Bibliography Task - Gender in Games

Bibliography 

~ Introduction to Critical Game Studies Task ~

 I've decided to do my bibliography based on gender within the games industry and games in general. I find this subject quite interesting as there are so few female games designers working within the industry and on our course itself. I wanted to know more on why there is such a huge divide between the numbers of male and female game designers and hopefully get a better understanding of why females don't get more involved in it.

Studies have shown that both female and male sexes show the same amount of interest in games at preschool age but as they get older females tend to lose interest where as males become more involved or as involved with games.

Its thought that this could be because most games are tailored for the male market or at least mainly focusing on the male market over the female. Its also noted that males are more competitive in nature than females and find games more rewarding in the sense of achieving a goal where as females are more complacent with just playing the game more than actually beating it.

This isn't totally accurate for everyone that plays games, male or female. But on the wider scope of things this is the general consensus of the games industry and the players themselves. Through my many years of playing MMO's I've met many people from all over the world, both male and female and I have to agree that there is a clear difference of play styles between the two genders within games. Understanding that every ones style of play is different is key to this research but the scales tip more towards male by a large margin when we looking at how many male vs female gamers there are and who plays the most.

Is this by design? Do we really tailor games to a male audience by default that push female's out of games from an early age? or is it just human nature?

 References :

Cooper, J. & Weaver, K.D. 2003, Gender and computers: understanding the digital divide, Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah (NJ).

Ivory, J.D. 2006, "Still a man's game: Gender representation in online reviews of video games", Mass Communication & Society, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 103-114.

Kafai, Y.B. 2008, Beyond Barbie and Mortal Kombat: new perspectives on gender and gaming, MIT, Cambridge, Mass.

Ray, S. G. (2004) Gender inclusive game design: expanding the market. Hingham (Ma): Charles River Media.

Wang, H. & Wang, Y. 2008, "Gender differences in the perception and acceptance of online games", British Journal of Educational Technology, vol. 39, no. 5, pp. 787-787.

"Gender and computer games: Exploring females' dislikes", 2006, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 0-0.