Methodology

GLAAD partnered with the Nielsen Games team for the custom survey portion of this report. Nielsen is a global leader in audience measurement, data, and analytics. Nielsen’s gaming team was formed in 2005 to provide “exclusive market research and consumer insights across physical and digital platforms, devices, and hardware. With comprehensive metrics including awareness and resonance over time, [Nielsen] provides proprietary ratings to help…understand gamer preferences and demographics.”¹⁹

Nielsen fielded a 10-minute survey among active PC/console gamers in the United States with a boost sample of LGBTQ+ gamers to help GLAAD better understand the relationship between the LGBTQ+ community and the game industry in terms of representation, harassment, and overall attitudes and behaviors.

This study was fielded by Nielsen between June and August 2023 via a trusted third-party panel. 1,452 active PC/console gamers were identified by their self-reported behavior.

Other GLAAD-owned or third-party usage of data and insights is properly sourced or linked within the report.

Notes

1. Felix Richter, “Entertainment Industry: Are You Not Entertained?” Statista, December 12, 2022, https://www.statista.com/chart/22392/global-revenue-of-selected-entertainment-industry-sectors.
2. YPulse, “Gaming” (New York, NY: YPulse, November 2023), page 5.
3. Jeffrey M. Jones, “US LGBT Identification Steady at 7.2%,” Gallup, February 22, 2023, https://news.gallup.com/poll/470708/lgbt-identification-steady.aspx.
4. Richter, “Entertainment Industry.”
5. Taylor Henderson, “10 Percent of Gamers Are LGBTQ+ Nielsen Study Shows,” Out, August 7, 2020, https://www.out.com/tech/2020/8/07/10-percent-gamers-are-lgbtq-nielsen-study-shows.
6. Jones, “US LGBT Identification Steady at 7.2%.”
7. Annie Harrisson et al., “The Virtual Census 2.0: A Continued Investigation on the Representations of Gender, Race and Age in Videogames,” AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research, 2020, https://doi.org/10.5210/spir.v2020i0.11229.
8. Adrienne Shaw et al., “Counting Queerness in Games: Trends in LGBTQ Digital Game Representation, 1985–2005,” International Journal of Communication 13 (2019): https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/9754/3708.
9. Cody Mejeur and Xavier Ho, “Queer Lives Are Not Side Quests,” Public Books, October 14, 2022, https://www.publicbooks.org/queer-representation-videogames.
10. We have included verbatim quotes from open-ended responses to capture the original spirit of our respondents. Here, “devs” refers to developers and “masc male protag” refers to masculine male protagonist.
11. High spenders were defined as spending USD $41+ per month on games. Medium spenders were defined as spending USD $11–40 per month on games. Low spenders were defined as spending USD $10 or less per month on games.
12. Such states include Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
13. International Game Developers Association, Developer Satisfaction Survey 2021: Diversity in the Game Industry Report LGBTQA2+ (Sacramento: International Game Developers Association, 2022). https://igda-website.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/15161912/IGDA DSS-2021_-LGBTQA2-Diversity-Report_Final-1.pdf.
14. There is no public, comprehensive master list of games with LGBTQ content that can be compared to all games ever made. The LGBTQ Game Archive and Queerly Represent Me, however, have very robust resources for those interested in exploring what is known about LGBTQ game content thus far.
15. Microsoft: LGBTQIA+ Community Games, 146 listed as of November 2023; https://www.xbox.com/en-US/promotions/gbtqiaplus-community-games. PlayStation Store: Great LGBTQIA+ games for Pride and Beyond, 90 listed as of November 2023; https://store.playstation.com/en-us/category/c6eba61b-53df-41fb-833b-d2f7b20929c0/. Nintendo Switch eshop games accessed through the console and searched for the tag “LGBT”. Steam Store: searched using LGBTQ+ tag; https://store.steampowered.com search/?tags=44868&category1=998&supportedlang=english&ndl=1&ignore_preferences=1
16. GLAAD, Advertising Visibility Index 2023 (New York, NY: GLAAD, 2023), page 11. https://assets.glaad.org m/9026c427a0676ad/original/GLAAD-Advertising-Visibility-Index-2023.pdf.
17. GLAAD, Studio Responsibility Index (Los Angeles, CA: GLAAD, 2023), 8. https://assets.glaad.org/m/3235608fa1547fcf original/GLAAD-2023-Studio-Responsibility-Index.pdf.
18. GLAAD, Where We Are on TV (Los Angeles, CA: GLAAD, 2023), 7, 23. https://assets.glaad.org/m/114d72edf8a779a6 original/GLAAD-2022-23-Where-We-Are-on-TV.pdf.
19. Nielsen, “Video Game Tracking,” Niesen, n.d., https://www.nielsen.com/solutions/marketing-optimization/video-game-tracker.