GDC: We Need More Women In Video Games

[Arrqh]

The industry already is targeting products towards women and those products are of exceptionally poor quality. It's never good business sense to make crap no matter who you target it at. It's also never good business sense to abandon your existing market while you go looking for a new one.

Yes, and the author of the article believes that one of the reasons why they are of poor quality is the lack of women involved in the development process.

This is why your discrimination argument falls over as well as your attempts to compare it to other industries. In software engineering, the gender diversity of the development team has nothing to do with your ability to reach a target audience. In construction, the gender diversity of the crew has nothing to do with who's going to use the building or whatever they're constructing. The games industry, on the other hand, has much more in common with other entertainment industries... film, theater, tv, literature and the like. And in those sorts of fields, gender diversity... and all types of diversity, really... most certainly does have an effect on how well the product is able to reach certain target audiences.

The Wii shovelware has pretty much nothing to do with this either. Yes, lots of crap games are made for the Wii in an attempt to reach the new casual market that Nintendo has tapped. No, this has nothing to do with growing the market to target women gamers specifically. And in many ways, you're doing exactly what the article says people shouldn't be doing... drawing a line in the sand between casual games and hardcore games (ignoring the shovelware on BOTH sides). And equating the casual market with the women market, as you put it, is totally incorrect.

And finally, your point about abandoning the existing market to go for a new one makes absolutely no sense in this context. The games industry is in a period of very large growth, even with the economic hardships going on right now. And part of growth on that level is expanding into new markets. No one is suggesting abandoning existing markets and the idea didn't even cross my mind until you said it. Certainly the article didn't say anything of the sort.

 

[Hermiod]

Yes, and the author of the article believes that one of the reasons why they are of poor quality is the lack of women involved in the development process.

There is absolutely no evidence to back that up. The video games industry as a whole is not having a quality problem. The problem dedicated gamers face is having too many good titles released at once. September to December typically sees an absolute flood of high quality titles. The casual market is where the problem lies.

This is why your discrimination argument falls over as well as your attempts to compare it to other industries. In software engineering, the gender diversity of the development team has nothing to do with your ability to reach a target audience. In construction, the gender diversity of the crew has nothing to do with who's going to use the building or whatever they're constructing. The games industry, on the other hand, has much more in common with other entertainment industries... film, theater, tv, literature and the like. And in those sorts of fields, gender diversity... and all types of diversity, really... most certainly does have an effect on how well the product is able to reach certain target audiences.

None of the industries you mention give a crap about gender diversity. They want to make money. That's why the entire movie industry is off chasing the same market that made Sex and the City a success with the exact same effect - they churn out a million clones of the same bad movie, just as companies publishing for the Wii are doing.

Employing women to help churn out crap isn't going to make that situation any better. The only way to fix that is to make that Nintendo Seal of Quality mean something by drastically restricting what publishers can release.

The Wii shovelware has pretty much nothing to do with this either. Yes, lots of crap games are made for the Wii in an attempt to reach the new casual market that Nintendo has tapped. No, this has nothing to do with growing the market to target women gamers specifically. And in many ways, you're doing exactly what the article says people shouldn't be doing... drawing a line in the sand between casual games and hardcore games (ignoring the shovelware on BOTH sides). And equating the casual market with the women market, as you put it, is totally incorrect.

I disagree. They're the same thing. Don't believe me ? Look at Nintendo's advertising. You do not use Girls Aloud to sell a product you're targeting towards men.

I am drawing a line between casual and dedicated games, and I'm going to do that despite what the faulty opinions of one person who clearly does not have the games industry's best interests in mind says. It's just drawing a line between markets where one already exists anyway.

And finally, your point about abandoning the existing market to go for a new one makes absolutely no sense in this context. The games industry is in a period of very large growth, even with the economic hardships going on right now. And part of growth on that level is expanding into new markets. No one is suggesting abandoning existing markets and the idea didn't even cross my mind until you said it. Certainly the article didn't say anything of the sort.

Nobody except one of the greatest video game companies in the history of the industry, you mean ? Does the name Nintendo ring any bells ?

 

[Arrqh]

There is absolutely no evidence to back that up. The video games industry as a whole is not having a quality problem. The problem dedicated gamers face is having too many good titles released at once. September to December typically sees an absolute flood of high quality titles. The casual market is where the problem lies.

"Dedicated gamers" is precisely what we are not talking about.

None of the industries you mention give a crap about gender diversity. They want to make money. That's why the entire movie industry is off chasing the same market that made Sex and the City a success with the exact same effect - they churn out a million clones of the same bad movie, just as companies publishing for the Wii are doing.

This is a pretty large load of nonsense. The entire film industry is doing nothing of the sort. Clueless executives continue to make stupid mistakes which is neither nothing new nor does it have anything to do with targeting women customers specifically. Nor does it show that there is a lack of quality material. Generally, this is the case with all entertainment... the majority of it is shlock because creating something that people are into is difficult.

Employing women to help churn out crap isn't going to make that situation any better. The only way to fix that is to make that Nintendo Seal of Quality mean something by drastically restricting what publishers can release.

The entire point is that companies shouldn't be churning out crap.

I disagree. They're the same thing. Don't believe me ? Look at Nintendo's advertising. You do not use Girls Aloud to sell a product you're targeting towards men.

So you're saying that only women play Wii Sports? Never heard of Girls Aloud, so I looked it up and they're music has been in some DS commercials. Big whoop. Are you seriously trying to say that there aren't any games for so called dedicated gamers on the DS?

I am drawing a line between casual and dedicated games, and I'm going to do that despite what the faulty opinions of one person who clearly does not have the games industry's best interests in mind says. It's just drawing a line between markets where one already exists anyway.

One of the main points of the article is that this line is arbitrary and artificial. All you've done is change one of the labels to something equally arbitrary and a little elitist to boot.

Nobody except one of the greatest video game companies in the history of the industry, you mean ? Does the name Nintendo ring any bells ?

At this point, I can only assume that this is just whining about Nintendo not focusing on you as a customer anymore. Please.

The Gamecube was, compared to its contemporaries a financial failure. Nintendo decided that instead of trying to chase the same market that Sony and MS where, they'd go for a new one. It was a huge success. You're not interested in what they're doing? Fine, don't be. That a single company decided to do something like this has no bearing on the fact that the industry as a whole has most certainly not abandoned your so called "dedicated" gamers because that part of the industry continues to experience growth as well. Of course, well done casual games appeal to pretty much everyone, including your "dedicated" gamers.

This article is talking about the industry as a whole. You're using at as an excuse to make false claims of discrimination and slag Nintendo which is very much missing the point.

 

[Hermiod]

^I suspect it is you who has entirely missed the point so let me explain it to you.

Once again, someone who is not involved in something wants it to change to suit them despite it not needing to. Just look at the title of this thread. "We need more women in video games". Why ? Why do we need them ? Need implies that the games industry will somehow end without women when it simply will not.

The fact is that casual gaming and the chase for women's money that's come with it has done nothing to improve the overall quality of the games industry's output. If anything, it has become drastically worse. A quick scan through Metacritic will show that.

 

[firehawk12]

Well, short answer is that games will end up like comic books if it's not able to broaden its audience.

Yeah, games make a shit load of money... but you take into account that a single game costs as much as 3-4 DVDs, you realize that it comes down to the same 5 million nerds buying games.

 

[darthraidr]

Then, there's this term "game designer". There is nobody in the games industry with this job title.

My supervisor, my officemates and myself all have the job title Game Designer. I can walk around our office and campus and find a lot more people with the same title.

 

[Arrqh]

Why do we need them ? Need implies that the games industry will somehow end without women when it simply will not.

We need them to expand the market... making games that appeal to women is a very obvious way to do that.

The fact is that casual gaming and the chase for women's money that's come with it has done nothing to improve the overall quality of the games industry's output. If anything, it has become drastically worse. A quick scan through Metacritic will show that.

You're continuing to follow along the fallacy that the entire casual market as it currently exists is synonymous with games targeted towards women. It is absolutely wrong and something that you have failed to support. Your only "evidence" for it is the music used in some DS commercials. On the contrary, the DS really represents exactly what makes a good casual product... it appeals to pretty much everyone. There are games on it that appeal to the new casual market and games that appeal to the more traditional market. And the good casual games are also enjoyed by people who enjoy more traditional material. In fact, looking at the top Metacritic scores for DS games shows quite a good mix between games targeted at both casual and traditional markets. And the same for the Wii.

 

[Hermiod]

^Again with the "music" jibe. They didn't use Girls Aloud's music, where you got that from I do not know, they used Girls Aloud - as in them sitting on a couch playing games. Nintendo's advertising policy in the UK is to use celebrities and show them playing the games.

The Wii and the DS do have good games, but for every good game there's ten or more bad ones. You have to look at the whole picture, not just the top.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

^Again with the "music" jibe. They didn't use Girls Aloud's music, where you got that from I do not know, they used Girls Aloud - as in them sitting on a couch playing games. Nintendo's advertising policy in the UK is to use celebrities and show them playing the games.

The Wii and the DS do have good games, but for every good game there's ten or more bad ones. You have to look at the whole picture, not just the top.

Is this meant to imply nobody's making shitty shovelware button-mashers for the PS2/3 or the 360?

Just for shits and grins, I went and run some numbers from Metacritic, and looked up the percentage of games for each system that have an 80% or better Metacritic score. Granted, this is only for games they have on their site, but here ya go:

PS3: 30%
XBox: 26%
GC: 25%
360: 23%
PS2: 20%
GBA: 17%
PSP: 15%
DS: 13%
Wii: 12%

It looks like Hermiod has somewhat of a point here. The Nintendo systems round out the bottom, except the Gamecube, which was actually competitive on a game quality basis, it would seem. It does look like the Wii is suffering from a glut of mediocre to plain bad games.

However, I am not sure how this connects to the idea of appealing to female gamers. Girls don't want to play shitty games. I think the developers are just having a hard time figuring out how to make good games that appeal to women. They likely have a harder time of this because women are so underrepresented in the world of game development in the first place.

 

[Arrqh]

It looks like Hermiod has somewhat of a point here. The Nintendo systems round out the bottom, except the Gamecube, which was actually competitive on a game quality basis, it would seem. It does look like the Wii is suffering from a glut of mediocre to plain bad games.

That was never in doubt... there is definitely a lot of shovelware for the Wii, more so than for the other platforms. The idea that all games that are aimed at the casual market are shovelware is however quite wrong. My general idea on that is simply the larger market share the Wii currently commands attracts more shovelware to it... not to mention the fact that producing Wii games is generally cheaper then 360/PS3 games. Shovelware games generally have much lower budgets so it's easier for them to target the Wii.

Linking this to games targeting women... as you already identified, that's the specious reasoning. Looking at the bottom of the Wii scores, I see titles such as "Pong Toss: Frat Party Games", "Calvin Tucker's Redneck Jamboree", "Target: Terror", "Far Cry Vengeance" (way to go, Ubisoft!)... and many others that even just by looking at their names are not targeted specifically at women. This would be the so called whole picture.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

It looks like Hermiod has somewhat of a point here. The Nintendo systems round out the bottom, except the Gamecube, which was actually competitive on a game quality basis, it would seem. It does look like the Wii is suffering from a glut of mediocre to plain bad games.

That was never in doubt... there is definitely a lot of shovelware for the Wii, more so than for the other platforms. The idea that all games that are aimed at the casual market are shovelware is however quite wrong. My general idea on that is simply the larger market share the Wii currently commands attracts more shovelware to it... not to mention the fact that producing Wii games is generally cheaper then 360/PS3 games. Shovelware games generally have much lower budgets so it's easier for them to target the Wii.

Linking this to games targeting women... as you already identified, that's the specious reasoning. Looking at the bottom of the Wii scores, I see titles such as "Pong Toss: Frat Party Games", "Calvin Tucker's Redneck Jamboree", "Target: Terror", "Far Cry Vengeance" (way to go, Ubisoft!)... and many others that even just by looking at their names are not targeted specifically at women. This would be the so called whole picture.

Good catch. I also disagree with the assessment that "casual" is synonymous with "bad." I think of casual games as being those you can pick up, play for 5 or 10 minutes, then go do something else. I think of the Animal Crossing games as prototypical casual games. They're great games in my opinion, but don't require a constant time investment. Just a few minutes here and there. And while there's no way to win, you do get incremental rewards--decor for your house, collections of stuff, money, etc. And they are high-rated games, despite their simplicity and accessibility. I don't have any hard stats but I bet more women play those games than play, say, something like Mass Effect or Halo.

The real challenge seems to be in creating games that reward people in ways besides "win this fight" or "beat this level."

 

[Hermiod]

^That's your challenge, then. Get women to play Mass Effect. Maybe not Halo so much, but Mass Effect is a stunning, story led game that rewards players with more story that you can change more than anything else.

 

[Kelthaz]

The real challenge seems to be in creating games that reward people in ways besides "win this fight" or "beat this level."

If that's the result of getting more women into the development process, than I'm quite happy with video games remaining a male dominated industry.

 

[firehawk12]

^That's your challenge, then. Get women to play Mass Effect. Maybe not Halo so much, but Mass Effect is a stunning, story led game that rewards players with more story that you can change more than anything else.

It's still a shooter... and a somewhat average one at that.

 

[hyzmarca]

^That's your challenge, then. Get women to play Mass Effect. Maybe not Halo so much, but Mass Effect is a stunning, story led game that rewards players with more story that you can change more than anything else.

It's still a shooter... and a somewhat average one at that.

Go with Planescape: Torment instead. Not a shooter, only three battles that can't be avoided with sneaking or wise dialog, more text than most novel series, extreme philosophical complexity, brilliant unique characters. It's a game where playing smart is substantially more rewarding than playing violent is.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

^That's your challenge, then. Get women to play Mass Effect. Maybe not Halo so much, but Mass Effect is a stunning, story led game that rewards players with more story that you can change more than anything else.

It's still a shooter... and a somewhat average one at that.

Go with Planescape: Torment instead. Not a shooter, only three battles that can't be avoided with sneaking or wise dialog, more text than most novel series, extreme philosophical complexity, brilliant unique characters. It's a game where playing smart is substantially more rewarding than playing violent is.

An excellent choice. The Fallout games (at least 1 and 2, I haven't played 3) are similar. A lot of the game can be played without fighting, just careful sneaking. And there's almost always more than one way to solve a particular problem.

Other games that present you with problems and give you multiple ways to solve them:

* Deus Ex
* The old Sierra and LucasArts adventure games
* I'm sure there are tons of others I'm forgetting right now

My issue with Mass Effect is that your decisions don't really affect the outcome of the game. There are two possible endings, and that's it.

What I enjoy most are games where you're creating something. The Civilizations and Spores of the world. One of the nuances I think has been lost in the upsurge of real-time strategy games is that there's no permanence. You build a mini-empire every round, and then at the end of the fight it's gone--you go on to the next battle. Some games have mixed the turn-based and real-time strategy genres: the Total War series and the games Paradox makes come to mind. Games like that are not very common, though, and nearly nonexistent on game consoles.

But I think this thread has gone a bit off-track. I'm not interested so much in games that "appeal to women," so much as I am interested in games that break formulas and try not to confine you.

I'm not saying nobody should have their shoot-'em-ups or war games or anything. But I'm sure I'd game more if there were more accessible and interesting games that didn't rely so much on reflexes and dexterity.

 

[Kelthaz]

I'm not saying nobody should have their shoot-'em-ups or war games or anything. But I'm sure I'd game more if there were more accessible and interesting games that didn't rely so much on reflexes and dexterity.

There are games like that. In fact there are more games like that today than there has ever been. The DS and the Wii were designed specifically to get non-gamers interested in video games by offering unique experiences and they have succeeded beyond anyone's wildest expectations.

I'm not sure what it is you're looking for. Is it non-linear games that you want or just games that don't require killing everything in sight?

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I'm not saying nobody should have their shoot-'em-ups or war games or anything. But I'm sure I'd game more if there were more accessible and interesting games that didn't rely so much on reflexes and dexterity.

There are games like that. In fact there are more games like that today than there has ever been. The DS and the Wii were designed specifically to get non-gamers interested in video games by offering unique experiences and they have succeeded beyond anyone's wildest expectations.

I'm not sure what it is you're looking for. Is it non-linear games that you want or just games that don't require killing everything in sight?

I don't know exactly what it is I want. I guess I'm looking for games that are unusual and unique. Games with no predefined ending, dynamic universe generation, non-directed gameplay. Zen games. Rhythm games.

There are indeed more games of these types than ever before, but they still represent quite a small part of the market.

I like the games available for the Wii and the DS. They have good examples of what I'm interested in.

I'm looking for games where I think, "Wow, nobody's made that into a game before." Genre-bending games. Games with synaesthesia. Games with flexible gameplay parameters.

A game doesn't have to be utterly open-ended to be appealing, either. Homeworld remains one of my all-time favorites because of its persistence. Decisions you make early in the game affect how well or poorly you do later. Not a casual game by any stretch. But how you play early on really colors what you can do later. The campaign is totally linear, but the way each mission plays out is not, since the composition of your fleet can be very different from one playthrough to the next.

I'm not saying these games don't exist, because I've played ones I really like. They just aren't so easy to find because they're so unique. You can't seek out what you've never heard of.

One stigma that I think hurts "casual" games is that people think "casual" means "easy" or lacking in depth. This usually translates into a bad game. It's certainly true of many casual games but doesn't have to be a defining characteristic. I think that's where Wii and DS games get a bad rap. A game can be unique, easy to pick up, and challenging or difficult to master.

If anyone is aware of games that are off the beaten path and rather unique, I would love to hear about them.

 

[captcalhoun]

chiming in with my 2p worth, I've known women who were into FPS games and who did add-on content for same. about 8 years ago i was mates with a girl handled 'Georgiana' who played Quake 1 thru 3 and also played Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Elite Force and Jedi Knight II. we played 1-v-1 DMs online together. she'd also been a member of an all-women Q1 and Q2 clan called PMS.

on a site i used to frequent, called 'Polycount', there was at least a half dozen texture and model artists who were female. one, Milla AKA ChiQ, was widely acknowledged as being one of the best texture artists.

 

[Kelthaz]

If anyone is aware of games that are off the beaten path and rather unique, I would love to hear about them.

Okay, I get what you're looking for now. Games that are unique and original. A game where you move from the left side of the screen to the right side jumping on enemies would bore you.

You would probably really like Professor Layton and the Curious Village for the DS. I haven't played it myself, but it's a puzzle game that's getting very good reviews.

I also recommend you check out Zack & Wiki for the Wii. It plays similar to the Monkey Island games, but the game is divided into stages instead of one huge world. The game has some flaws, but given how cheap the game is now you owe it to yourself to give it a try.