In Women And Gaming, we looked at the industry’s desire to interest more women in computer games. In Women And Gaming II, we saw the other side, women who work in the industry or play in competitive games. Now it’s my turn to say a few words.
I’ve never given much thought to the matter myself. When I started with gaming, the majority was male. That’s just how it was, and I didn’t bother about it.
On the other hand, I didn’t feel out of place, either. The fact that all the clerks and most of the customers in the store were male simply didn’t enter my consciousness.
When I got online, it was much the same. Only a small percentage of the members of my areas were female, although that did increase a bit over time. I remained more or less oblivious to the disparity, though I was aware of it.
My perception, my point of view, then as now, is simple: we’re all gamers together. Nothing else matters. Not sex, not age, not color, not religion, not country, not ethnic background.
When people wrote to me, online or off, the only thing that went through my mind was “gamer needs help”. Anything else was irrelevant.
So, as regards gaming, gender has always been a non-issue for me. It’s like anything else: some people like it, and some don’t. At the moment, the “like it” group is heavily male. For all that, I’m certainly glad that more women are playing games these days.
To answer my own question posed in the first article: no, I don’t believe games should be made “just for women”. That really is too much like segregation. It would be setting women apart from the mainstream of gaming, which is bad.
Creating more games that women would enjoy playing is another matter. We’ve already noted adventures and online games, with a few CRPGs. To put it another way, we need more products that appeal to both male and female players.
The emphasis is still on the “young male demographic”. What happens when they’re not so young any more? How many stay with gaming, and how many drop out because they’re bored by “same-old, same-old”?
New gamers are always coming in, but perhaps the industry should look more into how many stay in. That might give a new perspective, and a new direction that would provide games of interest to male and female, new and veteran gamers alike. The pool of possible gamers may be larger than some in the industry believe. It’s time they tested the waters a bit more thoroughly. We could all benefit from that.
I never considered gender in gaming. For the first 20 years or so that I played video games it was usually a solo activity. Only when MMORPGs came around did I start seeing more women in gaming.
I think the reason most drop out later in life is because real life takes over. You no longer have the time to devote to gaming that you did when you were younger. I know my activities have been curtailed a lot since my children were born, but I also wouldn’t have it any other way since I would rather spend my leisure doing activities with them than smiting Foozle for the umpteenth time. A good article was recently posted on Wired talking about the length of games and how it was hard to complete them with limited gaming time.
http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,71836-0.html?tw=wn_index_10
A small market cannot support niche products for a sub-demographic. The marked itself is by definition a niche. As a market grows more and more niche products are likely. Take the whole deer-hunter thing. It is definitely a niche product that has little or nothing to do with “gamers”. But there it is. My daughters have “games for girls” or “Barbie” games. Back when Wizardry was in black and white “kids games” didn’t exist. Now they have an entire section in the store. I think games for women aren’t a necessity or a desirable, I think they are an inevitability. The question is really more when and will they be any good. Given my view of the industry my answers are: soon and no.
Now, games about women: That’s what I’m talking about. (wanders off in search of Larry)
I don’t think they should make games specifically for women. That seems silly and really limits your market, too. I do think they should make more games that women like - adventure, roleplaying, character and story driven games. Men like those, too!
I also think the marketing needs to be a little more “general public” friendly, not necessarily slanted toward women specifically. Some of the current marketing campaigns really don’t appeal to anyone but action-oriented markets. The Oblivion tv ads, for example, only showcased the combat action and was edited in that frenetic style that leaves me wondering what the heck I just saw. They mentioned nothing about the characters, the storyline (other than the voiceover “close shut the jaws of Oblivion” at the end, which tells you nothing), or even that it WAS a role-playing game at all. It was marketed toward XBox customers and action-game players (and I suspect young males in general). Which is fine to pull those people in, but they could also run ads for OTHER demographics to appeal to the assumed actual game audience, CRPG players.
I agree with you Scorpia. I’ve always believed that gaming companies are missing a huge market by only addressing the “young male demographicâ€.
I think the only company that gets it is Nintendo. Some people mock Nintendo for making kiddie games but I think they are missing the point. Nintendo is trying to address the part of the market that has no interest in shooting games.
I’m looking forward to the Nintendo Wii, and am currently enjoying games on my DS and Gamecube. The only games I play on my PC are adventure games. I use to love RPGs on the PC, but there are few released lately, and those few don’t seem to interest me.
malcolmm, I too am looking forward to the Wii. I think that may well apply to the current topic as well. What if it isn’t the kind of games, but the controls that puts off many users? With it’s innovative new style of control, the Wii may actually pull in more new gamers than anything in recent memory. What is the main difference in PC gaming and console gaming? Argueably it is the controls, one uses keyboard and mouse and the other a joystick. The Wii will allow precision pointing on screen, something that is hard to do with a joystick but easy with a mouse. That opens up a whole lot of gaming possibilities that would have been hard to implement before on a console. I have been a PC gamer since the early 80s, and the Wii is the first console launch that I have actually been interested in, largely due to it daring to try something different. So far I don’t see many launch titles that appeal to me, but I definately see the possibilities in the future.
Hey, let’s not forget the Apple had paddles. Remember those? I had them and a joystick on my computers back then.
I had a joystick on my PC long ago (but not paddles). Had to add a Gravis joystick to play Wing Commander way back when.
GelleKlara, I had a Wingman Extreme for the PC. Wing Commander 1-3, Descent 1-2, and Terminal Velocity was all I ever used it for. I also had joysticks and paddles on my old Atari 800, though Breakout was really the only game that supported the padddles that I knew of.
I remember going from the joystick on the Atari 800 to the mouse on the Atari ST and the more precise control possible with the mouse.
Regardless of gender I believe that the industry must stop catering to the teen male. The 30+ and even 40+ crowd of gamers is growing fast and they are also the demographic with the most disposable income. The industry need to realize that and cater to them, male and female. Keep making “kiddie” games for the teens, after all, you need influence the new potential players, but focus on us adults and we’ll gladly open our wallets.
Of course, we also have to keep in mind that the game designers themselves are fairly young.
But yes, I think there are plenty of “mature” people out there would get into (or back into) gaming if only the products were there.
And Vag, I’ve been enjoying your comments. Thanks for taking the time to look over the site and leave your thoughts.