There has long been the issue of a lack of non-cis-male protagonists in video games. I decided to make
two Sankey diagrams of the top selling video games of the seventh and the eighth generation of V.G.
consoles which puts the dates at roughly 2007 and 2015. These graphs depict the changes in
gender representation over these eight years.
My data for the seventh generation (Xbox 360, Wii, PS3) comes from IGN.
My data for the eighth generation (Xbox One, Wii U, PS4, Switch) comes from
7th Generation
8th Generation
To clarify some points from my really small hard to read diagrams. It was only an option for games
with female protagonists to have “No Queer Representation”. Male protagonist games got sorted into
what was most appropriate where female protagonist games were assumed to have male and female
representation already. The findings show that Female protagonist represenation has improved where
queer represenation has not. In reality, many games do have queer represenation but just extremely
minor nowadays whereas in the past, there was nothing at all.