DigiPlay 4: Teaching with, Learning from Computer Games

Friday 28th January 2005
London Knowledge Lab
23-29 Emerald Street
London

Gender, Games Culture and Games Education

Aleks Krotoski, Mark Eyles, Jon Weinbren

Women and girls, we are told, do not participate in gaming cultures in the same way as their male counterparts: females are held to play less, prefer different games, and engage in games with altogether less intensity, than males. What are the implications of this for teachers and facilitators of games studies, games design and games programming degrees? Is it difficult to recruit and retain female students? Do male (and female) hard-core gamers find it difficult to achieve critical distance when studying games? Are some male gamers actually hobbled by ‘anorak-ism’? How do these factors shape dynamics in the classroom? Finally, if men and women are not graduating from games courses in similar numbers, what are the ramifications for Industry? What career paths do women take? Is it difficult to recruit qualified women? Does the Industry perceive this as a problem?

Aleks Krotoski is a doctoral student at the University of Surrey and author of the recent ELSPA paper on women and games ‘Chick and Joysticks’ which is available at the ELSPA website. http://www.elspa.com/about/pr/elspawhitepaper3.pdf

Mark Eyles is the senior lecturer in Computer Games at the University of Portsmouth and the organiser of the 2004 Women in Games Conference (www.womeningames.com)

Jon Weinbren is the creative director of Imaginary Productions, he also chairs TIGA’s special interest group on education (www.tiga.org.uk)

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