Why I Want to Make Games for Girls: A Rantifesto P2

Disclaimerz: The rant here is based on personal experience with gamers and non gamers. Also, I'm very obviously not a writer; I prefer using an informal, colloquial voice in my work. If you disagree with anything said here or have a suggestion, please read this post before responding. Let's start a dialogue--I want to learn from you and hear your side! 


you can read Part 1 in all it's horrifying glory here.

Part 2: On The Outside

So, geek culture is prevalent nowadays (at least where I’m at). It's unusual to pass a popular clothing or accessory store (particularly those that market to girls such as Claire’s, Justice, or Charlotte Rousse) without spotting a pair of thick rimmed spectacles, Hot Topics around the world are stocked to the nines with all your favorite franchises, and the ‘8bit’ graphic tee is very hot this season. It’s natural to assume gaming would be a lot more common and widespread, but I would argue that in spite of the mobile game rise and huge advances in accessibility, without having been raised with games, girls aren’t getting a positive, permanent introduction into them.

Truth be told, girls actually are playing tons of games, especially on their browsers and mobile phones, which give them a wonderful, accessible gateway to fun times of all kinds! The downside is, these are still often treated like “not real” “not core” or “casual” games, mere trifles or diversions, so girls feel safe to play them without needing to take their play seriously, or needing to call themselves gamers. When I was involved in a discussion of the rise and fall of Flappy Bird (one of my favorite games), for a language and culture course I took, 90% of the class did not identify as a gamer, but everyone was familiar with the game and about 80% were avid players. It was exciting to share the history of the game, and use the events surrounding Flappy Bird as a jumping off point for exploring racial stereotyping and otherness in the gamedev community. For everyone in the room, it was totally new information. “Who knew,” they said, “that there was so much drama around a dumb little iphone game?”

The mobile platform should be an excellent way to attract girls to games, except the popular notion is that their passion is invalid, and sure, they can play their ‘dumb little iphone game’ but they could never handle a real game. As girls grow older, they'll be told they shouldn't be messing with silly things like that anymore. Whereas boys are allowed and expected to keep gaming well past their youth, girls are told to grow up and move on, rather than move into new, more complex and interesting games. So...they'll stop playing.

If you still think popular culture supports more girl gamers, let’s briefly consider what the kidfolk are watching on television, and what toys are being sold to them; two BIG influences in media. Pathetically, the limits of what a person of any gender is allowed to like stop right at the limits of what’s being marketed to them.

On the tellies, the female gamer is a rare, RARE sight to behold, and if she is there, she is either portrayed as “just another one of the guys” (this sort found almost exclusively in media targeted at boys, and even then as a token character to prevent the show from becoming a total sausagefest) or her femininity and gamer skill is played up for a laugh. 

Gravity Falls, my favorite cartoon on TV now, has an episode dedicated entirely to video games. However, there is only one instance of a female character playing a video game in the entire half-hour-ish span of gaming goodness, and even then, she’s only playing it because the male protagonist introduced her to it. We later discover he can’t stand that she continue to play with anyone but him (he has a crush on her)—actually, the whole episode is about two guys fighting over a girl, so…yeah. In another episode, the female protagonist is seen playing a game with her friends, called…”Calling all Boys: Preteen Edition”, which is actually a parody of a real-life game marketed to girls back in the 80’s—you know what, I realized I’m not casting this show in a positive light, swear to God it’s really good though—Moving on, ahem!

Steven Universe, quite possibly one of the most progressive cartoons on tv right now in terms of character design and social structures, also has a video-game themed episode. In it, the titular protagonist also introduces his three female caretakers and mentors (they mentor him in badassery, btw) to video games. Surprise, surprise: all three women, who destroy monsters on a regular basis, give the protagonist excellent guidance ep-to-ep, and have hundreds of years of life experience, are total shit at video games. They give up fairly quickly, save for one who becomes addicted to the only rhythm game she can play. At the end of the episode all three determine that games really just aren’t for them; they have other things to do.

ANT farm, Disney channel’s show about talented young children, provides a live-action example of one girl who is good at video games, and the show was aimed at females, but don’t get your hopes up. Not only is Olive’s (not the protagonist, but one of the main cast) skill at the game considered comedic, but she explains to her gaming rival that the only reason she’s so good at “Donkey King” is because she memorized all the game’s patterns, of which there are thousands. It’s worth noting that Olive has extraordinary memory capabilities, whereas her male rival is good at games because he just plays them a lot, which kind of subtly indicates to me that in order to be good at games, a girl has to already be unusual (if you need more proof, Olive's arcade high score initials are O.D.D).

I’m not cherry picking here folks. Chic watches a lot of TV, and the above examples encompass the entirety of my memories about girls playing video games on television. I think we can agree all of them are mediocre representations at best. The only truly positive tube image of a girl gamer I ever saw had to be “Sue Ellen gets her goose cooked” From the old PBS kids show, Arthur (I’m not sure if it’s still on the air, but I watched it when I was in grade school). If I remember correctly, the episode was mostly about video gaming in moderation, but the overall message put a variety of different games (both video and analogue) in a positive light. In it, five of the seven gamers were all females, and the top three players were also female. Gender wasn’t even really pointed out or brought up at all. On top of that, the game everyone was playing, Virtual Goose, was never considered trivial or easy; all of the players took it very seriously, and being a skilled player was a trait the main characters respected. It seems pretty backwards to me that such an old show empowers girls who game more than what you can watch today. Hashtag real talk.

TV is certainly not the only perpetrator here. I’m also a doll collector, when my laughable income allows for it, so I spend a lot of time in the toy isle, especially the infamous “pink isle” where most of the toys for girls are. I’m happy to report there’s a lot less pink in there these days, and the different kinds of dolls you can buy vary greatly aesthetically and character-wise (that is, if you’re the kind of person who bothers to read the character bios, which I do). But looking at all there is to offer, I can't help but notice the messages girls are getting from their toys is shockingly…technophobic. 

My personal favorite line of dolls, Monster High (they have some of the most excellent character designs… also, monsters!) has dozens of different personalities and designs in the lineup; chefs, fashionistas, film buffs, painters, wallflowers, adrenaline junkies, class clowns, surfers, explorers, and social activists, but only one of them could be described as tech savy, which is sort of mashed in with “nerd” and "geek" traits. Ghoulia Yelps the zombie girl is the smartest person at Monster High, is a computer genius (Hollywood hacking her way into everything!), a zombie rights activist, and loves comic books. Her character seems to fit the expected gamer “type”, welcoming STEM and pop culture the way she does, but gaming is totally absent from her profile. In the webisode “Angry ghouls” featuring the Monster High characters, the game “angry ghouls” becomes a school-wide hit, and Ghoulia is the only one unaffected by the craze. By the end of the short, she manages to put an end to it, supposedly saving everyone from game addiction—the lesson being that a smart girl stays away from those EVIL VIDEO GAMES.

In another episode of the Monster High webisodes, the female protagonists notice their male friends and boyfriends behaving oddly and sneaking away. They investigate to discover the mansters are involved in some high-intensity Role Playing session. Instead of joining in or displaying any kind of interest, the girls all laugh it away with an 'oh, those silly boys and their weird nerd games'. Strangely enough (I watch all the webisodes, if you couldn’t already tell) the girls are seen playing a board game in an earlier episode which they all enjoy and are very competitive about…eungh, honestly, the canon of Monster High is in all kinds of disarray. Maybe get some Legend of Zelda folk to take a look at that.

Another doll line that comes to mind is the short-lived Novi Stars, MGN’s response to Monster High’s popularity. Here’s a set of alien characters that are from space, and have come to earth to learn about our ways. supposedly, they were able to navigate a ship to this planet, so you’d think they’d take to video games fairly easily, especially since so many of earth’s other artifacts and customs are hilariously confusing to them (spoiler alert I watch their webisodes too). But nopety-no, the Novi Stars will have absolutely nothing to do with video games, and explicitly state that they are a ‘boy thing’ during an episode about courting the opposite sex at a party. One line directly from the show: “Hey girls! I’m a boy; I like dirt, video games, and sports cars that drive around in circles on TV!” Followed by: “Hi, I’m Ari. I don’t like any of those things”. Come on, they’re boys, Novi Stars, not a different species...well, I suppose in your case they are. Hm.

I hope this sampling shows you how bad a rap video games get from a girl’s point of view. It’s not a subtle message at all, and regrettably, it's also an effective one. I’ve seen large families with a console in the house, but the girls don’t touch it because that “video games are icky for girls” mentality is present in all the family members. The parents won’t buy a game for their daughter, and the daughter never asks for a game. So, I want to change that.

In part 3 (the final part, I swear!), I’m gonna outline 3 problems girls face that the next generation of video games ought to address, and they’re issues I hope to tackle in my own games.