This thesis aimed to explore factors, which players consider when choosing their protagonist's gender and what impact that choice has on gameplay. We used two popular games as reference: “Assassin’s Creed Odyssey“ (Ubisoft Quebec, 2018) and “Baldur's Gate 3” (Larian Studios, 2023). This study was conducted by interviewing participants and sending out surveys among the two games’ communities with a total of 493 participants sharing their answers. The sample group mainly consisted of players from several European countries and the United States of America, with 280 identifying as male, 181 as female, and 32 as non-binary. It was found that the majority of players agreed that visual character customization and gender choice did provide them a greater sense of immersion. Furthermore, the storyline seemed to be a framing factor influencing player choices by offering a setting players carefully considered when designing/choosing their protagonists. These results can be of use to game designers who wish to gain an understanding of players’ gender choices and impacts on their role-playing-game gameplay experience. Additionally, further research is suggested to get a deeper understanding of outlying factors that players might consider when choosing a character.

In this study, ninety costumes from the LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule, 2008, 2011; Sumo Digital 2014) franchise were analyzed in order to answer the question on how the LittleBigPlanet series have represented diversity of different genders through the available costumes to a seemingly gender neutral character. This is done by dividing the costumes into three categories: feminine, masculine and neutral. The costumes are categorized according to set criteria, and in the results it is revealed that there are mostly feminine costumes, even though the difference is minor. The study also analyses how different gender-coded costumes in the LittleBigPlanet series are portrayed, and several traits are found to be reoccurring. Finally, it is discussed whether having portrayed stereotypical body images were suitable for the age of their audience, and it is also stated that the costumes of the LittleBigPlanet franchise are generally diversified. / I denna undersökning analyserades nittio kostymer från LittleBigPlanet-serien (Media Molecule, 2008, 2011; Sumo Digital 2014). Syftet är att besvara frågan om hur LittleBigPlanet serien har representerad mångfald av kön genom de tillgängliga kostymerna för en till synes könsneutral karaktär. Detta görs genom att dela upp kostymerna i tre kategorier: feminina, maskulina och neutrala. Kostymerna är kategoriserade enligt satta kriterier, och resultaten avslöjar att det är huvudsakligen feminina kostymer, även om skillnaden inte är särskilt stor. Studien analyserar även hur olika könskodade kostymer i LittleBigPlanet-serien är porträtterande, och flera egenskaper visar sig upprepas. Slutligen diskuteras om det är lämpligt för kostymerna att porträttera stereotypiska kroppsbilder i spelen med tanke på deras spelares ålder, och det påstås även att kostymerna i LittleBigPlanet-serien är någorlunda mångsidiga.