Dove announces an industry first global partnership with allies Women in Games, Epic Games’ Unreal Engine’s Education Team, and female led creative games studio Toya, on a series of actions to increase diversity and representation of female characters in games, alongside supporting young girls with self-esteem education across the virtual world.
1.3 billion women and girls make up half of the global game’s community, with 60% playing video games before the age of 13. Yet new research from Dove – endorsed by Women in Games and the Centre for Appearance Research (CAR) – reveals that 60% of girl gamers feel misrepresented and recognise a lack of diversity as a key issue in video games and 35% of young girls state their self-esteem is negatively impacted after seeing a lack of diversity in characters and avatars.
To help combat this, Dove is partnering with the industry with the launch of ‘Real Virtual Beauty’, a series of actions to shatter beauty stereotypes and equip the next generation of young creators and players with the tools to build self-esteem and body confidence. These include:
- Real Beauty in Games Training – an education course in partnership with Epic Games’ Unreal Engine inviting game creators to help reflect the diversity we see in everyday life, and to avoid contributing to stereotypes and biases in design
- Real Virtual Beauty Avatar Library – an online character art collection hosted on Epic Games’ Art Station platform that will help raise the standard for the authentic, diverse, and inclusive representation of women and girls across the stages of avatar development
- SuperU Story – the world’s first Roblox games experience designed to deliver self-esteem education, enabling young girls to customise their own avatars allowing them to experience more representative versions of beauty
To officially launch this announcement, Dove is hosting a Real Virtual Beauty: Transforming the Face of Gaming panel at EGX London today, moderated by Dr Gina Jackson OBE.
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