BLOG 5

I'm choosing Henry Jenkins' strategy on my essay about the video game, Mortal Kombat. Since I’m doing a video game, I thought I could best see the game through his knowledge of the industry. He constantly reminds his readers by supplying his thesis throughout every subsection of the piece. This gender divide is has been a major topic for years, and he relates it to old-fashioned stories geared towards boys and stories geared towards girls. He say the boy culture is less restrictive and usually outside in nature. Girl culture is usually restrictive in usually confined to the home to learn domestic activities. I think like most games Mortal Kombat is geared toward a male audience due to blood and violence often seen in school yard fights. I think this game is a way to channel the aggressiveness of young boys. It’s a way to do this without actually physically hurting someone else and takes them to imaginary world. He explains how even though we have advanced to digital media; many of the old accepted norms still apply. He touches on how girls’ games and boys’ games reinforce the gendered roles separating gamers. Jenkins also mentions games targeting boys made them computer literate and the opposite for girls since they stayed away from technology and boy games. With the creation of girl games they are at least able to become computer literate and have an interest in working with technology based careers. I think the computer and video games should target both genders equally allowing them to create their own male or female characters and environments.  With women gamers being 40 of all gamers, the companies are missing the market and millions of dollars. I also think as more women become gamers, more will become game developers closing the gap in the gender divided gaming world.