Gender and Gaming (original) (raw)
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Gender Identities and Relations in Video Games
2020
The role of gender in the design of technologies has been a topic of growing importance in fields such as interaction design, HCI, and games. Understanding that technology development and usage practices emerge within the cultural processes, the authors propose in this chapter a discussion about the notions of traditional femininity, its relation to video games, as well as new approaches to female representation. It is also assessed the cultural understanding of gender, sex, and sexuality, as well as how these notions may influence the players experience. The issues discussed and briefly analyzed here point to a production and regulation of gender by technologies such as video games. Therefore, the goal is to assess how gender notions and relations influence the design and use of games in terms of visuals, narrative and sociability.
Roles of female video game characters and their impact on gender representation.
Due to immense popularity of video games the author investigates the presence of gender portrayal within them. The purpose of this study is to thoroughly analyse a general phenomenon, such as gender, within video games to develop a better understanding of its particularities in this form of media and to expand the general body of knowledge on video games as a research topic. As prior literature shows, gender within video games can be either defined by its biased and sexualized character or by a tendency towards equality and strength for woman. To explain those varied results the author introduces the category of role as an important factor for character representation based on the use of theoretical frameworks of symbolic interactionism, more particularly dramaturgical approach of E. Goffman. She then further proceeds with a qualitative discourse analysis of both protagonist and support characters from 22 different games. The author finds that there is a visible difference within the manners females are presented depending on their role. Lead characters are more likely to be strong, independent and self-sufficient whereas support characters most often require immediate help, are dependent on others and are more likely to be abused. Presented results can account for some of the variety in prior research and they open the field of video game studies to possibly new research topics. KEYWORDS: gender, video games, content analysis, role, dramaturgical approach, qualitative
While there are numerous approaches to video games and their effects on society today, I will focus specifically on different aspects of video games and gender. What is the range of genders depicted in video games today? What effects does gender representation in video games have on children as well as adult players? How does game content affect each gender? What differences in game play exist between genders? How do players represent their gender when playing video games?
International Conferences Interfaces and Human Computer Interaction 2019; Game and Entertainment Technologies 2019; and Computer Graphics, Visualization, Computer Vision and Image Processing 2019
The role of gender in the design of technologies has been a topic of growing importance in fields such as Interaction Design, HCI and Games. Understanding that technology development and use practices emerge within the cultural processes, we analyze notions of traditional femininity in technology, as well as new approaches to female representation. The issues discussed and briefly analyzed in this essay point to a production and regulation of gender by technologies such as video games. Our goal in this paper, therefore, is to assess how gender impacts design and the use of digital games in terms of visuals, narrative and sociability.
Female Representation in Video Games
2019
This article aims to discuss lack of representativeness in female video game characters. This article is also continuity of the study "The Representation of Women in Games" published in the biennial "XVI Brazilian Symposium on Games and Digital Entertainment" now bringing an analysis of twelve female characters. By analyzing some characters, it was possible to show the stereotypes impregnated by the female figure and how much the reflection of this cause leads to the lack of female representativeness in video games. It was also possible to present characters that come out of the patterns of representation, showing that it is possible to have diversity and representativeness in video games.
Gender construction in video games: A Discourse
All new technologies follow a familiar cyclicality in terms of their perception and assimilation as they move from the phase of an initial celebration of a "new" technology to a phase where they attempt to appropriate themselves in the existing socio-cultural context. In this process of "appropriation", technologies domesticate themselves in the dominant paradigm of sociocultural norms.
The Performative Acts of Gender Representation in Video Games
This paper contains an ontological investigation of the virtual depiction of women in video games to address the influence of these depictions on personality and behaviour. The emphasis is on using video games as performative acts which can subvert traditional gender scripts. By starting from an existentialistic foundation, it is studied how the representation of women in video games can affect people, how emerging technologies can influence this process, and how users and designers can recognize and anticipate on these representations.
From Sex Objects to Heroines A Tough Road for Female Characters in Video Games
2014
Female character in video games is the one of the most controversial topic in game studies and nowadays women's anthropology. From the beginning of role in games' plot to sexualized graphical representation, woman in virtual world were (and sometimes still are) a point of discussion about characters sexualisation and role of female sex in virtual industry. The main aim of this paper is to present analysis of female representation in video games and how in last 30 years it has changed. In other words, how female characters were ennobled from sex object to main protagonist status. In presented research, there were used mostly the examples of popular video games with extended plot and world which can be explored by protagonists. Video game historiography, textual analysis (which helped to treat video game character as a protagonist), and thematic analysis of video games were used as a main research method. The main conclusion of this paper is that female characters can overcome all gender or sexual stereotypes and even eventually became an icon of popular culture.
Gender Representation and Diversity in Contemporary Video Games
Game User Experience And Player-Centered Design, 2020
This study examines the effects of queer theory on the world of games, how heteronormative world-view created a certain space, and how this space evolved throughout the history of video games. queer theory, which is the subject of the study, is examined through major indie game titles, especially by people who identify themselves as queer and/or those utilizing queer perspective. Another aim of this study is to examine differences between LGBT character representation in AAA game titles and games produced by queer game developers. As a means to achieve this, "Comparative research" methodology will be utilized on AAA titles and indie games, and differences between them will be analyzed. Comparison will take place between AAA titles such as Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and The Sims and indie titles that came to the fore especially after 2010 such as Mainichi and Little Witch Story.