Not much fun: The constraining of female video
gamers

Jo Bryce,
Department of Psychology, University of Central Lancashire, UK

Jason Rutter, Centre for Research on Innovation and
Competition, University of Manchester, UK

The growth in video gaming as a leisure practice has not engaged female and males players equally. At school age, females play video games less often than their male contemporaries and the gender differences increases with age. This paper explores the social contexts which contribute to constraining female access gaming. It highlights a ‘career' approach to video gaming in which females are excluded from an early age, marginalized through their gaming career and have a tendency to leave video gaming earlier than males because of other constraints including time. The paper briefly suggest that some innovations in video games have a particular appeal to female gamers but that this is not a solution to female exclusion from this leisure activity.

The study of video gaming has been informed by two separate research agendas. First, that of the media effects perspective which has tended to examine the potential influence of games in shaping perceptions and practice - most notably those linked with aggressive behaviour. Second, an approach broadly built on tools from literature studies which has seen games (or specifically the organising of image and story on the game platform's display) as objects of taxonomic analysis.[1] What these divergent approaches have in common, though, is a foundation in examining the single player's engagement with a video game. They focus chiefly on a one-to-one relationship between the game and the gamer. However, due in part to the growth of massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) a growing interest has been shown in video gaming as a social experience. Games such as World of Warcraft, Everquest and Star Wars Galaxy have developed new gaming experiences as they facilitate in-game social interaction and exploration of persistent worlds as well as conquering them.

Part of this growth has looked beyond the games themselves. It has examined the situated aspects of playing video games within everyday contexts, the facilitation of social cohesion between peer groups, and its relationship with other leisure practices (for example Crawford, 2006; Flynn, 2003). This perspective views video gaming not simply as a closed system involving game and gamer but as an activity informed and organised by social and personal contexts. This paper locates itself within this approach. It is based upon the premise that there is, objectively, little socially about video gaming which marks it as significantly separate from other leisure activities (Bryce and Rutter 2006a). This enables an exploration of the social contexts which inform or constrain gaming as a leisure practice. In this paper, we examine gender as a key factor which impacts upon the experience of playing video games.

The video gaming divide

Globally, the video games market in 2003 was estimated to have been worth about $21 billion (ScreenDigest and ELSPA, 2005). According to data published by the American-based Entertainment Software Association (ESA, 2006), the US video games market was worth $7 billion dollars in 2005. Similar figures from the Entertainment Software Publisher's Association suggest the value of digital games for Europe was €5.6 billion (ELSPA, 2005b). In the UK, the world's third largest market for digital games after USA and Japan, software and hardware together are worth more than £2.2 billion (ELSPA, 2005a) with software accounting for £1.2 billion of that (ELSPA, 2005b).

However, market figures tell us little about the make-up of that market. When looking at who actually plays video games, the variation of interest in video games between male and female children is well documented. While Colwell and Payne (2000) reported that 88 percent of the 12-14 year old females surveyed played computer games regularly, recent figures have suggested that this level is not necessarily representative.

Fromme's survey of 1,111 children between the ages of seven and fourteen showed that almost 56 percent of boys reporting playing video games regularly compared with about 29 percent of girls. Fromme also recorded that 20 percent of girls said they did not play computer games which contrasted with only approximately 6 percent of boys (Fromme, 2003). Further research undertaken in Germany reported by Hartmann and Klimmt (2006) showed that 33 percent of six to 13 years old girls reported playing video games in the previous week compared with over 50 percent for boys. Only 12 percent of the girls reported ‘being very interested in video games' - a figure which was three times as high for the boys (MFS, 2005a). While interest reportedly grew for females in the 12-19 years old age group with 15 percent reporting being very interested, the difference compared with their male contemporaries grew with 54 percent of males classifying themselves as ‘very interested'. In this age category, actual play during the week before survey had dropped to 15 percent for females but increased to 61 percent for males (MFS, 2005b).

Looking at a slightly older age group, research in the UK found that female undergraduate students were half as likely as their male colleagues to have played a video game in the previous three months (Crawford and Gosling, 2005). Research from the Entertainment Software Association shows a similar asymmetry between levels of male and female gamers as they report that in 2005, only 38 percent of American video gamers were female (ESA, 2006).

Constraining video gaming

Content analysis of video games has shown that, in general, they feature few female characters and that these characters conform to a small number of gendered stereotypes. Further games tend to revolve around regular male-oriented themes such as sport, crime and war topics which highlight competition, aggression and violence (Dietz, 1998; Greenfield, 1994; Kafai, 1996; Kinder, 1996). However, recent work has suggested that issues such as in-game violence and gender role portrayal have less impact on female's game preference than the level of social interaction involved in the game (Hartmann & Klimmt, 2006). Indeed, if we accept that video gaming does not exist as a practice outside other social factors, it seems premature here to give a priori importance to game content. We believe that gender asymmetries are due first to contexts and practices which are faced outside the game itself.

We suggest there are several aspects of game playing and access which directly impact on female engagement with, and motivations for, playing video games. Below we look at several of these aspects which impact on female adoption of video gaming as a leisure practice, there experience of it and how long they maintain a video gaming career when compared with males.

Getting into gaming

As a social activity, gaming clearly has associated cultures, practices and norms. As with many other enculturated leisure practices, the home is an important site for learning and finding one's position relative to that culture. The fact that video games are situated and experienced within specific and local spaces is often overlooked in writing on gaming. Despite growth in public gaming environments such as cybercafés, LAN parties and gaming competitions, most female video gaming remains a domestic activity (Kerr, 2003). Given the restriction of females from full participation in many public leisure sites, the home has often been recognised as the main site of female leisure. This is especially the case of girls and female teenagers who have been seen to construct and participate in ‘bedroom culture' (Frith, 1978; McRobbie, 1991; McRobbie and Garber, 1976).

Despite this, it is clear that when it comes to video gaming female access is not without constraint. Within the home the opportunities afforded to girls and boys for involvement with video gaming are not equal. Regularly, males assume the role of ‘expert' when it comes to gaming and have a tendency towards undermining female skills (Schott and Horrell, 2000). This control that male family members exert is such that even where a games console belongs to a female, access to it is controlled with male family members seen as having symbolic ownership (Crawford and Gosling, 2005). As such games machines and video gaming are constructed as part of male culture, a ‘belonging' to men and this acts to marginalise female gaming within the home.

Although this gendering of video gaming can act to exclude female gamers, the development of leisure roles within a child's home can also provide opportunities to involve girls in video gaming practices. Females who take part in video gaming often cite the manner in which rather than overcoming exclusions from gaming they were fully supported in the practice within the home. The positive role of male family members can play has been highlighted within research amongst Irish gamers (Kerr. 2003). However, even from this perspective, it is clear that video gaming is routinely within the gift of male members of the family. Rather than being a leisure choice that females automatically have equal rights to it appears male family members can opt to either involve or exclude potential female gamers.

Getting on in gaming

Outside the home, this gendering of gaming continues and is reinforced both at a local and institutional level. For example, despite occasional marketing diversions such as pink versions of handheld gaming devices such as Nintendo's Game Boy and DS, gaming technology remains designed primarily to appeal to male tastes. Indeed, it has been argued that one reason, two years after the launch of the PlayStation 2, why fewer than 7% of registered owners in the PAL territories were female was explained by the masculine, black, industrial design of the games machine (Kerr, 2003).

For females taking part in video gaming as a leisure practice, it is apparent that inequality and asymmetry of experience continue to be visible. This is particularly the case at public gaming events.

For example, ethnographic work on UK gaming competitions (Bryce & Rutter, 2000) showed not only how female participation was slight, but that roles and the use of space at the events were gendered. The majority of females who attended played non-gamers roles such as mothers who brought or travelled with their sons to the competition and who sat in the hotel foyers looking bored but offering support, encouragement or sympathy when necessary. Another role was that of ‘girlfriend' who, like mothers, were there to provide support but were also displayed to improve the cultural capital of the male gamer. The few female gamers who did participate were often literally as well as metaphorically marginalised. When competitors gathered around monitors to watch final competition in gaming tournaments female participants would almost exclusively stand at the fringe of the group often standing side-on to the monitors while watching others play rather than adopting the face-on stance of the males intent on watching play.

While gender exclusion was being reproduced in the competitive environment, it is not clear that possibilities for negotiating gender asymmetries in online environments are being fully exploited. Indeed, while MMOGs are often cited as arena of democratic order, equality, personal discovery and experimentation, the gendering of experience is often clearly reproduced in these environments.
Castronova (2005), for example, has argued that reproducing gendered difference in online worlds makes the game ‘more fun' by reproducing inequality (or lack of equilibrium). Further he highlights the trend in such games for gendered stereotypes to be reproduced in an unquestioning manner - wise characters are represented by male avatars and female avatars tend to be overtly sexualised.

Getting out of gaming

While the ESA (2006) report that the average video gamer in the USA is aged 33, it is unclear whether female gamers have a greater tendency than their male contemporaries to stop gaming as they get older. What we do know, however, is that with the transition from childhood to adulthood more demands are placed on time which limits leisure and that these demands are not equal between male and females.

Access to ‘free time' is well recognised as being uneven between the genders with women generally having less time to devote to their own choice of leisure activity (Vanek, 1974; Firestone and Shelton, 1988; Thrane, 2000). In the home, the weight of unpaid labour such as laundry, cleaning carpets, or bathing children has remained with female members of the household. Further, while the adoption in many households of items such as microwaves, dishwashers and freezers has increased, there has not been a significant increase in the time spent on domestic chores by males or an associated increase in females leisure time. Indeed, in some cases these devices have increased time devoted to domestic work, as accepted standards of cleanliness and tidiness have made many activities daily chores (Bittman et al., 2003).

In the UK, females spend over an hour and a half each day more than males on housework with males spending more time watching TV and engaged in sport.[2] In the USA, time use data shows that employed females spend about an hour per day more than males doing household activities with males spending, on average, 5.4 hours a day doing leisure activities compared with 4.8 hours for females.[3] This suggests that, on average, females have less time for leisure, whether for video gaming or other activities, than males.

Given the negative impact of domestic work and care commitments on the time available to females for leisure and gaming when compared with males, and the increasing average age of gamers, we would expect to see the number of regular female video gamers decline as a percentage of total players, unless other factors to support female entrance, challenge attrition and develop the nature of female leisure gaming careers change.

New media (s)places

One of these factors is potentially the development of new gaming technologies which are beginning to utilise the convergence between gaming, communication and social technologies. While the development of next generation gaming consoles such as the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 have gained much media attention, they have not been the only innovations within video gaming. Of specific relevance to our examination of the gendering of gaming is the growing adoption of mobile gaming, MMOGs and the development of new game controllers. These include the gyroscopic remote used for the Nintendo Wii and the Buzz buzzers (often used in quiz games) for the PlayStation or dance mats, drums, microphone and cameras which place the live image of the gamer 'in' the game. While these devices are nominally aimed at a wide range of video gamers (although fishing reels and rock guitars may be more targeted at males in their appeal), it has been claimed that they have particular appeal to female gamers as they increase the social nature of gaming (Krotoski 2004).

The appeal of playing games on mobile phones by females may be partly due to the way in which the device is less culturally signified as male, as well as the manner in which mobile phones are used by women in public to show separation from the public sphere, as well as manage social interaction (Moore, 2005). This suggests that gaming applications on familiar communicative devices may represent a way to increase the numbers of females engaged in casual gaming.

Conclusions

It is easy to over emphasise female engagement with video gaming as a leisure activity. Much of the research on gaming tends towards a utopian perspective which stresses the democratic potential of online games worlds and/or the capacity of females to engage with or challenge masculine game themes and practices. While females who are engaged with visual participation in games have a vital role to play in evolving the video gaming ecosystem, they do not represent the experience of the majority of female gamers or those effectively excluded from this leisure practice.

Further, when looking at longitudinal data published by the ESA, it appears that the growth in female video gamers often predicted has failed to materialise. Indeed there is evidence to support the claim that there has, in fact, been a decrease in female participation in gaming. Figures from the ESA suggest a decline in female gamers in relation to males of 5 percent over the last five years. While the ESA reported 38 percent of gamers were female in 2005 (ESA, 2006), the Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA)[4] reported rates of 41.9 percent in 2003 (IDSA, 2003) and 43 percent in 2001 (IDSA, 2001).

We do not wish to suggest that increased engagement by females with video games is de facto a good thing (except perhaps from a market perspective) as it is unclear whether gaming offers rewards noticeably different from other leisure activities. However, what is clear - and remains to be sufficiently addressed - is the manner in which potential female gamers are being excluded by social practices and accepted norms of what forms and frames video gaming.

References

Bittman, M., Rice, J.M. and Wajcman, J. (2003) ‘Appliances and their Impact: The Ownership of Domestic Technology and Time Spent on Household Work', SPRC Discussion Paper No. 129, The Social Policy Research Centre, University of New South Wales. Retrieved 22/1/07 from http://www.sprc.unsw.edu.au/dp/DP129.pdf

Bryce, J. and Rutter, J. (2006a) ‘An introduction to understanding digital games', in J. Rutter and J. Bryce (eds), Understanding Digital Games, Sage: London, pp.1-17.

Bryce, J. and Rutter, J. (2006b) ‘Digital games and the violence debate', in J. Rutter and J. Bryce (eds), Understanding Digital Games, Sage: London, pp.205-222.

Bryce, J. and Rutter, J. (2000) ‘The serious practice of being a computer gamer: The practice of being a member of a computer gamer community', paper presented at "Cultural Change and Urban Contexts", Manchester Metropolitan University.

Castronova, E. (2005) Synthetic Worlds: The business and Culture of Online Games, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Colwell, J. & Payne, J. (2000) ‘Negative Correlates of Computer Game Play in Adolescents', British Journal of Psychology, 91, pp.295-310.

Crawford, G. (2006) ‘The cult of Champ Man: the culture and pleasures of Championship Manager/Football Manager gamers', Information, Communication & Society, 9(4), pp.496-514.

Crawford, G. and Gosling, V. (2005) ‘Toys for boys? Women's marginalization and participation as digital gamers', Sociological Research Online, 10(1). Retrieved 22/1/07 from
http://www.socresonline.org.uk/10/1/crawford.html

Dietz, T. L. (1998) ‘An examination of violence and gender role portrayals in video games: Implications for gender socialization and aggressive behavior', Sex Roles, 38(5-6), pp.425-442.

ELSPA (2005a) ‘The UK Games Industry is in Session', Press release. Retrieved 22/1/07 from http://www.elspa.com/?i=3426&s=1111&f=49&archive=f

ELSPA (2005b) ‘The Games Industry: A UK Success Story', Press release. Retrieved 22/1/07 from http://www.elspa.com/?i=3429&s=1111&f=49&archive=

ESA (2006) ‘Essential facts about the computer and video game industry', Entertainment Software Association. Retrieved 22/1/07 from http://www.theesa.com/archives/files/Essential%20Facts%202006.pdf.

Firestone, J. and Shelton, B.A. (1988) ‘An Estimation of the Effects of Women's Work on Available Leisure Time', Journal of Family Issues, 9(4), pp.478-495.

Flynn, B. (2003) ‘Geography of the digital hearth' Information, Communication and Society, 6(4), pp.551-576.

Fromme, J. (2003) ‘Computer Games as a Part of Children's Culture', Game Studies, 3(1). Retrieved 22/1/07 from http://www.gamestudies.org/0301/fromme/.

Frith, S. (1978) Sociology of Rock, London: Constable.

Greenfield, P. M. (1994) ‘Video games as cultural artifacts', Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 15, pp.3-12.

Hartmann, T. and Klimmt, C. (2006) ‘Gender and computer games: Exploring females' dislikes', Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(4), article 2 Retrieved 22/1/07 from http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue4/hartmann.html.

IDSA (2001) ‘State of the Industry Report 2000-2001', Interactive Digital Software Association. Retrieved 22/1/07 from http://web.archive.org/web/20030401110615/http://www.idsa.com/releases/S....

IDSA (2003) ‘Essential Facts About the Computer and Video Game Industry: 2003 Sales, Demographics and Usage Data', Interactive Digital Software Association. Retrieved 22/1/07 from http://web.archive.org/web/20030605035334/idsa.com/EF2003.pdf.

Kafai, Y. B. (1996) ‘Electronic play worlds: Gender differences in children's construction of video games', in Y.B. Kafai and M. Resnick (eds) Constructionism in Practice: Designing, Thinking, and Learning in a Digital World, Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,
pp.25-38.

Kerr, A. (2003) ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun!', SIGIS. Retrieved 22/1/07 from http://www.rcss.ed.ac.uk/sigis/public/documents/SIGIS_D05_2.08_DCU3.pdf.

Kinder, M. (1996) ‘Contextualising video game violence: From Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1 to Mortal Kombat 2', in P. M. Greenfield and R.R. Cocking (eds), Interacting with Video, Norwood, NJ, Ablex, pp.25-38.

Krotoski, A. (2004) ‘Chicks and Joysticks: An Exploration of Women and Gaming', ELSPA White Paper. Retrieved 22/1/07 from http://www.elspa.com/assets/files/c/chicksandjoysticksanexplorationofwom....

Kücklich, J. (2005) Literary theory and digital games', in J. Rutter and J. Bryce (eds), Understanding Digital Games, Sage: London, pp.95-111.

McRobbie, A. (1991) Feminism and Youth Culture: From Jackie to Just Seventeen, London, Macmillan.

McRobbie, A. and Garber, J. (1976) ‘Girls and Subcultures', in S. Hall and T. Jefferson (eds), Resistance through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-War Britain, London, Hutchinson, pp.209-222.

MFS (2005a). ‘KIM -Studie 2005: Kinder + medien, computer + internet: Basisuntersuchang zum medienumgang 6- bis 13-jähriger', Stuttgart: Medienpädagogischer Forschungsverbund Südwest, Retrieved 22/1/07 from http://www.mpfs.de/fileadmin/Studien/KIM05.pdf.

MFS (2005b). ‘JIM 2005: Jugend, information, (multi-)media: Basisstudie zum medienumgang 12- bis 19-jähriger in Deutschland', Stuttgart: Medienpädagogischer Forschungsverbund Südwest, Retrieved 22/1/07 from http://www.mpfs.de/fileadmin/Studien/JIM2005.pdf.

Moore, K. (2005), ‘"Sort Drugs, Make Mates": The Use and Meanings of Mobiles in Club Culture', in B. Brown and K. O'Hara (eds) Consuming Music Together: Social and Collaborative Aspects of Music Consumption Technologies, Netherlands: Springer.

ScreenDigest and ELSPA (2005) ‘European Interactive Games: The 2005 State of the Industry Report' London: ScreenDigest.

Schott, G.R. & Horrel, K.R. (2000) ‘Girl gamers and their relationship with the gaming culture', Convergence, 6, pp.36-53.

Thrane, C. (2000) ‘Men, Women, and Leisure Time: Scandinavian Evidence of Gender Inequality', Leisure Sciences, 22(2), pp.109-122.

Vanek, J. (1974) ‘Time spent in housework', Scientific American, 231(5), pp.116-120.

[1] For overviews of these fields see Bryce and Rutter, 2006b and Kücklich, 2006
respectively

[2] See www.statistics.gov.uk/TimeUse/.

[3] See www.bls.gov/tus/.

[4] The Entertainment Software Association was known as the Interactive Digital Software Association until July 2003.