A key element of gender role theory is that most beliefs about women and men's differences focus on communal and agentic attributes (Eagly & Karau, 1991 , 2002 ). Women are often associated with communal characteristics, such as being socially oriented, assistive, nurturing, kind, and sympathetic. Men, on the other hand, are often associated with agentic characteristics, such as being task‐oriented, competitive, ambitious, and independent (Eagly & Karau, 1991 , 2002 ; Kidder, 2002 ). Placing women and men at different ends of the communal‐agentic spectrum has pervasive effects. For example, women are considered more suitable for “pink‐collar” (i.e., feminine) jobs, such as nurse, teacher, secretary, etc., which are devalued compared to the work men do (Britton, 2000 ). Women also face greater hindrances to ascending in their career paths, such as becoming leaders (Eagly & Karau, 2002 ).

Gender disparity is widely observed in many meaningful realms of society. For example, in the workplace, women earn less income and accrue less wealth than men in nearly every occupation (AAUW, 2014 ), due at least partially to bias in performance assessments (Reskin & McBrier, 2000 ). Gender role theory explains the cause of this disparity between women and men and could provide a general framework for the performance gap in games. Gender roles refer to “shared expectations that apply to individuals solely on the basis of their socially identified sex” (Eagly & Karau, 1991 , p. 686). Gender roles consist of both descriptive norms, which are shared expectations about ways in which men and women actually behave (i.e., gender stereotypes), and injunctive norms, which are shared expectations about what men and women ideally should do (Eagly & Karau, 2002 ). The injunctive aspect of gender roles thus exerts influence through 1) internalization of their ideal selves, and 2) external (social) reinforcement of role‐conforming behaviors and disapproval of role‐violating behaviors. Gender disparity thus propagates through socialization processes, starting as early as parental encouragement of children's gender‐typical behaviors (Lytton & Romney, 1991 ) and continuing through the reinforcement of gender stereotypes from peers (Carter & McCloskey, 1984 ), teachers (Hilliard & Liben, 2010 ), and media (Dill & Thill, 2007 ; Gerding & Signorielli, 2014 ).

Research on Gender and Games

The communal and agentic characteristics of women and men, respectively, have found extensive support in video game genre preferences, play styles, motivation, and experiences. Boys are found to enjoy competition, while girls prefer cooperation (Cassell & Jenkins, 1998). Accordingly, recent research suggests that casual game players are predominantly women, while players of shooter and role‐playing games are predominantly men (Nielsen, 2009; Trepte, et al., 2009). Women are also reluctant to self‐identify as “gamers,” due in part to a self‐perceived lack of expertise and time commitment, or less interest in “hardcore” games that typically define the gamer identity (Shaw, 2012). Hartmann and Klimmt (2006) found that, compared to men, women were less attracted to games with competitive elements, violent content, or a lack of social interaction opportunities. For MMOs that allow a myriad of activities in the game world, studies have shown that men and women's differences in motivations also conform to gender stereotypes. Yee's (2006) survey of MMO players found that men are more likely to play for achievement‐oriented reasons, while women are motivated more by social reasons, which was confirmed in numerous studies (Jansz, Avis, & Vosmeer, 2010; Poels, De Cock, & Malliet, 2012; Williams, et al., 2009). Women also are more likely to choose socially oriented, supportive, and assistive character classes in MMOs, such as Priests (Shen, 2014). Finally, compared to women, men have more experience playing games (Williams, et al., 2009) and spend more time playing in general (Lucas & Sherry, 2004).

The gender gap observed in player behavior also extends to other aspects of gaming and games. For example, female characters are overrepresented in casual games (which are found to be more appealing to women), but are underrepresented in other genres, such as MMOs, which are also less liked by women (Wohn, 2011). Kafai (1998) reported persistent gender differences in design choices when boys and girls learned to make their own educational games. For example, compared to girls, boys were more likely to use violent feedback for wrong choices. Scholars believe that the gender gap within games are at least partially attributable to gender disparity in the game industry, which is manifested in misconceptions such as “women don't play games,” poor working conditions, and sexist workplace culture (Fullerton et al., 2008).

Despite the recognized gender differences in gaming, we are still unsure whether gender is a causal or confounding variable. In researching competitive e‐Sports games where female professional gamers participate the least compared to other video game genres, Taylor argues that women's marginalized status is not a result of skills or commitment but instead is due in part to “an imagined difference between men and women…[which] remains a persistent myth” (2012, p. 119). An ethnographic study showed that the so‐called gender gap in play styles—that women prefer to assume assistive roles while men prefer competition—is in reality a difference between novices and experts: once women secure authentic access to games and familiarize themselves with gameplay, they start to take up “expert” positions and play competitively as much as men do (Jenson, de Castell, & Fisher, 2007). Women who play League of Legends are found less confident in their abilities than men, despite controlling for level of skill, and women who play with a romantic partner (which is quite common) are more likely to choose assistive roles in the game than women who do not (Ratan, Taylor, et al., 2015). Similarly, a study examining the cognitive strategies of men and women in learning to play video games revealed that prior experiences with games, rather than gender, influenced their learning strategies (Blumberg & Sokol, 2004). More experienced players tend to adopt internally oriented strategies (e.g., reading a manual), while less experienced players tend to rely on the help of others. Gender, as these studies show, is a correlate of experience rather than the true cause of gameplay differences.

In summary, research has indicated that games, especially noncasual ones, are still a stereotypical male activity. Consistent with both descriptive and injunctive gender norms (Eagly & Karau, 2002), womencompared to menare found to play less; seek out more casual, socially‐oriented game genres; and prefer social, supportive, and less competitive elements and roles. The gendered behavioral patterns contribute to a self‐fulfilling cycle: the less women are attracted or committed to competitive gaming, the less experienced or worse‐performing they become compared to men (Brown, Hall, Holtzer, Brown, & Brown, 1997). The gender performance gap then reinforces the “men are better at games” stereotype, which leads to decreased competence, beliefs, motivation, and performance for women (Chan, 2008).

To date, no study has empirically tested the gender gap in game performance in natural environments, due in part to the lack of objective measures. Some prior studies measured performance using simple game score after completing a task (e.g., finishing a car race; Chan, 2008; North & Hargreaves, 1999), while others measured the time taken to score a set amount of game points (Bösche, 2009; Brown, et al., 1997). However, in the above cases the games provided only one‐dimensional, unambiguous tasks and were played for a short period in well controlled laboratory settings. This article therefore presents one of the first comparisons of men and women's performance in MMOs, where a multitude of tasks and character development trajectories are available to players. Appealing to a wide variety of demographic groups globally, MMOs operate from multiple servers which automatically collect massive behavioral data, making them ideal sites to study gender and performance using longitudinal analysis. We operationalize game performance as a function of character advancement (leveling) and voluntary play timewhich can be confounded with genderand tests whether there are true gender differences (RQ). It is also the first study using server‐collected longitudinal data from two games and national cultures.

Due to differences in data structure and availability, our research question was operationalized slightly differently in the two studies (see “Measures” section of each study for details). The first study, based on EverQuest II's (EQ2) combination of temporal event data and aggregate data, operationalizes performance as the overall speed of character advancement. When two characters have the same amount of total play time since joining EQ2, the higher‐level character performs better. The second study, taking advantage of finer‐grained, temporal event data in Chevaliers' Romance III (CR3), operationalizes performance as the exact amount of time spent leveling from n to n + 1. When two characters both go from n to n + 1, the character who spends less time doing so performs better. This methodological difference is akin to the ways in which people judge swimmers' performance in a race: Spectators derive performance rankings by looking at who is swimming ahead while holding time constant (EQ2). The referees, by contrast, rank swimmers' performance by the amount of time spent finishing the lap, holding distance constant (CR3). Despite the difference, both studies consider performance as the speed of character advancement, controlling for other extraneous variables.