Gender and Gaming II

What the Colour of Your Nintendo 3DS Says About You!

Both the discussion as well as the presentation during the class revolved around the differentiated gender expectations that exist around the medium of the computer game. During the nineties a number of game researchers such as Brenda Laurel as well as Henry Jenkins attempted to design so-called pink computer games that should inhabit special female values and norms, which hopefully could make the girls more interested in the technical aspects behind the computer. In the article Complete Freedom of Movement from 1998 Jenkins would for instance argue that the pink computer game movement should be “[…] prioritizing character relations and “friendship adventures” […]” rather than “[…] rapid response time […]”. However, more recent scholars within game studies have throughout the last years tried to problematize the separation between the clear-cut male and female norms as well as values in computer games. And in the article Maps of Digital Desire from 2008 Nick Yee for instance argued that “In talking about gender and gaming, we often hear assumptions that men and women […] prefer different kinds of games […] Talking about game play simply as a function of desire ignores the fact that legitimate social access to video gaming differs for men and women.” Instead of looking at girls and boys as distinct biological creatures, whom the designers could attempt to accommodate for in different ways through the gameplay mechanics, Yee demonstrated that the gender division surrounding computer games in fact should be understood as a result from broader social issues such as access points and computer game cultures. In the article Body, Space, and Gendered Gaming Experiences Holin Lin likewise managed to demonstrate that the female players often would be limited by various cultural expectations as well as social actors such the restrictions within the home, the cybercafés as well as the dormitories, which in the end made it impossible for them to create an actual female game culture. But even though the scholars within the game studies discipline have attempted to utilise the sociological concepts of female masculinity as well as hegemonic masculinity to problematize the biological distinction between male and female gamers, the commercial computer game industry is nevertheless still stuck within the outdated idea about the pink computer game movement.

For instance, the commercial computer game developer Nintendo still upholds the clear gender distinctions between pink computer games for girls and blue computer games for boys, which the launch titles for the Nintendo 3DS portable game console could manage to illustrate for the reader. The different handheld game consoles from Nintendo such as the Game Boy as well as the Nintendo DS have been marketed both for girls as well as for boys, and the Nintendo 3DS was for instance released with the following launch titles back in February 2011: Steel Diver, Super Street Fighter IV, Madden NFL Football, Pro Evolution Soccer, Super Monkey Ball 3D, The Sims 3 as well as three different variations of Nintendo Cats and Dogs. While the first couple of titles from the launch line-up constitute typical blue computer games for boys, both The Sims 3 as well as Nintendo Cats and Dogs should instead be understood as clear examples of Jenkins’ ideas about the pink computer game movement for girls with female values and norms. In the real-time pet simulation game Nintendo Cats and Dogs the player must for instance utilise the touch-screen on the Nintendo 3DS in order to stroke her dog, play frisbee or football with her dog as well as feed her dog with different titbits, and not one single title from the launch line-up can manage to challenge the typical gender distinctions between blue computer games for boys and pink computer games for girls. Furthermore, Nintendo decided to produce the actual Nintendo 3DS game console in a female red colour, a masculine blue colour as well as a more neutral block colour, which likewise should reinforce the normal gender division between male and female computer gamers for both the parents as well as the children themselves.   

The cover for the Nintendogs game on the Nintendo DS

 

The three different colours for the Nintendo 3DS

One could therefore argue that the commercial computer game developers such as Nintendo, Electronic Arts as well as Activision often attempt to oppose or ignore the more nuanced gender research within for instance game studies, since the computer game titles will be much easier to market for an oversimplified or homogeneous implied player model. While the great variety of play activities or modes within massively multiplayer online roleplaying games such as World of Warcraft as well as Rift sometimes could be able to afford for both the male and the female gamers, the designers behind the games have nevertheless still constructed the ludic experiences around an oversimplified masculine implied player model. So even though the research communities within game studies for a long time have been demonstrating that the undiscriminating distinction between blue computer games for boys and pink computer games for girl might be somewhat inconsistent with the actual social realities, the commercial computer game developers still make good money from these oversimplified masculine implied player models. In order to make them challenge the undiscriminating distinction between male and female players in the future the commercial computer game developers must somehow need to understand that more gender neutral or challenging computer games actually can become a profitable business in the long run. However, one could argue that computer games such as Angry Birds as well as Plants Versus Zombies for the modern generation of smartphones already have managed to challenge both the social as well as the cultural distinctions between the male and the female players. These computer games for the smartphones have somehow both made it more socially acceptable for the female players to identify themselves as gamers within public spaces as well as diminished the cultural restrictions for the access points such as the homes, the dormitories as well as the cybercafés.

Simon Mikkelsen