I had the priveledge of meeting a new enthusiastic Media Masters student a few weeks ago looking to write something about gaming. Yay!!!!! From what I understand, she had grown up being a bit of a gamer and didn’t quite understand why other girls weren’t as well. We ended up having a conversation about the phenomenon “female closet gamers”. You know the type…the girls who’ll gladly dismiss games as a waste of time and a nerdy thing – but secretly they have a nintendo at home! Anyways…it seems like this is the topic she wants to pursue – and I just thought I’d throw it out there and see if anyone knows of someone doing something of the same research?

I guess she’s gonna have to divide between casual and ‘serious’ (although I hate that word) gamers. And I know I’ve got some articles hidden away here somewhere in my del.icio.us. (it’s taken me SUCH a long time to find a tagging system that actually works for me – some stuff just gets lost). I’m wondering how best to tackle such a question.

I’ve already mentioned Hilde Corneliussen (also…didn’t a student from good ol’ HI department hand in a thesis about this recently?)and Torill Mortensen. Also Henry Jenkins ofcourse.

The student is a blogger – AND WE LOVE BLOGGERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So bless her!!!

She’s written a post where she ponders about tackling the Nintendo Wii and how they’re trying to bring in the casual gamers and women (in Norwegian) and I was thinking it might be interesting to analyse how the Xbox360, PS3 and Wii differ in their advertising.

But I thing she’s more of an audience kind of gal! I’m wondering if the answer lies in finding the hardcore female gamers who are out of the closet, interview them to see if they think it’s a big deal or not? And I think maybe she should stay away from MMORPGs – because they sometimes seem to be an exception. And I think it would be cool to look at 20 year olds and above.

But what the hell do I know? I’m still struggling with my own monstrosity!!! Just…if anyone’s got any ideas or texts – don’t be shy!!! ;)

I’m also trying to get a New Media student to write his film analysis paper on a machinima film! Wouldn’t it be sooooo cool to see the whole Film Art book used in an analysis of a machinima film?!! I would love to read about the mis-en-scene! But alas…my powers of persuasion are not as powerful as I hoped. Boooo hooo!!!!