Dear All, One of my undergraduate students is studying women 35+ who play casual games such as poker and Bejeweled. She needs some more people to interview through email or in chat. Does anyone know anyone who plays these games in this demographic and if so, how the student could contact them? Or any listservs or whatever that might have such players? She has found several players on MySpace and Facebook who are willing to talk but they are too young for her study. The student has been playing herself but people are reluctant to give interviews when they have no idea who they are talking to. The games are only 30 minutes or so so it's difficult to establish rapport. I think this is an interesting area of research as apparently a lot of women in this age group play, subverting the stereotype that games are for young(ish) males. Thanks for any help. -- Bonnie Bonnie A. Nardi School of Information and Computer Sciences University of California, Irvine Irvine, CA 92697-3440 (949) 824-6534 www.artifex.org/~bonnie/
I'm studying game development in the context of the "game industry', so a bit of a different arena. However, a friend of mine named Shira Chess in Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's LLC program is studying online games with particular interest in gender and age. She's actually found that even more "hardcore" games like World of Warcraft (WoW) or City of Heroes have significant female populations, you often just have to know where to look for them. The other piece is that casual games can also attract a significantly older demographic as well, hence her interest in age. Given the difficulty establishing rapport virtually, she would probably have more luck contacting people in person, explaining her research, and asking folks to refer others to her for a kind of snowball approach to finding people to gather data on. For the most part people I know have focused more on getting in touch with people in person by finding gamers in real life and then contacting them virtually. Shira has been trying to decide how to handle casual games, so if you'd like to contact me off list, I'd be happy to pass on her contact information. She probably also has some pretty significant insights as far as methods for getting in touch with folks. Best. Casey O'Donnell On 1/18/07, Bonnie Nardi <nardi@ics.uci.edu> wrote:
I think this is an interesting area of research as apparently a lot of women in this age group play, subverting the stereotype that games are for young(ish) males.
A couple of interesting points here.... Yes, women over 35 DO play video games (Tracy raises her hand frantically) - all sorts actually - and there is also a stereotype that the only kind of games women like are these 'casual' games. Not the case for all women of course. But - research has shown that women play these 'casual' games more so then men. Why? As noted here, they only take about 30 minutes - and there's a plethora of literature regarding the lack of time people have (women in particular - call it the double day, triple day or whatever). Some of these casual games are sometimes played in the cracks & crevices of the day - whether at work - or at home (and sometimes during children's naps). I digress... I would suggest posting to some Women's Studies lists, women gamers lists and so forth. If you (and the same for you Casey for Shira) contact me off list with some more info/detail about the research - I can post to them. Tracy ******************************************** Tracy L. M. Kennedy PhD Candidate - Department of Sociology Graduate Fellow - Knowledge Media Design Institute Research Coordinator - NetLab - Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 725 Spadina Ave. Toronto, ON M5S 2J4 tkennedy@netwomen.ca www.netwomen.ca www.kmdi.utoronto.ca/collaborative Virtual Research Assistant - Centre for Digital Media Great Northern Way Campus 555 Great Northern Way Vancouver, BC V5T 1E2 Research Director Netwomen Consulting ******************************************** Dear All, One of my undergraduate students is studying women 35+ who play casual games such as poker and Bejeweled. She needs some more people to interview through email or in chat. Does anyone know anyone who plays these games in this demographic and if so, how the student could contact them? Or any listservs or whatever that might have such players? She has found several players on MySpace and Facebook who are willing to talk but they are too young for her study. The student has been playing herself but people are reluctant to give interviews when they have no idea who they are talking to. The games are only 30 minutes or so so it's difficult to establish rapport. I think this is an interesting area of research as apparently a lot of women in this age group play, subverting the stereotype that games are for young(ish) males. Thanks for any help. Bonnie A. Nardi
One thing interesting about this 30 minute thing is that a recent study (excerpt below) on casual gaming indicates that even though one "session" of a game might take 30 minutes, many casual gamers actually game for 2 or more hours several days a day, which is actually about on par with "hardcore" gamers. Sometimes this is even contiguous time, so it might have more to do with styles/types of play. Rather than previous notions based on the "crevice" idea. Casey -- Study: 'Casual' Players Exhibit Heavy Game Usage http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=9893 A new report released by Macrovision Corporation, which operates the Trymedia Network for the digital distribution of PC games, reveals that, according to a recent worldwide survey, 37 percent of those who use casual games play nine or more two-hour 'sessions' each week. In addition, the survey, of 789 worldwide participants, found that casual gameplay happens most often at night, as opposed to during commute hours or other 'quick break' times during the day, again indicating that the moniker 'casual' is a little anachronistic for the gameplay style. Other findings include the fact that 37 percent of casual game players are between the ages of 35-49, while 28 percent fall between the ages of 50-60. Casual game players were found to be predominately female, with women making up 71 percent of those playing. Interestingly, 58 percent of those surveyed were found to have no children under age 18 living in their households. Puzzle games was found to be the most popular genre of casual games, capturing the attention of 67 percent of those surveyed, followed by card games with 44 percent. 35 percent of the participants preferred strategy games, while only 34 percent most liked to play action games. Additional interesting findings in the report include that 30 percent of those surveyed have downloaded more than 21 games in the last year, while 70 percent have purchased a game after first playing it free of charge on the internet. 67 percent indicated that they read game reviews, and 46 percent of those who do feel they are influenced to try or purchase a new game by the reviews they read. "Our survey has determined that mainstream audiences dedicate a substantial amount of time to gameplay -- not just in 15-minute increments as previously thought," said Loren Hillberg, executive vice president and general manager of Commerce at Macrovision. "Whether advertisers are reaching out to casual or core audiences, we want them, through the results of our survey, to realize who gamers are, how they operate and what they like." On 1/19/07, T. Kennedy <tkennedy@netwomen.ca> wrote:
But - research has shown that women play these 'casual' games more so then men. Why? As noted here, they only take about 30 minutes - and there's a plethora of literature regarding the lack of time people have (women in particular - call it the double day, triple day or whatever). Some of these casual games are sometimes played in the cracks & crevices of the day - whether at work - or at home (and sometimes during children's naps).
participants (3)
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Bonnie Nardi -
Casey O'Donnell -
T. Kennedy