The Female's Preferred Experience in Gaming.

In his book A Theory of Fun, Raph Koster claims that the the point of playing games and winning them is "mastering abstract formal systems, which is something generally enjoyed more than boys and men than it is by girls and women." To argue this statement, there is no necessary proof that games are of a male activity than a female one. However, there are certain games that are particularly more popular with women than they are men. A variety of virtual world experiences can attract both genders. As gamers, both sexes equally seem to enjoy the story of the game. There are also various complexes and opportunities to be creative, educate ourselves, and socialize within the world of gaming.

As Jesse Schell suggests in The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses, five main interests for males and for females are listed. The text mentions that men enjoy games that evoke more mastery, competition, destruction, spatial puzzles, and trial and error. Without any kind of relevant purpose, females do not seem to prove as much interest in mastery. Females are also not as competitive and sometimes puzzles become to frustrating to them.

 As a result, Schell notes that females learn towards the experience of emotion and social discovery that they often apply to real world situations.  He mentions that females like to see emotion, real world, nurturing, dialog and verbal puzzles, and learning by example.

"There is certainly no difinitive master list of what each gender prefers. The important thing is that you realize that there are some important differences, and that you carefully consider whether your game has the right features to delight the audience you are designing for." Jesse Schell

Girls like to explore their emotions therough gaming and tend to lean towards meaningful entertainment. Schell notes watching children play certain games when they are young. Females will often play as real world characters such as nurse, pop star, etc. whereas boys will convince themselves that they're the Spidermans of their time. The Sims game series have a great amount of female players than male because of the real life situations, social interactions between characters of the "real world."

photo by: motivateplay

"The percentage of women playing games has steadily increased over the past decade. Women now slightly outnumber men playing Web-based games. Spurred by the belief that games were an important gateway into other kinds of digital literacy, efforts were made in the mid-90s to build games that appealed to girls." Henry Jenkins, The Video Game Revolution

One may also note that sometimes females are not as competitive because of our natural nurturing tendencies to a point when we will sometimes sacrifice ourselves for another player instead of concentrate on winning. Notice that many females also enjoy learning by the examples in tutorials that are presented within video games.

"As digital technology has evolved to the point that videogames can now support emotional character portrayals, richer stories, and the opportunity to play against real people while talking to them, the female audience for videogames has been commensurately growing." Jesse Schell

photo by: gamerlimit

 

In her book, Reality Is Broken, Jane McGonigal states her game design abilities on the theory that games are in fact capable of bringing out the best in society. According to McGonigal, games make us more pliable. As gamers (male or female), we have the means witness nearly hopeless positions not with failure, but with an optimistic approach that we are capable of discovering solutions. With that in mind, she has made games for the less fortunate world. McGongigal's optimistic outlook suggests that positive cooperation conquer negative cooperation. Perhaps women's reasons for gaming are not as crazy as some may think they are. McGonigals theory proves that playing games to solve world issues and bring out the best in us by socializing is a great example of how females tend to make games meaningful in their play.

 In her game Evoke,  two women protagonists are immensely different from the typical portrayal of females in games. The girls are heroes globally travelling to help solve problems such as diseases.  The women actually have careers. The struggle she faces much like the struggles presented in action games. She is also South African which is not traditionally shown throughout games. McGonigal's design works in the narratives and stories of various real life issues that women and girls face today.

McGonigal  is  a designer  of alternate reality games, in which your virtual world gaming can be applied to reality. McGonigal acts on the synergetic side of games while aiming to relieve world issues like poverty and starvation. Hence, a game gives players an issue, and the players come up with strategies to solve that issue.