Microsoft Looking For Xbox Moms

WillAffleckUW writes "In a New York Times article republished here in International Herald Tribune, Microsoft says it is desperately seeking moms to play XBox games, and has a marketing campaign for women gamers. Apparently not satisfied with its target audience of 17-24 yo males, they are even giving away thousands of free consoles on the radio. Most analysts doubt that the FPS and combat-heavy XBox gaming selection will sell well to women though." From the article: "This time, Microsoft is planning a wider attack. Brochures being sent to major retailers like Best Buy prominently describe the 360's ability to double as a DVD player, play music from an MP3 player through a television's speakers and even display digital photos on a TV. Its game functions, while impressive, are only part of the message."

Comments

Jail?

[turtled]

I think that one mom went to jail for stealing money from people thinking they were donating... oh, wait, that was a Playstation mom.

Do they have the game Calgon (take me away)?

Nintendo Leads Again

[OpMindFck]

There's been much talk of the declining video game market. Especially from the folks at Nintendo. Until now their plans for expanding the market have been just talk. With the revolution controller revealed, It looks like Nintendo may just be able to snag the "mother/grandparent/people-that-don't-play-FPS-gam es" market.

Could this marketing campaign just be a result of Microsoft's recognition of this threat from Nintendo?

Re:Nintendo Leads Again

[tuzzyfoad]

I'm not quite sure how the revolution controller may "snag" a demographic that has never been interested in console gaming? If anything it seems more likely to push them further away as it's yet another "new" technology that they've never encountered before.

Re:Nintendo Leads Again

[porcupine8]

Which "new" technology (they're all new to someone who hasn't used any of them) do you think is more approachable for the average non-gamer:

1) Remote control-type device that you hold in your hand. When you want something to move, you move it. When you want to shoot at (or in some other way affect) an object, you point at it and hit a button.

2) Strangely-shaped (though somewhat nice ergonomically) device with what looks like several ways to move your character; you have to figure out which to use for what, and get used to the thumb movements. When you want to do anything, you have to remember specific combinations of the many buttons.

I can totally see how the Revolution could be more approachable. I'm not entirely sure yet that I'd rather use it for traditional types of games (which for me means Mario and Zelda), but I'm definitely ready to give it a shot.

Maybe...

[Anonymous Coward]

If they start developing Soap Opera.... or even.... Orpah-themed games!

Dr. Phil Live?

I can see it now

[Joe the Lesser]

You come home from school. The house is a mess, the dog needs to be walked, the dishes are dirty, and your mom is playing Halo screaming "What the fuck, I shot him three times!!!"

Translation

[MBCook]

Translation:

You didn't buy our last console because the games were terrible (as far as things to appeal to Moms)

You wouldn't buy our new console because the games will be terrible (as far as things that appeal to Moms)

So we are firing a shotgun-blast of pointless features we tacked on for the sole purpose of marketing bullet-points and "but Sony and Nintendo don't do ____" at you in the HOPES that SOMETHING will stick and might get you to look at buying our console.

Because you NEED a $400 DVD player (which has inferior quality to true $400 DVD players, I bet). You NEED a $400 box to listen to your iPod on your TV (because that $3 headphone->RCA cable won't work well enough). You NEED to be able to view your photos on the TV (because every digital camera in the last 5 years won't let you do that... no... wait...).

This is a STUPID marketing tactic. It's like trying to sell pickup trucks to women because they include a makeup mirror. Who would buy a pickup truck not because they needed a car of some sort, but because of the makeup mirror. No, worse: it is selling fridges to Eskimos because you can use the top of it to collect dust.

You want female gamers? Make good, fun, nice, games. There are other genres than Sports, Xtreme Sports, FPS, and Fighter. Look at Nintendo. They have the Mario games (even the Mario sports ones can appeal to women), they haver other games like Animal Crossing, and they also have things like Nintendogs.

Has it occured to you that you have pushed so far to towards 18 year old males that you no longer don't appeal to women, you are actively driving them away? I wouldn't be surprised if that was true.

It is now, and always will be ALL ABOUT THE GAMES.

Re:Translation

[cgenman]

To be fair, all of game development involves firing buckshot in hopes that something will stick. You whip up 50 ideas, and throw them at publishers. Publishers twitch a finger when you describe 10 of them, so you go off and develop those ideas. You come back, and they're interested in 3. You make 3 full fledged demos, and 1 gets picked up for a full build. They shotgun blast you with features they're thinking about, and you pick the dozen that sound the least painful. You run off to make your E3 Demo. Your E3 Demo is proof that your minimum gameplay is all you need, but while you're out there your publisher promises the press that your game will have every feature imaginable and some that aren't. Any features that seem to stick get begrudgingly implemented amongst much cursing. You polish up whatever hydra you've created, and you put it in a box. The publisher's marketing people then forget about it and bury it in a list somewhere, or maybe it sticks to them and they advertise it in everything from Home and Garden to Time Magazine... maybe the game magazines if you're really lucky. And after all that, the gamer will look at the cover of your box in a store and go "eh."

I agree, though, that if they want to attract female gamers they need to drop the girls jumping on trampolines and deliver more quality content that isn't about having the most blood or the biggest linebackers. The Xbox isn't even particularly bad in this department, but you would never know it by their marketing.

I don't know if it is still there, but I've heard that Microsoft's head game development studio has a grand staircase leading up to a giant topless female bust. Getting rid of THAT, and making a major concerted effort to hire female developers would help. That's not to say that women necessarily make games better suited for women, but three or four woman on a development team is usually enough to end a lot of the unprofessional stupidly masculine stuff that happens on all-male teams and pushes women out of gaming. Could you imagine a woman sitting in on the decision to have a BloodRayne "extra bouncy juggies" cheat? If you can't say it to a fellow female developer with a straight face, you shouldn't put it in the game.

When I first met her my girlfriend would never touch gaming. She thought it was entirely degrading to women. That's all that had ever been shown to her through advertising and media... Sex object girls jumping up and down while fast cars drive by (I'm looking at YOU, Namco). Or huge sweaty linebackers smashing into eachother. Or even Mario rescuing the princess. That's all she knew, because that's how the industry on average chooses to portray itself. That's not, thankfully, all the industry provides. We have games like Nintendogs, Virtua Tennis, Hot Shots Golf, The Sims, and tons of others. Heck, Quake 3 managed to be an action dream without being demeaning to women. Eventually I got my girlfriend hooked on DDR, Katamari, and Karaoke Revolution, but it was quite the uphill battle to change her perceptions. And whenever I see the doom trailer, I can feel things slipping back down.

It's not that we have to start attracting women to gaming. We just need to stop repelling them.

X Moms

[lbmouse]

I have something in common with Microsoft... I'm always on the lookout for soccer moms.

Kind of pricey just to do these things.

[L. VeGas]

.. ability to double as a DVD player, play music from an MP3 player through a television's speakers and even display digital photos on a TV

I have a DVD player that cost me $30 that does all this.

Re:Kind of pricey just to do these things.

[Carrot007]

Cor what an intelligent responce.

XMBC is free.

Yeah free and there is no need for and xbox, mod chip and wireless network adaptor. (cables look messy in your living room).

Great so I'll just go to PC World and take home a free PC to run linux on then shall I?

Bah some people should think before spouting random drivel.

Re:Yeah this would work.

[snuf23]

Sure not the majority of women game but many do both in the younger and older sets. In World of Warcraft for example the average age of a female player is over 30. We have a 38 year old mom in my WoW guild (and no her kids don't play).
A lot of younger women play games as well. Genres that attract women in general tend to be different (i.e. RPGs and puzzle games) but plenty of women even enjoy FPS (see www.pmsclan.com for example).
Gaming can replace TV watching as family entertainment and can provide a more rewarding experience. Sure you would rather be out with your office mates, but that's where you are in life. Plenty of husband/wife teams play together - you see it in MMOs all the time.
You seem to dismiss gaming as an entertainment form, but consider that plenty of people opt out of watching TV, movies, books whatever and choose interactive entertainment instead.

the xbox peripheral most moms want...

[evilmousse]

is some kind of remote-control/egg-timer that could completely lock the xbox from booting up more than X hours a day or between the hours of Y and Z.

(just a wild guess...)

Wtf is this... an astroturfing campaign?

[nathanh]

Its game functions, while impressive, are only part of the message.

And it sounds like an advertising message.

We've been inundated recently with Xbox stories and they're suspicious. For a start, the spelling and grammar has been too good. Look at that sentence above: the word "its" doesn't have the customary (yet incorrect) Slashdot apostrophe. The paragraph cuts to the point and is coherent. It is entirely unlikely anything I normally read on Slashdot.

Only 24 hours ago was another story where Allard was saying there would be shortages. The very unsubtle message from Allard was "Buy your Xbox 360(tm) immediately because otherwise you'll miss out". Another uncharacteristic story that reeked like a hidden advertisment.

24 hours before that, another Xbox story. I don't even recall what it was about, I just know that each day I open Slashdot and there's another fucking Xbox story. This looks to me like an astroturfing campaign. Microsoft has done this before and I wouldn't be surprised if they're doing it again.

M.I.L.F

[CountZero117]

this might get me modded down, but, how about a new definition of milf by microsoft, Mom I'd Like to Frag?

Hallmark Channel Games

[iridium_ionizer]

Maybe the Hallmark Channel should come out with a games division. A while back I watched a movie on the Hallmark Channel with my mom (or maybe it was a 2hr long season opener show). It was called Jane Doe and it was about how a suburban housewife that secretly (even to her family) was a retired analyst for a secret government agency. Of course she gets pulled back in, and becomes so busy finding clues and evading bad guys that she nearly misses her daughter's cheerleading tryouts.

I was laughing pretty hard at some parts and so was my mother, but no doubt about it she was eating it up in spite of its so readily apparent cheeziness (and my mom is pretty intelligent). Now, doesn't the plot of that flick tell volumes about the psychology of its target audience. I mean, even the secret government agency was hidden under the local grocery store.

Bow Before Your Nintendo

[Blakey Rat]

This is Slashdot.org, in case you forgot. Just the subject line "Nintendo Leads Again" is enough for a +5 Informative or Insightful... anything beyond that is just filler.

I think I'll name this reply "Bow Before Your Nintendo" to get the same moderation response.

it's all about justifying the purchase

[truffle]

There was extensive discussion of this on the International Game Developer's Association women in the games industry mailing list. The overall conclusions of this discussion were:

Microsoft is not trying to appeal to Mom gamers, they are trying to provide information to help you convince mom (your wife, your actual mom) that purchasing an X-box 360 is a justifiable expense. Women are often the financial gatekeepers in a household. Unless you're quite wealthy, spending $300-400 on a new console system is going to involve "running it by mom". If you can tell Mom, "it's a DVD player" and "we can view our photos on it" and "we can listen to music on it" it makes it sound like more than just a game machine, it makes it sounds like a home entertainment device. This might be slightly easier to sell Mom on than "it's the next big console!"

Furthermore these same arguments can help people who are their own financial gatekeepers reach the same conclusion. Living alone? Got a job but not a tonne of money to burn? Research has shown that when purchasing an expensive item, consumers often need to come up with some kind of justification for why the purchase in question is worth it. This is in part why high-end items often have extra arguably useless features. These extra features help you build a case in your head that spending the extra money "is worth it".

Microsoft doesn't have delusions of halo playing housewives, this is all part of convincing families and individuals that the 360 is more than just a gaming machine so they'll be willing to purchase it.

It's the games - stupid!

[Tryfen]

It's easy to get women to play games. My girlfriend* plays on the Xbox all the time. Her current top games are

Buffy - great story, familiar characters, easy controls, logical puzzles.

Lego Star Wars - great story, familiar characters, easy controls, logical puzzels.

Puyo Puyo - pretty graphics, easy controls, logical puzzels.

Make games that are fun - not a chore. Games that can be picked up again after a week or month without having to releasrn the ABAXYA button combo. Games that *gasp* are fun.

TR

*Who is not my mother - you sicko!

You know what baffles me?

[Moraelin]

I'll aggree wholeheartedly with you, but I think the big picture is even more baffling than that.

See, the full "story" is that in the beginning, a.k.a., in the days of Pong and PacMan, the industry had a pretty good 50-50 gender distribution and they knew it. Then somewhere along the road they somehow decided that "chicks don't play games", making games only for horny 16 year old males is all that's needed, and using women as sex objects to sell to games to those males is perfectly ok.

What's fascinating is that it's the exact opposite road than what, say, the car industry took. The car industry started by promoting its cars as things for Real Men (and we're still stuck with a generation or two who still think that their penis size _depends_ on their car and on driving like a homicidal psycho) and presenting women as the prize you'll get for having that car. Then it finally dawned upon them that "hey, you know what? we could have twice the market if we dropped that silly notion that cars are only for men." So nowadays you have not only cars marketted to women, or named to sound like the women's version (e.g., Fiat "Bravo", masculine, and Fiat "Brava", feminine), but recently we even have cars _designed_ for women.

The gaming industry did the exact same road in reverse. They started by selling games to both, then decided they'd rather alienate half the market. It fascinates me. How and why does a whole industry get that kind of an idiotic idea?

And I can't even pin the blame on immature male programmers. Most of these decisions go through a publisher anyway. We're taling business people there, not immature nerds. I can see how a horny male nerd would go "but I really wanna see tits and ass" when making a game, but how do you get a bunch of businessmen to cheerfully give up half the market?

In fact, here's a very recent such screw-up that happened at the publisher, or at least with the publisher's blessing.

You've mentioned The Sims yourself, and yes, it was _the_ game that appealed to more women than any others, as well as to a lot of adult casual gamers. It was a game that, as released, didn't even have any sex or violence. And it appealed to a lot of people _because_ of that. (I'm sure you know that already, but bear with me.)

So then EA publishes The Sims 2. How do they market it? Well, I can tell you that at least here, I ran into pages after pages of ads in magazines, all hammering on the same aspect: sex. Sex in bed, sex on the sofa, sex in the kitchen, sex with the neighbour lady while the wife is away, threesome sex with the neighbour lady _and_ the wife, sex, sex, sex. Add to that the trailer clip with the woman ripping off her clothes and jumping on the guy... I think about half a dozen times in a fairly a short clip.

It's fascinating, really. Some idiot marketroid at EA basically ran an ad campaign that just didn't match the target demographic for it. In fact, one which was outright offensive to a large part of the target demographic. Someone at EA just couldn't get his head out of his ass, and out of the mentality that games are made for, and marketted to, horny 16 year old males.

And then come such stories in which everyone wonders how they can bring women back to gaming, and how much they'd like to get their money too. And it _still_ doesn't occur to them what the problem is? It makes me wonder WTF are these people smoking, really.