THE GRIPS OF FANTASY:

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THE GRIPS OF FANTASY

• FEMALE CHARACTERS IN COMPUTER GAMES

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"We may be toying with the body when we play, but
we remain flesh as we become machines."

• Lahti (2003 169)

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ABSTRACT

• Videogames have become a huge success in
  contemporary pop culture, both as ludic devices
  and as narrative instruments. Because of their
  immense popularity they are also the didactic
  means in which a number of social constructs are
  spread and perpetuated. This is particularly true
  in the case of Diablo and World of Warcraft, two
  games produced by Blizzard Inc. This study uses a
  hybrid method to study both games as texts,
  combining Faircloughs (2003) approach to
  critical discourse analysis and Corpus
  Linguistics. The main Corpus was compiled by
  gathering texts about the characters in these two
  computer games, and their accompanying visual
  representations, from a) official Blizzard
  websites and b) user-edited websites and forums.
  Further data was gathered through the application
  of a questionnaire about male and female
  characters in these two games to 50 participants,
  and by playing each game and recording in-game
  interactions with non-playing characters and with
  other players. The linguistic data was examined
  using a concordancer, and then analysed following
  Faircloughs (2003) approach. The devised
  methodology makes a strong emphasis in the
  correlation of linguistic and visual data.
  Through this correlation and analysis it was
  determined that there is a strong discourse of
  gender difference operating within these two
  games.

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BACKGROUND

• 1.  What Is A Computer Game?
• 2. What Type Of Computer Games Are Diablo And
  Wow?
• 3. How Do RPG and MMORPG Fit into The Field Of
  Computer Mediated Communication ?
• 4.  Can CG be Studied as Texts?
• 5. How Is Gender Socially Constructed? The
  Social Constructionist Theory
• 6. What Are Some Issues in the Representation
  of Women During the Production and Marketing of
  CG as Media?
• 6.1 The Issue Of Invisibility
• 7. Who Is The Ideal Cg Player/Consumer,
  And How Is This Subject Position Of An Ideal
  Gamer Constructed In Mainstream Media?
• 8.       How Is The Femininity Of Female
  Characters Signified Through Signs And Symbols?
• 9. How does this Signification Affect Character
  Appeal and Gameplay?

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I continue to believe that one should not
characterize linguists or researchers of any
kind, in terms of a single favourite tie to
reality ( ) I would like to see the day when we
will all be more versatile in our methodologies,
skilled at integrating all the techniques we will
be able to discover for understanding this most
basic, most fascinating, but also most elusive
manifestation of the human mind.

• (Chafe 199296 in Hardt-Mautner19951)

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METHODOLOGY

• 1. Why Use Corpora As A Tool For The CDA Of CMC?
• 1.1 What is CDA?
• 1.2 What is A Corpus? Why Use Corpora To
  Study CMC?
• 2. Data-Collection Instruments And Development
  Of Procedures Practical Constraints
• 3. The Sample (Overview)
• 4. Methodology Of Data Collection
• 4.1 Questionnaires
• 4.2 Recruitment Of Participants
• 4.3 Questionnaire Application Procedure
• 4.4 On Line Texts
• 4.5 Requesting Permission To Use Online Data
• 4.6 Procedure For Official And Unofficial
  Websites
• 4.7 Images
• 4.7.1 Images Found In Websites.
• 4.7.2 In-Game Images And Interactions
• 4.7.3 Videos
• 4.8 Online Forums
• 4.9 Data Selection From Forums

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Methods Of Data Analysis

• 5.1 Corpus
• A suitable concordancer (AntCon version 3.2.0)
  was downloaded and tested. This concordancer
  only had to provide me with concordance lines of
  selected node words, as grammatical categories
  will not be directly relevant to this study.
• I obtained quantitative results by using key node
  words related to gender (he, she, him, her) as
  well as character names. These results provided
  some insights into the number of male and female
  characters and their relative importance in the
  texts. These searches were performed using both
  the full Corpus, as well as separate parts of it
  (only Blizzard-produced texts, or only
  Questionnaire answers, for example).
• More node words were selected and found using the
  concordancer. Random concordance lines were
  selected for analysis, depending on the amount of
  data obtained in each search.
• From these concordance lines information was
  obtained on what is central and typical in the
  texts contained in the corpus. We found, for
  example, what words usually accompany the third
  person pronoun she as opposed to its masculine
  counterpart. Concordance lines were annotated
  where necessary.
• The concordance lines provided by the Corpus were
  examined to find regularities and patterns.
• The adjectives produced by questionnaire
  respondents were classified into two lists one
  for all male characters and one for all female
  characters.
• A representative random sample of images from the
  corpus was selected for general as well as
  detailed analysis.

• 5.2 Additionally, qualitative information was
  drawn from the following
• Playing both games, and keeping note of other
  texts and images contained in them (these were
  added to the corpus as a separate section).
  NOTE I had not played either of these games
  prior to this stage. I had, however, played
  other games that use the same type of interface,
  so as to train myself in the use of the
  controls and not be distracted by these
  technicalities during gameplay.
• Keeping notes of gamer-gamer in-game interactions
  (by means of taking screenshots whenever
  possible).
• Playing both games using both male and female
  characters, and taking notes of other players
  reactions to my avatars appearance (by means of
  taking screenshots, whenever possible).
• Keeping record of my own reactions and experience
  when trying out these games. Keeping record of
  ones impressions has been criticized as a
  technique for its apparent lack of objectivity.
  Other researchers, however, feel it is better to
  keep accurate and systematic record of ones
  impressions, and they feel this can provide very
  detailed insights into the participants
  perspective that some research might otherwise
  lack. This information can also be very useful
  for comparing notes is this piece of research
  is replicated.

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RESULTS

• 1. 1 . Frequency in Diablo

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Frequency of Male and Female Pronouns in Diablo
Corpus (All)
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1. 2 . Frequency and Collocation In Wow
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1.3 Questionnaires
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2. 1 Visual Representation of Diablo Characters
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2. 2 Visual Representation of Wow Characters
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2.2.1 Professions
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ANALYSIS

• Internal Analysis of The Text
• -KWIC
• -CDA
• Positioning the Texts in Relation to Genres
• - CONTEXT DIFFERENCE

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CONCLUSIONS

• There is a strong discourse of difference in
  these two CGs.
• This discourse of difference does seem to lead to
  traditional dichotomies in the male-female roles.
• There is nothing inherent to these games that
  requires it to be so. This can change.

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EVALUATION

• Language and time restricted much that could have
  been done.
• It is necessary to expand on the analysis,
  perhaps using a different method, or a blend of
  methods.

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SUGGESTIONS

• Focus on one game at a time, or more than one
  game of the same type, e.g. RPGs or MMORPGs, or
  platform. I would go as far as suggesting
  focusing on games with the same themes (medieval
  wars, futuristic space travel).
• A better frame for analysis might have been FPDA
  (feminist post-structuralist discourse analysis).
  It would be interesting to combine an eclectic
  study like this one with this method of analysis.

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LUDOGRAPHY

• Grand Theft Auto (Rockstar North, 1998-2007).
• Leisure Suit Larry (Sierra Entertainment
  1980-2008)
• Duke Nukem 3D (3D Realms 1996)
• Diablo I (Blizzard Entertainment 1996)
• Diablo II (Blizzard Entertainment 2000)
• Diablo II Lord Of Destruction (Expansion).(Blizza
  rd Entertainment 2001)
• World of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment 2004)
• World of Warcraft The Burning Crusade
  (Expansion). (Blizzard Entertainment 2007)

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THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!

• ?

isamar.carrillo_at_gmail.com