The purpose of my research was to uncover and further demonstrate the gendered stereotypes present in video game trailers, and the differences between genres. The sampling frame used originated from the IGN top 100 games of all time list, in which games were purposely sampled in order to fit the correct genres for analysis. In genres that did not have enough games represented on the top 100 list, the games were purposely chosen from the top played games in the Microsoft Game Store. The video game trailers were analyzed through basic and interpretive content analysis. The basic content analysis was done through counting the signs of gender stereotypes through 25 video game trailers. The interpretive content analysis looked at the ways in which people acted, and comments made that may be interpreted as gendered. There were many findings that could be made from the results. The most notable was the implication that the sandbox genre showed the largest amount of gender stereotypes. Sandbox game trailers have shown the most instances of gendered clothing and body stereotypes, yet horror games have the most comments on the body, age, and weight. The findings had also shown that both men and women showed many gender stereotypes. Across all games and genres, the qualitative data showed 60 instances in which men were shown with large muscles. For women, there were 46 instances in which they were shown in tight clothing, revealing clothing, or no clothing at all. These findings indicate the presence of gendered stereotypes within video game trailers, and how they may differ across genres.
The question that guided this research was, “What is the effect of the video game genre on the gender stereotypes present in video game trailers?”. Based on the analysis of the research, there can be a large impact on the presentation of gender stereotypes in video game trailers depending on the genre. Video game genres, such as sandbox, are much more detailed and well thought out. However, these games show significantly more moments in which the characters are presented through gender stereotypes. This differs from what had been mentioned in the literature review, as Pow (2020), found that games in which the story was less concrete and had more creative aspects, showed less discrimination of race, gender, and sexuality. The results had also shown that the horror genre had shown the most instances of women in submissive roles. This aligned to Blackburn and Scharrer’s (2019) research in which they uncovered that violent video games had an impact on the way in which men and women view masculinity. This would explain why this impact could be present, when women are often shown as submissive. This research has also revealed that there is a large difference in the amount of men as main characters compared to women. Twenty-six of the thirty main characters shown in the video game trailers were men. This shows strong connections to the research of Martin and Williams, where they found that the most marginalized groups in video games were non-white people, and females. While gender stereotypes are present in many forms of media, there is a large amount of stereotypes present in video game trailers depending on the video game genre
Understanding the many instances of gender stereotypes in video game trailers can help improve the current state of video game creation. Future research could go in many ways. Specifically targeting male and female stereotypes could lead to further discoveries. Additionally, future research could create more distinct barriers for the genres of video games. Many video games are able to co-exists in different genres, making the distinction of gender stereotypes difficult to identify. Lastly, there is much to be researched on the racial stereotypes present in video game trailers, as this could lead to interesting results.