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Female MMORPG Developers On Influences
Thanks to Warcry for their discussion with a number of female MMOG developers, asking whether "the reason so many MMOGs follow the same paths... is that they were designed, built, and maintained by men." Of the respondents, Judith at Turbine Entertainment points out that "an audience that skews towards immature males will very likely have exaggeratedly female avatars for them to play with", and Srand at Turbine doesn't see any particular male-patterned design trap, suggesting: "the reason so many MMOGs follow the same paths... is that they were designed, built, and maintained by people. And people, as the mantra goes, are stupid."
Personally, I think the biggest issue is that most MMORPGs cater to a certain type of obsessive behavior. For whatever reasons, women seem to be much more immune to this obsession. Guys on the other hand eat it up. Diablo is a perfect example of a game that made itself a hit not off an interesting story, neat quests, or anything of that lack. Diablo was a hit because you spent hours mindlessly killing stuff. It wasn't even that you were killing things. It was that you were just clicking a button for a prize. I don't think it is even the killing that terms women off. I think it is just how tedious these games are and how you need to be obsessive to enjoy it. Throw the average woman in front of GTA3 and she will find it amusing. Throw her in front of Diablo and she will fall asleep after a few minutes. The difference between the two isn't the killing, it is the obsessive and tedious nature of the games.
The thing is, that while women might be more immune to this then men, I think most men are immune to it too. I think that there is a vast audience out there for MMORPGs. The problem is that they all cater to obsession (granted, there are some exceptions these days, but they are woefully under advertised). Once these games evolve beyond needing someone to be addicted to hitting the button for a prize I think the market will start to really expand. If you could enjoy the game for the games sake, I think that things would drastically improve. How to do this? Build worlds. Build worlds where you don't need to kill to be happy. Even if you do kill on occasion, don't make it so that the only way to kill is to be obsessive about it. I think A Tale in the Desert is about as close as one can get to that these days.
Personally, I'll stick to RPI MUDs until MMORPGs are more then multiplayer Diablo. My MUD, http://www.armageddon.org/ provides a cohesive world based around role playing, permanent death, and it doesn't require you to be obsessive about killing in order to play. You can still kill stuff, you just are not going to gain anything by mindlessly killing hordes NPCs. Once a MMORPG can copy what that MUD has, I'll shell out my 15 a week.
Actually, most studies show that while men do not have as low self esteem as women (especially during the first stages of puberty) men do suffer from poor self image and are felt forced to act masculine or macho, etc. at the expense of being called gay, queer, fag, or worse, a woman. The fact that most male avatars tend to be exagerated also could be linked to the designers trying to compensate for their own insecurities, or the users trying to compensate also, or both. There is a great documentary about male / masculine image in the media called "Tought Guise" which I suggest everyone takes a look at.