Do you look like your avatar? The video game census report

Here's what you already guessed: video games are biased towards white, adult men.

Here's what you didn't know: this information matters.

Do games mirror demography? Chart by Lauren Orsini, American Observer

According to video game researcher Dmitri Williams, people now consume video games just as much as they do other forms of media, like TV and movies. This pervasiveness is why he said it's necessary to study games the way other cultural reseachers study movies.

“People are just starting to take game research seriously. People make assumptions, saying all games are this or that. You can't say that movies are all this or all that,” said Williams.

As a result, Williams decided to conduct the first ever video game census report. Much like the U.S. census, Williams' study compiles the age, sex, and ethnicity of characters in every video game released in 2006, totaling 150 games.

The researcher and assistant professor from the University of Southern California said he had seen similar studies done before, but always on a small scale.

“I've seen other people do smaller samples, like the top 20 games of the year. But with those, how can you say the findings work across all games?" he said. 

The study took Williams and his team a year and a half to complete. From February 2006 to February 2007, they played, logged and recorded video games. Their findings were released in September 2009 in a report titled The virtual census: representation of gender, race and age in video games.

Williams said that none of his findings surprised him much.

"The same things we've found with TV and movies, we're seeing in games. It isn't too shocking," he said.

According to the study, 85 percent of all characters in video games were male and 80 percent were white. Williams compared these statistics to the U.S. census for 2006, and found that white males were overrepresented in the games, while minorities and women were underrepresented.

Williams said this information should affect the way the video game industry designs and markets games.

"My speculation is that for the industry, [looking at these numbers] would be a good way to increase market appeal. If X percent of your audience is Latino or Native American, but the content doesn't reflect that, they won't buy your product," he said. "Morality and ethics aside, marketing is a priority here. People want games with characters that look like them."

Williams also said he predicts that minority groups will also gain from the census.

"When there was an African-American or a homosexual on TV for the first time, those were important milestones for those groups," he said. "Games are hugely consumed, as much as with TV and movies, so the milestones matter here, too."