Having lived in England for six months, I am acutely aware that game prices are actually not direct exchanges of American prices. A typical new GC/PS2/XBox game costs £39.99 in stores and £29.99 on Amazon.co.uk (£30=$53.81). A GC by itself goes for £74.99 on Amazon. On that account, £89.99 is a bargain.
Other examples of how ridiculously pricey British games are: a new GBA game goes for £29.99 (£22.49 on Amazon), a GBA SP goes for £69.99 (again, slightly cheaper on Amazon). The dollar has declined a bit in the past year, so that accounts for some of the expensiveness as well.
You'll get your variety of input devices when PC developers start making games that require them, or when console developers decide to port them to PC. So why aren't they doing it already? Perhaps because these input devices are more naturally suited to casual games played in the living room (console territory) where the space is (or can be) more social. There's also just more space, period. I don't know about you, but I don't have the floor space for a dance mat in front of my computer. That's of course assuming there's a big market for these things on the PC. It would seem to me that bazooka launchers and light guns would go well with FPS's, but I always hear FPS gamers revering the mouse-and-keyboard setup, so maybe that's why there aren't more models -- people aren't buying them.
In my experience, volume measurements are evident of American recipes. I own a British cookbook and a Taiwanese cookbook (from their respective countries), and the former uses volume for small amounts and weight (in metric and imperial) for larger amounts (same with various online sources, while the latter measures mainly by weight in metric only.
Just download from one of the mirrors to the right side of the home page. When you install it, it'll say "A Tale in the Desert" (not II), but once it's installed you can choose to play ATITD or ATITD2 beta. It's very confusing, I know.
You're right, the solution to attracting female gamers is to make games that are fun...to them. Everyone likes to have fun, but they don't all have fun in the same ways. I've been a female gamer since 1988 (back in first grade or so), and I haven't had much shortage of games to play (although there was a time when the RPG scene dried up on the N64 and I'd yet to get a Playstation). I mostly play RPGs (console and PC), point-and-click adventures, innovative games, and pretty much everything developed by Nintendo. Male gamers don't usually like cartoony graphics -- I LOVE cartoony graphics. I also avoid twitch games like the plague - you won't find sports games, shooters, fighting or racing games in my games library, but if they have really story and/or gameplay (like Max Payne 2 or Vice City), I'd usually give it a whirl (I'm a sucker for a good story).
Interestingly, because "guy" genres on the PC are so prevalent now, I've lost the urge to upgrade my PC and am now almost entirely a console gamer (minus the odd adventure game). I'm even considering a switch to Mac now that I'm not so dependent on Windows for gaming.
I'm obviously not saying that every girl gamer is like me, but I think you'll find a lot of similarities among us. When you have mostly guys developing a game, the game will inevitably have a mostly male point of view (unless the game is specifically geared toward girls). It's just human nature. That is why I think it'll be good for studios trying to attract female gamers to hire female developers (FPS developers needn't bother). However, that would also be tough because since there are fewer girl gamers, there are fewer girls who want to become game developers. I've taken a few game design courses during my stint at USC, but the guys in the classes are generally more into gaming than the girls.
But there are still good female developers who are doing their fair bit out there. Check out Jane Jensen's (creator of the Gabriel Knight series) newest venture called Booby Trap. It's a point-and-click mystery adventure that's being sneaked into the casual puzzle-gaming scene.
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Having lived in England for six months, I am acutely aware that game prices are actually not direct exchanges of American prices. A typical new GC/PS2/XBox game costs £39.99 in stores and £29.99 on Amazon.co.uk (£30=$53.81). A GC by itself goes for £74.99 on Amazon. On that account, £89.99 is a bargain. Other examples of how ridiculously pricey British games are: a new GBA game goes for £29.99 (£22.49 on Amazon), a GBA SP goes for £69.99 (again, slightly cheaper on Amazon). The dollar has declined a bit in the past year, so that accounts for some of the expensiveness as well.
You'll get your variety of input devices when PC developers start making games that require them, or when console developers decide to port them to PC. So why aren't they doing it already? Perhaps because these input devices are more naturally suited to casual games played in the living room (console territory) where the space is (or can be) more social. There's also just more space, period. I don't know about you, but I don't have the floor space for a dance mat in front of my computer. That's of course assuming there's a big market for these things on the PC. It would seem to me that bazooka launchers and light guns would go well with FPS's, but I always hear FPS gamers revering the mouse-and-keyboard setup, so maybe that's why there aren't more models -- people aren't buying them.
In my experience, volume measurements are evident of American recipes. I own a British cookbook and a Taiwanese cookbook (from their respective countries), and the former uses volume for small amounts and weight (in metric and imperial) for larger amounts (same with various online sources, while the latter measures mainly by weight in metric only.
Just download from one of the mirrors to the right side of the home page. When you install it, it'll say "A Tale in the Desert" (not II), but once it's installed you can choose to play ATITD or ATITD2 beta. It's very confusing, I know.
Interestingly, because "guy" genres on the PC are so prevalent now, I've lost the urge to upgrade my PC and am now almost entirely a console gamer (minus the odd adventure game). I'm even considering a switch to Mac now that I'm not so dependent on Windows for gaming.
I'm obviously not saying that every girl gamer is like me, but I think you'll find a lot of similarities among us. When you have mostly guys developing a game, the game will inevitably have a mostly male point of view (unless the game is specifically geared toward girls). It's just human nature. That is why I think it'll be good for studios trying to attract female gamers to hire female developers (FPS developers needn't bother). However, that would also be tough because since there are fewer girl gamers, there are fewer girls who want to become game developers. I've taken a few game design courses during my stint at USC, but the guys in the classes are generally more into gaming than the girls.
But there are still good female developers who are doing their fair bit out there. Check out Jane Jensen's (creator of the Gabriel Knight series) newest venture called Booby Trap. It's a point-and-click mystery adventure that's being sneaked into the casual puzzle-gaming scene.