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Blog 4: Just A Few More Steps!
A recap!
To go over my research thus far: I am looking into male and female representation in video games. My goal with my research is to determine if more sexualization of females affects the success of the game. I also want to see if when females are more prominent or less prominent in games if it affects game success. Through my research, I am going to be conducting both quantitative and qualitative data and comparing the two. Through this, I will be able to compare the characteristics of the game through the representation and portrayal of the characters to how successful they are. So far in my research, I have completed my data collection and data analysis. All that is left is applying my hard work throughout the year and putting it into my research paper. I recently have given my oral research presentation and it went really well! Here is a picture of me to the right on my presentation day.
Research Results!
Data Results
Looking at my data results, the graph to the right (GRAPH 1) shows the player count. This graph was able to get a clear understanding of which games were more popular and which were less popular. The ranking of most to least would go: League of Legends, Dota 2, Heroes of the Storm/Overwatch (TIE), Smite. This graph was able to help correlate sexualization to popularity by getting the base information needed for my data analysis.
On the other hand, the players analyzed in each game can be seen at the bottom (TABLE 1). This table was able to get a large understanding of how each game looked when seeing their chraracters' dynamics. This comparison is able to be shown in a chart (CHART 2) on the bottom right, and you can see this correlation more clearly.
The combination of both of these were able to help me gather my actual data analysis. I used the sexualization statistics of the game and compared them to how popular they were to see if there was any correlation.
CHART 1:In the chart above, the data gathered was looking at each of the 5 video games I chose In the chart above, the data gathered was looking at each of the 5 video games I chose and their popularity considering the player count in February of 2021. The most popular game seen was League of Legends at 117 million, and the lowest was Smite at 265,000. Each of the other games ranged around the 6-8 million range.
TABLE 1:This table shows each of the 5 video games and their non-sexualization of men/women, sexualized me/women, and total characters. This chart is able to show that 4 out of 5 of the games have a majority of men in dominant roles. (Overwatch is the exception) Along with this, most games have more sexualized female characters.
CHART 2:
A different analysis of sexualized characters compared to non-sexualized. You can see that the green and yellow don't have correlation at all, they are around the same level for each game.Data Analysis
My data was able to show that League of Legends, the most popular game I looked at, had the most amount of total sexualization with 80% of the 5 characters being sexualized. On the other hand, Smite is the least popular and has drastically lower sexualization levels. The graph is also able to show that there is a linear relationship between the success of the game and how sexualized they are. With the linear regression line, you can see that there is a significant amount of correlation between sexualization and how successful the game is. Along with this, the correlation is backed up with the correlation being at .607.
Some other notable data I was able to observe in my data collection was that a majority of the games I found had more male representation in the top 5 compared to female representation. The only outlier to this was Overwatch which essentially had the complete opposite.
CHART 2:This chart is a comparison of sexualization and the number of monthly average players in 2021. The graph goes from left to right, from low amounts of average players to the highest amounts.
What are my next steps?
My next week in AP Research will be spent doing the last parts of my academic paper and submitting it to College Board. Along with this, the last of my blog posts are coming up. I can't wait to keep you guys updated with the last of my journey!
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