Games for Girls – Are Girl Gamers Really This Lame?
Why do “Girl Games” suck, and why do female gamers tolerate it?
UPDATE 12-29-2009: Best F2P MMORPG Games for Girls
I read an interesting article today on NY1 about E3 and “Girl Power Coming to Gaming”. I thought this would be a pretty cool article since it mentioned the evolving focus in the gaming industry to account for the fact that almost 50% of gamers are now girls.
The article talked about how companies are gearing up lines of games to appeal to girl gamers, which seemed like a great idea until you learned the details about these games.
One game mentioned in the article allowed girls to be “babysitters” or veterinarians, while another let you dress up babies, and play mini games with them. The downhill trend continued with games that allowed girls to paint ladybugs and collect dew drops.
I think the only remotely interesting game listed was “Flock” which still relied on a “cute animal” mechanic, yet showcased a slight sense of humor by naming a UFO the “’Mother Flocker”.
Overall I was extremely disappointed with the details surrounding these games. It would have been more accurate to label most of these as “kid’s games” instead of “games for girls”.
It feels as though a bunch of old men drew up a list of everything they thought represented a girl gamer. In this case it must has consisted of “sugar, spice, and babysitting”.
I always thought that gaming was supposed to be about tapping into people’s fantasies. Or giving them an escape from reality, that the real world cannot offer. I don’t see how a game for girls needs to incorporate flowers, and lady bugs to be appealing.
After being a long time WoW addict and playing with some amazing female gamers (and female guild leaders) I am surprised these types of games are so well received. Look at all the cut throat Halo 2-3 girls out there. Nothing inspires furious competition more than getting pwned, and then having some girl laugh at you.
I think companies need to rethink their approach before they isolate a large part of the audience they are trying to appeal to. Maybe I am generalizing the statistics here, but many of the female gamers I know don’t post links for games like “Barbie’s Horse Adventure” in their guild forums.
When companies come out with a game that let’s girls cook dinner, and clean the house I am going to duck and cover as girl gamers everywhere pull out their shock rifles and frag the hell out of the developers.
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[...] since I wrote my article entitled “Games for Girls – Are Girl Gamers Really This Lame?” which asked the question “why does the gaming industry underestimate female gamers” my [...]