Reflecting on our Presentation

On January 19, me and my group voiced our presentation to our tutors. We took all the research we had done since the beginning of the project and condensed it in to a fifteen minute presentation on Prezi. Click here to view the presentation.

Overall the presentation went quite well. It was timed at 13 minutes which was ideal. I think that the presentation that we put together looked appealing and easy to follow as we condensed all our material into basic notes on the slides and expanded into it more in our speech.

However, I do think that we could have added a little bit more detail in to some of the slides, such as those about the theorists we researched (Tito Hartmann and Christoph Klimmt). I think it would have been beneficial to expand on the studies that they did to support our own theories. I also think we should have put more detail in the slides that explained what we thought that Rebel Play could do to attract more women into playing console games, as this was the main purpose of our research.

Here is what we talked about during our presentation.

"Slide 1
Our presentation today is about the question set by Rebel Play and what the company can do to reach the desired target market of females. The question set for us was “Do media platforms & genres have specific gender appeal? Why don’t more women play console games?”.

Slide 2
To start our research on the question we looked at two theorists, Tilo Hartmann and Christoph Klimmt, who in 2006 did a study of german women to find the reasons for the computer game world being mainly male orientated. They came up with this quote which we used as the starting point of our own study: "On average, girls and women are less involved with video games than
are boys and men, and when they do play, they often prefer different games".

Slide 3
This is where we started our own study to find out the reason for women playing console games less than men, and answering the question given to us. We created a questionnaire and asked 3 different age groups questions relating to console games. The age groups were people aged under 16, 16-25 and over 25 years of age. In each of these age groups we asked 15 males and 15 females the same questions and compared the answers. The graphs on the next set of slides show our results and comparisons.

Slide 4 & 5
The first question we asked each age group and gender “Do you play console games?” with the results showing the significant difference between genders, with only 15 out of 45 females play console games compared to 38 out of 45 males who play.

Slide 6
We then asked those who play console games how often they play. The results showed that the majority of males played every day, whilst the majority of the girls only played once or twice a week. These results are already showing that the theory about men playing console games more than women is true.

Slide 7 & 8
When asked what consoles they played, we found very different results from each gender. Most of the females said that the play on the Nintendo Wii and DS, whilst men favoured the Playstation and Xbox. The types of games played were also different. Women said that they prefer platform games and games that involved solving puzzles or dance games, whilst men answered that they prefer to play shooting games.

Slide 9
We then focused a question to those people who said they didn’t play console games, which was generally more female participants. We asked them why they do not play console games and what we found out was that for both male and female the main reason was lack of time to play. However, more women than men gave the reason for lack of interest being the factor for not
playing.

Slide 10
The results from the questionnaire were what we
originally expected from the participants and agreed with the theory of Hartmann and Klimmt, who did a similar questionnaire to German women in 2006. The main points we found out from our questionnaire were that overall women do play console games significantly less than males do and that the main factor for not playing console games for women was lack of time and interest in the games. For women who do play console games, the Nintendo Wii is the most popular game console, and Platform, Dance and Puzzle games are the most popular genre of
games.

Slide 11 – Wii Advert Video
From looking at the results, it shows clear reasons for the choices to females playing console games, with Dance and puzzle games being more social and energetic games which attract females. The Nintendo Wii is the most popular choice of console for females, compared to Xbox for males. Nintendo’s way of advertising the games console is a lot more attractive for females, showing the console as a social and energetic console best played with friends and family.

Slide 12 – XBOX advert Video
The xbox advert is the complete opposite to the Wii advert and has been advertised in a completely different way. The advert is not appealing to females, with the main character in the advert being male and is displayed on his own the whole way through the advert, which is the opposite to the wii advert which had groups of people playing the game at the same time
together. The xbox advert appeals to males who tend to enjoy playing games consoles on there own more. The colours used in the advert are very dark and grey scale, which relates to War and shooting, which is a popular choice of games for males. The wii advert used bright colours and spacious rooms showing a more fun and social approach to playing.

Slide 13 – XBOX Kinect advert video
The advert for xbox Kinect uses the same styling as the Nintendo wii, showing the console as a fun, lively, energetic and social way of playing, using bright colours and both female and male characters and families. This has more appeal to females and shows the way xbox are aiming their console to a more female audience than before.

Slide 14
Nintendo of America said that 80% of female gamers in the U.S. prefer Wii game console over other video game systems. The company claims that this is a result of purposeful effort to enlarge the video game market. “This didn't happen by accident. It's the result of a deliberate attempt to expand the market,” said Reggie Fils-Aime, the president of Nintendo of America.

Slide 15
The original theorists we studied were Tilo Hartmann and Christopher Klimmt who conducted a paper-and-pencil survey administered among 317 females aged 18 to 26 years. They came to the conclusion through researching in Germany and looked further in to the reasoning for women’s choice of games and found out that the most popular choice of games for women involve many social interactions with other virtual interactions, a non-sexualised role for a female protagonist and non-aggressive content. Their results and theory’s agree with what we found out from more age groups.

Slide 16
From our own research through a questionnaire and research from theorists we have found out 3 factors that could help rebel play sell more games to females. The main thing that attracts women to games is to have a female protagonist to take control and have social interactions during
the game. Another factor would be to create games that have real life social interactions, games
that can be played in groups of friends or family. Also, games with less violence involved attract females more. These factors could help Rebel Play open up a a new female market".

What could Rebel Play do?

Our task was to answer the question that Rebel Play posed for us when they visited, and suggest what they could do to attract more females to the gaming market. From our research, this is what we came up with.

• Use more females as main characters. In games such as COD, the main characters are dominantly male. It was suggested in some of the initial research that we did online, that girls feel more powerful when they see games that have a female protagonist, such as Lara Croft in Tomb Raider.
• Social interactions in real life and the games. Studies show that girls are more social than males. This is one of the reasons that girls do not play console games; they prefer to go out and socialise with their friends instead. It could be said that a solution to this is already being developed, as a lot of games consoles now allow for people to interact with each other. The Xbox and newer Playstation consoles allow for online multiplayer gaming, whilst the Nintendo Wii and DS are good for playing games with other people in close proximity.
• Less violence. The majority of these online multiplayer games are shooting games and sports games. It is a typical stereotype of males to be into sports and violence. If more games were developed involving more female interests (see questionnaire results; females enjoy platform games, adventure and puzzle games, and dance games), then girls may feel more inclined to play them.

Games Console Adverts

In my initial post about this question, I mentioned how the advertisements for games consoles seemed to be aimed at specific genders. We found these games console adverts on YouTube which support this theory.



This advert is for the Nintendo Wii. Whilst some men appear in this advert, a lot of the people are women, showing that it is aimed at both males and females. The Nintendo Wii is advertised as a console that is best for multiplayer gaming. Research suggests that females are more sociable people and like to interact with other people, which could make this advert appealing to women.



This advert for the xbox, on the other hand, has only one person in it, which may suggest that the xbox is best for solo play. The character is male, and the advert could portray males as more independent people.