Lateralus wrote:Spore, however, looks a whole lot more fun, and I can see it appealing to near-enough most people with an interest in gaming.
Indeed, Spore does look pant-wettingly good. I love the idea of competing against other players' creatures offline - you get the achievment of beating someone else without the hassle of getting a kicking online every game from someone who's vastly better than you (happens to me in everything I play ).
I'd totally forgotten about that feature, but you're right, its a brilliant concept, and I suffer from getting whupped all the time too. Looking forward to seeing which of us makes the most cdc-like creature!
Edit/ Cacodemon already? I was only just a Shambler in Drag! whats the spread on the post icons?
i think the physiologic bit explains why i like certain games with puzzles that look pretty (Zork Nemesis, Oddworld, Psychonauts,MediEvil, Death Jr. & others) but i think that my competitiveness makes online shooters not so fun as a solo shooty game. possibly due to my very late intro to team sports? also: few female game designers - are we to expect differently sexed people to make us games when they can`t see how we see?
i keep bumping into female gamers on xbox live, which makes me think that maybe its more of a phenomenon related to PC games. Either that or there are infact lots of female gamers and i don't know because you don't have to speak to communicate with a PC game.
Woo Elephant Yeah wrote:As mentioned before, I wanted to buy an Xbox 360, however if you look at the launch titles, there isn't a single game in the list that I would recommend to a "female gamer".
This is the reason I won't buy the console, because quite simply, it would just be me playing it, and the chances I get to sit on my own in the front room playing games are once in a blue moon.
Sony have the right idea for their playstation consoles, as they offer a huge range of games, and try to keep both camps happy as opposed to the 360 which is the most male dominated game console I have ever seen released to date.
Wait up for the Nintendo Revolution. With all the built in emulator's this could be just what all of us 5punkers want: A good laugh!
And this may also please your Mrs Woo.
I'd also like to agree with Spoodie's post about BF2 being more than most FPS's, because there is the ranking system; so there are always goals to achieve. There is also the team situation and the built in communications over microphone make it more communicatey. Yet there is still the thing of having people bossing you around..
Edit: Also, like Strawberry Dragon, I've found some people get confused over whether I am male or female due to my avatar. "Pixie Pie".. sounds a bit girly. But I'm not..
halus wrote:also: few female game designers - are we to expect differently sexed people to make us games when they can`t see how we see?
Exactly. Its a whle vicious cycle: There aren't many female games designers, so the games are generally male oriented, so there aren't many female gamers. As a result, not many people who are interested enough in games to enter the proffesional world are female. And, I supose, those that do are likely to be the minority; women who like male oriented games, so they won't help matters much. And repeat.
On the postive side, I think it can only get better. Its only fairly recent that the games industry as a whole even started considering that girls *might* be interested in games, let alone why most of them *aren't*. In an industry with more money flowing through it than hollywood, the potential female market is too large a slice of pie for them to ignore for long.
Apparently somewhere in the 20+ realms of age, there are many more women than men gamers. This might be constrained to un-FPS games, I don't know, I wasn't paying attention.
I remember seeing a piece on television awhile back about an all-girl team for a quake competition. I was really glad that they had the interest to show that girls are quite capable gamers. One piece that rings through all of this discussion was that they were much more 'social' gamers. They worked together more in RL to tweak strategies and such than some of their male counterpart. I've been wondering if the social aspect wasn't more of a draw to them than the game's features.
But on another note, I've been evening the odds! My step-daughter loves gaming! I've been nurturing her love of Spyro-the-dragon, and being very patient with her questioning of my gaming. It's possible that it is a 'learned' reaction to gaming, as gaming isn't more than a generation old. Perhaps we're still dealing with the early arcade/early console stereotyping, and how those values were handed to the next generation.
(What a great thread!) And with both of our female EVE players contributing too I see! I hope the depth of Eve gives our female gamers something of interest!
I was prompted to ressurrect this thread after conversations at the weekend. With it being Christmas and all I visited all my friends, some of which are girls, some of which are gamers, and my presents for the aggregation of these was largely...games.
In purchasing Viva Piñata, something I'd considered rather a childish-looking game, I received "Top choice, mate" and "Quality release, this" from the guy at the till, and have in former buys received similar plaudits on my selection from cashiers about Pokémon Rescue Team and Animal Crossing DS. This despite the fact the games they are always playing in-store seem to be dominantly macho titles such as Guitar Hero or CoD.
One of my aforementioned friends - a corybantic Sims player - recently ventured out to get the latest add-on, which is Pets for Sims2 I believe. After skittishly waiting outside the store pre-9am until it opened, literally running to the counter with game in hand and excitedly handing it over, she was greeted with: "You do know you need the original game to play this?"
It's happened before, and we frequently buy games for each other, myself always getting at least a nod of approval, and her usually getting a "you're a girl and don't know anything"-type response, irrespective of the games we're actually buying.
She plays games more than I do, and sensibly limits her selection by actually completing the games she owns before buying new ones, so is markedly more accomplished than myself at games. Yet she still receives this rather rude attitude one would consider a confused non-gaming relative with scribbled Christmas-list in-hand asking for "the one with the shooting frogs" might get.
Other girls I've spoken to simply do not buy games for precisely this reason, they either send male proxies, or just don't bother. It's problem I wasn't even aware of, and not distinct to one store or chain, so perhaps it's not all that surprising that we see a greater proportion of lady gamers in free-to-download titles like Eve and the poker sims.
I stereotype in my head all the time. Not my fault, because 90% of the time my preconceptions are right.
My better half always reminds me that I'm rubbish at cleaning stuff up and cooking... So you see, stereotyping can work!
FatherJack wrote:"You do know you need the original game to play this?"
I dont think this was just because she was female, I've had similar questions asked and I'm male.
When I bought world of warcraft a while ago they asked me "Do you know you need and internet connection for this and that you need a credit card to pay the monthly fees?".
It seems to be their policy to ask this kind of thing for non-standard games like MMOs or expansions since they know alot of people dont have a clue.
yup, it is (to stop you from getting pissed off, to sell you both parts of the game and to avoid returns for stupid reasons)
this of course is the other problem, if people are looking for faults in the way shops handle female gamers, they'll find issues where there really aren't any.
I might draw issue with it, depending upon the tone of the sales guy. If he was being condensending, yep, prick. If it was intended as a helpful question instead of oh she's a woman, better insult her intellignce, more power to them.
My missus never buys a game unless it's a sequel to one I bought for both of us, and she likes.
I'm kind of the scout for games on our PS2/PSP and I almost always choose a game which both me and the missus can play, unless of course it's a FPS for example where I just get what I want because those style of games bore her.
I know it's been covered elsewhere, but when it comes to the (stereotype) female that likes playing the odd game, then you cannot go wrong with Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Ratchet & Clank or Jax & Daxter (the original and Daxter on the PSP as the other ones have lots of driving bits.
I wonder what the actual percentage of "gamers" are females?
All depends on what you class as a gamer, as most kids under 16 tend to play games on handhelds and older consoles no matter what sex they are.
I think the key thing is to know how many girls growing up to be women carry on with their enthusiasm for games, in the same way that most boys do for the rest of their lives.
).
