Game Culture 7: Gender and Gaming II

We continue last weeks gender discussion, this time in a game-related perspective. In the 90s, the digital game market saw the first wave of gender specific games. The pink games were directed to young girls, in the hope of making them more interested in technology, but as no data existed with regards to what these girls actually liked, the resulting titles were heavily influenced by a stereotypical view of young girls. These games included titles from Purple Moon franchise and Barbie games had good sales, usually from parents or grandparents that finally could buy "proper" girl games for their kids. The games were met with a lot of critique, sparking a discussion as to whether the games were what the young girls really wanted, or if the games made the girls into what it wanted them to be.
Today, a second wave of game designing for young girls is moving away from the pink games stereotypes, to a more nuanced game design.

Nick Yee
Yee talks about how women do want to play, but they are hindered by physical and social barriers. It's e.g. hard to escape the label og being "the girlfriend of..", when women are introduced by their husbands/boyfriends.
What's interesting with this claim is that one should look at the expectations the games set up for their players for ideal gameplay. Time is of the essence, and if you don't have the time to play a game as it should, because you are responsible for a large part of labour in the home, you cannot play the game properly along with the other players.

Hollin Lin
Lin takes the point of Yee further, and discusses how the physical barriers, or the game space characteristics produce gender specified differences in gaming experience. Female's physical space simply prevents them for gaining access to a computer/console.
It doesn't matter that you might like games, if you are never introduced to them, it's quite hard to get started. As kids, few girls are introduced to gaming by their parents or older siblings. Either the home simply does not have access to a gaming device, or the girl is excluded from playing with e.g. elder brothers. As the girl gets older, the activity of playing digital games are viewed as not-fitting (Just try walking into a cyber café, if you are a girl that is. Is the reaction from the other café-goers different than if you were a boy?). A girl should get our there, be social, party and shop. Not sit in a LAN room with 30 other guys, eating cheetos and drinking mountain dew.

Case study
Three questions were discussed during the course's presentation.

Age vs. Gender! Would a game succeed more if marketed to age instead of gender?
Granted, people do have a lot in common within their age group. But there's also a bunch of people, the same age, that have nothing in common. The age normalization would be just as discriminating as the gender normalization, as age is treated differently one culture to another. People, regardless of gender, are individuals, and while there is a lot of influence from the people surrounding them, making them more inclined to like the same as their peers, I fail to see how that would make a person not like something that he/she finds amusing. Games are fun! How would you deny having fun and then refuse to seek out that sensation again?

Are you really a female! How to normalize the female gamer?
Why do we need to normalize the female gamer, when the male gamer have not been normalized? The preferences of a female gamer is, in my opinion, just as diverse as the male gamer. Looking at gender in game design seems fruitless, and I'd rather look at player's type than their gender.

Equal Playground… Is it really impossible to design a gender neutral play space?
No. I think the new generation will see a lot more female gamers as parents from a gaming generation involve both their sons and daughters to play with them. But as a female gamer I might be biased here. I think it all comes down to what you know and remember from your childhood as a parent. My father played digital games, but was unsecure about involving me and my sister, as he didn't know the working of little girls and how they should behave. My mother didn't play, and she certainly knew how a little girl functions, so she encouraged us to do what she did as a kid, which did not involve playing digital games. So when I say that the new generation of gamers will include both gender, it is because both their parents have played digital games.