Gaming and Gender

Williams, Consalvo, Caplan, and Yee have produced a piece (pre-pub version) that touches on the gaming and gender issue. As you may recall, Williams, Caplan, and Yee published in July 2008 an article that attempts to debunk the gamer gender stereotype. In other words, the image of a young boys playing video games alone in their parents' basement is no longer an accurate one. The latest article, which has been accepted to the Journal of Communication takes a more obvious gender approach due to its use of gender role theory as a lens with which to view the data. The data used in this analysis came from a large survey dataset and unobtrusive behavior data from one year of game play. The focus of this work was on the massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) EverQuest 2 (EQ2), and the primary research question centered around the basic differences between male and female EQ2 players.

Starting with some of the demographics, 80% of the sample were male (N=2,006) and 20% were female (N=434). Williams et al. found that the females were older, less likely to be students, less likely to be employed, but played more hours than their male counterparts. Females played for social reasons, but the males played to beat the game. Also, the females typically played with a romantic partner, whereas the males played alone. In cases where the males and females played together, the males were often less happy than the females. Why? Maybe the males felt like their space was being invaded? Maybe they didn't like their female partners interacting with other male players? Maybe the females were as skilled (if not more so) than the males, and they didn't like being shown up by their partners? Questions, lot of questions.

There's more. Both genders underreport the amount of time they play video games. However, the female players underreported their gameplay activities at a substantially higher rate than the males. In terms of the players health, the males thought they were healthy and fit. Interestingly, even though the females played for longer periods of time, which means they were engaged in prolonged periods of sedentary activities, the females were actually healthier than the males. The health and fitness levels of the males were aligned with the assumptions but the female levels were not. Could this be the result of inaccurate self-reports by the females? The authors claim that more research is needed to further investigate this issue.

One demographic question the authors asked was related to sexual identification, which produced, according to Williams and his colleagues, unpredicted results. The analysis found that female players were more more likely to report being bisexual; in contrast, males were less likely to report being homosexual. These findings were surprising in that they did not match the general population estimates. Almost 4% of the males and approximately 7% of the females declined to respond to the question put forth by Williams et al., so the difference between the EQ2 players and the general population estimates could be even more pronounced.

Gender differences among individuals who venture into virtual worlds is a rather untapped area. Thus, research like the Williams et al. study is important to further our understanding of gameplay activity. This is a first step, and more research is definitely needed to investigate the plethora of questions that remain. Are EQ2 players unique or do they share characteristics with World of Warcraft (WoW) players or even Second Life (SL) residents? Longitudinal research is needed as well to determine whether these characteristics represent a snapshot in time or whether they persist over extended periods of gameplay in virtual environments that continue to evolve.