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"Girl Gamers" or Dangerous Women?
Keridwan
Member Posts: 118
Girl Gamers or Deadly Women?
In this extract we further explore the concept of the "girl gamer" in an attempt to explode some of the myths surrounding females who are committed gamers and try to present a more balanced and evidence-based account. Any casual search on myspace and facebook reveals huge numbers of sites and individuals who are associated with girl gaming. However, even the term "girl gaming" is a contestable one since many female gamers do not wish to be associated with an identity that is exclusive or potentially demeaning. The verdict is out on the contribution and impact that "girl gamers" make to MMOs. Many feel that gender differences should not be pronounced and that this only contributes further to artificial divisions. Others think that differences are inevitable and that these are based either on intrinsic physical differences or gendered socialization differences that are manifest in gaming. Undoubtedly, there will be prejudicial, bias and rather narrow minded views about the role of the "girl gamer" but at least this designation is starting to be noticed, and the huge market for females in MMOs is starting to be recognized. The debates range hard and fast over female stereotypes, "sexist" representations and ideologies that either confirm existing power relations or begin to modestly refute them. Are we driven in this direction by market imperatives or by deeper social values? Here is some of the latest social sciences research on femme gamers.
posted by Keridwan
http://www.myspace.com/femmesfatalesguild
Background
Girls are not only playing games, but they are also making games. Whether young or mature, females have a presence in the direction of the games industry. The casual games market consists of 70% female, according to conference moderator Associate Professor Yasmin Kafai from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Graduate School of Education and Information Studies.
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The Girls 'N' Games Panel |
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The Girls 'N' Games conference was held on Tuesday, May 9, 2006, at the Experimental Digital Arts (EDA) space on the UCLA campus. Kafai organized the conference in conjunction with a workshop sponsored by the National Science Foundation. The workshop brought together numerous researchers, designers and industry professionals from Europe, Asia and North America to discuss and review current trends in game design and marketing in a private gathering. The conference followed the workshop to serve as a public conversation about matters such as girls and games, and the participation of women in game design and play.
Games for and by Girls
In order to move ahead, it is important to understand the historical context of games for and by girls. Brenda Laurel from the Art Center of Purple Moon started by correcting popular misconceptions about the history of games made for girls. Despite the many references to Barbie Fashion Designer, Pacman was the first video game marketed to girls. Laurel joked, “The reason it was popular was because it was a game about an eating disorder.”
During 1994, in the thick of doing research in gender and technology, it became Laurel's goal to encourage girls to get over their hesitancy with computers. At the time, the Barbie IP spread. By 1997 and 1998, Girl Tech and Girl Games companies emerged. The mid-'90s welcomed hardcore gamer girl groups. To Laurel, there has been a persistent interest from females in action adventure games, which she argues is now moving into Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMOs) such as World of Warcraft (WoW) and other online games including Second Life.
The hardcore girl gamer identity is blurring in younger generations. Jen Sun from Numedeon Inc. referenced the community behind the online game Whyville. Most players in Whyville are 8-9 year old girls, and they don't think of themselves as gamers. “They just communicate this way normally. Just girls having fun communicating on the computer with friends,” said Sun.
Communication often falls under successful game play patterns that appeal to girls, but there are others to be identified. “One of the biggest surprises I've run into is the popularity of Neopets,” said Mary Flanagan, Hunter College, NYC. The game encourages authorship and a distributive form of play. Authorship can happen with console titles as well. Harry Potter games were picked up by girls, and developers started incorporating the ideas of girl gamers who sent in requests to be able to play Hermione.
Flanagan uses constructivist ideas to help girls become authors so they can develop their own games. “If you ask them what their favorite game is, most 10-year-olds are playing Grand Theft Auto. But when you ask them what they like to do in the game, these small particulars are far more interesting.” For example, some girls play one to two times a week. They spend their time shopping for a car, steal it, and then drive it around, but don't participate in other parts of the game.
“When a game is rich enough that players can do things the developers never intended is when you're going to have your moments of epiphany,” Sun added. There are many different types of games in the community of Whyville. After pulling out data for the games, Whyville developers found that girls do tend to favor the arts and humanities activities over the math and sciences. However, when creative twists were added to the math and sciences and games, such as multiplayer components, preferences from girls went up.
Tracy Fullerton, University of Southern California, jumped in. “When games allow a multi-layering of gameplay, these systems of design are not all based on a singular genre of game.” Fullerton regularly plays Halo, and she finds beauty in the scenery when snow falls. She is drawn to the serene moments in the world. She acknowledges that she may have a different perspective on gameplay than her male friends when they get together to play over Xbox Live, but they are all still playing and enjoying their gameplay.
Developers should be cautious to avoid the pitfalls of “girl game design.” Laurel warned, “You're often working off of a stereotype.” In Neopets, children learn to have a complex understanding of economy systems, but Laurel feels funding would have been scarce if the game had pitched itself for that purpose. “Ten years ago, we learned that girls were afraid of breaking the machine. This last year, the same demographic was describing technology as a personal safety blanket.”
“Get player-generated content,” Sun advised. Whyville is able to follow fashion and what is popular by providing players with the tools to generate their own avatars. Players started making shoulder parts, accessories, and scenes. Now, there is a booming “face part” industry.
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The reception at the conference fostered many interesting conversations. |
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Flanagan found the same appeal in a game she works with. The game allows players to choose what kind of being they want to be, including gender and mixed body parts. Body clothing is embedded in objects and swapped through programming. Girls are encouraged to dig into code for interacting with the game. She looked at what happened when a team of girls made a game. Even the drawing style tended to carry similarities in girl teams, but the more diverse the team, the more interdisciplinary the game design project.
Moderator Jill Denner of ETR Associates had over 100 girls design games in Flash. She began to understand their likes and dislikes, and saw many instances where girls took gender stereotypes and played with them to create a number of humorous results. Most games emphasized challenging authority and pulling in humor.
“Every semester, a couple of girls find my class by accident,” Fullerton said. Most young women take her class out of curiosity, and sometimes don't play games. They are hesitant about walking into the class, but Fullerton encourages a diverse group of students by keeping all projects in the first class strictly on paper. The technology barrier is dropped. After having a chance to work on ideas, Fullerton concluded, “Young women get a sense of empowerment about what games are.”
Girl Games International
Cross-cultural studies of gaming and gender can illuminate and make less insular studies of gaming in general, asserts Justine Cassell of Northwestern University. She sees gender studies as similar to looking at games across history, but specifically in light of social constructions.
Comfort and normalcy with credit card ordering online can bring game software and hardware into new contexts. Tamagotchi was not seen as gender specific in Japan, but ended up that way in the U.S. when the game transferred with the same gameplay mechanics. Tamagotchi added in fighting features for boys in the U.S.
Mimi Ito from the University of Southern California's Center for Communication has seen a definite trend. Japanese notions sneak into U.S. through media like Pokémon. The media is both exotic and different but also very accessible. “Japan is the centrality of portability and coded differently than console playing,” said Ito. The “cute” culture plays into a wide range of gameplay. The saturation is opposite in Taiwan, as Holin Lin from the National Taiwan University points out, because there is a popular belief that only the top two games, always MMOs, can make profit. A wide range of games are not available for girls.
In Korean web cafes, according to Daniel James from Three Rings Inc., there is a pattern of gender play much different from the U.S. Lineage, he says, is played by more women there than in the U.S. “We still have Internet cafes and activism of women as gamers,” commented TL Taylor of the University of Copenhagen. The arrangement of social and public space plays an important part in gender and gameplay internationally.
There are outside forces involved in girls playing games. In Scandinavia, Taylor found at least 5 women activist initiatives at a huge LAN party of 700 people. LANs and activism play an important role.
Games have a strong tie-in with commercial advertisement in Japan. Ito said, “Really popular manga and anime series almost automatically get a game release.” The “cute” culture is also very influential and encourages girls to get involved in gameplay.
In Taiwan, Holin pointed out, Internet cafes exist almost for the sole purpose of playing online games, but the government puts very rigid restriction on students going there during school hours, and parents often put additional restrictions on their daughters. In Chinese culture, there is a strong feeling against adults playing games. Holin added, “Several boys talk about how they will quit playing games when they get a job, but for girls it's when they get married.” She is concerned about the gender implications.
Popularity trends in girl and women gamers have overlaps internationally. Taylor sees the area around her as part of the North American game scene by its involvement in WoW. Holin notices the same trend in Taiwan, since the most popular games are MMOs such as Lineage and now WoW. “Cute” culture is making its way from Japan into Taiwan quickly. James feels the U.S. is following the same pattern with games like Neopets. “100 million people are playing online games,” James argued. His game, Puzzle Pirates, targets the casual games audience, which he describes as “35-year-old women in the Midwest with two kids and a car.”
“[Women are] gaming in an industry that actively tries to keep them out,” commented Taylor. “We're oddballs if we play.” There is a gap that needs to be fixed, panelists agreed. Games are recoded through use, and not just cross-cultural, but also cross-gender.
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...as well as the opportunity to catch up with colleagues. |
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Girl Gamers
“Girls gamers” are struggling with both the term itself and the imbalance of putting females in a position of competing with males in order to own being a “gamer.” Similarly, stereotyping by gender, both male and female, can lead to missteps in game design that alienate the targeted genders unintentionally.
When referencing research done primarily on baby boomers, Celia Pearce, UC Irvine, cautioned, “Men actively rejected games like EverQuest because of the violence.” Betty Hayes, University of Wisconsin-Madison, has witnessed a shared gender split in Animal Crossing. “Newbies, whether men or women,” she said, “need different spaces.”
Certainly not all female gamers are newbies, though. “The Frag Dolls have received criticism for identifying as ‘girl gamers,'” said Morgan Romine, also known as Rhoulette in Frag Dolls. She has struggled with a separation message. “Are we feminists empowering definitions by claiming our roles can be flexible? Or do we say is, ‘this is what it means to be women?'” Even today, Romine runs into instances where she is buying a game at a store and the clerk asks who it is for. Assumptions still run rampant.
Nicole Lazzaro, XEODesign, agreed. She feels that the higher score in a game sets the next round of gameplay in motion, which naturally pits males against females, but also males against males and females against females. She fears that the game industry is also marginalizing many men. “The market imperative to grow,” Lazzaro added, “and many men want to play co-op instead of rival games.”
The differences between girl gamers and women gamers are often forgotten. “Casual games have surprised the market,” said Carrie Heeter, Michigan State University. “One thing we have to take into account is that women have a lot of other things to do compared to teenage males and females,” Hayes interjected. Romine agreed and explained, “Casual games are easy to learn and hard to master.” They are also easily accessible and often include social elements, which she equates with WoW and the Xbox 360 Live function in games like Halo.
“Women over 30 are very different than women under 30, their roles in society are different,” insisted Lazzaro. “Play circumstances prepare you for later roles in life.” Changes in gender dynamics in society effect games. Women are getting more comfortable with being able to enjoy methods of play not for the sole purposes of learning and being productive. “Serious fun is a key factor,” Lazzaro ended.
Pearce recommends looking into the self-identified brackets within the styles of game play. When Myst shifted into Uru and Uru closed, Pearce says, the players still identified themselves as puzzle solvers. Community events and creativity are major factors in women gamers.
“Desperate Housewives the game targets an interesting market,” Lazzaro added, in relation to the upcoming E3 event and new gameplay techniques for women. She feels games have to more than an idea and graphics. Girl figures are often posing or fighting on posters to advertise to a certain demographic.
However, gender identities can be played with. Within many games, gender identity is a choice. Both males and females are choosing to play the opposite gender for varying reasons, whether it be status or otherwise. Pearce usually plays male characters, because she doesn't like the representation of the female she's offered. Romine relates more to female characters and has found it more advantageous in MMOs. “I just like to play the character that looks the coolest,” Lazzaro quipped.
How, then, are female gamers influencing games? Lazzaro related experienced with motivated quests in MMOs and features such as being able to dress up characters.
“Gamers are now parents,” Hayes said while telling the story of a mother meeting her son in-game to tell him he was grounded for being up late. Casual games offer up a world of opportunities.
Female gamers need to construct and modify games too. “A lot of girls feel alienated from the game creation process,” Pearce said. However, as more generations of girls grow up as gamers, comfort with technology increases. Girls and women should not only be gamers, but also developers, panelists agreed.
Conclusion
Whether in different countries or different stages of life, females are undoubtedly drawn to gameplay. Women can step into development and create games for new generations, but diversity is essential as well. By relating to both men and women, researchers and developers can analyze cross-gender play, which is invaluable to the growth of games, as concluded by the wide range of panelists at the Girls ‘n' Games conference.
extract from
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20060518/dillon_01.shtml
Comments
OMG not this discussion again.
Subscribtions: EVE, SWTOR WOW, WAR, DDO, VG, AOC, COV, FFXI, GW, RFO, Aion
+plenty of F2P, betas, trials
Female Dwarf player: WOW, VG, WAR, DDO
.
Due to the recent economic crisis and spending cuts the light at the end of the tunnel was turned off. Sincerely, God.
Conclusion:
Industry needs female players to make more money.
Media needs something to write about.
So we are going to see a lot of this.
Seriously...Keridwan are you some sort of feminist protester? Second post I seen from you in past few days about female gaming, fair enough for one. But how would you like it if we all posted 2 topics about male gaming?
And don't even get me started on the title of your last thread " Female gamers are better than boys" And then gave no evidence or even a mention to it in the article you were referring to. Please just stop, we get the point women can play games...Good for you, just don't expect a parade from everyone as it's not a big deal whatsoever. I wonder if you went off like this when we decided you could vote?
Not sexiest in the slightest but I just don't see the point in posting utter drivvle for the sake of it. The last thread you started was locked, what does that tell you? XD
Yes it's a rant, I didn't even read your post but after that last article you posted I never want to read anything you post again unless it's an apology for wasting 5 minutes of my life reading the other crap.
I married a Female Gamer, couple yrs older than me....
Shes a Dangerous Woman when I don't do the Dishes...!
(Also had to replace a few mice)
ITS A TRAP!!!!!!!!!
GET TO ZE CHOPPAH!!
Evil they are, is say. Evil.
We just discovered their plan for world domination..
*puts on tinfoil hat*
Good post there Keridwan.
But for me beeing from Sweden, its sounds weird to hear female/male gamers. We have only gamers. There is no difference.
It's fine, as long as Hillary Clinton doesn't become president.. Then I might have to move to Canada..
Well not really, it's not fine. Girls, generally, don't have nearly the same thinking as guys do. I don't want my dragon's claws painted pink!
I laughed.
Thanks for making my day a bit brighter. ^_^
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
Where you born in the 1700?
Its 2008 now.
Ops, this got really misplaced : ( damn computer.
Jesus christ , you just don't stop with your feminist shit do you ?.
We heard you the first time.
List of SOE lies
Honestly though, I find these posts a rather refreshing change from the "Look how great my computer is" threads we get from people around here.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
Honestly though, I find these posts a rather refreshing change from the "Look how great my computer is" threads we get from people around here.
Yea but she is sooo much of a attention span girl , i would use another word instead of girl since i know who she is in the RL.
But bout the computer part , well somebody actually needs help, while others just need to boast about their shitty computers
, a new guy just posted his new computer , but only ordered a 500W PSU to run 2x 8800 GT SLi , now thats gonna work perfectly, not 
List of SOE lies
I don't like the "female gamer" stereotype. It seems like it implies that the way women play games is going to be inherently feminine. If I were a doctor I would not wished to be labeled "female doctor" or treated as if that designation meant something different and as a gamer I consider myself no different than any other gamer.
Well, the OP has managed to answer one longtime question of mine, judging from the pictures in the post:
Gamer chicks are not all hot.
Why do this over and over? You are starting to make us women gamers look bad.
We play games, that's it in the nutshell. We don't need a political debate about. I don't need Barbie games, I don't need catered too either. Just give me quality gameplay.
I would rather read propaganda from Mr. Osama Bin Laden than this.
Futilez - Mature MMORPG Community
Correcting people since birth.
Whether in different countries or different stages of life, males are undoubtedly drawn to gameplay. men can step into development and create games for new generations, but diversity is essential as well. By relating to both men and women, researchers and developers can analyze game play, which is invaluable to the growth of games, as concluded by the wide range of panelists at the Games conference.
look I can write too. I truely fail to get why a girl gamer is any different than male(except the the few that want to be applauded for it, they likely make life harder for the rest).
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
If there was a woman man enough to be president it would probably be Hillary Clinton. Either that or Bea Arthur. We'll see who gets more votes.
Funny to see its males bashing this post
I didnt read everything but I agreed and understood most things
I think the problem is that most of these feminist women want to be treated special. They don't want true equality. I don't care whether your a chick or a dude, if your a cool person, and we play well together, i'll continue to play with you, but you won't get any special treatment from me if your a girl. I don't ooo and aww when i find out that the person that's playing that female avatar is actually a female. I've played plenty of games with females in my 10 years of mmo gaming. I've actually had someone get pissed off at me because i wasn't giving items away to a female avatar for free.
In summation, you want true equality? Then accept to be treated just as men do.
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The pen is mightier than the sword, and authority is mightier than the pen, but the sword is mightier than authority.
If you can't beat 'em, hold 'em off 'till you come up with a better plan.
Okay, so I have not gotten to reading the replies to this yet, but before I do, let me begin by posting my initial thoughts to the OP. That being, "OMG! That was one hell of a long winded post. Kinda reminds me of when my wife (Also a gamer) starts talking"
I think the problem is that most of these feminist women want to be treated special. They don't want true equality. I don't care whether your a chick or a dude, if your a cool person, and we play well together, i'll continue to play with you, but you won't get any special treatment from me if your a girl. I don't ooo and aww when i find out that the person that's playing that female avatar is actually a female avatar. I've played plenty of games with females in my 10 years of mmo gaming. I've actually had someone get pissed off at me because i wasn't giving items away to a female avatar for free.In summation, you want true equality? Then accept to be treated just as men do.
I think they DO want true equality in the way that they wont be benefitted or not benefitted for being a woman...I do however think they would like to be talked to a little different.... I mean talking about how hot your girlfriend isnt interesting for many females. And despite people calling "mate/m8 and dude etc" gender neutral it does ring a little masculine..and not all women like that
Hmm, now I read the replies... and I think the best I can do is stick with my original post. Sorry, truly uninspiring thread. Now I must go make sure my wife (the "girl gamer) is in the kitchen getting the baking done. *Cracks his male propaganda whip*
Of course Girl Gamers are dangerous. They have cooties.
MMORPG Maker