Analysis on the Game-Playing Tendency of SNGs (Social Network Games) users by Gender

Authors: Jooyeon Yook, Wonjun Ko

Abstract:

As the Social network game(SNG) is rising dramatically worldwide, an interesting aspect has appeared in the demographic analysis. That is the ratio of the game users by gender. Although the ratio of male and female users in online game was 60:40% previously, the ratio of male and female users in SNG stood at 47:53% which shows that the ratio of female users is higher than that of male users. Here, it should be noted that 35% in those 53% female users are the first-time users of game. This fact suggests that women who were not interested in game previously has taken an interest in SNG. Notwithstanding this issue, there have been little studies on the female users of SNG although there are many studies that analyzed the tendency of female users- online game play. This study conducted the analyzed how the game-playing tendency of SNG gamers was manifested in the game by gender. For that, this study will identify the tendency of SNG users by gender based on the preceding studies that analyzed the online game users by gender. The subject of this study was confined to the farm and urban construction simulation games which were offered based on the mobile application platform. Regarding the methodology of study, the first focus group interview(FGI) was conducted with the male and female users who had played games on Social network service(SNS) until recently. Later, the second one-on-one in-depth interview was conducted to gain an insight into the psychological state of the subjects.

Keywords: Social network Game, Gender, Play inclination, Game psychology

Digital Object Identifier (DOI): doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1073090

References:

[1] Flurry, "Mobile Social Gamers: The New Mass-Market Powerhouse", http://blog.flurry.com/bid/57219/Mobile-Social-Gamers-The-New-Mass -Market-Powerhouse, 2011.
[2] Korea Internet & Security Agency, A survey on the second half of 2011 smartphones, http://isis.kisa.or.kr, 2011.
[3] Lin, C. A., Poor, ""Looking back: The contribution of Blumer and Katz's uses of mass communication, Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media", 1996. 40(2), pp.574-581.
[4] Burke, M., C. Marlow, and T. Lento, "Social network activity and social well-being", In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Atlanta, GA., 2010.
[5] Jon Radoff, "Game On: Energize Your Business with Social Media Games", Wiley, April 12, 2011.
[6] Pierre Lévy, "Qu'est - ce que le virtuel?", La Découverte, 13 mars 1998.
[7] Zynga Company, http://zynga.com.
[8] Sun-Jun Hong, Women's psychology, psychological understanding of women, Kyoyookbook, 1998, pp.84.
[9] Brenda Laurel, "When computers become human", Springer-Verlag New York, Inc. Secaucus, NJ, USA, 1999.
[10] Jung-bean Lim and Hye-jung Jung, "Gender roles and women", Hakjisa publisher, 1997.
[11] M .D. Griffiths, M. N. O. Davies, and D. Chappell, "Breaking the Stereotype: The Cases of Online Gaming", Cyber Psychology and Behavior, Vol.6, No.1, 2003, pp.81-91.
[12] Taylor, "Multiple Pleasures: Women and Online Gaming", 9 (1): 21, Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 2003.
[13] Nick Yee, "The Demographics, Motivations and Derived Experiences of Users of Massively Multi-User Online Graphical Environments", Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 15, pp.309-329, 2006.
[14] Horner, "M. S. Toward and understanding of achievement-related conflicts in women" in 1972, Journal of Social Issues, 28, pp. 157-176.
[15] Hye-ryeon sim, Cyberspace era aesthetics -A new beauty to dominate the world, Salim Publisher, pp.191-193, 2009.