LetzPlay & the Danish Night of Culture

Last Friday was the annual “Danish night of culture“, where my project “LetzPlay” held a multiplayer computer gaming event for women at Boomtown netcafé. As always, Boomtown was brimming with groups of blokes having a night out together, playing World of Warcraft, Counter-Strike, Battlefield and the like, so our little event turned a few heads.

Of the O-so-many Danish Night of Culture participants (65.497 with a culture-pass), 25 turned up to our little soiree. And before you turn on your calculator (we have around a 0.04% participation rate - or 0.08% if considering that the event was only available to half of the participants),  I/LetzPlay still consider the event a success. Several of the women have joined the LetzPlay gaming group, as they noted that they haven’t got anyone else already within their network that they feel that they can play with.

There was a mother and daughter who came to have a new, joint experience. A group of six friends came in to play as their Danish Night of Culture theme was “something that we never would consider doing” (and to put that in perspective, this group of women had just come from a viewing of a cadaver). 95% of the participants were “newbies” (in this case – new to modern computer gaming, never had played a multiplayer game, and had never played in a netcafé before).

The reports that women make up over half of online gamers  (this would include free games like chickstop.com, MMOG’s and the like) which I heard broadcast the day after the event seem to be an illusion to the voiced opinions that I hear from manywomen, and from gaming experiences like LetzPlay, where we time after time see literally no women in the public gaming arena (netcafés). Of course, public gaming is a whole other context, yet I wonder about the transition from being a casual or “domestic” gamer to being a highly visible gamer.  Is this new wave of women gaming on-line done with, or through, existing social networks? Do these gamers need to establish new connections to “fit in”? Women do game – undoubtedly – but what is really at stake in gaming in the public space? This is why I/LetzPlay considers the huge 0.04% turnout a success story.

It was great to see

1) so many women gaming in the public and visible space of the netcafé,

2) newbies to gaming throwing themselves into something that is still stigmatized as something “nerdy”, or “not for them”,

3) existing social groups coming together to play an active social activity.

I certainly hope to see more of those 50+% of women gamers on-line coming out into the public arena: if the public face of gaming was more of a mish-mash of gamers: girls, men, women and boys, perhaps it would make it easier for others to step into this social, fun and skillful leisure activity … I will, for one, be keeping my eyes peeled for new events for women and computer gaming, “sightings” of women and girls gaming in public and online, and so forth.