Barriers to play: accounting for non-participation in digital game play

Playing a digital game is considered to be a leisure activity; therefore playing or not playing is typically viewed as an autonomous choice motivated by individual preferences for how one spends their time not occupied by other obligations. While a growing body of interventionist literature documents new entry points for girls and women into playing or making games, investigations are primarily focused on joining rather than why someone might ultimately leave. To address this gap whereby the study of former and non-players remains under explored, I bring together two disparate areas of academic investigation: leisure studies, specifically the study of barriers and access to leisure spaces, and critical feminist games scholarship. Taken together, these two areas of investigation provide a framework to account for why women might leave a game or never begin playing in the first place. Rather than assuming that playing or not playing is exclusively about choice or interest, I argue that there is much to be learned by asking women about what games they do not play and their reasons for quitting or never purchasing or downloading a particular game in the first place.