Section IV Changing Girls, Changing Games

The authors of our fourth section, Changing Girls, Changing Games have strong ideas about how games and girls should be different and are working towards realizing those visions. We apply a plethora of design research techniques to understand player motivations and to design games which achieve the designers’ goals. We want to change girls, empowering them to become technological superheroes. We want to change games, diversifying and enhancing the play and learning experience. Our motivations vary, from practical perspectives on how to make games more fun and sell to larger markets, to gender equity concerns about increasing girls’ and women’s information technology powers, to designing games for learning which accommodate diverse player types and learning strategies. We hope that the next generation of game designers will read our chapters and as a result, will approach their own future game designs with more gender-conscious perspectives. We hope they will be inspired to focus on game and player goals throughout the design process, informed by their own and others’ design research.