For most women and girls, female protagonists matter, says survey

How important are female protagonists to players? That's the quandary posed by research outfit Quantic Foundry, who looked to provide an answer through a recent survey. 

The firm asked 1266 participants to rate the importance of "having the option to play a female protagonist" on a 5-point scale, with answers ranging from "not important at all (1)" to "extremely important (5)."

Although it's unclear how the group was split in terms of gender, 56.8 percent of female participants rated the availability of female protagonists as being "extremely important" -- that's triple the number of male players who selected that response. 

Overall, 75 percent of female players rated female protagonists as "very" or "extremely" important, and although there's a clear gender disparity at play, it's worth pointing out that around 33 percent of male players selected those same responses. 

While there wasn't any correlation between player age and how they view female protagonists, as the graphs below show, those who identified as "casual" were more likely to rate a female protagonists as being more important. 

On the other hand, those who claimed to be a "hardcore gamer" generally seemed to care slightly less than their casual counterparts. 

That being said, it's important to note that even though the importance of a female protagonist does decline among 'hardcore' players, the majority of respondents still rated the availability of a female protagonist as "somewhat," "very," or "extremely" important. 

For more information on these findings, be sure to head on over to the Quantic Foundry website.