'Not only did young boys play video games more often than girls both at home and in arcades (Dominick 1984; Lin and Lepper 1987; Rushbrook 1986).' (Subrahmanyam and Greenfield, p46)
'Kindergartners of both genders viewed video games as more appropriate to boys (Wilder, Mackie and Cooper 1985)' (Subrahmanyam and Greenfield, p46)
'We also found that very soon into the training session, the boys figured out the intricacies of the games, such as different levels and the strategies appropriate to each' (Subrahmanyam and Greenfield, p47)
'Although anecdotal, our observations were in line with other findings that females are not as interested in video games as males are. In the years since, despite efforts by software developers to attract girls to video games, they have remained largely a male province.' (Subrahmanyam and Greenfield, p47)
'In one survey, Kubey and Larson (1990) found that 80 percent of fame playing among nine to fifteen years olds was done by boys.' (Subrahmanyam and Greenfield, p47)
The early attempts to make video games appealing to girls have largely consisted of having female protagonists and making the content nonviolent. The gendering of games was furthered by the advertising, promotion and packaging of the games in the ubiquitous pink and purple boxes (Kinder, 1996).' (Subrahmanyam and Greenfield, p48)
About Kafai: 'Her work revealed consistent gender differences in the kinds of games boys and girls create - not only do girls prefer less violence, but they also prefer different kinds of games, game characters and game worlds.' (Subrahmanyam and Greenfield, p48)
'It is widely believed that the violent content of much video game activity is a major factor in turning girls off video games (Malone 1981; Greenfield 1996). While there is considerable awareness that aggressive themes are not appealing to girls, we revisit the issue of aggressive content as a starting point for our analysis.' (Subrahmanyam and Greenfield, p50)
Aggression started in the second generation with "Breakout", which involved destrtuction but no human aggression...The next generation of games, such as "The Empire Strikes Back," involved human aggression, which took on a more fantastic form with "Super Mario Brothers." It became more personal, with hand to hand combat, in games such as Mortal "Kombat."' (Subrahmanyam and Greenfield, p50)
'Research suggests that girls do not find this violence appealing. For instance, Malone (1981) found that girls did not like a video game when an aggressive fantasy theme was added to it compared to the same game without aggression. Other (Kafai 1996; Nancy Deyo, quoted in De Witt 1997) suggest that girls find the violent content of computer games boring. The empirical evidence confirms that boys are more likely to play games requiring aggressive competition (Heller 1982, cited in Morlock et al. 1986; Kiesler et al. 1985; Lin and Lepper 1987). In line with these tastes, Kafai (1996) found gender differences in the games designed by children regarding feedback resulting from a player's action during the game. She reported that the feedback in boys' games was overwhelmingly violent, whereas the feedback in the firls' games was overwhelmingly nonviolent.' (Subrahmanyam and Greenfield, p51)
'We cannot escape the fact that these differences do exist in boys' and girls' play activities and appear relatively early (Goldstein, 1994)' (Subrahmanyam and Greenfield, p52)
Another relevant aspect of game structure is the characters. Commercially available games rarely cast females in the main role, and even when females are present, they rarely take on an active role (Kinder 1996; Provenzo 1991; Rushbrook 1986).' (Subrahmanyam and Greenfield, p59)
'Although the big game manufacturers have always claimed to design games without regard to gender (Frank Evers, personal communication, August 31, 1997) researchers, parents and other groups soon recognised that most commercially available games were "modeled on only one half of the population, at most, reflect the values and views of only one gender" (Cocking and Greenfield 1996, p.5).' (Subrahmanyam and Greenfield, p59)
'They are aggressive and have the physical attributes of a male-defined sex symbol. This is true of the protagonist of "Tomb Raider,"a game that was released in early 1997 and has a mainly male audience.' (Subrahmanyam and Greenfield, p59)
The ultimate challenge facing software developers is to design games that appeal to any gamer, regardless of gender.' (Subrahmanyam and Greenfield, p66)
Greenfield, P.M, Subrahmanyam, K., 2000. Computer Games for Girls: What Makes Them Play?. In: J. Cassell. H. Jenkins, ed. 2000. From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games. Massachusetts: MIT Press. pp.46-71.
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