New video! -Video Games and the Female Audience-

[sephfire]

Is that who she is? I just picked one of the only images I could find on Google that wasn't overly risque. My bad, I guess.

[Toadofsky]

I'm glad you highlighted this topic. I know how many "hardcore" gamers are so close minded with this rise in casual gaming. Sure, there's gonna be companies going for a quick buck, that's inevitable. But maybe, just maybe, some of those companies are trying to get more appeal to a larger audience.

With development costs still rising for games, how many titles are companies are gonna break even from their games? We don't want people to have to do what WOULD have had to happen with Shenmue right? If you don't know what I mean by that, Sega poured so much money into Yu Suzuki's masterpiece, that every Dreamcast owner would have had to buy Shenmue TWICE for Sega to break even.

So, anywho, yeah, the male demographic needs to be restrained quite a bit, and this is coming from a guy. But continuing the trend (and making a whole magazine about it *cough* Play Magazine's Girls of Gaming *cough*), will not help expand the industry.

Keep up the hard work on these videos, I enjoy them.

[Tensei]

Great vid as always, sephfire, but as a bit of a tomb raider buff, I feel the need to harass you about bringing it up . It might just be coincidence, but when you draw the line between Lara Croft as a sex symbol, and Lara Croft as the attractive, capable, female Indiana Jones, you use footage/artwork from the older games to illustrate her being a sex symbol, but post-legend artwork to make your point about her being the attractive, capable etc.

I bring this up because if I recall correctly, Tomb Raider: Legend was supposed to be the game where Lara got 'reinvented' to be a more mature, realistic character, and you'd be hard-pressed to find official post-legend artwork of her that's as risqué as the 'topless' artwork that came with the earlier games. The point I'm trying to make is that I think she's actually a lot closer to Gard's original vision of the character nowadays, and I do believe she's been quite succesfully reinvented as such, being a nice indicator of how the industry has 'matured' and even sort of emancipated women in games.

TL;DR Me spergin' out over the emancipation of Tomb Raider.

[sephfire]

Great vid as always, sephfire, but as a bit of a tomb raider buff, I feel the need to harass you about bringing it up . It might just be coincidence, but when you draw the line between Lara Croft as a sex symbol, and Lara Croft as the attractive, capable, female Indiana Jones, you use footage/artwork from the older games to illustrate her being a sex symbol, but post-legend artwork to make your point about her being the attractive, capable etc.

I bring this up because if I recall correctly, Tomb Raider: Legend was supposed to be the game where Lara got 'reinvented' to be a more mature, realistic character, and you'd be hard-pressed to find official post-legend artwork of her that's as risqué as the 'topless' artwork that came with the earlier games. The point I'm trying to make is that I think she's actually a lot closer to Gard's original vision of the character nowadays, and I do believe she's been quite succesfully reinvented as such, being a nice indicator of how the industry has 'matured' and even sort of emancipated women in games.

TL;DR Me spergin' out over the emancipation of Tomb Raider.

I liked her in Legend too. It was a pleasant surprise to see her become an interesting character. I haven't seen yet if Anniversary and Underworld continued the trend, but either way, I think most people (even most gamers, I'll bet) still think of her as Lara Croft: gaming's swimsuit model. Her reputation is just kind of solidified now. Shame, that.

[Arek the Absolute]

Well done dude.

Definitely agree with the points made in this.

[Vyse of Arcadia]

I've a female friend who plays a lot of RPGs. Whenever a sluttier character rears her..um, goods, my friend just says "Oh, come on!" and proceeds to ignore it. And she also does that with movies and comics and anime...

Video games aren't the only entertainment medium that sells directly to the male sex drive. Any "blockbuster" movie does, for example. It certainly does seem a lot more...overt in video games, though. At least in most movies they find reasons (however flimsy) for women to be scantily-clad.

I think the best point of the video was that there are always going to be games that appeal more to men and games that appeal more to women, but designing games to appeal to one or the other is doing more harm than good. Design great games, get your female characters to wear a little more clothing, and stop drawing artificial gender lines, developers. And if publishers don't want to take the risk, well, that's what indie and self-published games are for.

[K.B.]

Hmmm...

First off, as always, very well-done video. Interesting throughout. Put the compliment upfront because my post for your last video was idiotic and your videos are always good.

However, I wonder, did you intentionally shy away from the obvious question? That is: do we really want girls involved in the gaming culture? Do we want to change the substance of video games so that women will want to play them?

I'll use a movie example to show what I mean. I love Braveheart. It's fucking awesome. I can relate to the efforts of and personalities of just about all the main protagonists, to the sacrifices made for honor's sake, and to good kicking the ass of evil (in the end). But how many chicks love Braveheart? How many would put it in their top ten? From my experience, not many (and I know because I used to somehow manage to bring it up to most everyone I knew at some point). I could be wrong, but I don't think Mel made any compromises in making Braveheart. Sure, there was a love story, but it wasn't forced. And it was told from the man's perspective. Sure, there was backstory on the French hottie. But she had her head on straight and was worried about doing the right thing; even though she was holding out for love, she put right before her own desires. Plus, the good guy got to 'know' her. And, of course, there was a hell of a lot of swords and blood throughout.

What would Braveheart had been if it had made women a target audience? Your guess is as good as mine, but I'm certain it wouldn't have been Braveheart. It wouldn't have been nearly as awesome if I had to hear the plight of women involved in the movie. I don't care about women when I'm watching Braveheart. I care about loony Irishmen. I care about kicking the shit out of the bad guy. I care about putting right over your own life.

Back to video games. When you talk about dubiously scantilly-clad women and crass stereotypes, I'm with you. No need for them in mainstream gaming, and specialized games can always be made for the interested audience. But to bring women into the mainstream gaming world... yeah, I'd rather keep it a boy's club. I want to look at games from a man's perspective. If a game has a good design team and can do the balancing act, awesome; I'm all for it. For example, I couldn't care less that the controlled character in Portal is a woman. It doesn't affect the gameplay, storyline, etc. And I absolutely loved ICO. My folks and I had a good time playing it when they visited me (and hell it's been about a decade since I could get my mom even remotely interested in a video game). So you don't need gore and you don't need sex for a game to still be a guy's game (and it's obviously an enjoyable game for ladies too). However, if I play an RPG, I don't want to be a woman. I also don't want to drudge through blatantly-feminine sidekick dialoge or side quests that delve into the woman's world. That's not my thing. If games are made like this, that's cool; I won't hate on them. But I'm probably not going to buy them. And I'd rather have developers of my favorite franchises focusing on kicking ass and triumphing over evil in a completely 'ugh' manly way. Because that is my thing.

I'm not implying you were saying the only way to get women involved in mainstream gaming is to include sappy love-interest side plots. You didn't say that. But that's how it's done in other mediums. Because it works. And I don't want that for video games. I'd rather have my lady friend completely uninterested in my casual pastime than water down my pastime to involve my lady friend. It's not like there aren't better things for us to do together.

[longpost is looooooooooooong]

[Vyse of Arcadia]

What would Braveheart had been if it had made women a target audience? Your guess is as good as mine, but I'm certain it wouldn't have been Braveheart. It wouldn't have been nearly as awesome if I had to hear the plight of women involved in the movie.

I also don't want to drudge through blatantly-feminine sidekick dialoge or side quests that delve into the woman's world. That's not my thing. If games are made like this, that's cool; I won't hate on them. But I'm probably not going to buy them. And I'd rather have developers of my favorite franchises focusing on kicking ass and triumphing over evil in a completely 'ugh' manly way. Because that is my thing.

Well, no one is advocating "Lifetime Games." But I think the main point of the video was that we shouldn't be developing games (or movies or anything for that matter) for "target audiences." Games should not target specific audiences, that's part of the problem. Games should just try to be great games and find their own audiences. It's inevitable that sometimes those audiences will be predominantly male or predominantly female. (Case in point: Harvest Moon. In the US, at least, Harvest Moon fans seem to be mostly female, but I'm fairly certain the developers of the series weren't targeting farmers or women. It just happened that way.)

What we have now is mainstream game targeting male audiences, a small subsection of games targeting female audiences ("Cooking Mama" or "Barbie Horse Adventures"), and lots of male gamers whining because their significant others don't want to play mainstream games. What we need is more games that target no one in particular so that these artificial gender lines will go away and maybe more girls will play Halo and more guys will play Cooking Mama.

Well, let me take that back, I don't think Halo was targeted at male audiences any more than Braveheart was targeted at male audiences. But they were certainly marketed to male audiences. The result of which being that many women who would have been naturally interested in Halo and Braveheart were turned off because marketers decided to slap a "NO GIRLS ALLOWED" sticker on them. Why? Because they're the sorts of media that traditionally attract men, and marketers thought it would be better to try and attract a specific audience than to target a general audience.

Long rambling post concluded with, down with marketers!

[sephfire]

Hmmm...

First off, as always, very well-done video. Interesting throughout. Put the compliment upfront because my post for your last video was idiotic and your videos are always good.

However, I wonder, did you intentionally shy away from the obvious question? That is: do we really want girls involved in the gaming culture? Do we want to change the substance of video games so that women will want to play them?

I'll use a movie example to show what I mean. I love Braveheart. It's fucking awesome. I can relate to the efforts of and personalities of just about all the main protagonists, to the sacrifices made for honor's sake, and to good kicking the ass of evil (in the end). But how many chicks love Braveheart? How many would put it in their top ten? From my experience, not many (and I know because I used to somehow manage to bring it up to most everyone I knew at some point). I could be wrong, but I don't think Mel made any compromises in making Braveheart. Sure, there was a love story, but it wasn't forced. And it was told from the man's perspective. Sure, there was backstory on the French hottie. But she had her head on straight and was worried about doing the right thing; even though she was holding out for love, she put right before her own desires. Plus, the good guy got to 'know' her. And, of course, there was a hell of a lot of swords and blood throughout.

What would Braveheart had been if it had made women a target audience? Your guess is as good as mine, but I'm certain it wouldn't have been Braveheart. It wouldn't have been nearly as awesome if I had to hear the plight of women involved in the movie. I don't care about women when I'm watching Braveheart. I care about loony Irishmen. I care about kicking the shit out of the bad guy. I care about putting right over your own life.

Back to video games. When you talk about dubiously scantilly-clad women and crass stereotypes, I'm with you. No need for them in mainstream gaming, and specialized games can always be made for the interested audience. But to bring women into the mainstream gaming world... yeah, I'd rather keep it a boy's club. I want to look at game's from a man's perspective. If a game has a good design team and can do the balancing act, awesome; I'm all for it. For example, I couldn't care less that the controlled character in Portal is a woman. It doesn't affect the gameplay, storyline, etc. And I absolutely loved ICO. My folks and I had a good time playing it when they visited me (and hell it's been about a decade since I could get my mom even remotely interested in a video game). So you don't need gore and you don't need sex for a game to still be a guy's game (and it's obviously an enjoyable game for ladies too). However, if I play an RPG, I don't want to be a woman. I also don't want to drudge through blatantly-feminine sidekick dialoge or side quests that delve into the woman's world. That's not my thing. If games are made like this, that's cool; I won't hate on them. But I'm probably not going to buy them. And I'd rather have developers of my favorite franchises focusing on kicking ass and triumphing over evil in a completely 'ugh' manly way. Because that is my thing.

I'm not implying you were saying the only way to get women involved in mainstream gaming is to include sappy love-interest side plots. You didn't say that. But that's how it's done in other mediums. Because it works. And I don't want that for video games. I'd rather have my lady friend completely uninterested in my casual pastime than water down my pastime to involve my lady friend. It's not like there aren't better things for us to do together.

[longpost is looooooooooooong]

This is pretty reasonable, and you're not the only person to suggest this.

I don't really want ALL games to become gender neutral. I wouldn't want to lose my Bravehearts either. Even with more women involved in the industry, I think there will always be room for "guy games."

I'll stick with the film industry comparison. We've got a pretty decent male/female ratio going in that field, and there are movies for everyone. Guy movies, chick flicks and kids movies, as well as tons of movies that don't target anyone specifically. Movies don't have to be completely homogenized to suit a wide variety of tastes.

But what if the movie industry was overwhelmingly majority male? Sure we'd have our guy movies and some women might even get into them along with us, but that industry's output would be significantly different. We'd see far less variety in the kinds of movies being made and stories being told. Over time, the industry might stagnate.

That's kind of where I feel games have been. There are definitely games with universal appeal that have attracted both male and female fans (Sims, Zelda, etc), but there just doesn't seem to be much there to attract women to this medium. A lot of that might be the "Boy's Club" issue, but you see what I mean.

One commenter on the video came up with a great analogy. Think about romance novels. They make up a small percentage of the books out there. They aren't for us. We don't have any interest in them. Now imagine if 80% of all books on the market were romance novels. We would feel pretty excluded from the novel world. That's probably what the game industry looks like to many women.

In the end, I guess the main reason I want more girls getting into games isn't that I just want more girl gamers around. It would be fun having more girls around who liked our hobby, but that's just a minor issue. What I really want is to see more women involved in games, getting into the industry. Because that's a change that could really advance this medium. I really want to see the sort of games that industry produces.

Wooooooooooorrrrds.

[K.B.]

My apologies for the complete post rewrite. Newb mistake not to refresh before posting.

Yep, I concur. Not a bad analogy with the books, either. But truly, what you're pointing at is exactly what I fear: the middle-of-the-road games will be compromised.

Imagine a sliding scale that ranges from manly to womanly. Braveheart was a bad example on my part; that's way over to the manly side of the scale. It's akin to, oh, Halo or Left4dead. Chances are those games aren't going to be messed with. They're going to stay how they are because they're so freaking masculine that designers couldn't possibly slide them far enough towards the feminine side without creating an entirely different game. Master Chief with flowers and puppies... that's not going to happen, so that's not what worries me.

What worries me is directors of game companies seeing games that are just to the manly side of the scale and trying to tweak those to make them appeal more to women. The untapped potential you mention equals dollar (or yen) signs in their eyes, and I don't fault them for their thought process. I just don't like what I see as the result. I'm two gens behind, but based on playing FF4-9, I think it's safe to say that the Final Fantasy franchise is not 'ugh' manly. It's well within the danger zone of developers trying to tweak the a story to appeal more to potential female audiences. And that's exactly what's going to happen as the female-gamer demographic increases. One could contend that FF8 was an early attempt at this, and we know how that landed: a more-than-decent game that got a tepid response because it pissed off a bunch of fanboys (doing what they do best). Even if that had drawn in the female audience, would it have been worth it? I don't know if female appeal was a goal or not, but those who played the game have to wonder if developing more plot intricacies and character depth were sacrificed to focus on the appeal of the central love story.

Our difference in opinion probably boils down to our take on women in gaming. I couldn't care less about any gamer besides myself. You are benevolent and want to open the doors to female gamers and developers. I would have no problem with this except that I, perhaps cynically, see this trend leading developers to mangle otherise perfectly-good titles (that lie toward the center of that sliding scale) in an attempt to appeal to the woman gamer.

I'm also resistant to change.

As an aside, not every character is idealized. Many video games have taken cues from our modern era and made very human characters. The appeal is in their flaws and how they struggle to overcome them. IOW: we're not all reading Verne these days.

[Ramaniscence]

it's pretty funny that you used a picture of Chrono Kristen, one of the co-hosts of the classic VGM radio show Super Radio X (you know, the redhead covered in electronics and game gear) and proclaimed along with it that the types of girls who pose for pictures like that probably aren't really gamers (even though, if you listen to the show, it's pretty obvious that she is). Not that you are wrong for the most part, it's just amusing when one knows the actual source of one of these random images.

EDIT: Dammit, Doug beat me to it.

How is it no one else noticed that?

These damned kids today!

[The Coop]

I believe one of the things not touched on in the video (that I recall hearing anyway), is simply this... some girls just need to get over their own prejudices.

Now, when I say this, I mean that they see a scantily clad (or tight outfitted) woman on a box cover, they make a snide comment or two, turn up their noses, and walk away. Doesn't matter that the likes of Dead or Alive 2 and Alisia Dragoon are fantastic games, as they just see the "bimbo" and leave. Their inability to get over the main character's appearance isn't something to be catered to IMHO. How many guys see a picture of the buff Ryu Hayabusa in his black outfit on the Ninja Gaiden cover, turn up their noses, and walk away because of some idealized male figure on the cover? Not nearly as many I'd wager.

What am I getting at? Simply this...

Men don't get turned away by cover art as much as women do. This isn't a fault, it's a plus, and this behavior should be learned by more women. Most men can get past the titty bitch on the cover, or the overtly muscular dude in the barbarian briefs gracing the box, and see what the game itself has going for it. More women should learn to do this, and not blow it all off until things are changed around for them so they can feel included. If you ladies wish to feel included, stop focusing on the art designer's lack of getting laid that week, and focus more on the game itself.

Men have been playing as buff, scantily-clad men for many years in games, so perhaps it's time for women to start playing as toned, scantily-clad women. If a lot of men can get over it, why can't a lot of women?

Keep in mind, I'm not being pigish, or chauvinistic here. This is something real that I've seen time and time again. Like some men can't get past the cover image, some women can. But the majority of each sex seems to fall on the other side of that equation.

[abg]

Men have been playing as buff, scantily-clad men for many years in games, so perhaps it's time for women to start playing as toned, scantily-clad women. If a lot of men can get over it, why can't a lot of women?

That's not really a fair comparison, though. These scantily-clad women in our games are frequently portrayed in a sexual way, whereas the men never are (Voldo aside...) If they were to put someone like Hard Gay on the cover of a game I bet you most guys would stick up their nose and move on.

I think sephfire hit the nail on the head quite early on in his video when he said something along the lines of "Maybe the reason girls aren't interested in our games is because of all the breasts, space marines and explosions." They don't go for movies like that, so why would they go for games like that? However, he also pointed out that according to surveys, girl gamers actually outnumber guy gamers! Anyone who's been paying attention has probably known this for a couple of years now (I know I have). Working at a video games retailer, I sold more DSes and Wiis to girls than guys. It just so happens that girls tend to prefer a different genre of game, much like how they tend to prefer different genres of movies, books, music and everything else.

There seems to be this illusion that girl gamers are segregated from guy gamers, but I think its us guys who have fabricated that illusion. We think our high-budget games with their flashy graphics and ragdoll physics are in some way superior to the casual games, and that makes us feel like we're "true" gamers while those people playing Bejewled aren't. Maybe if we let go of this notion, and spend some time playing casual games with the women in our lives it would do a world of good for everyone. Actually, there's a lot of people doing that already, so I don't think we've got anything to worry about

In conclusion, Nintendo wins the console wars.

[Toadofsky]

We think our high-budget games with their flashy graphics and ragdoll physics are in some way superior to the casual games, and that makes us feel like we're "true" gamers while those people playing Bejewled aren't. Maybe if we let go of this notion, and spend some time playing casual games with the women in our lives it would do a world of good for everyone. Actually, there's a lot of people doing that already, so I don't think we've got anything to worry about

In conclusion, Nintendo wins the console wars.

At least somebody finally gets it. Why can't some people get that through their thick skulls? What I mean is with Nintendo. Sure, there's not a whole lot of games for the "hardcore" audience on the Wii, but there's plenty of GOOD GAMES you can play on it. How do these hardcore gamers expect their pastime or hobby/life to expand if they don't tap into other potential areas of interest. Or ones who haven't even wanted to play games? I'm so sick of hearing how companies are ditching their audience for a quick buck. Where only a select few have even done that (Nintendo NOT included).

[sephfire]

My apologies for the complete post rewrite. Newb mistake not to refresh before posting.

Yep, I concur. Not a bad analogy with the books, either. But truly, what you're pointing at is exactly what I fear: the middle-of-the-road games will be compromised.

Imagine a sliding scale that ranges from manly to womanly. Braveheart was a bad example on my part; that's way over to the manly side of the scale. It's akin to, oh, Halo or Left4dead. Chances are those games aren't going to be messed with. They're going to stay how they are because they're so freaking masculine that designers couldn't possibly slide them far enough towards the feminine side without creating an entirely different game. Master Chief with flowers and puppies... that's not going to happen, so that's not what worries me.

What worries me is directors of game companies seeing games that are just to the manly side of the scale and trying to tweak those to make them appeal more to women. The untapped potential you mention equals dollar (or yen) signs in their eyes, and I don't fault them for their thought process. I just don't like what I see as the result. I'm two gens behind, but based on playing FF4-9, I think it's safe to say that the Final Fantasy franchise is not 'ugh' manly. It's well within the danger zone of developers trying to tweak the a story to appeal more to potential female audiences. And that's exactly what's going to happen as the female-gamer demographic increases. One could contend that FF8 was an early attempt at this, and we know how that landed: a more-than-decent game that got a tepid response because it pissed off a bunch of fanboys (doing what they do best). Even if that had drawn in the female audience, would it have been worth it? I don't know if female appeal was a goal or not, but those who played the game have to wonder if developing more plot intricacies and character depth were sacrificed to focus on the appeal of the central love story.

Our difference in opinion probably boils down to our take on women in gaming. I couldn't care less about any gamer besides myself. You are benevolent and want to open the doors to female gamers and developers. I would have no problem with this except that I, perhaps cynically, see this trend leading developers to mangle otherise perfectly-good titles (that lie toward the center of that sliding scale) in an attempt to appeal to the woman gamer.

I'm also resistant to change.

As an aside, not every character is idealized. Many video games have taken cues from our modern era and made very human characters. The appeal is in their flaws and how they struggle to overcome them. IOW: we're not all reading Verne these days.

Yeah, I see what you're saying. I could see that sort of thing happening. Even in movies, you sometimes have to wonder if Hollywood threw in that pointless love interest just to get more women into the theater. I would argue that Final Fantasy 8 is criticized for more reasons than just emphasizing love story (the Draw system, the somewhat unlikable main character, etc). And it's not like playing up a love story is a sure-fire way to lose male interest. There are plenty of love story movies out there that hold our interest because they're just really good movies. If we had that level of storytelling prowess in our games, I don't think we'd mind a love story now and then. Heck, FF6 had a friggin' opera scene and we ate it up because we were so wrapped up in the characters and story.

I guess I feel that, despite that possible downside, the gains would outweigh the losses. Bringing a wider variety of people onto a creative team lead to greater variety in the team's output. Everyone brings new experiences and perspectives. Not only would we see a broader range of stories, but new approaches to design, new aesthetics and new gameplay innovations. Still, I definitely understand your concern.

[The Coop]

That's not really a fair comparison, though. These scantily-clad women in our games are frequently portrayed in a sexual way, whereas the men never are (Voldo aside...) If they were to put someone like Hard Gay on the cover of a game I bet you most guys would stick up their nose and move on.

Oh but it is fair. You've heard of the Cho Aniki series? If not, it's a rather... odd... shmup series with nothing but bikini wearing men with overtly homo erotic overtones. Know who plays it? Guys. It's so over the top, that you'd think men would have a big issue walking up to a counter, regardless of country, and putting it down to be rung up by the store clerk. Instead, you see guys hearing about the news of a new entry in the series, and being happy about it.

So again, guys seem to have the ability to get past the cover art more than women do. If a guy can sit down and play this, then why can't a woman pick up a controller and give this a whirl? Both are equally silly in how things are portrayed, so...

There seems to be this illusion that girl gamers are segregated from guy gamers, but I think its us guys who have fabricated that illusion. We think our high-budget games with their flashy graphics and ragdoll physics are in some way superior to the casual games, and that makes us feel like we're "true" gamers while those people playing Bejewled aren't. Maybe if we let go of this notion, and spend some time playing casual games with the women in our lives it would do a world of good for everyone. Actually, there's a lot of people doing that already, so I don't think we've got anything to worry about

I have to disagree. The illusion was created by women. Who was it that acted like they weren't interested when a guy wanted to play some games? Who stood by looking unimaginably bored, instead of finding a game, and trying it out? When I was younger (and arcades existed ), I saw so many girlfriends standing or sitting around, looking bored out of their skull. Some did so quietly, while others kept bugging their boyfriends with "Can we go now?" Women perpetuated the whole "girls don't like games" thing by acting like they didn't want anything to do with games. Guys picked up on it, accepted it, and it became the "boy's club" as it were.

Years roll on, girls comment on how stupid the games are that the guys like, and guys make comments about girls sucking at the games guys like. Eventually, some games start coming about that really draws in the girl gamers, and the guys aren't (or at least pretend they aren't) interested. And finally, you get "guy games" (action, blood/guts, explosions, etc.), and "girl games" (puzzlers, games of chance, etc.). But in the grand scheme of things, it was the girls who originally separated themselves, and guys just stopped trying to get them to play.

Again, I'm not being a pig or anything, and I'm sure some folks aren't going to agree with me. I'm just saying what I've seen over the years

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

Darn those girls what with their make up and estrogen...

But seriously, I agree with the Coop. Of course I've fortunately been able to hang out with a lot of girls who like games throughout my years, but lately I've seen even more who are just totally out of it.

[abg]

Okay, that Cho Aniki series looks rightly bizarre! And yet I don't know if its fair to say that its any stranger than any other game I've played. The most enjoyable games rarely make any realistc sense, haha

As for our discussion on segregation, its probably a more complicated topic than can be easily summarized and I think there's some truth to what each of us is saying. Its worth noting that we both touched on the fact that girls don't like guy games, and that's fine, because they generally don't like guy movies or books either. If men really are more open to games, then spending some time with women, playing the games with them that they enjoy, could potentially foster in them a deeper appreciation for the medium. It won't necessarily make them want to play Halo or Gears of War, but it might get them interested in more "middle ground" titles like Katamari or Portal. But pardon me, I'm starting to sound like my previous post!

Really though, this perception of there being separation and it being some sort of problem only aggravates the situation. Its basic law of attraction stuff if you happen to prescribe to that way of thinking. If we stop drawing a line between hardcore games and casual games, then we realize that pretty much every North American already is a gamer and this whole conversation falls apart.

[K.B.]

I guess I feel that, despite that possible downside, the gains would outweigh the losses. Bringing a wider variety of people onto a creative team lead to greater variety in the team's output. Everyone brings new experiences and perspectives. Not only would we see a broader range of stories, but new approaches to design, new aesthetics and new gameplay innovations. Still, I definitely understand your concern.

I did a little bit of zone-out-during-work thinking on this today, and I now wholeheartedly agree with you on this point. I still have the same phobia of the demographic change of gamers, but I think a demographic change on the development side will be a positive one as you say. I mean, if a design team were going to make a game with more girl appeal, they'd do it regardless of who was on the team (and if that's their goal, they just might do a better job of it with some female input). If they were going to make a 'guys-only' game, they'd still make a 'guys-only' game if women were on staff. But if they're not aiming for an extreme, well, I'd just be echoing what you said if I continued on.

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

Game design needs a group like CLAMP.

[Vyse of Arcadia]

Game design needs a group like CLAMP.

Well there's always the First Lady of RPGs, Rieko Kodama. She's known for heavy involvement in the original Phantasy Star games and Skies of Arcadia, both of which, I've noticed, appeal to female gamer friends of mine. And neither strike me as particularly unmanly. In fact, their widely respected as some of the best JRPGs of all time.

[TehDonut]

I just watched your video and I fricken love your presentation. It really keeps me interested the whole time.I likey.

BTW I never knew you went to/go to SCAD. I go to Georgia Tech, which you probably know is like walking distance from SCAD. =O

[Salluz]

I've only seen female objection to video games outside of my family. Like, my mom is certainly not a gamer, but if she sees me playing something cool then she might have an interest in it. In fact, when I bought Sonic Adventure 2, she played City Escape and LOVED it!

My sisters were both gamers, but my younger sister (who's older than me) moved on from them for the most part. My oldest sister doesn't play them as much but she WILL play some Mario 3! Hell yeah!

Oh but it is fair. You've heard of the Cho Aniki series? If not, it's a rather... odd... shmup series with nothing but bikini wearing men with overtly homo erotic overtones. Know who plays it? Guys. It's so over the top, that you'd think men would have a big issue walking up to a counter, regardless of country, and putting it down to be rung up by the store clerk. Instead, you see guys hearing about the news of a new entry in the series, and being happy about it.

So again, guys seem to have the ability to get past the cover art more than women do. If a guy can sit down and play this, then why can't a woman pick up a controller and give this a whirl? Both are equally silly in how things are portrayed, so...

By stereotype, guys tend to be more visual, which may have something to do with why we play games more than women in general. If there was a "hot guy" video game, it'd be more likely that gay guys would play it than women. Like, once my pastor said this: get a female strip club. You'll have men drooling, handing over money like it's Xerox; get a male stripper club. You'll have two gays at a bachelor party.

[sephfire]

I just watched your video and I fricken love your presentation. It really keeps me interested the whole time.I likey.

BTW I never knew you went to/go to SCAD. I go to Georgia Tech, which you probably know is like walking distance from SCAD. =O

Yeah, I was at SCAD in Savannah a little while back. Now I'm living in the Athens area.

[Gario]

Woa, I didn't know you made these - they're great! I saw these for the first time quite a while ago and had no idea you made them (and I liked the others you did, too, by the way ).

Keep em' comin'!