An Analysis of Gender-Inclusive Language and Imagery in Top-Ranked Board Game Rulebooks
An Analysis of Gender-Inclusive Language and Imagery in Top-Ranked Board Game Rulebooks
An Analysis of Gender-Inclusive Language and Imagery in Top-Ranked Board Game Rulebooks
By Shelly Jones & Tanya Pobuda
December 06, 2020
Summary
Asked a question on the General Gaming forum about board game rulebooks: "Why do so many games insist on having gendered pronouns in the rulebooks?"1 The poster noted that their friends had actually drawn a line in the sand, writing, "They're not interested in learning a board game which only uses masculine pronouns"2 The post generated 361 replies, some supportive commiseration.
"4 Questions of pronouns and gender inclusion in board game rulebooks continue.
Other sectors, we wondered to ourselves: why was gender-inclusive language in board game manuals still debatable across online forums in 2019-20? Surely, language would be more inclusive now that it was in.
By taking a quantitative look at board game rulebooks, we hoped to see if rulebooks were using gender-inclusive and gender-balanced language - a fairly simple inclusive practice that, as we will address further, would make the board game industry more approachable for.
To examine the question of gender inclusion further, we set about trying to audit the current state of rulebooks for the top-ranked board games as ranked by users of BGG. As someone who dabbles in artificial intelligence technologies, Tanya looked at ways to automate the textual analysis process.
Question: How gender inclusive are the rulebooks found in the top 40 BGG-ranked games? We coded our findings using quantitative textual and content analysis.
While we would hope that the board game industry utilized inclusive practices, such as inclusive gender in their rulebooks, in order to welcome more diverse players to the table, this is not the only step necessary toward fostering a diverse community of gamers.
How does representation, linguistic and otherwise impact board gaming?
Game rulebooks can determine how players experience a game.
To answer our research question, "How gender inclusive are the rulebooks found in the top 40 BGG-ranked games?" we looked at a number of factors in the sample, the publication year, country of origin, and the publishers.
"65. Data Collection. To answer our research question,"How gender inclusive are the rulebooks found in the top 40 BGG-ranked games?" we first extracted the top 40 BGG-ranked games on Dec. 23, 2019.
Reference
Pobuda, T., & Jones, S. (2020, December 06). An Analysis of Gender-Inclusive Language and Imagery in Top-Ranked Board Game Rulebooks. Retrieved December 10, 2020, from http://analoggamestudies.org/2020/12/an-analysis-of-gender-inclusive-language-and-imagery-in-top-ranked-board-game-rulebooks/