Women gaming problems, solution discussion 1

[runic knight]

I've had to block someone for the time being. Please, please everyone posting here realize that this thread is limited in scope for a reason. I want to hear thoughts from all sorts in the gaming community and I want to understand motivations and solution ideas from all possible sources. I do not want to watch the thread devolve into a war of blame about cultural issues itself. If you want to discuss issues involving culture at large or how it is the root of all the problems, please save the time and just make your own thread.

I am aware that most of the world's problems are caused by selfish people. I don't care if the solution you give is to somehow address that. It is a problem the entirety of human history has not come close to addressing so I don't want to derail the conversation to just reiterate that point. I don't want the discussions here that have been bringing small understandings to be swallowed up as battlelines from every other thread on the topic are picked up once more and the dialog to be had here is replaced with the same back and forth that is never resolved.

This thread is small scale. I am terribly naive here, but I think that actions taken, smart actions taken that have community support behind them can cause positive changes far more then all the negative complaints about who is to blame or how unfair society at large is has ever done, regardless of how or if it is justified to be blamed or not. I think understanding the perspectives and motivations of all sides helps work towards those same solutions.

I don't mind if you agree or disagree with me. I don't mind if you think my ideas stupid or my conclusions lacking. I don't mind if you think there is nothing we can do to change things because all the ideas we touch on are too small to have a larger effect. I do care about keeping the thread away from the ideological fights about culture though.


Other then that, please keep posting. I am enjoying reading up on people's thoughts and ideas and wish more would give viable possible solution ideas and that I could give better ones myself. Things the individuals of the community itself can actually do to help improve things in general. I would hate for this thread to die off because some tried to drag it into something it wasn't meant to address.

 

[carnex]

Now, going through kickstarter or whrough something similar might be a good idea. High risk-high reward for csumers but quite safe for publisher. After all, it's consumers that demand things, it's just to be expected that they burden the brunt of risk.

The only issue there is the high "cost" of entry. Game design, especially for a competent game, has a higher technical level required than even other media. Even film. The customers can demand it through kickstarter, but there still has to be an actual team behind it and kickstarter and the like usually work the other way around, team selling demand.

I think we have misunderstanding here. What I wanted to say is that people can give idea to some smaller publisher, like Atlus, to put up Kickstarter campaign for a game that would be tailored towards target group, maybe even in cooperation with representative from that group. That way risk factor would be avoided.

Of course, this is high risk strategy. If that kick was to fail, no one would touch next such project with 10 foot pole. And even if it succeeded, there is no guarantee that anyone would pick up the torch. I mean, they already sell ton of games to girls they themselves create for them.

Question is, how many female gamers would pay 60+ bucks for that and what kind of game would it have to be. If it was another traditionally female friendly genre, whole project would be for nothing.

And again, I wonder how 2 best platformers in recent years (I really don't care for Nintendo products outside Metroid) did with female audience. If Giana Sisters and Elysian Tail didn't get attention of girls, i highly doubt happy and colorfull competitive shooter will.

P.S.
Guess quite a few members can't see me

 

[runic knight]

@runic knight
Publishers target male 18-35 demographics because they drop more money than anyone. And reason why they drop more money than any other demographics is complex but can be roughly simplified to

- When we first get freedom of choice we are least responsible with time thus spending most of it on pleasure. If video games are your pleasure, you spend it there.
- When we first get our own source of income we are least responsible with money thus spending it easily on pleasure. If video games are your pleasure, you spend it there.
- Men are much more likely to sacrifice other fields for their hobby. Clothes, nights out, food even health. If video games are your hobby, you spend what you save there.
- Men are more likely to spend time and money on things that hold no beneficial relevance to social life and world.

There for they target that demographic, which only reconfirms their ideas... I think you recognize the spiral.

As for verbal poison spewed on gender basis out there.

As I already said, most of it is because of "girl in boys club" behavior. While it's good, it's good, but when it turns sour: you are a girl!!! Even if most don't mean that as a gender based insult, it's what's different so it is used as base for attack. Only way to stop that is for females to become regular and accepted part of a group. Now, that requires some sacrifices and it's exactly female gamers who have to make them.

I hate making this comparison since social and cultral significance is really beyon being on the same scale but let talk about how white-black segregation got beaten into the ground.

For years white representatives of egalitarian societies came to segragated states and fought against those laws, And they would win cour case here and there or something like that but never made even an impression, since thing would return to old routine as soon as they left. Not when blacks got organised and decided that it was woth the sacrifice they gathered, formed several groups and one group went into white only shop and sat down. They were told to go away, and when they refused they got dragged out to the street and beaten then arrested. Another group came in, got the same treatment, Adn another, and another. Somwhere along the way owner decided enough was enough. White folks left and he closed the shop with black men in it. And then they repeated the same tomorrow. And the next day. And so on. Since that experiment kind of worked other groups in other towns did the same, with same results. Slowly people were both disgusted by violence and getting used to blacks around them. When they got used to them taking same places white did, people saw them as people thus became less and less racist. That was the initial shot that made it all possible.

So, as long as female gamers hide, no progress can be made. Good thing is that we still didn't invent how to punch someone over internet, but bad thing is that there is little responsibility for actions over internet. Second notion is actually made worse by recent idiotic court decision over mock threat in LoL game. What I'm trying to say is that female gamers, both girls and women, have to come to places they want to inhabit, as mass presence and stay there despite the insults and call-outs. Once group gets used to presence of females things will improve. Girl shaming will still be the ting, its almost genetic I feel. But other than that, it will improve.

I see the spiral, but have also seen women waste just as much money on other things, so I don't think the third point about men being more wiling to drop money is quite unique, though given how that demograph is sought after in other fields, I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case either.

I get the point of what you are saying, that in order to be accepted they need to deal with the slings and arrows of the asshats until the ones throwing them get tired. That said, I still believe that since there are more then just the core of asshats in gaming itself, and since the effects those have are lessened by simple things such as run of the mill moderation of play servers, there is still things we can do to affect it beyond having the female demographic fight an uphill battle for acceptance to play a hobby. Gamers are rarely limited to just a single game, so having areas less hostile might help towards normalizing things in those areas (or at least the smaller groups self moderation may have a stronger social impact then any sort of perceived forced change coming down from above.)

I do agree with the LoL comments decision being stupid and even harmful towards in the end, not just towards anyone playing online, but towards any notion of acceptance. Using your own reference, during the civil rights era while larger overall decisions were made, there was little retaliatory persecution towards offenders on the small scale. Not that it was unwarranted, but I think it may have been both beyond the scope of the powers that be to enforce that at all for one and would have only taken a group acting defensibly and made them feel justified in claims of having their way of life attacked. Hard enough to get acceptance when you are seen as an outsider. Can't image how much harder that would be when seen as forcing the issue though some overall power.

 

[Redd the Sock]

By the way Runic Knight. I assume that, based on the title, this is just the first in a series of threads discussing this issue. So my question is, at what point will you feel we should move on to the next area of discussion and what will that area be about specifically?

Well, initially I thought about throwing the entire thing out at once, but after the first chunk on participation, I got tired and knew I had written more then most would bother to read anyways.

As for the next step, I don't know. Portrayal seems likely to be it, since it is being mentioned a lot to help increase participation, though I see far more pointless bickering going on just by daring to say "more women in games would be a good thing", since that brings jackasses of both sides running. Seriously "toughen up" and complaints about males in culture as a whole... what the hell?

Anyways, I would say as soon as any good idea comes out would be a good place to start, as it gets the ball rolling at least. I still stand behind the idea of a good and inexpensive games resource for newbies and a group through steam that is moderated. Small, but hell, might be a start, though I admit I am not the one to start it nor keep it running.

Hhm. Well then. Something I had thought up of over how a certain someone could have used a ton of money they received was, what if we tried setting up a country wide census of some sort. What if we had people volunteer to go out to public places and ask women to fill out a questionnaire? The questions would be something to the effect of.

Do you play video-games?

If so, what kind of games do you like?

If not, what kind of games would make you interested in playing video-games?

Then once the census is over, everyone would pool the results together, probably on a website, and we could figure out what games female gamers typically prefer, and we would figure out what kinds of games female non gamers would consider interesting enough to get them into gaming. Then we could post this on a site and show it to game developers. It would be a bit rough since it would be done in an unofficial capacity but it could at least get some numbers and data for game companies to look at capitalize on for the sake of getting money.

Basically, we give game companies a monetary reason to target the female demographic.

Not a bad thought, but ultimately it is too flawed to be viable, at least in its current form. Many people do not know what they want until they experience it (see Jim's Perfect Pasta Sauce video.) and even those that do will lie in order to sound right (See Jim's talk on Coffee). The two together means that a survey would not be a very dependable gauge and most companies know this so they will instead use a more certain resource (sales data).

Still, not a bad start to try and show a demand in orde to try and get a supply started.

What reason would people have to lie about what games they like or what games could get them interested in gaming? Especially when names would not be given for who said what. There's nothing to gain from putting this or that answer on this kind of census aside from potentially getting the kind of game you wrote down that you like or would like on the paper.

But I do agree that my idea is flawed due to several areas in this idea, not the least of which is who would compile the data and would the interpretation of the data be correct. But I think the most important aspect of my idea is that it actually goes out and talks to the women and girls and asks them personally what they want instead of just making assumptions or trying to figure out what they want in a roundabout way.

But something I'd like to ask is if anyone else has any games to add to that small list of indie games with female protagonists that I listed in my first post here.

Less lying than being disingenuous. Surveys are filled out on idealistic honesty, not pragmatic reality. I can request the localization of a JRPG with every intent to buy it, but if it comes out when cash is tight, or bigger games are coming out, or they botch something in the effort, I might put it off. I never lied, but I never brought up how many caveats are in my statement. Even a simple concept such as "I want to play as a non-sexualised female character" can be missing elements of genre, graphics, control, availability, personal finances, tone, system, and other factors that make very honest people into non-buyers if all the stars don't align properly. As comics got brought up, it stand as an example of this. People have complained about female representation for years, but books like Batgirl, World's Finest, Captain Marvel, Batwoman, they all sell very poorly (even by comic standards) because for one reason or another, the complainers got what they wanted in a few books but now don't seem to want it that badly.

Not that I don't agree. We shouldn't approach this by trying to guess what will bring women in and instead try asking. We just need more substantial information. If portrayal is a problem, then what works: appearance, attitude, attire, how does she act under circumstances you think we get sexist. Stuff like that. If it's a harassment issue, what are reasonable solutions (not permbanning anyone mean at first accusation). Is there something else is design or marketing that's being missed? Maybe I just have little faith in my gender to fix things on their own, but I do think things would get built faster with solid goals in mind rather than "write better female characters".

 

[Dante dynamite]

Actually there has been homogenization in the mainstream games industry for a while and maybe it's just nostalgia but I do remember a lot of games that were very different from each other and were very imaginative back on the PS2 and PS1 and every friend would have at least one game that no one had heard of yet everyone enjoyed. But nowadays I am the only one that has games that no one has heard of otherwise everyone has the same games more or less.

I also remember there were significantly more middle ground games that weren't just ripoffs of popular games like AA or A games or at the very least they were easier to find i don't see many AA or A games that aren't just terrible or hard to find unless they were decently marketed.

Maybe if gaming went back to its more creative roots we could have more universal games enjoyed by more people and a much larger community but maybe its just me.

 

[Something Amyss]

Fairly certain that someone posted a graph showing the numbers of women and men that bought/or played Call of Duty 4 somewhere in this thread.

I didn't see it. A source would be appreciated.

 

[Something Amyss]

I am sorry you don't like that this thread isn't about your opinions on cultural injustices and is instead about, essentially, what the average gamer can and would be willing to do to help an issue within gaming itself. I am sorry that you wont let it go, nor understand that I don't care about the entirety of culture in this thread because of the lack of capacity to enact change on that level.

Please don't strawman me.

Please stop posting the same thing repeatedly after being asked to stay on topic and to stay away from the broader topic that will derail the thread. Your opinions have been noted, now please quit trying to hijack the thread.

You just asked if I had solutions, now you complain that I answered you. Please don't ask questions if you don't want the responses and please don't accuse me of highjacking a thread with germane responses.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Fairly certain that someone posted a graph showing the numbers of women and men that bought/or played Call of Duty 4 somewhere in this thread.

I didn't see it. A source would be appreciated.

Hhm... It might be in the "I used to dislike Anita Sarkeesian" thread. I'll try finding it for you but keep in mind that I'm not even sure of the validity of it.

 

[Something Amyss]

Well obviously i cant speak for anyone other than myself and my own experiences. But it would be quite arrogant of me to assume that my group of friends is special and that my tiny corner of the world is not repeated elsewhere. Therefore my experience is proof enough that females can and do play games,and like call of duty, the exact number is, of coerce, debatable. And actually i have a similar number of gay friends, so maybe that is actually the case? just sayin.

You're doing the opposite, though: you're offering this as evidence of the normal behaviour, which is every bit as arrogant.

I mean, that was the question at hand, right? Not that girls never ever play games, in which you only need to demonstrate one, but that they aren't a significant chunk of the base. If your only argument is that there's a woman or two in the base, then yes, you've proved your point.

Otherwise, it's more arrogant to assume that you are statistically significant than otherwise. Especially since you're flying in the face of prevailing "wisdom," right or wrong.

Again, I suppose I could use my own gaming group as proof that there are at least some gay gamers out there. But to demonstrate to any meaningful extent, which is what the diversity issue is about, I would need to go beyond my group.

The problem, then, is in the determination of a demographic that doesn't want to be readily identified. It's easy to find women who play WoW, but I wonder if we could actually realistically expect to nail down numbers on women who play...Well, almost anything else mainstream. Especially since most of mainstream seems to consist of samey brown shooters.

Please, please everyone posting here realize that this thread is limited in scope for a reason.

Artificially limited.

 

[Something Amyss]

Hhm... It might be in the "I used to dislike Anita Sarkeesian" thread. I'll try finding it for you but keep in mind that I'm not even sure of the validity of it.

That one fell of my radar, so if it was there, I missed it.

 

[CymbaIine]

As has been mentioned there are games marketed to women out there, and honestly you can keep them.

I don't blame the gamers "boysclub" for taking one look at the way things are marketed at women and to run screaming for the warm embrace of busty half clad warrior ladies and realistic blood splatters.

As offensive as the male-centric AAA games industry is towards women I still find it less offensive than the female-centric casual games market.

As the OP mentioned socialisation plays a huge role in this crap and there is nothing the games industry can do to fix that all by its self. That said I think it's amazing that there is some recognition that there is a problem.

 

[Something Amyss]

I think we have misunderstanding here. What I wanted to say is that people can give idea to some smaller publisher, like Atlus, to put up Kickstarter campaign for a game that would be tailored towards target group, maybe even in cooperation with representative from that group. That way risk factor would be avoided.

Of course, this is high risk strategy. If that kick was to fail, no one would touch next such project with 10 foot pole. And even if it succeeded, there is no guarantee that anyone would pick up the torch. I mean, they already sell ton of games to girls they themselves create for them.

Question is, how many female gamers would pay 60+ bucks for that and what kind of game would it have to be. If it was another traditionally female friendly genre, whole project would be for nothing.

And again, I wonder how 2 best platformers in recent years (I really don't care for Nintendo products outside Metroid) did with female audience. If Giana Sisters and Elysian Tail didn't get attention of girls, i highly doubt happy and colorfull competitive shooter will.

P.S.
Guess quite a few members can't see me

Okay, yeah, we were not on the same page at all. I still see some difficulties in this, but it is a far stronger plan than what I thought you were talking about, and that may well have been on my end.

In short: my bad.

There are still some issues. Would Atlus or any other company dedicate their resources (time, manpower) on such a venture? They'd ostensibly be committing before they saw the response, as the Kickstarter is effectively a contract. Still, if someone could convince them to try...

I think the other problem is the one you raised. You'd have to have some sort of direction going in, and of course the current logic is women don't play these games or don't play them in sufficient numbers. And, back to the issue of women hiding their identity, how do you track a group that doesn't want to be singled out?

This is one of the reasons I think inclusion is probably a better approach overall. It might not be well-received, though: gamers got upset over the inclusion of female models in Ghosts. However, I don't imagine the obstacles would be significantly different with games marketed more towards women.

I could be completely wrong, however. We're into the realm of speculation upon speculation, so I don't think there's particularly a wrong answer. Just what I believe and what you believe and what everyone else believes. We can found it on prior evidence, but there's not going to be anything conclusive until people try.

Regarding GS and ET, I wonder myself. They were digital only, right? That would mean we can't even realistically track the sales of the games, period. This is wholly unfortunate.

It's weird to live in a world with simultaneously more opportunities for information and less access to that information.

And why can't people see you? Are you John Cena?

 

[EvilRoy]

I think a fair chunk of the problem is that people have a habit of turning themselves into zero-sum systems when it comes to male vs female protagonists - or inclusive vs exclusive games if you want. Like, its great that people jump on the chance of supporting the game-ideals that they support, but for example buying tomb raider games while also buying the uncharted games doesn't send the message "we want more female protagonists", it sends the message "we want more action adventure games where we take stuff from people for misc reasons".

So I guess the easiest solution I could propose is to take one for the team, and choose to buy less games with male protagonists. At the same time, however, this would require a substantial level of organization between consumers which is just not feasible.

Ultimately, the way I see it is that the only good choice is patience. Eventually over-saturation should lead to a shift in interest. After all, as much as people talk about brown shooters dominating the market at this point there are really only a couple major players left. Many games tried and failed to challenge their dominance and I think it likely that publishers and developers will simply begin to choose battles they are more likely to win. The battlegrounds could easily include those games individuals have claimed would be more welcoming to women in terms of protagonists or content.

 

[Something Amyss]

As the OP mentioned socialisation plays a huge role in this crap and there is nothing the games industry can do to fix that all by its self.

What they can do, however, is stop enforcing it themselves. See, they're kind of the reason all the "girl games" are patronising casual titles. We've had reports that they actively refuse to consider female protagonists, women on the box art (even if they're crucial to the game), or even women in their marketing studies.

 

[Something Amyss]

So I guess the easiest solution I could propose is to take one for the team, and choose to buy less games with male protagonists. At the same time, however, this would require a substantial level of organization between consumers which is just not feasible.

It would also require them to actually see it as a direct cause and effect. It wold require not only organisation between gamers but also communication to developers who often don't listen and instead blame piracy or used sales for every wrong to their bottom line.

 

[EvilRoy]

So I guess the easiest solution I could propose is to take one for the team, and choose to buy less games with male protagonists. At the same time, however, this would require a substantial level of organization between consumers which is just not feasible.

It would also require them to actually see it as a direct cause and effect. It wold require not only organisation between gamers but also communication to developers who often don't listen and instead blame piracy or used sales for every wrong to their bottom line.

In the event that so many people could actually be organized - this would likely need to be around one million people to register as more than a blip on any AAA sales chart - the developers learning as to the intent of the group would be almost unavoidable. Consider how readily the actions of a relatively small number of people attempting to dick the new DmC game gained the attention of the developers of that game. Though the developers were in no way impressed by the actions of those individuals, there were no illusions as to the reasons behind their actions.

 

[carnex]

Okay, yeah, we were not on the same page at all. I still see some difficulties in this, but it is a far stronger plan than what I thought you were talking about, and that may well have been on my end.

In short: my bad.

There are still some issues. Would Atlus or any other company dedicate their resources (time, manpower) on such a venture? They'd ostensibly be committing before they saw the response, as the Kickstarter is effectively a contract. Still, if someone could convince them to try...

Who knows how good this kickstarter idea is. But, for me really is that it is but a dream, never to come true.

I think the other problem is the one you raised. You'd have to have some sort of direction going in, and of course the current logic is women don't play these games or don't play them in sufficient numbers. And, back to the issue of women hiding their identity, how do you track a group that doesn't want to be singled out?

This is one of the reasons I think inclusion is probably a better approach overall. It might not be well-received, though: gamers got upset over the inclusion of female models in Ghosts. However, I don't imagine the obstacles would be significantly different with games marketed more towards women.

I could be completely wrong, however. We're into the realm of speculation upon speculation, so I don't think there's particularly a wrong answer. Just what I believe and what you believe and what everyone else believes. We can found it on prior evidence, but there's not going to be anything conclusive until people try.

Now, as for Call of Duty Ghost and female models, I think it's a good thing as long as Activision stands up and weathers the inevitable storm. You know, as well as I do, that soon after releasing the game there is going to be mass teabagging video on Youtube (never understood that ritual in the first place) and then Feminazis and Tumbler "Feminists" are going to raise havoc of biblical levels on internet. That can't be avoided and I believe that this is actual reason why there weren't any female models in previous games. And I wouldn't really compare this to Quake and Unreal Tournament since they had different community which was too busy blasting away to develop those kinds of habits.

I understand it's hard to gather online women together, but reality is, unless they manage to organize themselves and others, who didn't do anything wrong, are forced to commit to some arbitrary restrictions it's only going to get worse. Real resentment is going to take root in community and, to make things ironic, they would be right to develop those feeling. It's hard, I won't argue that, and it would be emotionally draining, but it's the only way I see getting the job done properly.

As I said, I believe most of "gender slurs" don't come from people who are actually looking to insult based on their gender and/or are chauvinists, but are using gender as difference since it's unusual sight. That can be fixed only by familiarity of the groups.

Regarding GS and ET, I wonder myself. They were digital only, right? That would mean we can't even realistically track the sales of the games, period. This is wholly unfortunate.

Also, I don't understand about that whole "since it's digital we cant know numbers". It's exactly becouse it's digital that we can know numbers down to a single copy. There is limited number or online retailers that actually sell digitally, most sell codes for other services like Steam or Good Old Games so it's easy to add few numbers and get exact number of sold copies at a certain time. And yes, as far as I am aware both Dust: The Elysian Tail and Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams are digital only. And both are some of best platformers in recent years. Great graphics, with fighting but no blood and gore or even anything that could be described as violence in usual sense (even thou you do cup with sword in Dust) and most of all, really flowy nature of movement in game with no jerking movements which i found to be turnoff for many female gamers I asked.

I know these are indie games with basically no marketing budget but they to their share of covering on internet. If every gamer was to point these games out to friend and associates word would get really far. There I go dreaming again.

It's weird to live in a world with simultaneously more opportunities for information and less access to that information.

It's something like too many choices problem. There is too much info on the internet and orders of magnitude more distractions. Also there is a fact that you must hop over current social trends. For example, few days ago I was looking for old study of female and male preferences in presentation of opposite sex. After spending over an hour digging I found nothing but gender orientation surveys, researches and studies.

And why can't people see you? Are you John Cena?

And about the last one. Guess I was imagining things. Paranoia of the stupidest kind.

 

[carnex]

I see the spiral, but have also seen women waste just as much money on other things, so I don't think the third point about men being more wiling to drop money is quite unique, though given how that demograph is sought after in other fields, I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case either.

I didn't mean to say that men are only one doing that. I meant to say that as a group, men are more likely to do that. Just looking around myself, in the world, I see much more males that really don't care about spending their income on social status and social acceptance (clothes, makeup etc) then women.

 

[runic knight]

I see the spiral, but have also seen women waste just as much money on other things, so I don't think the third point about men being more wiling to drop money is quite unique, though given how that demograph is sought after in other fields, I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case either.

I didn't mean to say that men are only one doing that. I meant to say that as a group, men are more likely to do that. Just looking around myself, in the world, I see much more males that really don't care about spending their income on social status and social acceptance (clothes, makeup etc) then women.

I wonder though, as in this culture, a sign of status and acceptance has always been in the showing off more then the way it is done. It is not too surprising that would manifest in different ways along gender lines thanks to culture itself possessing different sorts of pressures for genders. Media systems, computers, game systems, they seem to be shown off and bragged about in the way huge TV's and season tickets were not that long ago. And because of the acceptance, they are used in the same way to branch out socially and reaffirm status, as well as show off excess wealth. With women there is a much higher pressure to show off attractiveness (as would be expected as a throwback to evolutionary practices and appeal to mate mentality) where as with men there is less about highlighting attractiveness and more about showing the ability to provide, as exampled by having enough to live off of as well as burn on a bunch of useless crap just to show off. But even that has been changing so it not as strong a cultural pressure as it once was for each gender to advertise that way in order for social status.

An interesting topic, but I think we are drifting too far into issues of culture as a whole here. I can see how that would directly affect buying habits, but once we go into that, we reach a point where members of the sub group of culture are far too unlikely to have any impact (at least, as members of the sub group alone). I sort of wanted to avoid getting into an overall cultural discussion here, though I suppose there is certainly value to understand buyer habits in general as well as by gender trends. Still, it seems it might just end up too removed when the conversation goes into why the trends within culture are the way they are and how the answer would be to somehow fix the culture itself.

Just too removed from the scope of what a bunch of people on a thread here could hope to address, you know?

 

[runic knight]

As has been mentioned there are games marketed to women out there, and honestly you can keep them.

I don't blame the gamers "boysclub" for taking one look at the way things are marketed at women and to run screaming for the warm embrace of busty half clad warrior ladies and realistic blood splatters.

As offensive as the male-centric AAA games industry is towards women I still find it less offensive than the female-centric casual games market.

As the OP mentioned socialisation plays a huge role in this crap and there is nothing the games industry can do to fix that all by its self. That said I think it's amazing that there is some recognition that there is a problem.

There is certainly a good case to be made about how individual decisions are what ultimately guide the trends, that is very true. Because of how the markets present things, especially along gender lines, there is not a lot of difficulty in understanding why games with violent themes and combative competitiveness are sucked up by male customers more. Nor is it surprising that as a result, the companies making them would try to refine and perfect that in order to better appeal to those buying their products.
Furthermore, with how the trend of women shopping is, the game industry trying for the pink princess route there is not surprising, nor is the lack of expense on them (compared to the money maker games that are less pink). And anyone who played those can easily see why they tend to fail too. Unfortunately the industry associated the wrong traits of those games to poor sales. It isn't even that they are "girly" so much as they are just unfun and suck far too often. Shovelware syndrome if you will: They don't put effort into it, so of course they wont get good response. And as other posters have said, these traits just fuel a spiral that makes change very hard.

I still hold that the way to crack this nut is player and community based though. We can't, as a subgroup within a culture as divided and varied as gamers, hope to change great overall issues within culture such as gender disparity, gender roles and pressures or the backlash and resentment (to say nothing of the entitlement) of trying to force a change that stems from human nature itself. This thread would die under the weight of a discussion of that scope. And we already discussed how at the end of the day the triple A game companies worry about profit first, so they would be hesitant to risk anything from that alone, to say nothing of the countless failed attempts that have left them burned and afraid to touch possible solutions with a ten foot pool. But we can start to work on our own community in smaller portions and encourage acceptance and change. People usually say that game cultures impact culture at large, so something trying to deal with some aspects might have a larger effect over time, I don't know.


Side note, does anyone know how to remove someone from my block list? Can't find it through my profile.