Roughly around the same time I started wearing my first bra, my little brother was suddenly old enough to get his own console system and my parents assumed, or perhaps hoped, I would "grow out of" video games. I've been a gamer since I was five years old, but it didn't occur to me for some years that my interests were unusual for a girl. Not that it's stopped me.
Deprived of consoles, I turned to chat-rooms in junior high school and eventually text role-playing games online (MUDs). I founded Gamer-Girl.org (now defunct) and edited game journalism articles for staff writers, while interviewing developers and reviewing every game I could find. I've worked with teams of fifteen to create mods of Unreal Tournament 2004 and Half-Life 2. Gamer-girl.org now serves as my personal portfolio website as I enter the game development industry as a Level Designer. My passion for games isn't going anywhere soon.
All of these experiences have lent me a unique perspective on the so-called "gender issues" of the gaming community. In my experience, the biggest contributor to the male domination of the games industry is the marketing. Thirty or even forty years ago now, computers were seen as a "guy" thing, and it was fashionable for even highly intelligent girls to be ignorant of technology. In those days, maybe it made financial sense to assume that girls didn't want to touch a keyboard or a controller.
Fortunately, those days are mostly gone. Geek is in, games are flashy, and it seems like everyone over 40 is required to own a Wii. Yet on the whole, games marketing continue to be divided into the "girl stuff" and "everything else", when often a less binary approach would probably net even more profit.
The best example is probably Tomb Raider (the game series) versus Tomb Raider (the movie series). Both contain the same main character, Lara Croft, who runs, jumps, and shoots her way through ancient temples in a decidedly Indiana Jones manner. Yet the Tomb Raider game series attracted primarily male consumers until recently, while the Tomb Raider movie series attracted a more *ahem* diverse crowd. Why? Well, the game marketed Lara as a sexy, powerful woman ... you can control, and with which you can escape your wife. On the other hand, the movie featured Lara as a sexy, powerful woman, open to interpretation. Men could want Lara; women could want to be Lara.
However, as much as I would like to shovel blame onto the shoulders of the marketers, I'm afraid game content and game play also has to take some responsibility. It's not condescending or accusatory to say women in general prefer less violence and more character development - it's true, and anyone who takes offense needs to look at the facts. The average non-gamer female and male demographics simply do not want exactly the same thing from their entertainment.
So what kind of players ARE women? Richard Bartle, one of the creators of the first massively multiplayer online games, has categorized player types into four major categories: Achiever, Socialite, Explorer, and Killer. To simplify, Achievers like to compete, Explorers like to discover, Socialites like to make friends, and Killers like to exert control. He discovered that between the populations of male and female players, females more commonly identified themselves as Socialites and Explorers, while more men were Achievers and Killers. They actually craved slightly different play from their games. Of course, there was some overlap, but men and women enjoyed different activities.
Nobody would try to claim that all movies must contain explosions, yet books on game design will usually rate "challenge" and "achievement" as two of the most important aspects of design. It is disappointing, as the bias of the book's authors goes unremarked upon. These authors usually can't understand the appeal of massively popular games like Bejewelled or Diner Dash, and it's not their fault. Everyone has their own tastes, and it is for exactly that reason that the market demands a greater variety of game play.
Keep in mind that women like me who love games already are happy. We play the same games as the guys. We're just a minority. Isn't it interesting that World of Warcraft, the world's most popular game in history, also managed to attract a fifty percent female player-base? We play games the way they are and we're ready to shoot anyone who tries to talk down to us. The only common complaint I've heard from current women gamers in recent years is that they wish there were fewer captured princesses and more Lara Crofts.
But what about all those women who don't play games right now? All those millions of people who simply don't see anything in games that interests them? Wouldn't the art of interactive entertainment benefit by drawing in a larger consumer base and not pushing them away with pink shovel-ware? In economics I believe it's called an under-served market, and in a high-profit industry like games, it seems like an incredible oversight. Whoever solves the puzzle stands to gain a fortune.