Slashdot Mirror
Women Remain the Ignored Audience In Gaming
donniebaseball23 writes "Research firm Interpret has released its new report, 'Games and Girls: Video Gaming's Ignored Audience,' which finds that while the female audience in gaming has grown, games tailored to their needs and preferences continue to go missing. Women represent 50% of the market and their usage of HD consoles like Xbox 360 and PS3 is rising. 'It remains to be seen whether developers and marketers will effectively invest in understanding and exploiting the undertapped female gaming market,' said Courtney Johnson, analyst for Interpret."
The Sims was a great game. Not only for women but for both audiences. Now some hardcore girl gamer probably comes in saying it isn't so (don't mind it, there are guys who like to play those cooking games too), but FPS and heavy strategy games rarely interests girls. On the other hand the Flash click-click-click cooking games are quite stupid too, as well as something where you just have to dress the character. But The Sims made it a whole game, with all the relationship, drama and housekeeping stuff. And it was still fun and interesting to play, even for both genders (at least when The Sims 1 came out, I never really played Sims 2.. But Sims 3 seems to have lots of things to do again). You can't make the game too dumb, but you also can't just make it a shooter with manly stuff. I've traveled the world enough to see that all women like that clothing, taking care of and relationship stuff. But in real life you can't just tell her to go to kitchen, or clean the house and so on.. You have to trick her into that, but that frankly isn't so hard. The point being, women are like 3 year kids. They don't like it when you tell them what to do and what not to do, so you use psychology to deliver your message subtly and non-directly. Just don't make it too obvious.
I thought Slashdot users have all switched to macs and don't need to worry about women's issues.
Unless, of course, 50% of the gamers (the women) flock to a medium which they don't like.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
I don't understand why a game developer would want to tailor games to a single sex, male of female. The broader the appeal the larger the audience. Why target only half your potential audience? Games are an art form, and every artist wants as many people as possible to enjoy their works.
I seem to remember a decade or so ago someone attempted to target girls with some game or another, and it was denounced by women as sexist.
Now, kid's games I can see targeting one sex or another. My daughters had a Barbie game on the PC and they loved it. No boy would want to play it, however.
Free Martian Whores!
But the gaming population consists of 50% of them. Obviously there is something they like in these 'boy' games. Or does the group who commissioned/produced the report want gaming to be 75% girls and 25% boys, screaming feminine slogans like those who believe sexism is the reason why women don't get as many top jobs and not their lifestyle choices?
Studies like this piss me the fuck off. morons.
Try pulling any woman in my family away from Bejewelled Blitz!
Who do you think plays all those retarded Facebook games, anyway?
Their needs are addressed just fine, thanks for the concern.
50% my ass
It pisses me off that some brain comes up with the theory that women are not catered to in computer games, while that same brain can't fathom the fact that there simply are'nt enough female game-programmers out there to actually 'know' what a woman wants and then, to ensure that such games are released. It's not like women are shunned from the gaming industry. Sure it's male dominated, but only because males in general, love the industry more than women seem to.
Geekism is your _only_ God!
In other news, it is discovered that male population is ignored in fashion industry. There is great inequallity if we look at fashion where vast majority of products is aimed at female population. You just have to look around your nearest shopping center to see that most shops are centered around fashion and most of this shops target women. No shit, really? Women aren't being targete by game developers? Guess what, maybe it's because most women don't give a flying fuck about games? Just like clothes shops don't target men cause most men don't give a flying fuck about fashion.
My Windows is NOT slow, it's special!
An "analyst" suggests her particular speciality is an amazing, untapped marketplace just waiting to be exploited with her unique insight. Amazing, where can I send her money now?
I really don't think adding a playable female lead character to everything is the answer. I'm a man and I have very little in common with the usual muscle-bound he-man videogame protagonists. You can play as a female in plenty of games (WoW and Mass Effect, for instance) but the overwhelming majority of players are still men. So I want to know what the article thinks those mythical "needs and preferences" are for female gamers. From the available data I'd say they're actually pretty well catered for - only we call them "casual gamers". Browser games, smartphone puzzle games, word games, etc - they're all at 50% or more female gamers.
This discussion seems to crop up every now and then and the question needs to be rephrased - why don't females play "hardcore" games? What is it about them that makes them inherently male? Me, I don't think it's about what your avatar looks like or how story-driven the game is. I think it's all down to culture. Same culture that tells us videogames are for 13 year old boys. All we need is for games to be great, immersive, well done, and for the shift to happen. It's gonna be slow, though.
Both are popular with women, relatively speaking. Been in guilds in both where women were significant in number and some of them influential. Couple of female Guild Masters, did wonderful job. (yes, we used Ventrilo; not fakes) No need to make games designed to attract females. Games are games are games. Only need to avoid elements in games that are offensive to most women. Much harder task is to remove online offensive language and adolescent crudity from players.
Ok, I'm sure this is going to get modded to oblivion, but here goes.
Why the hell do I care?
When I dress up as a boy and go to work and have to deal with women who get bamboozled by basic Word features like tab stops, why do I care? If these women don't care about games or any other tech, why, as a guy, do I care?
When I dress up as a girl when I get home and fire up Monster Hunter or BlazBlue or whatever I feel like playing, why the hell do I care what some other woman wants out of games? If other women don't want to play video games, why do I care?
If women want to be "represented" in video games, they can get out GCC, SDL, and whatever else and make their own games. But they don't.
Besides, the girls at work who do play video games are perfectly happy with Smash Bros from what I understand anyway. I don't like Smash Bros. Does that make me underrepresented in Smash Bros? Why should anyone else care that I don't play Smash Bros?
Why do we all have to bend over backwards to try to get people who have no interest in our hobbies to be interested in our hobbies? They're just not interested, so why the hell should I care?
Join the Slashcott! Stay away entirely Feb 10 thru Feb 17! Close all tabs to prevent autorefresh!
Duke Nukem Forever was all about women. What more do they want??
So it isn't that they aren't making games that appeal to these market but more that they are ignoring female gamers views when it comes to game design as the core market is male.
This article mostly showed me I want to play the same games as women :P
Maybe they should do more analysis on men as I imagine many men like single player, story/character driven games.
Or maybe it is just me :(
Maybe if you ignore them, they will go away?
And what are "girl games"? Oh yeah, let's go after the stereotype and make games based on relationships/drama/romance or whatever.
I know many girls who play video games, and their favorite games are usually the ones that are "marketed for men". They also like the sims and whatever but when I ask what is their favorite games we get the same answers that guys do, CoD, portal and the like.
Also there aren't that many male oriented mainstream games, girls enjoy playing halo as much as any guy, blowing shit up is fun for everybody
The only problem I see with girls gaming is social. One girl that I know has to play videogames when her boyfriend is not around because he wants her to be "feminine". What the fuck? I guess society expects gamers to be guys and girls do house stuff or gossip with other girls or some other shit like that.
In medieval times most societies based on religion believed that women could not have orgasm and could/should not enjoy sex. Most women at the time kept their thoughts to themselves and since men knew no better they just thought that orgasm were a male privilege or whatever. The same thing kind of happens right now, men just assume that girls don't like the same thing that man do, but while some don't most don't even get to experience video games because society doesn't lead them to go play them.
What hope is there for studios understanding women when their understanding of men is that all we need is ever bigger guns and gore? I'm so sick of seeing the current unending stream of military games. Yawn!
So attempts to "target" women as an audience will be just as woefully patronising and base. Maybe a pregnancy game, eh? That's what all the girls want while all the boys want to go kill people.
I find that 50% figure highly dubious, surely they meant to say 50% of the potential market (i.e. 50% of people). If it's true and 50% of the gamer market is women then clearly their needs are already being catered for (people don't tend to buy things consistently unless they meet their needs or wants) and to say we need a special category of games for women is just patronising on behalf of the author. Besides, how many times have we seen this same story over the years - at least a dozen since I started gaming in the 80's. Either women don't want different games to men, or they largely arent interested in games, or they just needed the right medium (men tend to be better at focusing on one task for a long time, traditional games suit them, women tend to prefer multitasking, games that you can drop in and out of easily al la farmville, tend to suit this play style).
I see plenty of TV adverts for games that are very clearly aimed at women - Nintendo in particular has made a big push in this direction (and families, and older people of both sexes). I'm not qualified to say whether these really meet the needs of women, but its clear that the manufacturers think they do.
Presumably TFA has some narrow definition of gaming that excludes casual games, Sims-a-like, pet simulators, fitness trainers, online bingo etc. That just leaves one of this year's biggest game releases (Portal 2) which featured a female protagonist, and a female (ish) big bad making bitchy comments about our hero's weight.
Now, if it turns out that women are rejecting this pink fluffy stereotypical family-friendly stuff, and want more subtle changes to game design, that's a different story.
Perhaps Duke Nukem would have got a better critical reception if they'd taken a tip from the "Smack my Bitch Up" video and, right at the end, panned the camera round to reveal that Duke was actually a woman...?
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
like seriously... i am 6 feet and 7.6 inches and my feet wont fit in those pretty shoes...
Nobody is going to make AAA games for women. Why not? Ask the movie studios why there aren't any movies for women with budget of $150 million. Same goes for tv shows that cost more than $2 million per episode and so on.
My theory is that unlike men, it is so difficult to nail down what they like. Just look at how much clothes change for women over the years compared to men.
Without being sexist, there are definitely games out there that are more suited to either males or females, but they don't outright say it on the box. From my experience, more males seem to have embraced playing games such as Football(soccer) games, FPS games and heavy RTS and other strategy games, females are definitely more prevalent on other types of games such as MMORPGs (In a decent sized guild, a large section of the playerbase are normally women), Simulators such as The Sims and Farmville and adventure type games.
It's the content of the games that is the problem. The majority of women are not interested in guns and tanks and explosions such as the large majority of men really wouldn't care to design and build a farm. I definitely don't think that any man or woman wouldn't play a game purely because it wasn't designed specifically for them, that's just silly.
There are games where women, by design, aren't featured in games (Such as WW2 and other war games where women in the army were either non-existent or low in numbers). I don't think because of this women would just stop playing it, it doesn't work like that, I've talked to quite a few females while playing RTS games, that's just what type of games they like.
There are many games with a female hero/antagonist but going further than that to specifically tailoring it to women would alienate a large portion of the fanbase. I am aware that it notes female gamers as being 50% of all gamers but I personally don't see playing the occasional browser-based flash game as 'gaming' and a 50:50 share is definitely not prevalent in the majority of games online.
Looks like the Goatse guy got a new job.
Unless, of course, 50% of the gamers (the women) flock to a medium which they don't like.
Exactly. From TFA:
"Market representation for women has grown to 50 percent overall, with console use rising significantly in the past two years"
Apparently, we're supposed to think that somehow this demonstrates that female gamers are being ignored and not getting what they want.
Next they'll tell us that women are being forced to play games against their will.
What this article doesn't address is what comprises a "gamer". Someone that has an Angry Birds app or plays Farmville for a certain amount of time, by the standards of most studies, is a "gamer". If you were to eliminate those and focus only on those that either play their consoles regularly, or "actual" computer games, you'll find the female to male ratio will drop drastically, thus explaining why they're the underrepresented demographic in video games.
If there is a demand for some kind of games - there will be an offer. In a short time - especially considering the current game market saturation. If there are no games of some particular kind - that means that the demand is way too low to be on the radar of publishers, or even independent studios.
It's also not generally accepted for women to play games. I know my sister gets serieus omgwtfbbq reactions when she mentions she's off to a lan party with some friends to play (among other things) Unreal Tournament. While a lot of guys are (once they've recovered from the shock) like "MARRY ME!" usually girls respond like "You stay where you are while I walk backwards to the door. Slowly. Don't make any sudden moves." Seems to me like it's a bit like coming out of the closet, everybody knows it exists, but you'll get shunned over it anyway.
Now I'm willing to accept that she's an exception (and/or I live in a pathetically retarded country in this respect) for playing shooters but if the forums about RPGs/Action adventures are any indication there's quite a few women playing those and there's not usually complaints about the game being "designed for men" (there is, sometimes about lack of romance options for women, but this is something that's improving itself, if there's an audience then there will be (changes to the) product.
Games are for fun, so that women are playing them says they are having fun with them.
To me it just sounds like whining. If there are specific things that need to be done differently to attract women to gaming, let's hear them. However just saying "Oh they aren't good for women," sounds like bitching without evidence to me.
The only thing they list in the article "For instance, they are much more likely to prefer to play solo than men, and play games for less competitive and more narrative- and character-driven reasons." is stupid. Why? Because we HAVE plenty of games like that, and there is no reason that ALL games should be like that.
To me what that says is "Women tend to like single player RPGs more than multi-player FPSes." Ok, wonderful. Turns out there are plenty of those. The market is being enough for both kinds of games, and in fact for more than that.
I also question that one since story driven, single player games have been around for much longer. While competitive multi-player games are popular, they are new. For many a year single player was the big thing (because we lacked the Internet), yet fewer women were in to gaming.
I personally think any lack of women in gaming (which I've not observed, lots of women play games in my experience) is more cultural/mindset than anything else. Women feel like gaming is not something they should do, so they don't. That isn't the sort of thing different kinds of games really can fix.
So if things really need to be done different, well let's hear it then. However all I see here is bitching that amounts to "Girls don't like online FPSes." To that I say:
1) So what? There are plenty of other kinds of games. We can have games for all kinds of people, not every game need to be targeted to every person (as such a thing would fail).
2) Says who? Though far less common then men, there are women who enjoy shooties plenty well.
My wife has a Wii and a couple of games on my PS3. She says she's a gamer but I haven't seen her touch a controller in nearly a year with the exception of when we play Rock Band together. I would absolutely LOVE it if she was into COD or some-such. We would so be killing pixels together... But I doubt that would ever happen because men and women, despite exceptions to every rule and so on, are fundamentally different. Men = hunters. Women = gatherers. Although I think things are (very, very, very) slowly shifting, we have evolution to thank for the lack of females who are hard-core gamers as most hard-core games are tasty-violent with a freakin' laserbeam.
Life is sleep. Death is a dream. Wake up.
They need to take their games and add a virtual clothes rack and clothing store, where you can buy boots and other little items for your avatars. That way an additional challenge is presented: "Hmmm, should I spend this billion ISK on a Carrier class starship, or should I spend it on a silly looking monacle for my avatar?". The women, of course, will choose the clothing. And the men will choose the big pew pew ships. And so the game will be much less frustrating for women because they will still get pwned, but at least they will die stylishly.
/incarna rant
PS: All the women I know prefer big guns over pretty boots any day.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
What special 'needs' do women have in gaming? Most of the women I know love playing Halo, GTA, TF2, L4D, Mortal Kombat, all the games I love to play myself. As far as I'm concerned those are games made for men and women, what do women need that they don't provide?
This story exists only to be provocative and get viewers.
In other news:
Men ignored by makeup market.
More moob compatible bras required to fill growing need.
Men petitioning for the allowance of one day a month to be total a-holes and get away with it.
if you read the story, rather then just the slashdot mention you'd have seen that they did break it down into console use and casual vs non-casual gamers where the rate was still 40% non-casual gamers.
I think the biggest barrier for entry for women gamers isn't the games themselves, but the gaming community. We all know of The Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, but women get presented an even uglier side of online gaming. This site has some good examples: http://fatuglyorslutty.com/
It seems the moment a female gamer reveals her gender she's automatically the target of the most vile and despicable comments the online community has to offer. Granted, most gamers are thick skinned and can brush this stuff off. But it makes me wonder how many women have tried playing a game, had an experience similar to the ones at the site above, and gave up entirely. It would be nice if the online community were a little friendlier. We would all have more fun that way, regardless of gender.
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
If women are so unhappy with games not catering to their needs (whatever those are), why aren't there any women getting into game-making and making those games that they're missing?
No, really. It sounds like there's a huge opportunity here - a huge untapped market. Why isn't anyone going for it? And if the men aren't doing it because they're so unfair and sexist and don't just understand what women need (sob), why aren't those women doing it themselves?
I seriously don't understand.
People made computers. Women AND men.
rewriting history since 2109
Next they'll tell us that women are being forced to play games against their will.
If this was China...
I do not get the barbeque reference...
To create a blockbuster game that appeals directly to women is a massively risky investment. Games like Gears of War and Halo take tens of millions, if not over $100M, to produce. No publisher in their right mind is going to spend that on trying to win female gamers since most female gamers are "casual gamers" who haven't shown a predilection for "hardcore games" of any type. It would be a career or even company-ending move if it didn't go well.
Now if we could only ignore them at home as well...
Women don't buy ridiculous gadgets like Xboxes and such... so why would those systems make games for them? That doesn't mean women are being ignored. Facebook games anyone? Bejeweled? I'd argue that if you just counted the number of games out there, there's actually MORE tailored to women than to men. The only difference being, Men are willing to pay a lot more for their entertainment and entertainment companies are happily willing to take their money.
If they represent 50% of the consumers, then the market doesn't seem to be that bad at catering to them...
My wife bought a Wii just so she could play Micheal Jackson: The Experience. All of her friends at work had been raving about it. I think games like that are a good example of where money could be made.
The report was published by a company which provides "research and consulting services" to game publishers.
They''re not going to publish a report saying "actually our services are not needed and we're a waste of money".
The kinds of games that are made are the kind that get sold. If games are targeted at men it's because they're the ones that want to buy them. I believe that there are games targeted at women (or at least not targeted at men specifically) already so I don't see the problem there. Maybe advances in technology or shifts in the gaming interfaces will make the medium more attractive to women in the future. Games, like any other product, will always be targeted to wherever the demand is.
...but when are you going to make works tailored to female audiences?
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Games have always been made for one type of a person. Someone who enjoys a story, a puzzle, a challenge, an insane trial against x amount of opponents. Thus in a nutshell, a GAMER.
It's not about guys or girls, heck, if it's like that, are you going to say "where is the video games for transexuals?!"
I'm sure they're out there playing the same games as we are and loving and hating just as much of it.
What sort of "needs" are we talking about here? I need games that handle well, have good storylines and graphics that don't suck, not games about tampons (or cooking...) or whatever the hell the authors of this study think we're interested in.
Yes, I could personally wish for more Black Isle-style RPGs and less FPSs, but game companies make what's selling and I can't blame the market at large for having evolving preferences.
That's because they're all busy playing Farmville on Facebook. The last numbers I heard were around 60 to 70% female players. That's with a game that lies north of 50 million active players. Sounds like a huge chunk of women having just the type of fun they need with the gaming industry.
Add in my daughter and her friends all hooked on Animal Crossing DS(i) I'd say the video gaming industry is doind just fine with the ladies.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I believe the entire line-up from Popcap games is already pretty women-friendly. And looking how big the Sims is, I think women get plenty of attention. Warcraft has a huge amount of girls playing as well.
Besides.. who says women don't like FPS's like Counterstrike and such? I think women would hate it more if they were relegated into a corner with an all pink edition of Barbie Pony Combing, then let out in the world and play anything we guys play.
There are games i like (MMORPGs, strategy / empire building, puzzle, though I haven't played much except WoW for a few years), and games that I don't like (FPSs - the movement makes me feel ill).
I don't think that any imbalance between the numbers of male and female gamers is anything to do with the games themselves, but rather the mindset and cultural expectations of their potential players.
We just need more geek girls in the media, that should help bring their plight front and center.
This vloguer is also a Linux geek, which is how I originally stumbled upon her (she has some of the most articulate compiz nowto videos I've ever seen)
http://www.nixiepixel.com/
In order to build games for women don't you need to understand them ?
Does anybody (who can code) know what women wants ?
What? Yes because games are currently aimed to fulfill male needs. Men need to have a regular experience of shooting/solving puzzles/racing or they will what, die?
At some point I found a clothing store that I actually liked (Today's Man). Needless to say, they promptly went out of business.
And that's why I ignore the fashion industry.
Well, that, and because my extended family in Thailand is always sending me surplus apparel from the factory markets before they get their name-brand markups.
In a free market, people are free to develop. PC and console games aren't new. My female friends and relations love a Wii cooking game. I thought it one of the most ridiculous, boring, and useless games ever created. They bought it, play it occasionally, and enjoy it.
It isn't that such games do not exist, it is that they do not have the same MARKET SHARE. If females bought more of those types of games, more would exist. They don't, because they'd rather play for 10-20 minutes twice a month, and then spend 4-6 hours chatting instead. Guys are content to sit around shooting and killing things for hours, day after day.
Spent the first 20 years of my life being told that women are equal in every way. Now we are spending the next 20 years catering to their differences. I am very confused, I think we have been had.
I admit I didn't read the article due to the difficulty with reading it, what is the deal with that? There is no way women make up 50% of HD console market, I find that a very optimistic number. However, the last year I played WoW there was definitely a surge in female players, and the last time I was in CS a chic handed me my ass a few times(we were in vent so I know she was a chic).
Prove that WoW is made for male audience, and has nothing that interest womens.
I say your idea is wrong.
It was a reasonably common gamer idiom for a shocked reaction not too long ago.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Obviously, some study was done that asked something along the lines of do you ever play video games.
And of course ~ 100% of people said yes, making the study show that 50% of gamers are women, which of course any competent person knows that is false.
And then I assume that they asked some other generic question where the answer of yes the gaming industry does focus on men was the obvious answer.
How no one in the study could of not realized their first mistake with the number of 50% even after the contradiction of why are just as many girls attracted to games as men if few games are made for them is beyond my understanding though..
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
I must be a woman because I too prefer single player games with strong narrative over competitive multi-player kill fests. Dealing with Internet randos through voice chat doesn't appeal to me at all.
You target a fraction of the total population because "family appeal" games are hard to do and significant chunks of the market don't want them. Most action movies are aimed at 16-30 year old males for example. Sure some women like them but the overwhelming market for such fare is 16-30 year old males.
The console market being focused on men (the casual game market has a huge female audience but the article isn't about that) is because traditionally only males could get away with sitting inside all day playing video games due to social reasons. Most content producers aren't in the business of social change so they just aimed their product at the market as it was.
Now days young women spend as much time playing Bedazzled or Farmville as young men do playing Call of Duty. So we will increasingly see AAA console titles that are aimed at a female audience (which is good for all of us, as it means games will get more sophisticated stories and less retarded characters).
========
CINC, 4th Penguin Legion
Deciphering the marketing speak: “All our game have scantly clad women, guns, and blood, we need to make games for women with puppy’s,unicorns and rainbows”.
It’s the same bullshit targeted marketing you will find in all industry’s, Most women I have known, got in to gaming because of there boyfriends/husbands, when alone form other females, and most enjoy so called boys-games.
It’s the same with men, I started watching Gilmore Girls and Army Wives because of a girlfriend , Yet I would never crack open a beer and start taking about it with my mates.
When you get down to it and have a deep look at so called male-thing and female-thing, you will find they actually have a broad appeal it is just skewed by marketing and gender role ignorance.
We'll write games for women, as soon as they tell us what they want - be specific, say what you want, not just that what we offered isn't it!
We just released a new game, called Super Bride and Groom, and focused very heavily on making sure that it would appeal to both men and women. With a two-person team made up of a male programmer and a female designer, we had insight from both angles. We're starting small, with just a Flash game, but do intend to include women in console games, if not cater to them specifically, without dumbing down the content like many "girl games" do.
Yup. If 50% of gamers are women, then obviously the market is pretty optimal right now.
Sure, you could put farmsville on PC with HD graphics, but....would that work? The platform (facebook) as has much to do with it than the game. That's why "primarly guy" populated discussion forums will have "console wars".
Then you have hybrids. I'm pretty sure Terraria will appeal as much to women than it will to men. If there's less women, it is probably only because Steam markets mostly to guys, and little more.
As an employee at Zynga, I can tell you there are TONS of female gamers out there. They just aren't playing the same games you dudes are....
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
I know my sister gets serieus omgwtfbbq reactions when she mentions she's off to a lan party with some friends to play (among other things) Unreal Tournament.
THIS is a big part of the problem too. A story about this just showed up on Fark recently:
http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2011/06/20/fat-ugly-or-slutty/ is a very good read.
When I was first shown the offensive messages that my friend Jaspir received, I laughed. Their crudeness was so hilariously over-the-top that it was nothing short of ridiculous. I had been told many times by people I know and trust that online games are a wild and untamed jungle, with pictures of genitalia hiding around every corner. But it wasn’t until I was actually shown the messages that I really understood. Something finally clicked.
I thought I was alone in this misunderstanding. I figured every gamer must have already known how horrible the world of multiplayer gaming was, and that I’d only missed it because I don’t play online all that much. I figured the lewd content and insults were accepted by everyone as a hazard of the hobby – it’s just trashtalk, right?
So, when my friends and I started Fat, Ugly or Slutty to collect examples of this rude banter we didn’t think it would shock anyone. We wanted to gather all this horribleness in one place and have a chuckle about how stupid and ridiculous it was; the FailBlog of gaming.
http://fatuglyorslutty.com/
Some girls take that a bit more personal than others and if you start acting like that there's a good chance they won't come back.
... but in the communities playing the games.
My GF e.g. was once a hard core WoW gamer and now is a casual solo player with rare 5 man instance runs.
Why? Because the male population in games (after all it is anonymous internet) behave like complete sexist idiots. Alone the talk during the raids or in pvp: "rape that priest and we give it the pally into his a***" is disgusting.
Beeing looked down by the class leader in raids because she is not top on the healing meter (but watches the game carefully and compensates all the others healers mistakes). As she mostly head no mic she had to hear his stupid insults on TS/Vent all the time. Once taking a mic and shouting back came to the end: "oh, you are a girl, nevermind then (as in: yeah no problem if you play bad, we are used to girls playing bad)"
In other words: she meets completely incompetent idiots in a game. A game where people take stuff more serious than in RL. So the classleader or raidleaders completely freeek out and run rampart on various occasions jsut for their ego.
The difference is: she is a girl. She does not feel the need to argue with idiots over stuff she knows and does better. She just lets him stand where he is and puts him on ignore.
Meanwhile she does not raid anymore because the game bacame to easy and the amount of idiots able to click 3 buttons is increasing more and more
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Maybe the women change. Would the researchers like Second Life: Barbie Edition to suite the womens needs?
Its like womens universities, womens computer courses etc? Womens games?
I think that there have never been much "men specific games" (lets exclude Strip Poker on the Commodore64 here...)
There has been an education that tell women no to play certain games.
This is exactly why I have to read the comments in order to see the bigger picture. (Or do my own investigating).
The free market is supposed to solve issues like this on it's own. Why don't a bunch of women get together and start their own gaming company then? They could call it Amazon. Errr, AmazonGames. .... Okay, forget Amazon, but they could have their own company and write games that they would like. Why do "we" have to write games for "them"?
I can't read past page 2 of the actual paper, and the article is a little bit vague, but are they saying that 50% of people who PLAY games are women, or that 50% of the time played is played by women? Because if it's the latter, then you're totally correct, if it's the former, then they may have a point about untapped markets.
For example - I'm a female, and I would say I am a gamer, although I play one game primarily - three guesses what that might be (not the sims) - and sometimes I play little puzzle/flash games, but it's rare that I would go out and pick up a new game 'cause I just don't care about most of them. I'm not opposed to the IDEA of buying games, so it's not a social barrier that needs to be overcome. If there is a signficant population like that then that might be considered as an untapped market.
...no two people are not on fire.
"Next they'll tell us that women are being forced to play games against their will."
I, for one, find the idea vaguely arousing.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
I think it's a matter of recognizing a hole, a niche, that could be profitable to fill. Let's start with a premise. Men and women are different. Some of it is biological, some of it is cultural, and all of it varies from individual to individual; but in a broad, sweeping, sense men and women are different. Now let's instantiate that presence. Movies are made for three primary types of audiences (we'll ignore kid movies or specialty movies for now): men, women, or both. Don't get me wrong, plenty of girls like a kick and smash movie, at least occasionally. Plenty of guys can enjoy a check flick, at least occasionally. Mostly, though, those genres are made for one sex or the other, with the understanding that overlap will occur. Most more general comedy/drama type films are made to appeal to both audiences.
Video games are right now in a place where they're making mostly "Guy games" and "broad appeal" games. Most women enjoy the broad appeal games, and occasionally they'll enjoy a "guy game". My wife loves a good kick and smash movie every so often, and she also enjoys blowing away aliens every so often. Think of the money to be made if you could be the one to come up with the first "chick flicks" of the video games industry though. It doesn't mean women would stop liking general appeal or action focused games, any more than every woman loves chick flicks or hates action movies.
It would be a huge impact on the industry, potentially bringing in new female gamers and selling hugely to existing female gaming population. And as a guy who likes the occasional chick flick, I'd probably play it too.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Perhaps it is a fundamental difference between men and women. How many men have been attempting to cook while playing some FPS and let the buzzer on the stove go for several minutes because they were in the middle of a fire fight?
Women are more willing to put the game down at the drop of a hat to clean the house, cook dinner, and pick up the baby. It is the difference between living in a world of basic needs and one of toys. To men, the toys are important. To the women, the toys are nice but dinner is more important.
Ever want to use a womans screams from being tazed as a cell phone ring?
A sense of satisfaction and justice with every call...
"...while the female audience in gaming has grown, games tailored to their needs and preferences continue to go missing."
Uh, what the hell is this all about? Tailored to "their needs"? They act like women gamers have 3 arms instead of two. It's a game, and usually within gaming revolves around FPS gaming. "Headshots" are not "tailored" towards any gender...what, do they find that women gamers prefer more pink on the battlefield? (Yes, I know that sounds sexist, but so is the comment in TFA)
Give me a break. You either like the game well enough to play it, or you don't. Gender should have nothing to do with it. This likely has more to do with advertising within games than the game itself. Leave it to the marketeers to try and "tune" something that doesn't need tuning for the sake of doubleclick.
Holy shit... there are *girls* on the internets? And some times play games? It is lie. PURE LIE.
There is not girls on the internets. Please no tell such lies. Hurts it... *inside* it, it hurts. Heads hurts it. Owch!
can't us men keep something for ourselves?
Frankly i think it's more the culture of the comments on this slashdot entry that needs to change. We have a wide diversity of games both good and bad, and yes it is a pity that so much of the marketing drives women away from really brilliant gaming experiences but to assume that women don't find anything in Triple-A titles is nonsense. Sure we may be a minority but I think the real point driven home by the research is that we are less of a minority then people think. Probably because there's no obvious way to tell a gamer's gender nor measure if a girl is buying a game for themselves or someone else with the 'oh it's for her boyfriend assumption'. Societies problem seems to be that girls don't exist unless they're girly? According to most of the replies here it's a big deal for females to be gamers, why else would there be such a polarized reaction? Personally the look of the industry seems very divided atm between 'casual' and quality games. The last decade has been groundbreaking for better storytelling and gameplay that crosses the gender divide. Sure we have 'backwards' titles like Duke Nukem Forever (which having been a fan of Duke I II and 3D I have mixed feelings about certain elements) but the overall growth has been to improve the status of female characters in games which thanks to Chell, Lara Croft etc.etc. there's a lot of hope for more great female leads and a ever growing female market share both in the industry and gamers alike as Gaming grows up and becomes more acceptable.
A lot of games show women as scantly clad objects with big breasts and bubbly butts, but I'd be disturbed to play a game where the male character has a crotch bulge the size of a basketball and a bazillioon abs.
Of course there are tons of games that don't objectify women. Heavy Rain, the female characters look down to earth.
It's really all subjective.
Previewing comments are for sissies!
And Cooking Mama?
Okay, that sounded dirty but it's true. And quite frankly, they're good at it and girls who are good at FPS are super hot.
For perspective, I'm a 40 year old female gamer. I like fps games on solo. I HATE playing online with the community for any reason. That part is the community. I can't use a mic because I sound young enough that I get propositioned by folks young enough to be my son. Just. . . Eww. Don't even get me started on the insults. Even if they are not directed at me, I just don't want to hear homophobic, racial, or gender slurs every two minutes. The prevalence of rape humor and insults makes me really uncomfortable. Therefore, I don't play online with my xbox on fps.
As for the games themselves? Can I even play a female character? Can she have generally reasonable clothing? Not stripper wear? Is there parts of the game where all the present female characters are there to kill, screw, or serve as eye candy? Is there male eye candy? Are females represented in the game as anything other than victims?
I don't think any of this is rocket science.
...that ignoring women was the point of gaming?
To understand recursion, you must first understand recursion.
No kidding. What are they suggesting, that they should make cooking and cleaning games? Obviously women are enjoying the games they play.
Funny in figure drawing classes, seem to be made up mostly of women 80%-90%, and the models, nude models, are also about 80% women.
I know plenty of girls who enjoy games that people would probably label as "guy" games.
To this day the best person I know at FPS games is a chick, and oh man, it is SO much fun to listen to guys having their egos crushed online.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
Except that your premise is wrong.
from TFA:
"Market representation for women has grown to 50 percent overall, with console use rising significantly in the past two years"
Half the people who play games are girls, they're not forced to play them, since games are for fun they're playing them to have fun and given that as many women as men choose to play these games to have fun it would suggest that they're already catering to real women just as well as to men.
You've been conned just as the writer of the article intended.
you were convinced that there's some kind of need that isn't being fulfilled when it really is.
Interpret sells its services to game publishers so they have an interest in convincing you that their services are needed when they really aren't.
It's no fun guessing WoW after you tell us it's not The Sims or Farmville.
It's true that programming is male dominated, but I can't fathom why it is. The world's very first programmer, Lady Lovelace, was a woman. The first compiler was written by a woman.
Free Martian Whores!
That's why the population of female FPS players appear so low -- they don't want the men to know they're women. I'm clicking the "no bonus" boxes because this is a tad redundant (modding myself down so to speak), but I had a populat Quake site and got a lot of mail because of it. I'd say roughly half of my respondants were women, and a LOT of them expressed that to me.
Remember the Blue's News parody called Yello There? Kneel Harriot's real name was Janet.
Free Martian Whores!
I thought the SIMs target audience was bored housewives?
I was just going to moderate the GB poster, but instead i think i shall point out that you seem to be dead set on continuing the original fallacy.
"Many people use X" does not equate to "X is designed optimally for those people."
Do you think if there were no chick flicks that women would just stop going to movies? No, they'd still go to the "broad appeal" movies and a few of the "guy" movies so they'd still be movie consumers, but it's quite likely that total movie revenues would be less. Would women still read if there were no romance novels? Sure they would. Would the publishing industry be missing out on a huge chunk of income without that genre? Definitely! And the recent explosion of the paranormal romance sub-genre shows that there was a need unaddressed by the market, even though most of those people were probably already buying books before that point.
Really this is the best kind of marketing research. They've identified a large group of people who are _already_ customers whose desires they feel can be better addressed. Would you be equally outraged if SyFy did some market research which determined "Our primary audience are geeks who like high quality science fiction television series. Perhaps we should produce some more of those"? After all, by your argument SyFy shouldn't do anything like that because those people are _already_ watching, therefore their needs are already met, right? The possibility that those people are just desperate for any kind of Science Fiction and will settle for the crap that's currently on SyFy because there's not much else available elsewhere doesn't bear consideration does it?
"We've already got the customers, so we don't need to do anything to improve our product/services" is pretty much the antithesis of progress, and it would surprise me to see that attitude on Slashdot if it were being expressed about almost any other topic, but since we're talking about women getting into something that's been traditionally male dominated i guess that's par for the course?
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Hell, I was just commenting the other day that I would love to play an RPG based on the old Arnette Lamb book "Maiden of Inverness." A 10 year old song of a blacksmith is engaged to an 8 year old Scottish princess, and must train hard and become a clan leader to eventually claim his bride and the crown of the highlands. Great narrative, great backbones for an RPG, and since it's a romance novel, all the escapism and fantasy a woman could want.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
I hate playing with girls online.
Every time a girl is playing, half of the guys feel the urge to flirt with her and spam the communications channels. I don't blame the girls for this, obviously it's the fault of the guys, but I avoid servers with girls for this reason. If every server had girls playing on it, I'd have to quit playing.
Some girls are partly responsible though. Some girls encourage the flirting instead of just ignoring it or telling the guys to quit it. Those girls don't earn anyone's respect as players, however they do earn respect as sexual objects. After all, they respond positively to male sexual advances instead of playing seriously.
I know a few girls who behave better. They don't log in to be treated like a goddess and get all the attention, they log in to play. When a guy starts flirting with them, they put him back in his place immediately. Those girls I love playing with, but I met only 3 in my life as a gamer.
That's ridiculous. For instance, has anyone seen Duke Nukem Forever? Plenty of women in there.
What are we talking about, again?
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I wonder what differences are contained in the term "gamer" when we're talking of gender differences. Are most women "gamers" in the same sense of how men use the term?
My girlfriend has picked up a bit of gaming from me, she even tried WoW* for a couple months. She mostly sticks to causal type games, though, like Angry Birds, Plants vs. Zombies, and Peggle. She gets more use out of the Wii than me too, but mostly plays games like Trauma Center (though she did enjoy No More Heroes a bit more than me). For example her latest obsession is Kirby's Epic Yarn. If this was my obsession I wouldn't even call myself a gamer.
When, in a masculine sense, we say "gamer" we generally mean someone who plays the so-called "hardcore", action genre. With men, playing Farmville doesn't make you a "gamer". Is this term used the same way by women? If not, the comparison makes very little sense. Do most women WANT to play Halo XII, or DNF? (As a male, I sure as hell don't). If we made the action genre 100% "woman friendly", would women flock to it?
I'm not being sexist. With my girlfriend I've noticed that a large part of our gaming differences come from past experiences. She was raised to play with dolls, I was given a C64 and an Atari. She never picked up the knowledge of the various given schemes for gaming, nor the very specific dexterity needed. Thus she never gets to really play, since the difficulty curve is pretty high for her, whereas I've been doing it for 30 years.
*actually, and surprisingly, WoW has a rather large female audience. Some of my old guilds, when I used to play, were around 40-45% female. My friends list was almost representative of the actual gender makeup. Though often there was uncomfortable moments in instances and raids when pick-up members started lashing out with juvenile sexism, and the daily "omg yer a gurl" comments when people hopped on vent. Actually most of the MMOs I've played have had a rather high female component, it might be that the social aspects help.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Well there's a problem with that. As someone who's browsed many profiles on dating sites over the last few years, I've realized something that I'd never thought about before - most girls don't have hobbies. Seeing as how essentially EVERY guy has at least one hobby, I never thought that there were people who essentially did NOTHING with their free time. However, if you start really asking girls what they like to do it's usually something like "party / shopping / get drunk / go clubbing / tanning". Is every girl like this? No, but well over 50% are. If a girl isn't interested in having hobbies PERIOD, how can you try to claim that she's a potential for a hobby that's historically been looked down on by the majority of people (at least those out of college) in both genders?
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
As a female gamer who plays the so called 'hard core' games.... I don't see a huge gap in how games appeal to men and women. Other than the turd of the new Duke Nukem game there is a really great selection out there (and I was a fan of DN3d. Used to create levels for it). A few companies are really getting it right like BioWare. Mass Effect and Dragon Age both let you play a female character with a fleshed out story and applicable love interests. I wish more games were like that. For example, Rockstar could do more to let me play a female character like in Red Dead Redemption and the game I'm currently playing - LA Noire.
Secondly, I want to be able to save any time I freaking want. And don't make me re-play a big section just because I had to exit to do something more important. Having to reach a 'save point' is nonsense and kills my fun really quickly.
Also, don't know if this is a girl thing or not... but I like more social interaction with NPCs in the game. Like in Dragon Age for example it's very good. In Oblivion however... I get kind of lonely pretty quickly. The lone wolf adventurer gets old after 40+ hours.
That reminds me, I want to finish Oblivion before Skyrim comes out. But I have yet another repetitive oblivion gate to close. Gaaah. There's such a thing as a game being too long.
My, nearly, car analogy:
I drive on the freeway every day to work. So does that mean that the free was is the best way to get to work? It must be since I use it every day.
No, the most optimal route to work would be a direct road going straight from my drive way to the parking lot at work. This road doesn't exist yet I want to drive to work so I take the freeway.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Another misleading statistic. The market 100% of people. 50% of people are women therefore 50% of the market are women. It doesn't mean that 50% of people gaming are women. Even though women have increased their presence greatly, I do not believe 50% of gamers are women. If companies believe there is money to produce games for women they would. I would, wouldn't anyone? I would love to own the game in which millions of women pay me $15 a month for play my game.... So why aren't there games oriented for women? Because the women who play video games don't want to play girlie games.
IIRC, Admiral Hopper was just as wired as the Professor, too.
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
What the hell are you talking about 50% of girls don't have hobbies? Your ass must be incredibly sore after pulling that one out.
I'm a woman, I know many women, I have known many women throughout my life, and I honestly cannot think of one woman over the age of 5 who legitimately does not have a hobby of some sort or another.
And actually, as someone who has perused a few dating sites, I can safely say (at least as safely as you could) that at least 50% of men don't have hobbies unless you count beer pong or drinking natty life with their bros.
Maybe it isn't that people don't have hobbies, but that people on dating sites who are trying to attract people are just presenting an image of themselves as being all about fun etc. rather than "geeky" things like hobbies. Young people especially. They are looking to hook up and have fun, in most cases, not find a soul mate. If you wanna get drunk and party with random people, why would you bother talking about your real interests?
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
Judging by reviews, most people don't want to play DNF.
so write some games
as a GAMER i feel the current glut of games is generally low quality
indie is where its at
so write some games
Wow, reading through these comments is pretty upsetting. Lot of unwarranted, borderline misogynistic ranting. No reason to feel threatened, guys. Girls just wanna have fun.
Anyway, some observations about how women are portrayed in games:
Male protagonists dominate the top games, while female protagonists are primarily defined by their sex appeal (Lara Croft, Bayonetta, any female from Street Fighter) or are somewhat masculine themselves (Mass Effect's female Shepard, Samus Aran before she strips). In addition, many respectable female characters are relegated to sidekick status (Alyx Vance from HL2, Meryl from Metal Gear Solid) or become emotionally-wrecked villains themselves (GLaDOS, Aribeth from NWN).
For every non-mute (Sorry Chell), non-overtly sexualized, emotionally resilient lead female character, like April (Longest Journey) or Jade (Beyond Good & Evil), I can think of half a dozen females who always need rescuing by the boys: Princess Peach, Princess Zelda, Yorda (ICO), the Duke Nukem girls, and so on...
Based purely on personal anecdotes, most real-life girls I know gravitate toward games like the Sims, Oblivion, or World of Warcraft (PvE). Social chatting software like IMVU are popular among women too. I think in these kinds of games, they can define their own characters and their own place in the game world. They seem to like creating, customizing, and exploring, while approaching the content at their own pace.
That's not to say no women enjoy pressure-driven games like WoW (PvP), Starcraft, or Left 4 Dead--I remember at least 3 girls kicked my ass in separate L4D Versus matches--but the ratio of fiercely competitive girl gamers to guy gamers isn't very high, in my experience.
If developers want to attract more women playing games, I think they need to develop more characters that women want to play or characters that women can identify with. To do that, I would suggest hiring more female developers, writers, and play-testers. But that's a risky business move, and in this climate of conservative remakes and shooter clones, I don't see it happening anytime soon.
We can tap the untapped market of cooking and pregnancy games.
Have people not realised that woman want nothing more than to be men? If men's needs are fulfilled, then so are the women's needs. They're equal, right?
Woman aren't playing the video games, because the majority of them don't like video gaming, and the vast majority have no hand-eye coordination.
What is a "women" game anyway. Maybe the real sexist issue is our preconceived idea of what things you're suppose to enjoy according to your gender.
No mater what we define gamer as, I'm pretty sure that this marketing evaluation labels gamer as "One who buys games" and not caring in the least about how they play them.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
If it were any lower than 50% I might agree with you but if there was a massive need going unmet you'd expect some kind of difference, 40%, 45% some kind of impact.
If the movies didn't appeal to women as much as men you'd expect to see less women than men going to the movies. if books didn't appeal to women as much as men then you'd expect less books to be bought be women.
now there can still be holes in the market or you can manufacture them by tying things in with other media like how true blood and twilight dragged in more customers by going after traditional consumers of other media but that works with both sexes.
but no.
dismiss it and make a snide little remark implying I'm sexist for pointing out that a company is simply trying to convince people their worthless services are more valuable than they really are.
The point you seem willfully blind to is that gaming is not male dominated because 50% of the gamers are already female.
and methodology.
""For instance, they are much more likely to prefer to play solo than men, and play games for less competitive and more narrative- and character-driven reasons."
This flys in the face of other reports, and my personal experience; granted my person experience may be self selecting and/or biased.
My daughter and her friends really seem to enjoy gaming with each other; certainly more then my son. When she finds a new game, almost the fist thing she does is figure out how to connect with other people.
Now that I think of it, almost every guild I've been in was being run by women.
Again, I would love to see the data.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
No mater what we define gamer as, I'm pretty sure that this marketing evaluation labels gamer as "One who buys games" and not caring in the least about how they play them.
You are correct on a basic level, but it would be insane for the industry not to divide games up into different classes and types, with detailed demographics for each. All "drivers" are people who drive cars, but the statistics for such would be completely worthless from an industry, and marketing, standpoint. the demographic who drive 100k+ luxury cars are different than the people who drive cheap economy cars, which is different from the crowd looking for hybrid/electric cars. Having these categories makes it useful, know who wants it, and what you need to do to expand your potential customer base, Grouping all "gamers" together is similarly worthless.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
touche!
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
"Market representation for women has grown to 50 percent overall" Bull. If you're including flash/web/facebook games, sure. 1 in 3 farmville players are 13 year old girls and 42% of all facts on the internet are made up.
If you want to talk REAL games... the reason women aren't marketed to is because they don't buy them... even when games are designed for women/girl (and they are out there) they're poor sellers.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2253808&threshold=-1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=36521452
How stupid do you feel erroneus? Every point you made there was blown away with valid, concrete, verifiable evidences vs. your trolling "ne'er-do-well" statements there. LOL!
Pogo seems to be doing swimmingly by appealing to women.
Normally I ascribe all life to intelligent design, but in your case I'll make an exception.
However, does that percentage hold for every sector of gaming? For example, are 50% of console gamers women? It might be that there are certain areas where the desires of female gamers are being met abundantly, but other areas where they are not.
I did, however, think this was funny:
"Women not only exhibit different gaming behaviors than men, but also express attitudes about gaming that are dissimilar to those of their male counterparts," said Courtney Johnson, analyst for Intrepret. "For instance, they are much more likely to prefer to play solo than men, and play games for less competitive and more narrative- and character-driven reasons. "
That's exactly the sort of game I like, and I don't feel that my needs aren't met. In fact, I don't have enough time to play the games I have!
If the movies didn't appeal to women as much as men you'd expect to see less women than men going to the movies. if books didn't appeal to women as much as men then you'd expect less books to be bought be women.
That one bit is half right, but you're wrong about everything else. I can't see the details of the report since they seem to be obfuscating it, but every reference i've seen to it implies that the numbers they're reporting are strictly how many women "play games" on each console and what genres they prefer. It makes absolutely _no_ claims about how much time they spend gaming or how much money the spend on gaming, especially not in comparison to the male audience.
So it's entirely possible (and in fact seems likely to me) that there _are_ less games being bought by women than by men.
If we lived in some alternate universe where the FPS genre somehow never got invented would you expect to find that less than 50% of the gaming audience was male? Even if their favorite genre didn't exist i suspect that pretty much every gamer would rather be playing _some_ game, especially when they didn't know what it was they were missing out on. But the males would still probably be spending a lot less on games than we see from things like Call of Duty and Halo.
The point you seem willfully blind to is that gaming is not male dominated because 50% of the gamers are already female.
Sorry, but i've worked in the game industry. The game audience may not be male dominated anymore (though i suspect gamer dollars are still male dominated) but the game development industry definitely still is, and that has definitely had an effect on things. I don't even think it's intentional, but when a bunch of people of a certain demographic get together and come up with an idea for some media then if they don't think about it much they tend to come up with something that appeals specifically to their own demographic. That's just natural.
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dumb story. If woman were interested in purchasing games for consoles there would be more games tailored to them. Its not like publishers are refusing to make money. The women I know who play games at all like casual stuff Plants vs. Zombies, Peggle and Facebook games. The first two are already on console. But maybe if we made the Master Chief a chick they would come flocking by the millions.
I like traffic lights
Shouldn't these women be cooking? or cleaning?
I never understood this debate. What is the supposed big difference between games "targeted" for guys or girls? And, really, if this is such a big deal the push should be to get more women into game development. Much like how universities are pushing to get more women into CompSci, science, and engineering.
As a developer, I've spent many years trying to figure out what kinds of guns and targetting systems and damage weighting and Kill Trees and deathbot AI most appeal to women gamers, and I've come to the conclusion that it's simply impossible. I've asked for help from women, but all they say is "You don't understand!" I beg, I plead, "Please tell me then!! I'm all ears! If you don't like any of the weapons, do you want to be able to use your fists to punch the heads off of zombies instead?! Do you want skimpier armor in different colors? Tell me!" and eventually they just get annoyed and do that cute "Grrrr!" thing and storm off with their fists clenched and their arms at their sides. God, that's so hot. Anyway, I've come to the sad conclusion that I am never going to be able to figure out what women gamers want, and at this point I'm just trying to accept it.
My girlfriend isn't a gamer in a big way (she doesn't clock as many hours as me by a long shot), but her last big run at gaming was the Orange Box (HL2 + episodes + Portal- she didn't see the appeal of TF2). She was also a big fan of The Sims. As far as my gaming tastes are concerned, I don't tend to play FPSs- I'm a bigger fan of strategys, for example.
I suppose the point of my anecdotal meandering is that people don't tend to stick to stereotype. Is Half Life 2 "women friendly"? Not specifically, but then who said that alien invasion games are more "man friendly" than "women friendly" anyway? What on earth do alien invasions have to do with men or women? And would my GF have wanted to play HL2 more if it had been all about puppy dogs and fashion shows?
Posting AC as have already modded a tonne.
- Patch86
And yes i'm a female gamer. I love videogames. I play with The Sims (all the versions), Guild Wars, Mass Effect, Atlantica Online ecc ecc ecc More MMORPG free to play. I also played with Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Las Vegas 2... One FPS where you can play as a woman, I love that in any game. I love the possibility to create a character similar to me, in this way i can identify myself in it. But, of course, if i can't create a woman character i don't play the game as well... (Only for Battlefield bad company 3 i had an acceptable response for another female gamer: in US Army Force the female aren't in the first line of combat). So i love what BioWare has done with Mass Effect and Shepard... I also like what Arenanet has done in Guild Wars but... if the female characters have more clothes on... So... please... Game developer of all the world.. Help us to play... We just wanna have fun. Like the boys do. No rape, no misoginism... no cruelty against women... Only fun... it's that possible? Because if you are a male... would you play a game where you can impersonate only a female character that rapes, enslaves, tortures a male? I'm pretty sure you wouldn't... also if the male is ALWAYS half (or more) naked.
Women are too busy shopping and gossiping. They just don't have time for games.
Women: YOU make some games. If you don't like what we men are making for you, get yourselves into the game programming industry and MAKE one that YOU will want to play. Stop complaining that we're not getting it right and do something constructive.
mmmmm... slave gamer girl porn. Where can I get some?
Half of the problem is all of you thinking that all we play is casual games.
I have hundreds and hundreds of hours in Left 4 Dead, Battlefield and Call of Duty lines (plus others) and you would be amazed at how many women are there, you just don't see it because they don't make it known. Making it known creates a lot of issues, not just the smack talk, it often crosses the line into abuse, sexual harassment and stalking. It's a nice day when you can get online during peak hours and just be treated like "one of the guys". Instead we get berated upon entering, followed around and ganged up on.
Once I started gaming openly, I ended up quitting half the games I was playing online and almost completely stopped playing during peak hours.
They want your attention, which they'd lose if they told you what they want.
What on earth do alien invasions have to do with men or women? And would my GF have wanted to play HL2 more if it had been all about puppy dogs and fashion shows?
It isn't so much about the content, as the methods. A HL2 (and the rest of the HL games) are rather neutral. I never saw Gordon Freeman as an uber masculine Duke Nukem type. If you remade HL2 with Duke, your girlfriend would have probably liked it less.
I'm just using Duke because he's the most grievous, modern, offender. Insert basically any AAA action protagonist instead.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
It depends on your definition of "women". Since to me "woman" / "women" holds the connotation of being older, I'd say yes, the OLDER females (over 40) are more likely to have a hobby, but the ones under that limit.........not so much, especially not the ones in their teens through 30 who are most likely to play video games. I'd noticed it long ago from girls I knew growing up / going to school with / family / friends but didn't think much about it - I just figured that they were a minority who were just boring. It wasn't until I decided that since I was getting older maybe I should start browsing dating sites (due to my job making it hard to meet people) that I realized that this isn't a "oh, I just know some boring girls" thing, it's a "good god, the majority of their gender seems to just sit there staring at the phone waiting for a guy to call if they're not busy with work / school" thing. Not only is the lack of hobbies unattractive in itself, but then it leads to issues when they date because guys have shit they want to get done and girls cannot comprehend that - so they harass the hell out of the guy and prevent him from getting shit done because they cannot comprehend that someone might have something they want to accomplish in their non-work time.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
I think people don't quite get that the gender bias is in the narrative of the games and not in the gameplay, genre, or theme of the games.
farmville should not count for gaming
The plural of anecdote is not data. Your shitty experiences are not proof of a trend, just evidence of the generally low quality of people on such sites.
Going by the people on dating sites is not a good way to gauge anything about a general population. If it were, I could conclusively state that most men are unambitious, undereducated losers who have mommy issues. Not true, but you wouldn't know it from the guys on such sites.
Seriously, check out the ads by men on those sites. Under 30 they read like a bunch of bros, over 40 they read like something out of a cliched midlife crisis, and in-between they sound like a lot of guys cheating on their wives. And all of them seem terrified by a woman who is genuinely intelligent and accomplished. It isn't true, but one could not be blamed for thinking it based on the evidence on sites like that.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
Terrified of a woman who's intelligent and accomplished? More like "skeptical" because it's such a rare thing. It's not that girls are inherently less able mentally, merely that they usually choose not to use their brains because it's easier to just skate through life on your looks. That's one of the reasons I gave up on dating years ago - because finding a girl who's not hideous and actually uses the brain in her head is quite hard to find (and I'm far from the first guy to give up because of girls intentionally choosing to dumb themselves down because it's easier).
But I forgot, you're used to the current anti-male America where girls are told that they're perfect and that everything they want should magically be so without them ever lifting a finger and that anyone who dares to criticize them in any way is just an "evil sexist male" who needs to be sent to a re-education camp.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
I honestly don't know how to respond to any of that. Your statements are so counter to anything I have ever heard of that it's impossible to even begin to have a dialog.
Sorry your experiences have lead you to believe and feel the way you do - it sounds like a very lonely and bitter existence, but if it makes it easier for you to blame women for your situation, please, feel free to do so. Since all women are basically the same in your mindset, take my permission as the blessing of all womankind.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
i call for a Rule 34 check!
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
That narcissism right there is what I've been talking about. You can't even comprehend that there's a guy alive who doesn't want a girl making him miserable. I'm quite happy - the only times I'm ever unhappy are when I'm foolish enough to let someone convince me to give girls another chance. No guy actually enjoys being in a relationship - even the ones who say that they're "happily married" will privately admit to other guys that they hate it. It's because relationships are an utter farce, just like the whole concept of "love", which is nothing more than a con job to get a guy to shell out tons of money and be an utter slave to some girl who cares nothing for him.
I have plenty of girls who come to me wanting me to date them (not that I expect your narcissistic ass to believe me - you can't fathom that you're not always right) - I choose to not date because all that guys get out of dating is smaller bank accounts and lots of misery. That's why I'm strongly considering ditching the girl I've been dating for the last few months (because as I pointed out before, girls don't have hobbies which thus means that they expect guys to have no hobbies or interests outside of serving their will, so guys never get anything done).
But you'll just go through life with your goal of making as many men as miserable as possible while taking as much from them as you can get. It's not an innate "girl" thing, I'm well aware it's a social issue that created a couple generation of useless, sadistic gold diggers. Maybe someday many years from now girls will learn to act like human beings again.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
Holy shit, I cannot even begin to describe just how hard I am laughing at your last post - thank you for that! You really had me going for a bit, but then when I read that I realized that you couldn't be serious because nobody is THAT fucked in the head without being on meds sufficient to prevent them from being able to get online let alone post.
Don't overplay your hand next time - like, when you accuse someone of being a narcissist you can't then immediately start talking about how you are literally able to speak for all men ever. And when you claim to not hate women you can't then turn around and basically call us all gold-digging whores who serve no purpose but to drain male bank accounts. You need to space those out a bit so that it isn't quite as obvious, you know? You also can't just put all the real crazy shit into one post all at once because then you give the game away - like I said, anyone who actually believed the stuff you just wrote wouldn't be capable of going online to write it in the first place, so that just raises the whole "troll" flag.
Still, for the laugh, I give you kudos.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
Funny thing, is I do see SOME games oriented for women....development and designed by other women. Trouble is they are an extreme minority in the game development. (come to think of it, there are FAR too women in IT in general). The irony is, studies indicate that while organizations are trying to actively bring more women in the coding and development parts of the IT field, women are leaving in that capacity virtually as fast as they are brought in. How do we fit fix this, I don't know. If we could get more females in gaming as DEVELOPERS as opposed to manager, PR and admin type stuff, we'd probably have way cooler games in general and a breath of fresh air. (It would also be WAY easier for socially awkward male developers to get a date...;-) ) I'd love more women doing software development in general and so would all my colleauges.
'Imagination is more important than knowledge' - Einstien
IMHO, it's got to do with cultural stereotyping. Women prefer to give programming and computer related jobs a wide berth, not because they are incapable of excelling at it, but because that's how they've been brought up to think. Having been in the industry for almost a decade now, and I've known a lot of female programmers. It's not that they exist, but that their friends (almost always female) tend to look down upon them and treat them like they're not womanly because they're geeks. It's sad, but that just seems to be the way the cookie crumbles. Crab philosophy. When a woman makes her path into previously un-feminine areas, the rest of the women look at her like she's gone over to the other side..
Geekism is your _only_ God!