In 1997, a software company named Purple Moon launched its debut game, Rockett’s New School. The game, as well as the company’s other Rockett games, focused on “relationships, secrets, identity negotiation, and interpersonal skills” (Taylor). Brenda Laurel, the founder of Purple Moon, defended the games focus on stereotypical female interests, but due to a drop in sales the company would shut down two years later and merge with Mattel. In 1998, Mattel released its fourth Barbie PC game, Detective Barbie in The Mystery of the Carnival Caper (MCC), adhering to the common philosophy of creating non-violent, non-competitive games for girls. That same year, a new game company called Her Interactive released its debut game, Nancy Drew: Secrets Can Kill (SCK), another non-violent PC game for girls that, unlike the Rockett or Barbie series,  “didn’t rely on gender stereotypes” (Jong). In this blog, I will examine how Her Interactive moved beyond pink games to create a new kind of game for girls, and how more games like the Nancy Drew series could attract more of these potential gamers.

In MCC, the player controls Barbie as she searches the carnival for the missing Ken using a magnifying glass that highlights clues and footprints through the lens. Each clue—which is usually a ticket stub with an obvious marking, like a ghost for the haunted house or a horse for the carousel— leads to a different area in the carnival where the player will find either another clue or a useful object, like a key or a crowbar. If the clues are too difficult to solve, a computer manned by Barbie’s sidekick, Becky, will hint at where to go. The clues eventually lead Barbie to a shadowy figure, who must be successfully chased through several carnival rides before (s)he can be unmasked. MCC’s success lead to a second detective game, which was released three years later.

As in MCC, the player controls Nancy Drew in SCK as she investigates a school murder using a special magnifying glass to search for clues. Unlike MCC, the player is required to complete several puzzles—like deciphering the coded hints on the school’s bulletin boards, solving a sliding puzzle for access to a faculty computer account, or fixing an overheating boiler before it kills Nancy—question suspects, riffle through said suspects’ belongings to learn more about them, and use objects granted throughout the game to sneak into off-limits areas in order to progress through the game. Each conversation offers several dialogue options, with each choice eventually leading back to the topic at hand. Suspects become increasingly hostile as the player learns more about their secrets, and some will refuse to talk unless presented with proof of their crime, which range from a young woman competing anonymously in a men’s judo tournament to a young man being blackmailed into becoming a drug runner.

Nancy has a journal that records important clues for the player—unless she is playing as a Senior or Master Detective—but the game also requires the player to pay attention during her investigations. The teacher’s lounge, for instance, has a clue to the boiler room’s password. Nancy’s magnifying glass will indicate that the player should look at the whiteboard in the lounge, but until the player finds the book on Morse code hidden in the room and deciphers the password, the clue will mean nothing, as Nancy will rarely solve clues for the player’s convenience.

When Her Interactive first tried to get SCK published, distributers turned down the product on the basis that girls and women were not a viable market for PC games. Now the original demographic has increased from ages 10-15 to ages 10-80 to include the many adult women who play the games (Gaiser) and is no longer restricted to girls and women. As of 2006, “10-15% of our audience is male and if the name of the series weren’t Nancy Drew, we [at Her Interactive] believe we would have many more boys and men playing our games” (Jacobs). Her Interactive’s goal has always been “to design, develop, and market intelligent interactive games for girls” with the belief “that there should be as many types of games as there are types of girls.” (Jong)  Brenda Laurel claims to have attempted to do the same, but critics of the Rockett series claim that Brenda created games for only one type of girl—specifically, girls who did not or were not interested in playing PC games—and ignored the rest (TayotaPeterson). Rather than confining themselves to games that interest only one kind of gamer, Her Interactive produces games that “rely on the intrigue of a good mystery, and a smart, gutsy heroine” (Jong). “’These aren’t girly games,’ Gaiser says firmly. ‘They are intelligent entertainment.’ And maybe that’s all that girls–and some boys–really want” (“Daily Beast”).

(For those of you unfamiliar with the game, you can watch video recordings of both games here and here.)

Gaiser, Megan. Personal Interview.

Jong, Philip. “Her Interactive.” Adventure Classic Gaming. Interview by Philip Jong. 12 June 2000. Web. <http://www.adventureclassicgaming.com/index.php/site/interviews/156/>.

LatoyaPeterson, . ” Beyond Rockett and Purple Moon: Gender, Gaming, and Stereotypes. Jezebel. N.p., 29 Dec 2009. Web. 26 Nov. 2011. <http://jezebel.com/5435844/beyond-rockett-and-purple-moon–gender-gaming-and-stereotypes>.

Jacobs, Jay S. “The Case of the Pioneering Game Company.” PopEntertainment.com. Interview by Jay J. Jacobs. PopEntertainment.com, 3 Dec 2006. Web. <http://www.popentertainment.com/gaiser.htm>.

Taylor, TL. Play between worlds: Exploring online game culture. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2006.

Web. <http://www.bendevane.com/FRDC2011/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Taylor-Play-Between-Worlds-Chapter-4.pdf>.

“The Practical Futurist: Girls Just Want To Have Games.” Daily Beast. 3 Sep 2002: n. page. Web. 26 Nov. 2011. <http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2002/09/03/the practical-futurist-girls-just-want-to-have-games.html>.

Scholars from the late 1990s and the early 2000s agreed that “girls do not particularly enjoy violence or direct competition in games but instead prefer to funnel their energy toward interpersonal issues, indirect competition, environments, puzzles, or character-based genres” (Taylor 99), but both TL Taylor and Megan Gaiser, the former president and current Chief Creative Strategy Officer of HerInteractive, disagree. “If they’re not buying games in large numbers, it’s not because they don’t like to play games, it’s because few developers are designing games that appeal to them” Megan says in an interview with Philip Jong of Adventure Classic Gaming. “And those that do tend to rely pretty heavily on pink packaging, boy-talk and clothes. To assume that those are the only things girls are interested in is absurd. Our games don’t use gender stereotypes to appeal to girls. Instead, they rely on the intrigue of a good mystery, and a smart, gutsy heroine. We believe that there should be as many types of games as there are types of girls.”

HerInteractive is “the only developer in the U.S. focused exclusively on the girls market”, according to Megan—something she finds odd when one considers how “there are more than 70 million girls in our target age range, and they have about $45 billion to spend each year.” By focusing on an untapped market and aiming to create an intelligent game for girls, HerInteractive created Nancy Drew, their award-winning computer game franchise based on the popular 1930’s series. When asked about the inspiration behind the games, Megan replies that “Nancy Drew is a powerful role model – she’s brilliant, intrepid, and successful” and that the games “fit our search for content that was non-violent and that didn’t rely on gender stereotypes.”

In my final paper, I will examine how HerInteractive moved beyond pink games to create a new kind of game for girls at a time when girls and women weren’t even considered a viable demographic for video games, and how more games like the Nancy Drew series could bring girls and women into the gaming fold, rather than driving them away.

Learning From Video Games:
“When you mentioned learning about guns and military jargon through video games, it reminded me of when I watched a playthrough of Assassin’s Creed II and Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. I knew a little of Caterina Sforza, so when she appeared in the game, I would pause the playthrough every now and then to check the facts of the game. I was surprised at how well researched the whole game was, and apparently I’m not the only one. I’ve run into several people who’ve claimed that they passed their history test by playing the game and watching the biographical clips they triggered throughout the game–and given the thoroughness of the studio’s research, I wouldn’t be surprised if at least a few of those people were telling the truth.
The same can be said for Treasure in the Royal Tower, a Nancy Drew game by HerInteractive, in which the player explores a tower-turned-hotel in search of Marie Antoinette’s secret treasure. The game requires the player to learn about 16th century France to find clues, and several players on the HerInteractive forum cited the game as the reason for success in passing this test or writing that essay.
On the other hand, I have a friend who can solve any sliding puzzle through a trick she learned in various games that included sliding puzzles. Her ability to solve these puzzles doesn’t seem to be something she learned through video games specifically, but merely through repetition. So I guess the degree to which video games can teach a person depends on what that person is learning.”

Admiration, Creativity, Pokemon!
“As someone who watched Pokemon avidly as a kid and couldn’t wait to get her hands on a GameBoy Color to play the games, I feel a little sheepish in admitting that I’d never [heard] of Nuzlocke rules until reading your blog. If I weren’t halfway through Soul Silver, I’d try my hand at it right now, so I can easily see the appeal of both playing the game with Nuzlocke rules and sharing your experience with others through comics.
I would like to mention one thing about doujinshi, though. Now, this is all hearsay, but apparently Japan isn’t as lawsuit-happy as the US, and most mangaka consider doujinshi a harmless form of flattery. Last year, a young man named Nick Simmons published a comic that bore striking similarities to certain panels from Bleach, a popular shonen manga by Noriaki Kubo. Kubo replied with two tweets:
“Last night until this morning, I got a ton of “an American comic is copying Bleach!” messages from overseas fans! Looking at the site I don’t speak English, but I saw something like “Gene Simmons’ son Nick Simmons who draws manga-style comics.”
“Honestly, more than whether they resemble each other or not, I wonder that Gene Simmons’ son is a mangaka…”
This seems to be the general outlook on doujinshi, and even when one mangaka calls out another on plagiarism, the guilty party just tends to go on hiatus until things get sorted out. So I guess I’m saying I agree with what you wrote, but wanted to add that harmful doujinshi just doesn’t seem to exist within Japan’s culture.”

In Adolescents and Online Fan Fiction, Rebecca Black writes that “although manga and anime are often derided for being…child-fare, manga and anime scholars,  aficionados, and fans concur that these media are far more than just cartoons.” Furthermore, she asserts that anime and manga “might move audiences to consider contemporary issues in Japanese society” and provide “insight into the sort of generic conventions and narrative structures that students are becoming familiar with”. As an anime fan myself, I agree with Black, and will use this blog to showcase two shoujo anime—Revolutionary Girl Utena (RGU) and Puella Magi Madoka Magica (PMMM)—in argument against anime being just “child-fare”.

RGU is a 90’s anime about Utena, a 14-year-old girl who, after being saved by a prince, decides to become a prince and enrolls in Ohtori Academy, where she is unwillingly drawn into a series of duels against members of the student council as they fight for the Rose Bride, Anthy, who grants her fiancé the power to revolutionize the world. The series is heavy in symbolism and allegory—Kuma, a reviewer for The Nihon Review, likens RGU to “staring at a Surrealist painting”—and is primarily a coming-of-age story, but for the purpose of this blog, I will focus on the issue of gender roles.

Gender roles are usually not explored in shoujo anime, save for reinforcing traditional gender roles; in fact, prior to Sailor Moon, “females are seen to encompass a more fragile, passive, dependent, and submissive role in a romantic relationship…She obeys her partner willingly and faithfully and makes no decision of her own” (Lo). RGU toys with this concept, particularly as it applies to fairy tale archetypes.

Ohtori Academy is a place where “women who can’t be princesses have no choice but to become witches”—a obvious analogy to the Madonna/Whore complex. (Giovanna, and Yasha). Utena’s desire to become a “girl prince” (Lunning 163)  doesn’t conform to either role or to a woman’s traditional role; as such, several male characters view her as something to be tamed, “so they can make a “proper woman” out of her” (Ren). Anthy, on the other hand, embodies the passive woman described above, fulfilling her gender role while simultaneously burdened with the witch’s role. Akio, Anthy’s incestuous brother and the villain of the series, also suffers from his role as the prince, whose duty to “make all the women of the world into princesses” led to his own self-destruction as a prince (Giovanna, and Yasha) and his obsession with making Utena his princess. While Akio’s refusal to reject his role keeps him bound to Ohtori and its constraints, Utena and Anthy are eventually able to transcend their roles and leave Ohtori as adults unbound by gender roles.

In PMMM, the titular character Madoka is offered the chance to become a magical girl and fight evil witches with the help of a creature named Kyuubey—and any similarities to other magical girl anime end there. PMMM took every common magical girl convention—a trustworthy animal mascot; the benefits of magical powers; the power of love and friendship; nobly fighting for the greater good—and turned them on their heads; in fact, the only conventions it retained were the magical girls themselves and, surprisingly, a happy ending.

Kyuubey isn’t particularly helpful, unlike more typical mascots, and takes advantage of the girls’ ignorance to hide the truth from them: that all magical girls eventually turn into witches, and that Kyuubey’s race has been exploiting magical girls and the energy they provide since mankind’s beginning. His expression rarely changes, and the camera often shows him close up with unblinking red eyes, or silhouetted with glowing eyes, giving viewers the impression that he is, if not evil, at least inhuman.

Where other magical girl anime show the advantages of gaining magical powers, PMMM examines the sacrifice that comes with being a magical girl (Krell),  the mental instability that results from leading such a life, and the breakdown of teamwork that comes from fighting over Grief Seeds, the limited resource that witches leave behind upon death, which temporarily prevent magical girls from turning into witches. The atmosphere of the series is dark, and the visuals lean toward the grotesque and disturbing where witches are concerned (Stefan).

Like most media, it’s rare to find a well-done deconstruction of a genre or a tasteful handling of sensitive subjects in anime, and most examples are considered exceptions to the rule—perhaps rightly so. And yet, with so many notable anime like RGU and PMMM exploring themes like what it means to be a human, or a man, or a woman, or the effects war can have on a young person, or the indomitable human spirit in the face of adversity, it’s hard to argue that these “cartoons” are just for kids.

Ben, . “Revolutionary Girl Utena.” n. pag. Web. 3 Nov 2011.

<http://www.nihonreview.com/anime/revolutionary-girl-utena/>.

Black, R. W. (2008). Adolescents and online fan fiction (Vol. 23). New York: Peter Lang,

4-5. Print

Giovanna, , and Yasha. “SHOUJO KAKUMEI UTENA ENGLISH SCRIPT EPISODE 34:

“SEAL OF THE ROSE”.” Empty Movement. N.p., 20 Dec 1999. Web. 3 Nov

2011. <http://ohtori.nu/scripts/Episode_34.htm>.

Krell, Evan. “The Inevitability of Madoka.” AM11PM7. WordPress, 02 May 2011. Web. 3

Nov. 2011. <https://am11pm7.wordpress.com/2011/05/02/the-inevitability-of-madoka/>.

Lo, Patricia. “Divergence of Gender Representation: Sailor Moon and Revolutionary Girl

Utena.” Essay: Divergence of Gender Representation: Sailor Moon and Revolutionary Girl Utena. coursework.info, 20 Jun 2006. Web. 3 Nov 2011.

<http://www.coursework.info/University/Social_studies/Sociology/Gender_Studie

s/Divergence

_of_Gender_Representation__Sai_L95616.html>.

Lunning, Frenchy. Mechademia 1, Emerging Worlds Of Anime And Manga. Univ Of

Minnesota Press, 2007. 163. eBook. < http://books.google.com/books?id=CMYwUzMCj-gC&pg=PA165&lpg=PA165&dq=utena+gender+role&source=bl&ots=dIB43GqoWb&sig=X5b82CVxR7kWUmQ5zAgt80_yK2o&hl=en&ei=HdiyTpC1DIa-tgeStLC_Aw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CEIQ6AEwBjgU#v=onepage&q=utena%20gender%20role&f=false

Ren, . “Princes, Princesses, and Revolution: Gender Roles in Revolutionary Girl Utena.”

WMST 2010 A: Feminist Analysis. Blogger, 25 Apr 2008. Web. 3 Nov. 2011. <http://ugafeminism.blogspot.com/2008/04/princes-princesses-and-revolution.html>.

Stefan, . “Puella Magia Madoka Magica.” n. pag. The Nihon Review. Web. 3 Nov 2011.

<http://www.nihonreview.com/anime/puella-magi-madoka-magica/>.