Game girls - Report from Digital Life

It's pretty interesting - goes into depth on the rapidly changing demographics of video gaming, particularly with regards to female gamers. Even talk about PMS and Frag Dolls a bit in there.

Maybe you guys already saw this and I am behind... but if not, it is an interesting read.

It's interesting reading what people have to say about female gamers, but I found that article pretty misinformed.

quote:

why isn't anything being made for them

I think there are quite a few games marketed towards women, I don't want to say what exactly because I'll play almost anything, but there's alot out there. And if you don't like "pink" games, then of course there's games by the shedload out there.
I don't think women are largely ignored by in industry at all. Maybe in the past, but not now.

Emlee? This person sounds familiar.

quote:

Originally posted by emlee:
It's interesting reading what people have to say about female gamers, but I found that article pretty misinformed.

quote:

why isn't anything being made for them

I think there are quite a few games marketed towards women, I don't want to say what exactly because I'll play almost anything, but there's alot out there. And if you don't like "pink" games, then of course there's games by the shedload out there.
I don't think women are largely ignored by in industry at all. Maybe in the past, but not now.

I found this to be kind of an odd point too... especially since they really didn't give any details about what constituted a "female oriented game" - Do they just mean using stereotypical themes in already established genres... say... a sex in the city rpg? The pink games struck me as games for young girls, like the Hannah Montana games not really something targeted towards adult women - which sparks a question to yonder female gamers... What (if anything) would you prefer to see in games or would make you more interested in games? Is there something inherently included in your gender that would make a game more appealing? I cannot really think of anything - traditional female products in other entertainment arenas don't translate well to video games (say romance movies/novels). What would it be then?

I agree that this angle seemed contradictory.

If women mostly play casual games, well there are plenty of those out there. If women want to play "pink" games, there are lots of those too. They just aren't the high profile titles—and seem to me designed for little girls, not women.

I think there are games that women are more likely to be drawn to, but it's pretty silly to design a game for women. Better to just keep that demographic in mind while designing a good game.

I also think the real issue is that games aren't marketed towards women. That's my take, anyway.

You summed up exactly what I would have said Lirael!

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Originally posted by It_all_Began...:
Do they just mean using stereotypical themes in already established genres... say... a sex in the city rpg?

Funny you should mention that.

I'm sure that someone is working on a Sex in the City game as we speak. Want to get rich? Develop a MMO based on SITC.

The idea of marketing a game solely towards women always struck me as a little odd and possibly even offensive. What seems to always crop up from this marketing are games that focus on cooking, dating boys, and fashion. It's as though women's interests still lay in the domain of housewife. Personally I never had a problem picking up a violent game that wasn't packaged in pink. I feel that game genres are not the problem. The problem may have more to do with characters and story lines. You could have a violent FPS game with more emotional (no, not sappy) elements to it along with female characters that are beyond a sexed-up man's fantasy.

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Originally posted by Devi_Kali:
The idea of marketing a game solely towards women always struck me as a little odd and possibly even offensive.

Why would you think that? There are movies, books, TV shows, etc that are marketed towards women, so why not video games? It doesn't necessarily have to rely on female stereotypes - cooking, cleaning, etc - to be considered "female-centric".

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Originally posted by Brimtown:

quote:

Originally posted by Devi_Kali:
The idea of marketing a game solely towards women always struck me as a little odd and possibly even offensive.

Why would you think that? There are movies, books, TV shows, etc that are marketed towards women, so why not video games? It doesn't necessarily have to rely on female stereotypes - cooking, cleaning, etc - to be considered "female-centric".

You don't think that when a game is marketed towards women that it becomes a genre of its own? It's as though we forget other types of games that a woman may just like. Maybe an RTS or FPS game... Unless all along, developers think that the genre alone is gender specific. I guess it's hard for me to explain but I hope you understand a little of what I mean.

Maybe because theres no certainty that woman that aren't gamers already, will buy that specific game thats targeting the female gender.

I've taken classes on making games more appealing to markets that are traditionally overlooked by game developers (which had a huge focus on females). There were certainly a few interesting facts I learned.

One test that I remember involved three different groups of game developers. Group A was told to make a game for teenage boys, group B a game for teenage girls, and group C a game for teenagers with no gender specified. The games from groups A and C were far more similar to each other than to the game from B. This seems like developers seem to think that games do need to be different for girls to take an interest and that unless specified, games are a guy thing. Weather or not their thoughts are accurate I couldn't say, but I think the fact that they at least think it is something that can be agreed upon.

Seems like to me the best way to get girls interested in games is to get more girls in to the gaming industry to make them. I could say that girls are not interested in the same games as guys and some would agree with me and some wouldn't, but I'm pretty sure that this forum is a very biased cross section of the population when it comes to that. This community aside, I think that girl gamer numbers still have a long way to go before they hit guy gamer numbers. More girl game developers does seem like a plausible way to get more girls interested in games. In time though I think there will be as many girl gamers as there are guy gamers, and that will be good for the game devs, the gamers, the boys and the girls

Here's an article I found on Fark about a Playboy model who happens to love games. She did have a few remarks on game marketing, and don't worry, the photos show nothing beyond bikini shots: http://kotaku.com/390324/playboy-cyber-girl-of-the-year-is-a-true-player

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Garcia has seen plenty of models paid to act like game fans when they're not, but said it's not the models' fault. "Sex sells," she said. "The thing that most of the guys see... the women taking pictures with an Xbox to make it look more glamorous... you can't blame so much the models, but the companies. [The models] are being paid to be there, like at the game conventions. I know a lot of girls that shoot that kind of stuff, but it's not done on purpose."

"They're trying to make it appeal to men. And I think men need more... finessing than women do. You can do woman-based advertising on a product, but I think if a woman wants to play video games, she's going to buy it regardless of the ads," Garcia said.

"[A woman] thinks more when she makes a purchase, versus guys have to be lured in. So if you just give them something cheezy, that's going to be implanted in their head and they're going to be like, 'I have to buy Call of Duty 4.' Women don't need that finessing. You can give her a million-dollar advertisement, and if she doesn't want to buy it she's not going to buy it."

How, then, does Garcia think that women might dissolve some of the misconceptions around females and games? "I think just playing them," she said. "

That was a great interview. Thanks for the link, Devi. She said some interesting things about the way games are marketed. I love that apparently men have to be "finessed" by advertising.

The Zodiac Spear? I'm impressed.

But if games had advertising targeted at women, surely the same "finessing" would apply, no?

All RPGs have stories, as far as I know

But the Zodiac Spear? Kudos. Stupidly convoluted way of getting it drove me mad.. mainly because I only found out about when I was well into the game!

You're welcome XBLirael~
I had the same thinking as Ninja Raiden. It would seem that men would need the finessing; but if we assume that most advertisements were geared towards men, of course we would come to that conclusion. At that point, women who love games would learn to overlook or tolerate those type of advertisements. Their interests in games in a male dominated arena would naturally make them less influenced by some page in GamePro......atleast I speak for myself with this.

Do female gamers have that much time to ponder on whether a ad for a video game is geared towards males or females?

No! I don't put my hand on my chin and squint my eyes while contemplating an ad. I do remember those awkward moments in middle school when looking through game magazines. It wasn't too hard to figure out who the target audience was and I sometimes worried that people would get the wrong idea about me when looking through a game magazine.

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Originally posted by Devi_Kali:
No! I don't put my hand on my chin and squint my eyes while contemplating an ad. I do remember those awkward moments in middle school when looking through game magazines. It wasn't too hard to figure out who the target audience was and I sometimes worried that people would get the wrong idea about me when looking through a game magazine.

Does looking at a gaming magazine while being female, mean you're really boy in girls clothing in your middle school?

Of course not. Assuming you're a guy, it would kinda be like you looking through a women's magazine with a few photos of, say, an actor in a suggestive pose. For all I know you may genuinely like the article about his career, etc. in spite of the photos that are meant to attract women to the article. The photos alone are not enough to make me not want to read an article, but if I sometimes felt uncomfortable back then, I'm sure that other girls probably felt the same and still do now.