Women and Gaming: The Sims and 21st Century Learning

216 Pages·2010·1.52 MB·English

by  James Paul Gee

Women and Gaming
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Women and Gaming
The Sims and 21st Century Learning
James Paul Gee and Elisabeth R. Hayes
women and gaming
Copyright © James Paul Gee and Elisabeth R. Hayes, 2010.
All rights reserved.
First published in 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a
division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe, and the rest of the world, this is
by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in
England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21
6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has
companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United
Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN: 978-0-230-62341-5
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gee, James Paul.
Women and gaming: The Sims and 21st century learning / James Paul Gee and
Elisabeth R. Hayes.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-230-62341-5
1. Simulation games in education. 2. Video games—Social aspects. 3. Video games
for women. 4. Sims—Computer games. I. Hayes, Elisabeth. II. Title.
LB1029.S53G44 2009
794.8082—dc22 2009038279
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Scribe Inc.
First edition: May 2010
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America.
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
1 Introduction: Gaming Goes Beyond Gaming 1
2 Video Games and Twenty-First-Century Skills: Why the
Sudden Worldwide Interest in Video Games and Learning? 17
3 The Nickel and Dimed Challenge: Designing New Forms
of Socially Conscious Play 41
4 A Young Girl Becomes a Designer and Goes Global:
Succeeding at Twenty-First-Century Skills but Not at School 61
5 How Passion Grows: A Retired Shut-In Goes from Making a
Purple Potty to Gaining Millions of Fans 83
6 Passionate Affinity Groups: A New Form of Community that
Works to Make People Smarter 105
7 A Young Girl and Her Vampire Stories: How a Teenager
Competes with a Best-Selling Author 125
8 From The Sims to Second Life: A Young Woman Transforms
Her Real Life 145
9 What Does It All Mean?: What Women and The Sims Have to
Teach Us about What Education and Learning Will Look Like
in the Twenty-First Century 167
Notes 185
References 187
Index 203
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Acknowledgments
We wish to thank the MacArthur Foundation whose Digital Media and
Learning initiative funded the research on which this book is based. We
particularly wish to thank Connie Yowell, the director of the initiative. Con-
nie has been a driving force behind a great deal of the research on digital
media and learning over the last few years. Her work and vision has been
instrumental in starting this new field off on a solid footing. We would
also like to thank our former colleagues in what is now the Games, Learn-
ing, and Society Program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison: Erica
Halverson, Rich Halverson, David Williamson Shaffer, Constance Steinkue-
hler, and Kurt Squire. So much of our work on games and learning was
developed while we were among these outstanding young scholars.
We would also like to thank the women who were part of the Tech-
Savvy research team over the three years of the project: Elizabeth King,
Barbara Johnson, Jayne Lammers, and Yoonhee Lee. Their commitment
to the project and willingness to take on every task, no matter how large
or small, were invaluable. We want to recognize in particular Beth King’s
contribution to Chapter 4. She devoted endless hours to working with Jade
and the other girls in the first Tech Savvy Girls group and collected much
of the data that formed the basis for that chapter.
Lastly, we wish to express our gratitude to Sam, Jade, Tabby Lou, Alex,
and Jesse, whose stories provide the heart and soul of this book. We also
thank the other girls and women (and men) who are mentioned in the
book, as well as the many others who inspired us and challenged our think-
ing about women and gaming.
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Chapter 1
Introduction
Gaming Goes Beyond Gaming
In this book, we are going to talk about video games. But, perhaps sur-
prisingly, we are going to talk about people doing things with games
beyond playing them. We are going to talk about how gaming today has
moved beyond just playing the game to involve players with design, pro-
duction, and participation in learning communities. Furthermore, we are
going to focus on girls and women. Though much of the media and aca-
demic interest in games has focused on males, we argue that, in the trend
to take gaming beyond game play, females are leading the way in some very
interesting respects.
Much attention has been paid to violent video games like Grand Theft
Auto or Counter-Strike. However, a great many video games are not violent:
games like SimCity, Harvest Moon, and the beautiful independent game
Flower. In this book we will concentrate on a nonviolent game that has
been controversial, The Sims.
The Sims is the best-selling video game in history. In 2008, The Sims,
in all it versions and expansions, reached a milestone of over one hun-
dred million copies sold since its launch and is still going strong (Ortutay,
2008). The Sims 3, which came out in June 2, 2009, sold 1.4 million copies
in its first week, the best launch in Electronics Arts’ (EA’s) history, one of
the world’s largest game companies (Terdiman, 2009). The game has been
published in sixty countries and twenty-two languages (Mountjoy, 2008).