Pink and Blue Pixel$: Gender and Economic Disparity in Two Massive Online Games

Abstract

Information and communication technologies are blurring the boundaries between work and play. We present the first empirical investigation of gender gaps in virtual game economies. Analysing big data sets from two major game economies, we find that player gender and character gender influence virtual wealth in different ways in different games. We conclude that this can be explained by different returns on female-and male-dominated play activities, that is, virtual pink and blue collar occupations. As the line between work and play increasingly blurs, researchers should track which occupations get to keep their conventional economic rewards, and which end up being remunerated in play money. KeywordsVirtual economy, playbor, prosumer work, online community, online games, digital divide, gender gap, occupational segregation, avatars, MMO The remainder of the article is structured as follows. We first briefly introduce the impact of ICT adoption on work and organization, focusing on a recent stream of research that examines online activities that display characteristics of both work and leisure. We argue that online gaming is an important area of activity where this ambiguity is particularly strong. We then move on to review the literature on economic gender gaps and the mechanisms that produce them, after which we finish the theoretical discussion by examining what kinds of gender gaps might be present in virtual game economies. In particular, we note that analyses of virtual gender gaps must consider both player gender as well as genders of the virtual characters through which participants interact. We then present such an empirical analysis, drawing from a large sample of online gamers. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of the results to the larger picture of ICTs and the changing nature of work.

Men Do Not Rule the World of Tanks: Negating the Gender-Performance Gap in a Spatial-Action Game by Controlling for Time Played

“…This study extends two lines of research. It contributes to the external validity of the lab-based studies of video games as a tool for training spatial cognition (Cherney, 2008; Feng et al, 2007), supporting the notion that the gendered-performance gap can be reduced through gaming “in the wild.” Furthermore, this study contributes to the validity of the research on the gender-performance gap stereotype in online games, suggesting that the stereotype is inaccurate for spatial-action games in addition to the less-spatially oriented types of games previously studied (Lehdonvirta et al, 2014; Ratan, Taylor, et al, 2015; Riedl et al, 2015; Shen et al, 2016).…”

“…The present study offers one of the first large-scale examinations of the gender-performance gap stereotype in a spatial-action game, a genre which tends to be stereotypically masculine. This study contributes to a body of research which suggests that performance differences in online games are largely driven by factors that are confounded with gender, such as amount of play time, but not gender itself (Lehdonvirta et al, 2014; Ratan, Taylor, et al, 2015; Riedl et al, 2015; Shen et al, 2016). However, these previous studies examined games that rely on spatial-thinking skills to a lesser extent than in the present research.…”

“…Following the findings from nonspatial-action games (Lehdonvirta et al, 2014;Ratan, Taylor, et al, 2015;Riedl et al, 2015;Shen et al, 2016), we expect that women have spent less time playing than men (Hypothesis 1), and thus the gender-performance gap will appear to be real given a simple comparison of performance between men and women players (Hypothesis 2). However, this gap might be negated when the amount of time spent playing the game is controlled statistically in this comparison.…”

“…Multiple studies have used large-scale data sets to dispel the gender-performance gap stereotype, though these have been almost entirely from nonspatial-action game genres. One study with approximately 14,000 players from the massively multiplayer role-playing online games (MMOs) EVE Online and EverQuest II found that when statistically controlling for the amount of time played, there was no meaningful difference in the amount of virtual resources that men and women accrued (Lehdonvirta et al, 2014). Another study of approximately 11,000 players from Everquest II and Chevaliers’ Romance III , a Chinese MMO, found no difference in the rate at which players levelled up, or increased their in-game levels, when controlling for total time played (Shen et al, 2016).…”

“…Previous research on online games “in the wild” (i.e., field studies) suggests that performance differences are largely driven by factors that are confounded with gender, such as the amount of play time, but not gender itself (Lehdonvirta et al, 2014; Ratan, Taylor, et al, 2015; Riedl et al, 2015; Shen et al, 2016). As a limitation, such field studies have focused on a subset of game genres (e.g., online role-playing games) that require a relatively low level of spatial-thinking skills compared with other genres (e.g., shooters).…”