investiGaming is a publication of the Serious Game Design group in the Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies, and Media at Michigan State University, 2007-2009
This gateway is partially supported by grant 0631771 from the National Science Foundation.
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Girls Designing GamesinvestiGaming › Tags › Girls Designing Games
Selected Highlights from GIRLS DESIGNING GAMES tag (scroll down for full list and links)
Features of Games Designed by Girls
Game Goals
• Most of the girls’ games offered the player the chance to either win or lose the game; 18% had endings where the player could only win or only lose (Denner, 2008).
• Over half the games provided opportunities for personal triumph, such as making a sports team, or doing well in school (Denner, 2008).
• In every game designed by girls the player wins by succeeding at the game, not by defeating an opponent (Heeter, 2009).
• The main player in girl games negotiated with potentially hostile aliens and won by succeeding at quests, not by defeating an enemy or doing better than a rival (Heeter, 2009).
Characters
• Her game also incorporated a helper character that was positioned as being equally fearful of the dangers ahead, and one knows only a little more than the player character. None of the boys incorporated helpful characters into their games (Pelletier, 2008).
• The girls did not specify the gender of the characters in their games (Kafai, 1998).
• All four girl games let the player customize their avatar, usually in great detail, providing separate controls for hair, eyes, nose, lips, skin, and accent, in addition to skills and knowledge attributes (Heeter, 2009).
• When placed in the role of game designer, girls consciously designed games for both male and female players (Heeter, 2009).
• In general the girls in both grades spent more energy and time imagining how the player and NPCs would look. During brainstorming and presentation of all of the girl games, the girls illustrated what the different aliens would look like, in addition to magic pets and robotic or dog sidekicks. Neither 8th grade boy game envisioned what the aliens looked like (Heeter, 2009).
Violence
• Violent feedback occurred in less than one third of the girls’ games, and included getting hurt or killed (Denner, 2008).
• They rarely used violent feedback (Denner, 2005).
• None of the girl games involved combat, but all of the boy games did to some extent. Three of four girl game promos alluded to a possible need to fight aliens, but for each girl team the example alien encounters they described turned out to be friendly (Heeter, 2009).
• Girl-designed games included the possibility but no actual violence (Heeter, 2009).
• In the girls’ games, players face life threatening circumstances but there was never an expectation they might actually die. In three of four boy games you die often, as part of play (Heeter, 2009).
• Girls overwhelmingly ranked fighting games as their least favorite type of game to play (Heeter, 2009).
Setting & Aesthetics
• Most of the games that girls built took place in real-world settings such as school, home, or the beach near their house (Denner, 2008).
• Their stories took place in real world settings (Denner, 2005).
• The girls tended to use bright, vivid colors (Denner, 2005).
Humor
• Over half the games used humor in their stories, which was a way to play with gender role stereotypes and adult expectations about behavior (Denner, 2008).
• They used games to play with gender stereotypes, challenging authority, using humor (Denner, 2005).
• The girls’ games seemed to include more silliness than the boys’ games (Heeter, 2009).
Theme & Story
• Games designed by middle school girls had a prominent theme of expressing and working through fears and social issues in their stories (Denner, 2005).
• Their stories involved moral decisions (Denner, 2005).
• A girl designed a game that told a coming-of-age story in which the player learns how to act and behave appropriately within a particular environment (Pelletier, 2008).
• More girls designed “teaching” games. These games were all located in the classroom and involved a teacher (Kafai, 1998).
• Most of the games were adventure games. In every game, the player played a role in or controlled an unfolding story (Heeter, 2009).
• Girl teams assumed that learning would occur naturally in the context of play in these realistic space settings and ships, however, three of the boy groups worried about how to incorporate learning, and decided to embed space trivia games as a way of achieving the “learning goal” (Heeter, 2009).
• Every girl team chose to go with single player games. While they thought a lot about and included social interaction in their games, they wanted that interaction to occur with non-player characters (Heeter, 2009).
Features of Games Designed by Boys
Game Goals
• More boys than girls designed “adventure” games (Kafai, 1998).
Characters
• All of the characters in the games designed by boys were male (Kafai, 1998).
• While some boy games offer a choice among several avatars their games offered much less player customization. Half of the boy games had no customization options for the player; in fact, they did not even include a visual representation of the player in their game design (Heeter, 2009).
• In all of the games designed by boys’ the characters were all male. However, in the games designed by girls, the characters were both male and female (Heeter, 2009).
• Neither 8th grade boy game spent any time envisioning what the aliens would look like (Heeter, 2009).
Violence
• Many of the boys’ games included violent aspects, while the girls’ games did not (Kafai, 1998).
• Winning, in three of the four games designed by boys, involved defeating an opponent (either another human player or a virtual opponent) (Heeter, 2009).
• Boy-designed games were violent, including themes of combat, and in three of four game concepts, possible player death (Heeter, 2009).
Theme & Story
• The games designed by boys had more of a fantastical context than the games designed by girls (Kafai, 1998).
• Middle school boys overwhelmingly picked games that involved fighting (Heeter, 2009).
• Boys’ game ideas liberally borrowed from a successful commercial game (Heeter, 2009).
Girls and Technological Careers
• Girls were taking the AP Computer Science test at a low rate (17%) (AAUW, 2000).
• Women were only about 20% of IT professionals (AAUW, 2000).
• Women made up half the workforce yet only 20% of those with information technology credentials (AAUW, 2000).
• Women received less than 28% of computer science bachelor’s degrees, and that percentage is down from a high of 37% in 1984 (AAUW, 2000).
• Women made up only 9% of engineering-related bachelor’s degrees (AAUW, 2000).
• Recruiting women is a way to meet the IT talent shortage (AAUW, 2000).
• Our educational system needs to adopt practices that will increase the participation of girls in technology education (AAUW, 2000).
• Girls’ interest in technology was heightened by putting them in the role of computer game designer, in collaborative teams, and with themes such as real-life problems, fantasy, and exploration of social identity (Denner, 2005, 2007).
American Association of University Women (AAUW) (2000)
Synopsis:
A report from a commission that looked at information technology and the education of girls, consulting 900 teachers, 70 girls, and 14 experts.
Keywords:
IT careers, middle school, girls designing games, what women want
Full Text: Yes | Abstract: Yes | Highlights: Yes
Synopsis:
62 sixth- to eighth-grade girls were analyzed through adult observations and program leader logs and participant surveys and interviews in order to determine if the program successfully helped girls overcome the barriers to girls’ active participation in information technology.
Keywords:
journal, academia, girls designing games, IT careers, case study, middle school, game design
Full Text: Yes | Abstract: Yes | Highlights: Yes
Synopsis:
126 girls who were enrolled in the Girls Creating Games program were given pre- and post-test surveys and 31 girls who represented the range of grade levels, computer expertise, and race/ethnicity of the program participants were interviewed in order to determine the program’s effectiveness.
Keywords:
journal, academia, middle school, girls designing games, computer skills, game design
Full Text: Yes | Abstract: Yes | Highlights: Yes
Synopsis:
Examines The Girls Creating Games (GCG) Program in order to determine which kinds of games girls make.
Keywords:
book, chapter, what women want, girls designing games, game design
Full Text: Yes | Abstract: No | Highlights: Yes
Synopsis:
Describes the content of 45 games that were designed and programmed by middle school girls in order to determine what girls like about games and gaming.
Keywords:
case study, conference, middle school, girls designing games, gender inclusive, storytelling, cooperation, gender stereotypes, gender equity
Full Text: Yes | Abstract: Yes | Highlights: Yes
Synopsis:
A three year study , with a content analysis of games envisioned by 5th and 8th graders, followed by a survey of students in the same age range reacting to video promos representing these envisioned games.
Keywords:
academia, journal, game design, survey, experiment, children middle school, girls designing games, gender inclusive, violence, avatars, humor, npcs, storytelling, genre educational games, Halo
Full Text: Yes | Abstract: Yes | Highlights: Yes
Keywords:
book, chapter, girls designing games, game design
Full Text: Yes | Abstract: No
Synopsis:
To examine the context dependency of gender differences in students’ game designs, data sets from two different fourth-grade game design projects were analyzed.
Keywords:
book, chapter, girls designing games, game design
Full Text: Yes | Abstract: No | Highlights: Yes
Synopsis:
This chapter aims to broaden the discussion to examine how players use game play and game design to construct their own identities, including their gendered identities.
Keywords:
book, chapter, gender identity, girls designing games, gaming culture, gaming social context, game design
Full Text: Yes | Abstract: Yes | Highlights: Yes