Support NeoGAF

[Arsic]

Sure it's strange when you talk to men and women about games there's absolutely taste in games

 

[nial]

I don't believe in that so-called statistic that 50% of gamers are women. That's modern bullshit. Maybe if you include ultra-casual gaming or smartphone mini-games, sure, but when it comes to real gaming, no way. Just because there's been an explosion of female streamers on Twitch and YouTube doesn't mean we've reached parity. They're not stupid — they're mostly in it for the money. That said, yes, women and men fundamentally don't enjoy the same types of games. There will always be exceptions, of course, but that's an empirical fact.

Terrible argument, excluding certain types of games just so the statistic can fit your views is exactly 'modern' bullshit.

 

[Danny22]

Women are less violent than men and cultures with higher women rights also tend to be less violent in the modern day, yes OP I got it.

 

[MonkD]

They're just arrogant about their established customers. We reached a point where they thought that they could try to cater to the people who are not buying their product, without alienating their original customers. Or at least they thought they'd gain more sales than they'd lose.

But market analytics has been shit for a long time. That is why someone decided to make a mediocre extraction shooter 8 years ago. Thinking that the genre would still be booming today. Fortnite built a platform. That is how they can adapt and stay relevant. Trend chasing has almost always been terrible for games. Just look at how many MMOs stuck around after WoW got a hold of the genre.

 

[AmuroChan]

It doesn't even have to be a gender thing. Individuals have different tastes in games. Me and my guy friends don't all like the same kinds of games. Conversely, my wife and I both love JRPGs.

 

[Imtjnotu]

Mods close this if this is too political. Gonna try to keep this short because I know y'all mofos don't read past the title.

A few days ago, I told my girlfriend to sell me on RDR2 because it's one of her favorite games ever. I watched her play and my opinion didn't budge. In fact, it was strengthened. However, through all her giggling and my grunting, I realized one thing: she didn't play the game the same way I did. What she mostly enjoyed is shit I don't care about; hunting, camping, caring for horses, brushing them, studying animals, going to town to get supplies and make money for the camp, interacting with people and just wandering about. Robbing? Killing? Starting fights? She only did those when she had to. She didn't care one bit for the action and at one point even asked me to complete a mission for her because she's a bad shot. She adores the story, writing, and characters, and cannot get enough of them. This reminded me of when I was younger and trying to get my sisters into video games. They couldn't have been less interested in Goldeneye, Turok, or Mortal Kombat. They found Ocarina of Time alright, and the older one liked Tekken (III?). Mario Party was their jam though. Still, no games really hooked them until we got The Sims 2 for PC in 2004 and we could no longer get them away from the computer after that. My older brother also bought a used SNES with Bust-A-Move maybe in 2002 and both fell in love with this game, especially the older one. To this day, I'm still baffled she has more gaming stamina than I do.

My point? Men and women (I generalize, obviously) are drawn to different things when it comes to games and most things, really. The gaming industry's attempt at creating boss babes and female actions stars because of their lack of representation to attract more women is a fool's errand. You're still getting the same men who for the most part don't mind playing as women. It's not moving the needle, so this crusade is not only moronic, but fruitless and even damaging. Have they stopped to think that maybe women don't like shooting things and punching bad guys as much as men do? So even if it's a woman doing it, they won't be any more interested. Of course, they'll lie to you and state that almost 50% of gamers are women, ignoring that, as I say, they're more likely to play Farmville and Candy Crush than COD or Elden Ring. It's alright for women not to be into action games with big explosions. There's nothing shameful about that, but modern propaganda insists that they must go out there with the boys and play games they have no interest in. Do I have something against all the new female heroes? Not really. However, I do have something against the intent behind the trend that pushes something nobody asked for or want and that tries to convince us that "strong female characters" in action games are just as important to women. They aren't. Men and women aren't the same. Just because it's Jasmine wielding the shotgun instead of Steve won't make a difference.

There's a lot more I want to say, but I'll leave it at that.

What about the other 22 genders?

 

[realcool]

Men and women share a similar taste in that they both don't give a fuck about the WNBA.

 

[viveks86]

Now compare her gaming spending to urs, bro, some women game, but mostly either game on their phones or are playing consoles/games of their brothers/boyfriends/fathers/fiances/husbands, thats why for example newest DA:V did so poorly sales wise, dev studio/publisher thought that women gonna buy full priced AAA game targeted 100% towards females, and suprise surpise, it had terrible sales numbers vs previous DA:I that sold 12m copies

And guess what, when newest DA targettet women for obvious reason it became awful game from pov of most men, including longtime franchise fans like myself, so we didnt buy it, at all, hell it was so bad EA knew no1 even gonna pirate it on PC so they decided to not put denuvo on it(25k usd monthly upkeep cost), simply coz they knew the cost for keeping denuvo is higher than those few copies that gonna be pirated even at launch.

Hardcore female gamer who spends few k usd/year on gaming hobby like many of us here on GAF are as rare as finding 21yo female(!) virgin in a western country nowadays, it does happen but its basically unicorn u only hear stories about from "friend of a friend", male equivalent would be a guy who is a nanny or a kindergarten teacher

People spending a few thousand dollars a year on gaming are a minority even amongst men. They might have a majority in an enthusiast forum but not the mainstream. So yeah, your claim holds, but your specific profile is rarely the focus group for a single player action game. Games that require higher commitment/investment, like MMO, car/flight/space sims and other Pc exclusives would certainly look to maximize revenue within your demographic.

As to my specific situation, my wife goes through way more hours and games in a year. All on console. I manage to finish may be 2 or 3, along with GT on the side. She is certainly in the minority, but I don't believe they are so rare that we don't have to consider them in game design. AAA games consider features for disabled folks. They are 1% or less of the demographic. Women are in the 10 to 20%. Sufficient to at least influence core game, story and character design. But is the industry faltering in how to approach it? We can certainly agree on that

 

[KàIRóS]

You would be surprised. They kept shoving multiplayer into single-player games for ages before realizing how stupid it was.

I mean it was obviously sarcasm, I know very well the western videogame industry is largely cooked at this point, they don't even seem to know what Target Market is anymore.

Many incoming western AAAs like Intergalactic, Witcher 4, Ghost of Yotei and GTA VI have this stupid idea of "put a woman protagonist so women buy" and it's like the dumbest and most uninformed decision ever, women mostly buy "wholesome" games like Animal Crossing, Harvest Moon, Sims, Pet simulators, etc. They don't a give a flying fuck about Girl Boss characters, there's very VERY clear data on this since the 90s when the Tamagotchi craze happened and it was mostly girls being obsessed with it, but they still insist on selling to this unexistant "modern audience" market, so they will have to find out the hard way.

That's why I personally just stick to supporting some western indies and the rest of my money goes to Asian games, for the most part they know what they are doing when it comes to target marketing, a good example is Shift Up selling Stellar Blade to the male gooners and InFold selling Love and Deepspace to the female gooners and both games worked by targeting the exact opposite audiences.

 

[DelireMan7]

I have the feeling what you describe is just "different people like different thing"

Some loves Death Stranding gameplay but for me it's the worst videogame gameplay ever.

Some loves GTA, 0 interest for me. Nothing looks worth of my interest in this franchise.

Different people, different taste.

 

[viveks86]

And guess what, when newest DA targettet women for obvious reason it became awful game from pov of most men,

Nah. DA:V won't even be celebrated by actual trans women. Let alone women. It was an amateur, delusional attempt to soothe emotionally distressed people with constant coddling and lukewarm activism. And failed even at that. It will be long forgotten by everybody for anything other than being a mid af disappointment.

 

[PeteBull]

People spending a few thousand dollars a year on gaming are a minority even amongst men. They might have a majority in an enthusiast forum but not the mainstream. So yeah, your claim holds, but your specific profile is rarely the focus group for a single player action game. Games that require higher commitment/investment, like MMO, car/flight/space sims and other Pc exclusives would certainly look to maximize revenue within your demographic.

As to my specific situation, my wife goes through way more hours and games in a year. All on console. I manage to finish may be 2 or 3, along with GT on the side. She is certainly in the minority, but I don't believe they are so rare that we don't have to consider them in game design. AAA games consider features for disabled folks. They are 1% or less of the demographic. Women are in the 10 to 20%. Sufficient to at least influence core game, story and character design. But is the industry faltering in how to approach it? We can certainly agree on that

I never questioned if ur wifey plays, and even plays lots more than u, just from publishers/developers of a game pov= as a gamer she is useless, coz majority of a women gamers dont buy full price AAA games at launch, hence so many of those full price titles being woke/feminine and overall targeting women flop- simply men are disgusted by them and women dont buy them anyways, since just like ur wifey- most women gamers dont pay for their games, especially not AAA at launch.

In conclusion- if game dev/pub targets their big budget AAA game towards female customers, its almost always big failure since women(huge majority of women gamers) wont buy that game at launch/for full price anyways.
And yeh, ofc hardcore gamers(and lets be honest here, for pubs/dev teams gamer is only worth as much as his money, aka u gotta put money where ur mouth is) are small minority in a world of all the gamers, still plenty games got great sales numbers, and most of those sales, at least in launch window/at full price is to male gamers

To even make it even more clear- lets imagine u are a gamer, and u dont pay for ur games/consoles etc, u only play stuff that ur girlfriend/fiance/sister/mother/wife plays/bought first- we male gamers would have play close to or fucking 0 gamers per year we would fuckin starve- thats how rare is a women gamer who buys gaming consoles/AAA games at launch on her own- they got us to do that for them, and thats perfectly fine, just lets not deceive ourself gaming industry should be targeted towards women when they barely buy any AAA game at launch- some can play a lot of "our" games "for free" tho

Edit: To not sound super pessimistic- there are humble exceptions when games targeted to female playerbase do extremly well, example of such a well thought game is Animal Crossing, top2 switch game with over 47m sold copies(official data).

U gotta admit tho Animal Crossing is not typical game guys buy/play tho- we love tits/booty, brutality, roughness, blood etc, and u wont find such things in that title

 

[Woggleman]

I have actually seen a number of female streamers crushing on Arthur Morgan. He has become somewhat of a sex symbol. It is weird that my wife wanted to grow his bear and hair as much as it would grow while I kept my Arthur clean shaven and well dressed.

 

[mdkirby]

Gendered play extends to non "games" too, ie figurines and just general play. Exceptions aside (and there are exceptions) men and women are simply into different things. Women are evolutionarily programmed to nurture and care for things, and nest/home building. Men are programmed to build (not decorate, build) and fight. These separations are still prevalent in our culture, but even if they weren't the evolutionary bias's wouldn't go away. This then extends to play, all forms of play. This is also observed in other primates when given trucks or dolls. Lego did a big study on it a few years back when they kept failing to attract girls to Lego, and eventually concluded it was because boys and girls play differently, which necessitated them creating a completely separate branch tailored towards how girls play, and it was wildly successful.

Developers are ignoring these basics, and are trying to appeal to women in genres that the vast majority (exceptions aside) simply aren't gonna be interested in. I have a lot of female colleagues, non would call themselves "gamers" but they very much do play games, but it's all stuff like sim, they would not play fps/tps etc. Devs are putting content in these games to appeal to women gamers, and sure it may appeal to some, but it mostly dilutes and worsens the experience for the actual primary audience for the game. Extending from gameplay, narrative and subsequently marketing, resulting in games that do not appeal in the way they once did for the primary male audience for the game they are making. The result? Their games flop…often after spending hundreds of millions. People then lose their jobs and companies close.

They are just collectively forgetting the basics of marketing and product development. Make a product for your actual audience, not one you invent on a hope and a dream, especially if you're spending hundreds of millions and the best part of a decade.

Edit- my wife prob sinks more hours into gaming than I do, but it's 95% mobile games, puzzle games, some weird snail game. Lego games, she did play Harry Potter legacy tho.

 

[Danjin44]

U gotta admit tho Animal Crossing is not typical game guys buy/play tho- we love tits/booty, brutality, roughness, blood etc, and u wont find such things in that title

I dont know I have lot of fun playing Fantasy Life i and that game has Animal Crossing elements and there are no blood or tits/booty you can speak of.

I dont know if I agree with this type of generalization.

If you guys idea of "girly games" is playing dress up with your character then what the fuck what were are doing in game Monster Hunter and Stellar Blade?

As matter of fact what exactly qualify as manly game or girly game? According to Yoko Taro there are more woman fan of Nier than men, does that mean that game qualify as "girly game"? At the same time I see lot of guys who are fan of Infinity Nikki.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I dont know I have lot of fun playing Fantasy Life i and that game has Animal Crossing elements and there are no blood or tits/booty you can speak of.

I dont know if I agree with this type of generalization.

If you guys idea of "girly games" is playing dress up with your character then what the fuck what were are doing in game Monster Hunter and Stellar Blade?

As matter of fact what exactly qualify as manly game or girly game? According to Yoko Taro there are more woman fan of Nier than men, does that mean that game qualify as "girly game"? At the same time I see lot of guys who are fan of Infinity Nikki.

Like anything in life, a lot of things skew guys or gals.

As Petebull said, some kinds of things skew guys. In the chart I pasted on page 1, some genres heavy into killing, sports, shooting etc... skew guys. While Sims and gem matching games skew ladies. No different than movies. Typically any flick heavy into blood, action, sci-fi and Arnold or Stallone one-liners will be guys. While a movie like Dirty Dancing or a Jennifer Aniston romcom will be liked by women more.

It's not an exact science like 0%/100%, it rarely ever is. I'm sure there's going to be some dudes in life who wear Barbie band-aids. But media products often have a trend. But there might be some kinds of games that are 50/50-ish. Who knows.

 

[viveks86]

I never questioned if ur wifey plays, and even plays lots more than u, just from publishers/developers of a game pov= as a gamer she is useless, coz majority of a women gamers dont buy full price AAA games at launch, hence so many of those full price titles being woke/feminine and overall targeting women flop- simply men are disgusted by them and women dont buy them anyways, since just like ur wifey- most women gamers dont pay for their games, especially not AAA at launch.

In conclusion- if game dev/pub targets their big budget AAA game towards female customers, its almost always big failure since women(huge majority of women gamers) wont buy that game at launch/for full price anyways.
And yeh, ofc hardcore gamers(and lets be honest here, for pubs/dev teams gamer is only worth as much as his money, aka u gotta put money where ur mouth is) are small minority in a world of all the gamers, still plenty games got great sales numbers, and most of those sales, at least in launch window/at full price is to male gamers

To even make it even more clear- lets imagine u are a gamer, and u dont pay for ur games/consoles etc, u only play stuff that ur girlfriend/fiance/sister/mother/wife plays/bought first- we male gamers would have play close to or fucking fucking 0 gamers per year we would fuckin starve- thats how rare is a women gamer who buys gaming consoles/AAA games at launch on her own- they got us to do that for them, and thats perfectly fine, just lets not deceive ourself gaming industry should be targeted towards women when they barely buy any AAA game at launch- some can play a lot of "our" games "for free" tho

Edit: To not sound super pessimistic- there are humble exceptions when games targeted to female playerbase do extremly well, example of such a well thought game is Animal Crossing, top2 switch game with over 47m sold copies(official data).

U gotta admit tho Animal Crossing is not typical game guys buy/play tho- we love tits/booty, brutality, roughness, blood etc, and u wont find such things in that title

I never argued that women have any majority share in this category. But you can't model a product based on just the majority. That stuff will work only in male-dominated and/or authoritarian societies. Most of the civilized world has moved away from such a model and so products would also change to reflect the current state of things. All media works this way. Even porn. There is an obvious overcorrection in the industry and male gamers are frustrated, but that will gradually improve as the market pushes back.

 

[PeteBull]

I dont know I have lot of fun playing Fantasy Life i and that game has Animal Crossing elements and there are no blood or tits/booty you can speak of.

I dont know if I agree with this type of generalization.

If you guys idea of "girly games" is playing dress up with your character then what the fuck what were are doing in game Monster Hunter and Stellar Blade?

As matter of fact what exactly qualify as manly game or girly game? According to Yoko Taro there are more woman fan of Nier than men, does that mean that game qualify as "girly game"? At the same time I see lot of guys who are fan of Infinity Nikki.

Im just saying games like Animal Crossing have sizeable female customer base(customer aka girl/woman bought that game on her own, it wasnt a gift/she doesnt play some1 else copy etc), way higher than for example stuff like newest Space Marine or Gears series(even Gears 5 with fem protag, yuck).
Think of fighting games aka mortal kombat/street fighter/virtua fighter/tekken series(just to name most popular ones in last 35 years)- there are barely any female customers there(even less than gamers, meaning women play those games not coz they bought them, male in close proximity bought it instead), female customers of fighting games are extremly rare, and thats for a reason, perfectly fine logical reason too

 

[PeteBull]

I never argued that women have any majority share in this category. But you can't model a product based on just the majority. That stuff will work only in male-dominated and/or authoritarian societies. Most of the civilized world has moved away from such a model and so products would also change to reflect the current state of things. All media works this way. Even porn. There is an obvious overcorrection in the industry and male gamers are frustrated, but that will gradually improve as the market pushes back.

U definitely should make game targetting ur customer base, gaming studio/pub is a company, aka by definition for profit organisation, which means their only reason to exist is to make profit, u make profit if u sell product ur customers want to buy, so if u are smart, u target that product properly, basically u do opposite to what concord/fairgame$/marathon devs did

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Im just saying games like Animal Crossing have sizeable female customer base(customer aka girl/woman bought that game on her own, it wasnt a gift/she doesnt play some1 else copy etc), way higher than for example stuff like newest Space Marine or Gears series(even Gears 5 with fem protag, yuck).
Think of fighting games aka mortal kombat/street fighter/virtua fighter/tekken series(just to name most popular ones in last 35 years)- there are barely any female customers there(even less than gamers, meaning women play those games not coz they bought them, male in close proximity bought it instead), female customers of fighting games are extremly rare, and thats for a reason, perfectly fine logical reason too

Agreed. People have different preferences in stuff.

Without knowing any stats, I'd bet any money those endless number of PC games on Steam/GOG which are turn-based WWII games skew heavy to guys.

 

[viveks86]

U definitely should make game targetting ur customer base, gaming studio/pub is a company, aka by definition for profit organisation, which means their only reason to exist is to make profit, u make profit if u sell product ur customers want to buy, so if u are smart, u target that product properly, basically u do opposite to what concord/fairgame$/marathon devs did

And you think concord/fairgames$/marathon are targeting women? They aren't. They think they do. They are making the same mistake as Veilguard. A bad understanding of what their target base (say 90% men/10% women) even wants. They will fail both groups

 

[PeteBull]

And you think concord/fairgames$/marathon are targeting women? They aren't. They think they do. They are making the same mistake as Veilguard. A bad understanding of what their target base (say 90% men/10% women) even wants. They will fail both groups

They trying to sell multiplayer shooter so its not even 90% males/10females, its likely 98/2 ratio, and guess what - 98% aka males are teeange boys/young male adults who love to play as masculine muscly males or at the very least look at feminine sexy women in hot outfits, so by definition those 3 games(stupid devs in the dev teams, not every1 but for sure heads of those dev teams at the very least) decided character roaster should be ugly masculine women or femine men, 0 interest from close to 100% of customers base= game flop 100% guarantied, its basics of economy but ofc when top priority of those devs is to push agenda economy doesnt matter to them

Economy matters tho, as those 3 dev teams found out in the end in a rather brutal way

 

[viveks86]

They trying to sell multiplayer shooter so its not even 90% males/10females, its likely 98/2 ratio, and guess what - 98% aka males are teeange boys/young male adults who love to play as masculine muscly males or at the very least look at feminine sexy women in hot outfits, so by definition those 3 games(stupid devs in the dev teams, not every1 but for sure heads of those dev teams at the very least) decided character roaster should be ugly masculine women or femine men, 0 interest from close to 100% of customers base= game flop 100% guarantied, its basics of economy but ofc when top priority of those devs is to push agenda economy doesnt matter to them

Economy matters tho, as those 3 dev teams found out in the end in a rather brutal way

I don't think it's 98-2 anymore. But we can agree on the rest

 

[PeteBull]

I don't think it's 98-2 anymore. But we can agree on the rest

For overall gaming its not, for specific multiplayer shooter genre(aka competetive af) and buying games in that genre at launch, it definitely is
There is a reason male audience has 0 tolerance for those 3 shooters and they for example loved marvels rivals, we all know how character roaster looked like there:

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Economy matters tho, as those 3 dev teams found out in the end in a rather brutal way

Yup.

Even ignoring gender preferences and all that jazz, problem with a lot of gaming/tech companies over the past decade is a lot got too big and fat thinking the gravy train of hiring and covid sales would trend upwards forever. Golden Goose on steroids.

I dont think there is one other industry that ramped up like that in the same time frame. So what goes up comes down which is big hiring and big firings. BUT net net it's still a big growth of tech employees as a whole. Maybe not at specific studios shut down, but the greater whole.

Not surprisingly, somewhere in that roughly 2020-ish time frame is when a lot of media companies went ape shit on games and movies/tv that went DEI. It was the fad at the time in terms of content. And combined with historic low interest/loan rates made companies go hyperspastic spending like an uncontrolled guy maxing out his credit cards. Problem is nobody expected high inflation and rates and the DEI fad would be forgotten and laughed at now.

All a lot of these companies had to do is just ride the wave as a short term boost, so when things got back to normal the company is already still normal. Just about every consumers good company did that. All they did during covid was amp up extra midnight shifts to keep up with demand, and thats kind of it. When it got back to normal, you can cut that shift. Nobody was scrambling to build new factories hiring 10,000 extra people asap. We all knew once covid subsided at some point things go back to normal. But tech companies some reason did that.

The biggest laugh was Peloton. Already a wishy washy company losing money selling $3000 exercise bikes. Covid comes around, gyms close down and demand for these things zoom up. So Peloton went on ape shit overseas mass manufacturing and hiring. Oops. A year later, demand drops back to normal as covid scares dissipate and gyms reopen. Caught holding the bag as inventory is coming over from China. Got so bad they literally halted all production. Then they fired people, stock dropped like a rock, still losing money and the biggest lifeline that pops up every once in a while is an Amazon rumour they will buy them out.

Sounds like a game studio now.

 

[KenaiPhoenix]

The problem is that the "women target" are defined by women that never cared about games at all. They are here for the money/attention/prove a point/etc.

Women have been in gaming, it is not a general appeal but if you know a gamer girl you know how different they are.

And they never complained about themes/representation until these jackals come

 

[wigsplittin4fun]

Women want games where you can dress up your character and organize stuff. This is why they love The Sims. If you want to learn more about a woman check out their Sims families. I looked at my wife's saved games, i have a lot of questions both about her and our relationship lol.

Now you def have me curious lol. What did she do? My gf was so crazy I made a sims family of us and she died in a house fire and she literally got upset and angry with me. That was just one in a million red flags that I should have payed attention to but I was young and dumb.

 

[CLW]

Woah woah woah there bigot - did you just claim there are two genders and that those two genders aren't 1000% exactly the same?

 

[The Devil's Grocers]

They trying to sell multiplayer shooter so its not even 90% males/10females, its likely 98/2 ratio, and guess what - 98% aka males are teeange boys/young male adults who love to play as masculine muscly males or at the very least look at feminine sexy women in hot outfits, so by definition those 3 games(stupid devs in the dev teams, not every1 but for sure heads of those dev teams at the very least) decided character roaster should be ugly masculine women or femine men, 0 interest from close to 100% of customers base= game flop 100% guarantied, its basics of economy but ofc when top priority of those devs is to push agenda economy doesnt matter to them

Economy matters tho, as those 3 dev teams found out in the end in a rather brutal way

This quote is from Clinton's campaign strategist James Carville, not Clinton himself. Otherwise, I think you raise some interesting questions about targeted marketing in your posts. I wonder if companies already know that going after a different audience is risky at present but they're laying the groundwork to attract customers in the future. I think that kind of long-term thinking definitely goes on at the bigger companies, but an indie developer should probably prefer to target the actual market as it exists today. Cheers

 

[El Muerto]

Now you def have me curious lol. What did she do? My gf was so crazy I made a sims family of us and she died in a house fire and she literally got upset and angry with me. That was just one in a million red flags that I should have payed attention to but I was young and dumb.

She's got several familes. One is a cottage core lesbian family, there's one where she has like 7 kids, another where she lives with 3 dudes. There's more too. I'm gonna have her laptop out and have it at the load game screen, then when she gets home from work i'm gonna be like "Hon, we need to have a chat" and rotate the laptop towards her.

 

[Hollywood Hitman]

Its just an obvious thing, the fact that you had to state that you hope it isn't too political is the problem in itself and not saying you're the cause just that in general it's insane that basic common sense things are considered some sort of political stance, it makes me hate the mentality of people these days that push to make it political when at the end of the day men and women are always different and forever will be, mentally, physically, emotionally... It's how we were made and as said there's nothing wrong with that.

 

[Guardian Monkey]

Mods close this if this is too political. Gonna try to keep this short because I know y'all mofos don't read past the title.

A few days ago, I told my girlfriend to sell me on RDR2 because it's one of her favorite games ever. I watched her play and my opinion didn't budge. In fact, it was strengthened. However, through all her giggling and my grunting, I realized one thing: she didn't play the game the same way I did. What she mostly enjoyed is shit I don't care about; hunting, camping, caring for horses, brushing them, studying animals, going to town to get supplies and make money for the camp, interacting with people and just wandering about. Robbing? Killing? Starting fights? She only did those when she had to. She didn't care one bit for the action and at one point even asked me to complete a mission for her because she's a bad shot. She adores the story, writing, and characters, and cannot get enough of them. This reminded me of when I was younger and trying to get my sisters into video games. They couldn't have been less interested in Goldeneye, Turok, or Mortal Kombat. They found Ocarina of Time alright, and the older one liked Tekken (III?). Mario Party was their jam though. Still, no games really hooked them until we got The Sims 2 for PC in 2004 and we could no longer get them away from the computer after that. My older brother also bought a used SNES with Bust-A-Move maybe in 2002 and both fell in love with this game, especially the older one. To this day, I'm still baffled she has more gaming stamina than I do.

My point? Men and women (I generalize, obviously) are drawn to different things when it comes to games and most things, really. The gaming industry's attempt at creating boss babes and female actions stars because of their lack of representation to attract more women is a fool's errand. You're still getting the same men who for the most part don't mind playing as women. It's not moving the needle, so this crusade is not only moronic, but fruitless and even damaging. Have they stopped to think that maybe women don't like shooting things and punching bad guys as much as men do? So even if it's a woman doing it, they won't be any more interested. Of course, they'll lie to you and state that almost 50% of gamers are women, ignoring that, as I say, they're more likely to play Farmville and Candy Crush than COD or Elden Ring. It's alright for women not to be into action games with big explosions. There's nothing shameful about that, but modern propaganda insists that they must go out there with the boys and play games they have no interest in. Do I have something against all the new female heroes? Not really. However, I do have something against the intent behind the trend that pushes something nobody asked for or want and that tries to convince us that "strong female characters" in action games are just as important to women. They aren't. Men and women aren't the same. Just because it's Jasmine wielding the shotgun instead of Steve won't make a difference.

There's a lot more I want to say, but I'll leave it at that.

So your saying Barbie's Horse Adventures isn't for me?

 

[Plies]

Men and women share a similar taste in that they both don't give a fuck about the WNBA.

 

[hemo memo]

I have actually seen a number of female streamers crushing on Arthur Morgan. He has become somewhat of a sex symbol. It is weird that my wife wanted to grow his bear and hair as much as it would grow while I kept my Arthur clean shaven and well dressed.

That's a red flag.

 

[digimaster7]

No they're exactly the same 50% of ghost of yoteis buyers will be grade school girls, soccer moms and grandmas.

these groups do spend a lot of money… on candy crush

 

[awwr999999]

Still, no games really hooked them until we got The Sims 2 for PC in 2004 and we could no longer get them away from the computer after that.

Boot up Manhunt on a PS2 (without letting your GF see the Rockstar logo at the beginning) and convince her to play through a few levels.
Showing her the Manhunt box with the Rockstar logo would be a wild reveal - "Same company that made RDR2".
About the only thing "PS2 Rockstar" and "Post-PS2 Rockstar" have in common is the great logo.
At this point all of Rockstar's active IP consists of Sims-like games where hunting, grooming, buying clothes, dressing up, sports and crafts are combined with scavenger hunts.

Reminds me of how Marlboro started out as a women's brand and eventually became the ultimate men's brand. The first ad's font even looks like the fancy one used in RDR2.

 

[MayauMiao]

What about they/thems? What do they/them play?

Anything that will get they/thems on AGDQ.

 

[Chuck Berry]

Mods close this if this is too political. Gonna try to keep this short because I know y'all mofos don't read past the title.

A few days ago, I told my girlfriend to sell me on RDR2 because it's one of her favorite games ever. I watched her play and my opinion didn't budge. In fact, it was strengthened. However, through all her giggling and my grunting, I realized one thing: she didn't play the game the same way I did. What she mostly enjoyed is shit I don't care about; hunting, camping, caring for horses, brushing them, studying animals, going to town to get supplies and make money for the camp, interacting with people and just wandering about. Robbing? Killing? Starting fights? She only did those when she had to. She didn't care one bit for the action and at one point even asked me to complete a mission for her because she's a bad shot. She adores the story, writing, and characters, and cannot get enough of them. This reminded me of when I was younger and trying to get my sisters into video games. They couldn't have been less interested in Goldeneye, Turok, or Mortal Kombat. They found Ocarina of Time alright, and the older one liked Tekken (III?). Mario Party was their jam though. Still, no games really hooked them until we got The Sims 2 for PC in 2004 and we could no longer get them away from the computer after that. My older brother also bought a used SNES with Bust-A-Move maybe in 2002 and both fell in love with this game, especially the older one. To this day, I'm still baffled she has more gaming stamina than I do.

My point? Men and women (I generalize, obviously) are drawn to different things when it comes to games and most things, really. The gaming industry's attempt at creating boss babes and female actions stars because of their lack of representation to attract more women is a fool's errand. You're still getting the same men who for the most part don't mind playing as women. It's not moving the needle, so this crusade is not only moronic, but fruitless and even damaging. Have they stopped to think that maybe women don't like shooting things and punching bad guys as much as men do? So even if it's a woman doing it, they won't be any more interested. Of course, they'll lie to you and state that almost 50% of gamers are women, ignoring that, as I say, they're more likely to play Farmville and Candy Crush than COD or Elden Ring. It's alright for women not to be into action games with big explosions. There's nothing shameful about that, but modern propaganda insists that they must go out there with the boys and play games they have no interest in. Do I have something against all the new female heroes? Not really. However, I do have something against the intent behind the trend that pushes something nobody asked for or want and that tries to convince us that "strong female characters" in action games are just as important to women. They aren't. Men and women aren't the same. Just because it's Jasmine wielding the shotgun instead of Steve won't make a difference.

There's a lot more I want to say, but I'll leave it at that.

You have a girlfriend?

 

[Woggleman]

That's a red flag.

Not really. Once she saw that his hair grew in game she wanted to grow a super beard.

She also loved Vice City and San Andreas.

 

[FIREKNIGHT2029]

This is true. It's why these companies will keep losing money and destroying franchises with this crusade they are on to force women into liking genres they don't care about.

I say this as someone who enjoys playing as female characters in games a lot of the time and has no problem with games like Horizon and Ghost of Yotei (Ghost of Yotei is probably gonna be by personal GOTY along with DS2).


Trying to forcefully create girl bosses in a failed attempt to bring more women into the action game genre always feels forced and artificial and mostly scares away male gamers and ends up not attracting female gamers anyway. Also, changing established male oriented franchises in an attempt to attract female gamers will always lead to failure.

 

[april6e]

And yet there are numerous examples of recent games that people have criticised for not following this rule (TLOU2, Horizon 2, Hogwarts Legacy, etc.) that sold well and got great scores.

The fiction that these people have in their heads about how devs are somehow hurting or losing everything because they won't cater to what specific gamers want doesn't actually match reality.

 

[Gaiff]

You have a girlfriend?

Yes, but she doesn't know it yet.

 

[Chuck Berry]

Yes, but she doesn't know it yet.

My man. That's how you do it.

 

[Madserb2023]

It doesn't even have to be a gender thing. Individuals have different tastes in games. Me and my guy friends don't all like the same kinds of games. Conversely, my wife and I both love JRPGs.

No, its an average thing. Anyone can be a vegan, but a minority of the population are vegan. You can't run a business any other way. I wouldn't open a vegan restaurant in Buenos Aires but I would in Los Angeles. I don't particularly like FPS but most men do. I don't know why the concept of average has disappeared. Its like seeing a statistic that more people are obese today but disagreeing because your thin.

 

[AmuroChan]

You can't run a business any other way.

Well, you can, as we're seeing with a lot of game devs these days. The end results though, may not be what they hoped for, as we're also seeing.

 

[TheChumpNation]

One of the funniest trends in the last decade is devs, movie studios etc making female led action stories that star an unattractive female whose character arc has nothing to do with falling in love - and then wondering why their expensive experiment didn't resonate with women.

 

[mckmas8808]

Mods close this if this is too political. Gonna try to keep this short because I know y'all mofos don't read past the title.

A few days ago, I told my girlfriend to sell me on RDR2 because it's one of her favorite games ever. I watched her play and my opinion didn't budge. In fact, it was strengthened. However, through all her giggling and my grunting, I realized one thing: she didn't play the game the same way I did. What she mostly enjoyed is shit I don't care about; hunting, camping, caring for horses, brushing them, studying animals, going to town to get supplies and make money for the camp, interacting with people and just wandering about. Robbing? Killing? Starting fights? She only did those when she had to. She didn't care one bit for the action and at one point even asked me to complete a mission for her because she's a bad shot. She adores the story, writing, and characters, and cannot get enough of them. This reminded me of when I was younger and trying to get my sisters into video games. They couldn't have been less interested in Goldeneye, Turok, or Mortal Kombat. They found Ocarina of Time alright, and the older one liked Tekken (III?). Mario Party was their jam though. Still, no games really hooked them until we got The Sims 2 for PC in 2004 and we could no longer get them away from the computer after that. My older brother also bought a used SNES with Bust-A-Move maybe in 2002 and both fell in love with this game, especially the older one. To this day, I'm still baffled she has more gaming stamina than I do.

My point? Men and women (I generalize, obviously) are drawn to different things when it comes to games and most things, really. The gaming industry's attempt at creating boss babes and female actions stars because of their lack of representation to attract more women is a fool's errand. You're still getting the same men who for the most part don't mind playing as women. It's not moving the needle, so this crusade is not only moronic, but fruitless and even damaging. Have they stopped to think that maybe women don't like shooting things and punching bad guys as much as men do? So even if it's a woman doing it, they won't be any more interested. Of course, they'll lie to you and state that almost 50% of gamers are women, ignoring that, as I say, they're more likely to play Farmville and Candy Crush than COD or Elden Ring. It's alright for women not to be into action games with big explosions. There's nothing shameful about that, but modern propaganda insists that they must go out there with the boys and play games they have no interest in. Do I have something against all the new female heroes? Not really. However, I do have something against the intent behind the trend that pushes something nobody asked for or want and that tries to convince us that "strong female characters" in action games are just as important to women. They aren't. Men and women aren't the same. Just because it's Jasmine wielding the shotgun instead of Steve won't make a difference.

There's a lot more I want to say, but I'll leave it at that.

What makes you think men don't like doing those same things that your girlfriend likes?

 

[mckmas8808]

One of the funniest trends in the last decade is devs, movie studios etc making female led action stories that star an unattractive female whose character arc has nothing to do with falling in love - and then wondering why their expensive experiment didn't resonate with women.

Sometimes they get it right.

 

[Shadowstar39]

Sometimes they get it right.

Ughh why is there no barrel opening for that gun she has? Also looks like a seat belt strap and a load of plastic. That can't be the official gun in the movie, is it? Haven't seen Alien since the 1980s... Probably should rewatch soon.

 

[DirtInUrEye]

Thanks for the insight.