Dear all, This is the week for our Presentation (Self. org II: Work and Play). The following is our flow. Feel free to have a look!
Ya, the flow also includes some videos and links for you all to have a look first so that we can have a smooth discussion on Thursday!
Presentation Agenda
1.Introduction of background of the Topic
2.Summary of the First Reading 'Forward From Quake Girls to Desperate Housewives: A Decade of of Gender and Computer Games' by Henry Jenkins and Justine Cassell
3.Discussion
A. In the Game 'Street Fighter', there are two main characters, Ryu and Chun Li. Does it reflect gender stereotype?
Link: Street Fighter http://www.streetfighter.com/flash/ accessed on 17/4/2011
B. In some game exhibitions, we can see that most buyers tend to be male while sellers and promoters are female. We can even see there are 'Miss Games' in those exhibitions. Does it mean that males are still users while females are only servers?
Link: Girls of the Taipei Game Show 2011 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_R79ytXbnQ accessed on 17/4/2011
C. In 'Computer Games for Girls: What Makes Them Play?', it says that ''Male-games are likely to have more rules but female games are not". (Subrahmanyam and Geenfield , 1998, pp.64-65) Does it mean that more rules are preferable in cyber world?
D. In 'Computer Games for Girls: What Makes Them Play?', it shows that the pattern of playing is different that boys "like to play together while female like to play as an individual?" Does it reflect minority? .(Subrahmanyam and Greenfield, 1998, p. 60)
E. Angry Bird is very popular now. It is combined with male violence (attacking the pigs) and female caring (protecting the eggs). Is it a successful example of blurring gamers?
Links: Angry Birds http://www.rovio.com/index.php?page=angry-birds accessed on 17/4/2011
Angry Birds & the Mighty Eagle http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eyig_V-_5o&feature=related accessed on 17/4/2011
4.Conclusion
5.References
"Angry Birds" Rovio Mobile. 2010. 17.April. 2011. http://www.rovio.com/index.php?page=angry-birds
"Angry Birds & the Mighty Eagle" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eyig_V-_5o&feature=related video extract from youtube 10 Sep. 2010. 17.April, 2011.
Cassell, I. and Jenkins, H.(1998) From Barbie to Mortal Kombat Gender and Computer Games: ''computer games for girls: what makes them play?" American: MIT Press.
"Girls of the Taipei Game Show 2011" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_R79ytXbnQ video extract from youtube, 18 Feb. 2009. 17.April, 2011.
Jenkins, H. and Cassell, J. (2008) Forward: From Quake Girls to Desperate Housewives: "A Decade of Gender and Computer Games" Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
"Street Fighter" CAPCOM ENTERTAINMENT. 2008. 17.April, 2011. http://www.streetfighter.com/flash/
Enjoy the Presentation on Thursday and take part actively in Discussion! See you!
Dear all, thank you very much for your active participation. Sue has araised an interesting question "how to define 'male games' or 'female games'"?
ReplyDeletePhoebe and I think that to decide it is a "male game" or "female game", do we have to decide whether we should find out "male games" or "female games" or "male gamers" or "female games" first?
Thank you very much!
Dear Gordon and Phoebe,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your presentation on Thursday. It is nice to discuss on the topic here again.
I think whether to define a game as female or male is hard, to some extent, it is controversial. Having the characteristics of violence and combat in games would likely be stereotyped as the so called "male game" and having a characteristic of love and caring would be stereotyped as so called "female game". Shouldn't we just categorise games as "Adventure" ; "Car-racing"; "Skilful"; "Combat"; "Role-play"; "Horror" ...etc? In reality, games are labelled like the ones mentioned above.
I think there will always be controversies of gender stereotype if we label things as "male" or "female". Some girls may like combating and bloody killing games and some guys may enjoy love and fantasy games. After all, the purpose of games is to entertain us and different people have different preference on different types of games.
What are your views on this? Thx =]
Dear Wilson,
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for your response. What you have just brought out is really good.
When we focus on the type of the game, may I ask angry bird, which we have mentioned in the discussion, is a successful one simply because the game is for different people? As this type of game can attract different people, the gender stereotype is not mentioned and therefore it is successful?
Feel free to have discussion! Thank you very much!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHi Gordon and Phoebe,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your presentation on Thursday.
I would like to offer some of my comments to complement your excellent presentation. We cannot say that ‘Angry Birds’ is successful without mentioning the contribution of gender stereotype. Perhaps in some examples where gender stereotype is concerned, such games are also successful. I agree with what Sue said that it is hard to define a game as a ‘male game’ or vice versa. We can, however, more practically be able to better classify a game in terms of its nature, such as an action game or an adventurous game. In this sense, Angry Bird’s success maybe due to the nature of the game, offering exciting amusement while shooting the piglets and getting the golden eggs for the ultimate reward. On the other hand, the player-friendly maneuver is another reason accounting for the great triumph of ‘Angry Birds’. People just need to shoot down all the pigs and move on to the next stage. Altogether these reasons explain the immense popularity of the ever-blockbusting ‘Angry Birds’ among the smart phone users.
Dear Kimi,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your response. From what you have mentioned and what Sue has said, the nature of game seems to be a more important element in defining the success of a game in nowadays games.
Another point you have mentioned about the success of the game is about the 'popularity of smart phone users'. Yes, this is also true. I think the success of Angry Bird does not only stop at the games, but also other related products and episodes. We can see, from what Phoebe said, different versions of games at different times. We can also see some Angry Bird products available.
Those products also gives an impression that it is economy which makes Angry Bird to another area of success. Because when there are so many products, more people who have not played Angry Bird may try to play this game. More people will be attracted and this again makes Angry Bird more popular. You have said it is highly accessible in smart phones, then many people can just download it and become Angry Bird Gamers.
Therefore, when we mention the success of Angry Bird, the gender stereotype maybe, to a certain extent, ignored or have a less important role. This is what some of our classmates conclude. What is more essential should be the nature of the game, like what Kimi, Sue and Wilson have suggested. How about Economy? What do you all think of the importance of Economy in the success of Games nowadays?
HI Wilson and Kimi
ReplyDeleteThank for your response. I am very interesting in Gender and games discussion, because have not true or fault answers. I think different people have different perspective from this topic and the girl's games movement have not easily to success.
I think video game industry does stimulate the economy as they are profitable. People who create video games could earn a fortune, e.g. Hiroshi Yamauchi, the former chairman of Nintendo is the 3rd richest man in Japan as of 2008.
ReplyDeleteBut I think what the industry has been facing and still needs to deal with is piracy which offends copyrights and could affect sales figure of the original work. Also, games need to be creative to attract customers.
Meanwhile, the industry is rapidly changing to suit technology development. According to E-Commerce Times (2011), the industry is having transitions as we see trends of Facebook’s Social Games, Smartphone App. Games and Motion Control Games like Nintendo's Wii…etc.
So, what are your predictions on the game trends in the future?
Dear Wilson,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your discussion in this topic!
Ya, what you have said is really true that the Games industry nowadays is entering another dimension, economy with high technology. From your point of view, I think it is needed to emphasize to importance of high technology. Your comments also quote some fruitful examples.
However, when we anaylyse the examples, the Wii you have mentioned, may somehow reflect that what is most important is still the human-techonlogy relationship. So what you have brought out may tell that in reality, people still like to be human even though they are in cyber world.
Do you all think games like Wii or other stuff may be good to explain the trends now?
Feel free to join the discussion! thanks!