The aim of the study was not to criticize these extremely popular and creative video games in contrast to other games, but rather to use them as exemplars of an industry-wide phenomenon, precisely because of their success and influence. The researchers analyzed differences in the character design of Street Fighter V and Tekken 7 across gender, national, and skin color lines.

Fox Harrell, MIT professor of digital media, computing, and artificial intelligence in the Comparative Media Studies Program (CMS), Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS) and Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) former CSAIL postdocs Sercan Şengün and Peter Mawhorter and MIT alumni James Bowie-Wilson, SM ’19, and Yusef Audeh, SM ’17, in collaboration with Haewoon Kwak from the Qatar Computing Research Institute. Published in the journal Technological Forecasting and Social Change, the paper, “ Contours of Virtual Enfreakment in Fighting Game Characters,” was co-authored by D. A recent peer-reviewed study from MIT researchers examines how this exaggerated character design - a phenomenon they call “virtual enfreakment” - reproduces sexist and racist stereotypes that reinforce harmful cultural narratives. But, partly due to the importance of spectacle to these games, their characters tend to have exaggerated bodies, costumes, and fighting styles. Popular fighting video games like Street Fighter and Tekken feature diverse casts of characters.

A recent study from MIT researchers demonstrates that the exaggerated design of characters in fighting video games reinforces cultural stereotypes about gender, race, and ethnicity Credit: South_agency on iStock

Video game characters in real life