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2006 Games + Learning + Society Conference: 11 AM Workshop Session: Beyond Barbie and Mortal Kombat

Workshop title builds off the anthology edited by Justine Cassell and Henry Jenkins: From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games

Earlier workshop proceedings: http://eda.ucla.edu

Betty Hayes talking about E3 as a gendered experience; having gone to three of them, she feels very much like a Middle Aged Woman there, surrounded by scruffy young men, with most women present as booth babes rather than as experts, although more women this year than in previous years.

Yasmin Kafai talking about the ghettoization of female gamers–classified as “casual gamers,” not important by some within industry?

MMOGs’ attraction for women:

• customizable characters
• choice of game activities
• community participation

Casual games’ attraction for women:

• limited in time
• stand-alone
• independent

We need to distinguish between women gamers and girl gamers; different age groups, they also do different things. Nick Yee finds that significant difference between male and female characters was very, very small. Age is a much better predictor of achievement motivation in MMOGs. Women tend to be older (and introduced to MMOGs by significant others), so the age difference gets conflated with the gender difference.

Reference: See T.L. Taylor on women gamers. Definite differences in women’s gaming activities in the U.S., Asia, and Europe (more female gamer events in northern Europe?).

Yasmin Kafai is noting that the gamer geek stereotype has had to shift because “everyone plays games now.” I’m not sure about this. We should definitely know better, but I get some pretty classic reactions from a lot of “regular” people when I mention MMOGs in particular–are MMOGs seen as nerdier than console games?

–I asked this question and Yasmin thinks that part of the issue is that most people now grew up with console games, but still don’t know much about MMOGs; it’s the old fear of new technology dystopias.

Nick Yee is talking about the Locker Room Culture of MMOGs as the main deterrent to women’s participation in MMOGs, NOT game mechanics (importance of competition/achievement, etc.). He mentions sexualization of female avatar bodies, but also the assumption of most players that women don’t play MMOGs with the concommitant rejection of most claims of female identities. Many players will only accept such claims if the player can produce a male romantic partner with whom she games–women are ONLY believed to enter the space via male connections.

Jill Denner discussing the involvement of girls and women in game design, although noting that gender /= play style. Some doubt about whether or not women will really make “girl games” as currently conceived. She’s done work having middle school girls design their own games, and found that some mirrored typical gender stereotypes, but others were more subversive. Humor was also more prevalent than in current popular mainstream games.

50% of the game designers for the Sims were women; Denner suggests that this led to the development of a game with broader appeal. It’s not that the Sims is really a “game for women”; 50% of the players are male. It’s just that unlike most popular games, it is NOT a “game for men.”

An audience member comments on boys’ unwillingness to enter areas that are color-coded female (pink, purple), whereas girls will go to those areas as well as the more “masculine” color-coded areas (green, blue, red). I wonder if players in MMOGs interpret feminine color costumes as markers of authentic femininity, like Andromeda Sparks’s preponderance of pink. This would be a pretty easy thing to survey–create female characters identical in costuming except for color schemes, and have respondents rate perceived femaleness of the players behind the characters. This would dovetail with my observations about cuteness as a more authentic femininity in MMOGs than hypersexualization (which in fact is generally taken as evidence of player maleness).** You could also look perceptions of more and less sexualized costumes/bodies that way.

Carrie Heeter says that “women want ‘entertainment plus’: fun AND good for me (learning, healthy, time with family and friends).” She also just said that probably none of us ever watched Star Trek, which seems like a weird assumption, but you know, whatever.* Has anyone seen a documentary about how Star Trek shaped the future? She was mentioning it.

(I missed some stuff here because I had to go to the bathroom. I got my coffee at the break.)

My table’s discussion: gaming culture discourages women (see my experience trying to buy City of Heroes at a game store at the East Towne Mall); what’s the “killer ap”?

“Girl games” are generally too girly–they don’t do well because boys absolutely will not play them. I think what we really need are games that offer more choice–for instance, male and female protagonists, and various things that can be done in games. Appeal to a wider range of people in general, and you’ll get better gender distribution.

Lunch!

—

*Mr. Spock: my first non-animated crush.

**It would also represent a continuity with some of my earliest research, a 4th grade science project that demonstrated that 50% of 4th grade research participants favored cookies with pink icing over identical cookies with yellow, green, or blue icing (and yes, I mixed up the batches to keep it random), while preferences for the other colors were pretty evenly split. Can you believe this project only received a 3rd prize ribbon, while a project in which some total non-innovator PLAYED MUSIC TO PLANTS was more highly rewarded?

This entry was posted on Friday, June 16th, 2006 at 12:11 pm and is filed under gender, conferences, liveblogging, virtual worlds, technology, links, musings, media, academia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.