This week I will look at the forward by Henry Jenkins and Justine Cassell, written for Beyond Barbie and Mortal Kombat: new perspectives on gender and gaming edited by Yasmin B. Kafai.
From Quake Grrls to Desperate Housewives: A Decade of Gender and Computer Games looks at the development of the computer game scene since the 1997 conference Jenkins and Cassell held which focused on the girl game movement and what it would take to expand the female market of games.
This forward covers the ideas of: Can, do and should girls play computer games.
Why women are still under-represented in the design and digital technology fields.
The girls game movement of the mid 90's and it's conflicting aims. Which include the economic drive for marketing towards females, the political aspect attempting to shrink the gap between the genders by getting girls interesting in computer, the technological introduction of the CD-ROM and it's ramifications, the entrepreneurial aspect for women starting up new businesses focusing on girls games and the aesthetics developed for girls games upping the ante on visual and audio game experiences.
Attitudes towards women and the reasons discussed as to why they don't design/play computer games. Stereotypes and 'pink box' thinking.
What girls want to play and how to get them to play.
It appears that these days the only time games are marketed towards women are when the game companies want to try and expand their market and earn more profits. Not for the sake of making games for women who would enjoy the experience, and thus want to be a regular gamer. The 90's girl game movement saw many startup companies focusing on girls games, they had a smaller marketing base in comparison to Sony and Nintendo for example, so didn't have the capability to expand very far. I've linked a talk given by Brenda Laurel in 1998 where she explains about the software company she started up which was designed to make games for girls and the approaches she took to ensure that the games would be what girls wanted to play. Her approach, to me at least, seems to make more sense then trying to market a 'boys game' for girls.
Some questions I would like to look at are: The number of female gamers has increased but not the number of designers. How many other fields are there where there are plenty of participating women but not nearly as many 'movers and shakers' of the field? Why is that? Is there any truth to the idea that there are some things that men do and some things that women do better, and that's where this divide occurs?
Do you think the computing industry is actively trying to get more women to play their games/ become software designers? What approaches do they/could they take? Is it in their interest to try and attract more women?
Has there been an increase in the number of 'games for girls' or is it just clever marketing to get girls into boys games?
Do you play computer games? Would you consider them male or female games? Or are the terms butch and femme more appropriate?
Has there been much development in games since the 90's in making them more accessible to everyone?
Hi Sam M,
ReplyDeleteI think, that like so many industries and professions, gaming and the creating of games will always carry a prescribed gender code. That is, like nursing, teaching, engineering, architecture, etc. gaming will always carry a gender divide. And while the number of female game players may be increasing as a direct result of clever marketing ploys, manipulative advertising and social studies, I still believe there to be a division. For as long as there will games for girls and games for boys, there will also be an inherent and inscribed notions of sexism and stereotypes. However the reasons for boys playing games more prolifically than girls are, I believe, rooted within a deep history of patriarchal and sexist social structures, which are now thankfully being re-assessed. This becomes evident in the statistics shown in the tute on the ratios of genders within different working sectors. The disproportionate figures demonstrate the ideological ideas of what men should do and what women should do.
Cheers,
Blake.
Is there any truth to the idea that there are some things that men do and some things that women do better, and that's where this divide occurs?
ReplyDeleteIn regards to this question, I think that this is where the divide originated. I found it really interesting in Wednesday’s tutorial to see the actual figures of the divide in differing fields of work. I think that these divisions in the workplace originated in what men did better and what women did better. However it should be noted that this isn’t due to being born better, but dating back to much earlier times when men were taught more than women. Men were educated more and given the chances to enhance their skills more so than women and as a result they were inducted into the work place. Women in this sense have been disadvantaged, in that they weren’t given the equal opportunity to harvest these skills and as a result unable to compete for positions. Thus women have been kept in the home and it wasn’t until feminist movements began that they had the liberty to compete for such jobs, which they still were often overlooked for due to their sex.
Therefore, women have always been categorized into the jobs such as caretaker and domesticate because they have not been given equal opportunity to learn these skills. The divide, I believe, flourished from this point. However in current times, women are able to study in the same areas as men and qualify for the same jobs as men so the divide is decreasing. The divide is weakening but there are still many stigmas among various jobs trying to hold it in place.
Do you think the computing industry is actively trying to get more women to play their games/ become software designers? What approaches do they/could they take? Is it in their interest to try and attract more women?
I think that the computer industry, though it has been proven otherwise in some cases, still caters to a largely male dominated market. Though the statistics show women enjoy playing these games, advertisers and game creators KNOW that men will always play these games, so this is purely a safer option, to market to them. I think they are trying to get more involved in the female market, however it wouldn’t surprise me if the majority of there time was spent trying to attract males. I also think this would be more prevalent in a male dominated work place. Unless there were a lot of women in the workplace, I believe that they would be outnumbered and overruled should they try and support the female market.
I think the idea of the butch/femme as opposed to boy/girl idea is much more clever. If both of these markets are catered to, I believe all game-players will be catered to. Women who enjoy the blood and guts will be able to play the butch game without being made to feel like a man and men who enjoy architecture for example can play ‘the Sims’ equivalents without being made to feel like a ‘pansy’.
Do you play computer games? Would you consider them male or female games? Or are the terms butch and femme more appropriate?
Has there been much development in games since the 90's in making them more accessible to everyone?
Ah, here is the butch/femme mention! I personally haven’t played computer games in a long time. I enjoyed the Sims as a youngster but that game is seriously a time sucker! I think as the accessibility to computers and Internet has become much easier with time, there have been more games made as the opportunity for profit and the number of consumers has increased. I used to play ‘mortal kombat’ on my play station when I was younger and I didn’t feel like a boy, I thought it was fun, playing against other friends, though some of them didn’t appreciate the blood and guts. I hate to say it but I definitely would have been susceptible to ‘girl’ marketed games when I was younger. They appealed and as corny as they sounded, some of those Barbie games looked fun!
Thanks for the responses guys :)
ReplyDeleteBlake, you make a valid point. I don't believe that we still have this divide in labour due to work or games being for boys or girls, but because we have only recently reached a stage in history where we can look at the patriarchal norms of the past and realise that it doesn't have to be that way. It's going to take some time for this to filter into the areas that are heavily dominated by this kind of thinking but it will one day happen. "And while the number of female game players may be increasing as a direct result of clever marketing ploys, manipulative advertising and social studies, I still believe there to be a division." I don't however think that there have been much use made of social studies that have been done to market or manipulate girls one way or another in to playing more computer games. To me it seems as though the numbers are gaining only because it is not only seen as a boys thing to do anymore, and more girls are playing at home, either by themselves, with friends, or with brothers or partners. They are slowly joining the ranks because it is no longer as taboo for girls to do this thing.
Jacquie you also make some good points. Societal norms that demanded boys be schooled and girls stay at home have set the background for where and what a gender is expected to do. It's taken longer for some of these industries to realise that now we are all on equal footing with our educations and skills, and should be incorporated thusly.
It's been proven that guys buy computer games, so it makes business sense to cater to these needs. There has been a lot of research into what girl gamers want, but this information hasn't been used to it's best advantage to create games marketed for girls that they would want to buy. Of all the research I did it seemed that companies would only branch out to try and attract female gamers when they wanted to expand their profit margin. Due to failed application of what the social studies showed they made games that they thought girls would want, not what they actually wanted. Thus girls games are still in the dress up stage of development.
I'm not sure I like the terms butch and femme, but I do like the ideas behind them. There are girls out there that like blood and guts kinds of games and those that like social games, I think that if most games out there now had a few more options for female avatars they would sell more evenly to male and female buyers without having to change much of the story lines at all. I have a few male friends who play Sims purely for the architecture side of things, and I never considered it a female/male game. Perhaps because this one you could create just about anyone to play, as well as design the houses they live in. (You are right though, it can be a very time intensive game ;)
I too used to play Mortal Kombat and a few other similar games, but I've never really been a fan of blood and guts First Person Shooter types of games. On the other hand I've never been into the really femme types either with the clothes and the socialising. I believe I've found a happy medium with the Wii and my PC though. On the Wii I can play all sorts of puzzle and exercise games for as long or as little as I like. On my PC I can play more involved games, like the Sims or World of Warcraft(WoW) where I can play and save at any point. I like to focus on breeding programs with Sims, and on WoW I like to do quests helping out villagers, or running around collecting pets Pokemon style. I would consider both to be in the middle ground of the butch/femme divide, but can go either way depending on how you play the game. That's the real bonus of playing a versatile game, with a multitude of elements. It would be good if more games took these ideas into consideration, but they can't all be same or we would lose the variety of choice.