作者：arcticpenguin

Casual Connect大会曾举行一个由5位“妈妈级玩家”（喜欢玩休闲游戏的妈妈们）组成的小组谈论会议，同时让观众提问问题。有趣之处在于座谈会成员回答问题方式风格迥异，这说明不是所有妈妈级玩家都如出一辙。

Moms point out the social stigma for females playing games from playaslife.com

社交游戏

妈妈们谈到休闲游戏的社交性（游戏邦注：例如和好友、孩子共同体验），但有趣的地方是座谈会中的妈妈们鲜少和自己不认识的人一起玩游戏。她们的“社交性”定义似乎局限于相识熟人，尤其是亲密好友。

Mickey有4个孩子，她将游戏当作通讯平台。她表示，若孩子在成长中遭遇麻烦，他们不会说出来，但若她和他们玩游戏，他们最终则会谈论困扰自己的问题。她表示，“就算他们把自己关在房间里，我也依然能够同他们联系。”

对于所谓的Facebook“社交游戏”，大家百感交集，主要围绕于那些非“真正”具有社交性的游戏：Tia表示，“Facebook是个同他人保持联系的社交平台，而非玩游戏平台。我厌烦那些游戏请求。你定希望自己从好友那收到的信息能够令人激动，而非索要胡萝卜之类的请求。”

逃避现实

有时妈妈们并不想要进行社交，游戏是逃避现实生活的渠道。Linda谈及游戏如何帮她缓解生理疼痛。她表示，“我常受疼痛折磨。当我专注于游戏时，疼痛就会戛然而止。这是种摆脱现实的奇妙方式，我过去将此当作浪费时间；现在我知道玩游戏包含各种益处。”

在Tia看来，故事叙述在逃避现实方面扮演重要角色，因为其涉及幻想色彩（游戏邦注：但不是所有人都同意此看法）。

社会污名

女性谈论或承认自己是游戏玩法依然要背负社会污名。Linda表示，“依然有妈妈觉得成年女性在线玩游戏非常奇怪。我们希望孩子能够变成熟，但我们自己却还在玩游戏。这让人有些匪夷所思？这里的关键是找到平衡点。但这里依然还存在批评声音。”

Tia表示，“若你是45岁的女性玩家，那么这不是你应该突出的内容。很多人都是游戏玩家，但他们都避而不谈。这是种耻辱；若你是位妈妈，你应该打扫卫生，或照顾小孩。”

Kay表示，“社会并不将此视作一件光荣的事情。我的一半Facebook好友都在玩游戏，但他们都从未说起。我们小时候没有这些东西，到了35岁我才发现，游戏非常有趣。”

Mickey附和道，“游戏让我们经历自己的第二个童年，就让我们尽情享受吧。”（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Play as Life

By arcticpenguin

Casual Connect hosted a focus group panel with five “mom gamers”– moms who love playing casual games– with the audience asking questions. The most interesting thing was the diversity in how the panelists responded to the questions, suggesting that not all mom gamers are the same.

Social Gaming

Moms talked about how casual games can be social (playing with their friends, children, etc.) but the interesting thing was that the moms in our panel rarely played with people they didn’t know. Their definition of “social” seemed to be extremely confined to existing acquaintances, especially close ones.

Mickey, who has four children, uses games as a platform to keep communication lines open. She said that when kids are growing through troubles, they won’t talk about it but then if they start playing games with her, eventually they will talk themselves through what is bothering them. “They can go into their room and shut the door but I can still get to them,” she said.

There were mixed feelings about so-called “social gaming” on Facebook, mainly regarding games that were not “truly” social: “Facebook is a social network to keep in touch with people, not a place to go play games,” Tia said “I get tired of game requests. You hope that when you get a message from a friend, you want it to be exciting, not a request for a carrot or something.”

Escapism

Sometimes moms don’t want to be social, and the games are a way to escape from real life. Linda talked about how games helped her with her physical pain. “I’m in constant pain. When I can focus in on a game, it makes [the pain] take a back seat. It’s a wonderful escape. I used to look at this as a waste of time; now I know there are different benefits from it,” she said.

For Tia, narratives were very important in escaping, because it had an element of fantasy. Not everyone, however, agreed.

Social Stigma

There is still a social stigma for women to talk about, or admit that they are game players. “There are still moms that think it’s weird that an adult woman would be online playing a game. We want our children to become mature yet we’re sitting here playing games. How do you make sense of that? The key is to find that balance. We still have our critics,” Linda said.

‘If you’re a 45-year old woman playing games, it’s not something you advertise,” Tia said, “A lot of people are gamers but they don’t talk about it. It’s that stigma; you’re a mom, you’re supposed to be cleaning or taking care of kids,:

“Society doesn’t make it cool,” Kay said. “Half of my friends on Facebook play but don’t even advertise it. But we didn’t grow up with this stuff. At 35, I realized, oh my good this is so fun.”

Mickey agreed: “We’re in our second childhood, Let us enjoy it,” she said.（Source：playaslife）