The following is a general summary of what was discussed. In the first roundtable, the majority of attendees were male, while in the second round the majority were female. The portrayal of female characters as unrealistic sex objects in games was one of the topics of discussion. I noted that when the majority in the room was female, the discussion centered on the need for more female characters that are not portrayed as sexual objects, with physically unrealistic figures and a lack of appropriate clothing. However, when the majority in the room was male, objections to the importance of this variable in gaming were voiced.
Women expect a different standard to be applied to female characters than to male characters.
The physical appearance of females in games plays a relatively minor part in why fewer females than males play games-of more importance is that females simply are not interested in certain types of games. It was argued that if females do not like the gameplay, adding a female character that is appealing to women will not attract more women to the game. Therefore, we should not be focusing so much attention on the appearance of the female characters, but rather on how to attract females to the gameplay. The importance of female characters' physical appearance to female gamers is not well understood by male game developers. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that identifying with game characters is less important to many male gamers.