Final Fantasy franchise

Japanese gaming culture seems to love androgynous teens, with exotic colored straight long hair, like in the Final Fantasy games. The RPG franchise, created by Hironobu Sakaguchi, is already a quarter of a century old and has spawned movies and several follow-up games, usually with different storylines and characters. The newest of these games are 'Final Fantasy XIII-2' and 'Final Fantasy Type-0'. The games are now created by Square Enix which has also released versions for mobile gaming...'Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions' can be played on the iPad and iPhone.



While the Final Fantasy games feature battles, their focus is more on strategy than brute force and an endless supply of ammo, weapons, and lives, which are seen in western games. Proficiency in combat depends on proper gear, stats, preset paradigms for each character, and the ability to recruit certain creatures. 'Final Fantasy XIII-2' is an exception in the franchise because it is a continuation of the story and characters from 'Final Fantasy XIII'.

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Female video game designers

Sony Online Entertainment has come out with a G.I.R.L (Gamers in Real Life) $10,000 Scholarship and internship, which is for female students aged over 18 in any field relating to video game design and development. The objective is to encourage more female video game designers and make gaming studios gender balanced. If girls have the aptitude for video game design they will get into the industry no matter what. An example is Stephanie Gelish, pictured above at the Champlain College computer science lab in 2005. From Melville NY, Stephanie got into gaming in the fifth grade with her first PlayStation. Gelish later started getting ideas on how to make the games better and discovered that she could make money playing video games, "I took a designing course, and I found out that at some colleges you can actually major in electronic gaming. I decided right then that's what I would study — and that some day, I'd be a video game designer....game developers right out of college can make more than $50,000 a year!"

Annoyed by male dominated gaming clubs, Stephanie Gelish started a campus gaming club just for girls called GameHers. Since Champlain college had a policy against single-sex clubs, it took a lot of back and forth before GameHers was alloted $1500. Stephanie told CosmoGirl! in 2006: "My hope is that the next generation of girls will grow up without the stereotype that technology is a 'guy thing'. I'm living proof that it's not!" Since then Stephanie went into the related fields of graphic design, web design, 2d and 3d animation, and is currently working for animal rights. So video games scholarships for girls are a good thing but will not create female designers; they've got to have an aptitude for it. On the issue of male domination in the video game industry Gelish told Burlington press: "Girls don't have any power in the industry. They're not getting their ideas in the games."

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Demeaning female characters with dialogue

It's not skimpy outfits that are considered demeaning for female characters in video game, but the dialogue that is directed at them. During the Women in Film, Games and New Media event at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto, female gaming industry professional Leigh Alexander said: "I don't like it when conversations get sidetracked onto how sexy images of women or how the women themselves are or aren't allowed to be." Demeaning dialogue in the video game is directed at female characters. In the world of online mulitplayer gaming, any gamer identifying herself as female has catcalls and insults directed at her during the game, and is harassed afterwards.

Meanwhile The Montreal Gazette of Canada reports that even though female gamers are now the fastest-growing video game consumers, there is a shortage of female gaming industry professionals. At the Montreal International Game Summit there were very few female participants or speakers. "It's something we have recognized as an issue and it's something that we're working on," Danielle Parr, executive director of the Entertainment Software Association of Canada, which launched a public awareness campaign last year to attract women to the video game industry.

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Mobile gaming surge

Sony's new PlayStation Vita is a gaming system that has a cross-platform gaming ability....you can convert your PlayStation 3 saved games to your PS Vita machine, play on the mobile gaming platform and surge to higher levels, and transfer it back to the PS3. With the rising number of smartphones and tablets, mobile gaming is increasing in popularity. As per a report published by Park Associates, in 2011 18% of US gamers downloaded games onto their mobile devices, up from just 7 per cent in 2008. In addition, gaming applications seem to significantly contribute to the earnings of Facebook games.



But a research paper by Elastic Path Software on the gaming industry reveals that consumers don't just play mobile games on the move, but also in the comfort of their homes. Mobile gaming at home is an alternative to traditional console and PC gaming because it's easier, more convenient, and cheaper. Mobile gamers are more willing to splurge more on gaming add-ons, character upgrades, extra levels, than ever before. The surge in mobile gaming on smartphones and tablets, has not deterred Nintendo Boss Satoru Iwata who batted for mobile consoles like the Nintendo 3DS in a press conference: "Last summer, when the sales pace of the Nintendo 3DS was slow, there were extreme remarks saying, 'With the penetration of smartphones, will there still be a market for handheld hardware?' which was almost equal to 'handheld hardware is not necessary anymore...I believe we proved that such opinions are incorrect." But if I can play games on my smartphone, why do I need a mobile console?

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Brain imaging game to prevent depression in girls

A study,led by psychology Professor Ian Gotlib at Stanford suggests that brain imaging and a video game can be used to prevent depression in girls. It focuses on 10- to 14-year-old girls whose mothers are, or have been, depressed. Girls from such backgrounds have a significantly higher risk of developing depression. The bodies of such girls respond with increased heart rate, blood pressure, and cortisol production to negative experiences. The study has been under way for less than a year and is funded by the National Institute of Mental Health; the early results suggest that girls can change their reactions to negative information and lower their stress levels.

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