Nintendo: Keeping Women in the Kitchen

Last weekend I went into an EB Games store looking to purchase a Nintendo DS. While I was waiting for the sales assistant to get consoles to show me I had a look through the collection of games available for play on a DS. I was surprised to see the number of games reinforcing gender stereotypes, with games that were blatantly targeted at females being things like planning weddings, clothing and make-up, and traditionally feminine occupations like figure skating, teaching, and being a housewife. All such games featured cheery female characters on the cover, appearing to be satisfied in their feminine roles.

The above comic addresses Nintendo's ‘Cooking Mama’ series, which includes the original ‘Cooking Mama’ game, several sequels to ‘Cooking Mama’ and ‘Gardening Mama’, all keeping women firmly within the household.

Bertozzi suggests in her article 'You Play Like a Girl! Cross-Gender Competition and the Uneven Playing Field' that the games targeted at females are one of the reasons so few females are as avid gamers as males. The game store’s collection definitely supports her view. Though there are a few positive representations, such as females as journalists, the majority of Nintendo's collection appears to be encouraging females to play games that keep them within traditional gender roles and leave the more complex, action games to the boys.

Furthering my disappointment in Nintendo, as I dug up more information on their games for DS I found out that the first and second generation Pokémon games, one of Nintendo’s most successful games series, only give the option to play as a male avatar. I'm glad that Nintendo saw some sense and the newer Pokémon games offer the option to play as a female trainer.

Despite Nintendo DS games reinforcing gender stereotypes, and my disappointment in them doing so, I still purchased the DS, though not with the games Nintendo seems to want me to play. I’ve always felt that Nintendo have targeted females more than Microsoft or Sony have with their gaming consoles and games, which I thought might have been a positive move to get females into gaming. However, now I’m not so sure that’s a good thing after seeing the kinds of games they’re trying to sell to girls. I should hope that Nintendo take Bertozzi’s advice and create ‘powerful’ female representations in games that females play, so as to create an equal playing field for males and females in our technological world.

Bertozzi's Conventions Unnecessary

The reading by Bertozzi “You Play Like a Girl” left me rather conflicted. When I was younger and was surrounded by consoles like Sega, Playstation and Nintendo I was constantly playing video games like Crash Bandicoot, The Legend of Zelda, Mortal Combat and Alex the Kid. These all have very broad ranges of subject matter from jungle adventures, to fantasy, to combat, to a small square headed boy, running around popping blocks in his little red overalls. The point is that the attraction of gaming wasn’t necessarily about the subject, but rather the action. If the game is fun and entertaining then I would enjoy playing it regardless of the subject matter. Yet Bertozzi talks about different conventions to get ‘women into gaming’ and they actually don’t seem necessary. Bertozzi mentions making inter- and cross-gender play more frequent; normalising it by using more female avatars. Using avatars that don’t stereotype inherently female attributes and change societal conceptions on what it means to be female: to change the way females are presented – strong and competitive being more sexually attractive as opposed to the stereotypical meek and submissive, women as ‘weak’.
To be honest, growing up I never noticed any of these. At the end of the day it is only a game and cannot be compared to reality (although some people may struggle with the concept of reality on a daily basis). I played games because initially my brother played them, and as a child I wanted to do all the things my brother did. Now it seems I play games because I want to, hence my addiction to Guitar Hero. It is not as if I felt less of a player because I was a woman, or because the games lacked these so called ‘needed conventions’ in order to appeal to the female audience. I enjoyed these games regardless and was more captivated by their entertainment value. This is why the reading left me conflicted. I see where Bertozzi is coming from, but from experience, I don’t think it is necessary.

Don’t Blame the Genders, Blame the Console!

In our recent tutorial for week 3, we looked at how gender’s play a part in whether or not they participate in video games. Luke said something along the lines of “… boys will be involved in more immersive games whereas females are more into browser based games that they can dip in and out of”. While that much is true, I also believe it is the game console manufacturers who decide which gender(s) to target.

In particular is the Nintendo Wii, if we look at the consoles & its controllers’ design and colour scheme we can say that it’s quite gender neutral. Compare this to the Playstation 1, 2 & 3 or Xbox & Xbox 360, their consoles are often black, grey or grey-ish white and sleek with a futuristic-ish design. Even the controllers are loaded with buttons that require time to learn all the functionalities possible for the controller and for each game. In contrast, the Wii is a simple white, the console itself is rather simple looking, small and compact and the controller looks more like a remote, an already well established household object.

The gameplay on the Wii is also quite natural itself, rather than learning button combinations, the Wii opts for physical movements that are easy to pick up and learn. And the Wii taps into all of these facts to market itself. Look at TV ads for Playstation or Xbox, they are generally quite high-end looking and flashy, the Wii ads are of people just playing with the Wii in a social context.
It's because of all this that the Wii attracts more female gamers than any other console. The actual content of the games also help to break down this barrier to entry for potential and current female gamers with games that are violent for those females who like it and for male audiences and games that are simple, perhaps with cute graphics, realistic in the sense that it might be something they like to do/play (eg: Tennis).

So whilst we might generalize that females just aren’t into video games, it’s more the console manufacturers and their marketers which are pointing the consoles more at the male gender. If Sony or Microsoft started designing their consoles at females in terms of console and controller design, the types of games available and the price of the console itself, the amount of females participating in video games on those consoles may increase also.