Software companies cater to girl market

Nora Onley, a 10-year-old who lives in Takoma Park, Md., has blown up her share of aliens. She has conquered the universe, blasted the bad guys to smithereens and earned the high score on several computer games.

Despite these victories, her view of standard shoot-'em-up software like Doom, Duke Nukem and Quake can be summed up this way: "BOR-ing," she declared.

Nora and her 7-year-old sister, Claire, much prefer games like Rockett's New School, a new software title billed as a "friendship adventure for girls." The girls spent a recent Sunday afternoon glued to their Macintosh computer, intent on helping a carrot-topped girl, Rockett Movado, navigate the social milieu of fictional Whistling Pines Junior High School.

Among Rockett's dilemmas: Is classmate Nicole as snobby as she seems? Is Ruben really Mr. Nice Guy? Which party to attend? "I like this," Claire said.

Software designers and marketers are waking up to the fact that, as exemplified by Nora and Claire Onley, girls like to play computer games. And they are realizing that there is a profit to be made by developing software specifically for this long-underserved group. That has meant story lines and well-developed characters, rather than the blood, guts and gore so adored by the usual software game customer, a teen-age boy.

With more than two dozen titles on the market, girls' computer software has become one of the hottest segments of the $1.3 billion CD-ROM game business. Sales of girls' games totaled nearly $60 million last year, up from $1.5 million in 1995, according to PC Data, a Reston, Va., market-research firm. Some experts forecast that sales will reach several hundred million dollars by the year 2000.

But underlying this success is debate about the value of the new girls-only software and whether it is really needed.

Some critics are questioning whether these new "pink" games don't, in essence, perpetuate age-old gender stereotypes that limit girls to playing dress-up and boys to playing with guns and swords.

Developers of the games argue that the software increases girls' comfort with computers and that this added confidence can ultimately lead them to careers in computer science and technology, where women still are vastly outnumbered by men.

At the same time, some big software companies such as Sega Entertainment Inc. say gender-specific software is unnecessary - if a game is good, it will appeal to both boys and girls, according to this argument.

The content of some girls' games has also come under attack, with some criticizing such titles as Barbie Fashion Designer and Barbie Magic Hair Styler, the top two sellers last year. They argue that Barbie software, in particular, panders to young girls; it not only preserves narrow stereotypes of women, but also is of limited educational value.

"On the one hand the Barbie software is great - it really opened up retailers' eyes that there was a market for these games," said Roberta Furger, author of a new book, "Does Jane Compute? Preserving Our Daughters' Place in the Cyber Revolution."

At the same time, she warns, "You don't want to define the market by saying Barbie equals girls' software." There needs to be a variety of games appealing to the interests of all girls, she said.

Susan Brady, a California psychotherapist who has studied how girls use technology, says she dislikes the Barbie software and the message it sends to youngsters. "It encourages all of the old stereotypes - that only beautiful women are valued, and so forth," she said.

But those who market the Barbie games point out that the software encourages girls to think creatively and also exposes them to computers, which is of lifelong benefit.

Despite the criticism, Barbie sells. The doll starred in four of the five best selling girls' software titles last year, with the most popular, Barbie Fashion Designer, generating sales of $14.4 million, according to PC Data.

Barbie is responsible for rousing retailers from their long sleep of ignoring girls' gaming desires. Barbie software went on the market in November 1996 and the maker, Mattel Inc., charted sales of half a million copies by the end of the year.

Barbie isn't alone in garnering criticism for being too, well, girlish. The Rockett game, developed by Purple Moon of Mountain View, Calif., features several scenarios that could easily be labeled as trivial.

For example, Rockett is near tears when she discovers that another classmate is wearing the same outfit. "It's only the first day and already I'm blowing it fashion-wise," Rockett frets, leaving some parents to worry that they're blowing it by exposing their girls to such superficiality.

Yet Purple Moon officials contend that this is just one scenario and that the software has real benefits, such as introducing girls to diversity through a cast that is multicultural.

The games of Her Interactive provoke similar discussions. The Bellevue, Wash., company was an early pioneer in the Doom-dominated wilderness, releasing a series of CD-ROMs called McKenzie & Co. in 1995.

The games, aimed at girls age 8 to 16, star Kim and Carly, two high-school girls determined to make the most of their junior year. Girls role-play the characters as they make important decisions related to their social lives, including dating, slumber parties and the prom.

By the way, McKenzie is an acronym the company devised to describe how the characters feel when they're together: Marvelous, Cool, Kinetic movement, Everlasting friendship, Non-conformist, Zany, Ingenious and Empowered.

Some companies have tried to incorporate a more-educational tone in their software. One big seller is Creative Wonders' Madeline Classroom Companion Series, a set of CD-ROMs that allows children to explore Paris with the spunky French girl of book and television fame. The game teaches French and Spanish vocabulary and also includes math puzzles.

Another bestseller, Learning Co.'s American Girls Premiere, encourages creative expression. The CD-ROM, which is based on the American Girls Collection, a line of historical fiction books, dolls and accessories, encourages girls to write and produce their own "play" starring the five American Girl characters - Felicity, Kirsten, Addy, Samantha and Molly.

These kind of titles, while more educational than Barbie, also emphasize relationships and life experiences much more than software geared to boys.

"For girls, it's not so much about how many coins you win or how many aliens you kill," said Holly Smevog, producer of girls' software at Creative Wonders, based in Redwood City, Calif. "Girls like story lines, real-life situations, hands-on experiences and developing relationships with characters."

Researchers say the girls' software provides valuable benefits to its users. Brady said games such as Rockett and McKenzie & Co. can help bolster a girl's emotional health.

"People need to know what the next step in their development is going to be," she said. "These kind of relational games give girls an idea of what happens next - it teaches them empathy, it teaches them how to resolve differences, and it does it in such a way that it doesn't talk down to them."

Supporters of girls' software also applaud the titles for showing girls that computers can be creative, an antidote to the image of the anti-social computer nerd. The Barbie fashion program is an example of how the two can be linked; even those who dislike the doll and what it represents agree that the CD-ROM stimulates a girl's imagination.

Academics said this link could be key in attracting girls to technical jobs in the future.

"A lot of people are turned off by the nerd image, especially women," said Gregory Andrews, a computer-science professor at the University of Arizona.

Opponents, however, dispute how much the games will help turn out a new generation of female engineers and computer scientists.

Judy Mueller, executive director of the Women's Center, a Vienna, Va., non-profit resource center for women and families, said many successful women working in these fields today didn't grow up playing gender-specific games.

"I hope we're not going to polarize technology within masculine and feminine spheres," she said.

02-03-98