Gender Inclusive Game Design Expanding the Market Sheri Graner Ray EGaDs University of Texas September 28, 2005

Sheri Graner Ray  Sr. Designer, Sony Online Entertainment  Game designer since 1990  Co-founder of the IDGA’s “Women in Game Development” SIG  Author of Gender Inclusive Game Design: Expanding the Market  Hard Core Gamer (20+ hours/week)

Pink Poison a brief history of the girls’ game movement in the U.S.

1995

“Why should we make games for girls?”

1996

“How do we make games for girls?”

1997

March 1999 Big Pink Buys Purple Moon Oct 2001 Mattel Sells Interactive Division

“See? We told you girls don’t play computer games!”

Why did this happen?  The industry took an entire market of women and defined it as a genre of “fashion, shopping, and makeup games for girls ages 6-10.”

 Computer game revenues have topped 9.4 billion dollars, outranking Hollywood box office receipts. Salon magazine. So what’s the problem?

 The traditional target market of males ages is not growing as fast as the games industry. Salon Magazine

 Today, females between the ages of 15 and 25 control over 14 billion dollars a year in disposable income. - Newsweek Magazine

“Houston, we have a problem”  Less than 10% of the audience for traditional PC games is female  Less than 15% of Nintendo’s user base is female  Less then 20% of the audience for traditional online titles are female  52% of internet users are female  70% of casual, online gamers are female

 We can remove barriers from our titles today that prevent women from accessing them. What can we do?

Just a few areas where barriers exist  Learning styles  Price of failure  Avatars  Communication  Production environment

Warning The following information is based on broad population generalities. It is highly likely you will know of someone that does not fit exactly into these profiles. (If you are female and you are in the audience today…then that person will most likely be you!!)

Gender Differences in Learning Styles MalesFemales Risk-takers Explorative Want to know how it works first Modeling/Imitative Most of the tutorials in today’s games are designed to appeal to an explorative learning style.

Solution  Design tutorials that use imitative models as well as explorative models  Look at educational software for examples

The Price of Failure  Punishment for error  Forgiveness for error Most games today punish the player for errors either in the form of loss of “lives”, irretrievable loss of items or loss of progress. Males Females

Solution  Identify the victory conditions for your titles and consciously design such that failure to meet those conditions does not result in irretrievable loss.

Avatar \Av`a*tar"\, n. 1. An image representing a user in a multi-user virtual reality space.

We need a hero!

 Because they represent “heroes”, male and female avatars will often exhibit exaggerated physical signals of youth strength, and fertility/virility

Youth, Strength and Fertility/Virility Males  Large Shoulders  Slim waists  Slim hips  Long, thick hair Females  Large breasts, placed high on the chest  Slim waists  Round derrieres  Long, thick hair

 Very often female avatars display exaggerated physical signals of sexual receptivity.  Male avatars rarely display these signals.

Sexual receptivity  Red, full lips  Heavy lidded eyes  Heavy breathing (usually indicated by a slightly open mouth)  Erect nipples

Solution  Build attractive female figures that are not hyper-sexualized.  Use female athletes as body models.  Focus group test your avatars with female players.

Electronic Communication  Males and females communicate very differently, and this carries through to electronic communications.

Communications differences Males  Rough language  Attempt to dominate through “put downs”  Use sexual humor Females  Formal language  Attempt to build rapport through questions  Ceased to communicate when faced with sexual humor that contained female put-downs

“Just change the keymap to WASD!”  Avoid the use of industry specific jargon in your documentation, tutorial and game scripts.

Solutions  Avoid using content that contains sexual humor based on put-downs of females.  Check your command text for formality and rapport building language.  Check your commands for terminology that is industry specific.

Production Environment  “What were you thinking?”

Who are you really designing your games for? If we do not regularly state that a percentage of our audience is expected to be female, we assume we are designing for males.

Sometimes the best man for the job is a woman  The game industry isn’t on women’s career radar  Must recruit in non-traditional areas  Build today for employees tomorrow

Solutions  Have a clearly defined targeted audience statement that states you intend to design for females as well as males.  Throughout your documentation, avoid using only “he” to describe your player.  Have more women in your workforce – find them through creative recruiting

Where to start:  Adjust tutorials to allow for modeling learning styles  Consider forgiveness for error rather than punishment  Make female avatars attractive, but not hyper- sexual  Clearly state you intend your audience to contain females  Seek out qualified female candidates

“But what if the player is female?” Sheri Graner Ray Austin Community College Summer Lecture Series July 8, 2005