Interview: How to Appeal to Girls Without Pissing Off the Guys

[carpathic]

Hrm, so basically make a good, well designed game with a story that is involving.

count me in.

 

[UnSeEn60]

Only thing I picked up from the article was that she played Lords of Magic. <3 LoM...*tears up*

 

[Trothael]

I feel this article was quite terrible. It didn't really approach any problem from any angle and just seemed like a rather badly written generalisation of stereotypical feminisation in the gaming world today.

 

[PsiMatrix]

Interview: How to Appeal to Girls Without Pissing Off the Guys

At GDC and this week at the Triangle Game Conference, Jennifer Canada presented her Guildhall thesis on gameplay points to which female gamers respond well, but she told us that guys seem to like them just as much.

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I read this and from all the responses from guys I saw this kept creeping into my mind:

Spoiler

Neo - Choice. The problem is choice.

Architect: 99.9% of all test subjects accepted the program, as long as they were given a choice, even if they were only aware of the choice at a near unconscious level.

The secret is 'choice'.

 

[Dora]

Personally, I got into gaming (and therefore became a "girl gamer", hur hur) because it was just my thing, I guess. My tastes have really changed dramatically over the years, so I don't really think you can say I was drawn to gaming for any particular reason other than that it was fun. I look for good stories and writing, but that's about it; I love Harvest Moon (SHUT UP) just as much as I love Silent Hill or Fallout. Just because a game features things designed to appeal to guys doesn't mean I'm less likely to find it interesting.

I think a big reason, however, why women still aren't as into games as guys are, is because of the way society presents the idea of games as being a "guy thing". Just like how action figures and Lego are marketed primarily towards young boys, girls are, from a young age, encouraged to "be more mature than boys". When I was growing up, I was told I shouldn't play games because it was "for boys", and I guess I should concentrate more on girly things or something. That was back in the eighties, and while I'm sure things have changed since then, gaming is still just presented as something guys do, while we women stand in the background rolling our eyes at how immature dudes are, thinking about important things like quiche recipes.

I honestly think that if people stopped making such a big deal out of "girl gamers" or acting like they're such special snowflakes (we aren't) there would be more of us, or we might surprise you by coming out of the woodwork. (I do think even just featuring more women in gaming media as just people who like games, like Morgan Webb, rather than as eye candy, or even just in the commercials being presented as part of the target audience, you'd have more success.) You don't have to make a certain type of game to lure us in because, shockingly, our brains are only different in the way that every other person on the planet has different tastes regardless of gender. Actually, I think being told that a game was designed to appeal to women would be the fastest way to get me NOT to play it.

 

[Falseprophet]

"Perhaps the greatest evidence of all for Canada's thesis that AAA games can appeal to both genders by using these tenets, was that so many of today's best-selling and most renowned games use them. Games like Uncharted 2 and Dragon Age already offer a detailed backstory, atypical female characters, in-game relationships, moral complexity, non-violent action, flexibility of choices, and a meaningful victory."

This. A lot.

Having played Dragon Age (and never having played a BioWare game before), I was very impressed with the writing and characterization of all characters, regardless of gender.

In fact, during

Spoiler: Leiliana's backstory quest

I had a party of four female characters (Leiliana, Wynne, Morrigan and my Human Noble Warden) have a tense, revealing conversation with Marjolaine, then take her in combat.

It felt entirely engaging and appropriate to the story and not like any kind of pandering or forced affirmative action.

But marketing of Dragon Age followed the pattern of a typical AAA action title: emphasize the blood and guts, portray the female characters as typical supercilious action girls, hire booth babes for promotional events. So a title that could appeal to men, women, fans of exploration, fans of intricate storytelling, and fans of challenging combat equally, is instead pitched squarely at the stereotypical, ADHD 18-25 year old fratboy demographic.

 

[Plurralbles]

this article should be focused on society as a whole. A lot of advice should be given to, "how to please the ladies and not piss off the guys" You know how all those Metros are getting the women need to learn how not to be a douche.

 

[Uilleand]

But marketing of Dragon Age followed the pattern of a typical AAA action title: emphasize the blood and guts, portray the female characters as typical supercilious action girls, hire booth babes for promotional events. So a title that could appeal to men, women, fans of exploration, fans of intricate storytelling, and fans of challenging combat equally, is instead pitched squarely at the stereotypical, ADHD 18-25 year old fratboy demographic.

I totally agree...I think the marketing on the last two BW games in general has fallen down. (In my heart, I blame EA for immediately appealing to that fratboy demographic) Of course, the thing is, those of us who know and love BW games generally trust the company to deliver these compelling stories. They don't NEED to advertise to us...it's that new audience they want to pull in...
That said, my coworker has posted in facebook how glad she was that GOW might have a playable female character, and did anyone know of other games that did so. She was utterly surprised that Mass Effect had a playable female protagonist because the marketing had so ignored that aspect...so, they're losing potential gamers like her...

 

[littlejimmy155]

OT: Nice to see

Correcting a mistake on the first page. Lords Of Magic is not a real time strategy, it's turn baced.

Its a lords of the realm reskin. Overworld stuff (building, moving, training, sieging, etc) is turn-based, combat is real-time.

OT: Nice to see someone basically answer that question with, "Don't try to appeal to anyone."

Yep, I guess you are right about that, but I think most people end up spending most of the game in management mode. But I see what she meant now.

 

[maninahat]

"...[more] atypical female characters..."
I'd like to see some more atypical male characters too. For all the whining I hear about the portrayal of female characters, I don't see all that many male characters that don't conform to some absurd masculine stereotype.

 

[maninahat]

Over the course of that time, Canada wrote and designed a story that utilized the specific strategies of how to write with the female audience in mind: detailed backstory, atypical female characters, in-game relationships, moral complexity, non-violent action, flexibility of choices, and a meaningful victory.

...I'm a girl and that doesn't sound remotely interesting to me. I enjoyed the property ownership and guild status from Oblivion the most. What I would enjoy most in a mod is the ability to own an entire town and work to make it more successful and wealthy - say by killing and looting nearby monsters or bringing rare items, scrolls or plants back to improve local medicine or trades above other towns.. Status, possessions and power... and the tangible result of that power.

You might be interested in Fable II then. Primarily it is a fantasy adventure game, (you don't need to play the first Fable) but there is a whole section of gameplay involving property ownership and renovation and stuff. You can end up buying out entire towns and furnishing them to increase their value.

I didn't really appreciate it, but judging from your comments, you might.

 

[VondeVon]

You might be interested in Fable II then. Primarily it is a fantasy adventure game, (you don't need to play the first Fable) but there is a whole section of gameplay involving property ownership and renovation and stuff. You can end up buying out entire towns and furnishing them to increase their value.

I didn't really appreciate it, but judging from your comments, you might.

(grins)

Thank you for the rec!

I have in fact played Fable II and I did enjoy exactly those aspects.. although, they were somewhat shallow and really revolved around gold more than anything else - I had that glitch where I couldn't buy more than one set of 'nice' furnishings, so the desire to do anything other than buy and loot the places kind of died.

Something like where your choice to support the Temple of Light or the Temple of Shadows is really to my tastes. Not only for future consequences (land alive/dying) but the result of 'donations' (aka bribes) to the Temple of Light resulting in a more established, impressive building. (I assume it was my dosh. I suppose it might have happened even if I hadn't poured the wallets of every bandit in the game into their coffers.)

Changing landscapes, increased development and defences, increased beauty.. these really appeal to me on an almost primal level. I want my territory, I want it to be kick-ass and I want to be able to slaughter anyone who tries to take it from me with ease.