports video games acknowledging the increasing popularity and accomplishments of female professional athletes. Although EA had only one game that exclusively featured a female protagonist, it marked the return of one of gaming’s most noteworthy and positively represented female characters. Mirrors Edge Catalyst, a remake/prequel to DICE’s original Mirror’s Edge title, sees Faith, a mixed-race Asian woman, using her parkour and martial arts skills to bring to light the injustices hidden beneath the gorgeous but dystopian city of glass. Faith has always been a character notable not only for being a character of color but also for her strength and unsexualized character design, and it’s great to finally see her return. Although EA seemed to follow Microsoft’s trend of subtly including female characters in their promotional videos, EA’s decision to include women’s league soccer players in their upcoming FIFA title and to place faith (pardon the pun) once again on Mirror’s Edge and its standout protagonist Faith leaves me fairly well satisfied, even if only about half of EA’s total debuted games featured playable women. For a full list of EA’s games that match my above specifications, please see below:

• Mass Effect: Andromeda
• Knights of the Fallen Empire
• Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2
• Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes
• Star Wars: Battlefront
• FIFA 16
• Mirror’s Edge Catalyst

EA tied Microsoft for the most amount of female presenters at a single press conference, but with approximately 23% of their presenters women, their ratio is somewhat better than Microsoft’s. Despite this, I would still have liked to have seen a more equal gender divide. However, seeing Senior Producer Sara Jansson introduce and discuss the women-driven story of Mirror’s Edge Catalyst and witnessing in action the effect of women directing games about women was particularly satisfying.

Ubisoft:

Total Games Highlighted: 10

Number of Games with Playable Women: 4

Total Number of Presenters: 11

Number of Female Presenters: 2

Ubisoft had a lot to prove this year regarding the way they treat female consumers and prioritize women in their games. I’m sure this stigma, which seemed to plague Ubisoft throughout the entirety of last year, in part led to the development of Evie Frye, an intellectual and cunning female assassin who shares the protagonist role with her brother for the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Syndicate. It was a little disappointing that we didn’t get to see Evie in Ubisoft’s trailer for Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, but I’m sure this was in no small part because of pressure from Sony to feature Evie for their conference. Although Evie’s inclusion in the game doesn’t excuse Ubisoft’s past actions, it’s reassuring to see them putting forth effort into creating a compelling female assassin, although the final results remain to be seen. Ubisoft further proves that they actually can animate women if they really try by also including female soldiers in Tom Clancy’s The Division, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege and For Honor, although you may have had to look pretty carefully to see them. I still haven’t quite forgiven Ubisoft for their past offenses, but their offerings this year seem to indicate that they’re committed to including more women in their games and addressing the legitimate concerns of their players, though it would have perhaps been more impressive if they had used some of this time to publicly discuss the issues that arose over the past year. For a full list of Ubisoft’s games that match my above specifications, please see below:

• For Honor
• Tom Clancy’s The Division
• Just Dance 2016
• Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege
• Assassin’s Creed Syndicate

Out of 11 total presenters (not including their special celebrity guests), only 2 were women, resulting in only 18% of their presenters being women. For a company rather direly needing to reinvent their public image of women and female characters, this number was rather low. You do, however, have to give Ubisoft credit for once again inviting actress, comedian, and general geek Aisha Taylor to be the main host. She commanded the most on-stage time out of all of Ubisoft’s presenters, which is something that can’t be said for the other publishers.

Sony:

Total Games Highlighted: 28

Number of Games with Playable Women: 16

Total Number of Presenters: 14

Number of Female Presenters: 0

In terms of sheer diversity of games, Sony’s conference packed quite a punch. Horizon: Zero Dawn was essentially a complete surprise, both for its promising game design and for its female protagonist. Developed by Guerrilla Games, Horizon follows a huntress woman named Aloy who must confront wild robotic animals and dinosaurs that have taken control of the Earth since modern society’s downfall and reclaim the land for mankind. Despite NYMG’s collective skepticism over Aloy’s design, which seems to be an appropriative mish-mash of indigenous cultures pasted onto a white character, I still remain eager to see where this new female protagonist’s tale leads. Sony also debuted a number of indie games featuring female protagonists, including RONIN, a turn-based action platformer about a woman out for vengeance, Eitr, a pixilated fighting and adventure game that follows a Norse goddess, and Wayward Sky, a “look and click VR adventure game” for project Morpheus, places you in the role of Bess, a pilot searching for her missing father. Sony’s conference also served as the platform for Call of Duty: Black Ops III’s announcement, which I was pleased to see feature a fairly balanced mixture of male and female player characters. Not all of it was good – Street Fighter V still featured rather rampant over-sexualization of its female fighters and both Star Wars Disney Infinity sets feature only one female figure each. However, despite this and concerns over Horizon glossing over indigenous cultural appropriation, Sony featured quite a sizable chunk of titles, both of the indie and AAA variety, that prove that playable female characters is a feature that’s thriving on the PlayStation family. For a full list of Ubisoft’s games that match my above specifications, please see below:

• Horizon: Zero Dawn
• Street Fighter V
• Destiny: The Taken King
• Assassin’s Creed Syndicate
• World of Final Fantasy
• RONIN
• Eitr
• Mother Russia
• Crossing Souls
• Batman: Arkham Knight
• Wayward Sky
• Call of Duty: Black Ops III
• Until Dawn
• Tearaway
• Disney Infinity: Twilight of the Republic
• Disney Infinity: Rise Against the Empire
• Star Wars: Battlefront

As much as I praised Sony for their diverse amount of titles featuring playable female characters, I have to condemn Sony for their complete lack of female presenters at their conference. With a total of 14 presenters, having no women at all was definitely a flaw and major negative component of their conference.

Nintendo:

Total Games Highlighted: 15

Number of Games with Playable Women: 8

Total Number of Presenters: 8

Number of Female Presenters: 1

Nintendo is one of those companies who, as of late, have made strides to provide gaming experiences that match their player base’s diversity. For the most part, Nintendo seems to put forth real effort in addressing concerns of diversity in their games. For example, when Animal Crossing: New Leaf released in 2012, players were upset that the only way they could have a character with a non-white skin tone was by standing out in the sun and tanning. Now, with the trailer for Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer, they have confirmed that players will now be able to select and customize their character’s skin tone. Beyond that, however, I was somewhat disappointed with Nintendo in regards to their gender diversity. Some of the games listed below have what I’d call “superficial” female character options. Super Mario Maker allows your Mario to “put on costumes” of amiibo characters, some of which are women, but that doesn’t feel like real representation. Likewise, Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash made this list by featuring Peach as a playable female character, but from what we’ve seen thus far, she’s the only one. I was also slightly concerned with what I saw from Fire Emblem Fates which, while having female party members, seemed to feature quite a few women being damseled. This isn’t to say Nintendo’s press conference was poor in terms of female representation; Hyrule Warriors was heralded for its number of playable women and I expect it’ll be no different for its new 3DS release, Xenoblade Chronicles X allows you the ability to customize your playable character, including their gender, and Yokai Watch offers the ability to play as a girl or a boy, although the trailer only featured the boy. But the fact that Nintendo’s most notable female character was surprisingly and disappointingly absent in her own series was disappointing, particularly given that Metroid would have been Nintendo’s real chance to highlight their female character. Overall, I do have to admit that, while offering a few positive examples, Nintendo didn’t bring any real standout examples of female protagonists, especially when compared to their competition. For a full list of Nintendo’s games that match my above specifications, please see below:

• Super Mario Maker
• Hyrule Warriors
• Fire Emblem Fates
• Genei Ibun Roku X #FE
• Xenoblade Chronicles X
• Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer
• Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival
• Yokai Watch
• Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash

Although, like last year, Nintendo did not have a press conference so much as a pre-recorded press video, I was still disappointed to see only one woman guest/presenter/interviewee in it. This seemed odd to me considering how many women presenters or announcers there were at other Nintendo E3 events like the Live at Treehouse stream and the Nintendo World Championships. It was nice to at least see the one woman speaker have a decent chunk of time to explain the game she was involved with (Yoshi’s Woolly World), but unfortunately the narrative she discussed had more to do with how she knitted woolly Yoshi dolls for everyone in the office and less about her role in the development in the game. It was a cute story but ultimately a disappointingly domestic one.

Square Enix:

Total Games Highlighted: 14

Number of Games with Playable Women: 9

Total Number of Presenters: 16

Number of Female Presenters: 1

Square Enix has long developed games – specifically JRPGs – in which you can choose to play as woman. I’d argue that it’s actually rare to see one of their multiplayer or open world games have no playable women in them, be it a playable woman in a game’s party, a female protagonist, or an option to choose between playing as a male or female character. This year, during what will presumably be the first inaugural Square Enix conference, was no exception to this trend. With 9 out of their 14 games containing playable female characters, or approximately 64%, Square Enix had the second best ratio out of all the presenting companies. The new Star Ocean, World of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest Heroes all feature parties with playable female characters, a point that was fairly well advertised in all three of their trailers. Lara Croft, one of gaming’s most notable female protagonists, made an appearance twice at Square Enix’s event, both in the aforementioned Rise of the Tomb Raider and the new Tomb Raider GO mobile app. Although the newest Nier project has yet to receive an official name, it’s clear that the game will be following a mysterious new female protagonist. Combining their traditional tactic of creating games with character parties with a roughly even balance between male and female characters with a modest repertoire of new titles featuring female protagonists, Square Enix had an admirable – although not particularly surprising or exciting – display for their first E3 press conference. For a full list of Square Enix’s games that match my above specifications, please see below:

• New Nier Project
• Rise of the Tomb Raider
• Tomb Raider GO
• Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward
• Life is Strange
• Dragon Quest Heroes
• Kingdom Hearts Unchained
• World of Final Fantasy
• Star Ocean – Integrity and Faithlessness

Square Enix follows this year’s trend of having a small number of female presenters, with only 1 of its 16 presenters, or approximately 6% of its total number of presenters, women. I won’t repeat what I’ve said in my previous conference write-ups as it’s more or less the same, but I was certainly hoping for a more even gender split, that’s to be sure.

Overall, it’s clear to see that the major publishing companies took strides this year to incorporate more playable female character options in their big releases. It was a pleasant surprise, after some meticulous tallying, to see that approximately half of all games presented met my previously mentioned requirements for female characters. I believe there were indeed more games featuring an exclusively female protagonist this year than ever before, with a number of promising and exciting titles supporting these women. But perhaps an even bigger surprise was just how many large, mainstream, and highly commercial titles like Call of Duty and Tom Clancy’s The Division have now begun to include female character options rather than exclusively male ones. While it’s probably too early to say with any certainty that all of these portrayals will be entirely positive, it was nice to see that, with a few minor exceptions, none of the women appeared to be overly sexualized objects or particularly problematic. Despite all this, however, we cannot allow ourselves to grow complacent. There were still hardly any characters of color regardless of gender present in any of these games, but there was a particular lack of racial diversity in this year’s female characters. The lack of diversity in this regard leaves a bad taste in my mouth and ultimately prevents my E3 experience from being completely positive.

Unfortunately, E3’s real world representation of women working within the industry leaves a lot to be desired. While I was initially watching this year’s string of conferences, I remember internally remarking that there were a decent amount of female presenters this year and being pleasantly surprised by this fact. But as I went back and re-watched every conference, I realized this was far from the case. With more and more women entering the industry every year, it seemed disappointing that, between all publishers, only 10 of 95 total presenters were women and only two or so women of color. But even so, I believe this year’s showing of games with female protagonist shows the industry’s genuine desire to grow and diversify and come out the better for it.

E32015: Female Character Breakdowns by Publisher