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new media & society 12(2)

Introduction
In 2008, Beyond Barbie and Mortal Kombat: New Perspectives on Gender and Gaming was published (Kafai et al., 2008). Its title and contents position it as a sequel to From Barbie to Mortal Kombat (Cassell and Jenkins, 1998). This seminal collection of essays carne to function as a manifesto which advocated more gaming by girls and the development of more digital entertainment games for them.! The editors of the 2008 volume observe in their Preface that the circumstances of gender and games had changed in the preceding decade, but not radically so. The number of female players had increased significant1y, but females still play fewer games and spend less time do ing so than their male counterparts (Kafai et al., 2008). The persistent gender differences in gaming could be interpreted as a simple matter of taste: men tend to prefer fishing too, and are noticeably more enthusiastic about model railways than most women. We think, however, that it is necessary to continue the investigation of gender differences because of the notion that 'the relationship between boys' comparatively higher interest in computer games and their comparatively larger representation in high-power jobs is not accidental' (Cassell and Jenkins, 1998: 11). A better understanding offemale game preferences and their reasons for playing particular games may contribute to greater insight into the more complex issue of unequal participation in information technology and the subsequent unequal distribution of power (AAUW, 2000; Jansz and Vosmeer, 2009; Kafai, 2009; Kafai et al., 2008; NCWIT, 2009). This article aims to contribute to gender and games research by empirically investigating gendered play pattems. aur work is theoretically embedded in two perspectives. We first use social role theory as a general, explanatory framework. It argues that the different social roles in which both sexes are socialized in contemporary society direct the individual behaviours that are required for these roles (Eagly and Koenig, 2006). Boys playing games is more socially accepted than girls doing so, and boys will, thus, play them and girls will not, or at least not to the same extent. Social role theory easily runs into the dan ger of essentializing gender differences by suggesting that ali girls share the same preferences, as do boys (Cassell, 2002). In this article, we have dealt empirically with the danger of essentialism by investigating gender differences in the context of other individual characteristics, thus allowing for diversity within both groups. aur research concentrates on players of one game, The Sims, because ever since its launch in 2000, it has often been portrayed as the ultimate example of a game which has been able to attract female players. Yet this assertion had never been substantiated with research data about the actual composition of the Sims' player base." Accordingly, we conducted an exploratory survey among Dutch players of The Sims2 (N = 760), which was released in 2004.3 We also included a more profound investigation which focused on the reasons why people play The Sims2. Here, we supplemented social role theory with a second theoretical framework, the uses and gratifications perspective in communication science. It sees media users as active agents whose media preferences and choices are largely determined by their personal motivations (Rubin, 2002; Ruggiero, 2000). In this article we therefore investigated to what extent the motivations of male and female players of The Sims2 differed (Lucas and Sherry, 2004).