This Christmas, like millions of other parents, I bought my two children, a boy and a girl,a popular home video game system. I thought they could share it and when asked if this was OKwith them, they replied, “Sure mom, that would be great. ” So, we planned on installing the littlegoody onto the TV in the family room, so that both kids would have an equal chance to play. So,”What then?” you may be asking is the problem. The problem arose when we went to shop forgames for the system.
They weren’t hard to find. They were in all the local toy stores andWalmart and Kmart too! But, there weren’t any for girls! I looked high and low and came upempty handed. Why was this happening’surely, girls must want to play video games as much as boysdo! Why then, aren’t game manufacturers producing any video games that feature girls as themain character? On a recent trip to our local Walmart store, I found over two hundred videogame titles, yes I counted, for our game system, but of these only two had female maincharacters. One of them was, you guessed it, Barbie! The other one was a female warriordressed in a scantily clad leather outfit.
I’m pretty sure the latter was designed for young men,and not for young girls. Surely, a big retailer, like Toys-R-Us would have more of a selection. So, off I went onmy merry way only to be once again disappointed. Toys-R-Us had over 300 titles in stock forour game system and only the same two titles I found at Walmart were available there with onenew addition, which was the Spice Girls CD. It’s price had been reduced, so I guessed it was leftover from last year when the Spice Girls used to be popular.
I ended up purchasing 4 games for my kids to play. I found a few with cartoon charactersas lead characters, that I felt would be appropriate for kids. I bought Rugrats, Loony Tunes,Grand Turismo (race cars), and Tetras (puzzle). All, except the puzzle game, had malecharacters in the lead, but at least these were rated as non-violent. After some careful research, I found that video games are a 7 billion dollar a yearindustry that out surpasses even the movie industry by 2 billion dollars each year ( 2 ).
Mostly,these games are being sold to boys and young men. Girls currently represent only about 20percent of the market, having been pretty much written off by important manufacturers like,Hasbro, Sony, and Sega ( 3 ). Girls have extensive buying power though, nearly 84 billion dollars annually, and over 6million of them live in households with gaming systems ( 3 ). From ages, 6 to 10, girls playvideo games as much and as often as boys in that same age bracket, and one survey reports thatif there were more games out there that they enjoyed, 85 percent of girls surveyed would usetheir gaming systems more ( 1 ).
Girls don’t seem to like the same kinds of games boys do. Instead of the violent, time-limited games boys go for, the girls like games that offer strongnarratives, interaction, and creativity. It’s not enough to simply convert or replace existingsoftware for girls; the basic structure should be changed. A 1995 survey in Children’s SoftwareReview found only 28 of the 344 games with female characters in leading roles ( 3 ), proof thatfew producers have created games exclusively for girls. I believe this is largely so, due to the male dominance in the whole computer andtechnological industry. Males are turning out a product for other males.
Then why aren’t womenout there designing a product girls will enjoy’some are trying, but I have found it a catch-22situation. Men are leading the technology industry because they are the ones inviting othermales to join their ranks by making only games geared towards boys and young men. Girls areless likely to deem this area as fun and inviting and thus, turn their attention to other areas ofstudy once college bound. Some companies are beginning to look for ways to encourage girls to get more involvedin information technology. Girl Tech is one such group, in hopes of reaching 3.
4 million GirlScouts, they are sponsoring a technology merit-badge program (3 ). Efforts like this mustcontinue, though more immediate measures need to be taken in order for girls to becometechnologically proficient. If for no other reason than for an increase in earning potential, girlsmust learn to use and keep up with the technology around them. Not developing video games for girls, seems to be a classic example of symbolicannihilation ( 4 ). That is, the media has traditionally ignored women.
In this case, even thoughgirls have money to spend, their needs still aren’t being met. With the amount of time childrenspend playing video games each week, one study says as much as 4 hours by boys and at least 2hours by girls, what kind of message are we giving our kids ( 2 )? I know it can’t be positive. I really hadn’t realized the bias towards girls in the toy department. This has reallyopened my eyes as a consumer! I am interested on my next trip to the toy store , to find out ifother areas of the store are as biased as the video game department. It’s already evident thatthere is a division of boy isles and girl isles. My children have pointed this out many of timewith cries of, “I want to go to the girl isle!” from my daughter and the opposite from my son.
What is important here is that, I am at least aware of the problem now. I wonder how manyother mothers with daughters are aware of what is available to their daughters as consumers. Itreally is disturbing when you think about it.
