A Swedish video game industry trade organization is hoping to develop a system to label whether or not games promote gender equality. They have been given $36,672 grant by Vinnova, an “innovation agency” funded by the Swedish government, to work with game developers to look at the ways which video games depict gender issues.
According to Per Strömbäck, the organisation's spokesperson, the Pan European Game Information, or PEGI, rating system has long included a category for “discrimination,” meaning that a “game contains depictions of, or material which may encourage, discrimination.” Sexually offensive or derogatory content has been monitored,however, Strömbäck wrote that there is a greater interest in addressing issues of gender inequality since video games are becoming more popular.
To the critics who think of video games as nothing more than a hobby or a fun diversion, Strömbäck added that his organization views games as “a form of artistic impression … they can be used to describe a vision of society, or a dystopia, or just plain fun.”
“One of the interesting questions we will ask in our concept study for the certification is ‘how is diversity expressed in games without characters, storylines or voice-over?’ Only a minority of games are similar to film and television, most of them have different characteristics, like puzzle, quiz, and word games,” Strömbäck wrote. “Some of our members have done a lot of thinking about these issues and we want to spread that conversation.”
I think this is a really good idea to combat sexism in the game industry.
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