Games for Girls!?

[Soxafloppin]

When was the last time we got game espcially for men :O

Girls can just play games that are good, SIMPLES.

 

[Little Bo Peep]

I agree with you there, I don't think any of the games I picked out scream girly. Maybe that's a good thing though? That slashing and shooting can be added easily to a game with tons of relationships and a heap of angst as well? I think games that do that become popular with both genders because it usually tailors to everyones taste.

But that's just a generalisation of course.

I think it's near enough impossible to find a game which classes as a "deep character/story" game without any of the Forces of Evil-ness. But DA:O got me hooked not only for the easy gameplay but because I found the story genuinely interesting and the characters well thought out, so maybe the characters don't have to be deep as long as the stories immersive. So maybe that's why Mass Effect, DA:O and Half Life are considered girls games, because it's more about the story than the gameplay?

What about more puzzle based games, would you say they're gender specific? Just curious.

And thank you, been lurking here for a while now, but only just got brave enough to post!
Feel free to stop me if you think I'm talking nonsense.

Responding above got me thinking about the real difference. It's not so much a division between "forces of evil stuff" and "deep characters/story", but a question of what drives the story forward. All due respect to Bioware, but they suck at making character-driven stories. They went so far toward freedom that they neglect those of us who don't really like being forced to make up wholecloth backgrounds and personalities for our characters.

The question is this: what makes the story progress? In a shonen anime, it's progression for progression's sake. The characters either don't care, or aren't shown to be cognizant enough to care, and instead just go from adventure to adventure, advancing the plot. In a shojou anime, the plot is progressed because of who the characters are. Their motivations are of prime important. Sousuke Sagara goes through growth and development, going so far as to defy orders to rescue Kaname. His personality informs the story.

I want a game in which the story is deep, but in which the story is based on the characters. Otherwise I feel like I'm just playing with action figures. Cardboard cut-outs whose personalities are irrelevant to the need for the story to move forward. *shrugs*, the organic progression of "what would the characters do" feels more realistic and fun than "we have to go from point A to point B and accomplish this goal".

We talk a lot about gameplay and story segregation, maybe we should talk about gameplay/character story segregation.

I have to disagree with you there, it's true that some games/stories only progress simply to get to the next adventure, however on your point about shonen one of my more favourite animes is Naruto and Naruto Shippuuden. I don't see what happens in that shonen anime as a simple progression from each adventure, for example we see how Sakura mature's a begins to put aside a crush to develop her skills and how Naruto becomes stronger to save a close friend from a path of revenge. You come to know these characters and it doesn't simply become leaping from one plot to another. True it's not the same type of growth and development as shojou, but it's there and it's driven by character personality as well as the need for story progression. The story progresses because of Naruto's determined nature and stubborness to never give up on those he loves. So if it can happen in a shonen anime why can't it happen in a game?

I think it already has, to me DA:O is driven by characters, your character. You become your character and you do not merely go "I need to get to this point to win!" You think, what would she/he do? What would my party think? Is this the right thing to do and would my character even care? I feel the origin system in DA:O makes it much more of a character driven story than almost any other game. To a lesser extent Mass Effect did this too, but to me sometimes playing as Shepard didn't feel like immersive enough and I couldn't find myself thinking "What would she do?" instead I merely made choices I would make put in that situation and I don't really like that, I play to become someone else. To be the hero, because I'm normal every hour of every day anyway. We spend our days working or going school or looking after children, don't we all play to loose ourselves in the game. Be it blowing up aliens, or slaughtering darkspawn, or solving complex puzzles.

But yes, I would like to see much more character driven stories, of any variety really. But as we've both said before, what it boils down to is personal opinion and taste in games. Neither of us are wrong, it's just what we prefer. I think we can safely say though that gender doesn't effect the type of games we play.

And on the Bioware point, I think it all depends on what you consider a character-driven story.

 

[RanD00M]

I am a gurl and I liek Peggle. Lololololol.

I'm a guy and i like Peggle.Don´t you be dissin' my Peggle.

OT:Any game can be a girl game.Just like any game can be a guy game.

As it has been stated countless times in this thread.It all depends on the person.

 

[Seldon2639]

Oh wow...I so disagree with you there...especially in BioWare games. How my character reacted made the difference as to whether the game ended with various characters being alive or dead...including herself!

Having not played through all the permutations of DA:O, yet, I can still see how different characters could be with you or not.

Still, think about the most basic story. How much control do you ever have over the story itself? Do you get to determine anything about the story aside from "the order of planets you visit", "who's in your party/group/nakama", and "who do you sleep with"? I've not found a Bioware game (much less another Western RPG) which actually has my character's personality determining how the story itself goes. Of course, it can't. Because they have to write the story itself, they can't have it be that my character's personality determines the overarching story.

My point is that in a Bioware game, your character's personality is (a) arbitrary, and (b) inconsistent. There's nothing forcing me to actually follow what I think of as "Andrew Shepherd" aside from self-imposed personality. And the story reflects that. No matter how I act in general, I still become a Spectre, I still chase Saren across the galaxy, I still stop Sovereign. My motivations, my personality, who and what I care about, doesn't influence the story at all.

Think about a good JRPG, conversely. Think about Persona 3. The entire story is told based on the characters. Every event is driven entirely by the characters' personalities, for better or worse. The story doesn't pull them along, it's driven by them. They do what they do because it's consistent with their personalities.

 

[Seldon2639]

I have to disagree with you there, it's true that some games/stories only progress simply to get to the next adventure, however on your point about shonen one of my more favourite animes is Naruto and Naruto Shippuuden. I don't see what happens in that shonen anime as a simple progression from each adventure, for example we see how Sakura mature's a begins to put aside a crush to develop her skills and how Naruto becomes stronger to save a close friend from a path of revenge. You come to know these characters and it doesn't simply become leaping from one plot to another. True it's not the same type of growth and development as shojou, but it's there and it's driven by character personality as well as the need for story progression. The story progresses because of Naruto's determined nature and stubborness to never give up on those he loves. So if it can happen in a shonen anime why can't it happen in a game?

I think it already has, to me DA:O is driven by characters, your character. You become your character and you do not merely go "I need to get to this point to win!" You think, what would she/he do? What would my party think? Is this the right thing to do and would my character even care? I feel the origin system in DA:O makes it much more of a character driven story than almost any other game. To a lesser extent Mass Effect did this too, but to me sometimes playing as Shepard didn't feel like immersive enough and I couldn't find myself thinking "What would she do?" instead I merely made choices I would make put in that situation and I don't really like that, I play to become someone else. To be the hero, because I'm normal every hour of every day anyway. We spend our days working or going school or looking after children, don't we all play to loose ourselves in the game. Be it blowing up aliens, or slaughtering darkspawn, or solving complex puzzles.

But yes, I would like to see much more character driven stories, of any variety really. But as we've both said before, what it boils down to is personal opinion and taste in games. Neither of us are wrong, it's just what we prefer. I think we can safely say though that gender doesn't effect the type of games we play.

And on the Bioware point, I think it all depends on what you consider a character-driven story.

Yes, we're disagreeing on what makes a character-driven story. But, more specifically, we're butting heads about whether "I've made up a personality for my character, and try to abide by that" is the same thing as "a writer defined a character, and that character is acting of his own accord consistently with his personality". I don't really consider the first to be "character-driven" because the story itself remains unperturbed. The game itself doesn't recognize your character's personality as impacting the overarching story, nor does it recognize consistency of characterization, nor does it recognize character development.

Any time when I can pick "slaughter them all" one minute and "don't kick the puppy" the next is a game which can't be character-driven, as there is no character qua character. What I'd love to see is a game where you get to define your character at the beginning, and are held to that consistently, can only grow and change realistically, and where the story is influenced by that.

If you're a selfish character, it should take something significant to make you embark on a quest to save the world. If you're a complete asshole character, you should have to be an asshole until you'd be able to realistically change into a decent human being. If you're not interested in being a hero, you shouldn't be a hero until something really changes your mind.

If in any book we saw a character who starts off craven and cowardly suddenly become the stalwart hero of the land, we'd cry fowl. Yet any game like DA:O has just that happening.

 

[DaBozz]

Barbies horse riding adventures lol.

 

[scire]

Walking around villages seducing people or, even better, killing them with one hit just then taking their gold and buying an even bigger sword makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

Hi satan, how are you doing today?
No, I'm just kidding, I experienced the exact same thing with Fable I and Fable II eventhough I like to be loved in Oakvale, Bowerstone and Oakfield instead of being feared, but enough off-topic crap you obviously don't care about, the numbers I read about the percentage of girl-gamers seem extremely onrealistic to me, but that's probably because girl-gaming is not so big yet in Holland, so I'm not a very reliable source on this subject.

 

[scire]

 

[SimGrave]

Hi and thanks to everybody who posted here. There a few points I want to clarified.

1. The goal of this thread was to validate if either or not the medias are right about making such a big deal about that type of topics and judging by what I see here, yes, they are making a big deal out of it.

2. I believe that if their are so many girl gamers nowadays, it's because of what the industry already does something good; offering a variety of product with the potential of pleasing all sort of people.

3. There are differences between the gender, that's a fact! I was curious to see how that is reflected in gaming preferences and it seem that gaming wise, girls and guys have really similar tastes.

I think some people here misunderstood me (or it's probably the opposite... I didn't expressed myself properly), I was not trying to divide gender... it's quite the opposite. I was curious to see what were the fundamentals differences that the medias have been talking about so much lately.

I conclusion, I'm not saying we should target anyone specifically when thinking about a game concept... but still, it's good to know what turns some people on or off, so that we don't exclude them if the nature of the game has the potential to interest them.

 

[Fwee]

I worked for a long time at a game store and all the "Girl Games" I saw were basically ones with Disney Princesses involved.

How about the game
"Get Back In the Goddamn Kitchen and Make Me Cake!"
Sorry had to get one out of my system.

From all the articles from last week's issue, one bit that keeps cycling through my head is the idea that guys tend to lean toward conquest/aggression problem solving and gals tend more toward nurture/cooperation problem solving. Now women just like men are going to play the games that they think they'll like, but maybe this article was trying to point out that most games have the same objective of KILL KILL PUZZLE KILL!
Here's a game idea for free:
The main character knows the world will end in a month, and they need to use time travel to build certain character's relationships through dialogue and actions in such a way to prevent a chain of events that triggers the apocalypse. Of course this will lead to much experimentation to actually find the right solution, and there's no violence. There's action, such as running through town to get to the right place or even disarming bombs or something, I don't know that's all you get for free I need to potty!

 

[SimGrave]

A "Games for Girls" mentality is beyond stupidity. Women aren't cats, we don't need to make little catnip mice for them to play with while we big burly men play with our manly games. I've never met a female gamer who looked at a game and went "IF ONLY IT HAD SPARKLES AND PONIES THEN I'D PLAY" Either they liked a game or they didn't like anyone else.

It's not what I meant... it's more a matter of inclusion and exclusion. What can we do to make sure we don't exclude anyone. Take it like this;

"We are making that great game, with tons of character development and plot twists. The main character has sex with almost every woman he meets and his best friend is a frustrated oversized worman."

Ok, this is an extreme example, but knowing that 2 elements in my pitch are total turn off that can be offending, can I change these make it appeal to a larger audience? I'm not talking about sparkles and rainbow here. If the original pitch was kept as is, then the "sex" factor would probably helps selling it to a lot of guys (don't get me wrong, here). Would it hurt the game so much to remove that element? I wouldn't think so. Keep the character development, use a male character that respects his peers, and get him a friend with a great self esteem, not based on her physical appearance.

 

[Uilleand]

Think about a good JRPG, conversely. Think about Persona 3. The entire story is told based on the characters. Every event is driven entirely by the characters' personalities, for better or worse. The story doesn't pull them along, it's driven by them. They do what they do because it's consistent with their personalities.

Yeah...this is definitely a taste thing. I find most (not all) JRPGs wildly dissatisfying because I don't find the gameplay compelling enough to pull me through the story. I'd rather just watch a well-written anime and not have to go through all the button mashing to get to the story, if I can't control the outcome.

And, I may still chase Seren to the end of the Galaxy ... but whether or not Wrex is with me to the end, or Kaidan or Ash is alive, or the Rachni are still around...those outcomes were up to me as the player. Even whether I fight Saren or

Spoiler

just talk him into blowing his own freaking head off depends on how I play the game.

And, as Mass Effect progresses through its next two iterations, I expect those small outcomes to build on each-other.

As for Dragon Age - I was playing at the same time as a friend of mine and she IMed me, FURIOUS with the outcome she'd played to ... until she heard how MY game ended - which was COMPLETELY different from hers and about a kabillion times more heartbreaking. *grin* Gawd, I love sad endings...

 

[Axolotl]

And, I may still chase Seren to the end of the Galaxy ... but whether or not Wrex is with me to the end, or Kaidan or Ash is alive, or the Rachni are still around...those outcomes were up to me as the player. Even whether I fight Saren or

Spoiler

just talk him into blowing his own freaking head off depends on how I play the game.

And, as Mass Effect progresses through its next two iterations, I expect those small outcomes to build on each-other.

Have you played the original Fallouts? They're pretty great for that sort of thing.

 

[Seldon2639]

Think about a good JRPG, conversely. Think about Persona 3. The entire story is told based on the characters. Every event is driven entirely by the characters' personalities, for better or worse. The story doesn't pull them along, it's driven by them. They do what they do because it's consistent with their personalities.

Yeah...this is definitely a taste thing. I find most (not all) JRPGs wildly dissatisfying because I don't find the gameplay compelling enough to pull me through the story. I'd rather just watch a well-written anime and not have to go through all the button mashing to get to the story, if I can't control the outcome.

And, I may still chase Seren to the end of the Galaxy ... but whether or not Wrex is with me to the end, or Kaidan or Ash is alive, or the Rachni are still around...those outcomes were up to me as the player. Even whether I fight Saren or

Spoiler

just talk him into blowing his own freaking head off depends on how I play the game.

And, as Mass Effect progresses through its next two iterations, I expect those small outcomes to build on each-other.

As for Dragon Age - I was playing at the same time as a friend of mine and she IMed me, FURIOUS with the outcome she'd played to ... until she heard how MY game ended - which was COMPLETELY different from hers and about a kabillion times more heartbreaking. *grin* Gawd, I love sad endings...

I'm much more of a "motivation leading to choices" rather than "choices leading to outcomes" focused. I care less about whether the outcomes change based on what I choose to do than whether the character's choices make sense for him. The issue is that in Bioware RPGs there is no "him". The character is nebulous at best, because at a whim I can go from stalwart hero to complete schmuck.

While I agree small outcomes are alterable, the basic progression of the game is the same, and the reason why Shepherd does what he or she does is never explored or given any importance. You run from planet to planet, and never does your personality truly alter gameplay. You can always choose whether Kaidan or Ashley lives, or to kill Wrex or not, your "personality" is irrelevant except as you as the player makes it.

Honestly, I was almost impressed at the end of Mass Effect when I convinced Saren to do what you suggest, and thought "wow, I just missed the climactic final battle through roleplaying. That's different"... Then the choice turns out to not actually impact the story of the game, and everything still goes down the exact same way. You fight Sovereign either way.

But, we can probably argue until we're blue in the faith and not come to any conclusion other than "we very much disagree"

 

[Megazell]

My wives love L4D and UT2k4.

At this time though the only game they seem to be playing a lot of is Frets on Fire. They also play Project Powder and Street Fighter IV...but they've been on fever with Frets on Fire...

 

[SimGrave]

However it might be an important part of his character depending on how they do it, which as silly as it might sound could happen and has.

You make a valid point here... You + 1, Me 0 ;o)