Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games
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Sims the New Dolls?
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So are you part of the 31% of the American people who still support George W Bush? Please tell us why! Maybe you can convince the rest of the country to change our minds, and he'll have a 100% approval rating!
-Don
Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games
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Sims the New Dolls?
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You're continuing to miss the point, and substituting then extrapolating your own ridiculous straw man points instead.
You and your daughter are subjected to a multi million dollar advertising campaign by Disney and Matel. Disney and Barbie are bad not because of their sales figures, but because of their content.
You seem to think that girls are genetically pre-disposed to like pink. I'm saying it's purely advertising and conditioning, and has nothing to do with genetics. Your daughter has been conditioned to associate a certain color with a certain set of concepts, and conditioned to demand like a little princess that you spend your money on Disney sanctioned colors. Making kids act like little demanding self-centered brats is the perfect marketing scheme, and that's why Disney is making so much money off of you.
The pink part of the electromagnetic spectrum that your daughter is obsessed with is OWNED and LICENSED OUT to paint companies by Disney: Disney Princess pink -- "The fairest of them all" -- remains the No. 1 juvenile paint color in the "Disney Color by Behr" paint program at The Home Depot (has been No. 1 for past 10 months)
When you buy "Disney Color by Behr", you're paying extra money for Behr to license that particular shade of pink from Disney. How much effort did it take for them to come up with that shade, and how much money do they make off that license? How much happier is your daughter because you bought her Disney Pink instead of some generic shade? They say that's been the number 1 paint for the last 10 months, so SOMEBODY's buying it.
Your daughter is happy, not because of the particular shade her toys are painted, but because she knows she can control you by demanding you spend money on garbage advertised in the Disney channel, and she gets what she wants when she demands it like a little princess. That's why conditioning children to act like princesses (aka spoiled brats) is such a great advertising scheme, and making Disney so much money. But it doesn't make the world a better place.
If you really think the color of the crap you're buying your daughter is what's really making her happy, you're not a very insightful parent.
Do you really believe the Disney corporate line: "In conclusion, it's easy to see how the Disney Princess brand touches every aspect of girls' lives and inspires them to dream." Was your daughter really completely incapable of dreaming before you bought her all that pink princess crap? Is there something "magical" about that particular shade of pink that "inspired dreams"? Why can't YOU inspire her to dream, instead of depending on Disney's pre-packaged pap? You're another typical American consumer looking to buy a ready-made "magical" product that will "inspire you to dream", instead of figuring out how to dream for yourself.
-Don
Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games
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Sims the New Dolls?
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You also have a very unrealistic view of children, but what's far worse is that you actually have children.
Disney's advertisements aren't only aimed at the kids, but also at the parents: YOU! It sounds like you've fallen for them hook, line and sinker, when you repeat Disney's talking points like Mary Matilin on Fox News explaining why it was OK for Dick Cheney to shoot an old man in the face with a shotgun.
Here is a press release that should explain why you're such a sucker to buy into that corporate princess crap:
The Disney Princess Brand Continues to Reign Supreme With Girls
Disney's Beloved Heroines on Track to Achieve $2b in Retail Sales in
2004
In 2000, Disney Consumer Products brought all of Disney's beloved
heroines -- Ariel, Belle, Cinderella, Jasmine, Mulan, Pocahontas,
Sleeping Beauty and Snow White -- together in a comprehensive collection
of fantasy-based girls' entertainment and products called the Disney
Princess brand.
"In just three years, the Disney Princess brand has gone from $300
million in global retail sales to $1.3 billion in 2003, making it Disney
Consumer Products' fastest growing brand from a revenue perspective,"
said Andy Mooney, chairman of Disney Consumer Products. "With the
support of The Walt Disney Company, the Disney Princess brand will
continue to cast its spell on consumers, and we expect it will reach an
estimated $2 billion in retail sales in 2004."
Disney's research shows that girls don't want to be just any Princess,
they want to be a Disney Princess. A Princess whose personality, dreams,
favorites and friends she knows from the stories she loves. And moms
embrace the brand because in a time when little girls are maturing at a
much faster pace, Disney Princess merchandise lets little girls be
little girls longer. The stories behind the Disney Princesses empower
girls with virtues of integrity, honor, discovery, friendship and love.
"Starting with Snow White in 1937, the rich storytelling of each of
Disney's fairytales has captured the hearts and minds of young girls,"
said Mooney. "The Disney Princess brand is a natural extension of these
timeless stories and characters and enables a girl to become a part of
the world of her favorite princess."
Created for girls ages 2 to 8 years of age, Disney will wave its own
magic wand over the brand releasing new Disney Princess personal care
products, Disney Princess Electronics, theatrical releases, home videos,
apparel programs, theme park entertainment, toys, games and a variety of
other great products that inspire the imagination.
Following is company-wide information showing the success and the new
initiatives behind Disney Princess: [...]
January 2004
Disney Princess pink -- "The fairest of them all" -- remains the No. 1
juvenile paint color in the "Disney Color by Behr" paint program at The
Home Depot (has been No. 1 for past 10 months) [...]
April 2004
Disney Princess sportswear, sleepwear and underwear, social stationery &
accessories debuts at Federated Department stores. First time Disney
Princesses will appear on tween apparel line. [...]
September 2004
Buena Vista Home Entertainment launches the Disney Princess Collection
on DVD/Video featuring: Disney Princess Sing Along Songs: Once Upon A
Dream, Disney Princess Stories and Disney's Princess Party. More titles
to come during three releases in 2005.
Ongoing Support
The Disney Princess brand features 25,000 merchandise skus and 300
licensees globally
"Princess Palace" on http://www.disney.com/$2.6 billion in worldwide box office revenue for Disney Princess
animate
Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games
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Sims the New Dolls?
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Your reply is ridiculous and totally off-base. But it's no surprise, looking at the scores of your previous slashdot postings: mostly score: 0 and several score: -1 (flamebait) ratings. Your recent slashdot comments have NONE rated greater than 0, and a bunch are rated -1.
There's a reason George W Bush's 31% approval ratings are almost as low as your slashdot reputation. I suspect you're part of that 31%, and nothing he does nor anybody anyone says will convince you to stop supporting him and his horrible policies that are ruining this great nation and pointlessly sending kids to their death. So I'm not even going to bother addressing the points you attempted to make.
-Don
Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games
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Sims the New Dolls?
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You're metaphore between "pandering to your daughter's pink princess obsession", and "pandering to a video game addiction" is totally off the wall. I never suggested that video game addiction was a substitute for pink princess crap. I'm certainly not against fantasy, as you should have no doubt of because I'm a game designer. What I'm against is Corporate America's brainwashing kids with propoganda like Disney's line of Princess Products and Matel's line of Barbie Products. And parents who are too lazy and uncaring to monitor what their kids are seeing, and keep their kids away from crap like that, and who buy them anything the commercials tell them to demand.
I suggest that your daughter would be better off if she spent her pink-princess time playing creative games, video or not, that stimulate her mind and inspire her to learn useful skills. Like legos, for example. They have a whole medieval fantasy line that she might enjoy, and later on she might even get into the lego robotics stuff. You should choose games that YOU can play with her, instead of parking her in front of the TV tuned to the Disney Channel, as a baby sitter.
The Sims has inspired a lot of kids to learn Photoshop, web design, and even programming. Those are useful skills that will help them in later life. Being a princess and dressing exclusively in pink isn't.
If you're shocked and surprised about my metaphore between pink princess crap, and drugs and prostitutes, then it had its intended effect, and you should think about it some more until you understand the implications. A less extreme metaphore might involve candy cigarettes. Do you buy candy cigarettes for your daughter, and tell her "you've come a long way, baby"?
What do you think of Jon Bonet Ramsey's short career as a beautiful glamourous fashion model? Her parents certainly raised her to be the little pink princess of your daughter's dreams, and I'm sure she imagined that she was quite beautiful, before she was murdered. Why is it so hard for you to see how fucking creepy that is?
-Don
Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games
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Sims the New Dolls?
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Why does your daughter have to imagine that she's a princess, to think she's beautiful? Why can't ordinary girls, scientists, toll collectors, prime ministers, prostitutes and programmers be beautiful too?
Where did your daughter get the idea that the color pink and the profession princess represent beauty? Are you claiming that it's genetically pre-determined, or will you admit that she's the fashion victim of a multi-million dollar marketing campaign?
My impression of what a princess is comes from meeting one and experiencing her pathetic personality first-hand. She was having a break-down because her parents weren't going to give her any more money unless she married a rich guy who could support her, that they approved of. See the summary of the "Love is in the Heir" reality TV program -- that's the plot. Thankfully it's not on the air any more because it was such a trainwreck, so you probably won't see it broadcast on E! network again. I met her before the program was taped, and she is as pathetic in real life as she is on the show. (Even worse: she had major personal problems that didn't make it onto the air, but I won't go into the details here.) Her family tortured and killed many people in Iran, and looted billions of dollars from the country before they were kicked out by the revolution. Every cent of her fortune is blood money, which she spends on make-up and boob jobs to make her seem beautiful. Read the history books. I'm not making this up. A princess is just a parasite. The world doesn't need you to raise any more of them.
What about boys who fantasize about being a Pimp because they're handsome, powerful, popular, well dressed, have big luxury cars, wads of cash, huge gold rings, dandy hats, fancy furs, exciting adventures, and harams of hot chicks hanging around to bitch slap and screw whenever they feel like it? Would you argue that your boy actually fantasizes about being a "Good Pimp" who doesn't abuse women, and is all about good things like grooming, handsomness, popularity, self-sufficiency and entrepreneurialism?
It sounds like you, like many parents, have a strong case of "my shit doesn't stink" and "my kid is the best in the world". I'm just warning you that you're going to regret the "my little princess" thing in the long run! You're letting Corporate America train your daughter to be a good consumer and a little brat.
-Don
Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games
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Sims the New Dolls?
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The same way your daughter has been brainwashed into preferring pink, you've been brainwashed into thinking it's a natural genetic predisposition, instead of a marketing gimick implanted in her mind by Corporate America. Being a princess is simply a metaphore for doing anything you damn well please, demanding other people provide you with whatever you want right this very minute, pouting and carrying on like a little brat, and treating other people as inferior to yourself. It's not like being a scientist or a prime minister or a mother or a cowboy, because it's not about responsibility -- just the opposite. It's a pre-packaged way for her to learn to manipulate other people into doing what she wants, like making her parents buy her pink stuff. From Matel. Follow the money. Who's profiting from it? Matel. Who's paying the price in the long term? Your daughter.
There are many ways that you can live your life as a metaphorical superman or wonder woman, which will improve the world. But the world DOES NOT NEED any more metaphorical princesses, thank you very much. By pandering to your daughter's imperialistic fantasies, you're setting herself and yourself up for a lot of trouble and disappointment. Would you be just as happy for her to fantasize about being a coke whore, and buy her hooker costumes and dolls and playsets and candy coke and spoons, without worrying about how it effected her personality, as long as she didn't actually grow up to be one? So why do you do that with all the princess crap?
-Don
Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games
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Sims the New Dolls?
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Of course you can be clueless and successful at the same time, as long as you have POWER. Case in point: George W Bush.
Those cluless straight white males who are running the giant corporations pumping out aisles of pink barbie dolls are EFFECTING the desires of the kids that are addicted to their bullshit. Some of them may not be straight, white or male, but they're ALL clueless. And they have an enormous advertising budget and can push through anything they want, directly into the hearts and minds of your kids.
To illustrate what I mean about the cluelessness of the people running the Barbie franchise: A few years ago, they decided that they wanted to update Ken so he was more hip, so they sent out a research team to find out what kids were into these days. Their corporate research team came back with the fact that lots of hip cool guys are wearing these little metal rings around their neck on a string, so they gave Ken one of those to make him more hip. Well guess what: it was a COCK RING!
"We're not in the business of putting cock rings into the hands of little
girls."
- Lisa McKendall, Manager of Marketing and Communications, Mattel Toys.
Mattel's new Ken doll is on the market. New Ken is getting almost as
much press as New Coke did. Since his introduction at a toy convention in
New York City in February, Ken's been everywhere, including the front page
of the New York Times Arts and Leisure section. Why the hoopla? Ken's
first piercing (his left ear) and his two-tone "greased lightning" hair-do.
But an important part of Earring Magic Ken's new wardrobe has been
overlooked by the straight media - Ken's cock ring. Hanging around Ken's
neck, on a metallic silver thread, is what ten out of ten fags at a glance
will tell you is a cock ring.
-Don
Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games
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Sims the New Dolls?
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I think you're wrong to characterize The Sims as reducing game design to the lowest common denominator. If you think that trying to please everyone results in pleasing no one, then why is the the most popular game of all times, with 60 million units sold? The approach The Sims took was to purposefully avoid insulting the intelligece of its audience, instead complementing and leveraging their intelligence and artistic skills.
I think you're insulting your own daughter's intelligence by pandering to her pink princess addiction that she picked up from society. Will you also start buying her cocaine and coke spoons and scales for her birthday, if she picks up a taste for cocaine from the society she lives in? It's the real thing, and it adds life, you know from watching TV. What if she begs and pleads with you for cocaine, as much as she begs for pink princess stuff? Will you give in? What if she decides to be a hooker instead of a princess? Is it supressing her free will, to say no? Will you get her that revealing Disney Dominatrix halloween costume she's begging you for? Please: society DOES NOT need you to raise another princess. The world would be much better off with fewer princesses and more prostitutes.
-Don
Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games
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Sims the New Dolls?
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My comment about clueless straight white boys and all-hat no-cattle texans was specifically referring to John Romero and his ilk. Of course they're stereotypes, but they fit perfectly.
Your remarks on The Passion of the Christ illustrate the fact that Organized Religion is really just another arm of the Entertainment Industry, that tells people fictional stories to amuse them and make them feel better, and takes their money in exchange. But the non-religious parts of the entertainment industry doesn't have such a horrible track record of molesting children, starting crucades, inquisitions and wars, burning witches, etc.
Brokeback Mountain has also made a lot of money, and has been much more critically acclaimed than The Passion of the Christ, and it's not anti-semetic. The problem with the Christian Entertainment Industry, Fox News and the Republican Party is that they have to resort to their old dirty tricks like bashing jews, gays and women, to movitave their flocks to give them money.
-Don
Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games
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Sims the New Dolls?
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What do you mean by "the typical male doesn't enjoy The Sims"? It's true that more than half of the players of The Sims are female, but if you cut the number of sales (about 60 million last I heard) in half, it's still the best selling game of all time by a long shot.
My point is that The Sims gender neutral, not sexist towards either males or females. And that makes it appealing to more males, as well as more females. By making a game appeal to only straight males, you're cutting out all the bi and gay males. By making a game appeal to only straight females, you're cutting out all the bi and lesbian females. But by making a game sexist, you're annoying and driving away many more potential customers than you may realize.
If a game only appeals to one sex, then girls won't recommend it to their boyfriends, and boys won't recommend it to their girlfriends, and you have severly limited the contagious grassroots viral potential. At first, The Sims started selling well to males, who are the traditional ones who go out and buy new games. But then as the months went on, the sales to females skyrocketed, because those males were showing it to their girlfriends, who went out and bought it, and told all their friends about it, both male and female. Mono-sexualized games can't cross the boyfriend/girlfriend gap to spread by word of mouth like The Sims did.
I'm on vacation in Amsterdam, so you can probably guess what I'm smoking! And all the chocolate I've encountered here is solid and filled with all kinds of good stuff -- I've not been disappointed.
-Don
Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games
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Sims the New Dolls?
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If I had a four-year-old daughter, I wouldn't want her playing with your daughter -- not because of the pink stuff, but because of the princess stuff. Let me tell you this: it all comes around. Some day you are going to SO regret that you raised your little girl up to be princess.
-Don
Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games
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Sims the New Dolls?
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How do you know that your little girl hadn't simply been brainwashed to like pink because of the society she lives in, instead of being genetically pre-disposed to a particular color? If you could raise another little girl as a control subject in complete isolation from society, and found that she also likes pink as much as your normal little girl, then you might be able to make the statement that girls are genetically predisposed to liking pink more than boys. That certainly wouldn't be an ethical experiment, but I highly doubt such an experiment would be able to prove that girls naturally like pink more than boys.
On the subject of princesses: Now that's definitely brainwashing, and you are asking for trouble by exposing your kids to that garbage! Disney has a whole line of "little princess" crap, and they put millions of dollars into pushing that crap onto kids. Why not raise your little girl to be a scientist or a prime minister, instead of a princess? Maybe it's because Disney doesn't have a line of Marie Curie and Margarete Thatcher dolls?
I've met an interacted in person with somebody who claims to be a real princess, the granddaughter of HIH Princess Shams of the Pahlavi Dynasty, although technically she's only really a dutchess: Princess Ann Claire. She has a reality TV show on E! network called "Love is in the Heir". She is one of the most horrible fucked-up wretched pathetic people I've ever met, and watching her reality show is like seeing a slow motion video of a plane crashing into the world trade center. If you really want to raise your daughter to be like her, then go right ahead, but you'll regret it. But I simply can't agree that girls are genetically pre-disposed to like pink or act like princesses.
To address your question about examples of younger kids making Sims objects:
I wrote a tool called The Sims Transmogrifier, that enables players to create their own Sims objects. It required the use of a program like Photoshop, and while that's too hard for younger kids to master, it's given older kids the incentive to learn Photoshop and other image editing tools, which is a good thing to know.
To open up Sims object creation to a wider audience, I made another simple tool called "RugOMatic", which provides an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface tfor creating rugs with descriptive text. The text, which you can read in the game, makes them more like picture postcards, suitable for storytelling and describing the pictures. Many of the RugOMatic users are kids, and more than half of them are female!
For Halloween a while ago, I made another online tool that was even easier to use and more accessible to kids: "Halloween Tombstones for The Sims". You can simply upload an optional picture, and type in the name of the deceased and their eulogy, and it instantly makes you a personalized Sims Tombstone that you can download and play with in the game. Lots of people have made their own tombstones: currently there are more than 2200 public tombstones in the cemetary,
some by kids,
some serious,
some funny,
some disturbing,
some about pets,
some about family members,
some about celebrities,
some about fictional characters,
some about politicians (Bush tops the list!),
some mean,
some heartwarming,
and most of them emotionally compelling.
I used the idea of tombstones precisely because they had a lot of emotional baggage, and people can take it in any direction they want.
I'm glad that the lesbian Sims got you to play for at least a few hours! The fact that some guys just love to watch lesbian couples was an unintented benefit of a larger goal. If that side-effect annoys any women, then they can get even by making gay guys and watching them too.
The actual intention was that The Sims might prevent at least one person from committing suicide because they were gay and their parents and community couldn't accept it, by providing an idealistic place where nobody makes a big deal or treats you differently because of your sexual orientation, and you can have a relationship with anyone you want without being persecuted.
I came up with the idea of making all Sims characters potentially bisexual. Here are some comments I wrote on the design document, in which I threw down the gauntlet about gay sims.
The whole relationship design and implementation (I've looked at the tree code) is Heterosexist and Monosexist. We are going to be expected to do better than that after the SimCopterfiasco and the lip service that Maxis publically gave in response about not being anti-gay.
The code tests to see if the sex of the people trying to romantically interact is the same, and if so, the result is a somewhat violent negative interaction, clearly homophobic. We are definitly going to get flack for that.
It would be much more realistic to model it by two numbers from 0 to 100 for each person, which was the likelyhood of that person being interested in a romantic interaction with each sex. So you can simply model monosexual heterosexual (which is all we have now), monosexual homosexual (like the guys in SimCopter), bisexual, nonsexual (mother theresa, presumably), and all shades in between (most of the rest of the world's population).
It would make for a much more interesting and realistic game, partially influenced by random factors, and anyone offended by that needs to grow up and get a life, and hopefully our game will help them in that quest.
Anyone who is afraid that it might offend the sensibilities of other people (but of course not themselves) is clearly homophobic by proxy but doesn't realize it since they're projecting their homophobia onto other people.
The video and computer gaming industry has been slow to grab the pink dollar, with Maxis being the first to enter into this new market. It is generally felt that young white males (most of whom are heterosexual) are the force driving the industry forward. Hence any effort to market games to anyone else is tied to an industry question, "Will heterosexual men want to buy this game?" In the 1990s the industry began to make some efforts to market games to women by creating software titles with strong and independent female characters as seen in Tomb Raider and Resident Evil. The commercial success of both games (and their numerous sequels) does suggest that male gamers are willing to play a female character. Yet, it remains to be seen if a straight male would be willing to play an openly gay or transgender character, as they generally are willing to play sexy and powerful female characters.
The Sims
In 2001, Maxis broke new ground with a new television commcerial for its computer game The Sims. Highlighting the ability of the characters to date, the commercial featured an attractive twenty-something man in a nightclub flirting with a woman, until he is suddenly drawn to an attractive man in the club and after a brief pause agrees to date him. The games have become very popular as they allow
It sounds like you haven't actually played The Sims, looked at any of the web sites of stories written by Sims players about their characters, or downloaded any user created characters or objects. It was designed from the start to enable you to model your house, family and environment, and use it tell stories about anything you want. You should check out online community of people who make original content for The Sims. Fans have made several orders of magnitide more content than Maxis originally produced.
The Sims Exchange: hundreds of thousands of stories created with The Sims, downloadable houses, families, etc.
SimFreaks: one of the premier sites for high quality player created content.
And another little known and totally supressed fact: Sims are hollow!!! That saves a lot of chocolate, which makes the product much cheaper to produce, and downloading Sims from the internet is much faster because you don't have to wait for all the guts and fillings.
But hollow Sims are not as evil as Chocolate Easter Bunnies and Chocolate Santa Clauses, which are really just a big Christian conspiracy to trick and mislead kids, and crush their hopes and dreams, by leading them on to think they're getting solid chocolate, but then disappointing them by giving them a thin waxy shell full of empty nothingness, instead of the promised chocolate core. That's actually a great lesson about the harsh cruelty of life, which teaches kids to expect more lies and disappointments later in life, but to associate broken promises and hollow chocolate and obviously fictitious fairy tales with Jesus's birth and crucifiction just strikes me as sick and demented. Why are Christians so surprized when their children lose their faith, after parents lie to kids about important things like chocolate?
-Don
Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games
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Sims the New Dolls?
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· Score: 5, Interesting
You're entitled to your own opinion about Will Wright's sanity, but I was there at the time and participated in the endless discussions about what to name the game, over three years. At first, it was called "Project X", because it was started before "Project Y" (which was SimCopter), but everybody has a "Project X" and we weren't going for an adult rating, so that name had to go. "Dollhouse" was the most obvious working title, but we knew it wasn't going to ship with that name. It was also called "Tactical Domestic Simulator (TDS)", but of course you could never ship a product with that title either. But that didn't mean it was originally designed to be a game about about nuclear warfare. For a while it was called "Jefferson" for "the persuit of happyness", but everybody thought that it was based on "The Jefferson's" sitcom instead of the president who was into freedom. Along the same theme, I suggested "We the People" (an omage to little computer people), but that was a dumb name. Will proposed some weird Japanese inspired name, something like "Happy Fun House", but that didn't stick.
As obvious as "The Sims" sounds for the title of a Maxis game, that name didn't come around until the last minute. And then there was the other name that Will Wright and Jim Mackraz came up with early on which was totally perfect and extremely hillarious, but thanks to whatever they were smoking, they completely forgot what it was and can't remember the lost name to this day. Since nobody could remember the lost name, we went with The Sims. I always liked the German translation of that name: "Die Sims".
-Don
Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games
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I worked on the original team that developed The Sims, and yes it was called "Dollhouse", but no it wasn't "aimed at girls". The name "Dollhouse" wasn't used because that turned off boys, but it wasn't designed to appeal to one sex or the other. The point was that it did not have any particular gender "color" or "aim". Of course there were some great women working on the design and implementation, and that came through, but not in a way that you could describe as "aiming at girls". The secret is not to aim at girls, but not to unconsciously aim only at boys, the way most other video games do.
The Sims is a gender neutral game. It only seems like a girl game to some naive observers who haven't actually played it themselves, because of the contrast with all the other games which are extremely gender specific, aimed at boys, designed by boys, and written by boys. That's one of the biggest problems with the game industry: they are so insulated from reality that they can't see the obvious problem of how fucking dominated the industry is by clueless straight white boys who think everybody else is just like them.
Thanks a lot to the all-hat, no-cattle assholes from Texas who think "John Romero is About to Make You His Bitch" is a brilliant marketing slogan, but never get around to designing any good game play, because they're too busy talking about what great designers they are who understand their audience, and have the audacity to hire their trophy girl-friends to work as booth bunnies.
Before going to Maxis to work on The Sims, I worked at Interval Research, where Brenda Laurel was developing her "Games for Girls" project, which spun off into Purple Moon. I didn't subscribe to her theory of making games "aimed at girls" that were "pink" and "girlish" so boys don't like them and girls do. It seemed like a cop-out that pandered to the built in prejudices and problems of society, instead of trying to transcend them. I don't think there's anything fundamental about the color pink that's genetically hard-wired into girl's brains, and I don't think it's respectful to girls or boys to treat them or colorize them differently than each other. Should "Photoshop for Girls" only allow you to select bright shades of pink, but not blue? Seriously, pink is just a metaphore, and it goes a lot deeper than the color, but I don't think it's a such good idea to artificially limit the appeal of a game to one sex or another.
That's just my opinion -- but it's best to let the market decide. Purple Moon got steamrolled over and bought out by Barbie, who owns the color pink and has an enormous marketing machine behind her (behind every successful doll is a giant corporation run by clueless straight white males). The other problem they had was that they were trying to do a CDROM game in the age of the internet. So it's hard to draw any definite conclusions about the effect of the color pink from Purple Moon's experience. But the market decided to make The Sims the most successful game of all time, and it definitely wasn't "aimed at girls" the way Purple Moon's products were, or "aimed at boys" the way all the other games are.
Oops -- I messed up a link there. Here's the corrected paragraph.
Moulton works with Picard, and presumably knows what she really believes. He lept to her defense when I pointed out the undisputed facts that she voluntarily signed her name as well as the good name of MIT to the Anti Evolution Petetition sponsored by the Discovery Institute, and that Intelligent Design proponents regularly refer to that petition in support of their so-called "theory".
The real issue is not the distraction of Moulton's trolls, but matter of Picard's signing the Anti-Evolution Petition.
Moulton works with Picard, and presumably knows what she really believes. He lept to her defense when I pointed out the undisputed facts that she voluntarily signed her name as well as the good name of MIT to the Anti Evolution Petetition sponsored by the Discovery Institute, and that Intelligent Design proponents regularly refer to that petition in support of their so-called "theory".
Moulton's accusation of "maligning" presumes that implying that somebody supports Intelligent Design (based on their own words and actions, giving them the benefit of the doubt that they're sincere about the documents they sign their name to, and are smart enough to perform due dilligent research into the institutions behind the publicity campaigns they endorse) is inherently offensive.
I'm not accusing -- I'm asking! Picard made the issue of her religion a topic for public discussion, by signing the petition (and in many of the other things she writes). The New York Times writes that Intelligent Design proponents publically cite her name in association with MIT as supporting their position, so there's nothing wrong with asking her what she really believes. She won't answer, so I'm asking Moulton (who works with her, and came out of the woodwork to "defend" her from my "accusations") to ask her for me, and report back what she says.
My questions: Does Rosalind Picard believe in Creationism? Does she support the Discovery Institute's position and tactics?
Of course the answers to those questions will raise many other questions (stimulate interesting discussion). I wonder why she doesn't want to answer -- who knows?
On the oxymoronic IDEA Center web site, which lists Picard's name as a supporter of Intelligent Design, they say that if you know that any information on it is false, to contact them immediate so they can correct it. If Rosalind doesn't actually support Intelligent Design and the Discovery Institute, then she should certainly write in and tell them to remove her name from their web site and petition!
Slashdot Mirror
So are you part of the 31% of the American people who still support George W Bush? Please tell us why! Maybe you can convince the rest of the country to change our minds, and he'll have a 100% approval rating!
-Don
You're continuing to miss the point, and substituting then extrapolating your own ridiculous straw man points instead.
You and your daughter are subjected to a multi million dollar advertising campaign by Disney and Matel. Disney and Barbie are bad not because of their sales figures, but because of their content.
You seem to think that girls are genetically pre-disposed to like pink. I'm saying it's purely advertising and conditioning, and has nothing to do with genetics. Your daughter has been conditioned to associate a certain color with a certain set of concepts, and conditioned to demand like a little princess that you spend your money on Disney sanctioned colors. Making kids act like little demanding self-centered brats is the perfect marketing scheme, and that's why Disney is making so much money off of you.
The pink part of the electromagnetic spectrum that your daughter is obsessed with is OWNED and LICENSED OUT to paint companies by Disney: Disney Princess pink -- "The fairest of them all" -- remains the No. 1 juvenile paint color in the "Disney Color by Behr" paint program at The Home Depot (has been No. 1 for past 10 months)
When you buy "Disney Color by Behr", you're paying extra money for Behr to license that particular shade of pink from Disney. How much effort did it take for them to come up with that shade, and how much money do they make off that license? How much happier is your daughter because you bought her Disney Pink instead of some generic shade? They say that's been the number 1 paint for the last 10 months, so SOMEBODY's buying it.
Your daughter is happy, not because of the particular shade her toys are painted, but because she knows she can control you by demanding you spend money on garbage advertised in the Disney channel, and she gets what she wants when she demands it like a little princess. That's why conditioning children to act like princesses (aka spoiled brats) is such a great advertising scheme, and making Disney so much money. But it doesn't make the world a better place.
If you really think the color of the crap you're buying your daughter is what's really making her happy, you're not a very insightful parent.
Do you really believe the Disney corporate line: "In conclusion, it's easy to see how the Disney Princess brand touches every aspect of girls' lives and inspires them to dream." Was your daughter really completely incapable of dreaming before you bought her all that pink princess crap? Is there something "magical" about that particular shade of pink that "inspired dreams"? Why can't YOU inspire her to dream, instead of depending on Disney's pre-packaged pap? You're another typical American consumer looking to buy a ready-made "magical" product that will "inspire you to dream", instead of figuring out how to dream for yourself.
-Don
You also have a very unrealistic view of children, but what's far worse is that you actually have children.
Disney's advertisements aren't only aimed at the kids, but also at the parents: YOU! It sounds like you've fallen for them hook, line and sinker, when you repeat Disney's talking points like Mary Matilin on Fox News explaining why it was OK for Dick Cheney to shoot an old man in the face with a shotgun.
Here is a press release that should explain why you're such a sucker to buy into that corporate princess crap:
NEWS: The Disney Princess Brand Continues to Reign Supreme With Girls
The Disney Princess Brand Continues to Reign Supreme With Girls Disney's Beloved Heroines on Track to Achieve $2b in Retail Sales in 2004
In 2000, Disney Consumer Products brought all of Disney's beloved heroines -- Ariel, Belle, Cinderella, Jasmine, Mulan, Pocahontas, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White -- together in a comprehensive collection of fantasy-based girls' entertainment and products called the Disney Princess brand.
"In just three years, the Disney Princess brand has gone from $300 million in global retail sales to $1.3 billion in 2003, making it Disney Consumer Products' fastest growing brand from a revenue perspective," said Andy Mooney, chairman of Disney Consumer Products. "With the support of The Walt Disney Company, the Disney Princess brand will continue to cast its spell on consumers, and we expect it will reach an estimated $2 billion in retail sales in 2004."
Disney's research shows that girls don't want to be just any Princess, they want to be a Disney Princess. A Princess whose personality, dreams, favorites and friends she knows from the stories she loves. And moms embrace the brand because in a time when little girls are maturing at a much faster pace, Disney Princess merchandise lets little girls be little girls longer. The stories behind the Disney Princesses empower girls with virtues of integrity, honor, discovery, friendship and love.
"Starting with Snow White in 1937, the rich storytelling of each of Disney's fairytales has captured the hearts and minds of young girls," said Mooney. "The Disney Princess brand is a natural extension of these timeless stories and characters and enables a girl to become a part of the world of her favorite princess."
Created for girls ages 2 to 8 years of age, Disney will wave its own magic wand over the brand releasing new Disney Princess personal care products, Disney Princess Electronics, theatrical releases, home videos, apparel programs, theme park entertainment, toys, games and a variety of other great products that inspire the imagination.
Following is company-wide information showing the success and the new initiatives behind Disney Princess: [...]
January 2004
Disney Princess pink -- "The fairest of them all" -- remains the No. 1 juvenile paint color in the "Disney Color by Behr" paint program at The Home Depot (has been No. 1 for past 10 months) [...]
April 2004
Disney Princess sportswear, sleepwear and underwear, social stationery & accessories debuts at Federated Department stores. First time Disney Princesses will appear on tween apparel line. [...]
September 2004
Buena Vista Home Entertainment launches the Disney Princess Collection on DVD/Video featuring: Disney Princess Sing Along Songs: Once Upon A Dream, Disney Princess Stories and Disney's Princess Party. More titles to come during three releases in 2005.
Ongoing Support
The Disney Princess brand features 25,000 merchandise skus and 300 licensees globally
"Princess Palace" on http://www.disney.com/ $2.6 billion in worldwide box office revenue for Disney Princess animate
Your reply is ridiculous and totally off-base. But it's no surprise, looking at the scores of your previous slashdot postings: mostly score: 0 and several score: -1 (flamebait) ratings. Your recent slashdot comments have NONE rated greater than 0, and a bunch are rated -1.
There's a reason George W Bush's 31% approval ratings are almost as low as your slashdot reputation. I suspect you're part of that 31%, and nothing he does nor anybody anyone says will convince you to stop supporting him and his horrible policies that are ruining this great nation and pointlessly sending kids to their death. So I'm not even going to bother addressing the points you attempted to make.
-Don
You're metaphore between "pandering to your daughter's pink princess obsession", and "pandering to a video game addiction" is totally off the wall. I never suggested that video game addiction was a substitute for pink princess crap. I'm certainly not against fantasy, as you should have no doubt of because I'm a game designer. What I'm against is Corporate America's brainwashing kids with propoganda like Disney's line of Princess Products and Matel's line of Barbie Products. And parents who are too lazy and uncaring to monitor what their kids are seeing, and keep their kids away from crap like that, and who buy them anything the commercials tell them to demand.
I suggest that your daughter would be better off if she spent her pink-princess time playing creative games, video or not, that stimulate her mind and inspire her to learn useful skills. Like legos, for example. They have a whole medieval fantasy line that she might enjoy, and later on she might even get into the lego robotics stuff. You should choose games that YOU can play with her, instead of parking her in front of the TV tuned to the Disney Channel, as a baby sitter.
The Sims has inspired a lot of kids to learn Photoshop, web design, and even programming. Those are useful skills that will help them in later life. Being a princess and dressing exclusively in pink isn't.
If you're shocked and surprised about my metaphore between pink princess crap, and drugs and prostitutes, then it had its intended effect, and you should think about it some more until you understand the implications. A less extreme metaphore might involve candy cigarettes. Do you buy candy cigarettes for your daughter, and tell her "you've come a long way, baby"?
What do you think of Jon Bonet Ramsey's short career as a beautiful glamourous fashion model? Her parents certainly raised her to be the little pink princess of your daughter's dreams, and I'm sure she imagined that she was quite beautiful, before she was murdered. Why is it so hard for you to see how fucking creepy that is?
-Don
Why does your daughter have to imagine that she's a princess, to think she's beautiful? Why can't ordinary girls, scientists, toll collectors, prime ministers, prostitutes and programmers be beautiful too?
Where did your daughter get the idea that the color pink and the profession princess represent beauty? Are you claiming that it's genetically pre-determined, or will you admit that she's the fashion victim of a multi-million dollar marketing campaign?
My impression of what a princess is comes from meeting one and experiencing her pathetic personality first-hand. She was having a break-down because her parents weren't going to give her any more money unless she married a rich guy who could support her, that they approved of. See the summary of the "Love is in the Heir" reality TV program -- that's the plot. Thankfully it's not on the air any more because it was such a trainwreck, so you probably won't see it broadcast on E! network again. I met her before the program was taped, and she is as pathetic in real life as she is on the show. (Even worse: she had major personal problems that didn't make it onto the air, but I won't go into the details here.) Her family tortured and killed many people in Iran, and looted billions of dollars from the country before they were kicked out by the revolution. Every cent of her fortune is blood money, which she spends on make-up and boob jobs to make her seem beautiful. Read the history books. I'm not making this up. A princess is just a parasite. The world doesn't need you to raise any more of them.
What about boys who fantasize about being a Pimp because they're handsome, powerful, popular, well dressed, have big luxury cars, wads of cash, huge gold rings, dandy hats, fancy furs, exciting adventures, and harams of hot chicks hanging around to bitch slap and screw whenever they feel like it? Would you argue that your boy actually fantasizes about being a "Good Pimp" who doesn't abuse women, and is all about good things like grooming, handsomness, popularity, self-sufficiency and entrepreneurialism?
It sounds like you, like many parents, have a strong case of "my shit doesn't stink" and "my kid is the best in the world". I'm just warning you that you're going to regret the "my little princess" thing in the long run! You're letting Corporate America train your daughter to be a good consumer and a little brat.
-Don
The same way your daughter has been brainwashed into preferring pink, you've been brainwashed into thinking it's a natural genetic predisposition, instead of a marketing gimick implanted in her mind by Corporate America. Being a princess is simply a metaphore for doing anything you damn well please, demanding other people provide you with whatever you want right this very minute, pouting and carrying on like a little brat, and treating other people as inferior to yourself. It's not like being a scientist or a prime minister or a mother or a cowboy, because it's not about responsibility -- just the opposite. It's a pre-packaged way for her to learn to manipulate other people into doing what she wants, like making her parents buy her pink stuff. From Matel. Follow the money. Who's profiting from it? Matel. Who's paying the price in the long term? Your daughter.
There are many ways that you can live your life as a metaphorical superman or wonder woman, which will improve the world. But the world DOES NOT NEED any more metaphorical princesses, thank you very much. By pandering to your daughter's imperialistic fantasies, you're setting herself and yourself up for a lot of trouble and disappointment. Would you be just as happy for her to fantasize about being a coke whore, and buy her hooker costumes and dolls and playsets and candy coke and spoons, without worrying about how it effected her personality, as long as she didn't actually grow up to be one? So why do you do that with all the princess crap?
-Don
Of course you can be clueless and successful at the same time, as long as you have POWER. Case in point: George W Bush.
Those cluless straight white males who are running the giant corporations pumping out aisles of pink barbie dolls are EFFECTING the desires of the kids that are addicted to their bullshit. Some of them may not be straight, white or male, but they're ALL clueless. And they have an enormous advertising budget and can push through anything they want, directly into the hearts and minds of your kids.
To illustrate what I mean about the cluelessness of the people running the Barbie franchise: A few years ago, they decided that they wanted to update Ken so he was more hip, so they sent out a research team to find out what kids were into these days. Their corporate research team came back with the fact that lots of hip cool guys are wearing these little metal rings around their neck on a string, so they gave Ken one of those to make him more hip. Well guess what: it was a COCK RING!
-Don
I think you're wrong to characterize The Sims as reducing game design to the lowest common denominator. If you think that trying to please everyone results in pleasing no one, then why is the the most popular game of all times, with 60 million units sold? The approach The Sims took was to purposefully avoid insulting the intelligece of its audience, instead complementing and leveraging their intelligence and artistic skills.
I think you're insulting your own daughter's intelligence by pandering to her pink princess addiction that she picked up from society. Will you also start buying her cocaine and coke spoons and scales for her birthday, if she picks up a taste for cocaine from the society she lives in? It's the real thing, and it adds life, you know from watching TV. What if she begs and pleads with you for cocaine, as much as she begs for pink princess stuff? Will you give in? What if she decides to be a hooker instead of a princess? Is it supressing her free will, to say no? Will you get her that revealing Disney Dominatrix halloween costume she's begging you for? Please: society DOES NOT need you to raise another princess. The world would be much better off with fewer princesses and more prostitutes.
-Don
My comment about clueless straight white boys and all-hat no-cattle texans was specifically referring to John Romero and his ilk. Of course they're stereotypes, but they fit perfectly.
Your remarks on The Passion of the Christ illustrate the fact that Organized Religion is really just another arm of the Entertainment Industry, that tells people fictional stories to amuse them and make them feel better, and takes their money in exchange. But the non-religious parts of the entertainment industry doesn't have such a horrible track record of molesting children, starting crucades, inquisitions and wars, burning witches, etc.
Brokeback Mountain has also made a lot of money, and has been much more critically acclaimed than The Passion of the Christ, and it's not anti-semetic. The problem with the Christian Entertainment Industry, Fox News and the Republican Party is that they have to resort to their old dirty tricks like bashing jews, gays and women, to movitave their flocks to give them money.
-Don
What do you mean by "the typical male doesn't enjoy The Sims"? It's true that more than half of the players of The Sims are female, but if you cut the number of sales (about 60 million last I heard) in half, it's still the best selling game of all time by a long shot.
My point is that The Sims gender neutral, not sexist towards either males or females. And that makes it appealing to more males, as well as more females. By making a game appeal to only straight males, you're cutting out all the bi and gay males. By making a game appeal to only straight females, you're cutting out all the bi and lesbian females. But by making a game sexist, you're annoying and driving away many more potential customers than you may realize.
If a game only appeals to one sex, then girls won't recommend it to their boyfriends, and boys won't recommend it to their girlfriends, and you have severly limited the contagious grassroots viral potential. At first, The Sims started selling well to males, who are the traditional ones who go out and buy new games. But then as the months went on, the sales to females skyrocketed, because those males were showing it to their girlfriends, who went out and bought it, and told all their friends about it, both male and female. Mono-sexualized games can't cross the boyfriend/girlfriend gap to spread by word of mouth like The Sims did.
-Don
I'm on vacation in Amsterdam, so you can probably guess what I'm smoking! And all the chocolate I've encountered here is solid and filled with all kinds of good stuff -- I've not been disappointed.
-Don
If I had a four-year-old daughter, I wouldn't want her playing with your daughter -- not because of the pink stuff, but because of the princess stuff. Let me tell you this: it all comes around. Some day you are going to SO regret that you raised your little girl up to be princess.
-Don
How do you know that your little girl hadn't simply been brainwashed to like pink because of the society she lives in, instead of being genetically pre-disposed to a particular color? If you could raise another little girl as a control subject in complete isolation from society, and found that she also likes pink as much as your normal little girl, then you might be able to make the statement that girls are genetically predisposed to liking pink more than boys. That certainly wouldn't be an ethical experiment, but I highly doubt such an experiment would be able to prove that girls naturally like pink more than boys.
On the subject of princesses: Now that's definitely brainwashing, and you are asking for trouble by exposing your kids to that garbage! Disney has a whole line of "little princess" crap, and they put millions of dollars into pushing that crap onto kids. Why not raise your little girl to be a scientist or a prime minister, instead of a princess? Maybe it's because Disney doesn't have a line of Marie Curie and Margarete Thatcher dolls?
I've met an interacted in person with somebody who claims to be a real princess, the granddaughter of HIH Princess Shams of the Pahlavi Dynasty, although technically she's only really a dutchess: Princess Ann Claire. She has a reality TV show on E! network called "Love is in the Heir". She is one of the most horrible fucked-up wretched pathetic people I've ever met, and watching her reality show is like seeing a slow motion video of a plane crashing into the world trade center. If you really want to raise your daughter to be like her, then go right ahead, but you'll regret it. But I simply can't agree that girls are genetically pre-disposed to like pink or act like princesses.
-Don
To address your question about examples of younger kids making Sims objects:
I wrote a tool called The Sims Transmogrifier, that enables players to create their own Sims objects. It required the use of a program like Photoshop, and while that's too hard for younger kids to master, it's given older kids the incentive to learn Photoshop and other image editing tools, which is a good thing to know.
To open up Sims object creation to a wider audience, I made another simple tool called "RugOMatic", which provides an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface tfor creating rugs with descriptive text. The text, which you can read in the game, makes them more like picture postcards, suitable for storytelling and describing the pictures. Many of the RugOMatic users are kids, and more than half of them are female!
For Halloween a while ago, I made another online tool that was even easier to use and more accessible to kids: "Halloween Tombstones for The Sims". You can simply upload an optional picture, and type in the name of the deceased and their eulogy, and it instantly makes you a personalized Sims Tombstone that you can download and play with in the game. Lots of people have made their own tombstones: currently there are more than 2200 public tombstones in the cemetary, some by kids, some serious, some funny, some disturbing, some about pets, some about family members, some about celebrities, some about fictional characters, some about politicians (Bush tops the list!), some mean, some heartwarming, and most of them emotionally compelling.
I used the idea of tombstones precisely because they had a lot of emotional baggage, and people can take it in any direction they want.
-Don
I'm glad that the lesbian Sims got you to play for at least a few hours! The fact that some guys just love to watch lesbian couples was an unintented benefit of a larger goal. If that side-effect annoys any women, then they can get even by making gay guys and watching them too.
The actual intention was that The Sims might prevent at least one person from committing suicide because they were gay and their parents and community couldn't accept it, by providing an idealistic place where nobody makes a big deal or treats you differently because of your sexual orientation, and you can have a relationship with anyone you want without being persecuted.
I came up with the idea of making all Sims characters potentially bisexual. Here are some comments I wrote on the design document, in which I threw down the gauntlet about gay sims.
There's a wikipedia article about Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender characters in video and computer games, which says:
It sounds like you haven't actually played The Sims, looked at any of the web sites of stories written by Sims players about their characters, or downloaded any user created characters or objects. It was designed from the start to enable you to model your house, family and environment, and use it tell stories about anything you want. You should check out online community of people who make original content for The Sims. Fans have made several orders of magnitide more content than Maxis originally produced.
The Sims Exchange: hundreds of thousands of stories created with The Sims, downloadable houses, families, etc.
SimFreaks: one of the premier sites for high quality player created content.
-Don
And another little known and totally supressed fact: Sims are hollow!!! That saves a lot of chocolate, which makes the product much cheaper to produce, and downloading Sims from the internet is much faster because you don't have to wait for all the guts and fillings.
But hollow Sims are not as evil as Chocolate Easter Bunnies and Chocolate Santa Clauses, which are really just a big Christian conspiracy to trick and mislead kids, and crush their hopes and dreams, by leading them on to think they're getting solid chocolate, but then disappointing them by giving them a thin waxy shell full of empty nothingness, instead of the promised chocolate core. That's actually a great lesson about the harsh cruelty of life, which teaches kids to expect more lies and disappointments later in life, but to associate broken promises and hollow chocolate and obviously fictitious fairy tales with Jesus's birth and crucifiction just strikes me as sick and demented. Why are Christians so surprized when their children lose their faith, after parents lie to kids about important things like chocolate?
-Don
You're entitled to your own opinion about Will Wright's sanity, but I was there at the time and participated in the endless discussions about what to name the game, over three years. At first, it was called "Project X", because it was started before "Project Y" (which was SimCopter), but everybody has a "Project X" and we weren't going for an adult rating, so that name had to go. "Dollhouse" was the most obvious working title, but we knew it wasn't going to ship with that name. It was also called "Tactical Domestic Simulator (TDS)", but of course you could never ship a product with that title either. But that didn't mean it was originally designed to be a game about about nuclear warfare. For a while it was called "Jefferson" for "the persuit of happyness", but everybody thought that it was based on "The Jefferson's" sitcom instead of the president who was into freedom. Along the same theme, I suggested "We the People" (an omage to little computer people), but that was a dumb name. Will proposed some weird Japanese inspired name, something like "Happy Fun House", but that didn't stick.
As obvious as "The Sims" sounds for the title of a Maxis game, that name didn't come around until the last minute. And then there was the other name that Will Wright and Jim Mackraz came up with early on which was totally perfect and extremely hillarious, but thanks to whatever they were smoking, they completely forgot what it was and can't remember the lost name to this day. Since nobody could remember the lost name, we went with The Sims. I always liked the German translation of that name: "Die Sims".
-Don
I worked on the original team that developed The Sims, and yes it was called "Dollhouse", but no it wasn't "aimed at girls". The name "Dollhouse" wasn't used because that turned off boys, but it wasn't designed to appeal to one sex or the other. The point was that it did not have any particular gender "color" or "aim". Of course there were some great women working on the design and implementation, and that came through, but not in a way that you could describe as "aiming at girls". The secret is not to aim at girls, but not to unconsciously aim only at boys, the way most other video games do.
The Sims is a gender neutral game. It only seems like a girl game to some naive observers who haven't actually played it themselves, because of the contrast with all the other games which are extremely gender specific, aimed at boys, designed by boys, and written by boys. That's one of the biggest problems with the game industry: they are so insulated from reality that they can't see the obvious problem of how fucking dominated the industry is by clueless straight white boys who think everybody else is just like them.
Thanks a lot to the all-hat, no-cattle assholes from Texas who think "John Romero is About to Make You His Bitch" is a brilliant marketing slogan, but never get around to designing any good game play, because they're too busy talking about what great designers they are who understand their audience, and have the audacity to hire their trophy girl-friends to work as booth bunnies.
Before going to Maxis to work on The Sims, I worked at Interval Research, where Brenda Laurel was developing her "Games for Girls" project, which spun off into Purple Moon. I didn't subscribe to her theory of making games "aimed at girls" that were "pink" and "girlish" so boys don't like them and girls do. It seemed like a cop-out that pandered to the built in prejudices and problems of society, instead of trying to transcend them. I don't think there's anything fundamental about the color pink that's genetically hard-wired into girl's brains, and I don't think it's respectful to girls or boys to treat them or colorize them differently than each other. Should "Photoshop for Girls" only allow you to select bright shades of pink, but not blue? Seriously, pink is just a metaphore, and it goes a lot deeper than the color, but I don't think it's a such good idea to artificially limit the appeal of a game to one sex or another.
That's just my opinion -- but it's best to let the market decide. Purple Moon got steamrolled over and bought out by Barbie, who owns the color pink and has an enormous marketing machine behind her (behind every successful doll is a giant corporation run by clueless straight white males). The other problem they had was that they were trying to do a CDROM game in the age of the internet. So it's hard to draw any definite conclusions about the effect of the color pink from Purple Moon's experience. But the market decided to make The Sims the most successful game of all time, and it definitely wasn't "aimed at girls" the way Purple Moon's products were, or "aimed at boys" the way all the other games are.
-Don
Republican code words: "Rummy is doing a heckuva job."
Since Bush is such a pathological liar, that means Rumsfeld will be resigning soon!
-Don
Sure it can survive multiple mortar attacks, but how long can it survive having an incompetent liar running the war?
Rumsfeld should resign immediately!
-Don
Isn't he the dude with the TTY?
-Don
Oops -- I messed up a link there. Here's the corrected paragraph.
Moulton works with Picard, and presumably knows what she really believes. He lept to her defense when I pointed out the undisputed facts that she voluntarily signed her name as well as the good name of MIT to the Anti Evolution Petetition sponsored by the Discovery Institute, and that Intelligent Design proponents regularly refer to that petition in support of their so-called "theory".
The real issue is not the distraction of Moulton's trolls, but matter of Picard's signing the Anti-Evolution Petition.
Moulton works with Picard, and presumably knows what she really believes. He lept to her defense when I pointed out the undisputed facts that she voluntarily signed her name as well as the good name of MIT to the Anti Evolution Petetition sponsored by the Discovery Institute, and that Intelligent Design proponents regularly refer to that petition in support of their so-called "theory".
Moulton's accusation of "maligning" presumes that implying that somebody supports Intelligent Design (based on their own words and actions, giving them the benefit of the doubt that they're sincere about the documents they sign their name to, and are smart enough to perform due dilligent research into the institutions behind the publicity campaigns they endorse) is inherently offensive.
I'm not accusing -- I'm asking! Picard made the issue of her religion a topic for public discussion, by signing the petition (and in many of the other things she writes). The New York Times writes that Intelligent Design proponents publically cite her name in association with MIT as supporting their position, so there's nothing wrong with asking her what she really believes. She won't answer, so I'm asking Moulton (who works with her, and came out of the woodwork to "defend" her from my "accusations") to ask her for me, and report back what she says.
My questions: Does Rosalind Picard believe in Creationism? Does she support the Discovery Institute's position and tactics?
Of course the answers to those questions will raise many other questions (stimulate interesting discussion). I wonder why she doesn't want to answer -- who knows?
On the oxymoronic IDEA Center web site, which lists Picard's name as a supporter of Intelligent Design, they say that if you know that any information on it is false, to contact them immediate so they can correct it. If Rosalind doesn't actually support Intelligent Design and the Discovery Institute, then she should certainly write in and tell them to remove her name from their web site and petition!
-Don