The content of games is an understudied area in social scientific research about video games. The purpose of the present study
is to contribute to the understanding of the portrayal of gender and race in games. Previous research on game content has
revealed that stereotypical masculine characters dominate video games and that those characters are generally White. Nowadays,
quite a few video games have women in leading parts;
Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft is the prototypical example. In our study we investigated the so-called ‘Lara phenomenon,’ that is, the appearance
of a competent female character in a dominant position. We also studied the portrayal of men and the race of both male and
female characters. We did a content analysis on the introductory films of 12 contemporary video games. Our results show that
female characters appeared as often in leading parts as male characters did. They were portrayed with a sexualized emphasis
on female features. Most game characters belonged to the dominant White race, the heroes exclusively so.
Keywords Video games - Gender - Race - Stereotypes