Slashdot Mirror
Viva Piñata Apparently 'For Girls'
An anonymous reader writes "Bill Gates has demonstrated his unique public speaking skillset again, this time by further ostracizing gamers who grew to love one of the best Xbox 360 titles of last year - Viva Piñata. Comments made by Mr. Gates during an interview on the Charlie Rose show include the choice comment 'We have a thing called Viva Piñata that's for young girls, where you're tending a garden and these animals come along...'. His comment are carried by Eurogamer, who also provide a link to the YouTube video of the interview. For gamers who really appreciated this under-marketed and lovably quirky title, this is just another low blow."
Look ... Microsoft is good at a number of things. Your hardware is great. You make terrific peripherals. You made wise decisions in getting the Bungie and Epic guys to do their thing exclusively for your console. I would point out, though, that your stated goal for the 360 was to reach out to both non-gamers, and gamers that traditionally didn't play titles on the Xbox. This kind of crap, right here, with Gates calling Viva Piñata a 'little girls' game? It's what is making sure that you're not expanding the market. I really like my 360, but Sony and Nintendo are going to eat your lunch if you don't get with the program. Remember that Psychonauts thing you strung along and then dumped at the finish line? Games like that and Viva Piñata would go a long way towards getting to those 'Moms' you were talking about back in 2005. My name is Michael Zenke, and I'm a proud Dragonache owner. And, apparently, somewhat outside the 'intended audience' for a really, really great game.
What's next, will he say MS Paint is a drawing program for 'children', insulting its wide and varied adult userbase?
...but did anyone stop to think for a second maybe that was their original intention was to market the game towards girls?
Hell, my fiance LOVES playing Dead or Alive Xtreme 2, hardly the target demographic for that game.
Living With a Nerd
Does it bother you that much that a GIRL might enjoy the same game as you? Pr0n is wasted on some of you.
Bill Gates runs like a girl.
The real problem here is not Gates' comment, but the public perception that a game which is targeted at girls somehow insults the game. Come on. This is 2007. Girls' games can be fun too.
Why is it such a low blow? There's no possible way that you could like something that was also made for girls? Are you that insecure that you can only like things that are made for men?
I fail to see the insult Mr. Gates made.
Your hardware is great. You make terrific peripherals.
No they don't. They *brand* terrific peripherals.
Who gives a damn what something is 'for'? So bingo is for geriatrics and Harry Potter's for kids; doesn't stop me enjoying either of them.
If you enjoyed Viva Piñata before Gates opened his mouth you have no reason to enjoy it any less afterwards. If you let marketing demographics dictate how you spend your leisure time you deserve to be miserable.
from the do-i-look-anything-like-a-girl-to-you-bill dept.
Manboobs.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
Bill Gates is no gamer. Hell, I'm impressed Bill even knew about Viva Pinata in the first place. If I was completely unfamiliar with the content of the game and spent about 10 seconds watching the game/show, I'd figure it was a 'My Little Pony' for modern times, too.
This game does seem to be marketed to young girls. I don't see a problem with this. I think the submitters comment that this is a "low blow" is ludicrous!
"Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it." Mark Twain.
Why is this a low blow? Is there something fundamentally wrong with young girls or their games? Is there something wrong with me if a young girl happens to like the same TV show as I do?
Or is the problem that old men who like this game are now seen as old men who pretend to be young girls?
Well, I for one will have nothing to do with anything of the kind. Gaming is all about guns and robots and tanks and violence and stuff, that's proper, hardcore grown-up gaming for manly men.
(Now, if you'll excuse me for a moment I just need to check on the latest turnip prices...)
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
For those unfamiliar with Bill Gates, he's the 52-year-old rich guy that once celebrated Win95's gaming possibilities by inserting himself into a game of "Doom." On the viewing area of the screen. Where "Doom" players know you only see your enemies.
I think the real culprit in this article is the anonymous person who managed to sneak this blatent anti-microsoft garbage onto slashdot.
The game was designed for little girls. If you feel ostrisized because you're a grown man playing a little girls game. Then there are two cases here:
1.) You should feel ostrisized anyways
2.) The game turned out a hell of a lot better than they thought it would.
Corporate America needs to seriously redefine, or possibly even abandon, the whole concept of 'demographics'. The whole idea is fundamentally flawed. It assumes that certain types of games/tv shows/movies only appeal to certain age groups and genders. It is based solely on stereotypes. Not only is it insulting to the consumer and puts crap entertainments on the market, but it is also costing the corporations money, not only in the cost of the demographics 'research' but also in lost potential profits.
Technoli
Looks like submitters are using digg to filter stories for /. (Hint: "YouTube" video link actually links to digg...)
We have this product for adolescent males called Windows Vista.--Bill Gates
You heard it here first.
When I look at the boxart I kind of agree with mr gates. http://xbox360.gaming-universe.de/screens/boxart_u s_viava-pinata.jpg
Yes, in our narrow minded world it is a "girl game", just like Katamari Damacy and Sims were labeled "Girl Games" because they were fun and quirky and for some reason drew in the female demographic. I've played all of these titles and thought, "wow, a game thats easy to pick up, but challenging to master, and keeps my interest! I like this, and I bet my girlfriend will too!"
ok.. so heads you lose tails I win. right?
How offensive that they would develop a game with a specific demographic in mind and actually state that fact in public. Someone should be ashamed of themselves.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
"Bill Gates said my game is for GIRLS! EWWWWWW! YUCKY! I AM OFFENDED!"
Seriously, you people are pathetic.
I mean, first and foremost - we're talking about Bill Gates. This is the man who signed off on the failed abortion known as Microsoft Bob. Do you really care what his opinion on things is?
Second, do I need to reinterate the, "EWWW! YUCKY!" part? Christ. This is news?
I have a 4 year old. The first time we saw a commercial for that game, I asked him if he thought that looks like a good game. He said, "Dad, that game's for girls."
I have no idea the quality of the game, but I wouldn't rip gates a new one for thinking it's a girl game.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
The quote is still demeaning to people who liked the game. Not because it stereotypes them as female (which doesn't matter - at least not to me), but because of the maturity level in which Gates groups such people. If it was geared toward "women" or "females", whatever; but "girl" has connotations of being for a less mature group with unrefined tastes (think "Barbie Horse Adventures"). Part of being a mature, discerning gamer is appreciating games that fall outside the boundaries of the typical "things that explode" genre. But yet if I am discerning and mature, and enjoy playing Viva Piñata, Gates thinks I'm immature. He still doesn't get it.
I tried to get a guy i know to play Donkey Kongo once. i showed him how it worked and he freaked out when i tried to get him to play it. might as well have been trying to get him to wear a care bears t-shirt to a biker rally. for some reason it really offended his sense of masculinity. the face he made was almost involuntary. forget that it was a fun game. shit i'll play barbie's dream mansion if the gameplay is solid. blood and guts or fuzzy bunny rabbits, it's all fun and games anyway.
Demographics is a useful scientific term, which does not need redefinition, and certainly not from "Corporate America".
The use of demographics in marketing certainly can use some refinement, and it is also being refined all the time. There is a tendency to overuse demographics because it is so easily measurable. In particular, the use of too rigid demographic boxes can make it difficult to recognize the market radical new products.
Hell, my fiance LOVES playing Dead or Alive Xtreme 2, hardly the target demographic for that game.
Yeah, but what is the game essentially? It's running around shopping for clothes, jewelry, and make-up for girls with some volleyball and fan service tossed in and next to no macho aggression. Oh sure, there's girls in bikinis, but modern culture has inured women to seeing scantily clad women in ads for women -- just open up a Cosmo sometime. There's far more to attract women to the game than men once you scratch the surface.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I saw this episode of the Charlie Rose Show as it was aired. While I did notice the comment that is the subject of this article, there was much more disturbing content in the episode.
Not that Charlie Rose is known as a hard-hitting interviewer, but the soft ball questions he pitched up to Mr. Gates were disappointing, if not somewhat sickening. Mr. Rose let Gates gloss over EU and other anticompetitive issues, the rising pressures open source presents to Microsoft, and much much more.
Frankly I expected a lot more, but in the end the entire episode came off as a Microsoft PR segment.
Cyrano de Maniac
Shit, I just got a Badgesickle to live in my garden and I find out the damn game is for girls! I'm gonna go play some Vegas to feel manly again.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
further ostracizing gamers
Who cares? As long as their system has good games I'll keep buying them. It doesn't matter to me one way or another who Gates thinks plays various games. Sometimes I think the gaming community is just looking to be offended if someone isn't busy hugging them.
> For gamers who really appreciated this under-marketed and lovably
> quirky title, this is just another low blow.
Truly it's a slap in the face to the minimaxers who are doing things like getting up to 7 PVPS (piñata visits per second), and slogging through hundreds of hours of mind numbing repetitive tedium to gain enough faction to get piñatas of opposing species to mate.
Oh, sure, anyone can use the secret code to enable the gory fragging options, but to enable it using purely legal [b]and intended[/b] in-game mechanics is a whole 'nother ballgame of superior ability! Kneel! Kneel before Zod!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Ostrisize, v. - to stretch to the height of an ostrich. Ostrisize, adj. - as tall as an ostrich. And thus ostriches join the pantheon of familiar objects used as describe the dimensions of unfamiliar objects, e.g. VW Beetles used as a unit of volume.
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
I have a bunch of DS games that show a pink screen right after you load them, and I'm not ashamed by it! (I wouldn't be caught dead with the pink DS tho, I have my limits)
--
Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
What about the Saturday morning cartoon show that went along with it?
Perhaps it was undermarketed to our "demographic" but it's not like they didn't put any external effort into this game!
Though I don't watch Saturday morning cartoons anymore, maybe someone else can chime in?
...if Gates replaced his PR person recently? Lots of what he said these past weeks are just so tremendeously unbelievable blunders that it's hard to believe there hasn't been some change. Or maybe he fired his ghostwriter and is actually trying to be a public person all by himself?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The game has sex (including incest), violence, cannibalism... It's pretty brutal... you're basically running a pinata-mill where one of the best ways to make money is to sell the offspring for cash.
How is this for little girls?
If you're going to critisize a mispelling do it on a site that gives a damn. This is a technology news site. I don't care if I spell incorrectly so long as it's obvious what I'm trying to say.
Critisize, v. - to make something appear important that is otherwise unimportant, adj. - as small as a critter.
:)
Some of us on this "technology news site" are proud pedants and we do therefore give a damn. Don't take offense when someone draws attention to incorrect spelling or grammar - as any offense is very, very rarely intended. It just helps spread the good spelling memes and defeat the bad spelling memes, which over time helps clean the meme pool.
And nobody likes a dirty meme pool.
"For gamers who really appreciated this under-marketed and lovably quirky title, this is just another low blow."
Because there's nothing more insulting that having something in common with a young girl, the lowliest of life forms?
There may or may not be something fundamentally wrong with Gates pigeon-holing the game for a particular demographic, but how is this visceral reaction better? The only way a gamer can be unhappy with being associated with being "girly" is if being "girly" is a negative. And what does this say about your attitude concerning actual, you know, girls?
Methinks the people complaining are the same ones who didn't get a GameCube because it was too "kiddie." Go play some FPS or something until you feel comfortable with your sexuality, like a grown-up.
The fact that the end of level boss is Pedobear.
Task Mangler
So what? It's not like he said something like "This game is for girls exclusively. Males shouldn't be playing this game at all.". As people have already stated, he was simply pointed out that it was marketted to a female audience. If Microsoft made another sequel to Halo (which I hope never sees the light of day) and said "It's for young men.", no one would care. Except, maybe, Germaine Greer.
I'm not exactly the most pro-Microsoft person out there but people having a hissy fit over this is obviously either too uncomfortable with their masculinity and/or takes broad comments, by someone they don't know, FAR too seriously.
So he let it "slip" (as if it weren't obvious anyway) hat the INTENDNED AUDIENCE for the game was young girls. If this insults anyone's manhood/womanhood, they should go see a therapist, not bitch to Gates about.
My maid's dress and fishnet stockings.
What?
bkd
Surely he must have ralised that casting any sort of stereotyping imagery about was a bad thing.
Surely he can't be so naive as to think "this is a girl's game, that's a boy's game" ?
Surely not?
Sadly, it's increasingly obvious that Bill Gates has no real connection with popular culture or maybe even with culture at all. Comments like this really underline the whole point.
He could have said "this game appeals to so many people, from five to fifty, and it's got a fun, bright feeling to it," or maybe "this is a great game for younger players, but it's just quirky enough for anyone looking for something different," but no, he had to cast it as a young girl's game.
There's nothing wrong with games targeted at girls, boys or albino geriatrics, but stereotyping them denies the game to others. A lot of people are less likely to pick up and try something new if they've heard things outside their normal realm of comfort. There's a whole part of business dedicated to this sort of thing. It's called "Marketing" and it's all about making sure the image your products hold in the wider world maximises the sales. I'm sure Microsoft has a couple of people who specialise in this - Gates should speak with them some time.
It's a game. Girls play games. Boys play games. Men and women play games. I know of girls who can whip your arse in WoW, and boys who can do the same. Gender is irrelevant. Gates blunders again, speaking where wiser people would hold their damn fool tongues.
It's a low blow because it THREATENS their PENIS, duh.