Gaming, siblings, and 'learning loops'

In response to the point bought up in class today referring to the 'learning loop' where younger siblings learn gaming from older ones, and during those younger years they develop the skills that allow them to enter into competitive games. On a particularly exciting Friday night I was playing Tekken Tag with 2 friends, one male one female. Neither are particularly familiar with the game, but it should be noted that the girl has 5 brothers, and the guy has 2 sisters. The girl had previous experience with a variety of games whereas the guy only plays the odd sports game on Playstation and XBOX. The girl's strategy consisted of 'button mashing', where she simply panics and pushes as many buttons as possible in no particular sequence in the hope that she chances upon a powerful move to win her the game. I tried to explain that a better strategy is to remain calm, utilise the block ability, and time her attacks better. My male friend in this example quickly realised this and adapted his game. After an hour he was pretty good, having learned a handful of moves and winning the odd round. She on the other hand was still button mashing after an hour of gaming, at which point she decides the game is too hard and wanted to move to another. It's possible she may have been turned off partially by the violence that is inherent in fighting games such as the Tekken series. If gaming is learned from older siblings it would seem that the girl should have had a distinct advantage over the guy who only has female siblings. I guess it's kind of hard to tie down the exact reason for this disparity of gaming ability when there are so many other circumstances at play. For example the supposed preference of girls to RPG/Puzzle games (Tekken is neither), or maybe the competitive nature of fighting games. Players experience with gaming theoretically should play a role here too but it seems in this example it doesn't. What this example does show is siblings seemed to have played no part in their ability to learn and play that particular game.