A recent study by the Stanford Medical School might explain why those boys down the hall won’t stop talking about Super Smash Brothers. According to researchers, gender differences in neural processes and motivational states may clarify why males are “more attracted to, and more likely to become ‘hooked’ on video games than females.”

Fumiko Hoeft, a researcher in the study, has attributed males’ fascination with video games to their innate territoriality: a trait he believes is more pronounced in men than in women.

“You can, I am sure, easily imagine people fighting over prime office space, bunk beds in dorms and camps, etc. Territorial behavior is maybe ‘the’ fundamental behavior in animals/humans, and we all try to maximize Darwinian (evolutionary) fitness,” Hoeft wrote in an email to The Daily.

But do Stanford gamers align with this theory?

At first glance, it might seem so. In a recent Arroyo Super Smash Brothers Tournament, 17 residents signed up, of which only one participant was female.

The turnout made perfect sense to Tyler Ketron ‘10. “Men are inherently more aggressive and competitive than women. Men are pressured more to be the alpha male...It’s leftover from mating, where the male has to fight for the best woman.”

Jane Huang ‘09, the tournament’s coordinator, explained it as a difference of preference.

“They like different types of games,” said Huang. “Guys like first person games, like shooter. Girls like puzzles, like Tetris. There’s actually a lot of market research showing that a lot of women like to play flash games or puzzle games — the kind of games you might see on Shockwave.com.”

Ricky Villarreal ‘09 agreed. “I know more men that like video games, but I know several girls who have video game consoles, and enjoy the sport of competition. Women find it easier to play something more interactive or intuitive, like the Wii, Guitar Hero or DDR,” he said.

Some girls don’t like video games at all.

“I hate them — they make me dizzy,” said Amara Humphry ‘09. “I don’t know if most girls get dizzy when they play video games, but I know girls don’t play them as much as boys do.”

Inevitably, the argument invites an age-old question: Is this difference due to nature or nurture?

Hoeft and his fellow researchers presumed it to be nature, and their experiment was designed accordingly.

To monitor the neural activity associated with territoriality, the team created a simple computer game: Eleven men and 11 women were connected to a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine and instructed only to “click on as many balls as possible.” If the player clicked a ball before it reached a certain point, a wall in the game shifted to the right, granting the player more “territory.” If they clicked too late, the participants lost territory.

While both men and women were able to decipher the game’s mechanism, men ultimately accumulated a greater amount of territory than women. Overall, the men appeared more motivated, as “the goal to ‘gain more space’ acted as a reward for males relative to females.”

“We were nicely surprised,” Hoeft said. “[It was] just what we wanted to see.”

Students, on the other hand, are reluctant to attribute interest in video games to the idea of territory. Instead, they cited societal influences.

“To be honest,” said Ruven Chu ‘09, “I think it’s a cultural thing. A lot of girls, when they try video games, they actually really like it. They’ve just never really tried it.”

Villarreal admitted to liking video games “for their competitive nature,” but further explained, “I think it’s something in my personality — it’s not about being a boy. I think inherently, people just like to win.”

“Since brainwashing starts from an early age, it might as well be hardwired,” suggested Huang. “Even if you give boys dolls, they’ll make guns with their fingers.”

For Chu, the joy of gaming lies in “the simulated experience that wouldn’t be provided in the real world. Playing soccer is fun, but when I play a soccer video game, I can do things I wouldn’t be able to do in the real world... At least for me, it’s fun to win in a video game. But I don’t necessarily think I would play only if I won all the time.”

Above all, both men and women seem to value games with intelligent, engrossing story lines. Regardless of how gender differences stratify the gaming community, one can be sure that a common ground does exist.