Slashdot Mirror
Game Designers Lack An X Chromosome
heartless_ writes "GamerGod is running a response to a recent Chris Crawford article discussing Women and Gaming. The problem with identifying winning game elements lies not in the efforts of the game makers themselves; they can only work with what they have. It lies in the fact that most game developers lack one thing - the elusive extra X chromosome. As a result, we have men trying to decide what women most want to play." We linked to Crawford's piece when it was originally run.
Extra? Extra?! I think someone failed genetics.
:-)
James F.
But they DO like videogames. They just don't like ours. And that means that we can't play ours either. They can't do their own thing and enjoy it and let us do our things that we enjoy. No, they have to decide that if they don't like doing it, we can't do it either. And then we have to adopt whatever it is they want to do and how they want to do it and pretend to enjoy it ourselves.
At least, that must be how it is. Otherwise they would go find games they like and stop bitching in every other article about it. Guess what? I don't like most games either and most are lacking in some way to really satisfy me. I don't play those. If ind the one or two that I *DO* like and that *DO* meet my recreational needs. THOSE are the ones I play.
So like.. yeah.. holy crap already.
And if it bothers you that much, it might be because of that 'extra' chromosome you inherited.
There's nothing stopping a group of women from getting together and starting their own indy game company and making the kind of stuff they want to play. Female programmers do, in fact, exist. The other elements of games (such as art/sound/music) are often already created by women or with the help of women, so, really, where's the problem here? If the market isn't fulfilling your desires then START YOUR OWN COMPANY! Plenty of guys have done it. Girls can too.
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
You do know that there is a pathology related to having an extra X chromosome, right?
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
Nobody, and I do mean nobody, lacks an X chromosome.
Everybody has at least one, and some people even have two.
When people talk about how maybe there aren't greater numbers of women in engineering and science disciplines because they may think a bit differently, they get censured, lose tenure, and even get fired. But it's okay to say that male programmers can't make videogames that women would like, because they think a bit differently from women?
Yes, we've heard it all before. I'm even getting tired of trotting out my usual response - that there ARE styles of games that women play equally or even in the majority, and that there ARE women game designers.
Guess what?
THE MEDIA PREFERS TO LIE.
They would much rather write their whiny stories about women in gaming than look at the truth. And you keep pandering to it by posting them.
It's really quite amazing how dead-set people are in trying to make women into second-class citizens and make a story out of it. In an odd coincidence - or not - one very popular genre with women is the adventure game. The genre that keeps releasing new games steadily, and yet EVERY SINGLE GAME MAGAZINE that reviews them prefaces that review with
"The adventure game is a dead genre"
Just like "there are no women in gaming".
I've gotcher 'Women In Gaming' RIGHT HERE!
It's not even necessarily that it's women in gaming (although I've seen some top class world competition by female gaming teams on Counterstrike and the sort -- so to say that MEN have failed WOMEN in gaming is silly). Slashdot did the same thing with Jon Katz and the Hellmouth and Columbine stuff. Once - we're interested. Three or four times - we get it - it's a big deal and a pattern. Two or three articles per week . .. GAH . . . time to get off the high hourse and return Slashdot to the geeks. Or at the least, put the articles in a "Politically Correct Activist" section.
It's not that chicks should find games they want. According to these articles there are very few games chicks dig. Chicks should be making the games. Seriously. If a woman or girl is complaining because games don't appeal to her because she's a woman, and she's not or is not becoming a programmer, she has no basis for an argument.
Honestly, I'm tired of people, male or female, complaining about the lack of innovation in games and then doing nothing about it.
Also, while I'm going to be modded down anyway, I'm having trouble thinking of any women who complain about a lack of games targeted at them. It seems to be the article-writing dudes who think males should be making pony-socialization games they're not interested in developing.
I'd have to ask something along the lines of "when was the last time anyone got up in arms and posted three articles a week about the distinct lack of males interested in crocheting or knitting".
And you're right - I don't know who these girls are that are complaining, because all the girls I know of various ages like to game and have plenty of games they play. My mom likes Solitaire and a few random games like that. My sister likes The SIMS and Black & White (isn't it interesting how girls don't like world-building / strategy / god games unless you throw in a fuzzy animal to groom and nurture and grow and control?). Another girl I know loves The SIMS, SIMS online, Black and White and World of Warcraft.
Then I've seen plenty of girls playing Counterstrike and similar games. They even have clans and compete for money in tournemants sponsored by various players in the industry.
So I don't know what they're talking about. And rather than just whining about a lack of some game - why not tell us what you want the game to be so we can fucking DESIGN it?!
Then again, with my experiences with women, the entire point of the plaintive waling is that they think YOU should be a mind reader and just KNOW what it is they want without them having to ASK in the first place.
I unchecked his articles for a short time, and then realized every once and a while he does post an interesting article and rechecked him.
This sexist article just happens not to be one of them.
This is so factual. See what they did here is took a random sampling of game designers and got their karyotype. The results were that 100% of them had an extra X chromosome. I don't really see how this was accepted without proper editing. Now then, to further ridicule this article... Women and men don't want different things or the same thing! What the majority of people want is driven entirely by their current social status and social goals. Proof of this are girl gamers and even pro girl gamers. And get this, these girl gamers play the *same* games as guy gamers do and enjoy them! They even want to play these games! There shouldn't be a debate about how to make games which are more palatable to women. More women, and men, will play games when it is more socially acceptable. In roughly two decades gaming will be as socially acceptable today as most other activities. This is of course, after MTV and other networks are finished making gaming into pop culture and poisoning the gaming community with utter garbage.
-illumina+us "I put on my robe and wizard hat..."
The trick to selling games to women is that you have to take your time. The male market is established quickly and fades fast after a game's release. On the other hand, the women's market takes alot longer to get started, but can go on and on, just think of the Sim's. You can rely on simple pictures and video from the internet to bring in the males. Since the female market isn't as easily swayed, it can often take repeated oral prodding from friends before they are ready.
the same sex are not the same.
After extensive study of human chromosomes, a researcher has concluded that a son gets only half his genes from his dad.
He has been quoted as saying "We had thought previous to this that differences between two men or two women were purely environmental."
Further research showed that a daughter got half her chromosomes from her father as well.
Comparisons of pairs of sons and pairs of daughters showed that while they got half from each parent, they inherited different genes from each parent.
From the findings of this research, one can draw the conclusion that it's pot luck if two non-related people have any genes that match exactly.
Since it's a foregone conclusion that identical genetics is necessary for someone to figure out what another person wants to play, shares of video game companies dropped rapidly at the news and all new releases were shuttered.
A random gamer was quoted as saying:
"It's a black day for the videogame industry. I can't believe I played that trash!"
Not trying to troll here or anything, but I think women in general are missing the elusive "gaming" chromosome (though it's prolly a gene), and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
It makes perfect sense. Frankly, it's about time someone pointed this out, even.
If women want games for women, they should get out there and make some games for women. Demanding men create games suitable for women is simply regressive.
It's been a long time.
Name the top designers for women's clothing. Are they all women? Name the top women's hair dressers. Are they all women? The idea that men can't design what women want is just not true.
It is intresting that this "girl" seems to have made one tiny little flaw in her argument that male game designers don't know what women want. She says at the end of her article that women are in fact the largest group of gamers, just not in the headline grabbing FPS etc but with simple games like cards, you know the free java/flash type games.
Well who designs these games then? Males by any chance? There just is not going to much of a market for a full priced card game is there now? As for her suggestion of playing a 8gb install resource hog MMO like EQ2 with an initial cost of 50 dollars + monthly fee just so you can play trivia wich you can do for free at hundreds of websites, well lets just say it is the perfect example why women are treated as second class citizens.
Luckily all this talk about computer games and demographics is just a lot of bullshit anyway.
I got a tiny little bit of information for you that might astound you. (Kids look away) THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE BOTH MALE AND FEMALE DO NOT PLAY VIDEO GAMES.
Shocking eh? Nonetheless it is true, sure an MMO like WoW seems big with 9 million subscribers but any tv network would laugh at such viewing figures. Especially if you consider the fact that WoW unlike any tv station in the world is targetted at the entire world. (No not even CNN has world wide reach as it splits itself up into regions, CNN europe is a very different product then CNN asia for instance).
If as she says women prefer card games and trivia games then she won't find many new games aimed at their audience. Same reason you don't see that many chess games being launched anymore. Why? Well what could possibly be added? The chess engine beats me even more soundly? Super duper animation of a chessboard? No, trivia games, card games, chess games have all been perfected. They can now be done by anyone in flash and are being done.
Anyway I think it is a load of crap anyway. In the first place I never trust any statistic and certainly not one gathered over the internet. How does she know what percentage of online monopoly players are of the female sex? Even if everyone who fills out a form does so honestly (yeah right) this still leaves open the possibilty that women are more likely to fill in questionares.
You don't know, nobody does, how many Doom3 players are female. Neither can you guess, for every obvious 12yr old in an online session there are a dozen completly silent players.
Oh and her claim that saying women want social games is old fashioned. Go and explain "The Sims" then. Huge hit with women (if you believe Maxis clams) and in my eyes a game that deals primarly with 'real world' goals like getting rich and hitched.
But lets be honest, this girl is still a sexist herself, clearly dividing the world in male female roles. Maybe as she grows older she will learn that real freedom for both sexes comes when we stop expecting certain behaviours from a person just because they belong to a certain sex. Liberation is not when a male can play female games or vice versa but when we stop labeling both people and games as belonging to either sex. When a man can be dainty and a women butch without being looked down upon then will we be free to be our own person. (And of course still allowing males to be butch and women to be dainty as well)
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Color me DUH!
Forget games, its hard enough for men to know what women like and want for anything in real life.
So men game designers can't design games that women like ? No kidding.
And guess what ? I read Slashdot too, so clearly I am even more unlikely to know...
From your link: Signs and symptoms: XXY males are almost always infertile, and some degree of language impairment may be present.
Long-story-short: the gamergod.com article is advocating less dialog within games.
This is not my sig.
Nice... I almost missed it. Not the most subtle thing I've ever read, but for /., a work of brilliance.
If you are wondering WTF, re-read the parent until you get it.
What a bunch of condescending BS. All the article says is that "Men can't develop software for women because they're not women. Therefore they should just replicate already popular software for women, for example, by placing trivia games in WoW."
Men can develop software for women, even without predecessors to replicate. These aren't games, but: Livejournal, deadjournal, and myspace were started by Brad, Frank, and Tom, yet their user-bases dramatically skew toward females.
You don't have to be a female to make software for them.
Philosophistry
/* Why are you wasting your time posting on slashdot when you should be trying to sneak your balls out of your wife's purse? */ /* I'd have to ask something along the lines of "when was the last time anyone got up in arms and posted three articles a week about the distinct lack of males interested in crocheting or knitting". */
If I had mod points you'd get 'em all today.
Since you are a male, you have no excuse for your lack of omnipotence. How dare you blame the women for not explaining what they want. We should all just *know* what they want.
Amen brother!
A Haiku: my language choices/assembler pascal lisp c/old school programmer