In Software, It’s Still a Boy’s World
Rockett Movado is a self-assured eighth-grader at Whistling Pines Junior High. The spunky redhead who loves art and photography possesses an aura of creativity and independence that suggests she would succeed in whatever career she chooses.
That is, unless she wants to write software for girls.
That particular line of business has proved to be singularly difficult for nearly every company that has tried it, including Rockett’s creator, Purple Moon.
The Mountain View, Calif., company drew on exhaustive research about girls’ play patterns, as well as the financial support of Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen. It won critical praise for a series of CD-ROMs about Rockett’s adventures in junior high school and fantasy-oriented games set in a mysterious virtual wilderness.
But none of that was enough to keep the company in business. Despite selling 250,000 copies of its games, Purple Moon ran out of money and closed its doors in February. It was purchased by toy giant Mattel Inc. in March.
Then again, making money wasn’t the sole motivation for launching Purple Moon, said co-founder Brenda Laurel, who served as the company’s vice president of design.
“The social motivation was creating an environment where girls could get comfortable with technology and believing it would increase their options in careers and other opportunities later on,” Laurel said in a recent interview. “By the time they get to fifth grade, girls either become comfortable with [computers] and make it part of their lives, or they fall off the wagon. If we’re going to make an intervention where technology becomes part of their palette as human beings, you have to do it before they hit their teens.”
But companies such as Purple Moon have had to labor for years against the forces that attract many girls to dolls while their brothers gravitate toward guns. Software developers have long profitably exploited boys’ impulses--especially in the marketing of games that rely on competitiveness and images of violence to provide their punch. But so far, none has found a reliable or profitable way to exploit the very different impulses of girls.
Mattel, the only company that can claim significant profits from selling software for girls, relies on the most famous doll of all time for its success in that market. Barbie’s software spinoffs are the five best-selling games for girls, according to PC Data’s ranking of games based on 1998 sales figures.
“There aren’t that many great brand names in girls’ stuff besides Barbie,” said Seema Williams, a Forrester Research analyst who focuses on kids and teens. “It helps a lot if you spin off from a brand name, because you’re not going to spend $20 million developing a brand name that girls are going to outgrow in two years.”
Mattel has become a master at marketing software for girls. Not only do its Barbie titles dominate the top-five rankings, but it also produces the next five top-selling games--four of which are based on the storybook character Madeline that Mattel picked up when it bought Learning Co. last year.
Mattel says it has tried to capitalize on girls’ innate interest in playing with dolls to sell them software.
“We are able to translate established play patterns very successfully into innovative software,” said Mattel Media President David Haddad, who is in charge of the company’s expanding software efforts. “We use research to constantly help us understand what kids are looking for. Certainly, other publishers have done some of that, but that combination has worked incredibly successfully for us.”
Of course, it doesn’t hurt that El Segundo-based Mattel, with $4.8 billion in annual revenue, also has the clout to extract crucial shelf space from retailers. It can also afford to advertise on television and has the heft to weather a downturn in the category.
Web May Be Natural Playground for Girls
Mattel’s dominance has not dissuaded other companies from trying to expand the market for girls’ software.
Several upstarts believe, for example, that everything could change with the rise of the World Wide Web. Unlike the shoot-’em-up games that are popular with boys, girls prefer play activities that involve complex story lines and communication with friends. That makes the Web a natural playground for them.
“It mirrors their behavior patterns. It’s more social,” said Laura Groppe, founder and chief executive of closely held Girl Games of Austin, Texas, a rare example of a girls’ software firm that makes a small profit, although Groppe declined to say how much.
In their early years, girls’ interest in computers actually mirrors that of boys. Educational software titles such as Knowledge Adventure’s “Jump Start” and “Blaster” series and Broderbund Software’s “Carmen Sandiego” games, are equally popular with both genders, according to the companies. But research shows that as children progress through elementary school, signs of gender identification start to kick in.
“Boys tend to become very competitive, and they like to see who can beat each other at games and who gets the highest score,” said Ken Goldstein, president of Disney Online and founder of the Broderbund division that developed the hit computer game “Riven.” “Winning is very, very important. But you see girls start to build communities and socialize with each other.”
Educational researchers say girls lose interest in computers and boys embrace them between first and fourth grades. Those differences are reinforced by the overwhelming number of computer games--not to mention game-based cartoons, magazines and clothing--available for boys and the relative dearth of titles for girls.
A more subtle bias may also be at work. It began with the engineers and entrepreneurs--nearly all of them men--who created the first computer games and did so according to their own tastes.
“The men have been writing games for the little boys they were, and they’re not always thinking of their daughters,” said Leslie Wilson, a creative designer who is developing a girls’ area within Disney Online.
Then a Catch-22 develops. Companies devote their resources to games for boys because that’s where the guaranteed market is. Boys’ titles therefore dominate the bestseller list, reinforcing companies’ decisions to focus on them. Girls continue to be deprived of a steppingstone that could lead to a career in computing--and the opportunity to change things.
Moore’s Law--the famous maxim that the cost of computing power falls steadily over time--also plays a role, Goldstein said. Faster computers allow software developers to speed the pace of a game, enhance the graphics and pack it with more villains. But it doesn’t make the task of storytelling any easier.
“If I tell boys there are 100 times more monsters and more weapons, boys go ‘Great!’ ” Goldstein said. “But girls say, ‘I didn’t like it [even] with 100 times fewer monsters.’ ”
Instead, girls tend to favor games with rich stories set in worlds they can explore at their own pace, Groppe said. (“Myst,” Broderbund’s best-selling fantasy game, attracted an audience that was about 30% female.)
The Pros and Cons of Gender Marketing
Communication becomes another big attraction for girls as they get older. Internet-based technology such as e-mail, instant messages and online chat may have more potential to draw girls to computers than CD-ROM games ever did. That pattern is already showing up on Disney Online, Goldstein said.
Girls also prefer to play with software that is relevant to their lives, said Kate Hanley, producer of the Click computing channel on iVillage.com, an online community geared toward women. “Barbie Cool Looks Fashion Designer,” Mattel’s best-selling title ever, is popular in part because it lets girls make clothes for the dolls they already play with. Girls also appreciate software that helps them keep a diary or stay in touch with friends.
“The PalmPilot is the ultimate girl gadget,” Hanley said. “It’s like a Filofax, which is traditionally a woman kind of thing. If they just put a mirror in it and a place to put your lipstick and make them in colors, women would go for it. But it looks like a scary, cold, hard box.”
The smaller, sleeker Palm V is catching on well among women, said Elizabeth Cardinale, a spokesman for 3Com’s Palm Computing unit. Though the new models are still monochromatic--colors introduce inventory headaches--handbag designers Coach and Dooney & Bourke have created carrying cases that appeal to fashion-conscious female users, she said.
One problem with some of the girls’ software on the market is that it places more emphasis on being politically correct than on enabling girls to play according to traditional gender roles, Wilson said.
Software designers should make software for girls “that gives them permission to do what they like,” she said. “Mattel has no problem accepting that formula. They go ahead and give little girls dolls. We have to ask a greater question--why do we demean doll play?”
To Seymour Papert, an MIT Media Lab professor who uses interactive toys and games to attract children to the rigors of programming, focusing on girls’ interests--whether stereotypical or otherwise--is the wrong tack to take. Recent history proves that “formulaic approach” doesn’t work, he said.
Instead, creators should try to invent games that are “for people” and can be used by each person in his or her own way, like a pencil or a piano. Whenever he has created programs like that, Papert said, “girls use the computers as enthusiastically and as deeply as boys.”
Times staff writer Karen Kaplan can be reached at Karen.Kaplan@latimes.com.
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
Girl Power
Few companies have managed to turn girls’ software into a profitable business. The notable exception is toy giant Mattel. Last year, the El Segundo firm recorded a clean sweep of the 10 most popular titles for girls, attributed largely to the popularity of Barbie.
*--*
Rank Title Units sold Revenue (billions) 1 Barbie Riding Club 288,384 $9.1 2 Barbie Nail Designer 229,316 3.9 3 Barbie Photo Designer With 203,145 12.9 Digital Camera 4 Barbie Magic Hair Styler 156,456 4.7 5 Barbie Detective 132,446 4.3 6 Madeline Preschool/Kindergarten 119,721 2.6 Bundle* 7 Barbie Cool Looks Fashion Designer 116,635 4.5 8 Madeline Thinking Games* 106,392 1.7 9 Madeline Thinking Games Deluxe* 102,164 2.0 10 Madeline Classroom 1st/2nd 101,331 2.2 Grade Bundle*
*--*
*Acquired in takeover of Learning Co.
Source: PC Data Inc.
