Poll: Female gamers like to shop, play support roles, says developer

[Savagezion]

Perhaps we can agree to disagree.

Yeah, that was the conclusion I was assuming was going to have to take place here as well.

 

[xXGeckoXx]

So, there's a new game on the horizon from Russian developer Nival, known in the West primarily for Heroes of Might and Magic V. It's called Prime World

One section of the preview article in this month's Game Informer struck me as a bit odd...
Nival is taking a huge gamble on the idea of tying players? real-life gender into their game experience. On the social side, your sex determines which activities are available during a visit. For instance, where a guy visiting a guy may launch a hunting activity, a couple of girls visiting might go shopping together. In the multiplayer sessions, male and female players have different heroes available to them at the beginning of the game, with female heroes skewing more toward support roles and male heroes tending to be front-line fighters. Nival has yet to determine exactly which heroes and roles will be available to each gender at the beginning of the game. Hopefully women will have at least some options to be big tanking ass-kickers, since telling female gamers that they are only allowed to be support for the men doing the real fighting would be a huge mistake

The complete article can be found <link=http://www.gameinformer.com/games/prime_world/b/pc/archive/2011/05/11/rethinking-the-boundary-between-social-and-hardcore-gaming.aspx>here

On the one hand, I don't think how you're allowed to interact with the game should be limited by gender. On the other hand, we constantly discuss how developers don't make an effort to reach out to women, and that's precisely what they're trying to do here.

So what does the escapist think? Is this a good idea? Do you want to see more implementation like this?

Edit: Sorry, poll didn't work. Anyone know how to add them after the fact?

While I believe that men and women have their distinct differences and that if more experiences acknowledged this properly the world would be better tailored for the needs of each individual gaming is not such a genre.

Gamin specifically revels in equality giving balance and opportunity to all, the female gaming community game in almost EXACTLY the same way us men do which is a rarity amongst communities.

 

[UltraXan]

I haven't played WOW, but I have played something similar: Perfect World International. It's an asian style game, but it had all those MMO bits that should be there. My main is a cleric as I work best as support, but I later learned that Clerics are one of the best pvp classes because of some of they skills they come equipped with. Sure, they aren't powerful at first, but my cleric is starting to build skills that are more pvp based now that I'm pretty much done upgrading the healing stuff.

 

[PhiMed]

Meh, if you want to play a certain way couldn't you always just choose the other gender?

It doesn't help anything though, if women mostly wanted to play support roles then they would just choose that themselves. I don't really like tank roles myself, but shopping is a boring terrible experience.

That's part of the actually innovative part of it (it's in the article). This game will have multiple levels of interaction, including a hard-core strategy multiplayer, a minigame buff for teammates, and a social gaming aspect that is linked to social networking accounts. Thus, signing up for the game and linking it to your facebook (or whatever) account will register you as the gender listed there.

Then how is it innovative if I can't actually choose to be the other gender? Echo Bazaar is linked with my Facebook and even though I am a girl It LET me choose which gender I wanted to be and I ended up choosing a genderless character. Forcing any girl who wants to play in support and shopping is absurd.

And I actually like shopping in games,

Yes, but Echo Bazaar pretty much has one central "game". This has several different contributing games. I never said I thought these guys were on the right track. Mostly what I was saying was that they heard critics saying that developers don't address female concerns, and this is what they came up with. They might be on the wrong track, but at least they're listening.

Saying developers "don't address female concerns" carries an implication that females are fundamentally different than men. If you follow that implication through, I can see how you could take a wrong turn and end up where they did.

Plus, he said female characters lean towards support. He didn't say there wouldn't be any variety in there. And the shopping aspect was just an example he threw out there on the fly.

 

[PhiMed]

On the other hand, we constantly discuss how developers don't make an effort to reach out to women, and that's precisely what they're trying to do here.

That's very true. But they couldn't have missed the point more.
Telling a whole gender what they want to do and then making them do it is not the best way to sell your game. Especially when you discover that a lot of these people will, in fact, not want to do these things.

True, but developers are constantly being told they don't address female concerns. This carries the implication that female concerns are different than male concerns. At least they're trying something. And it's certainly different.

I think this is better than Epic saying, "Um, maybe if we just put a female in there to do all the same stuff, just with boobs and longer hair?" Or Square Enix saying, "Um, maybe if Lara Crofts breasts weren't as big?"

My point was that most developers are listening to the criticism, largely ignoring it, and making minor superficial tweaks. These people are taking the criticism to heart and incorporating it into a central mechanic. It may be misguided, but they certainly couldn't be accused of ignoring female gamers with a bent like this.

It's interesting. It may blow up in their face, especially if it's as black and white as it sounds like it might be, but it's interesting.

 

[PhiMed]

So, there's a new game on the horizon from Russian developer Nival, known in the West primarily for Heroes of Might and Magic V. It's called Prime World

One section of the preview article in this month's Game Informer struck me as a bit odd...
Nival is taking a huge gamble on the idea of tying players? real-life gender into their game experience. On the social side, your sex determines which activities are available during a visit. For instance, where a guy visiting a guy may launch a hunting activity, a couple of girls visiting might go shopping together. In the multiplayer sessions, male and female players have different heroes available to them at the beginning of the game, with female heroes skewing more toward support roles and male heroes tending to be front-line fighters. Nival has yet to determine exactly which heroes and roles will be available to each gender at the beginning of the game. Hopefully women will have at least some options to be big tanking ass-kickers, since telling female gamers that they are only allowed to be support for the men doing the real fighting would be a huge mistake

The complete article can be found <link=http://www.gameinformer.com/games/prime_world/b/pc/archive/2011/05/11/rethinking-the-boundary-between-social-and-hardcore-gaming.aspx>here

On the one hand, I don't think how you're allowed to interact with the game should be limited by gender. On the other hand, we constantly discuss how developers don't make an effort to reach out to women, and that's precisely what they're trying to do here.

So what does the escapist think? Is this a good idea? Do you want to see more implementation like this?

Edit: Sorry, poll didn't work. Anyone know how to add them after the fact?

While I believe that men and women have their distinct differences and that if more experiences acknowledged this properly the world would be better tailored for the needs of each individual gaming is not such a genre.

Gamin specifically revels in equality giving balance and opportunity to all, the female gaming community game in almost EXACTLY the same way us men do which is a rarity amongst communities.

That's a nice sentiment, but statistics don't really hold up. Males and females tend to play different games. Within those games they behave in a similar fashion, but saying that men and women tend to play the same games just isn't true.

Just as many women game as men. Last time you were in a multiplayer FPS, what would you say the gender ratio was in there? Sure, everyone knows girls who can whip everyone's ass, but to say that just as many women are in a game like that as men is just false. So, if just as many women are playing as men, they must be playing something else. And if you're mostly engaging in separate activities, largely segregated by gender, are you really a single, unified "community"?

I think one of the goals of this project is to take disparate genres, some who have a largely male audience and some who have a largely female audience, and bring them together so that everyone's playing the same thing. It's a good idea. I just think they took a wrong turn somewhere.

Again, women game just as much as men, but they seem to be less interested in triple A titles than men are. Extra Credits made a video about this phenomenon just a while ago. This has been a point of criticism by game journalists and the gaming community alike. I think this studio took that criticism to heart, and they built the game from the ground up keeping this in mind. I think they should be commended for making an effort. Whether their experiment pans out is another matter...

 

[Ashbax]

Lol, seems like a cool concept, but tbh if they actually force the women to do certain activities its just a bit wierd.

 

[PhiMed]

Guess that just mean you'll have pick the gender of your avatar based in how you want to play the game.

Nothing new really, Diablo II had its classes locked to particular genders as well, and nobody raised an eyebrow. I for one preferred to play as a mage, and thus had to go with a female avatar; didn't bother me in the least.

Please read the original post before commenting. You don't even have to go to the article. The original post explicitly states that there is an attempt by the developer to tie the player's real life gender to game play options.

 

[PhiMed]

You are not THE female gamer is my point. Generalizations is exactly what one should do when trying to make a design for a game as you are aiming at an entire demographic.

Demographics are one thing offensive stereotypical generalizations are another. It's not the 1960's we don't like being portrayed as only liking shopping ang washing up and dresses. It's the restriction that really bothers me, why the hell should we be told what we like? On either side in fact.

And yes I know how to change the oil and break fluid in a car (if that's what you are referring to of course out of the many improtant things) and I don't even drive. I am nearly thirty though so I have had time to pick that up. You talk about women like you have been living in a bunker since the end of the war. As for picking out paint samples I know at least 10 guys who are very into building on the sims 3 and are actually better at interior design than alot of the women who go on the same site.

As for wanting to be offended and being oversensitive I actually defended Brink's descision in a recent thread not to have female avatars, Why? Because it's an fps and I don't particularly care.

I agree that what he said was sexist, and I appreciate that you're arguing against that, but you just "picked up" how to change break fluid?

http://images.mmorpg.com/images/avatars/orly.jpeg

I live in America, where car enthusiasm borders on the fetishistic, and only hard care gear heads change their own break fluid. That's not something you just "pick up". That's knowledge you have to actively seek out. So, if you know how to do that (and I'm not saying definitively that you don't), the chances that you just picked it up passively are somewhere between 0 and 5 percent. Again, not saying I don't believe you know how to do that.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I agree that what he said was sexist, and I appreciate that you're arguing against that, but you just "picked up" how to change break fluid?

*snip*

I live in America, where car enthusiasm borders on the fetishistic, and only hard care gear heads change their own break fluid. That's not something you just "pick up".

My dad was a driving instructor. Cars were highly featured in our family. Was the meme really necessary? :S

I have to admit I didn't think it was that much of a rare skill. Well now I feel special. I guess...

 

[PhiMed]

I agree that what he said was sexist, and I appreciate that you're arguing against that, but you just "picked up" how to change break fluid?

*snip*

I live in America, where car enthusiasm borders on the fetishistic, and only hard care gear heads change their own break fluid. That's not something you just "pick up".

My dad was a driving instructor. Cars were highly featured in our family. Was the meme really necessary? :S

Is is that hard for you to imagine a woman can change break fluid that you have to call her out on it. Guess we still are in the 60's. I have to admit I didn't think it was that much of a rare skill.

I specifically stated I didn't doubt that you knew how. You just said, that you were almost thirty, and you picked up how to do that. How many British women (or men, for that matter) do you think "picked up" how to change their brake fluid? I'd say not many.

It is a relatively rare skill. Poll your friends.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I agree that what he said was sexist, and I appreciate that you're arguing against that, but you just "picked up" how to change break fluid?

*snip*

I live in America, where car enthusiasm borders on the fetishistic, and only hard care gear heads change their own break fluid. That's not something you just "pick up".

My dad was a driving instructor. Cars were highly featured in our family. Was the meme really necessary? :S

Is is that hard for you to imagine a woman can change break fluid that you have to call her out on it. Guess we still are in the 60's. I have to admit I didn't think it was that much of a rare skill.

I specifically stated I didn't doubt that you knew how. You just said, that you were almost thirty, and you picked up how to do that. How many British women (or men, for that matter) do you think "picked up" how to change their brake fluid? I'd say not many.

It is a relatively rare skill. Poll your friends.

Yeah I changed my post after a second thought as you can see.

I always figured it was something that people who owned a car would know how to do. I didn't learn to drive because my dad died of cancer and it makes me too sad to learn, in case you wondered :<

 

[Gigano]

...
Please read the original post before commenting. You don't even have to go to the article. The original post explicitly states that there is an attempt by the developer to tie the player's real life gender to game play options.

It is an attempt to link it to their Facebook gender - every bit as customizable as any game - to the options of the game. Now unless you are assuming that female players do not possess the technical aptitude to change a setting on a their facebook profile (or create another one), then it de facto offers as little limitation as Diablo II did.

And sure, the idea behind might be that some Russian guys think women like shopping or whatever; but who the hell care what they believe, as long as the game is fun to play, and the gender-locked options are quite accessible to anyone who can operate facebook?

And even if it wasn't possible to play it as the gender one want, then just don't play it. We've seen plenty of titles catering to specific cultural and religious ideologies before - some considerably worse [http://www.leftbehindgames.com/index.php] than this one - and since not all games have to cater to all audiences, I don't see any harm in letting conservatives (and those who just don't care) have a game where they can play out some traditional gender role fantasy that sure as hell have no bearing in the real (first) world.

 

[rokkolpo]

Goddamn hilarious.

It feels like sexism in this day and age is borderline ironic.

 

[Erana]

HERE is how you talk about this sort of content: "There is a huge market for women oriented towards casual play and more traditional female roles that we would like to introduce to the MMO genre. We have features that cater to them in our game and will allow them to participate competently in their own way." That fucking simple.

If you want to allow my frilly, girly friend to the MMO genre and let me be able to play with her? Great. But how hard is it to acknowledge that I am not in that group because of my genetics. That is outright sexist and is insulting to me.

And yeah, guys, its not about the features on its own, its that they're saying "Men do this. WOmen do this." Why aren't you guys more offended? None of you like playing support roles? And didn't Brink go and prove that character customization and collecting cosmetics aren't just for women? All the features should be available for everyone, and the options within those features should cater to their specific demographics.

But for Christ's sake, let everyone have the same starting classes. This is pure bullshit for both the men and women players. And get a damn PR specialist.

All in all, I don't demand for games and features specifically for women. Just make better games. Respectful representation of minorities and mass appeal come with a more thoughtfully designed product.

 

[daftalchemist]

I'm a little confused as to why virtual shopping is supposed to sound fun to me? I'm not a fan of generalizing, but the developer is alreayd doing that, so why not? What makes anyone think that girls who play videogames (a pasttime traditionally associated with guys) would also enjoy going shopping (a pasttime traditionally associated with girls)? It seems to me that if the developer would generalize properly, they would come to the conclusion that girls who prefer one "guy" pasttime, would prefer other "guy" pasttimes.

For the record, shopping bores me. I go out of necessity, and I hate shopping with other girls. They force me to show them what clothes I'm trying on, and to tell them what I think of theirs. Then, when I tell them it doesn't look good (and it doesn't!), they think I'm mean.

As far as the support roles aspect, I play support roles just as often as I play front-line roles in games.

Finally, how is it that people still haven't figured out how to appeal to female gamers? I would like to think it's not actually as hard as everyone makes it seem. Perhaps they could even hire on a few of the elusive "X chromosome types" to educate them on the workings of a woman's mind so they can stop pumping out Cooking Mama games and delegating us to shopping for gear for the menfolk.

 

[lokiduck]

Meh, if you want to play a certain way couldn't you always just choose the other gender?

It doesn't help anything though, if women mostly wanted to play support roles then they would just choose that themselves. I don't really like tank roles myself, but shopping is a boring terrible experience.

That's part of the actually innovative part of it (it's in the article). This game will have multiple levels of interaction, including a hard-core strategy multiplayer, a minigame buff for teammates, and a social gaming aspect that is linked to social networking accounts. Thus, signing up for the game and linking it to your facebook (or whatever) account will register you as the gender listed there.

Then how is it innovative if I can't actually choose to be the other gender? Echo Bazaar is linked with my Facebook and even though I am a girl It LET me choose which gender I wanted to be and I ended up choosing a genderless character. Forcing any girl who wants to play in support and shopping is absurd.

And I actually like shopping in games,

Yes, but Echo Bazaar pretty much has one central "game". This has several different contributing games. I never said I thought these guys were on the right track. Mostly what I was saying was that they heard critics saying that developers don't address female concerns, and this is what they came up with. They might be on the wrong track, but at least they're listening.

Saying developers "don't address female concerns" carries an implication that females are fundamentally different than men. If you follow that implication through, I can see how you could take a wrong turn and end up where they did.

Plus, he said female characters lean towards support. He didn't say there wouldn't be any variety in there. And the shopping aspect was just an example he threw out there on the fly.

Yes TRYING to get into girl interests is innovative and new, but should they even be trying if they are going to do it wrong like this?

I mean I actually do play Support roles and like to shop in games, heck my favorite weapon in Halo is the Rocket Launcher because you can shoot from a distance and not get injured as much, but if you are going by stereotypes then aren't you not appealing to everyone? Especially if you are forced into being a gender? I pick my gender based on what I want, some sites I'm a girls, others I am a boy, and it all depends on the look of the avatar options and what skills they offer me.

For instance just this week on Facebook I chose a male character because he had better stats that appealed to me than the female.

If I forced into being the female, then doesn't that restrict the fun one can have?

 

[lokiduck]

I'm a little confused as to why virtual shopping is supposed to sound fun to me? I'm not a fan of generalizing, but the developer is alreayd doing that, so why not? What makes anyone think that girls who play videogames (a pasttime traditionally associated with guys) would also enjoy going shopping (a pasttime traditionally associated with girls)? It seems to me that if the developer would generalize properly, they would come to the conclusion that girls who prefer one "guy" pasttime, would prefer other "guy" pasttimes.

For the record, shopping bores me. I go out of necessity, and I hate shopping with other girls. They force me to show them what clothes I'm trying on, and to tell them what I think of theirs. Then, when I tell them it doesn't look good (and it doesn't!), they think I'm mean.

As far as the support roles aspect, I play support roles just as often as I play front-line roles in games.

Finally, how is it that people still haven't figured out how to appeal to female gamers? I would like to think it's not actually as hard as everyone makes it seem. Perhaps they could even hire on a few of the elusive "X chromosome types" to educate them on the workings of a woman's mind so they can stop pumping out Cooking Mama games and delegating us to shopping for gear for the menfolk.

Well to me virtual shopping can be fun in that I can spend my hard earn fake money on new weapons, armour, healing and I enjoy getting to buy a new weapon and testing it out on some monsters who annoyed me a couple of hours ago. In real life however, I hate shopping for the most part. I like shopping when I'm buying books, or DVDs, but clothes shopping, especially with other girls is tedious and boring to me.

 

[xochiquetzal]

I don't get why they would make content exclusive to gender rather than a specific class...
why keep men from going shopping? why keep women from being the main heroine in their own fantasy? and why not give the player the ability to choose for them self, no matter what their gender is?