The World of Warcraft game engages around nine million players globally.

Some Australian women are spending up to 45 hours a week involved in the latest international gaming craze World of Warcraft distributed by software supplier Blizzard Entertainment.

This matches up with recent research showing that women are now spending more of their leisure time playing video games and comprise 40% of all players. Along with older Australians, they are the fastest uptakers of the entertainment sport in this country, spending an average of 7.4 hours a week playing games.

Playing video games since she was six

Roslyn Sportelli said she would like to train as a game developer.

Roslyn Sportelli, 25, and a fully-qualified real estate agent, is the corporation manager for her mother’s real estate business in Brisbane. She has been playing video games since she was six.

Roslyn explained to www.connectedwomen.net.au that she first played WonderBoy and Pitfall on a Commodore 64 console. From there she advanced to Sony PlayStation and presently has a collection of 300 games to play on her PS2.

But that was before she discovered World of Warcraft (WOW), described by Blizzard as “a living, breathing online adventure world with over 9 million players.”

In the process of playing the game, both males and females connect with millions of global players in what could be described a virtual online community.

Gaming connects to social life
Roslyn said she plays WOW around six hours a day on her PC, mostly when she comes home from work. She acknowledges that this is a lot of time, but explains that when she is playing WOW she feels connected to her social world. This is because the players form ‘Guilds’ where there may be up to 25 players involved. They have a set time to start playing and when Roslyn logs on, her friends are waiting to play.

“It’s what I do; I don’t watch TV although I play soccer two evenings a week.  I would prefer to play WOW than go down to the pub and get drunk. I want to buy a house, so I save a lot of money by not going out,” she said.

Roslyn added that she has developed strong friendships, particularly with fellow Australians, through WOW. However, she said that so far male gamers playing WOW outnumber females by five to one.

Men pretending to be women to get gifts
In a strange twist, Roslyn explained that due to the low level of female interaction, some male players actually pretend to be female to gain free gifts from other males.

“When I first started playing, I didn’t want the other players to know that I was a female because I would get criticised for my sex if I stuffed up,” she said. When she revealed her gender, Roslyn said the response was startling. “They became very excited and started sending me gold (which is online currency) and other gifts.

“But I do know of some guys who now pretend to be females to get these gifts as well, it’s very humourous,” she said.

Sony offers women a gaming scholarship

Julia Brasil of San Francisco was the inaugural winner of Sony Online Entertainments 2008 G.I.R.L. Game Design Competition.

Meanwhile, entertainment sport has become so popular in the US that Sony Online Entertainment has offered a US$10,000 scholarship to female students. The competition was the first of its kind and was promoted in conjunction with The Art Institute’s system of schools, to encourage students toward career paths in the creative and applied arts. Sony US said that the ultimate goal is to develop games that are more interesting for women to play.

Badged the 2008 G.I.R.L. Game Design Competition, the inaugural winner was Julia Brasil of San Francisco. G.I.R.L is an acronym for Game In Real Life.

On July 8, Julia was awarded a US$10,000 tuition scholarship toward her education at The Art Institute of California in San Francisco and a paid internship of up to 10 weeks at the Sony Online Entertainment studios of her choice in Austin, Denver, San Diego or Seattle.

This is an opportunity which would definitely interest Roslyn. “I always wanted to develop games, but I went off on a different path,” she said.

Developer should deliver more global role playing games
Her advice for game developers: “I love WOW because it’s a worldwide role game that I can play with a lot of people. I would definitely like to see more role playing games like this on the market.”

SEGA Australia marketing manager Gareth Gower told www.connectedwomen.net.au that there was a major opportunity for manufactures and retailers to reach out to the female gamer.

“Recent research conducted on behalf of the Interactive Entertainment Association Australia has shown that more females are playing video games than ever before and the gap in the numbers between male and female gamers is closing rapidly.

“This changing trend represents a huge opportunity for game publishers and, as a result, we are seeing more games being developed with females in mind,” he said.