video gamesHere’s a fun digital media story from The Washington Post: a 12-year-old girl reports on her study of gendered characters in mobile video games.

I recently did a technology unit with my own third-graders, and found that all but one of them had access to such games. Madeline Messer, the girl in the story, had her parents obtain access for her to the top 50 ‘endless runner’ games on the app store, so that she could test as assertion a friend made that all the girl avatars cost money.

Her findings? Alas, this is true. Most of the games she looked at, such as the popular ‘Temple Run’ game, came with one free character—a boy. Any available girl characters were in-app purchase add-ons. From the article:

“I found that 18 percent had characters whose gender was not identifiable (i.e., potatoes, cats or monkeys). Of the apps that did have gender-identifiable characters, 98 percent offered boy characters. What shocked me was that only 46 percent offered girl characters. Even worse, of these 50 apps, 90 percent offered boy characters for free, while only 15 percent offered girl characters for free.”

Of course, the girls are welcome to play for free as a boy character—from that standpoint, the base game costs the same for any player. But Messer’s point is a good one. Why can’t girls play as girls, for free, in the same way boys can play as boys? I think many players are fine with the concept of in-game add-ons as a principle. I bet this girl’s friends would happily pay a dollar or so to unlock extra powers for their avatars, or even extra outfits or accessories for these avatars. But I can see why the concept of the gender itself being an ‘extra’ is offensive to this young lady, and she makes a good point that if girls find these games unappealing and stop playing them, the advertisers will lose an audience for the apps, the ads and the market.

Image credit: Just2Shutter via FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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"I’m a journalist, a teacher and an e-book fiend. I work as a French teacher at a K-3 private school. I use drama, music, puppets, props and all manner of tech in my job, and I love it. I enjoy moving between all the classes and having a relationship with each child in the school. Kids are hilarious, and I enjoy watching them grow and learn. My current device of choice for reading is my Amazon Kindle Touch, but I have owned or used devices by Sony, Kobo, Aluratek and others. I also read on my tablet devices using the Kindle app, and I enjoy synching between them, so that I’m always up to date no matter where I am or what I have with me."

4 COMMENTS

  1. But boys aren’t ‘eye candy’ for girls. Most research suggests that girls — straight or gay — prefer looking at girls than boys. What’s happening here is that a biological difference between the genders is being interpreted as discrimination, when it’s simply a supplier taking advantage of different levels of demand. As long as most people of either sex prefer looking at female characters, they will attract a price premium.

  2. Let me put it into perspective for those of you adult men here who seem to miss the point: This is about younger kid’s games.

    Would you have played games as a girl character as a little boy? Wouldn’t you have wondered why there was no free boy option? Surely being a boy was just as normal as being a girl? Were girls somehow better than boys and that’s why they got a free character?

    Wouldn’t you have thought it sucked that you had to pay to play a character who resembled you, while your sis didn’t?

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