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Feminist Media Studies

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“It's A Boy Thing”
Helen Thornham

Online Publication Date: 01 June 2008

To cite this Article: Thornham, Helen (2008) '“It's A Boy Thing”', Feminist Media
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“IT’S A BOY THING”

Gaming, gender, and geeks

Helen Thornham
The recent proliferation of videogame theory has opened up a body of work concerned with
legitimating the videogame as a viable cultural text. However, there is still a significant gap in
research around addressing the lived cultures or cultural practices of gaming as an embedded
domestic leisure activity. Furthermore, research into the “cultural practices” of videogames reveals
that predications to play, perceptions about, and actual play are highly gendered in ways that
reveal gaming as a normalised and normalising technology. This article is the result of nearly four
years ethnographic research, during which I interviewed and recorded gamers and gameplay. Six
out of the eleven participatory households are represented here. The scope of the research is also
expanded through the questionnaire of, at the time of writing, 118 respondents. Included in this
demographic are all-female and all-male households, mixed gender, sexuality, and ethnicity and
diverse geographical intake from Northern Ireland to southern England. Throughout my research
and this article, I argue the political and social necessity of including gamers into research on
gaming, in order to better understand the significance of gaming and gaming discourses on our
social and political lives.

Videogames are gendered. They are gendered in terms of perceptions about gaming
“itself” being always-already a “boys’ activity”; they are gendered in terms of genre choices;
in terms of “actual” gaming dynamic—where, how and with whom games are played; and
perhaps most damningly, they are gendered in terms of the critical language and rhetoric
informing videogame theory to date. In other words, the way videogames are both thought
of and used, critically and popularly, physically and rhetorically, is gendered. For the gamers
represented here, gender is both a favoured conscious category of distinction, but also a
negotiated and performed articulation of it. However, this is not to suggest anything
essential about gender. My aim is to highlight how gendered relations, gendered identities,
and gendered typologies are produced within, rather than straightforwardly determinant
of, gaming activities.
This article is the result of nearly four years of ethnographic “investigation” into
gaming households and outlines a few key findings of the research. The research is based
around console gaming, by which I mean those games mediated through the television set.
The prerequisite for this research was that the households had some sort of gaming device
and it became interesting that, despite a plethora of consoles (handhelds, personal
computers, laptops and videogames), videogaming was central as the admissible pastime
in households where PC and handheld consoles were also present (and used for gaming).
Although small-scale, it indicates some real problems for both the gaming industry and
videogame theory in terms of the depth of the socio-cultural gendering of this medium.
In relation to the industry, it suggests that avatar design or “games for grrls” will do little

Feminist Media Studies, Vol. 8, No. 2, 2008

ISSN 1468-0777 print/ISSN 1471-5902 online/08/020127-142
q 2008 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/14680770801980505
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128 HELEN THORNHAM

to remedy the situation which is much more entrenched than interface or marketing
strategies allow for (see also Cassell & Jenkins [1998] 2000; Schott & Horrell 2000; Taylor
2003). For videogame theory, it highlights the limitations of research focusing solely on
what is offered to gamers (see King & Krzywinska 2006, p. 6), rather than how games are
played, enjoyed, and understood. Indeed, as Dovey and Kennedy (2006, p. 28) suggest, it is
the cultural context of gaming which makes it not only so interesting, but also socio-
politically relevant.
This article continues the debate. While work on video and computer games has, to
some extent, been aware of gender issues and concerns (here I am thinking specifically of
Carr, Buckingham, Burn & Schott 2006; Cassell & Jenkins [1998] 2000; Livingstone 2002), the
more recent work, including Dovey and Kennedy as cited above, has also begun to address
issues of social context. Widening the scope of videogame theory to include where, when,
and how games are played is not a new remit. There is an element of familiar cyclicality in
approaches to certain technologies, where the initial celebration of a “new” technology as
autonomous and entirely novel latterly (belatedly) becomes a discussion of its social and
cultural relevance. This points to wider socio-political narratives concerning what is lost and
gained in the “domestication” of technology, as well as academic approaches to technology
more generally, which are also raised through this research. It is at the juncture where
technological autonomy meets the “domestication” and “appropriation” of it, that this
research intersects. It focuses on interviews with gaming households and is interested in
the gendered discourses of gaming, by which I mean the cultural and social context of
gaming, and gendered intricacies of the discussions and performances of gaming. I take as
a starting point Cassell and Jenkins ([1998] 2000, p. 19) and Carr et al.’s (2006, pp. 171– 2)
concerns that female interviewees answer questions with “what they are supposed to say”
(Cassell & Jenkins [1998] 2000, p. 19) which reflects a wider issue around the social power
dynamics framing and affecting identity positions from which gamers speak. There are, of
course, problems with positioning videogames within more socio-cultural and discursive
parameters, not least because of the performative issue highlighted by Cassell and Jenkins.
There are also concerns around losing sight of the role of the technology in gaming
scenarios—losing the “newness” and indeed the “technology” through the “domestication”
of it. I am also concerned with maintaining the active, physical, and interactive elements of
play which also can be sidelined in this kind of approach. Indeed, I would argue that
understanding videogames in relation to discursive performance needs to include all these
elements, and certainly keep sight of the role of the technology and its material
importance. Of course, having said that, the limited space of an article necessitates these
latter concerns remain temporarily abstract.
For the purposes of this article, I concentrate mainly on six gaming households and
certain key interviews about gaming pleasures and preferences (rather than, for example,
gaming memories or recording of gameplay) (see Table 1 for a description of each
household). These examples are the most coherent expressions of wider opinions (I think),
as well as being reflective of the specific scenarios to which they refer. The figures in the
graphs represent the “heavy” gamers (over 20 hours per week), and are provided for
purposes of clarity, support and curiosity (see Figure 1). While the questionnaire (from
which these statistics are taken) does not form a vital part of the article, the figures also
represent the gamers quoted here. They simply offer a wider statistical coverage as well as
further discussion points. The two sections of the article are divided into discussion about
gaming and “actual” gameplay. The first section focuses on perceptions and genre
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“IT’S A BOY THING” 129

preferences of gaming, notably in relation to how initial gaming choices are always-already
a negotiation with social and cultural assumptions about gendered pastimes. I suggest that
the assumptions about gaming frame gaming choices, bleeding into “actual” play. Rather
than view gaming on it own, either in relation to the specific technology or, as other
ethnographers have done, away from the settings in which gaming occurs, I argue that play
and the social context of it, operate in a much more symbiotic relationship which needs to
be considered. The second section therefore looks at how dynamics of each household are
played out during gaming itself. It is the discussions of gaming I concentrate on, however,

Table I
Description of each gaming household
Household 1 Sara (24, heterosexual, “other” ethnicity,* middle class**), Simon (25, heterosexual,
white, middle class), Steve (22, homosexual, white, middle class), and Ben
(25, homosexual, white, French, middle class). In the earlier stages of the interviews,
Sara and Simon were partners, and when they split up, Sara moved to London with
Clare and Chloe. Simon moved in with Joe and Lorna (another couple). I knew Sara
from university when a few of our English Literature courses overlapped, and
I recognised Simon in passing (he had gone to the same university). I followed both Sara
and Simon when they moved out of this house: Simon stayed in Brighton and Sara
moved to London. The interviews represented here include all housemates,
and Sara’s later comments refer to the time when she had left this house and was in an
all-female environment.
Household 2 “Methleys 1 and 2”: Nathan (28, heterosexual, white, middle class), Heung
(31, heterosexual, Vietnamese), Duncan (28, heterosexual, white, working class), Peter
(28, heterosexual, white, working class), and Al (28, heterosexual, white, middle class).
This house has been the longest of the households I have interviewed. I started talking to
them about gaming in 2003, asking them to do word association games and
interviewing them. The house had changed at the start of the second year of research—it
became an all-male household. In the original house, Nathan and Heung were a
couple. However, Heung and Nathan left in 2004 to return to Vietnam. Nathan was
replaced by Bob (26, heterosexual, white, working class), and Peter left in 2005 to be
replaced by Ricky (28, heterosexual, white, middle class). This house was located in
Leeds. I knew Peter because he was the older brother of a classmate at secondary
school. I knew Duncan and Peter from Durham (where I also grew up). The quotes
referenced in this article are from when Heung and Nathan had left, and the
interviewees were all male.
Household 3 This is the household into which Simon moved from Household 1. It was inhabited by
Joe (30, heterosexual, “other,” middle class) and Lorna (30, heterosexual, “other,”
middle class). Joe and Simon had done a PGCE together and at the time of the
interviews were about to start working at the same school. Joe and Lorna were visiting
one evening when I was interviewing Household 1 and consequently became
interested in the research and invited me to record them game in their home after Simon
had moved in with them. Simon and Joe were present in the interviews referenced to
this house and when quoted, it is from the time Joe and Lorna visited Household 1. This
was a big group interview consisting of all of Household 1 as well as Joe and Lorna.
Household 4 Another house in Leeds and was inhabited by Rob (32, heterosexual, white, middle
class) and Rach (as above). I followed Rach when she moved to Leeds from Manchester,
and although Rob and Rach lived together, they were not in a relationship at the time of
the interviews but got together in June 2007. At the time of the interviews, Rob was in a
relationship with someone else. I also knew Rach from university, and we had travelled
together following our graduation. We kept in touch and I interviewed her in her house
in Manchester when she moved there, later following her to Leeds. Both housemates
were present in the interviews and recordings represented here.
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130 HELEN THORNHAM

Household 5 This was the London all-female house which was created when Sara split up from
Simon and moved in with Clare (26, heterosexual, white, middle class) and Chloe
(27, heterosexual, white, middle class). One of the interviews has Ian (29, heterosexual,
white, working class) visiting them, but the other two are of the three women on their
own. Ian is also represented here because he contributed to one of the interviews but he
was not a member of the household. The interviews quoted in the article refer to
interviews where only the women were present.
Household 6 This consisted of Jess (24, heterosexual, white, middle class), Celia (26, heterosexual,
middle class), and Michael (30, homosexual, white, middle class). This house was
another house in Brighton which I knew about through Jess, who was also doing a PGCE
at Sussex. All of the interviews quoted here are from interviews with Jess: she requested
to speak to me alone, away from her other housemates.

* “Other” ethnicity indicates where housemates did not consider themselves white. I use their own
expressions here, but there are clearly some issues around the transient and complex ways ethnicity is
thought about.
** “Class” status reflects their own considerations, rather than their vocation or geographical location. Bob
therefore considers himself working class, although he is a radio DJ. Rob considers himself to be middle
class, and he is a plumber. Again, this indicates the complex ways class continues to be thought about,
negotiated, and articulated.

Figure 1
Characteristics of gamers interviewed, by gender
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“IT’S A BOY THING” 131

in order to outline the intricacies and extent of their gendered nature. The second section
works to cement more forcibly the relation between discussions of, and “actual,” gaming
before moving on to a final discussion around the “domestication” of technology more
generally. My overall argument is that whilst the technology and play are important agents,
gaming also needs to be discussed as a continuation of, or negotiation with, the social and
cultural dynamics of the homes in which gaming occurs.

Perceptions of Gaming and Preconditions to Play

Obviously it’s a football game and . . . for the boys . . . if I started playing the game, Joe
would basically describe what to do, so he’d be like, “you’ve got to press that to do that de
de, de de, de de.” (Lorna, Household 3. Quoted while visiting Household 1)

Lorna’s comment, typical of many female interviewees, highlights the initial aspect of
gaming I want to concentrate on, namely the relationship between genre and gender.
While the first objection to ISS/Pro Evolution seems straightforward enough, the second
relates to interaction during play, and has a number of nuances. Of course, in many ways
the initial comment produces the second because it works to exclude Lorna from the game
and therefore place her in an inferior position to which Joe can dictate action. Furthermore,
while I am not disputing the validity of Lorna’s comment, it is clear from her ensuing
suggestions not only that she plays Pro Evolution competently, but that she excels at it:
Lorna: I actually scored one of the best scores that he’s ever seen anyone score in ISS.
(Household 3. Quoted while visiting Household 1)

Lorna’s careful repositioning of herself both as subject to Joe’s instruction and as an

excluded demographic in terms of the genre renegotiates her success at the game in
relation to their relationship. In fact, her success is not only the result of Joe’s instruction,
but her comments deny any competitiveness of gameplay or knowledge about the game.
It is a very interesting shift which enables her to proclaim competency as a carefully
constructed novice gamer who excels because of Joe’s instruction, while completely
erasing any element of competitiveness or challenge to Joe’s “authority.” Her description of
gameplay also subtly realigns her with the women/less competent gamers in the room
through mimicking Joe’s instruction as quite patronising. This is a very subtle gesture,
however, which serves the multiple purposes of constructing her role as less authoritative
and knowledgeable than his, and subtly undermining his position through the slightly
patronising tone and the creation of him as a stereotypical male partner. Her alignment
with the other women in the room through this shift suggests some interesting things not
only about her perception of them (as less competent, unknowledgeable gamers) and of
herself as having to play this role; but also about her perception of femininity, and more
specifically, her perception of femininity in relation to gaming.
Lorna’s comments are also indicative of the performative nature of social gaming, not
just in terms of the performances of pre-existing socio-cultural relationships, but also in
terms of a performance of a gaming identity (in Lorna’s case, as competent). Although
I don’t wish to lose sight of the technology or its material relation to the social dynamics of
the room during gaming, it is the disjuncture between perceptions of, and performances of,
gaming-self which I primarily want to highlight in this instance.
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132 HELEN THORNHAM

Genre preference is, of course, one of the ways the gamers negotiate the fulfilment of
pleasure and expectation through gaming. As with other media preferences, identifying
favourite (narrative, character, visual) genres enhances the expectation of pleasure
fulfilment as well as offering satisfaction in the very identification of a generic preference.
There is also, however, an initial stereotype about the medium itself as gendered male
which seems to disrupt this pleasure expectation. Preconditions to play, into which I am
including genre choice as well as these wider gender issues, are culturally (which includes
the marketing and production of games) defined, so that social gaming is loaded with
gender (to name one) stereotypes. For the female interviewees, this requires a wider socio-
cultural negotiation and interpellation with certain stereotypes beyond the immediacy of
the specific gaming scenario. This includes an assumed exclusionary position for women
gamers. Added to this initial gendering are the range of accounts which include the design
of the game, a typical response being Jess’s comment (1), marketing (2), or more often,
factual statements that gaming was simply a “boy’s thing” (3). In other words,
accompanying the umbrella stereotype of the technology, are more personal and private
negotiations and rationales for individual feelings of exclusion:

(1) The guys’ll carry on going and carry on going until they kill the monster, whereas girls’ll do
it for a while and then think “well isn’t there another thing I could do?” (Jess, Household 6)
(2) Its more marketed at boys . . . just how, the way it looks has been, black, sleek machine sat
in the corner of the room . . . and the games are more blokey . . . I mean you can’t be a
woman on GTA or whatever . . . or something like Lara Croft, just designed to be a male
fantasy figure. (Sara, Household 1)
(3) It’s a boy thing. (Chloe, Household 5)

It’s for the boys. (Lorna, Household 3)

Girls don’t use it . . . the way blokes do. (Clare, Household 5)

The opinion that videogames were gendered male was iterated across the board,
with male gamers supporting opinions that they were designed and marketed for men.
In this sense, these results echo Schott and Horrell’s earlier study, which similarly found that
many of the games were considered “blokey games” (2000, p. 44). Considering the length
of time since their project, it seems this assumption has become a dominant and persuasive
one in videogame culture. The men in my research talked about male bonding (Household
1), social kudos (Household 1, Household 2), the fact that “all lads play videogames”
(Household 2, Household 3) or that certain games (GTA, Tiger Woods, Grand Turismo) are
marketed at men (Household 1, Household 2, Household 4). Apart from indicating a strong
and definite gender-awareness in terms of the target audience and consumer (and despite,
in many cases, men and women gaming together in the same house), there is also an
assumed (and these are negotiated and clearly hegemonic) included (men) or excluded
(women) position articulated in relation to the medium. This initial perception about
gaming does seem to bleed into discussions about gaming, actual gameplay in social
scenarios, and acceptable admissions about pleasure and gaming. In other words, the
entire discourse of gaming seems to evidence assumed included/excluded positions.
To return to Cassell and Jenkins’ comment about female gamers saying what they’re
supposed to say, things become a little more complicated. Discussions of gaming
preference, claims about social gaming, and the justifications for owning the technology
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“IT’S A BOY THING” 133

are similarly discursive. There is also a performative level in terms of the negotiation
between the position of the videogame as a pleasurable technology, and rationalising this
as an adult in a social setting.
It is ironic, and quite unsettling, that most of the household members expressed
preferences and opinions which were either refuted by other household members or
shown to be inaccurate when it came to “actual” gaming choices.1 It suggests to me that
the notion of what they are supposed to say has a lot more power than initially thought.
It also suggests that dissonance with the group opinion matters, and that in the occasions
highlighted below, the dissonant person is exposed, humiliated, and remembered. Sara is a
good (and frequent) example of this, claiming “I really, really quite like the dance mat”
(Household 1), until her housemate loudly and incredulously highlights the fact that she
had never actually played it: “you said you were too tired to play and you wouldn’t have a
go!” (Household 1).
This exchange reoccurs between Sara and her other housemates and is interesting for
a number of reasons. First because of the correlation between social gaming and
preference—that Sara has not been witnessed playing socially on the dance mat, she is
therefore exposed as a liar. In other words it is not just gaming per se, but social gaming
which is constantly emphasised. This is also interesting in relation to the comments below
regarding social and solo gaming habits.2 Secondly, there is an evident pressure to express
preference, but that the preference must also be socially vetted and stand up as socially
verifiable. Finally, it is interesting for me because of what it suggests about the dynamics of
the house, which seem far more interested in exposing and confronting the “lies” of other
housemates than supporting them. It is a frequent (bullying?) tactic which undermines the
authority of the speaker leaving them with little recourse to continue. Sara responds this
time by saying, “I like the idea of it in theory” (Household 1), but in later conversations her
defence of certain games simply mirrors her other housemates and she starts to insist games
are good “ice-breakers.” Sara is an interesting interviewee because during the four years of
research the housemates moved house. This created not only new household dynamics
(she moved into an all-female house) but also space and time to reflect on the first house:
I wouldn’t take it very seriously. I’d clown about and mess about and pretend I couldn’t
work out what to do. And I didn’t bother to try to improve as a gamer because that was my
role. Whereas now I’m gaming and I’m looking at the map to try and see where the symbol
is and where I’m going. There, they would just be amused that I was so rubbish. They’d
always be telling me what to do. But that’s boys isn’t it? They have to instruct you . . . it was
how I chose to bond with people, but it didn’t change how I interacted with them. I was
still “the Girl” and didn’t know what I was doing. (Sara, quoted during her time in
Household 5)

Although Sara put her inferior position in relation to gaming down to the fact that
she was “the Girl,” the same tactics are employed in the all-male house, this time in relation
to claims about solo gaming suggesting once again that gendered performance is not
necessarily essential but figured along (and enmeshed with) other social power dynamics.
Bob frequently claimed he never gamed alone, implying that he wasn’t a very big
gamer, when in fact (according to his housemates) he would “geek that driving game out,”
and “that golf game Tiger Woods” (Household 2). Bob’s response to this is a reiteration of a
flat out refusal: “I played two player!,” “that’s before I lived here,” and “I’ve never played
anything on my own” (Household 2). Talking to Ricky, I was informed that I was “talking
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134 HELEN THORNHAM

to a man who actually books holiday time specifically so he can buy a new game and play it
to death” (Household 2). According to another housemate, Ricky had taken a week and a
half off work specifically to play Grand Turismo on his own. Ricky’s response was a staunch
“I like driving games” (Household 2), on which he refused to elaborate or discuss further.
Sara’s willingness to concede, Bob’s absolute resolution despite witnesses to the
contrary, and Ricky’s refusal to participate in the rest of the conversation, all suggest the
importance of the social in defining gaming and pleasures of gaming. It also emphasises a
correlation between the presentation of oneself as rational, truthful individual and
competent, experienced gamer. The very fact that the gamers felt they needed to account
for gaming and deny in some cases, certain gaming preferences or activities, suggests that
“what they’re supposed to say” matters far more in a social discussion of gaming than
accurate gaming accounts. The further point to make in relation to solo and social gaming
is the implications inherent in either choice. The binary set up in all of the households,
regardless of sexuality or gender, is that social gaming equates with “normal” gaming
(rational, logical gaming), while solo gaming equates with “geek” gaming (perverted,
illogical, excessive gaming). Although expressed with differing emphases, solo gamers are
always presented negatively and within discursive parameters of perversion. It is worth
outlining the differences as these households understood, and articulated them.
“Normal” gamers take pleasure not (or at least not mainly) from the technology (an
appreciation of it is allowed in certain guises) but in the social (explicitly heterosexual)
event of gaming. They are set up in complete opposition to the “geek” gamers below.
“Normal” gamers therefore enjoy social aspects of gaming, but these are carefully
regimented as heteronormative and framed within other, stereotypically heterosexual
(white, macho) activities like, for example (excessive) drinking and socialising or sports such
as football or boxing. “Normal” gamers enjoy the cult value of games and can appreciate
the technological aspects, but while they can enter into a discussion about technology,
it remains within the framework of popular gaming language—of “gameplay” and
“playability.” Intense pleasure and identification verge on “geek” territory, so that, although
“normal” gamers enjoy gaming, they balance this pleasure with “real” active social lives.
Friends and social situations are used to emphasise the rational nature of the game in
relation to its functionality as a social device. It is not (at least, mainly not) the fantasy or
escapism of the game; rather the pleasure occurs in a very “real” place and time. Finally, for
“normal” gamers, games are useful in their function as social devices and provide a safe
environment in which male gamers can perform close homosocial relationships with one
another without any threat of “perversion.”
“Geek” gamers, on the other hand, devote hours to solo gaming, neglecting their
“real” social lives in the process (“all those hours, cooped up alone, just you and the
machine,” “tell me Ricky, why DO you spend so much time on your playstation?” Household
2). They are socially abnormal either through choice of game genre or hours devoted to
gaming, and (of course) have “questionable sexuality”:
It’s definitely designed to for, like, war hammer games workshop kind of people who have
got a massive, err, social deficiency and quite clearly a questionable sexuality. (Carl, visitor
to Household 1)

“Geek” gaming is excessive and anti-social pleasurable gaming, laden with signifiers of
the lone, perverted male, essentially fulfilling all his perverted pleasures and desires
through the technology (which makes up for his social/sexual “lack”):
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“IT’S A BOY THING” 135

Simon: Steve used to get really excited. We played one game where we were like, three
goals behind and then we scored three goals, and he was jumping around the room
and all.
Joe: He was like hugging us and everything. Weird. But we don’t do that.
Simon: Yeah, it was a bit over the top. He plays everything, and watches the football on the
TV, plays on the internet and stuff.
Joe: That’s not all he does on the internet in his room. Alone. (Household 3)

While the “geek” (the “other”) seems such an extreme stereotype, and is created as
such, it is nevertheless evident that he remains such a strong threat to heteronormative
masculinity. In the face of both the language of possibility of new technology, and social
and political cultural movements in the last fifty years, what is surprising is not only the
strength and resilience of these stereotypes, but that masculinity continues to be
performed within such set, rigid, and confining parameters.
One of the most frequent statements in relation to gaming is the insistence on a
social context for gaming. Bob’s “I never play it on me own, I never touch it” (Household 2)
is a familiar trope throughout the conversations of an insistence (overt or subtle) that
gaming is only enjoyed, and should only be enjoyed as a social activity. Suggestions that
excessive gaming and solo gaming signifies a social and sexual “deviancy” are hinted at
throughout the conversations, so that any admission about time spent gaming or solo
gaming tends to be coerced. What becomes increasingly obvious (and was certainly
witnessed during the time I spent with the households) is that although lone gaming clearly
does occur, admitting to it is an entirely different matter. Informing on others becomes a
kind of self-admission, but is also tied up with a power politics about who can inform on
whom, and what exactly it means (in terms of malicious “outing” or teasing self-admission).
The few admissions of solo gaming should also be mentioned at this point. Ricky and
Duncan, when interviewed alone, did talk about the pleasures and reasons behind solo
gaming. However, even here, gaming remains both a social consideration and a gaming
preference. For Duncan, who “outed” Bob as a kind of self-admission, lone gaming is the
result of consideration to other household members who may have alternative viewing
preferences (Household 2). Ricky rather controversially (for someone who took a week and
a half off work to game) confesses in a later conversation that solo gaming is, “more about
progressing rather than . . . enjoying the game” (Household 2). He also suggests that solo
gaming can be boring precisely because, for him, it is premised on progression:
Whereas the multiplayer, there’s quite a lot of pressure on it, if it’s close coz it does
recreate the emotions of playing the real game in that, you know, you’ve got quite a long
putt to win a game when there’s four of you playing, and you have to make it. It’s quite
nerve wrecking and the way Tiger Woods works is that, it makes you, if you’ve got a
defining shot, like a match-winning shot or a pressure shot, you’ve got to do it to keep in
the lead like, and it does this heart beat on the screen and it makes your controller vibrate
so it builds up the tension. (Ricky, Household 2. Interviewed alone)

It is interesting that out of all the households, two men (Duncan and Ricky) admitted
to solo gaming, and out of the women, one admitted to solo gaming (Jess). Yet the
questionnaire reveals that a lot more men and women game alone (see Figure 1), further
suggesting that the discourses of gaming, and the power dynamics of the conversation and
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136 HELEN THORNHAM

household more generally, affect what is admitted to. Out of the people represented in the
graph, five of them (excluding Duncan, Ricky, and Jess) claim to mostly game on their own.
In other words, five of housemates whom I interviewed will “admit” in an “anonymous”
questionnaire to solo gaming, when they would not “admit” it to a group or to me privately.
Whilst this highlights the benefit of conducting a questionnaire concurrently, it also
underlines the power of the socio-cultural situation in framing what can be said about
gaming habits or pleasures.
The final point I want to highlight in relation to perceptions and preconditions to play
relates to the rationales offered for owning the console. The tension between performing
adult rationality and taking pleasure in a game is clearly an uneasy one for the male gamers
of this study. I initially want to focus on performances of rationality before discussing what
this means in terms of claims to knowledge about gaming per se, and finally, what this
means for the female gamers interviewed.
I thought, “if I’m gonna buy a DVD player that’s gonna cost me 120 quid, which is what
they were, I may as well pay 170 and get an Xbox.” (Household 2)

The most common justification for owning a gaming console is the one outlined
above. The logical financial imperative, where the console is an addition rather than
impetus of the purchase, frequently occurs in the conversations with gamers. This is
interesting in itself because it highlights certain elements of performative adult rationality
considered important. It is also interesting that the adult male gamers clearly did feel an
imperative to justify why they owned various consoles in the first place, which, by
comparison with the women interviewed is quite striking. Gaming is justified for reasons
other that pleasure-pursuits. In the owning of the console, there is a rational financial
motivation and in gaming “itself,” there is a logical social rationale.
As well as the insistence on social gaming, for the male interviewees as suggested
above, there was a frequent insistence on the social function of videogames. It wasn’t
simply that gamers gamed socially, but that the technology had a social function: it
supported the social dynamics of the living room. For Simon, games were good “ice
breakers,” facilitating the relaxation of guests and social interaction by offering a
unanimous focal point. For Duncan, games were rationalised not only through the financial
motivations above, but also because they enabled friends to keep in touch by providing
them with an easy activity together. For Joe, games were useful for offering a common
topic of conversation with his teenage students, as well as providing a “stress-free evening
of bonding” with his friends. Again, the technology provided the group with a common
focus as well as being “easy” because little thought had to go into “those niceties” of usual
conversation (Household 3). While these examples certainly highlight the importance of not
losing sight of the material and social function of the technology in the home, they are also
modes of narration which construct the speaker as sensible, logical, and rational. It is also a
performance of sociality and social awareness, because the gamers present themselves as
trying to create a good atmosphere for their guests, in which everyone will feel relaxed and
unstressed. Emphasising the technological function also sidelines both the pleasurable
aspects of gaming, and the fact that the videogame is a game. Instead, the technology is
brought into the realm of functionality where it offers a useful service which the men can
utilise. Autonomy remains with the male gamers: they are not carried away by this
technology, there is little emotional investment in these accounts, nor are there any
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“IT’S A BOY THING” 137

dangers of immersion or of “losing oneself” in the game. Instead they work to construct the
speaker as logical and rational and the technology as an important public and social service.
The rationality and logic of the male gamers, however, was never vocalised by the
women gamers. Rather, stereotypically, they claimed limited autonomy when it came to
purchasing decisions and justification, if they claimed any at all. Instead purchasing
decisions were the result of outside influences, of partners, friends or relations. Rach, Chloe,
and Lorna repeated justifications of financial rationality, but included in these narratives
were the influences of people present or present at the time of purchase:
Rob thought if we were buying a DVD and a TV we might as well go the whole hog and
get the special deal. (Rach, Household 4)

Another common justification was parental gift or older sibling discards, and for
Clare, Jess and Amy, purchases were not their decisions, but were the fault or influence of
other people. As Jess comments:
My big sister got me addicted to this game called “Final Fantasy something or other,” so
I got really bored, I’d read too many books, and I went and bought one. (Jess, Household 6)

The performances of the male interviewees are of a rational and logical grown up
position from which to speak with authority about the technology. For the women, who
claim neither authority nor rationality, discussions about gaming are consequently framed
differently. While I am not suggesting that the women “actually” knew or gamed less than
their male counterparts, theirs are entirely subjective performances of (ir)rationality and
pleasure. None of the women interviewed (except for Sara, who repeated the
rationalisations of her male housemates) even in the all-female house, claimed genre or
game preference was anything other than individual preference (or that games were
anything other than pleasurable pastimes). This compares with the male household
members, who consistently justified genre and gaming preference within wider social,
cultural or financial parameters. In other words, the gendered public/private narratives
emphasised by feminist theory can be found throughout the discussions about gaming.
Indeed, a typical response from the women was either to laugh at themselves for their
comments (Sara, Lorna, Clare, Jess) or to frame them within caveats such as “personally,”
“it’s just my opinion,” or “I know it’s childish/stupid/funny but . . . ” This compares with the
comments from the male gamers, for whom the statement below was typical:
The general consensus around people who know anything about computer games or
anything about football is that ISS is the best game . . . anybody who thinks that FIFA is the
best game knows fuck all about it. (Joe, Household 3)

Expressing preference is tied, then, to a negotiation with the group dynamics and to
identity performance, which is loaded with temporal and social, cultural, and political
nuances. These comments not only suggest that genre or gaming claims seem primarily
integration techniques; they also suggest that the normative gaming subjectivity is socially
and culturally defined as a predominantly masculine one. To express preference is to
position oneself in relation to this, and perhaps it is no surprise that the female respondents
then disavowed their own proficiency. Cassell’s and Jenkins’ concern about female gamers
saying what they’re supposed to say does therefore seem entirely valid. It was clear from
observing these households game, and recording them prior to, during and after gaming,
that the wider discourses of genre and gender, claims to rationality and claims
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138 HELEN THORNHAM

to knowledge have certain implications for what, when, and who can game socially. For the
women gamers, certain genres equated with shifts in the social dynamics, making them less
eager to play those games. Similarly, the wider assumptions both about certain genres, and
about the technology “itself” being gendered, hegemonically positioned the women within
a less equal power relation to both the male gamers, and the technology “itself.” It’s clear to
a certain extent that the women perpetuated this unbalance in their discussions about
gaming being “a boy thing,” even when they resisted it through active play. The point is
that, to a certain extent, what they were supposed to say about gaming is reiterated
through social gaming experiences, as I will go on to discuss. Furthermore, discussion of
videogames as social activities needs to be discussed further not only because of the
location of the technology in the social space of the living room, but also because, crucially,
this is how the gamers consistently discuss them.

Gaming “Itself”

When I sit next to Rob here and he’s gaming, I’m asking him questions. But when he’s sat
next to me and I’m gaming, he’s telling me what to do. (Rach, Household 4)

In the final section of this article, I want to focus on two elements of gaming “itself,”
although they are more enmeshed than this suggests. The first is expressed above in Rach’s
comments on observing her household play, and relates to how the housemates interact
with one another during gameplay. The second element focuses on the specific
performance of gamers in relation to “being good” at the game. Power relations and social
dynamics of each household continue to be negotiated or performed during gameplay.
Consequently, separating gaming from where and with whom it occurs negates some vital
and fundamental performative aspects of gaming which are conducive to the creation and
support of pleasurable social gaming scenarios.
Rach’s reflection on the recordings of gameplay reiterates Lorna’s comments earlier.
Yet, the game that she is discussing is played frequently by both housemates, and Rach
considers herself a competent, if not skilled, gamer. Her comment is said with some surprise
perhaps because she only notices this retrospectively. Despite this, the recordings of
gameplay highlight the frequency of the instructive exchange. Compared to Lorna’s
comment earlier in the article, however, Rach is neither annoyed, nor frustrated at either the
exchange or the power relation it places her into. Her overwhelming tone is one of mild
surprise. This could indicate the depth of her engagement with the game—to the extent
that the social interaction (which she claims is the most pleasurable aspect of gaming) is
forgotten. It also suggests, however, that rather than reflecting their gaming abilities, it
reflects the social dynamics of their relationship. For Rach, her interest in gaming comes
from the social interaction it encourages. While this is reiterated throughout the
conversations with gamers in relation to their support and requirement of social gaming, it
also indicates an investment in the social rather than the game “itself” which is worth
exploring.
It is a common trope throughout the households where certain household members
open up their gaming time to the room in exchange for commentary, criticism, and
instruction. For Rach, her questions when Rob is gaming are retroactive ones about his
decisions—why he chose to go a particular route or why he chose a certain outfit. When she
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“IT’S A BOY THING” 139

is gaming, however, the questions require active and urgent intervention from Rob, as this
extract from their gameplay indicates:
Rach: Oh god! People are beeping at me! Do I beat him up or is he going to take my car?
Rob: Press triangle to get in the car
Rach: Hey. There we go!
Rob: “X” is to accelerate
Rach: Oh I’m on the train track! Oops. Is that a train?! What do I do?!
Rob: And that “S”. see that “S”?
Rach: Yeah
Rob: On the map? That’s where you’ve got your next mission
Rach: Is it? Oh god
Rob: Should you desire to take it [leaves room]
Rach: Ohh. Shit. Oh! That’s water! I thought it was grass!
Rob: [comes back in] Oh. You’re dead. Get out.
Rach: How?!
Rob: Press triangle. (Household 4)

What is interesting about this exchange is the way Rach opens up her gaming
experience in order to encourage interaction with Rob, rather than focusing on progressing
in the game. It is a performance of helplessness, especially as she is adept at the game and
knows what each button on the controller does. Her shouts and exclamations require
urgent attention and ensure the necessity of Rob’s presence. It is also highly entertaining
and is an entertainment everyone in the room can become involved in. By comparison with
Rob, who never asks direction or expresses urgent or exciting exclamations, this is a very
different performance. Fundamentally, of course, this is a performance of inability, whereas
Rob’s is of competence.
As suggested above, this is a common trope of the recordings of gameplay. Even the
all-male and all-female households perform these roles, suggesting the performative nature
of gender as well as the links between gendered performance and claims to knowledge or
autonomy. The competent gaming performances correlate with the experienced,
knowledgeable and rational performance during discussions: Duncan and Bob in the all-
male house and Chloe in the all-female house. In the mixed gender and sexuality houses, it
tends to be Rob, Joe, and Simon who competently game, with Steve, Sara, and Lorna as less
able (and interestingly, more vocal). Although I don’t have the scope to go into the nuances
of these gaming performances here, it is clear from this limited example that
understandings of social gaming has to include a negotiation of the power dynamics of
the house, as well as the dynamics of the game. Furthermore, in the creation of gaming
subjectivities and positions in relation to genre or console, it is also evident that gamers
have in many ways internalised those marketing and advertising campaigns which then
provide a template for adult gaming as social pastime. Indeed, it is not just a case of what
they’re supposed to say, it is also how they’re supposed to game which is the issue.
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140 HELEN THORNHAM

My aim here has not been to say anything concrete or absolute about what these
preconditions, positions and performances dictate for gameplay or gaming in general. They
are always negotiated positions, and this is the point. As well as acting out the stereotypes
of genre preference or gaming performance, these examples also highlight a negotiation
with these positions and with each other. In the activity of conversing or gaming, relational
positionality between people and technology shifts. Despite claiming Pro Evolution was for
the boys, Lorna still got one of the best scores ever. And despite requesting supervision,
Rach still excels at GTA. Similarly, Ricky and Duncan game on their own, although they claim
social impetus and pleasure, the activity of gaming negates the stereotypes. Rather than
argue any staticity of position or monolithic power onto the gaming body or performed
identity, my point has been to argue that gaming is also a negotiation with the power
dynamics of the home, and included into this are further issues about the position of the
home and the domestic sphere within socio-cultural perceptions.
Of course, these accounts are also highly inadequate in terms of representing the
conversations or gaming in their entirety, or indeed longevity. Neither the opinions, nor the
performances are static over the four years of research. Changes in household dynamics,
material set up of spaces, opinions, relationships (to name a few) altered the performances
of the gamers. In other words, the performances are discursively negotiated and specific to
the time and place in which they were performed. Represented in this article, they do a
number of things. First, they emphasise the performative elements of narrative so that
narrative of games and gaming needs also to be positioned with wider power politics of
identity performances. Second, they suggest something about negotiations with the wider
and more immediate power politics of each household in terms of the permitted or
accepted responses about gaming. Third, they point to the gendered nature of these
responses, not only in terms of prioritisations, but also in terms of the way the discourse of
gaming is also gendered, so that acceptable accounts of gaming have further gender
dimensions. Finally, these narratives are also inherently situational and embedded so that,
although topics are frequently rehashed (indeed, this is a pleasurable event) positionalities
are not always maintained. Indeed, as Judith Butler has suggested:
Terms such as “masculine” and “feminine” are notoriously changeable; there are social
histories for each term; their meanings change radically depending upon geopolitical
boundaries and cultural constraints on who is imagining whom, and for what purpose.
(2004, p. 10)

The notion of who is imagining whom is an interesting one to conclude with.

The underlying (sometimes temporal) power politics of each household are loaded with
expectation and assumption about the role of each person within the house and what they
will say in that role. This reflects more broadly onto the wider socio-cultural politics of the
make-up of the households and is worth reiterating. The fact that these households are
adult shared houses is, of course, conducive to a certain power politics not based on age or
family relationships. Similarly, the power relationship between housemates is also reflected
in the shared rooms of each house in terms of the activities, objects, and performances
within each room. Kitchen, living room, and bathroom not only structurally support the
power politics of each household, they also facilitate the continuation of them. Gaming is
not exempt from these structures. Focusing on how gender stereotypes are reflected and
supported in avatar selection, or citing differences between men and women in terms of
privileging certain narrative or visual choices, offer an inadequate analysis of the politics
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“IT’S A BOY THING” 141

behind any initial choice of game or performances during gameplay. Even King and
Krzywinska’s (2006, p. 210) suggestion that “contextual factors generally are liable to recede
from attention in conditions such as extended or more intensive play,” becomes
problematic if “intensive play” can never be achieved because of where, when, and with
whom games are played. As Sara says:
Gaming is just another way to play out roles. It doesn’t give you a space where you can do
what you want or be who you want. It’s how I chose to bond with people in Brighton, but
it didn’t change how I interacted with them. I was still “the Girl” and didn’t know what I was
doing. Here, though I don’t have to do that any more. (Sara, quoted in Household 5)

Returning videogames to the home, and discussing them in terms of their socio-
cultural and discursive importance or shaping, is therefore a vital and necessary act if the
lived cultures or cultural practices of videogames are to be understood. This move also
offers a more nuanced and socio-political account of gaming which encompasses primarily
the consumption, but also production and marketing, elements of gaming. However, this
move is also problematic. The final point relates to domestication or social shaping of
technology and asks why the reorganisation of the relationship between technology and
socio-cultural politics often results in the loss of autonomy, agency or even one could say,
the “technology” of the technology in question? Bassett’s comment below reiterates not
only the importance of the novelty value of technology, it is also a warning about cyclical
approaches to technology more generally. It is a stark reminder of the continuation of
public/private power dichotomies within academe, as well as the gendered rhetoric of
technology. Finally, it reminds us of the decreasing levels of interest in technologies once
they are repositioned within the home, once they become “old”:
Over and over again we succumb to the sense that the new technology of our own time is
exceptional . . . the case for the autonomy of technology is very often explicitly made or
implicitly adopted in the analyses of new technologies, while the case for the social shaping
of technology, which reorganises this relationship, tends to re-emerge as technologies lose
the patina of the new, as they become “old.” (Caroline Bassett 2007, p. 52)

NOTES
1. This is also a methodological defence: these contradictions would not have been obvious
through a single interview, but returning to the households quite frequently emphasised
them.
2. For the purposes of this article “solo” gaming refers to gameplay when gamers were
physically alone, although they may have been playing against other gamers online (and
indeed this was often the defence against accusations of solo gaming). The point the
gamers make is that this is not social gaming and therefore somehow perverse or
excessive.

REFERENCES
BASSETT, CAROLINE (2007) The Arc and the Machine, Manchester University Press, Manchester.
BUTLER, JUDITH (2004) Undoing Gender, Routledge, New York.
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142 HELEN THORNHAM

CARR, DIANE, BUCKINGHAM, DAVID, BURN, ANDREW & SCHOTT, GARETH (2006) Computer Games: Text,
Narrative and Play, Polity Press, Cambridge.
CASSELL, JUSTINE & JENKINS, HENRY (eds) ([1998] (2000)) From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and
Computer Games, MIT Press, London.
DOVEY, JON & KENNEDY, HELEN W. (2006) Game Cultures: Computer Games as New Media, Open
University Press, New York.
KING, GEOFF & KRZYWINSKA, TANYA (2006) Tomb Raiders and Space Invaders: Videogame Forms and
Contexts, I.B. Tauris, London.
LIVINGSTONE, SONIA (2002) Young People and New Media, Sage Publications, London.
SCHOTT, GARETH & HORRELL, KIRSTY (2000) ‘Girl gamers and their relationship with the gaming
culture’, Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies,
vol. 6, no. 36, pp. 36– 53, [Online] Available at: http://con.sagepub.com/cgi/content/
abstract/6/4/36 (12 March, 2007).
TAYLOR, T. L. (2003) ‘Multiple pleasures: women and online gaming’, Convergence: The International
Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, vol. 9, no. 21, pp. 21– 46, [Online]
Available at: http://con.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/9/1/21.

Helen Thornham has recently completed her PhD at the University of Ulster, Northern
Ireland. She began researching narrative, gender, and videogames following an
evening in 2001, when she watched her partner game all night and was never once
offered a turn. This is her revenge. Her thesis is titled “Narratives of the videogame:
gender, gaming and gameplay.” She sits on the MeCCSA Postgraduate Network
Committee. Her MA was in Media and Cultural Studies and her BA was in Film and
Literature. Her current research, at the University of Bristol, focuses on teenagers and
user-generated content. It juxtaposes face-to-face methodologies with virtual ones
and highlights issues of identity, learning, and social/creative practice. E-mail:
helen.thornham@bristol.ac.uk