Gaming is often perceived as a predominantly male past-time. Some reasons as to why females are discouraged from playing computer games are that games are; designed by men; aimed at a male audience; and women in games are portrayed sexually. Many females find these aspects of games challenging and offensive (Bryce & Rutter, 2003:7).
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Public gaming spaces, such as LAN centers, provide users with selection of the most popular game titles. As there is a cost factor involved, players have a limited time to use these services. The games are usually limited to FPS and RTS and racing SIM games as they often have predetermined match times. Most of these multiplayer games are highly competitive and contain male-oriented themes (Bryce & Rutter, 2003:10).
Popular male oriented game themes include war, violence, cars and sport. It is easy to see that titles containing these themes greatly outnumber those that do not. Some games are now beginning to break the mold such as The Sims, the Sim-City series, and Tycoon series.
Studies have proven that a large percentage of females do play computer games although less will do so publicly (Bryce & Rutter, 2003:6-9). They prefer to play in the privacy of their own environments or online environments. More females tend to participate in games online as this particular environment allows them to remain anonymous. The feminist movement has freed women to a large extent and enabled them to take more active roles in society. Despite a huge shift in attitude, women are often still targeted with degradation, sexual harassment and even hostility for intruding on ‘male-oriented spaces’ in society. This also applies equally to gaming environments.
A lot of people involved in the creation and design of computer games are men. There is a high degree of technical proficiency required in the construction of computer games and until more female gamers actively participate in this development, it may be some time before there is a truly equal product market.
Bryce, J. & Rutter, J. (2002) Killing Like a Girl Gendered Gaming and Girl Gamers’ Visibility, paper presented at Computer Games and digital Cultures, Tampere, Finland, June 2002 Available: http://www.digiplay.org.uk/media/cgdc.pdf [Accessed Aug 8, 2004]
Bryce, J. & Rutter, J. (2003) The Gendering of Computer Gaming: Experience and Space, in Fleming, s. & Jones, I. Leisure Culture: Investigations in Sport, Media and Technology. Leisure Studies Association, pp. 3-22 Available: http://les1.man.ac.uk/cric/Jason_Rutter/papers/LSA.pdf [Accessed Aug 8, 2004]
Luke Smart 16:52, 31 Oct 2004 (EST)
