Review: |Feedback To Author | Feedback To Webmaster
Copyright © 1999 by Genevieve Katz. All Rights Reserved
Review: By Genevieve Katz
From Barbie to Mortal Kombat, Gender and Computer Games, (edited by Justine Cassell and Henry Jenkins, 1998, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 360pp.) is exactly the kind of book you would expect from MIT - small text, authoritative, comprehensive and densely packed with references and bibliographies.
The focus on computer games for girls became an issue when it was noticed that while boys liked playing computer games and were more comfortable with computers, girls stayed away from these games. The result - girls would be computer illiterate and be unable to compete in the technical job market.
This book covers much of the backstory, and the editors, Justine Cassell, a faculty member at MIT's Media Laboratory and Henry Jenkins, director of the Media Studies Program at MIT put forth their own vision of the future of computer games for girls.
The book is openly feminist, dealing with how girls and women are represented in computer games, covering academic research on gender play, and interviewing the women in the game companies who are designing and producing the games.
Cassell reviews the research that shows that girls use computers differently than boys. Girls see the computer as a tool to accomplish something - not as an all out fun recreational activity as boys do - and therefore, games for girls tend towards the educational. I believe this comes more from what is expected from girls and women rather from some innate trait. From my observation, girls are subtly admonished not to waste their time playing games simply for fun. Unlike boys, who play for fun and adventure, few girls will spend forty hours playing a game.
Academic research takes over the first section of the book with contributions by professors who publish in academic journals and whose names are unheard of to most of those in the game industry. Kaveri Subrahmanyam, an assistant professor of child development at California State University, discusses her findings which correlate with those who have for years been observing girl's play. Yes, girls like playing dress-up, creating fantasies and non-violent action and activities. They don't seem to be as hung up as boys on good verses evil and of course, girls are more socially oriented than boys. Cassell contends that it is exactly these girls, the ones who prefer pink and purple, who like fussing with hair and nails that need to be turned on to technology.
Dealing more specifically with games for girls, Cornelia Brunner, Dorothy Bennett and Margaret Honey contribute their shared research experiences in developing educational and entertainment products for children. Both Honey and Bennett have long tenure at the Center for Children and Technology and Brunner has developed teacher training a such institutes as the Bank Street College and the Media Workshop. They come up with factors that should be considered when making games that appeal to girls: technological sophistication; winning and losing; success and sacrifice; the contradictions of femininity; persuasion versus conquest; adventure, puzzles and obstacles; writing; being chosen and mysteries. The list reads like a road map for the creation of successful games for girls - even women.
It's known in the game industry that the people who have the most fun with games are those who create them. Yasmin Kafai, an assistant Professor at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information designed a project in which children created their own computer games. One of her observations was that boys had a much easier time creating role models than girls, ostensibly, because of the paucity of games with female role models. But this is changing. The increasing role of girls as the protagonist in television programs is providing new images of girls in computer games. Think Xena, Buffy, and Nikita. Perhaps we should have an anti-discrimination philosophy requiring that all games have a female protagonist of equal standing to the main male character. That way girls could at least play boy games as a female.
The interviews with the women in the game industry offers outsiders the rare opportunity to hear the opinions of the designers and developers. Some explain how market research determines what they produce, others provide a more personal view of what moves them to design. The word "empowerment" appears repeatedly.
Nanci Martin of Mattel speaks in defense of pinkness, "You can do stuff in the world. And if you want to wear a hat and high heels while you're doing it, you can do that too". There is a subversive quality to Mattel's products. It starts with the comfortable familiarity of pink and subtly leads the player to understanding how to create 3D products from flat patterns - dresses now, automobiles next. "Barbie Photo Designer" will have the girl understanding how to use and exploit the options of the digital camera - very likely beyond the skill of her parents.
Brenda Laurel of Purple Moon represents the new big kid on
the block and is very outspoken about her intent to make Purple
Moon into a major girl game player . The game concepts grew out
of four years of research at Interval. The games are called "adventures"
and Laurel defines an adventure as "something where you have
to figure out what the right thing to do is".
The company pursues an advertising campaign aimed at teens and
parents, and has engaged in a co-marketing deal with a manufacturer
of girls' clothing. Laurel describes her Purple Moon website as
"very aggressive and very rich". Girls can satisfy their
"play pattern about collecting" by buying story stones,
adventure cards and other Purple moon paraphernalia. Mothers of
daughters who visit the site may question the use of rich. Rich
for whom?
Shifting from the very big to the very small, we hear from independent designer Theresa Duncan. Her comments reveal the design philosophy behind her popular games, "I don't do focus-group testing I don't really try to figure out what the market can bearand I am not trying to cross-market. Her stated goal in life is "to make the most beautiful thing a seven-year-old has ever seen" Duncan's current release, The History of Glamour is not even a game but a story about a girl rocker. It's a given that girl games must have a good story. What we have here is a move from games back to elemental storytelling. It's not certain that this new format will escape the rigors of the market - but it's a commendable try.
From Heather Kelly, the online development director at Girl Games we get some insight into the Internet as a girl activity. Their teen age game product Let's Talk About Me, expands into a real life on-line experience where girls discuss problems, make friends and ask questions. Because girls routinely want to engage in social contact, the Internet is the logical choice and could eventually supplant actual games as their preferred pastime.
Lee McEnany Caraher, goes orthogonal to the discussion about girls and games and introduces us to the game industry's viewpoint. Sega doesn't make games for girls and doesn't market to girls because the market is too expensive and risky. Caraher comments are hard edged but valid. She insists that what is marketed as games for girls are not really games. For her, games must involve winning and the opportunity to be a different person. She makes the wry observation that games should not try to emulate life, that life situations are more satisfying if played out in real life.
In the final chapters we return to academia with proposals for a new generation of games. There is "Runaways" a project by Marsha Kinder, professor at the School of Cinema-Television at the University of Southern California, that attempts to addresses the issue of race, ethnicity, class, gender and sexuality. Players can be either the runaway or the searcher; and can create identities across the boundaries of gender and ethnicity.
Henry Jenkins, the co-editor investigates "boy culture" and makes some novel observations. He sees video games as the new play spaces for the current generation of boys, and compares video game play with that of the backyard play of the previous generation. From this he begins to investigate what would be a appropriate play spaces for girls.
Justin Cassell concludes the book with her ideas for games that are not gender specific. Her view of a feminist principle of design is to "turn the storytelling over to the player, rather than leading the player through a narrative that others have built." The child should "be the actor and not acted upon"; the teller of the story is the one who holds the power. She describes three storytelling tools, Renga; works like collaborative round robin story Rosebud; uses a stuffed animal as an ally between the child and the computer and Sage provides interaction with a wise personage.
The book draws upon much of the research done in the'80's. The later research in 1995-1997 is about as current as you can get in a book. This in no way makes the book less valuable but some of the current studies seem to indicate that the younger generation of girls are much more conversant with computers; that dystopia with computers is more of a generational effect. It will be interesting to see how long it will be for this younger generation of girls to outpace the book's concerns. The book provides a scholarly treatise on girls, computers, and society. Each of the academic chapters are followed by extensive bibliographies. For whose who are interested in the subject it is extremely valuable to have everything in one place.
Portions of this review have been previously published in
Matrix News 9.2 (February 1999)
From Barbie to Mortal Kombat, Gender and Computer Games, Edited by Justine Cassell and Henry Jenkins, 1998, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 360pp.
