This week's post will be focused toward the in-class discussion and also the reading on video games for girls. There were a lot of good comments from people in class, both from the sides of girls and also the side of the boys. What struck me the most though was how girls perceived game and what caused them to stray away from them. From the violence to the non-female leading role, girls apparently get turned off about them. With this in mind, I wanted to check my Iphone to see if there were any apps that were on my Iphone that were linked to these ideas.
Looking through the vast amount of apps of games that I have, a strong outcome came back. Of all the games that I had (30+) only around 2-3 of them had a female role lead. The funny thing about this was that they were both in cooking roles!! One in particular was called Cooking-Mama (no judging it really teaches you how to cook) which helped you learn to cook by no other than a woman. So stereotypes don't dissappoint here with the interrelated areas of women and cooking. Is there a theme going on here? There was one application that's called 'Live Poker'. The picture of the application is of a girl holding up a poker hand. I could look at this photo and could see if two different ways. That its meant for guys and since guys like attractive girls, they would play this poker game. Or maybe it could draw in more females that like poker to download this since it's promoting that girls play poker too and it's not only a male dominated game. What also caught my eye on an application was a game called 'I Mobsters'. When I think of a gangster game, I think of Al Capone or male gangsters in that matter. The funny thing was that a female was on the application holding out up a gun. Like the 'Live Poker' app, this is going against the stereotype that girls should be in the kitchen and play Barbies. This is a way for girls to finally break this stereotype and put a dent into the male dominant game world.
Its funny to see how stereotypes create games such as Cooking-Mama stating that girls like too cook. But wouldn't it look weird if a guy was put on Cooking-Mama or a girl put on the cover of a war app. Stereotypes will always be there, but the way its looking these days, more and more girls are joining this video game world. Before we know it this stereotype that we have of women hating video games will be lost.
Those are great observations relating to the poker and mobster game. I happen to believe the use of women as the app cover is just for sex appeal. Men will see the poker chick and believe that if they play poker, they will get the sexy girl, same as the mobster game. She is supposed to be some hot mobster chick that would obviously come with the lifestyle of being a big bad criminal hahaha. I bet there are so many more ideas that could be thought of when looking at those app covers, it just depends on who you are and what you believe.
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