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[boiled goose]

A lot of people play the "artistic integrity" card. In that situation yeah, all requests are equivalent. Either the art is "pure" or it isn't

Spoiler

It isn't. It almost never is.

It is an interesting discussion.
Partially, it rarely is because a lot of decisions are made by marketers/suits/execs rather than the creators.

Another more subtle point is that currently a lot of creators are of a particular demographic, hence they naturally create stories featuring characters they can relate to and story arcs that appeal to them.

 

[Harlequin]

The main points of the article:

- Originally, publishers didn't know the composition of their audience, so they marketed games to a general audience.
- The advent of market research showed that the majority of the market was male.
- Advertisers decided to target the male majority audience, almost exclusively.
- This created the perception that the audience was exclusively male.

Unfortunately, it doesn't really give much insight on why the audience was majority male to begin with, aside from some well-worn arguments about men being more interested in new technology - basically explaining one gender-specific stereotype with another.

I think the reason for that would be that most games at the time were developed by males. Back then game development was very heavily focused on programming and technology, not so much on art (nowadays it's pretty evenly balanced but back then it wasn't), and that was (and I think it still is - though not to the same extent) a male-dominated field of work. So obviously, male developers were more likely to create games which appealed more to male audiences. I'm sure if a big publisher founded an all-female studio now (there are lots of talented females in the industry nowadays) and gave them a proper budget and the freedom to do what they wanted the results would be pretty interesting.

 

[Shingro]

I did not say "No one wants the companies to be forced to do something." I said that it was not my position and that it was not a position that was advocated in the article. I think it is also true of the people who are arguing positions broadly similar to mine, though I couldn't say with confidence that it is true for every person.

In short: I was not being disingenuous, I was not making a blanket statement about "everyone," and I don't appreciate being misrepresented so you can accuse me of being disingenuous.

And I'm going to leave it at that.

That's fair, I assumed that the conversation had gotten into the broader topic of this whole push and pull of what is to be done about games/women/market segments/companies etc.

I didn't really mean it as an accusation towards you personally in an offensive sense, more a reminder that the scope of this argument tends to include people far more severe then you may be. Many people with strong attachment to positions tend to forget that every position worth fighting for will have people who believe 'pointing it out and maybe something will be done.' isn't good enough. If I can only talk about what's in this particular thread, then by all means I'm sorry.

You're right, I conflated that statement with other discussions I've had on similar topics online, and it's completely possible to read that as me accusing you of making a false statement rather then just using a blanket statement I felt was a touch too wide. It's usually the point where I feel the conversation backs away from stating a clear thesis and things just devolve into emotional appeals. That's entirely my bad. My apologies if you took that as accusation of you personally being nefarious. I fully recant any personal accusation to you in that matter. (for whatever that's worth.)

If I've caused any offense let me be the first to apologize. I very much want people to start saying things more straight out and talking about substance and ideas. I have the sense that many people are getting very fatigued and reactionary to the topic in gaming and it's a topic worth discussing.

So long as we're being honest I'm a bit bummed that of all the thoughts in the post that's the single sticking point people decided to respond to. I thought of it as more reminding us all that rational people tend to stand on the middle ground of the bell curve, but there's small tails to either side of us.

Honestly, I'm not trying to start trouble here. Just want to get this moving into a more practical sphere, or jeeze, failing that just understanding why people disagree with me.

 

[JesseEwiak]

It isn't. The stigma was liberally applied to game fans by all segments of the non-game playing population. It wasn't all that long ago that neither the games nor the players were considered cool.

Video games probably cemented its audience back in the arcade days. And I'm not referring to the brightly lit, family friendly houses of fun popularized by Chuck E Cheese and Dave and Busters. Whatever sort of concentrated marketing strategies emerged for consoles and consoles games probably got their initial wave of data by studying patterns at the arcade.

...and 10 to 15 years ago, PBR was swill that old rednecks and drunks bought because it was cheap. Now, they appeal to a whole other demographic. If a beer company can pull that off, and make no mistake, the company that owns PBR helped with branding the hipster image of the beer, I think a video game company can pull it off.

 

[Harlequin]

I think the hardest thing to do will not be to make quality, high production value games which appeal to women but to A) convince publishers that pursuing this market is a good idea and B) convince women that games are not just for men and boys.

Concerning the latter, if a publisher actually wanted to open the market more to women, I think a good start would be to use a licence which is already popular with women/girls (Hunger Games/Twilight/Vampire Diaries/Sex & the City/...) and then spend some good money to make a quality game adaptation (RPG would probably be the best fit...or maybe an "interactive drama" like Heavy Rain) and market it properly.

 

[LaserHawk]

It also misses the point of the thread and the article. This isn't complaining about macho and sexist games pushing women away; it's investigating why games are so strongly split along male/female lines in the first place. With movies, for example, there are movies aimed at men and movies aimed at women, but most movies are aimed at everyone. How often can you say the same thing about a game, especially one with a high budget?

I don't disagree with what you're saying about where movies and games are aimed, but I don't think it really does miss the point of the thread and article... He/She is saying that while we want game developers to branch out and try to appeal to women better, we're essentially asking them to stick their own necks out and defy marketing data, risking their jobs. It would be nice if they did, but game developers have no legal or social obligation to appeal to ANY demographic.

I also agree with Shingro's sentiment that there's nothing wrong with appealing to a specific demographic. The article specifically explains why it's advantageous, and I see nothing morally wrong with making a game boys would like and then advertising to boys. People act like it's a crime, but it's only bad because it's so common... Or the assumption that if something is marketed to boys, girls aren't allowed to enjoy it.

 

[JesseEwiak]

Concerning the latter, if a publisher actually wanted to open the market more to women, I think a good start would be to use a licence which is already popular with women/girls (Hunger Games/Twilight/Vampire Diaries/Sex & the City/...) and then spend some good money to make a quality game adaptation (RPG would probably be the best fit...or maybe an "interactive drama" like Heavy Rain) and market it properly.

The main issue with that is the licensees have determined that the AAA market isn't viable for female-leaning properties after looking at the past twenty years, so you have the Hunger Games facebook game being the main outlet for The Hunger Games.

It would be nice if they did, but game developers have no legal or social obligation to appeal to ANY demographic.

It's weird, but I remember a lot of talk about the obligations of certain large console manufacturers to not include certain features in their system, because it being anti-consumer.

I also agree with Shingro's sentiment that there's nothing wrong with appealing to a specific demographic. The article specifically explains why it's advantageous, and I see nothing morally wrong with making a game boys would like and then advertising to boys. People act like it's a crime, but it's only bad because it's so common... Or the assumption that if something is marketed to boys, girls aren't allowed to enjoy it.

The problem is almost every AAA game is male 18-29 focused. Do you think that every video game was about horses, sparkly glitter, and princesses, you'd be interested in video games? Oh, and as a bonus, every male character in the game looked like Edward from Twilight.

 

[Laughing Banana]

I wonder: if we collect all members of GAF in one place and ask them to participate in a poll in which the question is:

"Do you consider FarmVille, Candy Crush, etc etc as proper games or not?"

What would the end result be?

 

[Harlequin]

The main issue with that is the licensees have determined that the AAA market isn't viable for female-leaning properties after looking at the past twenty years, so you have the Hunger Games facebook game being the main outlet for The Hunger Games.

I see. So that means the publishers would have a lot of convincing to do. Still, I don't think it'd be impossible to get a licence like that (I mean, there's more than one big media franchise popular with women out there). The much more difficult part, I imagine, will be to get a big game publisher to even consider the idea .

 

[Bobs Big Boy]

The videogames I've played made for women are sad. Have played a couple with women directly involved that are appealing to men. The industry has a lot of room to grow.

 

[Shinta]

Sounds like a personal problem.

Seriously lol? Were you alive in the 80s?

 

[Vaporak]

Gender can definitely be fluid, yes. I believe the word you're looking for is "sex", your penis makes your biological sex male.

Gender as you mean it is a recent appropriation of the word by feminist academics, and not in any way the "real" definition. The predominate definition of the word outside feminist theory is just biological sex, and you shouldn't get upset when people use it that way or try and "correct" them when they do.

 

[LaserHawk]

The problem is almost every AAA game is male 18-29 focused. Do you think that every video game was about horses, sparkly glitter, and princesses, you'd be interested in video games? Oh, and as a bonus, every male character in the game looked like Edward from Twilight.

Now see, that's another sticky issue.

Let's say there are 95 out 100 developers making a AAA game that is male 18-29 focused. None of those 95 developers is doing something wrong. They're within their rights to make the game they want. But we like to gather them up and accusingly wag our fingers at them collectively as if they had collaborated as a group to make it that way. But they didn't! The issue isn't that they did what they did, it's that SO MANY of them did it. And yet none of them did anything wrong.

So say we're all down with the idea of aiming more games at females... Which of those 95 developers has to change and which of them gets to keep doing what they were doing? Who decides?

So to tie back to your example, YES, it sucks when an entire industry is so focused on catering to one demographic. But when a developer essentially says, "We don't want women's money," it's not our job to shake them by the neck and say "YES YOU DO!" They still get to make the games they want to make.

 

[Giolon]

The article certainly was interesting, and certainly seems like a plausible explanation, but I'd have liked it more if they hadn't made so many large jumps between sections. Every time the color changed it was almost like switching to a new article.

I think the article has real salient points about how casual games aren't considered real games either by hardcore traditional gamers or the general public that indulges in said casual games and how the public perception about how violent and dangerous video games are stems a lot from these moral panics that keep popping up. I'm surprised they skipped the association between Adam Lanza and Dynasty Warriors that the mass media were so keen on making - a dangerous game where you assume the powerful role of a medieval warrior and mow down thousands of enemies! It's like, "Who wants to associate what with mass murderers and psychopaths do in their free time? I mean, so much else about them seems the same as me, but this one thing I don't know much about is different so that must be the cause! It looks bad! Ban it!"

Some how the "girls don't/can't play games!" thing is something that passed me by as a child of the 80s/90s. Maybe it's b/c my mom loved (and still loves 2D) Mario, Space Invaders, and Tetris. Maybe it's b/c I grew u on a street of mostly girls, and one of them in particular was my gaming buddy in elementary school and early jr high; she had this "awesome!" NES cartridge, that I now know to be pirated, that had 101 games on it; I remember we'd draw cool characters based on artwork from Secret of Mana in Nintendo Power. Maybe it's b/c my girl friends in high school loved Zelda and Pokémon. I always saw female game creators like Roberta Williams in Sierra's quarterly promotional magazine (can anyone remember what it was called?) I remember watching TV shows like Nick Arcade where boys and girls competed at video games equally.

And while I do remember the 90s advertising showing how "cool" video games were and lots of images of boys playing them, I can't think of any time in my life before say Tony Hawk where video games were actually considered cool and played by "normal" people who weren't just nerds, geeks or otherwise uncool people. So, I don't know when even the public belief that girls don't play video games entered my head, but it must have at some point just from empirical experience.

Over time, a smaller and smaller percentage of people that I knew in real life that played video games were women, to such a vanishingly small percent, particularly since I graduated college, that when one does pop up it's like "Oh you play video games? That's cool! Let's talk about it! What do you like?!" and that's about it. I've never felt that being a girl automatically made someone worse at playing video games.

 

[MC Safety]

...and 10 to 15 years ago, PBR was swill that old rednecks and drunks bought because it was cheap. Now, they appeal to a whole other demographic. If a beer company can pull that off, and make no mistake, the company that owns PBR helped with branding the hipster image of the beer, I think a video game company can pull it off.

The beer hasn't changed, though. It's still the same swill sold as Pabst but now pushed at hipsters as PBR, right?

Video games have expanded and grown in many different ways beyond the dimly lit arcade and the quarter-sucking arcade game.

 

[jimi_dini]

I wonder: if we collect all members of GAF in one place and ask them to participate in a poll in which the question is:

"Do you consider FarmVille, Candy Crush, etc etc as proper games or not?"

What would the end result be?

If you ask them using an actual thread, the end result will be a few bans and the answer will be "yes, those are games as well, just like the latest shooty shooty Uncharted and the latest shooty shooty Killzone."

 

[Jintor]

Now see, that's another sticky issue.

Let's say there are 95 out 100 developers making a AAA game that is male 18-29 focused. None of those 95 developers is doing something wrong. They're within their rights to make the game they want. But we like to gather them up and accusingly wag our fingers at them collectively as if they had collaborated as a group to make it that way. But they didn't! The issue isn't that they did what they did, it's that SO MANY of them did it. And yet none of them did anything wrong.

So say we're all down with the idea of aiming more games at females... Which of those 95 developers has to change and which of them gets to keep doing what they were doing? Who decides?

So to tie back to your example, YES, it sucks when an entire industry is so focused on catering to one demographic. But when a developer essentially says, "We don't want women's money," it's not our job to shake them by the neck and say "YES YOU DO!" They still get to make the games they want to make.

I can't help but feel you're constructing a similar strawman here as was being made previously. Nobody is shaking a big stick at developers as a whole saying "It's imperative that the gaming industry as a single monolithic block stop targeting men and start targeting women because of reasons". Nor are we saying all, or even some, or specific gaming companies need to target a consumer base that they don't want to target. But the fact is that all these individual decisions do have cumulative ramifications, and these ramifications are problematic to some observers - whether in gaming or outside of it.

Obviously it is up to individual developers, publishers, actors et al to decide whether or not they care about this problem, and as some have suggested likely larger corporations will not until there is a decent profit motive to be found. But there's nothing wrong with us talking this out, and then perhaps trying to talk to creators to convince them about positions regarding this issues.

 

[The Librarian]

There's no reason women would find certain types of games more appealing than other games rooted in biological factors.

I wouldn't go that far. Women are pumped with estrogen just as men are pumped with testosterone. These hormones affect the way you think and spur interests in different things. But because everybody is different, their effects vary.

Gender as you mean it is a recent appropriation of the word by feminist academics, and not in any way the "real" definition. The predominate definition of the word outside feminist theory is just biological sex, and you shouldn't get upset when people use it that way or try and "correct" them when they do.

Eh, I don't think so. It's more a use for transgender individuals than anything.

 

[Jintor]

On a side note, are there any modern day female gaming 'auteurs' still operating? People around the same recognition space as, say, Kojima, Schafer, Suda51 - any 'names', I guess you would say. The only ones I can really think of off-hand are Christine Love in the Western visual novel space, Rhianna Pratchett (for better or for worse) as a writer, not a designer, and Jade Raymond of Ubisoft, though more as a producer than a designer (and she still cops a lot of flak even in that role).

 

[LaserHawk]

I can't help but feel you're constructing a similar strawman here as was being made previously. Nobody is shaking a big stick at developers as a whole saying "It's imperative that the gaming industry as a single monolithic block stop targeting men and start targeting women because of reasons". Nor are we saying all, or even some, or specific gaming companies need to target a consumer base that they don't want to target. But the fact is that all these individual decisions do have cumulative ramifications, and these ramifications are problematic to some observers - whether in gaming or outside of it.

You're right. I guess I'm saying that I recognize that there's a problem, but I don't see any easy solutions that don't involve outright forcing people to do things they shouldn't have to. I guess that's what's so frustrating about this topic. It always boils down to the fact that we only have two options: Talk about it and hope somebody listens or learn to create the kinds of games we wish existed.

 

[Htown]

I wonder: if we collect all members of GAF in one place and ask them to participate in a poll in which the question is:

"Do you consider FarmVille, Candy Crush, etc etc as proper games or not?"

What would the end result be?

they'd say no, but they'd be wrong

just played Candy Crush for the first time

it's bejeweled

unless puzzle games suddenly don't count as games, candy crush is a proper game

if it's not, then you have to toss out tetris, puyo puyo, puzzle league, etc

 

[Shinta]

You're right. I guess I'm saying that I recognize that there's a problem, but I don't see any easy solutions that don't involve outright forcing people to do things they shouldn't have to. I guess that's what's so frustrating about this topic. It always boils down to the fact that we only have two options: Talk about it and hope somebody listens or learn to create the kinds of games we wish existed.

In my opinion, the obvious solution is to buy products that do things that you like, and to try and generate interest in those products in other people through posting online and talking to people about why you like/are excited for the game.

The Last of Us almost had a different cover without Ellie on it, but the game sold well. So we'll probably see more like it.

Remember Me did not sell well.

Beyond: Two Souls did not sell well.

Tomb Raider did sell well, and we are getting a sequel, probably announced at VGX this month.

Mirror's Edge did not sell well. But we're still getting a sequel for next gen systems anyway, so the series has a 2nd chance to prove it has a viable market.

Gravity Rush sold okay, but ultimately not well enough. We're still getting a sequel for Vita, so this also has a 2nd chance.

Super Mario 3D World just came out on Wii U, and it features a playable Princess Peach, something that supposedly is really important to a lot of feminist critics of video games. But Mario 3D World is the worst sales debut for a 3D Mario title ever in the first month. Nintendo games always have long tails, but the holiday start is disappointing so far and the sales do not reinforce that a lot of people care enough about playing Peach to spend their money, yet.

Those are all AAA games, just off the top of my head. Not counting indie games.

Child of Light is about to come out too. I haven't heard anyone praising the female lead, or trying to drum up interest in the game specifically for women.

they'd say no, but they'd be wrong

just played Candy Crush for the first time

it's bejeweled

unless puzzle games suddenly don't count as games, candy crush is a proper game

if it's not, then you have to toss out tetris, puyo puyo, puzzle league, etc

It's all in first defining what "proper" even means. Is it a game? Of course. Is it a "proper" game? What does that even mean?

 

[mrklaw]

I wonder if some of this fed into the Wii exploding like it did? While the majority of gamers in the early days might have been male, was it enough of a majority to simply ignore all female gamers and focus solely on males? These days that has become incredibly focused so most games are aimed at 18-35 males.

So when the Wii comes along and offers a broader, inclusive message of fun for all, it was received really well.

It seems silly to ignore segments of the market. I realise when you have massive budgets you want to minimise risk, but by doing so you are also limiting your potential. Maybe indie games can help here? It isn't just women, but older gamers too. I was watching the Charlie brooker TV program about gaming and realised I grew up alongside it. Anyone else that did is in their late 30s/early 40s. Are we going to be ignored too? At some point you're just leaving too much money on the table.

 

[patapuf]

I wonder if some of this fed into the Wii exploding like it did? While the majority of gamers in the early days might have been male, was it enough of a majority to simply ignore all female gamers and focus solely on males? These days that has become incredibly focused so most games are aimed at 18-35 males.

So when the Wii comes along and offers a broader, inclusive message of fun for all, it was received really well.

It seems silly to ignore segments of the market. I realise when you have massive budgets you want to minimise risk, but by doing so you are also limiting your potential. Maybe indie games can help here? It isn't just women, but older gamers too. I was watching the Charlie brooker TV program about gaming and realised I grew up alongside it. Anyone else that did is in their late 30s/early 40s. Are we going to be ignored too? At some point you're just leaving too much money on the table.

There were quite a few graphs about demographic split on platforms in the thread. I think much like games targeted at women are mainly on PC and phones, that's where games targeted at "older" gamers are going to be most porminent too, for similar reasons.

These are also platforms where the Marketing and production values power of the AAA guys is the weakest, which allows for different type of games - and games with a smaller budget, to be successful more easily.

 

[jimi_dini]

Out of my personal experience:

I got a PC back when I was 9 or 10 or something. "Hey those games are nice and there is this file called basic.com, I wonder what it does. Let's figure out stuff."

A female friend back then got a C64. "Hey those games are nice. Let's play them." And that's it.

A male friend. "Hey those games are nice. Let's play them." And that was it as well.

A tiny percentage of people want to figure that stuff out. The majority does not want to do that. And the majority of that tiny percentage are males. There are a few females here and there, but it's a minority. Still saying that that's because they never got a PC, when they were kids, is crazy, because plenty of them got one. They just didn't want to do that. They wanted to play games and so on. Not try around in the command-line or in BASIC or assembly. So many people got that "toy" called a "computor" as well. They just want to have it "work". Back then when there was only DOS, most computer users were male, because it was extremly complicated to do stuff. Nowadays that changed, because "computors" just "work" somewhat. I mean there are now tablet devices, that work even better. That's why so many people are buying tablet devices. They simply don't want be bothered and I totally understand that. I'm a developer myself and even I don't want to be bothered by most of the computor (Windows) stuff anymore.

Your comic is sexist anyway. Calling a "doll" a "girl's toy". What did marketing call dolls for boys? Right, action figures. But actually those were dolls for boys. "What did they do?" "Well, those are action figures. Be Donatello."

 

[Harlequin]

Out of my personal experience:

I got a PC back when I was 9 or 10 or something. "Hey those games are nice and there is this file called basic.com, I wonder what it does. Let's figure out stuff."

A female friend back then got a C64. "Hey those games are nice. Let's play them." And that's it.

A male friend. "Hey those games are nice. Let's play them." And that was it as well.

A tiny percentage of people want to figure that stuff out. The majority does not want to do that. And the majority of that tiny percentage are males. There are a few females here and there, but it's a minority. Still saying that that's because they never got a PC, when they were kids, is crazy, because plenty of them got one. They just didn't want to do that. They wanted to play games and so on. Not try around in the command-line or in BASIC or assembly. So many people got that "toy" called a "computor" as well. They just want to have it "work". Back then when there was only DOS, most computer users were male, because it was extremly complicated to do stuff. Nowadays that changed, because "computors" just "work" somewhat. I mean there are now tablet devices, that work even better. That's why so many people are buying tablet devices. They simply don't want be bothered and I totally understand that. I'm a developer myself and even I don't want to be bothered by most of the computor (Windows) stuff anymore.

The question is why there are seemingly (is there a study on this?) more boys interested in that kind of stuff than girls and that's where we got to the whole nature vs nurture argument in psychology. Is it because boys and girls are born thinking/behaving differently or is it just boys and girls being taught to think/behave differently the moment they are born?

 

[Zoc]

I don't disagree with what you're saying about where movies and games are aimed, but I don't think it really does miss the point of the thread and article... He/She is saying that while we want game developers to branch out and try to appeal to women better, we're essentially asking them to stick their own necks out and defy marketing data, risking their jobs. It would be nice if they did, but game developers have no legal or social obligation to appeal to ANY demographic.

I also agree with Shingro's sentiment that there's nothing wrong with appealing to a specific demographic. The article specifically explains why it's advantageous, and I see nothing morally wrong with making a game boys would like and then advertising to boys. People act like it's a crime, but it's only bad because it's so common... Or the assumption that if something is marketed to boys, girls aren't allowed to enjoy it.

All that is necessary is for the people who make games to hear from women that want to play them, but are put off, why that is. NeoGAF, incidentally, is a great place for that to happen when feminist threads in the gaming forum aren't shat up.

It's not censorship, it's just listening to your audience.

 

[Laughing Banana]

In my opinion, the obvious solution is to buy products that do things that you like, and to try and generate interest in those products in other people through posting online and talking to people about why you like/are excited for the game.

The Last of Us almost had a different cover without Ellie on it, but the game sold well. So we'll probably see more like it.

Remember Me did not sell well.

Beyond: Two Souls did not sell well.

Tomb Raider did sell well, and we are getting a sequel, probably announced at VGX this month.

Mirror's Edge did not sell well. But we're still getting a sequel for next gen systems anyway, so the series has a 2nd chance to prove it has a viable market.

Gravity Rush sold okay, but ultimately not well enough. We're still getting a sequel for Vita, so this also has a 2nd chance.

Super Mario 3D World just came out on Wii U, and it features a playable Princess Peach, something that supposedly is really important to a lot of feminist critics of video games. But Mario 3D World is the worst sales debut for a 3D Mario title ever in the first month. Nintendo games always have long tails, but the holiday start is disappointing so far and the sales do not reinforce that a lot of people care enough about playing Peach to spend their money, yet.

Those are all AAA games, just off the top of my head. Not counting indie games.

Child of Light is about to come out too. I haven't heard anyone praising the female lead, or trying to drum up interest in the game specifically for women.

I am sorry, but to attach something like "do not reinforce that a lot of people care enough about playing Peach to how Super Mario 3D World underperformed is just silly. Equating the inclusion of Peach to how the game performs in sales is just.. I don't know, really not logical?

Also, can we really always blame "because it features a female as lead" as a reason behind why most games that you list above sold under expectations...? I mean, Last of Us sold well, Tomb Raider sold well... maybe the reasons behind every other underperform is just their gameplay and such and such do not resonate with gamers, instead of "because the lead is female."

I mean, I really doubt Remember Me or Mirror's Edge or Gravity Rush would see an improvement in sales if they featured a man as their lead.

 

[patapuf]

The question is why there are seemingly (is there a study on this?) more boys interested in that kind of stuff than girls and that's where we got to the whole nature vs nurture argument in psychology. Is it because boys and girls are born thinking/behaving differently or is it just boys and girls being taught to think/behave differently the moment they are born?

The main problem with nature vs nurture is that both are highly variable in individuals. and neither biological nor environmental influences on behaviour are completely understood.

They are also not really seperable as environment can change biology and biology changes the environments we choose to live in.

It doesn't actually matter all that much why there is such a big discrepancy between the male and female interest in engineering. however the gap can be narrowed by improving "marketing/messaging" for activities in which you interact with technology, among other things.

 

[SolidSnakex]

I am sorry, but to attach something like "do not reinforce that a lot of people care enough about playing Peach to how Super Mario 3D World underperformed is just silly. Equating the inclusion of Peach to how the game performs in sales is just.. I don't know, really not logical?

Also, can we really always blame "because it features a female as lead" as a reason behind why most games that you list above sold under expectations...? I mean, Last of Us sold well, Tomb Raider sold well... maybe the reasons behind every other underperform is just their gameplay and such and such do not resonate with gamers, instead of "because the lead is female."

I mean, I really doubt Remember Me or Mirror's Edge or Gravity Rush would see an improvement in sales if they featured a man as their lead.

You might if you were a publisher

Look to that methodology to explain why all of Activision's flagship properties are male-led, says the source: "If Activision does not see a female lead in the top five games that year, they will not have a female lead," says the other source. "And the people that don't want a female lead will look at games like Wet and Bayonetta and use them as 'statistics' to 'prove' that female leads don't move mass units."

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/29719/InDepth_No_Female_Heroes_At_Activision.php

 

[Jintor]

I mean, I really doubt Remember Me or Mirror's Edge or Gravity Rush would see an improvement in sales if they featured a man as their lead.

Something like Remember Me or Mirror's Edge or Gravity Rush will be trotted out to prove that female leads don't shift units, but Homefront and generic failure of mil-shoot #324 will never prove that male leads don't shift units

 

[Harlequin]

They are also not really seperable as environment can change biology and biology changes the environments we choose to live in.

Which is why I did not say biology and environment but being born a certain way and being tought to be a certain way after birth.

It doesn't actually matter all that much why there is such a big discrepancy between the male and female interest in engineering. however the gap can be narrowed by improving "marketing/messaging" for activities in which you interact with technology, among other things.

No, it does. If it's like that at birth, then it's a natural difference we have to accept. If it's that way because of environmental factors after birth, then we have to change the way we bring up children of different genders in order to create true gender equality.

 

[Ikael]

President of the marketing firm A Squared Group Amy Cotteleer says that marketing is so powerful that it can shape our values and beliefs, and we're often not even aware that it's happening. Coca-Cola's marketing campaigns in the 1920s are the reason why the modern-day image of Santa Claus is a jovial, plump man in a Coca-Cola Red suit. Prior to Coca-Cola, there was no consistent image of Santa. He was often represented as a skinny man who sometimes wore green and sometimes wore brown. So if Coca-Cola could sell us the modern-day Santa, the game industry would not have had much trouble selling the idea that video games are for males.

There's so much wrong inside that quote that I don't know where to begin with. Tons of "conventional wisdom" (aka socially accepted bullshit) in here. But as an advertiser, let's try to clear some misconceptions:

- There's no "chicken and the egg" dylemma here. Marketing does NOT shapes values and society. Values and society shapes Marketing, with advertising being mostly a society's mirror (albeit one can argue that it is a hevily distorted one). Marketing is how society view itself. As opposed to art, marketing's nº1 aim is to generate revenue, first and foremost. If you happen to defend a value that hasn't been already embraced by the majority of your target public, you will likely not have another chance to do it so, which is why the intellectual vanguard in society is usually at the hand of artists and thinkers, people who work at fields where non-adherence to the norm is not punished but rather cherised and rewarded.

- Advertising affects a very extensive public, but only at a very superficial, behavioural level. Buying a product or putting a paper in a voting machine is important to society, but it requires a minimal involvement (and thus, it is of little importance importance) for the individual. The sad failure of anti-drugs and anti-domestic violence advertising campaigns have proved again and again that you can't modify deep individual beliefs and entrenched behaviour trought mass media and mass media alone. It has a deep impact in society due to the extension of its effects, not because of how much powerful they are. Mass media effects are wide, but swallow. The hypodermic needle media theories (aka "hypno-media") should be put to rest along with Malthusian doomsday prophecies and phrenology.

- "We're often not even aware that it's happening" See guys? This is why freudianism shouldn't be taught in American advertising schools (and some cognitive psychologists would argue that it shouldn't be thought at all, but let's better not get in there). Sexual innuendo has been ineffective at selling products, as so is the "subliminal advertising". That is because the individual might receive subliminal messages, but rather than absorbing them blindly, they are processed and filtered as well since your subsconscious is not "dumb" nor "automated" either.

- And no, Coca Cola did not Invent Santa Claus nor his attire. Albeit it is undeniable that this soda is a quinquaessential part of the American culture and iconography.

In short: gaming is getting more inclusive because more women are taking part on it, not vice versa. Consequently, both advertising and the gaming culture as a whole are changing as well. Slowly, like any other social artifact, but surely.

 

[dapperbandit]

In the article and the posts of this thread, it's apparent that girls play games and have for some time. They play games like the Sims, Myst, Sim City etc,.

Butwhy is it that women are less inclined to play games with a focus on combat/aggression? Is that because women enjoy these things less or because these game are typically marketed to males? Or a combination?

 

[B-Genius]

Something like Remember Me or Mirror's Edge or Gravity Rush will be trotted out to prove that female leads don't shift units, but Homefront and generic failure of mil-shoot #324 will never prove that male leads don't shift units

Sad state of affairs if this is the case. After reading that article I'm inclined to think that such games were not targeted at a specific audience, but rather put out there as interesting games trying to break the mold in some way.

I loved ME and will be picking up RM and GR at some point, but I don't feel as though those games were marketed at me. They simply drift into my line of sight and as a core male gamer with varied tastes I think "oh, interesting". Homefront and other genera-shooters rarely even become blips on the radar.

What might be good is for one of these new, fairly popular female lead IPs to get a huge marketing makeover for the sequel, and target it specifically and unabashedly at women. I'm no advertiser so I have no idea how they'd do this, but I like to think they could increase female interest while maintaining the original fanbase, thereby proving a certain game/genre's wider appeal.

*Good post

Thanks for your input.

 

[Shinta]

I am sorry, but to attach something like "do not reinforce that a lot of people care enough about playing Peach to how Super Mario 3D World underperformed is just silly. Equating the inclusion of Peach to how the game performs in sales is just.. I don't know, really not logical?

Why not? I haven't seen any threads from feminists on here talking about how much they enjoy playing Princess Peach in the GOTY candidate Mario 3D World. I've seen threads on here saying Mario is a sexist series. How do you explain this? Are the people complaining even in the market for actually purchasing a Mario game, in reality?

How many of those people are there?

Also, can we really always blame "because it features a female as lead" as a reason behind why most games that you list above sold under expectations...? I mean, Last of Us sold well, Tomb Raider sold well... maybe the reasons behind every other underperform is just their gameplay and such and such do not resonate with gamers, instead of "because the lead is female."

I mean, I really doubt Remember Me or Mirror's Edge or Gravity Rush would see an improvement in sales if they featured a man as their lead.

Valid points. It can be other things, sure. It's not the only factor, but if you guys think it doesn't matter, you are kidding yourselves. Positive sales for games with female leads certainly would help them get sequels in the future, right?

If 50% of gamers are female, and they are dying to play games with female leads, why aren't these games selling better? It's not bad gameplay. These are all AAA games I listed, just in the last year alone, not counting indies. I bought all of these games, and I'm importing Lightning Returns and getting it again in NA. Why didn't large numbers of female gamers buy these?

 

[Giolon]

All that is necessary is for the people who make games to hear from women that want to play them, but are put off, why that is. NeoGAF, incidentally, is a great place for that to happen when feminist threads in the gaming forum aren't shat up.

It's not censorship, it's just listening to your audience.

Asking for what you want is one thing. Admonishing and demonizing creators and their fans for not making, or encouraging, what you want and catering to your whim is another. I've seen a lot more of the latter around of recent times. I found this article really refreshing for staying away from it.

Something like Remember Me or Mirror's Edge or Gravity Rush will be trotted out to prove that female leads don't shift units, but Homefront and generic failure of mil-shoot #324 will never prove that male leads don't shift units

Sad but true. And the thing is, all of the above are pretty good, but not stellar games (and believe me, I loved me some Mirror's Edge). I can't think of the last time someone was willing to risk a truly big budget, mass market title from a Western publisher by letting a female character be the lead front and center (aside from Tomb Raider which doesn't count, IMO, b/c Lara has been around long enough to become a gaming icon). I'd love to see something like the next big Bioware franchise star a female character by default (or even as the only option).

 

[-SD-]

TURN UP THE VOLUME

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAHFvWATAP0

(Hard to believe that masterpiece is 21 years old already.)

 

[HolyBaikal]

People believing that behavioral differences in different groups of people comes from biology rather than society, completely disturbs me. Also, assuming something is biological in origin isn't helpful because we don't have technology to change that significantly yet. We do, however, have the ability to chance society, and there is a lot of evidence to show that the majority in differences between people come from society, rather than biology.

And the biotruthy explanation for things is mostly psuedoscience and has a rather disturbing history not just sexism, but racism and various kinds of biological elitism and discrimination going with it.

As for the subject of gender versus sex. Words do evolve, and since we already have a word to describe someone's biological sex, gender isn't also needed to describe that. It can be used to describe someone's identity. And is increasingly being used to mean that.

I think it's very sensible to distinguish between sex and gender.

 

[sonicmj1]

There's so much wrong inside that quote that I don't know where to begin with. Tons of "conventional wisdom" (aka socially accepted bullshit) in here. But as an advertiser, let's try to clear some misconceptions:

- There's no "chicken and the egg" dylemma here. Marketing does NOT shapes values and society. Values and society shapes Marketing, with advertising being mostly a society's mirror (albeit one can argue that it is a hevily distorted one). Marketing is how society view itself. As opposed to art, marketing's nº1 aim is to generate revenue, first and foremost. If you happen to defend a value that hasn't been already embraced by the majority of your target public, you will likely not have another chance to do it so, which is why the intellectual vanguard in society is usually at the hand of artists and thinkers, people who work at fields where non-adherence to the norm is not punished but rather cherised and rewarded.

Marketing can use society's existing values to create new trends and influence ideas. The Coke example is a poor one, but the better example would be diamond engagement rings, a social trend formed by marketing departments in order to create demand for DeBeers diamonds. Another obvious example would be holidays like Valentine's Day or Mother's Day, whose observance becomes a social obligation thanks to marketing.

 

[Giolon]

[Mirror's Edge, Gravity Rush, Remember Me didn't sell well]

Why not? I haven't seen any threads from feminists on here talking about how much they enjoy playing Princess Peach in the GOTY candidate Mario 3D World. I've seen threads on here saying Mario is a sexist series. How do you explain this? Are the people complaining even in the market for actually purchasing a Mario game, in reality?

How many of those people are there?

Valid points. It can be other things, sure. It's not the only factor, but if you guys think it doesn't matter, you are kidding yourselves. Positive sales for games with female leads certainly would help them get sequels in the future, right?

If 50% of gamers are female, and they are dying to play games with female leads, why aren't these games selling better? It's not bad gameplay. These are all AAA games I listed, just in the last year alone, not counting indies. I bought all of these games. Why didn't large numbers of female gamers?

I would say it's b/c none of those games have the qualities necessary to have been a mass market seller, and it has nothing to do with their lead characters being female.

As far as Peach being playable in Super Mario 3D World - there you have it right there an absolute top tier quality game w/ playable female character but it hasn't moved many units b/c it's on a poorly performing system. It shows that a) simply having a playable female character isn't enough, and b) simply also being a superbly rated and high quality game with broad appeal isn't enough and possibly c) the size of the audience interested specifically in better female representation isn't actually all that large to begin with. A whole confluence of the right conditions are going to have to come together (including being on a popular game console) for the right game at the right time in order to have a megahit starring a female character to "prove" that the market is there - if it's really as big as its proponents want to make it seem. It might actually be, or even be bigger, but because it's never been demonstrated, bean counters will take every excuse not to explore it.

 

[patapuf]

Which is why I did not say biology and environment but being born a certain way and being tought to be a certain way after birth.



No, it does. If it's like that at birth, then it's a natural difference we have to accept. If it's that way because of environmental factors after birth, then we have to change the way we bring up children of different genders in order to create true gender equality.

These are synonyms.

We change things from how we were born all the time. Some things can't be changed (men can't give birth to children) but there's no such barrier for a profession such as engineering (or playing videogames, to be on topic).

There's nothing morally reprehensible about motivating girls/women to be engineers or playing videogames even if they were inately less likely to choose that path.

People believing that behavioral differences in different groups of people comes from biology rather than society, completely disturbs me. Also, assuming something is biological in origin isn't helpful because we don't have technology to change that significantly yet. We do, however, have the ability to chance society, and there is a lot of evidence to show that the majority in differences between people come from society, rather than biology.

.

Ignoring biology is just as ignorant as ignoring the environment as both are linked, there is no way to understand behaviour by excluding either. There's also just as much pesudoscience around psychology/sociology as there is for biological behaviorism.

 

[Macleoid]

Why not? I haven't seen any threads from feminists on here talking about how much they enjoy playing Princess Peach in the GOTY candidate Mario 3D World. I've seen threads on here saying Mario is a sexist series. How do you explain this? Are the people complaining even in the market for actually purchasing a Mario game, in reality?

How many of those people are there?



Valid points. It can be other things, sure. It's not the only factor, but if you guys think it doesn't matter, you are kidding yourselves. Positive sales for games with female leads certainly would help them get sequels in the future, right?

If 50% of gamers are female, and they are dying to play games with female leads, why aren't these games selling better? It's not bad gameplay. These are all AAA games I listed, just in the last year alone, not counting indies. I bought all of these games, and I'm importing Lightning Returns and getting it again in NA. Why didn't large numbers of female gamers buy these?

Do you think that Mario sold worse for including a playable female character? Has this impaired anyone's enjoyment of it in any way?

 

[HolyBaikal]

Further on my point about the mind.

I'm not well educated on the subject, but from what I have read from various sources, luckily, there aren't any groups of humans with remarkably different minds than others.

Also, while the mind does have diversity between people, I don't think that estrogen and testosterone are as important of an influence as many people think. Women with autism are probably far more biologically different from other people in general, when compared to the differences between women and men causes by hormones, on average.

There is a limited amount known about the mind, but one thing that is known is that the mind is structured differently based upon experience. Very little seems to be "hard wired". And the mind is formed. There certainly are hard wired instincts, and they biologically vary from person to person. Influencing things like sexuality. However, from what I've read, it would appear that most of the mind changes over time.

This means that society is a major influence over biology. And that culture and experiences, such as gender upbringing will structure people's minds differently. The biology of the mind, from study, appears to be very dynamic and changing, and very little seems to be very static. And hormones like estrogen and testosterone only appear to be a few of many millions of influences on the mind. Just as there's evidence that estrogen and testosterone affect the mind, so, too, is there evidence that the trillions of bacteria that make up our bodies influence our minds, thoughts, and behavior in major ways.

If we're going to consider the possible effects of estrogen and testosterone on what people are passionate about. We should also consider things like the trillions of bacteria and their proven effects on the mind.

Since experience and society molds biology and how the mind works. And given thousands of studies on how much behavior and motivation are dependent upon social influences, I think it is very safe to assume that the vast majority of behavior is shaped by outside social influences.

As for what comes first in the video game industry, in terms of video games being considered a boy's hobby. It seems like the article has a pretty good history of the matter. But more importantly, it doesn't matter much whether a hobby or a past-time started off as dominated or promoted by any gender. It can be changed. It's possible that video games were slightly more popular with men than women in the beginning. And that marketing reinforced this idea and made it more extreme of a cultural phenomenon than it was.

What I find that matters is that it can be changed. And I think that the trends of male domination should change.

 

[Shinta]

Do you think that Mario sold worse for including a playable female character? Has this impaired anyone's enjoyment of it in any way?

No? What I'm suggesting is that its possible that a lot of people doing the bulk of the complaining online about these issues are a vocal minority that isn't actually all that interested in buying games on day one, even if they do cater to their demands.

3D World isn't worse for having Peach in it. But if Peach being in it doesn't impact sales at all, then clearly it is possible that this isn't a major issue keeping women up at night, like it is sometimes portrayed lately.

And ultimately, if the sales aren't there for these kinds of products, not as much time and money will be spent catering to it.

 

[Jonathan28]

I wonder: if we collect all members of GAF in one place and ask them to participate in a poll in which the question is:

"Do you consider FarmVille, Candy Crush, etc etc as proper games or not?"

What would the end result be?

I think you already know the answer to this question.

 

[rottame]

I don't usually like Polygon stuff, but this is a good article. Thanks for sharing.

The part that most resonated with me was this:


It reminded me of another recent thread. I think it's so important that we alter the message gradually, to show the whole world the potential of games, and present them as a "general purpose medium".

In theory, Sony could try the Apple approach. However, women are less willingly to spend money in videogames (this may explain Wii's low attach rate, or the fact that so many successful mobile with a big female audience are f2p). As long as women, on average, will spend so much less than men in gaming, you can't expect high priced consoles and AAA titles to be targeted at women.

 

[milena87]

As a girl from Italy (so on the conservative side of things) I can say that yes, other people constantly try to tell you what to like and enjoy.

I never played with dolls, as I found them boring and creepy. To this day, when I say this to other women, they think I was some sort of a freak. How could I dislike dolls?

I turned to Lego pretty quickly, but only my parents would allow me to buy the sets I liked (castles and pirates mostly), every other person bought me Paradise sets, because they were more appropriate for a girl. "How could I use those pinky blocks for my fortress?" I asked. They didn't care. I ended up owning all the Paradise sets over the years.

And I had of course a similar experience with videogames. I started playing when I was 4 years old, thanks to my cousins. My sisters played too (mostly Nintendo platformers and adventure games), one still does, but of all my friends I could convince only a few to at least try them (my greatest achievement was to lend Max Payne 1&2 in high school, and she loved them). Most didn't even want to pick up the controller and try to move around and learn the controls... They completely rejected the idea.
And I think that they rejected the idea because we were constantly told that videogames were for boys (and children at that) and that we needed to do better things with our time.

So, personally, I don't know if marketing for videogames alone was responsible for the medium to be seen as a boy thing, but it certainly had something to do with it (like all the marketing for toys in general, where things are clearly labeled for boys or girls). The rest did society's expectations and demands.

 

[Harlequin]

These are synonyms.

We change things from how we were born all the time. Some things can't be changed (men can't give birth to children) but there's no such barrier for a profession such as engineering (or playing videogames, to be on topic).

There's nothing morally reprehensible about motivating girls/women to be engineers or playing videogames even if they were inately less likely to choose that path.

Well, if we're to assume that by biology we mean genetics (which is what I thought you meant by it), then they really aren't synonyms because genetics are not the only thing affecting who and what we are at birth as there are already plenty of environmental influences inside the womb (the kind of food and/or substances the mother ingests, hormone levels in the womb, etc.). And I am well aware of our brain structure, etc. changing but most of those changes will be influenced by the outside world, by environmental factors. Not to mention that "biology" would also include certain changes after birth which are hardcoded into the organism like puberty.

And I never did say that that kind of thing was morally reprehensible. I certainly don't hope that that's what you got from my posts.

 

[rottame]

Further on my point about the mind.

I'm not well educated on the subject, but from what I have read from various sources, luckily, there aren't any groups of humans with remarkably different minds than others.

Also, while the mind does have diversity between people, I don't think that estrogen and testosterone are as important of an influence as many people think. Women with autism are probably far more biologically different from other people in general, when compared to the differences between women and men causes by hormones, on average.

There is a limited amount known about the mind, but one thing that is known is that the mind is structured differently based upon experience. Very little seems to be "hard wired". And the mind is formed. There certainly are hard wired instincts, and they biologically vary from person to person. Influencing things like sexuality. However, from what I've read, it would appear that most of the mind changes over time.

The nurture/nature is incredibly controversial, but I wouldn't downplay the impact of biology and evolution on the way we behave. Anyway, there a great Norwegian documentary about this issue and the gender gap. You can find it here.