Gender Differences in Motivations and Gratifications to Play Video Games: The Study of The Sims4 Players

This article explores gender differences in motivations and gratifications related to playing video games such as The Sims series. This research is an attempt to analyze both men and women differences in game related gratifications to identify which factors make a game more gratifying for a specific gender of gamers. For this research, we conducted twenty in-depth interviews with both male and female players of different franchises of The Sims4 and also analyzed several “The Sims4 online forums”, as a new, undisturbed and rich source of information in game studies. The results indicate that main gratifying factors related to game playing experience of video games in general and The Sims4 are appearance, character, storyline, control and complexity, fantasy and social interaction. In addition, there are some gratifying factors such as cheats in The Sims series which increase game feature flexibilities and level of control over game destiny. The findings recommend that game researchers with uses and gratifications paradigm should consider the importance of including in-game gratifying factors to their questionnaires. The results of gender differences indicate that most players in video games such as The Sims4 create their Sim-self based on their own gender and make their own favorite storyline related to the chosen gender. The fantasy world of the game combined with desired activities in real life gives the female a more gratifying motive to play the game with the intention to escape from real life problems. Contrary to men, most female players enjoy the isolated world of the game from online environment to avoid others` intrusion to their privacy. Finally, suggestions for future research about gratifying motives of gender differences based on uses and gratifications paradigm is provided.