Girls Would Love Heavy Rain, Says CliffyB

[Logan Westbrook]

Girls Would Love Heavy Rain, Says CliffyB

Epic's Cliff Bleszinski thinks that Sony missed a trick by not advertising cinematic thriller Heavy Rain to a female audience.

Heavy Rain [http://www.amazon.com/Heavy-Rain-Playstation-3/dp/B002CZ38KA/ref=sr_1_1?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1288899685&sr=1-1] has sold about 1.5 million copies since its release earlier this year, and while that's pretty good going for brand new IP, Epic Games' design director Cliff Bleszinski thinks that Sony missed out on a big part of the game's potential audience by only going after core gamers.

In an interview [http://irrationalgames.com/insider/irrational-interviews-episode-4/] with Irrational Games' Ken Levine and Chris Remo, Bleszinski said that because true crime stories were so popular with women, Heavy Rain was the perfect game to get women who might not otherwise be interested in the hobby to give it a try. He thought that Sony would have seen significantly higher sales had it cast its marketing net a little wider and tried to catch the attention of a female audience.

"I'm like, 'dude why isn't this in Entertainment Weekly?'" he said. "'Why aren't you marketing this to the right crowd?' There were scenes were I was almost literally dropping the controller it was paced so well. If you had that and shipped a disc with all those women's magazines you'd maybe have sold twice as much."

Source: Eurogamer [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-11-04-cliffy-b-heavy-rain-is-for-girls]


Permalink

 

[WrongSprite]

Do the people who read womens magazines typically own PS3's though?

I think that's possibly the main point here.

 

[FredTheUndead]

I dunno, it seems to me that the kind of crime stories that are popular with women (and admittedly this is a broad strokes kind of thing) are more Agatha Christie and less Zodiac. And Heavy Rain is very much the LATTER kind of story.

On the other hand, I'm not female and I prefer the former SO WHO KNOWS? Not me that's for sure.

 

[theaceplaya]

Do the people who read womens magazines typically own PS3's though?

I think that's possibly the main point here.

No, but their boyfriends/husbands might. I know plenty of ladies who watch their fellas play through adventure games, this would be a good way to get them in on the game as well.

 

[FredTheUndead]

Do the people who read womens magazines typically own PS3's though?

I think that's possibly the main point here.

Maybe not, but they probably know somebody who owns one. Not only could Sony have attracted a new audience, they could have attracted females to their male friends' houses! Those bastards skipped a chance to get us all laid!

You need to post some sort of picture of Rodney Dangerfield looking depressed.

 

[Charli]

... Dude(Cliff) get off my computer screen, You annoy me.


(Could you tell I disliked Heavy Rain?)

*I am not what one would term a 'Girl Market demographic' type Female, Maybe the gals who like painting their nails and gossiping about mindless nonsense, might pick it up but it didn't grab me at all. Again, I don't think I'm the 'girl' he's thinking of here so I'll let it slide.

 

[Dr. wonderful]

My sister hated it.

I loved every second of it.

 

[nosafetynets]

Do the people who read womens magazines typically own PS3's though?

You'd be surprised. If they don't own them directly, I'm sure they'd have access to them. It's rare that a family unit nowadays doesn't have a gaming system, or a family member/close friend that has one. It's all about disposable income. If you're buying the magazines they're talking about advertising in, they're for a middle-upper middle class crowd - those most likely to go in for a gaming system, particularly if there are multiple children in the home. Advertising probably would have jacked up sales a bit. More people might have given it a try, and ultimately gotten into it. Think a bit broader.

 

[VanityGirl]

I'm not too sure. Let's be honest Heavy Rain was a good movie (harhar), but I'm not sure the almighty CliffyB is right on this one.

 

[joshthor]

I would believe it. my girl-freinds always say that they hate games because they are stupid and arent deep. i try to show them a game like mass effect 2 (which has a spectacular story) and they only see the shooting. they do have fun with them (they love left 4 dead 2... or staring at the screen screaming anyway) but they think in general they are stupid

 

[Woodsey]

David Cage seems like a pretentious dick to me, so I don't think I could have bear it if it did outstandingly well.

 

[Mechsoap]

My sister hated it.

I loved every second of it.

what about it she hate?

OT: well the first logical step would be making sure every woman had an ps3.

 

[Hithlain]

Haha, watching some of the footage I could see how women may have liked it. Women are more word oriented then men (according to studies) and they tend to pick up nuances in language better. Perhaps, since words are all this game is about, they would have enjoyed that?

Although I don't think many moms would suddenly decide to play video games because of it. Those girls who are gamers like myself probably have it if they were interested.... sooo.... where is the missing audience here?

 

[BritishWeather]

Sweeping generalisation. I suppose woman like hair and beauty videos and crappy magazines. Why not just introduce a non woman gamers to a proper game with a good story.

Now just stop accepting microsofts money and port some games to the ps3 and pc.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

considering the fact that the sole female character in the game is horribly objectified and exploited, I very much DOUBT that

 

[Dr. wonderful]

My sister hated it.

I loved every second of it.

what about it she hate?

OT: well the first logical step would be making sure every woman had an ps3.

She said it looked too real.

But she was pretty good at it, just didn't like it. If you think about it, it's the same with me and Saint row.

 

[spectrenihlus]

For a second there I thought the title said "Girls love Clffy B"

Cliffy you dawg you.

 

[Mechsoap]

My sister hated it.

I loved every second of it.

what about it she hate?

OT: well the first logical step would be making sure every woman had an ps3.

She said it looked too real.

But she was pretty good at it, just didn't like it. If you think about it, it's the same with me and Saint row.

seems like an quite bade argument for not liking something.

 

[reddfawks]

Girl here. Didn't like Heavy Rain.

I can admit that I'm terrible at QTEs. You should have seen me playing Resi. =_=