Gendered Play

The game that I chose to talk about is the video game, NBA 2K11. This game is a simulation of a basketball game where players choose professional basketball teams to play with against the computer or other players. It's clearly gendered because there are absolutely no female players in the game. NBA 2K11 has all of the teams in the national basketball league, but it fails to include any in the women's national basketball league. This game demonstrates the male dominance in basketball because basketball is seen as a masculine sport played mainly by male players. In this game females are not given the option of choosing gender, but are limited to only the male gender. It makes assumptions by assuming that either only males are going to play this game or that the existence of female basketball players are non-existent.

A similar comparison that I thought of was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT). The main cast of this television show/game/scenario is three turtles who fight crime and are all male characters. From what I can remember as a child, I did not ever see the existence of main female characters in the show. What TMNT and NBA 2k11 have in common is the fact that the existence of a female figure is never there. Females are rarely portrayed as strong in these two games and we can only assume (if we only played these games) that females are never the main characters. In other words females never get the opportunity to take the lead in situations.

Gendered play tools are not really a good idea. I think there needs to be a good balance of both genders so that both sexes have the opportunity of choosing whichever they choose. Some male players enjoy being female characters and some female players enjoy being male characters.