Are female skins sold at a lower price? Evidence from the Fortnite game

ABSTRACT

Much significant research has been done to shed light on discrimination of females in, for example, labour markets. Less is known, in contrast, about the amount of discrimination in the virtual world of online gaming. In an early study, Castronova (2004), using data for the EverQuest game, finds that female avatars receive about 10% lower prices in online auctions. In this research note, we re-examine the pricing of avatars using data for the Fortnite game and find small and statistically insignificant price difference between female and male avatars.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender discrimination
• Fortnite
• gaming
• product differentiation
• market segmentation

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• J16
• L11
• M31

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ For a short video sequence, see SMGxPrincess (2018).