Gender in game mechanics

So if you don't watch extra credits (which you totally should) they had an interesting episode on gender biases in game mechanics:

Now I generally love this show, and still do since it sparked this thought, but I absolutely disagreed with this particular episode.

Mainly I disagree with the idea that both genders have the same brain chemistry. No, I'm not trying to make some #gamergate kindling. But I do think that there are physical differences between estrogen and testosterone fueled minds.

I like that there's differences too, and I don't think one is better than the other.

I simply think that "male" minds are better at reacting, while "female" minds are better at processing large amounts of information.

That's why "guys" like FPS games while "women" like match three games. Not simply fulfilling "gender roles".

(Or why I need to turn down the radio to find my exit when driving.)

Anyway, I'd like to hear what you all think. I'm open to the idea of being wrong, and am not just looking to argue. I really would like to hear your perspectives.

 

Canned worms. Check.
Opened. Check.

 

Do you gain anything, anything whatsoever, by holding that view (even if it turned out to be true)? That men are predisposed to some things and women predisposed to others?

 

Spoiler: Off Topic Segue

Well supposing it were true and you held the view you might react differently do gender imbalances in game genres. For example you might not see an imbalance as something that needs to be fixed.

I personally don't take this view. I have something of a hybrid. When I see kids I encourage them to do/play/be whatever they want. And I will sometimes encourage them to do things they don't seem drawn to, like boys to play with dolls. At the very least I let them know I think it's ok.
By the same token I think there are psychological differences 'in general'. I somewhat but not wholeheartedly ascribe to evolutionary psychology views, making discussions with those for a more social perspective squirm. So I don't think that any gender difference is a problem that needs to be 'fixed'. To reiterate, once view is how I deal with individuals, and the other is how I think about populations.

Having said that, and as a parent, God am I sick of every single 'girl' toy having to be pink. Even Lego does it with their Friends range. People there are other colours that girls like! And all you do it teach my boys that pink means you cant play with that since you're a boy, something that is really hard to try and undo.

Edit* naughty words replaced

 

Except, unless I missed it, this wasn't said at all during this episode.

 

I don't believe someone's brain is any more likely to be more/less reactionary or capable of multitasking based on gender, hormones or not.

My current project will allow the player to choose their gender, race, sexuality, and a few other differentiating factors. The grab? It has no affect on anything in the game whatsoever. And that's kinda the point.

 

Anyway sorry for my segue before, On topic. If you think that mechanics are gender specific the best thing to do it test your hypothesis, and look at research around this. Someone has probably done some research into this already. In any case, since you don't know the answer but only have a hypothesis (probably just your confirmation bias) you should hold to the rule of least harm - assume that there is no difference (the null hypothesis) and treat everyone equally. And remember, even if there is a different between population groups this doesn't actually mean it applies to everyone in the group. See the Ecological Fallacy.

 

You so lovely

 

I completely agree with the idea that game genres are given a 'gender identity' because we associate them with a baseline game that is largely targeted at one gender. When we think of shooters, we think of gorey war games with very manly male protagonists.

And yet, Splatoon is a fantastic example of an upcoming shooter that has massive appeal to women (as well as men). Its probably my fiance's most anticipated game right now. If Nintendo tried to design Splatoon solely to appeal to men (cuz ya know, shooter), I think the experience would be massively weakened. Instead, they left gender out of the equation, and its got both my and my fiance all aboard the hype train

Also, this

Slightly different brain chemistry is never denied. That doesn't mean that it needs to be a the driving factor in your mechanical design. Because in reality, there are so many other things that define who you are and what you enjoy that arbitrarily dividing gamers according to gender, while easy to do, is hardly productive.

 

Thanks. I like your whippet.

uhm.

 

I think there are differences between everyone, but i think differences between men and women are not as big as we stereotype them to be.

Even if there are differences we should avoid stereotyping for the cases where the person does NOT fit the stereotype. Its a way to avoid prejudging people who do not fit the stereotype.

Being gay i think i have grown up with a diminished sense that there is a large difference between sexes. Transgender and other people who develop outside stereotyped gender norms might have a different view too about which genders like which mechanics.

My guess is that it has more to do with marketing - pink for girls blue for boys. When it comes to dollars spent gender differences can be exploited to sell more, in the same way that safe, explosion-based actions films might sell more tickets than introspective dramas. But for some people game design and mechanics is about more than money.

Great that people are talking about this. I have had several people ask me to include women as a central character in BrightRidge and I'm working on it

 

* raises hand...

 

Take any data at a population level, and you will find both statistically significant and practically significant differences between men and women. Unfortunately as with most population statistics this all breaks down once you get to individuals. Individuals get very messy. And any given individual will not fall rigidly within the bounds of their population.

So the statement "Men like FPS games more the women" can be proven true or false. On the other hand saying "Person A is a women, therefore they will not like Call of Duty" is false. The same principle goes for most gender differences.

At an individual level this gets even more complex as some individuals do not fall within the traditional binary gender roles. But at the population level this can be accounted for.

On a more practical nature I see no problem targeting your game to hit a specific audience. Doesn't mean people outside that audience can't play and enjoy it. This is true weather your target is males aged 18-30 or the local gothic community. Trying to target every single possible audience that exists is a sure way to fail.

 

Domestic violence is a major issue where I come from at the moment (Australia). How many mothers kill a child to spite a former male partner? The reverse happens far too often.

 

worms! worms everywhere!!

 

yeah i certainly would say male and female minds think differently (in general)

i think to deny that, is a problem
but of course, people take generalizations too far and etc...

I personally believe there is some merit to the "magical archetype" of Mars and Venus...
to what degree that idea holds true .. ??? cant be said...

 

Just make your game. If you think it's better with a strong female lead, do that. If not, then don't do that. In our game, we've done something unique (and to my mind, fun) with the whole subject.

 

This discussion has so far been so un-Inernet-ly civil that it temporarily spiked my faith in humanity. Though the thread is still young.

On topic: It takes no more than a single bullet to kill or maim a human being, and yet we don't mind having a playable character survive multiple gunshot wounds and heal in minutes. And there might be differences in gender, but I think we can safely ignore those intricate differences and easily accommodate total gender equality in games.

 

Please be civil and open minded.

 

well ultimately youre dealing with art...

what influences do you wish to convey?

 

Just some food for thought: what mechanically is the difference between a light gun/shooting gallery game and a hidden object game?

 

It's true that women and men are different, both because of physical reasons, and because of social conditioning. However, I have to tell you that I have a house full of daughters, and every one of them prefers action and RPG games, and they have absolutely no aversion to killing digital foes. So at least with the females I am familiar with, this stereotype has a 100% failure rate. Plus, I like match 3 games in addition to other games.
I'd say to just make the game that you want to make, and let people whomever they are play it if they like it.

 

Ha! Yeah, sorry about that. Hopefully we can keep it civil and not get too polarized.

Yes. I think that as a game designer you can balance mechanics that cater to both user types. And I’m not talking about aesthetics. I think that FPS games could demand more data processing to appeal to women, and puzzle games could have more bonuses for speed. What I’m not saying is that you should limit your choices based on this. Hell, I have a coworker that is a lady in her mid 40’s that loves playing CoD online.

@R.Linsey – I’m struggling with the idea that this is a solely a gender role thing. If it were merely aesthetics, then yes I would say that it was. What I’m saying is that different genders (identified and biological) do excel at different brain activities, which in turn give genre’s a gender bias naturally. And if we could identify this differences we could encompass them into better game design.

As far as the aesthetics go, do you think that if you took a game like Quake and replaced all the art with “feminine” assets, like have the player shoot hearts at people, but all the mechanics were the same: Do you think it would appeal to females because of gender roles? Or do you think they would still not want to play an FPS? If that was the case, are you suggesting that FPS games are also geared towards males due to gender roles?

And please don’t try to throw out what I’m suggesting because I don’t have case studies and statistics to back me up. You know that all that data comes with massive, massive, massive biases and is inherently useless. For example, the prison experiment is one of the most overly referenced social experiments, but the whole thing was a massive fraud by (literal) hippies trying to prove a point about authority.

I felt that it was implied through its omission. Sorry, if that’s a little “straw man”.

You don’t think gender matters? I’d say it matters to transgender people. And I’d hate to live in an bland endogenous world where no one expresses their masculinity or femininity. And unfortunately, a down side to that means people will slander one side or the other to cover their own insecurities, but it’s the cost we pay for our diversity.

Major Kusanagi, Ripley, and Amelie easily some of my favorite characters. And I about wretched when I heard Scarlett Johansson was cast as Kusanagi for the live action Ghost in the Shell. Images of her arching all ridiculously instantly came to mind, completely missing the whole point of the character (Psst, Hollywood, Kusanagi is an allegory about being transgender).

That’s mixing aesthetics with mechanics.

Aesthetically, it’s about killing people, a male gender role.

Mechanically, it’s an RPG. Females are huge in the RPG demographic.

Here’s a good example of what I’m getting at: Diablo III. Blood, guts, demons, female warriors in stilettos. Has “for men” written all over it. You know who love Diablo? Lots and lots of women. It’s processing a lot of info on the screen all at once.

Also, WoW.

 

Hmm. I'm not sure how much I believe the processing data versus reaction time premise.

 

It's one of the reasons I'm writing an open-minded RPG. It allows those people to play what they like, no matter what their gender or gender preference. I will have openly LGBT npcs and cross-dressing options. It makes for a much smaller niche game; but inclusive mechanics over money every time.

It's a shame about pink, which in medieval times was the colour associated with males. How quickly things change and are forgotten.

 

Cross gender is much more complex then just changing clothes. I would suggest diving into the culture deeply if you are going to touch it.

Otherwise you end up with Skyrim, where gender is for rendering purposes only.

 

Agreed There's a number of areas that I can't possibly discuss on a public forum, but race cultures towards genders and gender preferences is already in hand. I also know that it would be impossible to please everyone no matter what mechanics are used; I think that goes for all walks of life, not just in gaming

 

I've also thought about this. In Fallout it determines some basic dialog trees also, but there's no real flavor to it.

The sad part is that if you want to add the flavor of playing a gender, sexuality, or race that you would need to put in the disadvantages, such as people treating you poorly and not just in what they say.

In the real world those disadvantages aren't balanced, so whether they should be in the game is up in the air.

Also, going back to the pink thing, I have a bubble gum pink phone and get crap about it all the time. To which I usually respond "What? I need your permission or something? Good luck finding your black phone next time you lose it."

 

I have a pink phone case. Mainly because I dropped the star trek one and it broke. Pink was the closest thing to hand.

Talking of social pressures, I did go to work one day wearing nail polish. Little girls wanted to paint my nails and I didn't have the heart to turn them down or take it off. It may surprise you that none of the guys actually noticed. But a few of the girls commented.

 

It's been pointed out already but yeah, most definitely try to be cautious when equating "trans" with "cross-dressing".

There are a lot of groups that get pulled under the transgender umbrella, and cross-dressers are sometimes considered as trans, sometimes not. There's overlap of course, but then again there are some easy assumptions that don't actually ring true. I'm technically "transsexual", which is also a sub-group, but I never cross dressed in my life.

I've learned to just keep on keeping on and the differences and labels and all that don't really bother me anymore (basically I'm just me, preferably without a "trans" label at all, but hey the world is what the world is), but there are a lot of trans people who can get very upset when assumptions are made in trying to be inclusive that sadly end up being insulting instead. It aint easy.

So hell yeah, that's awesome that you're doing an LGBT thing in your game (woo!) but it can be like walking on eggshells if you're not careful.

 

Yep! It seems like making a trans person a punchline is okay and objections are usually over looked as "Well of course there are objections! Those people are a circus!"

Where as if you do it for real you get a giant target on your back and become the object of great scrutiny from all sides.

It's sad that you can't just have a character just so happen to be (fill in the blank) and ignore all the stereo types associated, towards or away from them.

And I do believe that is the last worm for me on this fishing trip.

I promiss not to load up the boat again for at least a couple months.

 

I didn't see where in the episode they said that everyone has the same brain chemistry. What they are saying is that mechanics aren't particularly split by gender, and that "theming" is what is actually split by gender. And they have actual sales figures and research to back that up.

Unfortunately, actual neuroscience and psychology disagrees. You're free to "think" whatever you want; but doesn't it seem a little odd to just make an assumption like that about how neuroscience works and claim that all of science is wrong, when you probably haven't actually done very much brain surgery or neurochemical research?

The point of the video is that there is actual proof that women like action mechanics and men like spatial puzzle mechanics; are you saying you don't think this is true? Before video games, spatial puzzle-based mechanics like chess, Go, etc were considered masculine, and in the board game and rpg industry, they still are. It's only in video games and only in very recent years that this idea that spatial puzzles are for girls popped up.

 

I wasn't going to reply but I don't want you to think I'm ignoring you. It's just that I don't think were going to get anywhere with this footing. There have been data frauds in probably every branch of science. But the scientific method includes the ability to retest something, and over time frauds will on the whole be uncovered. This shows the method works, not that the method is 'inherently useless'. Or perhaps you weren't referring to science in general but some vague notion of 'statistics' and/or 'psychology'. Well I'm not going to be very sympathetic there either since I study psychology (and philosophy)

Anyway I'm off to bed.

 

I'll say something a bit inflammatory on the surface now, but if you read carefully, shows I care a lot about everyone:

1. I don't believe gay people exist
2. I don't believe transgender or transsexual people exist
3. I won't ever understand the term 'cis' gendered.

With that out of the way, what I am saying is it's damaging to humanity to keep applying labels. Once you apply a label or categorize, you place that person in an isolated box away from the rest of humanity. You judge. You judge that that person is a specific category. You create segregation.

Instead, I see only humans here, humans who might prefer to be attracted to a specific type of person, such as people with dark hair, or blue eyes. It is no more important than that. Instead of gay rallies or militant marches, or homophobia, I just want people to understand we're all human. And that is all there is.

It's an inclusive view, but perhaps a lot of people aren't ready for that yet... from all sides.

 

http://www.asu.edu/news/research/womencolors_090104.htm

Based on some articles I've read, 1 in 20 men are colorblind, while only 1 in 250 women are colorblind. Supposedly gene combos that live on the X chromosome control the ability to see the color red, but it has 3 variants. Men have the chance to only get one of these "red color" gene combos, but women typically get two of them making them less likely to be colorblind. Certain XX genetic combinations result in a person who sees 100x more colors (tetrachromat).
http://io9.com/5919311/some-women-m...olors-than-the-rest-of-us-are-you-one-of-them

Relevant to video games: some researchers claim that men eye-track "fast moving objects" better than women, while women perceive color (particularly in the red spectrum) better, so for many men the color red is always a bright "danger" color but for women the color red breaks down into millions of more hue variations, presumably losing much of it's impact as an "alarm". They go a step further and hypothesize that this evolved from men being "hunters" and women being "gatherers", but I tend to view this sort of attribution attempts as kind of ridiculous since colorvision has been evolving for 300 million years, not just since the days of the caveman (male and female lions are both colorblind, but generally the females hunt and the slower males steal other predator's kills, including kills by female lions...).
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...en-see-differently-science-health-vision-sex/

These studies ALWAYS should be read with some suspicion - not because they are untrue but because scientific research is fantastically prone to errors and omissions caused by unconscious gender bias and social racism. For instance the ratio of colorblind men has recently been disputed as White boys seem to be much more prone to colorblindness than Black boys....

http://www.aao.org/newsroom/release...-preschoolers-ophthalmology-journal-study.cfm

 

I can't listen to this video. He sounds like a chipmunk. And the animation is appalling - literally its just finding a noun in the sentence and slapping a piece of clip art on the screen to match it. It makes my eyes want to kill themselves.

 

Yes, I realise now, that putting just a couple of things made it seem as if that was all I was doing, which isn't the case. I didn't mean to just equate the two; just bad wording on my part. I'm doing more and talking to friends from as many communities as possible. I'll take on board just as much information as I can get.

 

The problem with this view is that it tends to ignore actual research.

A HUGE problem with biases is that we "normalize" ourselves. When everyone is "like us" then behaviors outside our "normal" become unexplainable, or worse we try to explain them with incorrect models. It is easier for a white male who experiences fewer social negatives to not realize how many social negatives are dumped on minorities, and then misinterpret their experience. Again research shows that in practice white people live in a different world than everyone else:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/24/opinion/research-shows-white-privilege-is-real.html

It's significant to understand that in this research ^ bus drivers of all races denied having any race bias ON PAPER but behaved very different in real life, with all races confirming the same bias to give freebies to White people the majority of the time, and deny freebies to Black people the majority of the time.... If you grow up in a world where EVERYONE seems to be invested in your well-being, it is impossible to really understand the world of someone where EVERYONE is invested in keeping you down. And it really is that starkly divided.

We are not "just" our genes and personalities. We are shaped at least as much by the worlds we live in which despite everyone claiming to be "humanist" and "equal", is actually very racist and sexist. Saying we are all the same might hold on a biology table, but doesn't work out in the actual living and interacting with other people.... Saying there are no (fill in the blank) is idealogical, but not actually very helpful or based in reality. It is a happy fantasy that typically is only held by those who have not experienced otherwise.

 

My view isn't normalization, my view is that there is no normal, only acceptance. It's not the same thing.

 

Neither do I have any scientific backup nor did I really look into it that much, yet, but I also can imagine and find it likely that there are differences in how the average of a male and a female brain works. I do not know how much differences there are and where they are exactly but I also think this is not the point the video was actually trying to make, either.

The point this video is trying to make, I think, is a very valid one. It's not meant that brains are attracted to certain game machanics only but I think the point of the video is rather that it is rarely tried to break the typical "gender branding" of a game machanic. Which I would say, subjectively, is often the truth.

I don't think that the video was trying to say - there are differences in brain structure - react accordingly. I think that would be putting the cart before the horse. The video was more trying to say - game developers think so much in stereotypes that they never even try to brand a genre/mechanic with a different style or story. And that is something that I would agree on. And I don't even know why.

Though maybe there are a lot more cases in the indie market now than just in mainstream. The indie titles are growing in numbers and I find it much harder to follow than the few large budget titles. Though, for the large budget titles ... I would agree on too much "genre gender branding" if that is the term to use.

 

Yes agree. You said it well. I am not trying to "correct" you.

 

I don't mind being corrected though, being the kinky hippo I am.

 

I agree completely. The reason why, as you stated, that's difficult for all sides is that all sides are no where near as tolerant as they think they are. You don't tolerate things you don't have a problem with because you don't have to tolerate them. I tolerate the fake meat I am having to eat during the slow financial times, I don't have to tolerate the monster burger I occasionally can afford because it is freaking delicious. Very few people are actually tolerant of the things they have a problem with. They "tolerate" things that they don't have a problem with but someone else does. In my perfect world we wouldn't need to worry about group rights because bestowing equal rights on individuals covers everyone. In the real world, people are always going to want to take away the rights of people they disagree with or force those people to do something they don't want to do.

 

There is no spoon

 

Not at all what I was saying. Gender, race, sexuality... it all matters, obviously. Being a straight man, I married my wife quite intentionally, not the least of which reasons were she qualified as a sexual interest based on her gender and sexual orientation.

What I'm saying is that you shouldn't make an imbalance unless it serves the game somehow.

I loved the Hunger Games books. It didn't really matter that the protagonist was female. That was supplemental information. It's not as if I was living out a fantasy of being a woman by reading the story. Same thing would go for women forced to play male characters in games, I imagine.

Consider these three hypothetical games:

1. Age of Barbarianism: Underthrone of the Zombie King - In this Action RPG, you play as the Hero who must save the world from a dark terror! Male characters have a boost to their Strength attribute and females get a bonus to their Cooking skill.
2. Second Class - An adventure game focused on making a statement about gender inequality, this game tells the story of dystopian future in an alternate reality where women's suffrage never happened. Despite their forbidden love, Jack and Jill seek out a way to be together. You alternate playing as either character. Jack is a strong and aggressive young man, while Jill's slender, agile physique allows her to sneak through levels, which will serve her well... since if she's caught out in public, she'll be arrested and punished.
3. Power Punch Pros - A fighting game where players select a character and duke it out. Characters have different but balanced abilities. Female characters have giant breasts with boob physics and wear skimpy outfits so they can appear "feminine."

Obviously Game 1 is offensive. Game 3 is just as ridiculous, but unfortunately super commonplace still. But even though the characters in Game 2 are unequal, it's to serve the intent behind the game. It would still have to be handled thoughtfully, but there's a reason for males and females to be different in that game.

And as far as marketing one style of game towards a specific gender because of their natural preferences... Well, I just think that's absolutely absurd.

 

And here I am to ensure this happens.

Stop judging people by what their genitals are! If a man feels that he is a woman, he is a woman! If a woman feels that she is a man, she is a man! If facebook says I can set my gender as Toaster, then god damn, my facebook profile is going to say that I identify openly and proudly as a Toaster!

Seriously, someone should take this and run with it. When choosing gender options, have them all be the same character model. If you click the little [?] hint icon on gender selection, it tells the user that they are ignorant and that they are selecting gender, not sex.

I'd like to say that I am tolerant of everyone and everything. My tolerance level is: Quaker. As long as I'm not required to give a damn about what other people do they should go ahead and act of their will and nature and do it.

On topic - @Not_Sure wouldn't the real bias be with developers and media? It's not that boys are going to like violence more, it's that the violence being carried out in the game is going to more often than not be a male protagonist. As a college student familiar with actual gamer culture and a handful of gamer girls who both attend SMASH meetings and game dev meetings... I can tell you that the spread of misinformation about both is maddening.

I'm sure some of you are with me on this. Isn't it such a terrible feeling to know the truth about gamergate and other bs like that are, for the most part, fabricated? It should not take more than several matches of [unnamed gamer girl] playing Marth and [unnamed gamer guy] playing Samus jovially on the ACM couch together to see that the media is once again full of it.

 

Derp.

 

@ChipMan could you be more specific? I need to go do saturday-specific things in preparation for saturday evening-specific things, but I will definitely address your concerns when I can.

I'm surprised I missed this the first time. Kinky forum mods? Does unreal have that? I think now UT has a distinct advantage in the market place.

@Schneider21 our species is capable of a lot worse than expressing offensive ideas. Hell, when I am unleashed upon this world in 8 months, I'm going to call out my kind and take all of them with me to the grave