Why do people think games for boys & men

[briankoontz]

Because a lot of the time games are chock full of hypermasculine machismo, reflect male power fantasies, and treat female characters as passive eye candy.

What proof is there exactly that males fantasize about killing thousands of creatures if they had powerful weapons and supernatural powers? That's never been a fantasy of mine and I've only ever heard of this "power fantasy" in the context of the explanation that video game developers give for why they produce the content they do. There aren't countless books written with this "power fantasy", nor many television shows or movies around this "power fantasy".

There's no basis in scientific fact - it's a myth whose purpose is to justify the content of AAA video games.

This doesn't mean there's nothing at all to it, just that it's not some kind of super-dominant power fantasy which justifies 61% of the mainstream market taken up with games featuring killing as a primary form of gameplay.

There are *some* movies which offer SPECIFIC power fantasies, but they also have a specific context - they aren't only about saving the world, one corpse at a time. So Death Wish for example is a power fantasy for white middle-class Americans who felt threatened by the rising crime rates in the 1970s. Pathetic, but logical. Invasion U.S.A. is a power fantasy for white middle-class Americans who felt threatened by the Soviet Union (as is Red Dawn).

Whatever one might think of these power fantasies, at least they serve their purpose and move on. Death Wish says what it needs to say. It's still a work of art, despite it's questionable premise and fascistic and classist ideology.

But games act as if they have no artistic content. Do the developers of Call of Duty think they are serving any purpose by creating their game, in the way that the creators of Death Wish think they are serving an artistic purpose?

When a work of art is created, the message is communicated, and there's no need to communicate it again. Sequels are fine, as long as they say something new.

Can you imagine even for a moment if an entire industry, let's say Hollywood, were to start justifying what they were producing by saying it's a "power fantasy"? Even those of us who don't think much of Hollywood would be outraged.

It's long past time that we stop letting game developers get away with this ridiculous myth. If a game developer has the artistic need to present gamers with some specific power fantasy in a specific context, fine. Do it once and move on.

 

[F.Dubois]

Also, this is a bit unrelated but I have a general question to all native english speakers in this thread... Is it really normal for English speakers to say "male" or "female" instead of "men" and "women"? Like: A male plays this and that... A female likes this... Because I see it so often!
I'm German and if we say the equivalent of "male" and "female" (which would be Männchen and Weibchen) it would be clear that we are talking about animals. You would never use it for humans, just "men" and "women" if you talk about humans.
Thanks for your input in advance!

Actually the difference between saying Male/Female would more adequately translate to Männlich/Weiblich in the sense of
"this game has male players as a target demographic", "dieses Spiel richtet sich an ein männliches Publikum" (sorry if the grammar is not 100%)
It just sounds more detached and thus it sounds more professional.

 

[vallorn]

Because people don't actually know the demographics of gamers. Looking at the people who say gamers are all insular straight white men I'd ask them to take a gander over at the twitter hashtag #NotYourShield to see a ton of minority and female gamers (With photo proof because for some reason people have to prove they aren't sock puppets) who are quite happy with the current gaming scene despite the attempts of some people to paint it all as a pile of misogynist power fantasies.

So yeah, games are for everyone. Now if only devs like that Assasin's Creed: Unity devs would stop being lazy and more characters were good characters (regardless of gender, sexuality or race because an increase of good characters in general would help everyone).

 

[F.Dubois]

I think an episode of Extra Credits had an epiphany in this regard. (can't find a link right now but it is out there) There is a huge market for female players that is currently being served. Hidden object games, puzzle games and candy crush type casual games are largely played by women and a significant number of developers for these type of games are female as well.

Actually the misconception comes up because there are a lot of people talking about women playing videogames that either do not know a lot about games or do not pay attention to this particular part of the market. The more flashy more graphically impressive games that are targeted to one very special demographic get all the attention but saying that games are targeted towards males only is akin to looking at the doll section of a toy store and claiming that regular toys are targeted only towards girls with very few exceptions of uni-sex dolls.
Asking how to get women more into gaming is asking how to get more boys involved in playing house with their barbie dolls. There is a reason GI Joes look as they do and there is a reason CoD looks as it does.

There is an argument to be made for story-driven prestige projects like "The Last of Us" targeting both males and females because some women also want graphically impressive action oriented games but for this demographic the market is also catered for with titles like "Beyond Good and Evil" "Silent Hill" (3 in particular) etc etc pp.
As I said, I think the misconception really stems from people not looking at the market holistically and just picking and choosing a specific type of games that get a lot of press because publishers have thrown a lot of money into making and marketing them.

 

[generals3]

games has been for everybody for years but why do they think its for men

Because they're the main producers and consumers in the market? Specifically the non-mobile gaming market.

 

[clinicalPsychologist]

Also, this is a bit unrelated but I have a general question to all native english speakers in this thread... Is it really normal for English speakers to say "male" or "female" instead of "men" and "women"? Like: A male plays this and that... A female likes this... Because I see it so often!
I'm German and if we say the equivalent of "male" and "female" (which would be Männchen and Weibchen) it would be clear that we are talking about animals. You would never use it for humans, just "men" and "women" if you talk about humans.
Thanks for your input in advance!

Actually the difference between saying Male/Female would more adequately translate to Männlich/Weiblich in the sense of
"this game has male players as a target demographic", "dieses Spiel richtet sich an ein männliches Publikum" (sorry if the grammar is not 100%)
It just sounds more detached and thus it sounds more professional.

No, I don't mean the adjective use.
Of course in German you can say "male gamer" or something.
But I often hear "male" or "female" used as the noun here, and that is what would sound really off in German. That would be "Männchen/Weibchen".
So "männlicher Spieler" (male gamer) would be okay even though very formal. But "if a male plays this game" would be "wenn ein Männchen das Spiel spielt" and that would be really really awkward because it would imply animals.
I'm sorry for the confusion. I just read female and male used as nouns so often on this forum and other discussion sites.

Male and female tends to be used when someone doesn't know the likely age or if they are referring to more then one age group. Calling a 10 year old a man would be inaccurate language for example.

okay, thanks for the clarification

 

[MirenBainesUSMC]

Well I mean... from observing those PC RTS competitions...expos... E3... and general social elements, I don't see the numbers some may want to crank out concerning a female audience. I don't particularly see too many interested in sitting for a few hours in front of a PC/TV to crank out hours what ever game there is but I suppose that is just my little patch of the woods.

I also don't too much read about how some lady or young girl died in her chair from drinking too much energy drinks and playing WOW or Star Craft for 48HRS... there may have been but not as much as males between 18-25.

Arcades ( when there were arcades) Ditto.

The fact of the matter is, in my opinion, it just happens to be most males using/buying these products. It caters to that need to be isolated or by one's self just like the hobby of fishing or hunting in which, well aside from again, a special demography of women whom participate in such sports, its usually guys as the main consumer/hobbyist.

As much as modern ideology would like to think that there aren't any gender driven things, its just not so. Despite the exceptions of many things, I generally believe, particularly women, want their own things they do that are catered to them because their tired of men poking around in their business anyway.

Finally, ever notice you can't question if something is predominately female and complain about it but you can write 1,000 articles and dedicate entire talk shows over something that is deemed male? Just an observation of how the " equality" turns out to be anything but that.

 

[michael87cn]

you're good at what you're good at. men are good are understanding how they think. they aren't so good at understanding how women think. that makes it a lot harder for a team of mostly men to make games that women will enjoy. their demographics are usually mainly male anyway so they make them with them in mind. This is the usual case, but not always.

sometimes games are made to be enjoyed by everyone, but even that is a challenge because everyone has different interests.... basically it comes down to this...

if women want games that they will enjoy they need to start becoming interested in making them. right now most game devs are male and that plays a big factor in games being made for men. if barely any women are interested in making games then its logical to assume they don't have as much interest in playing them as well.

of course, there's always a vocal minority that screams the loudest. the truth however, is simply the truth. it can be changed, but to ignore it is foolish.

 

[MirenBainesUSMC]

I agree. Very balanced answer.

Obviously one shouldn't ignore lady gammers for sure but again, most Dev and Dev teams are made up of males and yes --- if there is a strong means of which women want games that cater to them, it would have probably been so a very long time ago.

I just don't think they are into this type of media to the level where you would see such changes.

 

[Aaron Sylvester]

It's dumb to say "games are for males". Have people even SEEN how many women play Bejeweled, Farmville, Sims, etc? Such broad generalizations and statements are meaningless. It's like saying "games are made for everyone" which completely ignores the massive variety of game types/genres that are targeted towards all kinds of audiences/demographics.

Again, painting in broad strokes is silly when it comes to such a huge topic. Just look at ESA Statistics if you want to see the worst examples of generalizations and how meaningless they are.