Episode Six in my series of video “lectures,” with special guest star: Gamasutra’s Leigh Alexander! Enjoy the new title and credits! I can be reached at floydo_animation at yahoo dot com. Leigh can be reached at leighalexander1 at gmail dot com. Read more by Leigh at: sexyvideogameland.blogspot.com Like the intro/outro music? Download the full tracks here! Penguin Cap www.carbohydrom.net Test Dummy ocremix.org
Video Games and the Female Audience
Category: Videos. /
Tags: Audience, Female, female audience, Games, gmail dot com, special guest star, Video, video games, video games and the female audience, yahoo dot com
I’m a girl and I prefer the games that most men like. I’ve been playing these games ever since I was 10 years old. These casual games and girly themed things don’t attract me at all :S
I have no idea why so little other women play these games.. I guess it has to do with what’s considered to be normal for girls and boys to do.
And I don’t like to have more romance or any of that girlshit in games, if I’d want that I’ll go watch a romantic movie or read a book..
The real shame is in marketing, like you said. To corner a certain market, you have to advertise TO that certain market, and there isn’t a lot of that going around. Unisex marketing is key, and toning down a piece of work just to appeal to one crowd has never, ever, ever gone well. It upsets the people assigned to work on it, and isolates the people who liked the series as it was.
Also, I love 7:30 – 8:03
True gamers don’t judge games on the main character’s boobs either. They rate it on the plot, the control, the gameplay, the replay value, the soundtrack, the graphics, the dialogue.. and without buying it, they rate it on trailers and how fun it looks. When is the last time you saw a new game and thought ‘whoa, that girl is hot! I really want to fork out 50 bucks to watch her boobies bounce for all 40 hours of gameplay!’ Gamers used to be a rare few, but the trend has exploded.
I’m just saying, I don’t think it’s the image of women portrayed in the games themselves that are driving girls away, but it certainly can’t help, and it’s a reason to jump to when you can’t place your distaste. And really, it’s hard to convey a personality through just one picture when everyone is trained to scour that picture for ‘perfection’. The size of a character’s bust SHOULDN’T automatically determine the character’s personality, but it seems to end up like that.
It’s rare to see a girl pick up ANY hardcore game, not just one with a girl with giant titties on the cover. I’d love to see a good game with a female protagonist that people DON’T bitch about. Either they’re too fake, or too skinny, or too ideal. Hell, I LOVE Zelda, but some would call her a plain, stereotypical, mindless dolt who needs a man to rescue her. When, in reality, she’s helped Link many many many times, and without her help, he wouldn’t have lived!
I think people like the ideal person, because it helps them forget about themselves. Men, guys, don’t think of their characters as ‘better’ than them, they just enjoy the character. They don’t compare them to themselves and put down the game because the character has a perfect body. I mean, females have boobs, so female characters do too. You know why it’s hard to place a female character with small breasts? Because nobody pays attention to them! They’re disregarded. Look at Bayonetta.
Interesting video. About making video games girls perfect — we do that with the men, too. Perfect bodies, perfect faces, awesome hair, perfect personalities or rather goofy. Personalities such as Mario, a fat Italian plumber, changed to represent a crowd that could relate to him more. Most of our games are made and produced in Japan, but most do not have Japanese main characters. When video games started out, it wasn’t men vs women. You usually couldn’t even tell WHAT the character looked like.
This is great, I’ve been looking for vid clips for presenting in Feminism and Art course. I’m glad that he didn’t take the route where women totally bash the image of the seductive “heroine”, since we have our own grand ideas of men and sex appeal. Casual gaming is a great access point to women gamers and there are a lot of them out there, but I do agree that gender borders and pigeon holing the desires of each makes the market exclusive. Just find something common ground and drop the BS
I should also point out that over here, gaming girls are rather common, the cultural aspect is going away.
While it might be true that the way that women are portrayed in games might impact the way that women think of games, when given the choice to design their own character, most of those are almost as bad as many of those regular “offenders”. Most of the reason for why women are more uncommon (I would hardly say rare) are probably:
-Mindless action. There are women who enjoy this, but much like movies, this is a bit more of a guy thing
-Culture. Games is a “guy thing”.
kirithem,
WOMEN in general don’t like to BLOW UP STUFFS like every 3-8 seconds!!
If WOMEN can make their Video Games, they would have more SEX (Romance) in it not less of it!!
Their 3D Graphical Adventure Games would be no different than the Chick Flicks and Romance Novels that they are consuming now!!
Chick Flicks….
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Romance Novels….
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v=04LZOvZUsjs
I have say it before, and I’ll say it again that MOST VIDEO GAMES ARE {{{STERILE}}}!! >=P
kirithem,
Do YOU know that WOMEN of ENIAC and Grace Hopper invented the Computer Industry that we know today?
And, WOMEN are PIONEERS as well in Video Game Industry with Dona Bailey of Centipede, Roberta Williams of King’s Quest, and so on!!
However, Micro$oft (JEW OWNED) and their GAY JEW Cronies didn’t like that, so they work hard to drive WOMEN out the Computer Industry!!
Read ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’!!
Look at Nintendo vs Microsoft!? Who had more Women Gamers? >=)
kirithem,
YOU are CLUELESS!! Video Games do not contribute to Sexualization of WOMEN!! Those are the MYTH? of Femi-NAZI!!
Go read Magazines for Women like ‘Cosmopolitan’, ‘Vogue’, ‘Glamour’, ‘Elle’, and so on!! They are more Scantily Dressed Women there than anything Video Game Industry can muster!!
The problem is that not enough WOMEN working in the Video Game Industry to make those Video Games that they wanted to play with…. duh!! >=P
what do you mean nice try?
im just saying, ok?
Nice!
While a lot of this was dead-on and quite valid, the tone was remarkably condescending.
And this – 8:45 !
Shoulda started right here in your ‘lecture’ . . . instead of playing right in to the same old Us versus Them nonsense.
Games for /human beings/, not games for [insert_apparent_"minority"].
all girls that play VG’s are sexy.
Also, the thing about women being sex objects puts me RIGHT off. Very few games can pull that off without seeming creepy and desperate to sell (Bayonetta did it well because it was pretty tongue in cheek) Seeing overexaggerated breast physics in a game that is trying to be SERIOUS is a bit soul destroying.
And why is it like most of the “girl gamers” presented in the media are like, Super Hot. Olivia Munn. Jess Chobot. Did they REALLY get hired for their love and knowledge of video games?
Another thing is that, I don’t think many guys are really big gamers anyway. Almost every guy I know owns a 360, but they usually own 3 games – COD4, COD5, and COD6. They just buy whatever is popular with their friends. Is that much different from girls that play Sims and Wii Fit?
I hate the notion that a game has to be ultra violent or a First Person Shooter to be “hardcore”. Is Mario any less hardcore just because it’s kiddy?
I don’t think the reason is because of some genetic thing. It’s just society.
I’ma girl and video games are probably my main hobby. If anyone asks me though, I usually lie. When I told a teacher I wanted to work in the industry they were horrified. Even my own (non nerdy) friends think of it as “sad” and “pathetic” that I am much more excited about Zelda Wii than I am about whatever tripe Stephenie Meyer has been writing. >>>>>continued
Hes right, well look at me when i was at my cousin house she show me barbie game and i end up playing it even i dint like it but it was fun, is just that imaginary line actually doenst exist that doenst let girls welcome to gaming. I met female gamer before and yes is truth they kick as on halo >.>;;
superb!!!!!!
The whole video was great and thought provoking. Maybe girl gamers who play casually might go for the more hardcore stuff one day.
I really wish more girls played games too. And to be honest, I’m not into the whole sex appeal thing like the video suggested with lara croft. It’s all about gameplay and replay value for me.
*sigh* I’ll probably be old a decreped by the time the genders start to balance out. What a shame…
One thing to note here I think is that the games industry as a whole is still very young and it’ll take some time for games in general to reach all demographics.
he mentioned that like 3 times…some girls are good at games but gaming is still a giant male dominated medium