With the increasing popularity and availability of virtual reality (VR) video games, the representation of women within these immersive environments becomes crucial to explore. Although the sexualization of female characters in traditional video games has been widely studied, the sensory-rich nature of VR may introduce changes in character representations and emergent adverse outcomes. In the present study we content analyzed female characters in popular VR video games to investigate the potential underrepresentation and misrepresentation of female characters. Results demonstrated that male characters were represented four times more frequently than female characters. The underrepresentation of female characters was more severe in competitive VR games than casual VR games, however there was no significant difference in the underrepresentation of women between game genres or ESRB ratings. In addition, female characters were presented in a sexualized manner in 30% of cases. The sexualization of female characters was associated with their portrayal as physically capable, violent, or a victim. We also found that sexualization of female characters did not differ based on the type of game (casual vs. competitive), game genres, or ESRB ratings. We discussed these findings in immersive VR video games in comparison with those in traditional 2-D screen media video games.

随着虚拟现实 (VR) 视频游戏的日益普及和可用性，女性在这些沉浸式环境中的表现变得至关重要。尽管传统视频游戏中女性角色的性化已被广泛研究，但 VR 丰富的感官特性可能会带来角色表征的变化和出现的不良结果。在本研究中，我们对流行 VR 视频游戏中的女性角色进行了内容分析，以调查女性角色潜在的代表性不足和歪曲的情况。结果表明，男性角色的出现频率是女性角色的四倍。竞技类 VR 游戏中女性角色代表性不足的情况比休闲 VR 游戏更为严重，但不同游戏类型或 ESRB 评级之间女性角色代表性不足的情况没有显着差异。此外，30%的案例中女性角色以性感的方式呈现。女性角色的性化与她们对身体能力、暴力或受害者的描绘有关。我们还发现，女性角色的性化并没有因游戏类型（休闲与竞技）、游戏类型或 ESRB 评级而有所不同。我们讨论了沉浸式 VR 视频游戏与传统 2D 屏幕媒体视频游戏中的这些发现。