The street smarts of a cartoon princess'. New roles for women in games

The role of women in games is changing, although the media and sometimes games designers have been slow to catch up with this. This paper argues that games are adopting a more gender-neutral approach and that in cases where this does not happen, players are taking matters into their own hands. Fan texts reappropriate the female in games to present a more playful aspect and the growing sociality of games, especially online games, means that designers are taking note where players find difficulty with gendered representations. At the same time the female gamer is becoming less of a trope as players accept more freely that men and women play a diverse selection of games that cannot be categorised by sex.