Considerations for gender inclusion and representation in digital games : Lessons learned from failed and best practices

Representation of gender, culture and at-risk populations has long been a thorny issue across all narrative and creative media: research shows that it affects viewers, altering the way they perceive these concepts, their characteristics and traits, and their roles in different scenarios, but it can also be a powerful instrument to illustrate dynamics and connotations in certain cultures and sub-cultures. The movie industry utilizes the Bechdel test to measure representation, i.e., a set of pass/fail criteria related to the scenario of the movie, while recently one of the largest game producers, Activision/Blizzard, launched a digital version for game designers, which was met with negative responses from those working in the field. In this thesis, we discuss how game designers, developers, producers, and streamers in Greece perceive the concepts of representation and inclusion, whether they have noticed major issues in their work and the steps they take (if any) to make their game suitable for a wider audience. Following this, we analyse a number of commercial games from different genres as an opportunity to unveil biases and connotations, resulting to a guide for game designers aiming to improve representation and inclusion