Epic, Women in Games and Dove launch campaign to improve female character diversity

Women in Games, Epic Games and skincare brand Dove have partnered on a programme to increase diversity and representation of female characters in games.

Called Real Virtual Beauty, the programme also aims at "supporting young girls with self-esteem education across the virtual world" across a series of actions.

As part of the programme, the companies will run a "real beauty in games" training course, "inviting game creators to help reflect the diversity we see in everyday life, and to avoid contributing to stereotypes and biases in design."

Dove will release a collection of avatars via Epic-owned ArtStation aimed at "raising the standard for the authentic, diverse, and inclusive representation of women and girls."

Finally, a Roblox game created by Dove will be released on the theme of self-esteem so young girls can "experience more representative versions of beauty."

As part of the programme, Dove conducted new research in partnership with the Centre for Appearance Research, which found that 60% of girls who play feel misrepresented in games and 35% feel like their self-esteem is negatively impacted by the lack of diversity in games.

Women in Games CEO Marie-Claire Isaaman commented: "The representation of women in gaming platforms, products and services has long been an issue... What’s so important here is that the innovative tools, and training reach the target audience, where there is the opportunity to make a real impact."