Designing an educational computer game is not a gender-neutral process. Understanding the relationship between gender and computer games is essential for creating games. For educational games to be successful, they must be of a high quality and contain themes that appeal to the game preferences of both genders.

Most researchers have come to agree that although boys and girls are equally skilled at using computers and computer games, boys are more likely than girls to play with them. This is a concern when considering incorporating computer games into a educational system. However, by understanding the causes of the gaming gender rift, educators and game developers, like us, can create successful educational computer games

The main identified causes of the gender rift stem from misguided social preconceptions and unbalanced gender representation in games. The social preconception of computer games being for boys is not without some element of truth. Research has shown that computer gaming has played a major role in the lives of many boys, but is usually a passing interest for a smaller group of girls. It has often been suggested that this is due to the fact that most computer games have been designed for, and marketed to boys. This is actually disadvantaging girls, with girls having generally lower interest in computer gaming, which can lead to a life in which technology plays a less significant role than it does for boys. With a society that places increasing focus on technology as being the way of the future, it is important to acknowledge if girls are being left behind.

An important issue for gaming preferences of boys and girls concerns the dichotomies of game types according to which competitive games are stereotyped as male, whereas relationship-oriented games are supposed to be female. User preferences are also related to the avatars of a game. The gender of the avatar might not seem important when compared to other elements such as graphics and engine considerations, but it can be very important issue for female players’ enjoyment of the game.

For this reason we have used animal characters or non-gender specific characters as tour guides in our latest educational games such as “Playing History: The Plague”. In “Playing History: The Plague” you get to customize the narrator, which is a mouse, and attribute gendered identity to the character. Our hope is that this will lead to greater interest in the game and the content from both genders. This is particularly important for an educational game such as “Playing History: The Plague” and as a male dominated game development company it’s very important to be constantly aware of this when making decisions about the themes and design.
 
   

Packaging

Another important issue is marketing and packaging. In the last couple of months we’ve been designing the packaging and other marketing material for “Playing History: The Plague”.  A big part of this process was testing different themes and designs within the game target-group. The testing showed a significant difference in gender preferences concerning the different themes and characters displayed on the packaging. We understand that games for girls need to be packed differently from similar packages for boys, but when you’re dealing with an educational game targeted at both genders, things get more complicated.

Consider the different computer game genres: action, strategy, arcade-style games and so forth. In computer stores, these genres are always stored close-by, if not together. Generally, across the store on different shelves you can find educational games, a completely separate genre altogether. These games have an educational goal rather than a purely entertainment-based goal.

We did a little research and walked into different computer game stores asking to find an appropriate game for an 11 year old niece, and the salesmen inevitably showed me all sort of entertainment games and then said that we could also give her an educational game. In other words, the retailers (and probably consumers) envision entertainment games as separate entities from educational games.

Yet upon closer examination of the titles, the distinction between educational and other commercial games is not clear. For example the Sims games (in which players create anything from a city to a national health care policy) all have educational value. Particularly popular is strategy gaming, which is resource management, allied to everything from big business to complex social systems, like cities and farms. The strategy games seem like ideal tools for biology, economics or political science classes. So why do the strategy games get marketed as and placed on shelves with other “fun” genres, while the educational games are stored in special “good for you” shelf? This means that activities for girls get shelved in education, reinforcing the idea that computers are tools, while boy-games get placed on the fun shelves. It also means that if a girl does want a game, she may only see boy-targeted games because the games, which would interest her are on the education shelf.

The distinction between entertainment and education appears to be intentional. Marketers seem to believe that girls will primarily want games which are educational. Or perhaps they understand that parents are the buying consumers, and belief that parents would choose education for their daughters but choose “fun” for their sons.

We’re not sure where a product like “Playing History: The Plague” fits within the dominant gender and genre game definitions, but there are a lot of aspects to consider concerning this issue when developing and marketing an educational game targeted towards both genders. Our goal is to create a game experience that includes themes and characters that girls and boys can equally identify with and enjoy. This is an ambitious but exciting undertaking, with numerous challenges but we take the gender-issue of seriously and try to demonstrate a greater social responsibility towards our costumers, both educators, parents and the end-users: boys AND girls