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From: zben@umd5.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.cog-eng
Subject: Re: Psychology and morality: more on the game-based office.
Message-ID: <796@umd5.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 26-Nov-85 08:20:44 EST
Article-I.D.: umd5.796
Posted: Tue Nov 26 08:20:44 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 28-Nov-85 04:36:31 EST
References: <577@calgary.UUCP>
Reply-To: zben@umd5.UUCP (Ben Cranston)
Distribution: net
Organization: U of Md, CSC, College Park, Md
Lines: 30
Summary: Pac-Man seemed to be very popular with women

In article <577@calgary.UUCP> greenberg@calgary.UUCP (Saul Greenberg) writes:

>                             .... As an example, one
>study looked at individual differences between male and female reaction
>to video games. The findings suggest that while males react strongly to
>a "shoot-em down" game, female reaction is generally negative. The
>result - develop a "female-oriented" game.
 
Indeed.  The Pac-Man video game, one of the first commercial video games to
use a non-"shoot-em-up" paradigm, was also very popular with women.  Perhaps
the "avoidance" paradigm speaks to something in our social structure, most
specifically the pre-liberated-feminism "pursuit and avoidance" sexuality.

Now, can we say anything about the Pac Man "power pill"?  For those unfamiliar
with the game, these are the four blinking dots in the corners of the game,
which when "eaten" confer (for a short period of time) the ability to defeat
in combat the "ghosts" which one normally avoids.  Of course, this maps onto
a reversal-of-roles, and would speak perhaps to socially-repressed desires
for dominance...

I saw an interview with a top-level female executive of the company that
produced this video game.  She said outright that women were such a part of
the success of Pac-Man that they decided to dedicate the follow-on game,
Ms. Pac-Man, to them.  Since then there has also been a Pac-Man Junior game,
continuing this sexually stereotyped paradigm.

Is this pandering to mankind's basest motivations any better than the 
blatant commercialism you later decry?
-- 
Ben Cranston  ...{seismo!umcp-cs,ihnp4!rlgvax}!cvl!umd5!zben  zben@umd2.ARPA