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The Escapist on Women In Games
The ever interesting Escapist has an entire issue concentrating on women in gaming this week. Particularly informative is a Chris Crawford penned piece on the subject. From the article: "I have long since given up participating in discussions on women in gaming. The games industry is so out of touch, such discussions are a waste of perfectly good electrons. When Microsoft wanted to publicize an event for women at a Game Developers' Conference a few years back, they splashed around banners showing a woman in a low-cut dress. Some people just don't get it."
I think the hardest thing of all is asking a bunch of guys (because typically the developers and game-creators are male) to create a game that women want to play. There's a problem with that right there. The closest thing I've seen to a successful game where women really enjoy the game is The Sims series. My wife loves to play that all the time and build houses and build a family. What she's doing has no point, no goal to reach, but she loves to play it. She also likes to play driving games where you're not racing, but you're just driving around because she wants to drive around.
I know that my wife does not speak for all woman-kind for the type of games that need to be created, but the stuff she enjoys to play is just so incredibly different than what I would ever conceive of creating. There's no desire for competition and winning (although I know there are many women that are indeed very competitve and really want to win), and she's content with just driving around or just having the sims do stuff. It's hard to make a game when you don't really have an objective.
I could see some women enjoying more of a game where you are more defensive than something like a FPS where you go on the offense and attack everything.
I seriously think the hardest part about finding a game that women would enjoy is just finding out what the women want to play. Any of the answers that I see in the articles is so vague (an my suggestion was vague too) because there is no real set answer as to what women would enjoy.
This article is not very well written. From a psychologist's point of view, it's really very sloppy. I'm not the only one: http://oghc.blogspot.com/2005/11/o-chris-crawford- we-shake-our-heads-at.html
That's a pretty good review of Crawford's piece in The Escapist. Unlike that guy, though- I'm really wondering what The Escapist was thinking publishing this. It brings down their repor. I think it is only because they interviewed him, and wanted to throw a bone.
But there's a specific reason for that - those magazines are saying "Look at this woman! She's prettier than you, sexier than you, and looks better in her clothes than you! BUT - if you buy this magazine we can teach you how to look like her and tell you what products to buy to be just as sexy, we promise!"
Same for TV ads for beauty products. However, if you watch daytime TV, where the ads are for cleaning products and targeted at housewives, you don't see that - you see actors who look like "average" (but slightly thinner with slightly better skin and hair) hosuewives, doing their laundry or dishes or whatever.
The point of a video game isn't to sell the player something that will make them more like the character. It's for the player to identify with the character and enjoy living the character's life for a while, doing whatever it is the character does in the game.
A better comparison would be a chick flick. Women in action movies are like women in video games - busty, tight clothes, etc. Women in chick flicks are very different - prettier and thinner than average (because directors just won't hire anyone else), but much closer to normal, wearing much closer to normal clothing. Most women would choose a chick flick over an action movie, because most women identify with the female characters and enjoy living through them for a couple of hours, having whatever romantic comedy or tearjerker adventure they're having. A chick flick where the leads are all DDs wearing skin-tight low-cut tank tops and shorts with their butts hanging out would cease to be a chick flick, because women would have a much harder time identifying with the characters. (Well, occasionally such a character is in one, but they're usually scorned or pitied by the other characters.)
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
I see a lot of articles like this, I see industry experts and teams of executives coming up with the mystical answer to how to draw women in to gaming. Scientists and psychologists desperate to crack open a new market.
6 /15/mobile_gaming_more_popular_with_women_than_men .html
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http://www.theesa.com/facts/top_10_facts.php
43% of gamers are female. In certain categories more women than men.
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/archives/2005/0
The title says it all.
http://www.wi-fitechnology.com/displayarticle2212
Online games as well.
One of the best articles I ever read was one written by a disgruntled woman about the fact that she just wanted games developers to develop games. She was sick of her sex being singled out by the industry as if curvy women with big breasts was any worse than he-man look alikes with a penchant for baby oil. She was right.
These 'experts' can harp on about there wonder treatment of the industry but when it comes down to it,
if you make a good game people will play it. It doenst matter what sex you are.
This is the only industry that makes such ridiculous distinctions between the sexes. The movie industry knows what its doing in regard to this. Sure some are chick flicks some are macho fests most are inbetween and most people dont complain. So why is it that in the Games industry no one can accept that if you just make a quality game half of the population isnt just going to ignore it because God forbid the female characters are quite lucky in the looks department I know for a fact the males will almost certainly be a Keanu Reves or Arnold Swarchnegger rip off.
The major problem with women and gaming is the fact people think there is a major problem with women and gaming.
As for the article. A lot of it is really really bad. The explanation of how you can use our ancestory to predict which games we would prefer is utter crap. Go back pre Wolfenstein and ask him to use his theories to take a look in to the future. Chances of him predicting the future game probably around the 0 area maybe a little more due to shear luck. It may tell us why we enjoy playing these games but as a prediction tool, not even close. Thats the key to why this article essentially says nothing. Im fairly sure if you ignored the sims (A game which has a wopping female following and does match up to his 'prediction') this guy probably wouldnt even have made the connection he did. I certainly doubt hes actually come up with the perfect game idea for women using this psychoanalysis. I there even is such a thing.
Your dismissal of the importance and difficulty in properly caring for and raising children is really quite disturbing. In many ways navigating the complex social structure in any society is more difficult than hunting. If you somehow think that the hunters would up and leave because the situation wasn't "fair", then keep in mind that all such peoples would die out and have no decendents.
I'd also add that he did bring up evidence, such as certain physical characteristics; only women can feed babies and men have a pelvis better suited for running--hence better suited for hunting.
It's a fact that the average male is better at spatial reasoning the the average female. It's also a fact that the average female is better at multi-tasking than the average male. Both of these come from our evolutionary origins. There are other differences between males and females as well (obviously). While many differences between men and women are negligible or non-existent, that doesn't mean all differences are so.
In any case, you need to rething your view on the care, protection, and feeding of children, and on organizing social groups to do these tasks. You hopelessly simplify evolutionary psychology (and the article we are talking about) when you pretend that all women did was "pick berries".
-Drachasor