Women don’t wear bikinis to battle, and other things the gaming industry is learning (rerun)

Earlier this year, a report from Bloomberg said Grand Theft Auto 6 will be getting a female protagonist. It would be a notable change — there are far fewer playable female characters than male ones in video games. And for a long time, women have been typecast as damsels in distress, like Princess Peach from Super Mario, or as sex objects depicted with little clothing and exaggerated proportions, like Lara Croft from the 1990s Tomb Raider games. She’s an archaeologist who explores old ruins in teeny, tiny shorts and a tank top. This revisiting of an earlier episode of “Marketplace Tech” examines how the portrayal of women in video games has changed in recent years.