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=="Girl gamers"==
=="Girl gamers"==
"Girl gamers" or "gamer girls" is a label for women who regularly [[gamer|play video games]], [[role-playing game]]s, or other games. While some critics have advocated use of the label as a [[Reappropriation|reappropriated term]],<ref name=hex/> others have described the term as unhelpful,<ref name=ng/><ref name=hamilton/> offensive, and even harmful or misleading. The word "girl", for example, has been seen as an inherently age-linked term that glosses over the difference between women over 30 and younger women.<ref name=dillon/> The term "girl gamer" rather than simply "gamer" has also been described as perpetuating the minority position of female gamers.<ref name=hex/> For many critics uncomfortable with the term "girl gamer", its over-embracement may lead to the perpetuation of negative stereotypes<ref name=hex/> of female gamers as oversexualized, casual, and sometimes defiant or confrontational.<ref>Wilde, Tyler. ''[http://www.gamesradar.com/the-top-7-girl-gamer-stereotypes The Top 7... Girl gamer stereotypes]''. [[GamesRadar]]. 18 August 2008.</ref> This in turn can result in poor game design.<ref name=dillon/> These critics submit that there is no single definition of a female gamer, and that women gamers are as diverse as any other group of people.<ref name=kelly/>
"Girl gamers" or "gamer girls" is a label for women who regularly [[gamer|play video games]], [[role-playing game]]s, or other variations. While some critics have advocated use of the label as a [[Reappropriation|reappropriated term]],<ref name=hex/> others have described the term as unhelpful,<ref name=ng/><ref name=hamilton/> offensive, and even harmful <ref>[Mou, Yi & Wei Peng. "https://www.msu.edu/~pengwei/Mou&Peng_gender%20and%20racial%20stereotype.pdf".]</ref> or misleading.{{Citation needed|date=Oct 2013}}
The word "girl," for example, has been seen as an inherently age-linked term that glosses over the difference between women over 30 and those younger.<ref name=dillon/> The term "girl gamer" rather than simply "gamer" has also been described as perpetuating the minority position of female gamers.<ref name=hex/> The over-embracement may have led to the perpetuation of negative stereotypes<ref name=hex/> of female gamers as being oversexualized, casual{{clarify|date=Oct 2013}} and sometimes defiant or confrontational.<ref>Wilde, Tyler. ''[http://www.gamesradar.com/the-top-7-girl-gamer-stereotypes The Top 7... Girl gamer stereotypes]''. [[GamesRadar]]. 18 August 2008.</ref> <ref name=dillon/>These critics{{clarify|date=Oct 2013}} submit that there is no single definition of a female gamer, and that women gamers are as diverse as any other group of people.<ref name=kelly/>
Efforts have been shown to try and close the double standard when it comes to gender and technology.<ref>[Hing, Geoffrey. "[http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=162772".]</ref>


== See also ==
== See also ==

Revision as of 06:06, 21 October 2013

The complex relationship between women and video games has received extensive academic, corporate, and social attention. While composing 47% of the gamer population as of 2012,[1] female gamers have traditionally represented a distinct minority of total gamers. Advocates for increasing the number of female gamers stress the problems attending disenfranchisement of females from one of the fastest-growing cultural realms as well as the largely untapped nature of the female gamer market. Efforts to include greater female participation in the medium have addressed the problems of gendered advertising, social stereotyping, and the dearth of female video game creators (coders, developers, producers, etc.). Debate has also been provoked regarding whether the proper course of the industry should be to create female-targeted games in parallel with male-targeted games or whether gender-neutral games should be the ultimate goal. After decades of gender disparity among players, the gap between number of male and female gamers is today closing.[1]

Socially, the term "girl gamer" has also received attention both from advocates who largely use it as a reappropriated term as well as from those that argue against its use by characterizing it as a counterproductive or offensive term. Stereotypes and generalities about the "girl gamer" as a figure of the gaming scene have become common within the video game culture.

Women in the games industry

The role of women in the games industry—as professionals and as consumers—has been extensively explored by numerous academic and business groups.[2][3] Women represent approximately half the population but in 2003 were observed to constitute a small percentage of video game players.[2]

Gender disparity as a problem

The recognition that the gender disparity in video games is a problem has come separately from academic and social theory groups and from corporate marketing groups. The concept that video games are a form of art is one that has begun to gain force in the later half of the 2000s with the US National Endowment for the Arts recognizing games as a form of art in May 2011,[4] for example, and the Supreme Court of the United States holding video games to be a protected form of speech in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association. In viewing video games as cultural artifacts and the industry as a cultural industry, the disenfranchisement of women from the medium is regarded as negatively impacting the female voice in the industry and the woman's capacity to take part in the cultural dialogue that gaming inspires. In short it is comparable to cutting women out of any other cultural medium like the fields of film, music, or literature.[5] From an education perspective, certain gaming genres particularly lacking in female players such as the first-person shooter game have been shown to increase spacial skills thereby giving advantages to players of the games that are currently skewed along gender lines.[5] Video games have also been determined to provide an easy lead-in to computer literacy for children and correlations have been drawn between male video gaming and the predominance of male workers within the computer industry.[6] With the increasing importance of tech jobs in the 21st century and the increased role of online networking, the lack of female video game players suggests a loss of future career opportunities for women.[5]

Lack of female game creation/development

The majority of the people who work on game development teams are men.[7] As a result the team's best efforts often result in a game that closely matches the male perspective and expectations. Researchers have identified that one of the best ways to increase the percentage of female players comes from the aspect of authorship (either in-game as with Neopets and Whyville, or indirectly as with the Harry Potter series' inclusion of Hermione as a playable character subsequent to fan requests).[8] Female gaming is on the rise but the industry is still a male-dominated one and some researchers argue that the female perspective is necessary to vitalize the industry. For this reason, groups like WomenGamers.com (founded 1999) are seeking to increase female gamer demographics by giving scholarships to girls considering getting into game development,[9] and game developers like Check Six Games, HerInteractive, GirlGames, GirlTech, Silicon Sisters and Purple Moon have openly courted female coders and developers.[6][10]

Regarding elements of game design, areas such as gameplay, mechanics, and similar features have been described as gender neutral, however presentational aspects of games have been identified as strongly gender-linked. Specifically, gaming is often seen as fantasy and escapism in which empathy and identification with the character is much more easily achieved if she has the same gender as the player.[11] Gamers of both genders tend to crave realism and the more realistic the female character, the easier it is for a female player to identify with the character.[12] An academic study in 2010, however, found that 85% of playable characters in video games are male.[5] Erin Hamilton argues that part of the problem comes from the difficulty in "juxtaposing femininity and feminism in a good video game."[13] When female characters do appear in video games, they are often regarded as presenting unhealthy messages concerning unrealistic body images and provocative sexual and violent behaviors for players of both genders. Stereotypical female behaviors such as giggling or sighing are often presented non-ironically, and this leads young children (especially girls who identify with the female character) to think that this is how girls are supposed to look and act.[14] Furthermore, over-sexualized depictions[5][12] of scantily clad female video game characters such as Tomb Raider's Lara Croft[13] aren't appealing to many girls.[15]

Another aspect of game design that has been identified as negatively impacting female gamer ratios is the degree of expertise with gaming conventions and familiarity with game controls required to play the game.[5] In-game tutorials have been found to bring girls into games faster,[15] and new controllers such as Nintendo's Wii Remote, Microsoft's Kinect, and the various rhythm game controllers have affected demographics by making games easier to pick up and by providing a level playing-field.[5]

Gendered marketing and studies

As the video game industry has risen to prominence as a market sector, advertisements and specialty press have also gained a foothold, however these secondary industries are often directed almost entirely at young men in their 20s.[5] Whereas in the early days of the industry a lack of advertising and reporting (including gender-specific marketing) allowed for closer sharing of the market between males and females,[12] the male-targeted marketing of the modern era (including male-targeted and typically male-staffed video game boutiques[15]) has the effect of boosting male gamer ratios over female ratios [citation needed]. Furthermore, when marketing has been made directly to female audiences, women have been presented with pink items and traditionally female activities like cooking and having babies that do not properly represent modern female sensibilities.[16]

Industry studies on the lack of females in gaming have also suffered at times from biases of interpretation. Kevin Kelly of Joystiq has suggested that a high degree of circular reasoning is evident when male developers use focus groups and research numbers to determine what kinds of games girls play. After making a bad game that targets those areas suggested by the marketing research, the game's lack of popularity among both genders is often attributed to the incorrect prejudice that "girls don't play games" rather than the true underlying problems such as poor quality and playability of the game. Whereas market data and research are important to reveal that markets exist, argues Kelly, they shouldn't be the guiding factor in how to make a game that appeals to girls.[15] The argument has also been advanced that emphasis on market research is often skewed by the participants in the study. In studies on male gamers of the baby boomer generation, for example, players displayed a marked aversion to violence. The incorrect conclusion that could be drawn from this result—that men dislike violent games—may also be comparable to incorrect conclusions drawn from some female-oriented gaming studies.[8]

Social and cultural attitudes

Critics attribute the seeming lack of female interest in video games to the negative portrayal of women in video games and to misogynistic attitudes common among professional and hardcore gamers.[17] A 2012 Twitter discussion among women working in games, collated under the hashtag #1reasonwhy, indicated that sexist practices such as the oversexualization of female characters, disinterest in topics that matter to women as well as workplace harassment and unequal pay for men and women were common in the games industry.[18][19][20]

Gender bias about gaming has also entered mainstream culture. In gaming surveys, men tend to lie about playing games like Dance Dance Revolution, and women tend to lie about playing video games at all.[5] Female gamers also face the problem of having few or no role models of the same gender.[21] This makes some of them feel that they should edit their femininity in order to maintain credibility as a gamer, and that they must fit into the caricatured role of the "girl gamer" in order to be accepted.[11]

Some critics have identified parents as partially to blame for perpetuating some of the stereotypes that female gamers face as boys are bought gifts like Xboxes while girls are bought non-video-game "girl games" or nothing but girl-focused games like the Barbie video game series or educational games.[5] Furthermore, the purchase of games for children is infrequently accompanied by parental oversight and so parents are often unaware of over-sexualized and other negative images relating to women characters in games.[14] Comparable to a rite of passage, negative stereotyping of all female video game players as "girl gamers" quite often come from male gamers who have themselves been negatively stereotyped by the broader society.[11] The solution to the problem of societal pigeonholing of female gamers is often identified as interventionist work such as the insertion of women into the industry.[5] Activism and specifically female-targeted LAN parties in Scandinavia have helped boost female game playing.[8]

In examining game play habits at Internet cafés, South Korea has seen a rise in female gamers publicly playing games such as Lineage, however in other Asian countries this kind of public female gaming has remained rare. Furthermore, games such as Tamagotchi are seen as a gender neutral in Japan but have been regarded as girls' games in the West.[8] Female trends in one country may be indicators of changes in others, however. The rise of female Lineage players in Korea, for example, has led to increased number of female Lineage players in Taiwan. In Japan the rise of cute culture and its associated marketing has made gaming accessible for girls, and this trend has also carried over to Taiwan and recently China (both countries previously having focused mostly on MMOs and where parents usually place harsher restrictions on daughters than on sons).[8]

Differences between the genders

Some differences between gamers may also have to do with fundamental taste differences between the sexes, and a few game genres have traditionally seen higher female gamer percentages than the others. There has been persistent female interest, for example, in action-adventure games. This has more recently translated into an interest in MMORPGs like World of Warcraft and Second Life.[8] Women have also been shown to prefer role-playing game to first-person shooters.[13] While male audiences prefer fast-paced explosive action and combat,[13] women tend to prefer in-game communication[8] and interpersonal relationships (character development and plot dynamics).[13] In-game activities may also differ between the sexes in games with less linear plots such as the Grand Theft Auto series. It has been suggested that developers can learn what girls want in a game by observing similarities in how different girl teams will react to and modify a game if given the opportunity.[8]

Some males in MMO's are more oriented to achievement based play while females choose to become more social. Also most females play video games when a male is present but if that male is a romantic partner then aggression can be either increased or decreased for either gender. Typically playing with the other gender can be viewed as a partnership for both players and can improve their online communication with one another.[22]

On the other hand, some critics have suggested that genre preferences aren't as important a difference between the genders as the quality of the games played. Women are often characterized as preferring story-driven games or constructive games like The Sims or Civilization, but some seem to like first person shooters as well.[15]

Future outlook

In addressing the future of the medium, many researchers have argued for the improvement of the gaming industry to appeal to a more general gender-neutral audience and others have suggested that the appeal should be directed to females in particular.[23] Producers and designers are split about how best to capture the female market[13] with some pushing for a gender-neutral market and others pushing for a future with male-targeted games as well as female-targeted games.[11]

In the past, "girl games" have frequently been created by adapting girl-oriented material in other media like The Baby-sitters Club, Barbie, and Nancy Drew[21] while leaving male-targeted genres such as sport and driving sims, role playing games, and first person shooters to the boys.[10] This has begun to change, however, with the expansion of entrepreneurial feminism and the concept of "games by girls for girls" that has been embraced by companies such as HerInteractive, GirlGames, GirlTech, Silicon Sisters and Purple Moon—all video gaming start ups that are female owned and largely female staffed. Creating games designed with regard to sociological, psychological, and cognitive research into girls' cultural interests, such companies hope to awaken a female-only market emphasizing fundamental differences between what girls want and what boys want in gaming.[6]

The movement to expand the existing market to include females through the development of gender-neutral games has also had a number of advocates. Critics have proposed that female gamers, especially older female gamers[13] prefer gender-neutral games such as Tetris, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?, the King's Quest games, The Sims, or Civilization to "girl games".[10][21] One of the earliest attempts to broaden the market to include females could be seen in Sega's[13] use of the increased number of female protagonists in fighting games.[6] This trend has continued through the efforts of Nintendo in its release of the Wii. Nintendo's shift from emphasis on core gamers (i.e. male gamers) to a broader audience has been recognized as making eminent financial good sense as it is more lucrative to target the untapped female gamer market share than to restrict marketing to males alone.[24] Indeed the Wii's success with female gamers has been seen as closely related to the fact that the console is gender neutral and targeted to the field at large rather than at females solely.[15]

Female gamers as a demographic

According to a study conducted by the Entertainment Software Association in 2012, "Forty-seven percent of all game players are women. In fact, women over the age of 18 represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (30 percent) than boys age 17 or younger (18 percent)."[25][26]

A 2010 study by the Entertainment Software Association had found that the percentage of women playing online had risen to 42%, up several percent since 2004. The same 2010 study showed that 46% of game purchasers were female,[27] and this figure increased to 48% by 2012.[25] In recognition of the importance of the issues of women and girls as game developers and players, the International Game Developers Association, an association of companies and individuals in the games industry, has formed a Special Interest Group on Women in Game Development.[28] This is an active field of discussion and a topic in many conferences in the video gaming industry.[2][3]

According to a survey done in 2004 by the Entertainment Software Association, 25 percent of console players and 39 percent of PC game players were women. Also, 40 percent of online game players were women. According to a report by USA today 60 percent of female gamers played on mobile devices says a survey done by EEDAR. The same survey done by EEDAR also finds 63 percent of these female mobile gamers played online multiplayer mobile games.[29]

"Girl gamers"

"Girl gamers" or "gamer girls" is a label for women who regularly play video games, role-playing games, or other variations. While some critics have advocated use of the label as a reappropriated term,[11] others have described the term as unhelpful,[12][13] offensive, and even harmful [30] or misleading.[citation needed]

The word "girl," for example, has been seen as an inherently age-linked term that glosses over the difference between women over 30 and those younger.[8] The term "girl gamer" rather than simply "gamer" has also been described as perpetuating the minority position of female gamers.[11] The over-embracement may have led to the perpetuation of negative stereotypes[11] of female gamers as being oversexualized, casual[clarification needed] and sometimes defiant or confrontational.[31] [8]These critics[clarification needed] submit that there is no single definition of a female gamer, and that women gamers are as diverse as any other group of people.[15] Efforts have been shown to try and close the double standard when it comes to gender and technology.[32]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b 2012 Sales, Demographic and Usage Data: Essential Facts about the Computer and Video Game Industry. Entertainment Software Association. 2012.
  2. ^ a b c Article on Game Developers Conference 2003 panel on Women in Games
  3. ^ a b Article on Game Developers Conference 2005 panel on Women in Games
  4. ^ Funk, John (2011-05-06). "Games Now Legally Considered an Art Form (in the USA)". Escapist. Retrieved 2011-05-06.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Young, Nora & Misener, Dan. Repeat of Spark 126 – October 16 & 19, 2011: Games and Girls (Podcast available: Full Interview: Jennifer Jenson on Girls & Gaming). Spark. 7 November 2010.
  6. ^ a b c d Nzegwu, Uzoamaka. Gender and Computer/Video games. Swarthmore. 15 May 2000.
  7. ^ Winegarner, Beth (14 March 2005). "GDC Q&A: Women's advocate, industry hero, Sheri Graner Ray". GameSpot. Gamespot.com. Retrieved 19 Nov 2009.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Dillon, Beth A. Event Wrap-Up: Girls 'N Games 2006. Gamasutra. 18 May 2006.
  9. ^ Caron, Frank. Girl gamer scholarship hopes to interest females in games industry. Ars Technica. 2008.
  10. ^ a b c d Yap, Tammy. What's So Great About Computer Games?. MIT. 2002.
  11. ^ a b c d e f g Bendixsen, Stephanie 'Hex'. Games 4 Girlz?. ABC. 16 February 2011.
  12. ^ a b c d Ng, Amy. What it takes to entice the female gamer. CNN. 25 May 1998.
  13. ^ a b c d e f g h i Hamilton, Erin. "The Girl Gamer's Manifesto". GameSpot. 2008.
  14. ^ a b Not a Pretty Picture. Reuters (via ABC News). 2000.
  15. ^ a b c d e f g Kelly, Kevin. SXSW: Getting Girls Into The Game: Designing and Marketing Games for Female Players. Joystiq. 21 March 2007.
  16. ^ Greenhough, Chris. Girl Gamer magazine thinks it's still the 1950s. Joystiq. 30 January 2008.
  17. ^ Geordie Tait. "To My Someday Daughter".
  18. ^ Locker, Melissa (27 November 2012). "#1ReasonWhy: Women Take to Twitter to Talk about Sexism in Video Game Industry". TIME magazine. Retrieved 29 November 2012.
  19. ^ Plunkett, Luke (27 November 2012). "Here's a Devastating Account of the Crap Women in the Games Business Have to Deal With. In 2012". Kotaku. Retrieved 29 November 2012.
  20. ^ Hamilton, Mary (28 November 2012). "#1reasonwhy: the hashtag that exposed games industry sexism". The Guardian. Retrieved 29 November 2012.
  21. ^ a b c Brown, Janelle. Girl Gamers: Sugar, Spice, Everything Profitable?. Wired. 19 November 1996.
  22. ^ Williams, Dmitri; Consalvo, Mia; Caplan, Scott; Yee, Nick (2009). "Looking for Gender: Roles and Behaviors Among Online Gamers". Journal of Communication. 59 (4): 700–725. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2009.01453.x. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  23. ^ Rosen, Jill (September 2008). "The gender divide: video-gaming has been largely a man's- or boy's- world, but with games by and for women, that's starting to change". The Baltimore Sun. Maryland. p. C1. {{cite news}}: |format= requires |url= (help)
  24. ^ Watts, Steve. Report Suggests Female Gaming on the Rise. 1UP.com. 29 June 2009.
  25. ^ a b 2012 Sales, Demographic and Usage Data: Essential Facts About the Computer and Video Game Industry (PDF), Entertainment Software Association, 2012, retrieved 2013-02-12
  26. ^ Industry Facts (web page), Entertainment Software Association, 2013, retrieved 2013-03-13
  27. ^ 2010 Sales, Demographic and Usage Data: Essential Facts About the Computer and Video Game Industry (PDF), Entertainment Software Association, 2010, retrieved 2011-01-10
  28. ^ IGDA Women in Games Special Interest Group. International Game Developers Association. Accessed 18 February 2012.
  29. ^ Merripen, Clarinda. "Increasing The Bottom Line: Women's Market Share." Game Developer. 01 Feb 2005. 16. eLibrary. ProQuest LLC. ART INSTITUTE OF SEATTLE. 11 Nov 2009. <http://elibrary.bigchalk.com>.
  30. ^ [Mou, Yi & Wei Peng. "https://www.msu.edu/~pengwei/Mou&Peng_gender%20and%20racial%20stereotype.pdf".]
  31. ^ Wilde, Tyler. The Top 7... Girl gamer stereotypes. GamesRadar. 18 August 2008.
  32. ^ [Hing, Geoffrey. "".
  33. ^ Nicole Girard. "Explaining the disconnect between women and video games". ZDNet.
  34. ^ PS3 exclusives lure female gamers unlike Xbox 360?. Myona News. 2011.
  • Beck, John C., and Mitchell Wade. “Got Game How the Gamer Generation Is Reshaping Business Forever”. New York: Harvard Business School P, 2004.
  • Bryce, J. and J. Ruttner, "The Gendering of Computer Gaming: Experience and Space", in S. Fleming & I. Jones, Leisure Cultures: Investigations in Sport, Media and Technology, Leisure Studies Association, 2003, pp. 3–22.
  • Cassell, J. and H. Jenkins, "From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games", Boston, MIT Press, 1998, pp. 54–56.
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