Designing Games for Women

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Original post by Paul Cunningham
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But one thing that keeps coming back to mind is that i''m a guy and i know what type of games i like due to my guyishness so how could i make games for women.

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Well .. it appears I am a guy, so due to my guyishness how could I understand women pleasure ? And yet, I don''t give hope, and seem to be doing quite well so far.

OK, THAT was french humor ... But maybe if you don''t get too shocked you''ll get my point

youpla :-P

Wrong way around, if i understood it then i could be shocked. But i didn''t, could you explain for this humble man please

I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!

In the Lounge there is a post called "girls and games article response" from the last ten days. Several girls stated what they like/want in that conversation. I'll try to link to it:

Here's the link.

I was one of them, and it was rather a lengthy comment, so I won't repeat it here. Thanks for asking! :-)

[MadKeithV]I edited this message 'cause it was forcing the board to a width my poor monitor couldn't cope with .


Edited by - MadKeithV on August 2, 2000 5:02:24 AM

Okay, you want to know what women think and want? Here is an entire room full of women talking specifically about gaming! Follow this link to the transcript. This was a panel on women gamers held at Dragoncon.

http://www.womengamers.com/articles/dragcontrans.html

Actually, I realise that you put the same joke in nicer terms Paul; I was, just like you, making a parallel about men/women relationships in RealLife (tm) and the fact that if we are that bad at understanding women, then why don''t they all turn lesbians ?
So for designing games, well, I suppose trying to be a bit more listening to the women wwould be a good start, just like in RealLife (tm). This article on Gamedev.net was excellent. Mainly because I love this approach of "human as an animal". After all, that''s all we are, a very infatued of himself animal.

As for the difficulty of designing for women, you don''t take on a task because it''s easy, do you ?

youpla :-P

I''ve been to womengamers a number of times and picked up the general gist of the types of games women like. I was one of those guys who participated in that "why do men play female character in games" thingy. But i really wanted to hear from the people here at gamedev.net in the gamedesign corner since this is where all the idea''s seem to be coming from

I''ll check out those links though as i haven''t been around to womengamers for sometime now. There just seems to be a bit of vaguness in the air about this topic that''s all. Plus all the women that i know who play games are very, whats the word? tomboyish very flexible in other words, and they all play tomb raider which i consider to be a guyish game with a bit of pretty tinsle around it to attract women.

Anyhow i''ll check those links for now and think up some better questions later

I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!

games should be designed for women in the same way you would design games for Germans, midgets, white people and children. Good.

A good game is a good game. I know girls who play far more than I do. They don''t play "girl games" because girl games are often not good.

This whole notion that there are specific games that appeal to the female market is a f*cking ridiculous product of a male driven industry trying to understand why females don''t seem to like games. Listen up! They do! And they will increasingly! And all you can do to encourage it is sit back and make better games overall!

You are still slaving over corporate created market demographics. They don''t exist. You are trying to make games for women the same way people think you should make games for kids. You ignorantly assume that kids are not intelligent and therefore can only understand stupid things. You assume women have outright tendancies and therefore cannot understand certain things. Wise up! This is stupid behavior on our part.

If I see another thing on "girl games" i''m going to puke. Are we such a product of the Hollywood system that we think in demographics now? And don''t even tell me you were considering making a "girl game" because that already betrays how crappy the result will be. You don''t set out to make something for a freaking demographic. Set out to make something GOOD, and if it happens to appeal to a certain kind of person so be it!

Oh, god this idea pisses me off. Don''t you guys ever want video games to be viewed as legitimate? ENOUGH!

Hey Landfish, that's probably the most intelligent thing ever said on this forum. When I saw the title of this thread I was going to post a message very similar, but yours basically said everything I was going to .

-RWarden (roberte@maui.net)




Edited by - RWarden on August 2, 2000 3:44:42 AM

Ok, so if i was to sit down a try to make a game that would appeal to women in todays society then would i be just re-enforcing the social injustices to women these days? There are women though who would like games to be different, not so aggressive etc.

My brain hurts I''m not saying that i would (or would want to) make games just for women or appeal this way. I definity got to think up something more intelligent to say..

Nope, my brain still hurts

I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!

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Original post by Anonymous Poster

The reason for EQ''s relative popularity to halflife with females must be in spite of quality issues, not because of them. The only reason I can think of is that there must be something fundamentally different in personal preferences.

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I think the issue is mainly social. Even in multiplayer mode, HalfLife can barely be considered a social game. You go around blasting eachothers heads off. While EQ does allow for social interaction without too many negative repercussions on the rest of the game.
It''s just an observation of course, but I think the stereotype of a halflife game doesn''t appeal to (most)girls. They see no glory in being the best at removing heads from a very long distance.




Give me one more medicated peaceful moment.
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ERROR: Your beta-version of Life1.0 has expired. Please upgrade to the full version. All important social functions will be disabled from now on.

One thing that I think game developers are trying to bring into games now is character development. This is apparently due to genetics and the nuturing role that women used to play (I will keep this short by not going into details). Anyway, guys have started wanting more meaning in their characters existence, and as such there has been advances in this kind of feild.

Gossip.

Thats the Diablo way (wasn''t very much character dev tho ) but Diablo II actually gave you opinions on different NPC''s.. It certainly made me go "hey, they actually thought about it" . I think that there are going to be furthur advances in game development that benefit both guys and gals, but you cant package these games seperately, they are one in the same .


-Chris Bennett ("Insanity" of Dwarfsoft)

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Oh! Anonymous! My favorite flavor!

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Original post by Anonymous Poster

the fact stands that there are different tendencies and game preference is based on them. If you were designing a fun game for a dolphin it wouldn''t be the same as one for a rabbit. Perhaps some dolphins would like the rabbit game and some rabbits would like the dolphin game.

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Dolphin... rabbit. DIFFERENT SPECIES. Male... Female... SAME SPECIES. Read on.

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People aren''t churned out in factories, they are different from each other. So yeah when you make a game you shouldn''t label it a girl game or a boy game but it will tend to be one or the other.

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Statement #1 was dead on. People aren''t churned out in factories. Personalities are not packaged in "male" or "female" varieties. The notion that a game could be created simply to satisfy a demographic is actually right, but disgusting. Girl games have failed to this point, simply because the people making them are trying to produce a "girl game". If they weren''t, they would just make a game. If it were good, many guys would play it!

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However if you want to make a game that is wildly successful among girls don''t you think that it''d be a little different than a game that would be wildly successful among boys? The boy game would probably fit into one of the more male oriented genres: hunting/fps, domination/rts while a girl game would fall into one of the undiscovered genres such as ?????? or ?????.

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Fundamentally bullshit. Fewer women play games because of sociological dictation that they should not. Taking these numbers into account, an proportionate amount of women play Unreal Tournament. If there were an equal ratio, we''d see about a 40% gender split amongst UT players.

Was Metal Gear Solid a Girl game?

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Currently some games seem to be more balanced between male and female styles of gaming. The whole MMORPG thing seems to attract more females (my friend''s sisters played EverQuest). Now why do more females play EQ than say Halflife? According to your theory it is because EQ is a better game. However even basic familiarity with the two games should be enough to convince most people that that simply isn''t the case. It cannot be a matter of standards anyway, why would females have higher standards? Games that are fun for males should be good enough for females, if you that males and females have similar tastes on average.

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Flawed logic. Sociological positioning enables more girls to get into EQ. More than that, EQ is (supposedly) a less aggressive environment, but it isn''t. To survive in that world takes every bit of ruthless backstabbery that halflife does. Oops! There goes your violence arguement. In addition, if designed right EQ provides dramatic tension that INTELLIGENT people are attracted to. That has nothing to do with gender, but the base pool of male video gamers ages 9 to 17 looks far less intellectual to me than the same ages of the female variety.

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The reason for EQ''s relative popularity to halflife with females must be in spite of quality issues, not because of them. The only reason I can think of is that there must be something fundamentally different in personal preferences.

Keep in mind that I do not mean to say that not all girls dislike games designed for males and vice versa, it is merely a very strong trend.

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So, was Metal Gear Solid a girl game? I know a lot of girls who loved it, not only for the intellectual puzzle, characterization, and plot, but for the violence. How about Soul Calibur? Violence and objectified women to boot? Half the room is always girls when we play it. And they play too.

So far your reasoning in this matter seems to based entirely on heresay and conjecture. You don''t see girls playing games, so you assume they must not be. Bullshit. Girls play games, and they will more and more if we continue to make better games. The solution is NOT to force ourselves into imagined markets of barbie fashion games and horse riding. Backstreet boys and f*ckung Brittney Spears. I don''t want that demographic. I want the girls who play freaking Tenchu to play my games. Have some respect for quality, peole, and you can''t do that properly if all you can see is dollar signs.

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"The unexamined life is not worth living."
-Socrates

"Question everything. Especially Landfish."
-Matt

I read somewhere that the reason women don''t play FPS games as much as men is because they are mentally unable to "get it". Apparently, when presented with a 3D scene, women see the actual objects in view - walls etc. In contrast, men''s brains interpret the gaps between objects instead - i.e. corridors.

This leads to men being much better suited to these kinds of games, so they naturally enjoy them more than women do. This is the reason I dispute Landfish''s claim that "Fewer women play games because of sociological dictation that they should not".

As 99.99% of games are programmed by men, surely we can''t ever expect a game to be written that appeals to women on this kind of mental level?

Neil

So if you wanted to make games for women then it stands to reason that you must find it fun to do. It would also help if you were intouch with your femine side. Sorry to generalise again but it''s just a thought!!

I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!

Women LOVE strategy games. Blood, guts and gore is more the male field (dictated by society in which men play a protector role). This is ever so true of our culture today, and this is the market we aim for. True, many men love strategy, too, but women love REAL strategy more. Things like Myst, The Crystal Key, something with a dramatic story line, where it''s almost like a book telling a story, and you''re the character!

This is the kind of thing most women look for, a deep level of interaction in the environment. Don''t get me wrong, my girlfriend played Dune 2k with me online ALL the time. We were one hell of a team

Speaking of which.. did you know SciFi channel has done a REMAKE OF DUNE!!! From what i saw, STRAIGHT from the books!!!! YEAH BABY! YEAH!

J

A remake of dune? Cool... I hope it is better than the last one (impossible to be worse ). I heard that the original had a directors cut of 9 hours... does anybody know if this is true?

Cheers,


-Chris Bennett ("Insanity" of Dwarfsoft)

Check our site:
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Original post by NeilArrow

As 99.99% of games are programmed by men, surely we can''t ever expect a game to be written that appeals to women on this kind of mental level?

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Umm, and why not?
At least 50% of books are written by men, and there are still lots of women who read them?




Give me one more medicated peaceful moment.
~ (V)^|) |<é!t|-| ~
ERROR: Your beta-version of Life1.0 has expired. Please upgrade to the full version. All important social functions will be disabled from now on.

I second that motion... It is just that you wont attract the women that have no interest in computers... if that is what you are trying to do then forget it.. My girlfriend is one of them and I have had no luck so far


-Chris Bennett ("Insanity" of Dwarfsoft)

Check our site:
http://www.crosswinds.net/~dwarfsoft/
Check out our NPC AI Mailing List :
http://www.egroups.com/group/NPCAI/
made due to popular demand here at GDNet :)

quote:

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Original post by dwarfsoft

A remake of dune? Cool... I hope it is better than the last one (impossible to be worse ). I heard that the original had a directors cut of 9 hours... does anybody know if this is true?

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Yeah, i''ve heard the same thing. Maybe one day i''ll find it. I wonder if it''s super boring?!


I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!