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Game Design What Women Want Investig Aming game design classroom what men want InvestiGaming.com • tag 1 workforce social context IT Careers gender stereotypes tweens casual games brain research preschool console gamesspatial ability competition learning educational games computers storytelling .com WII teens age estiGamin nv Research Findings g i on Gender and Games avatars gender identity elementary school violence boys masculine feminine high school modding MMO grade school hypersexualized gender equity middle school aggression investiGaming gaming culture sexuality player demographics children motivations narrative ethnicity girl games arcade www. psychology game industry cooperation self-esteem pink games feminism research what women wantplayer types gender theories 2 Preface and Contents • InvestiGaming.com Preface This book was created to live in game design conference rooms, game design classrooms, game industry professionals’ and gaming researchers’ bookshelves. Selected highlights from the investiGaming.com gateway to About investiGaming research on gender and gaming can be perused for inspiration. They point to the more complete online citations and abstracts Credits and contact information in our ever expanding online resource. Tag Cloud Highlights This print publication and the online investiGaming.com Avatars .............................................................................. 7 gateway were partially supported by grant 0631771 from the National Science Foundation to Professor Carrie Heeter and Children .......................................................................... 13 Associate Professor Brian Winn in the Games for Entertainment Classroom Context ......................................................... 18 and Learning (GEL) Lab, Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies, and Media, at Michigan State University. Game Design ................................................................... 24 Game Industry ................................................................ 31 The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not Gaming Culture .............................................................. 37 represent Michigan State University or the National Science Foundation. Gaming Social Context ................................................... 41 Gender Equity ................................................................. 47 Gender Identity .............................................................. 52 Gender Inclusive ............................................................. 57 Gender Stereotypes ....................................................... 62 Gender Theories ............................................................. 71 Genre (MMO) ................................................................... 74 Genre Educational Games ............................................. 78 IT Careers......................................................................... 83 Learning Outcome .......................................................... 89 Motivations ..................................................................... 93 Player Demographics ..................................................... 99 Sexuality........................................................................ 104 Violence ......................................................................... 111 What Women Want ....................................................... 116 Workforce ...................................................................... 125 InvestiGaming.com • About 3 About this book Designing games to appeal to female and male players may Readers are encouraged to visit investiGaming.com online to seem elusive, but gender and gaming has been and continues retrieve the abstract and additional information about particular to be the focus of hundreds of research studies. studies of interest. investiGaming.com is an online gateway to academic and This is not a literature review. Research highlights related to industry research on gender and gaming. The gateway was gender and gaming were pulled from the abstract or full text of created by Michigan State University Professor Carrie Heeter each research citation and then organized by subtopics. and a team of Serious Game Design faculty, students, and Different highlights may contradict each other, because they consultants with funding from the National Science Foundation. came from different articles and because the authors had As of July, 2009, the investiGaming.com gateway includes 410 contradictory perspectives. We do not synthesize or integrate, research citations, 319 abstracts, and 271 full text links. but simply list what appear to be highlights of interest related The online gateway can be searched, browsed by topic using a to gender and gaming. tag cloud interface to find research on particular subjects, or the complete citation list viewed in its entirety. The Collection Casts a Wide Net This book reprints selected investiGaming.com content ■ Academic Research associated with 26 of the most frequently occurring subject ■ Industry Research tags. The three most frequent tags are What Women Want, Gender Stereotypes and Game Design, each with 32 research ■ Gender and Gaming citations related to gender and gaming sharing that tag. ■ Gender and Computing Some popular tags relate to who plays games, how, and why, ■ Other Gender Research with Implications for Gaming including Player Demographics (17), Player Motivations (23), Gaming Culture (16), and Gaming in Social Contexts (29). A Gateway for Game Industry Professionals Women in the gaming industry and approaches to attract girls ■ Quick Search hundreds of abstracts to IT careers are a frequent focus of research found in the Game ■ Browsable Tag Cloud Industry (22), Workforce (20), and IT Careers (24) tags. ■ Research highlights Gender and gaming as it relates to Avatars (26), Sexuality (23), MMOs (14), and Violence (18) are frequent foci of media and A Resource for Academic Games Research research attention. ■ Extensive bibliography Research about gender, children and gaming (17) is presented ■ overall and subdivided by age into Preschool (5), Elementary Hundreds of abstracts School (6), Middle School (14), and High School (11). Some ■ Links to retrieve full articles research has looked at gender and Educational Games (16), Gaming in Classroom Context (15), and Learning Outcomes A Resource for Game Design Students (15). ■ Use the gateway during project brainstorming Gender Inclusive Games (16) and Gender Equity (20) ■ Independent study or special topics courses to critically are frequent tags, as are Gender Identity (17) and Gender interpret research implications for game design Theories (9). What Are We Missing? Each tag forms a chapter, beginning with a “scope definition” for unfamiliar terms, followed by research highlights related ■ Please email Carrie ([email protected]) to request that we add to gender and gaming pulled by investiGaming student your current and future work! researchers from the abstracts and articles of investiGaming.com entries which share this tag. Research highlights are followed by the complete list of citations associated with the tag. 4 Credits • InvestiGaming.com Credits Project Leader and Senior Editor Consultants Professor Carrie Heeter Ruta Sevo Department of Telecommunication, Independent consultant and writer, Information Studies, and Media [email protected] Michigan State University http://momox.org [email protected] http://seriousgames.msu.edu | http://gel.msu.edu/carrie/ Solveig Zarubin Producer, Playfirst Co-Editor [email protected] Brian Winn http://sunpathgames.blogspot.com/ | http://www.playfirst.com/ Associate Professor and GEL Lab Director Department of Telecommunication, Yasmin Kafai Information Studies, and Media Professor, Graduate School of Education, Michigan State University University of Pennsylvania [email protected] [email protected] http://seriousgames.msu.edu | http://gel.msu.edu/winn/ http://www.gse.upenn.edu/faculty/kafai LULU Press Book Design Andy Detskas Darcy Drew Greene Lead Online Designer Associate Professor School of Journalism [email protected] Michigan State University http://www.andyandyandy.com/ [email protected] http://commtechlab.msu.edu/principals/darcy.html Student Editors Jessica Knott Editors and Graduate Research Assistants Education & Serious Game Design MA Student Rosalie Blank [email protected] MSU Serious Game Design MA Student (current) http://vudat.msu.edu/eproducers/ [email protected] Kacie Schaeffer Mary Stanish Serious Game Design MA Student MSU Serious Game Design MA Student (graduated) [email protected] [email protected] http://www.sass-studio.com/ Jason Giroux Game Design and Development Specialization Jillian Winn [email protected] Digital Media Arts and Technology MA Student (graduated) http://darguth.alaerth.net/GamePortfolio [email protected] Brad Haggadone Game Design and Development Specialization [email protected] InvestiGaming.com • Avatars 5 Avatars (26) Gender stereotyped avatar designs ■ Female characters were more likely to play the role of a Selected highlights from the AVATARS tag “prop” or “bystander”. (Glaubke, 2001) (Each highlight is associated with one or more entries ■ Female game characters are routinely represented in a in the investiGaming collection. The authors’ last name narrowly stereotypical manner; for example, as princesses and year of publication is referenced after the highlight. or wise old women in fantasy games, as objects waiting Complete citations for all 26 investiGaming.com
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