Rebel Play

Presentation 2

13/10/11

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

http://www.rebelplay.com/

Today we had a presentation from a couple of members from RebelPlay which is an independant games company based in Liverpool. RebelPlay use to go by the name "Gaming Inc" until they changed it earlier this year, 2011.

Their question is asking specifically about console games being gender specific and why women don't play these types of games, rather than just gaming in general. In their presentation they showed a lot of facts and statistics which were presented with a lot of graphs to show that women are interested in gaming, just not when it comes to console gaming.

It was stated from a recent research survey that only 38% men play games (in general) and 42% were women. Women seem to be drawn to games that are based on the internet or their phones. Games that don't seem to "waste time" with story lines and plots. Games that have some sense of purpose and productivity.

Now, I know a few girls who are interested in console gaming and are constantly online playing the latest games such as Call Of Duty and other games, but I think RebelPlay know that maybe the percentage of girls who play these sort of games are low and they want to know what it is that puts most girls off. Is it the games plot? Is it the style of game, the games genre? Is it the asthetics of the games? Is it apart of the games mechanics? Is it the controls? Or is it the console itself? 

Are the asthetics of the console itself a huge part of the problem to why most girls don't play console games? That is if the sterotype of most girls not playing console games is true.

They had some interesting facts about things like hypersexualization, whereby a games character's appearance is sexually enhanced just to promote the game. Most of these sexual enhancements are often aimed at the male target audience by often enhancing female characters breasts for example.

Now why are there never male characters that are sexualized for women users? Or are there games out there that use hypersexualization aimed at the female target audience? In my experience of gaming I can't think of any games like this for women but I'm sure there must be something out there that uses this form of comercialization.

They also came up with the way consoles are advertised. I've never noticed before until today but it seems the way consoles are advertised are a huge factor in the target audience they are intended for. Consoles like the Playstation and Xbox seem to have a masculine appearance and often have males promoting them through advertisements. They are seen to be hard, dark, cool and very macho. There are even simple advertisements like the one below that clearly use male hands to promote the Playstation.

These consoles are completely different to the approach the Nintendo Wii takes. It promotes itself as a family console, a way of bringing people together. A console that is to be taken as a bit of fun, that is to be used when groups of people gather together like at parties ect. And as you can see below womens hands are used in the advertisement. The console itself has a much softer look and feel to it. The control doesn't look complex and the system looks very compact and small which are all things that may appeal to women. Also the games that are released for the Wii are interactive fun packed games that seem to relate to everyday interests such as dancing. Maybe the Nintendo Wii has come the closest to breaking the stereotype of women not playing console games.

This question so far is probably the one that appeals to me the most.

I found this advert shown above for the Xbox 360 which clearly shows a female and male teenager joyfully interacting with the console. It seems like they are trying to appeal to both target audiences but not through gaming. This advert is showing the other capabilities of the console, which are it's abilities to link to the internet, watch movies, stream TV episodes, stream music etc. It seems like it's trying to appeal to the female population in other various ways rather than just it's gaming capability, which obviously they feel they are struggling on when it comes to the female gender.