Visit from Rebel Play

Introduction:
Last week Rebel Play came in and posed a question. Rebel Play is a games website specialising in digital distribution.  

The Presentation:
From there presentation it was found that more games are advertised to a male demographic specifically aged 30, as58% of men are playing these games as opposed to only 48% of women. This has become a catalyst for their question as it is:


"Do media platforms and genres have specific gender appeal?" and also "Why don't more women play console games?"


This question could fall down to the production of the games. According to http://careers.guardian.co.uk/live-q-a-why-aren-t-there-more-women-in-games 11% of game producers are women which leave men as the majority which may be one of the reasons into why console games may have a specific gender appeal to males.  Furthermore, the site goes on to say that "85 per cent of all video game characters are male."  A video game that contains a male character may not appeal to a female audience. Further research will enable me to gain a better insight to this theory. 


Maybe, the step to making more women play console games and therefore breaking the barriers that are gender appeal in gaming would be to hire more women. This would also involve advertising gaming at degree level and make it look appealing to more women in order to even out the male dominated gaming workplace. 


Along my way I also found an interesting link below which I though i would embed into the blog.
http://www.womeningames.com/


However, the ratio to men and women in the gaming industry may not be the only aspect to research. Are women not playing video games because they are not appealing? It is proven that there is a market for women playing games as in Rebel Plays presentation they highlighted that more women play social games than men. These social games are tetris and Facebook games such as farmville. These games involve almost the rinse and repeat method where there are levels to get through and solve. These games unlike the male targeted games such as Fifa 12 and Call of Duty do not have a zero sum outcome as in a game of tetris for instance there is not a winner and a loser. 


Women over 18 are the fastest demographics which poses itself as a perfect market for the gaming industry, but if games are constantly made with mainly male characters and female characters showing an unrealistic portrayal of women (look at Lara Croft for instance) this demographic will be left behind.   


On the other hand, video games may not be appealing due to there aesthetic look of the game and of the particular console it is played on.  Rebel Play wanted us to think about the look of the game and console , for example:

• Do women prefer a big console or a small console that can be easily stored away.
• Black or White console?
• What type of control do they prefer to use?
• Has xbox connect attracted more females?

The image of the advert for the wii above clearly shows a pair of woman's hands. This could be their target demographic and how Nintendo see women. They think women want to play games on the wii that are not confrontational like wii fit and Zumba. 

With all this said, it would be stereotypical of me to suggest women want to play domesticated games such as 'cooking mamma' and games where there only duty is to look after a pet. This can be seen as degrading and taking a step back in time to when a woman's role was purely domesticated. I believe it is about finding the right balance which ultimately will attract more women to play video games.  The video below is a trailer for 'Cooking Mamma' and is obviously aimed at the female sector as it is pink and sparkly and has a woman's voice sounding enthusiastic about a simple game.  Therefore, a balance is required as games such as 'Cooking Mamma' could offend women. However, there has been over 2 million 'Cooking Mamma' games sold which could lead towards an opinion that this is what women want.

Conclusion: 
Rebel Play stated they wanted to "challenge the  norm" and with some in-depth research there may be a solution to there question. Before research can be done for this question all the stereotypes about video games and women need to be forgotten in order to uncover the truth. This is a in depth question and the answer could be to do with the advertising of games,  the content within games or any other issue surround the gaming world.


Useful links:
http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/parents/video_games/concerns/gender_videogames.cfm

http://careers.guardian.co.uk/live-q-a-why-aren-t-there-more-women-in-games

http://www.rebelplay.com/


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3615278.stm