I went to a videogaming event on Saturday, April 11th at the Bentley Student Center Pub. I decided to go because it would be good research for our media project. And plus, maybe I could play too. I came ready with a digital camera and a tape recorder, ready to interview any girls that I see playing. However, I half expected it to be an all guys party, with the girls only there to watch their boyfriends playing. When I got there, the pub was already filled with a majority of guys who frequently come to the pub to participate in events held by the Bentley Gaming Organization. I only saw one girl who was interested in playing. After I approached her and asked her permission to interview, we sat down and started talking about gender differences. Caitlin had decided to come to the pub tonight and play Rock Band. Her response was that she had nothing to do that night and plus she loved playing Rock Band. She loves Rock Band because it's a good way to socialize with her friends and it was a fun game to play. Caitlin described herself as an amateur player, someone who doesn't play more than one time a week. She also believed that there is a difference in skill level between female videogamers and male videogamers. Male videogamers according to her, are more skilled and more likely to play videogames because videogames are geared towards guys. I brought up the Xbox controllers and asked her if she ever had difficulty using them. She agreed that she did have frustrations playing Xbox because the two joysticks were hard to swivel and control. Often, she’d stop playing an Xbox game because the controllers were too hard to think about and still focus on the game. An example of this is Halo 3 where she’d have to use one joystick to control walking and another joystick to control the angle of the perspective. Overall, she enjoyed playing games but felt that guys and girls were on different levels. This is due to guys being able to play a lot more.
I was hoping to find a female videogamer who considered herself intermediate to advanced. I wanted to get a variety and get their perspectives on gender differences. However, the interview from Caitlin reaffirmed my theory that there is a gender difference in videogaming. What she said followed what I thought about videogaming as well. See previous post (http://mc399v2.blogspot.com/2008/04/my-favorite-games.html ).
1 comment:
Nice work, Susie. I bet there is someone at MIT who has done research into this area. But it does seem like your theory about Xbox vs. WII has some reinforcement from your interview. Let's assume it's not cause women have less innate ability-- do you think that if video games were more geared toward women, they'd get better at the joy stick? This would be a really great question to ask someone who had done research on the topic (I'm sure someone has!)
I like that your following this train of thought from the beginning of the semester. Nice work.
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