Right, this will be my last blog post (or possibly second last) that is based off a lecture, all following blog posts will be random things done by me or simply more pictures of my work from other modules. This time the lecture that we had was about gender, such as who makes games, what these games are made for and who they are made for and, through doing so and looking at statistics, the results are quite different than expected.
The first thing that we looked at was the segregation that appears in the games industry, namely what the split was between males and females in different aspects of games development. To help us with this we looked at an article by J.Prescott and J.Bogg titled 'Segregation in a male-dominated industry: Women working in the computer games industry' whose article also looked at research by other people. The article revealed that in 2009 women represented just 4% of the games industry workforce which is a drop from 12% in 2006... That figure surprised me, not in the fact that the number was clearly favouring men, but due to the sheer scale of the split... I mean, I knew there was a split, but 4% of 9000 employees in the UK (figure taken from the article as well)... that's only 360 women...
From this were asked if we thought this led to any consequences of games that get made or who end up laying said games... This led to a task where we were given the top 40 best-selling games for the week ending March 26th and we had to say which gender the games were all made for; Male, Female or for both. The result of said task ended up with my group picking 21 games for men, 18 for both genders (5 slightly leaned more towards women) and just 1 for women... This was somewhat expected but it was interesting to see a somewhat conformity in this among the class as a whole with the exception of Nicola and Kayleigh (the only 2 girls in our Computer Games Design course) who had the vast majority of games being aimed at both genders and a more balanced split of games aimed only at one gender... while it still highlighted a lack in games that were considered aimed for females it did show how gender itself can offer a different view point.
Ultimately, this task then further high-lighted, going on from the fact that women generally aren't the ones that are making games, that 'men make manly games for men' and showed that genre appears to be a key factor in the 'audience' of the games... FPS games, war games and Sci-Fi games were generally put in the male category, party and social games were considered a mixed gender and ultimately, no games that we consider girl’s games even came up. It also showed that the representations made in the games also determined the audience, game targeted at men and strong male heroes generally with few women in them except those that were perceived as either in need rescue or those that are sexy... in contrast party games were shown to have a choice of character, animal characters or 'cutesy' themes.
After this we discussed the roles of women in games in more depth, building upon the ideas of being damsels in distress in need of rescue (Princess Peach from Mario) or 'sex-kittens' (Lara Croft, all the women in Dead or Alive) that makes men play games to ogle them. In contrast to this there were also other depiction that showed the women as being strong (Lara Croft again)... however, this raised the issue of if this is the case what are the ACTUAL statistics of people who play games and not just what we perceive based on stereotypes and cultural knowledge.
Finally, we were given a set of statistics that allowed us to see age groups that played games, what types of games they played and how often. These statistics showed us that the split of gender in those that are actually playing games is in fact very even such as (M/F) 99/96% for 8-12 Yr olds, 97/86% 13-19 Yr olds, 83/76% for 20-34 Yr olds and so on. The difference occurs in how much they play said games, where it is shown that males play games for a larger amount of hours per week than females - this could show that girls tend to get games they can pick-up and play for brief intervals as opposed to boys who play games that they get into and play extensively.
None of these thoughts are set facts and of course are open to interpretation and speculation... these are merely my thoughts drawing on the facts that are given. As I said earlier, I know there is a definitive split in the gaming industry; this is naturally evident in society and can even be seen just by being on my course here at Uni... 2 girls in a class of 30 people (and according to our lecturer there are about is about 1 girl that applies for the course in relation to every 10 boys). In my opinion, most games are designed with a much more masculine direction, multi-gender aspects are included or incorporated where possible but the developers know that it will be mostly males who play there games so that's what they do. I'm not saying women don't play said games as I know they do and evidence shows they do play games a lot, but as is the case, it doesn't seem that they mind the games being developed in this way... Maybe by developing a game that appeal to men, female gamers get dragged in and enjoy it too and to change it would not only upset the current core demographic but actually annoy those that the change could be trying to appeal to... Again, all this is opinion so it doesn't really matter.
So there we have it, my last lecture based blog (or second last) post on gender in games. So, anyways, 'til next time - that's all folks!
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