Getting Women in the Game
For many years, boys and men have been the primary target audience for video games. Because men primarily dominate the video game industry, the highest profile games are often created by men for other men or boys. Popular media often helps to promote these messages, discussing violence, sex, and the most extreme games on the market. But the market has begun to shift dramatically within the last ten years. The popularity of the Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS, PC Casual Gaming, and Facebook Games have all helped to create a slightly more diverse audience of gamers—notably, more women gamers.
In recent years video games have begun to be advertised in women’s special interest magazines such as Good Housekeeping, Oprah Magazine, and Real Simple Magazine. While this diversity has created a launch pad for engaging new audiences in this medium, the advertisements often advocate very specific kinds of play. Women’s play is often advertised in tandem with themes of “productivity”: physical, social, or beauty-related. My study considers magazine advertisements from 2006 to 2007 (following the release of the Nintendo DS Lite and Nintendo Wii).
The Nintendo DS Lite was a handheld portable gaming system released in June 2006. While the original model of the Nintendo DS was primarily marketed to traditional, masculine video game audiences, the DS Lite used the slogan “Lighter, Brighter” and was available in a larger variety of colors. The revamped gaming system was advertised in magazines, commuter zone billboards, and on TV commercials.
One early slogan used to advertise the DS Lite was, “Do Something with Your Nothing” which appeared in several women’s magazines. For example, an advertisement appearing in the September 2006 issue of Oprah Magazine shows three people in a waiting room: two women and a man. One woman plays with a Nintendo DS while the other one scowls angrily at the first woman. The advertisement’s main text suggests, “The average wait in a doctor’s office is 23.4 minutes. Do something with your nothing.” Rather than suggesting play for the sake of play, the ad chastises women for wasting time—suggesting that all available time be used in some sort of productive way. This is reinforced by the visuals in the advertisement. The woman who is playing wears brighter colors and sits in a traditional feminine posture. Cattycorner to her, the woman who is not playing wears drab colors and sits in an unfeminine stance. The man in the corner does not appear to be part of the action of this story. The advertisement speaks to the non-player in its chastising tone—it is she who is not properly “doing something with her nothing” and is therefore suffering the consequences. The advertisement implies that women’s play should, perhaps, not be for the sake of play but used as a means to spend time productively while waiting for more important things.
A similar comparison can be seen in two advertisements for the game Brain Age—one meant for women audiences and another meant for men audiences. Brain Age is a “brain training game” meant to make the player “smarter” and was primarily advertised to baby boomer audiences in 2006 and 2007. The advertisement for men appeared in Wired Magazine in May 2006, while the one for women appeared in Real Simple Magazine in June 2006—only one month apart. Immediately, one sees the vast differences between how the product is advertised to men versus women. The advertisement meant for masculine audiences immediately promotes a competitive ethic: In all capitals its headline challenges, “CAN YOU USE A VIDEO GAME TO REWIRE YOUR BRAIN?”
In contrast (and lowercase) the ad meant for feminine audiences makes a softer statement: “What the Japanese have discovered about the fountain of youth.” Immediately the juxtaposed advertisements are promoting different things; that is, the masculine one uses the term “video game” upfront and suggests competition throughout the copy. The feminine ad never refers to Brain Age as a video game. Alternately, the feminine advertisement promotes beauty and self-help, suggesting that caring for one’s brain is counterpart to other parts of a beauty regimen. This becomes most obvious when the advertisement promises players a “36-24-36 cerebrum.”
Visually, the images for the advertisement reinforce these themes of competitive play versus productive (beauty) play. The woman depicted in the feminine advertisement cradles the DS in her palm similar to how one might hold a beauty compact. She is smiling, lightly, and has a halo glow emanating from her. In contrast, the man in the masculine advertisement looks far more serious. His baldness is lit up with circuitry, showing him as being challenged by the same game that makes women more beautiful. Visually these advertisements reinforce what their text says outright; that is, play and technology are within the masculine domain that can only be entered into by women under the guise of beauty and self-care. While both advertisements promote productivity, they are clearly very gendered forms of productivity.
Finally, the Nintendo Wii (released in November 2006) is a gaming system that uses intuitive controllers and motion sensors to make players feel more like they are physically engaging in the actions they perform in-game. Because it was such a dramatically different kind of gaming system, it was advertised to similar women audiences as the Nintendo DS. One of the ways that Nintendo advertised the Wii to this audience was through suggesting that family playtime is ultimately productive for women. This was primarily done through the “My Wii story” campaign. This advertising campaign started as a web site where players could write in about the transformative powers of the Nintendo Wii. For example, one woman wrote that she played while on pregnancy bed rest; that is, literally playing for two. A handful of these posts became magazine advertisements in a variety of women’s special interest magazines. While both men and women wrote in to the “My Wii story” web site, only women were selected for magazine advertisements.
Overall, the magazine advertisements for this campaign suggested that play can (and should) be used in a productive way to show one’s family how much you love them. All of them began by saying that the author (always the matriarch of the household) had never previously enjoyed video games but that this was something different. In one advertisement, Wii advocate Nancy Ponthier explains that her children had her make a Mii (a game avatar for the gaming system) but that her children told her it wasn’t “pretty enough” and improved it. She writes, “I thought that was sweet. They were just so happy I was interested in a video game.” Apparently, the transformative powers of the Wii are so great that it has the power to make a family love a matriarch even more—and think she’s prettier! Because women are so often tasked with social functions in the household, through these advertisements, the Nintendo Wii becomes a form of productive play.
With changing markets and new players constantly “getting in the game,” it is important to consider not only whether or not women are playing, but also how play is being sold to them. The advertisements I studied reinforce traditional themes in which women are only permitted to play certain games, in specific times and ways. While gaining new players is an exciting prospect, it is worth examining how these new forms of play can be nuanced and complicated. These complications can arise for developers who are making games to appease women, but should be wary of playing into negative stereotypes. At the same time, women players can challenge their play and try to find ways to embed video games into their lives without always being so “productive.”