Gender & Games!

A Look at Gender in Games

We'll start with how gender is outside of the industry to try and help us better understand why the work force behind the games are predominantly male.

As you can see from the graph below you find that yes, there are more male players than female but not by a large margin until the teens where the female player base seems to drop 11% behind the male market. This evens out a little more going into the 20's and early 30's with a large proportion of the male market dropping (14% vs females 11%) but still shows a clear divide between the two genders. 

As expected the drop in both male and female players through 35-49 is ruffly the same as the 20-34 bracket with slightly more females dropping off. 50+ there is a very large drop.

The average hours players is the most interesting factor in this chart for me as it is clear the male market play almost twice as much as the female market throughout the brackets, till the 50+.

My thoughts on this is history, history between men and women. Equality between the two genders is still a relativity new concept to the human race given we have lived with certain beliefs and understandings of what each of us bring to the community & family.

The high amount of both male and female in younger ages to me seems totally reasonable as we have always thought of games as a method of learning and understanding, which we have covered in Natural Funativity article by Noah Falstien.

Even though we live in a world were equality between both of us is law, is there a underlining sense of we are different and we both have different traits, skills & abilities to offer which will ultimately effect charts like this. For example, in history the males have been the hunter gatherers, the soldiers and the leaders. Where as the females have been the cooks, the cleaners and the ones to look after the children not to mention give birth to them.

There's a clear differences between us but we both rely on each other, work together as a community to provide, look after and survive. I think this is so imbedded in us it will take generations for us to break to achieve real equality and even then, we are still different in body and mind.

Ancient games when they first came into existence I believe we're reserved to the powerful, rich or religious (for divination) and they may of not even been considered "games", at least not as we know them now. Tactic games for determining war strategies by kings or leaders, the rich to gamble or pass time and religious for determining fate or gods will by druids & monks. All these roles have one thing in command, they would of all been male during that era.

Young females would of played games as pass time, such as in church as discussed in the "Games Britannia" series but would be (at that time) around the age of 12+ be forced into marriage or baring children.

This may sound far fetched but if you think about how much more the males would of been able to access games than females through their existence and what age groups they would of been you can see a connection with the chart above.

Target market are somewhat to blame for when looking at getting more females into the gaming community. This could be down to many factors such as male developers and designers predominantly making games and not knowing what the female market want but having a clear sense on what the males want as they can just cater to themselves.

My last point is the age groups, how accessible games are and the multiple genre's of games. As digital game have only really existed for 30+ years its possible the 50+ age group don't play them as the younger generations do due to them not being brought up with them as we have. I expect a rather large rise in the older generation playing games as we get older. Notably I believe it will still be predominantly male but we will see a rise on both sides.

We are still in the changing point regarding equality between the two genders and it is something that will take time and work on both sides to achieve. Something that has been done throughout humanity's existence cannot simple be changed instantly but it does require everyone to understand this and accomplish it together.

Games Britannia Part 1

 Games Britannia Part 1

The Games Britannia series is a 2 part documentary into the past of the games that have lived and evolved within Britannia over the last two thousand years.

We look at all types of games from educational, gambling, 2d,3d, tactical warfare and just for good old fashioned fun.

In 1996 near Colchester archeologists excavated several early iron age & roman sites in which they found a grave that was dated back to the roman invasion in A.D 43. They found serveral objects from surgical tools, jewelery and game pieces.

The game set that was found is the earliest found board game in Britain ever found. No rules were with the game and no record of how to play it.

Irving Finkel from the British museum makes a good point of the fact that "play" is found through most animals usually as a method of learning, but you do not find game boards, piece or dice etc which makes the a board game uniquely tied to homosapien.

The game through study is believe to be a pre roman British game that bares similar board and pieces to a roman game that was widely played at the time.

As the game was clearly a tactical war game in which one player takes and removes the other players pieces in order to win and given the time of which it is dated is was possible that I maybe used for divination or ritual means. It was also buried under a body and not on top like all the other items found which signaled that the board was of great important to the person.

There is reference to games even in the bible that tells us that games were used for not only fun but for religious and warfare reasons. Alea evangelii was a very complex game with a 18x18 board and 64 pieces (32 per player). The aim of the game is to get the king (or stop the king) to the edge of the board without being attacked from more opponents than he has defenders surrounding him. Its a highly complex and tactical game which tested and taught its players tactic reasoning and stabilized good vs evil.

by the 13th century chess, drafts and backgammon had come to Britain from the east. In the book of games can a number of games, from chance, skill and a balance of both. These type of core game styles was taken from the real word, is life random or chance based, is it all down to the persons wit or skill, or is it a mix of both. The games described in the book were designed to test these questions.

Games we're also played to entertain in boredom or in pass time. "Nine Mans Morris" was found throughout the world, usually scratched into floors and rocks. Many were found in cathedrals and churches 

In religion dice were associated with the devil due to its luck/chance and it large connection with gambling which was clearly against the church. The game "hazard" was played in medieval times along side "Nine's Man Morris" but played but adults for gambling. As this game didn't have any real skill or divination connection and was easy to cheat at with using weighted dice it was condemn by the church.

In 1845 the gaming act was put in place to regulate gambling due to murders involving gambling debt.

The game of goose used a spinning top as a form of dice, which in terms of difference there is none but as dice were considered evil or of the devils making, thy had to use something different to determine a random/chance outcome that would be fitting for all ages.

The interesting thing I find with the game of goose is how the squares symbolized the good and bad things in life and what might or might not happen, much like anyone's life journey. This was a good method in which to show the players what is good or bad in life e.g land on prison, pay fines and miss 2 turns. Notably their are more bad squares on the board than good. This was a race game as the winner was the first on to reach the end which gave birth to many other race games.

"The Hindi Game of knowledge" is the original snakes and ladders which came from India that showed the players journey through life, its based on the religion.

My Notes

A very interesting watch regarding the evolution of games, made for religion, divination, figuring out if life was ruled by random/chance acts or personal sacrifice or skill into the games we know today that don't have any real physical connection to them other than the fact its where they originated from. Weither it be by chance "The Hindi Game of Knowledge" had a race mechanic in it but never understood it as that until the Europeans had discovered the game and used to for our own, I don't think we will ever know but it seems the running theme of the accident games is that they are the source of almost all of the genres and main core mechanic's that we see today.

Looking back at the MDA paper by Robin Hunicke, Marc LeBlanc & Robert Zubek I see alot of connection regarding all of the above mentions games and the main 8 aesthetic "fun" types their are.