Calling all game developers: create the new heroes we need to see today!

Author: by Dove

Presented by Dove

This is a sponsored article by Dove. We know what you’re thinking: “The brand known for its iconic beauty bar? What do they know about video games?” Please allow us a moment to explain – we’ve teamed up with friends in the games industry to help with this incredibly important mission.

As part of Dove’s ongoing commitment to supporting gamers challenge beauty ideals in the space, we’re giving five of you the chance to win an All-Access Pass to industry-leading conference GDC 2024! Simply, complete the course and put your new-found knowledge into action to build on the creation of inclusive video game avatars.

Representation matters. It’s more important than ever that we see people or characters who look like us in the films we watch, on the social media feeds we scroll and in the games we play. We need a change: for the 1.3 billion women and young girls who make up the world’s gaming community, there is little in the way of realistic representation of and for them in the virtual world. In fact, new research from Dove, in partnership with Women in Games and the Centre for Appearance Research (CAR), found 60% of girls feel misrepresented by video games. Even more concerning, over a third of young girls feel their self-esteem has been negatively impacted by the lack of diversity in avatars.

Female video game characters can be incredible sources of inspiration for gamers. Long gone are the damsels in distress, waiting helplessly for a hero to come to their aid. They are now heroes in their own right. But these awesome heroines are all too often designed to reflect a very narrow vision of beauty. To truly empower the next generation of girls who play games, we must learn to create characters that are as diverse and complex as they are.

And that’s where we come in.

Inspiring the next generation with realistic characters

When you think of video games, you probably don’t immediately think of Dove. But, you’ve most likely seen some of our campaigns. We’ve been fighting unrealistic beauty standards for decades with campaigns that feature diverse, real women and, our Dove Self-Esteem project has helped inspire confidence in 94 million young people all over the world. Now we’re taking our mission into the virtual world.

Now, we’ve teamed up with CAR, industry experts Raqi Syed, Areito Echevarria and Dr. Phillippa Diedrichs, and the Unreal Engine Education Team at Epic Games to launch ‘Real Virtual Beauty Training’, a new series designed to teach and inspire game developers, creators and artists about the importance of diversity in games. This accredited course empowers creators and offers practical pointers on how to craft more realistic, more authentic, characters and avatars in games – allowing for better and authentic stories to be told.

When it comes to character development, we know the devil is in the details; that’s why when you take the Real Virtual Beauty Training, you’ll learn everything from capturing the unique and idiosyncratic elements of the human face to telling powerful stories through digital costume design. By diversifying the appearance and functionality of your characters, particularly your female characters, you can be part of a bigger movement to improve the well-being of players, in particular improving their self-esteem, representation and their idea of how they fit in the world.

And you’ll learn from some of the most influential experts in the industry, including writer and tech artist Raqi Syed, Dr. Phillippa Diedrichs from the Centre for Appearance Research and costume designer Heli Salomaa.

Are you in?

Then comes the really exciting challenge. Everyone who completes the course is invited to go away and put their new-found knowledge to action, designing realistic and diverse characters of their own. Don’t be afraid to show off your creations  - go ahead and upload them to your ArtStation profile and tag #RealVirtualBeauty so they can be a part of our growing global character art collection – a library of inclusive video game avatars.

So, what are you waiting for? Get creating! P.S. Don’t forget to tag your creations with #RealVirtualBeauty so they can be a part of our growing global character art collection.

You can join the Real Virtual Beauty Training here.