Girl Gamers and Me

The game industry is an ever growing market of possibilities and oppourtunities, with over 9000 people employed around the UK in the industry (Prescott and Bogg, 2011)
However with so many people employed there is a very large percentage of male employees against what is only around 4% females working with games.

Now, having gone through a list of the weeks top 40 games, I can deduce that the majority of games are created by men, for men. Games like Crysis, Fallout and Call of Duty all present in the top 40. These are war games, first person shooters, made to give an adrenaline rush, creating set pieces of play to build tension within the game to test the skill of the player. Games stereotypically made for men.
The top 40 did however contain some games for girls. Nintendogs for example would not be expecting a vast male audience however it is still dominant within the top games of the week, Thus suggesting that a large ammount of the female population is buying the game, so much so it can outsell some other titles such as Assassins Creed: Brotherhood or BulletStorm.

So the games industry does have 'girl gamers' with which to claim as a target audience. However with on 4% of females in the game design industry there is very little input with what games to create for girls which they would enjoy. Stereotyping the female market and giving them games they presume they will enjoy, like one website has done (below)
Not sure if the above image can be seen easily however these are games that they have added on http://www.girlgames1.com/
Games including titles such as 'Magic Hairdos house', 'CowGirl', 'Get Married Test' and my personal favourite 'Morning Buns Recipe'
When it comes to stereotyping what girls want in a game, Cooking and How to look good games are just what they desire. I may be wrong in thinking this but I didnt think that girls were obsessed with cooking morning buns so much so that they needed a game to play in between the times when they actually were in the kitchen. My experience of females, when a sexist joke is made, they are not best pleased. So allowing them to be making Buns when they are playing games, I dont know how many people would want to play this game.

In terms of the website itelf, they have aimed it specificall at the female market, not only is the URL called 'Girlgames' but they have designed it to be bright pink.
The actual layout of the site is so simplistic, the navigation is easy and understandable and the categorys explain exactly what the user is chosing therefore no confusion on where to find a specific game.

One thing I found odd, and that backs up that this is a girl gamer website are the category names...
I wasnt expecting 'Kissing' to be a category among the Adventure, Cartoon, Fun and Puzzle categories! Caring was another link that I could not bring myself to click! Im glad i did though or Happy Gardener would never have been found! Caring for Plants and Animals is obviously quite a large aspect of the females gaming desire!
Cooking also played a large role in the female gaming community, sexist games suggesting that girls should always be thinking about being in the kitchen!

That said I will now review the game 'Cake Mania 2' off of all good games sites.

Cake mania is a game in which the player must use timing and efficiency to bake cakes quickly and to a good enough standard. The quicker you bake the more money you gain the more becomes available to you. It is a simple one screen, point and click which builds in pace as the difficulty increases thus enabling the skills and organisation of the player to be tested quite effectively. There is a story behind this game, utilized through a simple non animated comic book style giving the player choices at various intervals to change the game experience. The main difference as far as i can tell between each choice is not only the change in storyline but the change in scenery for each level. The core game does not change all that much. Bake cakes, make people happy.

In terms of challenge the game does have a slow increase however clicking the wrong cake combo can cause a back log in orders thus rendering the player lacking in money to progress eficiently!
The game is still not particularly hard to master, the learning curve is long and anyone could pick the game up and understand what to do and how quickly enough. A tutorial explains everything the players needs to know and the complexity is low.




Games for girls are currently seemingly very sexist attempts to find something a girl may be interested in rather than just pumping out another war game that will ward them away from gaming all together.
How to change this trend in online games?
There is never one difinitive method.

Ross, Out.


References

Prescott and Bogg - Segregation in a Male-Dominated Industry: Women Working in the COmputer Games

www.todaysgamers.com
National gamers survey 2009