Finally, a Game for Girls!

[chiggerwood]

I glossed over it (I'm at work, can't really go in-depth right now) and I demand equality! We need a game for boys!

Some of the objectives would include:

- Lift weights
- Get a tan
- Drink beer
- Watch Football
- Beat up some geeks
- Urinate in a public place

And much, much more!

Because that's just as accurate to what "guys" do as a collective (because you can generalize an entire gender to have same interests, right?) as this 'game for girls'.

Masturbate, don't forget masturbate, because you know that's what takes up like 35% of our day.

OT: Is their a mini game where you have to try to parallel park, fail, but get of the car anyway, so you're not late for a manicure or something? I would never say that this is the dumbest thing I've ever heard of, but it's at least in the top 20. Also if you listen really close you can hear women's study majors all over the world screaming at the top of their lungs out of pure rage.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

AGHHHH

ITS A MONSTER WITH STARING EYES AND NO NIPPLES
KILL IT WITH FIRE!

Kinda wondering why they didn't just give it some underwear instead of having a weird completely smooth crotch'd thing. But whatever...
My sister likes Ratchet and Clank and Fable and COD, I guess she must be a man after all :/

 

[DaMullet]

This makes me want to vomit. Its so purile.

Young girls may be attracted to dress up sims but this is NOT the message we want to be giving them.

As far as I can tell these are the two main 'issues' of the game

- How you look
- How much money your boyfriend makes (I don't even..)

Just horrible.

You got an extra barf bag, I think I need one too.

This is wrong on so many levels.

....

*vomits*

 

[b3nn3tt]

Quoted because this actually raises a very good point. If we want to argue that violent games are fine because people can tell the difference between game and reality, then we also have to accept that the same rules apply for this game. It can't go both ways.

Ah - but most games featuring violence (at least COD or other shooters, probably not fighting games ala Tekken) will not fall into the hands of most kids until they're 10-12.
Still children, by every definition, but with some kernels of maturity beginning to form.

Whereas this game, by contrast, seems to be aiming for a much younger audience (it's probably aiming for 10-13, rather than the 16+ or 18+ of shooters), which, logic dictates, means that it'l be far more likely fall into the hands of people even younger than that (as shooters do) - possibly even as young as 6 or 7 years old.
They stand far less chance of differentiating, as they're much younger and more vulnerable.
They're much more likely to take ideas from it to heart and, due to it beginning at a younger age, will have longer for such ideas to ferment, if they aren't corrected.

It's much more likely for someone to be negatively indoctrinated playing this than any shooter.

I think six to seven might be a bit far, but I could agree with you on ten, maybe a year or two under. I can also believe that some children of the same age will be playing violent games. So if we're going to argue that games are that age can have an adverse effect on children, then we should be seeing more children with problems than we do.

To be honest, I think there are much worse things out there than this game to influence young children. A large percentage of young girls in the UK cite Jordan (a glamour model, to use a generous term) as a role model, despite the fact that she has no real talents and is famous only for being famous. I'll agree that this game seems to be professing the same kind of 'talents' that Jordan is known for, but I think having a real life role model is more influential.

 

[2xDouble]

So...
The way a woman comes of age is not through personal self-discovery, but by changing her hairstyle.
Men are interchangeable commodities like game properties, ranked by current job and how much money they give you, and wanting to know more about him means you should replace him.
Success means: being thin, owning a shop that effectively sells nothing and requires no maintainence other than sprucing up the decor, and going to the hair salon.

Great...

Thankfully, most women I know would rather play The Sims.

I glossed over it (I'm at work, can't really go in-depth right now) and I demand equality! We need a game for boys!

Some of the objectives would include:

- Lift weights
- Get a tan
- Drink beer
- Watch Football
- Beat up some geeks
- Urinate in a public place

And much, much more!

Because that's just as accurate to what "guys" do as a collective (because you can generalize an entire gender to have same interests, right?) as this 'game for girls'.

Got that already [http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6306200/the-jersey-shore-rpg].

 

[NLS]

Disscussion value/ question:
Why in the world do people still make games like this?
What are your responses?
What possible effect to you think this game could have?

1) Because its the kind of thing that a lot of twelve year old girls want to play.

2) Dont care since I am not twelve and its not targeted at me.

3) None. It is just another game in a sea of very similar ones that have been coming out for years and years. I can remember seeing things like this ten years ago so its not going to suddenly change things now.

Exactly this.
Somewhere, someone is probably linking to our "ultra-violent killing simulators" and wondering how we can play such games and enjoy it.
There's tons of different markets, and it shouldn't come as a surprise.

 

[Sizzle Montyjing]

-snip-

Hey, stereotypes don't matter really matter when you're a child, you usually end up following them anyway... it's more the diamond for real world money thing (although, y'know a lot of games do that so it doesn't really matter anymore) and the whole 'Boyfriend just for money' thing.
Also, main purpose of this was really just to have a laugh, i have to add disscussion value so the mods don't tear me apart.
That and it was only meant as a bit of fun.

I work at an elementary school. Kids, more precisely little girls, are playing such games.
I don't think that for normal kids there's any impact at all - exactly like with any other kind of games.

What i really wanted to get across was how this is all a bit silly, and just that we should have a laugh about it.
Besides, did you see the bottom of the article!?
Oh the lolz...

Anyway, only see it as a bit of fun, and by 'possible' i meant 'could happen, but insane if it did', like lizard people!

-snip-

1) How do you know? Are you a twelve year old girl?
2) The article is a bit of fun, and did you see who they marketed it at? They didn't seem to say it was confined to just 12 year olds
3) Possible reasons my friend, can be completely insane if you like I.E see 'Just a bit of fun'

 

[BloatedGuppy]

My girlfriend is 29 and she occasionally likes to play these ridiculous fashion/dress up doll games. I'd worry she had a fever, but she also plays shooters and RPGs like a proper little gamer, so I'm not too fussed about it. So this game doesn't seem all that startling to me. There's obviously a market for it, even if this one is more ridiculous than most (and therefore, might have some value as satire).

What I don't understand is the hand-wringing about "I wouldn't want young girls to play this and get the wrong message". Who on earth got any "messages" from video games growing up? What messages are we meant to get? That we should be a magic plumber who jumps on mushrooms? That if the demons invade we're the only ones who can stop them? Your child would have to be deeply stupid and/or wildly impressionable to be taking life lessons from tosh like this, and if that's the case you've got much, much bigger concerns putting them in front of a "proper" video game. Then instead of learning to solve their problems by getting a wealthier boyfriend, which is (lamentably) still a socially valid problem solving method, they'll learn to solve their problems with hilarious graphic violence.

 

[Sjakie]

carwasher gives her 50$ a day...
Im a slightly oldfashioned male and think this is offensive towards women/girls!
(and what a cheap whore)

 

[BLAHwhatever]

Gawddamn. I laughed so very hard at this.
"I got a boyfriend, His name is Carwasher. He gives me 50$ a day"
If this game was meant to be ironic, I'd be standing in front of my Monitor, giving a standing ovation.
But it clearly isn't, so I continue laughing at the stupidity of the game`s creators.

 

[Senare]

She will have to dump Car Washer soon. No cool friends will want to hang out with her when she has such an ugly boyfriend.

"Why in the world do people still make games like this?"
Because they can see profit in making them.

"What are your responses?"
Meh. To me it is shallow. But there are people which have such beliefs and if someone makes a game they want to play then GLHF. And who does not want a fit body and a haaandsome boyfriend? Having a nice hairstyle is not despicable in itself, it is the presentation that people may have some issue in.
Media we do not like has the same right to exist as any other legal media.

"What possible effect to you think this game could have?"
Nothing more than other video games. Some will like it, some will not. Some will agree with it and some will not. Some will alter their behaviour, some will not.

 

[AngloDoom]

I'm shocked more of you male escapists aren't completely offended by the boyfriend part tbh.

If everyone is on the same wavelength as me, we can't stop laughing long enough to be offended. The message this game gives is just so backwards it's mind-boggling, the only way to deal with it is laugh.

 

[Mikkaddo]

Speaking as a man, I'm always angered by these games. Not only does it tell girls that imagination is a problem ( since there's a story in it somewhere about needing to steal from a "powerful witch" in a HIDDEN GHOST CITY(speaking of which how do you steal from a city no one can find?) but it also teaches them "important" lessons about womanhood that are completely wrong. Like for instance the nesscity of changing your hair style. And also the bizare system of ranking men by their job and expendable income they throw at you, making the relationship no longer about who they are and how they treat you but instead makes it SOLELY based on how much they spend on you and how illustrious their career is.

It's like twilight all over again without th excuse of sparkly vampires or inexplicably identacle werewolf boys. It's telling girls to not bother about all that imagination stuff, what you need to worry about is fashion! After all If you don't stay at or below 126lbs you'll NEVER find man or be happy! And what about a career for yourself? While I'm sure there MUST be more than the two jobs in the article it sounds like your only choices involve cooking or hair dressing. How much more sexist does it get than telling girls rats their only option? "don't worry about being a doctor or lawyer little susan! That's for big stein men to do! You just focus on making those cookies be delicious! Don't eat too many though, or there won't be a hot boy that wants to give you money!" it's degrading to me as a man even. I adore the fact that girls are into gaming, and some of the best gamers I've ever met are girls. Saying that crap like this will appeal to girls more than the RPGs or FPS games we have now is bullshit. It'd be like them releasing a game "for boys" where your ultimate goal in life is to get a football scholarship at a stare college and win the big game, oh and don't forget to make sure you don't get hurt or the cheerleader wont go out with you!

The kind of game is a sickness, it's a desperate attempt to hold on to an older time when a girl gamer was a likely as surviving AIDS (ie: not gonna happen) you know what, I pray for the day videogames are finally accepted as a mature form of entertainment, it won't stop shit like this from being made sure, but like the failure tv shows that no one talks about these games will be unanimously shunned by gamers and reviewers alike as they should.

 

[AbstractStream]

I'm laughing so hard at this. Car washer? Really?

Got that already [http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6306200/the-jersey-shore-rpg].

Damn. Ninja'd.

 

[LordFisheh]

I think it's very easy for us to look at kids from afar and say 'ah yes, their minds are malleable and fragile and different to ours'. We're really not that different; kids can call bullshit just as well as many adults.

We shouldn't restrict this game for encouraging shallow sexism any more than we should ban Manhunt for encouraging violence. The audience and its percieved 'malleability' by an outside group isn't the problem; the problem is that there are people in the world who will take such sexism or violence absolutely seriously, as presented. They'll feel pressured into the ideals presented by the game, or think that the violence in a more regular game is actually pretty cool on a real life level. The way to tackle that isn't banning or restricting the games, it's teaching people to think for themselves (yes, I see the hypocrisy) so that they won't be taken in by whatever they're told, be they 8 or 18. And after all, just like some people like a cathartic session of ruthless butchery, others might want to dress up a character, set up a 'glamorous' lifestyle and swap through virtual boyfriends like collectible cards. They aren't necessarily taking it any more seriously than someone driving a tank along the pavement in GTA.

 

[2xDouble]

I'm laughing so hard at this. Car washer? Really?

Got that already [http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6306200/the-jersey-shore-rpg].

Damn. Ninja'd.

Doh... forgot about the other one [http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6551577/man-vs-wild-rpg].

 

[lacktheknack]

I'm shocked more of you male escapists aren't completely offended by the boyfriend part tbh.

Pfffft. It's hilariously dumb fluff. I don't get offended by puerile things, I just laugh at them.

I mean, the guy's name is LITERALLY "Car washer". I suppose this could be offensive, but I'm busy imaging the poor guy's life before he was yanked out of the aether to star as the supporting role in this. Where did his life go so wrong? If the developer had the guts to include the line "CAR WASHER MAKE YOUR OWN DAMN SANDWICH", I'd have applauded.

 

[Pearwood]

"...what it is that makes a true, strong, independent lady: shopping, hairstyles, and having a boyfriend."

"Oh I'm so independant, I just need a man or I'm worthless!". Classy.

 

[Mikkaddo]

...see what it takes for the unpenised to make it today.

This is my favourite thing since the "reproductive organs on the inside instead of the outside" line from Stargate.

Honestly, I thought we were getting somewhere with gender equality.

Technically we are but I still say we're not. LOok at all of holywood today, all of the media today equality doesn't exist. Sure women can have the same jobs as men in almost every definition (not going to see a female bathroom clerk in a men's room) but they are still told see themselves both below and above men. Look at any commercial today on tv, it has the set up of any comedy. You have the "screwball" and the "straightman" in any commercial the screwball is the one making the HORRIBLE descisions and the straightman has to clean up the mess. On any commercial you can expect to see a man show up and Starr making terrible choices, but look! His wife is there tk clean it up and discipline him for being so stupid. The few times it doesn't work that way it's because it's a rare commercial or has no women in it, meaning it's likely a white man making a terrible choice and a black man cleans it up. Equality as the world is now, does not exist in any wide soread definition.

 

[TPiddy]

Wow that is some messed up shit, especially the boyfriend part, his name is Car washer and he gives you 50$ per day... what the frack.

And just last week Extra Credits was talking about how lazy design stumbles into horrific messages.

I know... car washers don't make $50 a day....