Gender Inclusive Game Design
Expanding the Market
Sheri Graner Ray
EGaDs
University of Texas
September 28, 2005
Sheri Graner Ray
 Sr.
Designer, Sony Online
Entertainment
 Game designer since 1990
 Co-founder of the IDGA’s “Women in
Game Development” SIG
 Author of Gender Inclusive Game
Design: Expanding the Market
 Hard Core Gamer (20+ hours/week)
Pink Poison
a brief history of the girls’ game
movement in the U.S.
1995
“Why should we make
games for girls?”
1996
“How do we make
games for girls?”
1997
1997-1999
“See? We told you girls don’t
play computer games!”
Why did this happen?
 The
industry took an entire market of
women and defined it as a genre of
“fashion, shopping, and makeup games
for girls ages 6-10.”
 Computer
game revenues have topped
9.4 billion dollars, outranking Hollywood
box office receipts.
Salon magazine.
So what’s the problem?
 The
traditional target market of males
ages 15-25 is not growing as fast as the
games industry.
Salon Magazine
 Today,
females between the ages of 15
and 25 control over 14 billion dollars a
year in disposable income.
-Newsweek Magazine
“Houston, we have a problem”

52% of internet
users are female
 70% of casual,
online gamers are
female



Less than 10% of the
audience for traditional
PC games is female
Less than 15% of
Nintendo’s user base is
female
Less then 20% of the
audience for traditional
online titles are female
What can we do?
 We
can remove barriers from our titles
today that prevent women from
accessing them.
Just a few areas where
barriers exist
 Learning
styles
 Price of failure
 Avatars
 Communication
 Production environment
Warning
The following information is based on
broad population generalities. It is highly
likely you will know of someone that
does not fit exactly into these profiles.
(If you are female and you are in the
audience today…then that person will
most likely be you!!)
Gender Differences in
Learning Styles
Males
•Risk-takers
•Explorative
Females
•Want to know how it
works first
•Modeling/Imitative
Most of the tutorials in today’s games are designed
to appeal to an explorative learning style.
Solution
 Design
tutorials that use imitative
models as well as explorative models
 Look at educational software for
examples
The Price of Failure
Males
Females


Punishment for
error
Forgiveness for
error
Most games today punish the player for errors
either in the form of loss of “lives”, irretrievable loss
of items or loss of progress.
Solution

Identify the victory conditions for your
titles and consciously design such that
failure to meet those conditions does
not result in irretrievable loss.
Avatar \Av`a*tar"\, n.
1. <chat, virtual reality> An image
representing a user in a
multi-user virtual reality space.
We need a hero!
 Because
they represent “heroes”, male
and female avatars will often exhibit
exaggerated physical signals of youth
strength, and fertility/virility
Youth, Strength and
Fertility/Virility
Males
 Large Shoulders
 Slim waists
 Slim hips
 Long, thick hair
Females
 Large breasts,
placed high on the
chest
 Slim waists
 Round derrieres
 Long, thick hair
 Very
often female avatars display
exaggerated physical signals of sexual
receptivity.
 Male
avatars rarely display these
signals.
Sexual receptivity

Red, full lips
 Heavy lidded eyes
 Heavy breathing (usually indicated by a
slightly open mouth)
 Erect nipples
Solution
 Build
attractive female figures that are
not hyper-sexualized.
 Use female athletes as body models.
 Focus group test your avatars with
female players.
Electronic Communication
 Males
and females communicate very
differently, and this carries through to
electronic communications.
Communications differences
Males
 Rough language
 Attempt to dominate
through “put downs”
 Use sexual humor
Females
 Formal language
 Attempt to build rapport
through questions
 Ceased to
communicate when
faced with sexual
humor that contained
female put-downs
“Just change the keymap to
WASD!”
 Avoid
the use of industry specific jargon
in your documentation, tutorial and
game scripts.
Solutions
 Avoid
using content that contains sexual
humor based on put-downs of females.
 Check your command text for formality
and rapport building language.
 Check your commands for terminology
that is industry specific.
Production Environment
“What
were you thinking?”
Who are you really designing
your games for?
If we do not regularly state that a
percentage of our audience is expected
to be female, we assume we are
designing for males.
Sometimes the best man for
the job is a woman
 The
game industry isn’t on women’s
career radar
 Must recruit in non-traditional areas
 Build today for employees tomorrow
Solutions
 Have
a clearly defined targeted
audience statement that states you
intend to design for females as well as
males.
 Throughout your documentation, avoid
using only “he” to describe your player.
 Have more women in your workforce –
find them through creative recruiting
Where to start:

Adjust tutorials to allow for modeling learning
styles
 Consider forgiveness for error rather than
punishment
 Make female avatars attractive, but not hypersexual
 Clearly state you intend your audience to
contain females
 Seek out qualified female candidates
“But what if
the player is female?”
Sheri Graner Ray
Austin Community College
Summer Lecture Series
July 8, 2005