‘Video Game Players Avoid Gay Characters’: Scientific American

The first-person shooter game Overwatch, which is widely popular and has generated more than $1 billion in revenue so far for its owner, Blizzard, has turned out to be an ideal laboratory for me and my colleagues to investigate these questions. In that sense, what happens within Overwatch has economic and societal implications.

In Overwatch, players can choose between 32 avatars that have different appearances and skill sets. As an additional marketing highlight, Blizzard regularly updates the background stories of these characters. Their stories have no effect whatsoever on the game; they don’t change the characters’ skills or appearance. Still, these stories are so important for the fan base that they influence Overwatch in another way. In May 2019, an Overwatch writer updated the background story for one male character, Soldier: 76. He wrote that Soldier: 76 had been in a romantic relationship with another man and identified as gay. It was a bit of information that is far from unusual in the real world, but in online gaming, it was somewhat revolutionary.

The announcement resulted in hundreds of responses on Twitter and other social media channels. Many players supported the announcement and liked the tweet. But some players were uncomfortable with the decision, accusing Blizzard of making money through political correctness, complaining that the announcement was unnecessary, and even threatening to stop playing Overwatch.  

Our research team wanted to know if this announcement influenced the game itself. Would players change their attitude toward Soldier: 76? We examined the pick rate—the frequency with which players choose a specific character—before, during and after the announcement. Surprisingly, we found an extreme drop in the pick rate for Soldier: 76 after the news. Players shied away from playing with the newly outed character.