Why Girl Gaming Matters

BY: NICK IANNITTI  |  Gaming, Game Industry, Casual Games, Fuel IP

Like most male gamers over 25 who live with their significant female, my opportunities for marathon game sessions are decidedly less frequent than they were ten years ago. Playing Ocarina of Time with a bellybutton full of Cheeto crumbs is but a sweet, distant memory now. While I do still manage to balance a respectable dose of gaming with my career, relationship and social habits, the grown-up in me regularly doles out ’shame hormones,’ which do a pretty good job of ensuring I don’t accidentally wake up with salty orange stains around my mouth and ‘Mission Failed’ hovering on-screen.

Having a partner who supports and tolerates my gamer tendencies is fantastic, but it’s even more fantastic when a game is able to draw us both in and bridge the presumed gap between gamers on opposite sides of the gender pole. Games that succeed in this often have one thing in common–they’ve gone beyond the confines of their genre to produce a unique entertainment experience, and not always in the most predictable ways.

Some games like The Longest Journey, Beyond Good and Evil and Heavenly Sword (which my girfriend and I have each gotten into to some degree) have done it through the use of a female protagonist, but this is simply one expected technique in bridging the divide. Other games that have seen us spending time behind the controller together are more artistic offerings like flOw, or games that have focused on atmosphere and subtlety like Assassin’s Creed.

Most recently, and altogether unexpectedly, it was Metal Gear Solid 4 that drew my partner’s attention.  Never did I expect that one of the most fanboy heavy titles of all time would appeal to a relative newcomer, but she claims that the quality of the storytelling, and the deep focus on plot was immediately appealing.  She “loves the long scenes”, and we found ourselves sitting together while the game combined our love for movies with the joy of videogames.  While the debate over  the MGS series’ cut-scene length won’t be resolved any time soon, the message is clear: game developers who go the distance in creating an experience that stands out in design, story, mechanics, and immersion will always succeed in bringing in new audiences, regardless of gender.  And as gaming shifts away from being simply a male-oriented pastime, this is increasingly more important.

Recently, we’ve been getting the word out about our new web portal, AllGirlArcade.com.  This site is dedicated to empowering girl gamers aged 7 and up—a market that, when I was growing up in the 80’s, was largely being ignored in the gaming sector. With the increased originality of console games like the Katamari series, along with the Wii, the DS, and online gaming filling in the options aimed toward female gamers, we’re helping create an extremely powerful new market of young girl videogame enthusiasts.  The decades to come will see a new order of gender balance not present during the advent of gaming, and if this can tell us anything, it’s that developers will need to go the extra mile to maximize the popularity of their triple A titles across gender lines.

There’s biological reasoning too. According to Stanford researchers, men are genetically more susceptible to game addiction. Considering this, one could argue that the sheer chemical buzz men get from gaming has played a role in keeping the industry successful; however, as girl gamers become an increasingly heartier percentage of the customer base, this effect will wane.  Women, who on average, according to the study, do not receive the same level of neurochemical reward for killing , gaining territory or achieving a high score in a game (though these girl gamers will likely tell you otherwise) have every reason to be more discerning of which games make their cut.  No longer will advanced blood splatter effects and great pixel shading necessarily make a game worth playing.

Thanks to women’s more selective presence in both the developing and consumer sides, new titles will increasingly twist the rules to bring gamers of all shapes and sizes into stores.  The result is a future where the most popular games won’t necessarily be defined by their ability to create realistic skin texture or beautiful plumes of smoke (though this kind of progress is definitely worth getting excited about) but by their ability to circumvent decades of preconceptions about male and female gamers to create the best entertainment possible.

I’ve gone on for a while…what do you think?