“There was a whole fake gamer girl witch hunt” – Ashly Burch on misogyny in the gaming community and the rise of women leading games

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On a recent episode of The Sackhoff Show hosted by Katee Sackhoff, Ashly Burch discussed the origins of her career, her ventures in voice acting, and her encounters within the gaming sector. During their talk, they delved into the subject of misogyny prevalent in video game development, with Ashly sharing her perspective on this matter as well.

Ashly Burch on the shift toward female leads and misogyny in gaming

If Ashly Burch isn’t someone you’re acquainted with, let me give you a brief overview: She initially gained recognition with her comedy sketches titled “Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin’?” alongside her brother Anthony (the primary writer for Borderlands 2). Moreover, she is a writer and actress on Mythic Quest, though I’m yet to fully recover from its cancellation. However, in the gaming world, she has made a significant impact by voicing Aloy in Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West, Chloe in Life Is Strange, or Tiny Tina in the Borderlands series.

Apart from her professional involvement in the gaming industry, Ashly is also an avid gamer. As such, when Katee Sackhoff inquired about persisting misogyny within gaming, Ashly provided a sincere response.

Back in my day, there was a widespread accusation against women who supposedly pretended to be gamers for attention or other ulterior motives, which became known as the “fake gamer girl” controversy.

Or:
In the past, people often accused women of faking their interest in gaming just to gain attention, leading to the infamous “fake gamer girl” phenomenon.

In my observations, it appears that the casual attitude towards gaming has become somewhat relaxed. I get a sense that the “are you even a gamer?” vibe is noticeably reduced.

That said, it definitely still exist.

Later on, Ashly discusses the controversy regarding Aloy’s design change in Forbidden West, specifically the “peach fuzz face” aspect. This sparked a massive wave of memes and criticism, as many found the initial complaint to be off-base, not reflecting reality when it comes to the appearance of real skin (and real women).

As a gamer, it’s fantastic to see that it’s no longer extraordinary to have a female protagonist in games these days. That’s a huge leap forward!

Back in 2014 or 15, when we embarked on creating Zero Dawn, I was quite anxious because I had often seen attempts to feature a woman as the main character in a game, only for failure to be attributed to the female lead if things didn’t go well.

Recently, I attended the BAFTA awards and noticed several video games with leading female characters were among the nominees. This indicates a change in trend.

Lack of female representation? Not in my gaming world

Katee shared from the beginning that she hasn’t been deeply involved in the gaming community. Therefore, it’s understandable if some misunderstandings persist if you’re not familiar with that circle. To me, such thinking seems a bit antiquated. It’s true that there might be isolated areas within gaming where women may not always feel included, but these instances are more remnants of the past than the standard experience nowadays.

To clarify, even though I’ve been playing games for over three decades, I rarely felt a significant absence of strong female leads or characters. In fact, JRPGs have always had impressive female representation, going way back. Titles like Valkyrie Profile, Breath of Fire II, and Chrono Trigger spring to mind. It’s worth noting that characters like Marle and Lucca were just as essential to the storylines as Crono was.

And let’s remind ourselves, the concept of creating characters and choosing a protagonist’s gender is nothing new under the sun, it’s just not a recent fad. I’ve often pondered that the lack of memorable female characters was more about lacking exposure to the right games rather than an absolute truth.

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2025-06-23 18:02