Girl gamers

I personally love video games and granted they are usually designed for a male audience that has never stopped me from playing them nor caring about their gender stereotypes in their design. This article on girl gamers by Dickey states, "There are many explanations why digital games have emerged as a predominately male pastime; however, despite the engendering of this pastime, increasingly more females are playing games. Likely, one reason for this influx is the emergence of ‘girl games’ while another may be that more females are playing games designed for a predominately male audience. In their review of gender and computer and video games, Cassell and Jenkins (1998) posit the question, ‘Do we encourage girls to beat boys at their own game, or do we construct a girls-only space?’ (p. 34). This is an interesting question and one that has relevance not only for game design but also for the design of learning environments." (788-789)

So I fall into the female playing games designed for males and not necessarily girl games. I do like some of the girl games like The Sims but I also enjoy fighting games as well such Soul Calibur (Ivy is my favorite character pictured above). I really like the question that Cassell and Jenkins asks on the reasoning behind girls playing and getting girls to play games. Well if you have girl gamers that like both the girl games and playing the male games then why not design both types of games? Who says there has to be a certain design? Couldn't you target both markets of girls in different manners? It just goes back to promoting that there is girl gamers and there might be even more girl gamers than there ever was especially if you look at shows like the WCG Ultimate Gamers contestants. Things like the Nintento Wii Fit is possibly also pushing females in more video games as well. So basically the answer to Cassell and Jenkins's question is yes and yes. You need to encourage girls for both sides of the coin.

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Dickey, M.D. (2006). Girl gamers: the controversy of girl gamers and the relevance of female-oriented game design for instructional design. British Journal of Educational Technology, 37(5), 785-793.