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Games Entertainment

The Escapist on Women In Games 72

Posted by Zonk from the not-background-characters dept.
The ever interesting Escapist has an entire issue concentrating on women in gaming this week. Particularly informative is a Chris Crawford penned piece on the subject. From the article: "I have long since given up participating in discussions on women in gaming. The games industry is so out of touch, such discussions are a waste of perfectly good electrons. When Microsoft wanted to publicize an event for women at a Game Developers' Conference a few years back, they splashed around banners showing a woman in a low-cut dress. Some people just don't get it."
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The Escapist on Women In Games More

The Escapist on Women In Games

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  • I like this... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @05:37PM (#13927508) Journal
    I have long since given up participating in discussions on women in gaming.

    And therefore, I shall now declaim a pompous, long-winded pulled-out-of-my-ass speech on that very same subject, about how evolution has shaped men as a hunters and women as nurturers -- an idea no one has *EVAR* thought of before!

    Honestly, we get this story here literally every week. (This is sort-of the second one this afternoon.) Have any of them ever made a single useful point?

    • And therefore, I shall now declaim a pompous, long-winded pulled-out-of-my-ass speech on that very same subject, about how evolution has shaped men as a hunters and women as nurturers -- an idea no one has *EVAR* thought of before!

      This idea is one of those great uncontested theories that seems to make sense on first glance, but as soon as you delve into it it quickly falls under its own weight. From TFA:

      The biggest difference was men were hunters and women were gatherers. This gender specialization did not
      • Your dismissal of the importance and difficulty in properly caring for and raising children is really quite disturbing. In many ways navigating the complex social structure in any society is more difficult than hunting. If you somehow think that the hunters would up and leave because the situation wasn't "fair", then keep in mind that all such peoples would die out and have no decendents.

        I'd also add that he did bring up evidence, such as certain physical characteristics; only women can feed babies and me
        • In any case, you need to rething your view on the care, protection, and feeding of children, and on organizing social groups to do these tasks. You hopelessly simplify evolutionary psychology (and the article we are talking about) when you pretend that all women did was "pick berries".

          I was pointing out that this assumption, which is quite common, was in fact a gross simplification, as were the majority of the points in you rebuttal.

          Essentially you are arguing that human beings have specialised roles based
          • I agree that we are adaptable creatures, and as such you would not expect extremely large differences between men and women. Indeed, there aren't extremely large differences, but there are significant differences. However, saying that you'd expect men to be useless at social interaction and women useless as spatial reasoning is making a strawman (and a very ridiculous one at that). You'd expect men to be worse at navigating social difficulties, and women to be worse at dealing with spatially based proble
          • Oops, forgot to hit "plain old text"..here's a more readable post:

            I agree that we are adaptable creatures, and as such you would not expect extremely large differences between men and women. Indeed, there aren't extremely large differences, but there are significant differences.

            However, saying that you'd expect men to be useless at social interaction and women useless as spatial reasoning is making a strawman (and a very ridiculous one at that). You'd expect men to be worse at navigating social difficulties

  • What's your point? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bogtha ( 906264 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @05:48PM (#13927614)

    When Microsoft wanted to publicize an event for women at a Game Developers' Conference a few years back, they splashed around banners showing a woman in a low-cut dress. Some people just don't get it."

    Pick up a womens' magazine sometime. What's on the front of it? That's right, a beautiful woman in sexy clothes. Look at television adverts specifically targeting women. What's in them? That's right beautiful women in sexy clothes.

    Believe it or not, advertising weenies aren't complete idiots. If you want a high response from men, you use an image of a beautiful woman in sexy clothes, and if you want a high response from women, you use an image of a beautiful woman in sexy clothes too. It's not the advertising weenies' faults that this is what women respond to.

    Does it seem like these guys are completely clueless at first glance? Sure. But when you compare it with other markets, and, most importantly, compare it with what works in other markets, it seems not only sane, but the obvious choice.

    • Re:What's your point? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by screwballicus ( 313964 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @06:22PM (#13927891)
      A very important distinction needs to be made between specifically erotic clothing and merely attractive clothing, however. And this is a distinction that straight men frequently miss, because they don't generally have much if any experience trying on, wearing and seeing themselves and other members of their gender in erotic clothing.

      Put a women in an attractive evening gown, and both men and women of all sorts will prefer to look at her as opposed to a not equally attractive figure.

      But put a women in a thong and fetishistic apparel and you have something quite different. It's the difference between a man in a smart suit on the one hand and a man in a pair of assless chaps, a cowboy hat and leather armbands on the other. The first is attractive, while the latter is overtly erotic. Many men would be uncomfortable dressed in the latter, and many men would have a hard time imagining themselves as being a character dressed in the latter. And men need to grasp this.

      Not all characters benefit from being eroticised. It may simply not fit their character at all. And this is a problem in game design presently - sacrificing all believability in the name of exposing skin. And regardless, not everyone wants to look at erotic images constantly whilst gaming.

      They could make a version of Hamlet in which the main characters consistently walk around nearly nude, in thongs, bikinis and lingerie. But it wouldn't be very believable. And on the whole, audiences tend to favour believability over eroticism in cinema where the two are in contention. They are not always in contention, by any means. But frequently when they contend against each other in gaming at present, eroticism gets chosen over believability.

      Being dressed in erotic clothing feels fundamentally different from being dressed in merely attractive clothing. And playing a character dressed in erotic clothing does similarly, for those who understand that distinction.
      • Holy buckets! This is the most insightful comment I've seen on slashdot...ever. Is the world ending? Is this really Slashdot?!?

        Wait... the poster's name is ... screwballicus
        ...
        Yup, it's slashdot.
      • You have a lot of good points here, but there is still one thing that you're missing. The women's equivalent of a "business suit" is still an eroticized item. Yes, it is not sexual to the same degree as a thong + bondage gear, but its roots are the same. The dress is an item of clothing designed so that women could be submissive and sexually accessible. Every example of a women being "dressed up," even in formal business attire, still includes a dress or skirt of some kind. Pants are a matter of status
    • Pick up a womens' magazine sometime.

      But there's a specific reason for that - those magazines are saying "Look at this woman! She's prettier than you, sexier than you, and looks better in her clothes than you! BUT - if you buy this magazine we can teach you how to look like her and tell you what products to buy to be just as sexy, we promise!"

      Same for TV ads for beauty products. However, if you watch daytime TV, where the ads are for cleaning products and targeted at housewives, you don't see that - yo

      • It's for the player to identify with the character and enjoy living the character's life for a while, doing whatever it is the character does in the game.

        And why wouldn't a woman want to identify with the 'She's prettier than you, sexier than you, and looks better in her clothes than you' woman?

        on a side note, how many spotty geeks in anoraks do you see portrayed as male characters in games? not many, there all well build, good looking etc...
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • For those interested in women gamers as a distinct phenomenon and the perspectives of women gamers as relevant to game design choices, I find womengamers.com's analysis [womengamers.com] of various prominent female characters from recent gaming history fascinating. Certainly worth the read.
    • After looking at the list of female game characters up for analasys on that link, I am somewhat disinclined to look deeper into their article due to the glaring omission of one of the most signifigant, if not the most signifigant, female characters of all time.

      Samus Aran.

      This has proven to be a trend in the issue of female game character analasys. I've not seen a single article on the subject in recent memory that mentions Samus in any signifigant way. Why is that? She has iterations in both histo


  • Most comments/replies repeatedly number less than 100 (including trolls and basementers) and there are more focused places for the subject, it's just not here.
    • Didn't you notice that the Games section is the only section, aside from book reviews, that's coming up with Slashdot-original content? And it's the only section where the original content was written by an employee instead of a regular reader like honestpuck [slashdot.org]?

      It's a good move for Slashdot, and there's really no other place to put that content.

      • Since the section was started, it has never gotten more than ~25 +3 responses.

        The slashdot crowd is getting older and they know where to go to discuss games.

        Just my opinion.
        • Over the last week or so, most of the posts have been in the sub-100. But this isn't normal.

          IGN Talks Games Industry Salaries (On October 20th, 2005 with 348 comments)
          Jack Thompson Under Investigation (On October 20th, 2005 with 214 comments)
          TransGaming Releases Fast Software 3D Rendering (On October 19th, 2005 with 256 comments)
          Nintendo & McDonalds Providing WiFi (On October 18th, 2005 with 296 comments)

          You are looking at a lull between storms right now. You'll see 1000's of comments once the nex

    • Well, I appreciate the occasional foray into games articles.

      Rather than asking for the games section to be dumped, why not just set your preferences to not show Games articles? That way you can have what you want, without the rest of us having to see your griping.

      • Good idea. Checking just two minutes ago though, indicates that slashdot has set about 20 cookies. Although I have "excellent" karma I wonder about a site's need to set that many cookies and I often browse the site while not logged-in.

        I confess that I am not a subscriber and therefore have no say in anything, but I reserve the right to gripe.

        A lot less "Bad Request" ["Your browser sent a request that this server could not understand. Request header field is missing colon separator"] errors would also be

  • What do they really want to play? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by stpitner ( 164196 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @07:09PM (#13928260)
    I think the hardest thing of all is asking a bunch of guys (because typically the developers and game-creators are male) to create a game that women want to play. There's a problem with that right there. The closest thing I've seen to a successful game where women really enjoy the game is The Sims series. My wife loves to play that all the time and build houses and build a family. What she's doing has no point, no goal to reach, but she loves to play it. She also likes to play driving games where you're not racing, but you're just driving around because she wants to drive around.

    I know that my wife does not speak for all woman-kind for the type of games that need to be created, but the stuff she enjoys to play is just so incredibly different than what I would ever conceive of creating. There's no desire for competition and winning (although I know there are many women that are indeed very competitve and really want to win), and she's content with just driving around or just having the sims do stuff. It's hard to make a game when you don't really have an objective.

    I could see some women enjoying more of a game where you are more defensive than something like a FPS where you go on the offense and attack everything.

    I seriously think the hardest part about finding a game that women would enjoy is just finding out what the women want to play. Any of the answers that I see in the articles is so vague (an my suggestion was vague too) because there is no real set answer as to what women would enjoy.
    • "I seriously think the hardest part about finding a game that women would enjoy is just finding out what the women want to play."

      Sadly, I think this is exactly the problem preventing game publishers from being more successful at tapping into the female gaming market. No-one really understands what women want in games, and I think this is largely because there are not many women involved in game creation. The reason that gaming is popular for guys is that the games are written by a bunch of guys who w
    • I just want to comment about my own experience.

      When I was younger, I got the SNES, after I have had the NES. Both consoles where a big part of my infancy.

      My mother used to see me play, I played Ninja Gaiden, Contra, and some other games.

      Now, there were some titles that she actually played, and when an Aunt visited us, she also tried to play (I am speaking about 35 AND 45 yr old women). The games they enjoyed where: "Mario Kart", "Pilot Wings" and "Where in time is Carmen Sandiego". Of course they didnt play
      • I enjoy rpgs!
        Kill, robb everything
        save the world!

      • "Now, I also (barely) remember with the Atari, there were some games which were played with the other control that was not the joystick (the rotary controllers or paddles). I remember a game that could be played by 4 persons with 4 of these controllers. Man, that game was incredible. In the game, each person had to take care of a "fortress" on each corner of the screen, and she controlled a small paddle as in Pong and had to avoid that the ball hit her fortress."

        The game is called Warlords, available on the

    • I find it hard to get an intelligent conversation about women in gaming happening on Slashdot, but I would concur with the above statement about cooperative vs. competitve gaming. I like playing games where I'm cooperating with my husband -> it's something we can do together; as opposed to competitive gaming -> where it's something we do against each other.

      Even team events against other players really doesn't do it for me - I play on a WoW PvE server for a reason - I have not desire to do PvP. I mig

      • That's a really good point. I've seen some couples try to do that on certain games and have it fail miserably sometimes unfortunately. The guy's competitive spirit starts to really show and gets ticked if she doesn't do exactly the same strategy that he's thinking. So the goal has to be something other than just beating the other guy.

        Actually, I just thought of a game that does take a lot of cooperative efforts. Muppets Party Cruise. I think Mario Party (haven't played it) is the game that is similar t
      • this part is a little offtopic, but neat :) My wife's name is also Sara, spelled the same way and everything. Wait, my Sara, is that YOU? lol j/k

        I didn't respond to your WoW comment though, so back on topic, I agree with you there too. I don't like doing PvP either, only PvE. I don't really play MMORPG's, but for instance, playing Starcraft on the network I'd rather team up with my brothers and fight 2 or 3 computer AI groups than fight each other. That way it helps each other out with defending one an

  • Reinvent (Score:3, Funny)

    by Deliveranc3 ( 629997 ) <<deliverance> <at> <level4.org>> on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @09:27PM (#13929169) Journal
    The novel as a genre reinvented women giving us what can be considered the modern western woman with the works of Jane Austin.

    Perhaps if we wait long enough this medium will show some teeth, female teeth.
  • This article is not very well written. From a psychologist's point of view, it's really very sloppy. I'm not the only one: http://oghc.blogspot.com/2005/11/o-chris-crawford- we-shake-our-heads-at.html [blogspot.com] That's a pretty good review of Crawford's piece in The Escapist. Unlike that guy, though- I'm really wondering what The Escapist was thinking publishing this. It brings down their repor. I think it is only because they interviewed him, and wanted to throw a bone.
    • Thanks for the link. I agree with the reviewer that Crawford's article was a load of evo psych bumpkis. I mean seriously,

      "The ideal game for women, according to this simplified model, would be some sort of interactive soap opera or bodice ripper, presenting the player with complex social problems as she seeks the ideal mate."

      We play games because we WANT MEN. I and all my female clanmates had a good laugh at that one.

    • The Escapist regularly has articles/editorials that are pretty useless. I've occasionally seen a good write-up there, but in general, I skip any /. link that points there.

      To get back on topic, I don't think we're going to see any major releases aimed at women gamers for quite a while... the same reason we don't see many non-derivative games aimed at the traditional (male) game market -- the industry has become pretty risk-averse.

      What the game industry really needs to do if they want to target the women
  • So, what was the gaming/coding girl supposed to wear then ? Wool socks and one of those grey dull dresses covering all skin ?
  • I just bought a GameCube a few weeks ago and my wife and her friends LOVE it. There are a lot of games they find appealing. They tend to like Super Monkey Ball 1 and 2, Sonic Heroes, Mario Kart, and Bomberman Jetters. One thing I've noticed about these games are that they are genres most game companies don't produce anymore. Another thing I've noticed about these games is that they center around simplicity. Monkey Ball uses the analog pad and the A button and that's it. Sonic Heroes does have the char

  • WTF (Score:3, Insightful)

    by FreakUnique ( 927847 ) on Wednesday November 02, 2005 @09:12AM (#13931617)
    OK the person who wrote that article couldn't design if their life depending on it. I've been gaming since I was a very little girl. I'm now 24 and still play games and online games. Most people don't care for the fact that I'm a woman. It's the minority of idiot pre pubescent teens that start the drooling or treating me like an idiot.

    I just ignore them. As for the sorts of games that I play I love RPGs, the cute Japanese puzzle games, MMORPGs, Action/adventure, and other puzzle games. I also love games like Mario Kart, Monkey Ball, and Dynasty Warriors. I play games either becuase I love the storyline and gameplay or becuase I can pick them up and have some fun as a means to kill my time.
  • I'm generally happy out as a woman gamer. I love RPGs so they are the main thing I play.
    I also play other types of games but I devote most of my hours to rpgs.

    As long as the clothes and attitudes the women have aren't ridiculous (wearing pieces of string, having to be rescued in a patietic way, signing over the men like a women in a frank miller comic) I have no problem with it.

    Exceptions to 'the having to be resuced' are of course Ico. That is truely fantastic. But in Ico it wasnt shoved in your face, she
  • What a load of crap.

    The writer uses (outdated) information on what we (think) we know about the stone ages, uses it as a model of what is the most appropriate behavior model for both genders, and makes the assumption that us ladies would prefer games that are "interactive soap opera or bodice ripper, presenting the player with complex social problems as she seeks the ideal mate."

    *shudder* If this is what "games for women" are supposed to be like, Im glad they dont make them.

    Im a woman and I like games. Many
  • I see a lot of articles like this, I see industry experts and teams of executives coming up with the mystical answer to how to draw women in to gaming. Scientists and psychologists desperate to crack open a new market.

    http://www.theesa.com/facts/top_10_facts.php [theesa.com]
    43% of gamers are female. In certain categories more women than men.

    http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/archives/2005/06 /15/mobile_gaming_more_popular_with_women_than_men .html [guardian.co.uk]
    The title says it all.

    http://www.wi-fitechnology.com/displayarticle2212. ht [wi-fitechnology.com]
  • This guy decries the chauvinism towards and misunderstanding of females in the gaming industry, and after a long winded exposition on evolutionary psychology which is news to absolutely nobody, concludes: women gamers want interactive soap operas and bodice-rippers? WTF.
  • I remember watching a trailer for Ninety Nine Nights because I was curious as to why this would be the end of Koei's Dynasty Warriors series. I remember feeling rather insulted by it.

    The portion arrives when the obligatory female character is displayed, and displayed she is. It is immediately implied she has nothing on, before she puts on what I can barely call armor (as so much is showing) with an entire camera shot showing nothing but her clamping her chest peice over he breasts.

    Am I the only one insulted
    • Dynasty warriors is a very cool game. I do like the character design and the fact the female characters wear armour.
      I also like the fact it has stayed that way.

      Some of the other games have been known to start with a good character design, main character of metroid, main character of perfect dark and then do something very stupid.
      EX Remove shamus mask and 'sex' her up, put the main character of perfect dark in fhm.

      Which kind of destroys their crediability as tough characters.

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