I Shot the Cyborg

Well, I’m supposed to be revising my dissertation, but now that the New York Times has blindly picked this up, I can’t really help myself. I first stumbled upon this article a while back on Joystiq.

Joystiq - Science Says: Men’s Brains get More ‘Reward’ from Gaming

The study, which looked at 11 men and 11 women, asked participants to play a simple territorial point-and-click game while hooked up to an fMRI machine. The men in the study showed much great activity in the brain’s “mesocorticolimbic center,” which is associated with reward and addiction. … Yeah, yeah … tell it to the Frag Dolls.

Yeah, and tell it to the ladies I coach hockey for. “You just can’t enjoy it on the same level as us boys.” Not a good idea. I love the fact that the NY Times doesn’t even manage to pick up on a fatal flaw in this study, which even Joystiq commenters notice: sample size. I INTERVIEWED more people in my dissertation research and my research is qualitative. They managed to examine only 22 people, 11 boys, and 11 girls, all, “young adults.” Not to mention that fMRI research is one of the most unproven areas of brain research.

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Oops...unintended consequences, demographics, gender, videogames demographics, Games, gender, Science, Stupid, videogames

One of scratch your head moments in my videogame theory class is when I go over demographics with my students. Yes, videogame demographics are sketchy, at best, as most of the studies are sponsored by very interested parties, but they still have use.

The big, no way, moment, aside from age, comes when we discuss gender. Students have a hard time accepting the 40% women gamer number, initially. Once they stop thinking of Halo or Madden and expand their definition of videogames to include online card games, casual games clarity sets in and the world is fine with female gamers.

So imagine my shock at the headline, “Men also avid players of casual video games: study shows.” While I knew women were well represented in casual games (think of Zuma as an exemplar), I had no idea that folks thought men were adverse to them. According to the article, “The reason men have not been reflected in the data so far is because most males are fans of realistic ‘hardcore’ games and many do not admit they like to play simpler games involving shiny gems or lines of colored balls.”

Wow, I had no idea my masculinity was in question because I enjoy a rousing game of Diner Dash (ok, bad example), but I am relieved to have it restored by this study which shows that women may purchase 3/4 of all casual games, but the play of them is evenly split 50/50 between the sexes.

So guys, no longer need you be ashamed of those casual games on your Xbox Live gamertag, you may wear ‘em proud, thanks to social science! And ladies, you apparently never needed to be embarrassed for playing Tetris Splash, so carry on!

[More: Reuters, Casual Game Association]

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