Games for Girls?

[SamuelRSmith]

I think that once a girl starts playng games she'll love them as much as any boy would, however it's all to do with stereotypes. A boy's stereotype is to get into scraps', to climb trees', to love action movies and to play football, these are all topics covered by vast numbers of games. And then once they start playing games which suit their stereotypes, they move onto more, and higher quality games. However, with girls, it's harder for them to break into the gaming culture. Girls interests (according to stereotype) are to look after the house, to like animals, to go shopping, to communicate with their friends (more so than boys) and to watch soaps and crappy teen dramas on TV. Only recently have games started to cater for these steretypes. In the next few years we will be seeing many more girl gamers, introduced by games that comply with their stereotypes and then to move on to more, and higher quality games. A good example of this is The Sims. It caters towards the female stereotype of being a house keeper and it is hugely popular with the ladies. And alot of girls who play the Sims usually move on to similar games (SimCity being an example). The problem is, with the Sims being releasedc way before other games that cater to the female stereotype, when a gir says she likes games, people assume she means the Sims (and it creates a stereotype within itself). Quite a few people will disagree with me here, but I studied stereotypes and its effect on many things - including its effect on media consumption in media.