Playing the Waiting Game: Complicating Notions of (tele)presence and Gendered Distraction in Casual Mobile Gaming

In this paper we consider the various manifestations of ‘presence’ and ‘place’ in the context of mobile gaming, arguing that the clichés surrounding young women and mobile gaming are being complicated as increasingly women start to enter the games industry as creative professionals. In order to study some of the changing modes of gendered game play around mobile and casual gaming we focus upon the growing realm of young women who are studying to be game designers. Via a sample study of seventeen young women aged between 18-30 years old we investigate the different attitudes and spaces in which casual mobile games are played and the types of engagement they afford. Complicating the simplistic stereotype that girls play casual mobile games (while boys playing ‘serious’ online games), we look at the different spaces in which these games are played––public transport, at home alone, waiting in queues––and the types of embodiment and engagement experienced by our respondents. In particular, we critically examine the complex, layered and often co-existing modes of being present, not-present and in-between when playing casual mobile games in both public and domestic spaces.