Girl gamers, how to attract more women to games, making games for girls, various takes on these topics have been popping up a lot lately. This is a subject quite close to my own heart and I have compiled a few suggestions for game developers to consider when making their next title (assuming said game is aimed at an audience broader than “randy male youth”). These are not suggestions for how to make a game just for girls but rather, how not to drive us away...
Suggestion 1: Do not insult 50% of your potential audience.
In games where characters have any developed personality at all, male characters run the full gambit of possibilities while females typically fall into just four categories.
The Twit – Cute, clueless, possibly a Cloudcuckoolander. Is often your prize at the end of a rescue mission.
The Tomboy – Can handle herself in a fight and has the personality of a brick. That's okay though because she has the biggest bust size and probably wears leather.
The Innocent – Sweet and modest. She's typically unsure of herself until she gets a pep talk. Will do anything for her man even if it's impossibly stupid and/or suicidal. Usually the hero's love interest.
The Feisty One – Cute and spunky. Often a child. If she's at least within a five year range of the age of consent will probably be wearing some variation of Daisy Dukes.
This is not to say you can't find strong, self assured women who need absolutely no help kicking ass. After all, there's uuuhhh... Ultimecia, The Boss, Leorina, wait those are all villains/adversaries. Nice, strong woman = Bad! Kill it! Well, as awful as the personality limits tend to be, the body type category is even worse.
Unless you are making a game for the Playboy crowd, do not put a T&A girl in your game if you do not also have a Chippendales guy. Now, of course we like our game characters to be good looking. It's like the movies and Hollywood Homely; important characters never look ugly unless they look hideous. However, there is a difference between sexy and hypersexualized. If your female characters have gelatin filled watermelons strapped to their chests, watermelons that follow their own personal laws of physics, you have a problem. If your female character's skin tight outfit is so skin tight it looks painted on, you have a problem. Again, we do have positive role models. There's the lovely Jade and the mostly unseen Samus Aran. Alas, Nintendo does earn my Golden Kick-in-the-Groin Award for making the end game cheesecake shot a series tradition. I must ask the guys, would the complete absence of Samus smut turn you off the series? Is Metroid Prime the worst game in the series because Samus failed to *show skin?
Suggestion 2 – Do not assume male as the default.
The sex of most game characters is completely irrelevant. It has no bearing on the game what so ever. Did that hedgehog/purple dragon/space marine/ninja have to be a guy? Studies have shown that while guys have no avatar preference, women prefer to play as female characters. Next time you design a badass Longcoat, make it a girl. That grizzled old mentor with the BFS in your RPG? Why not a woman? The bald space marine? Hey, Ripley made the look work for her.
Suggestion 3 – Sure, sex sells, but why are you only selling to half your potential customers?
Story time. While I was perusing the shelves of a game store, I saw a box for an RC car racing game. I pulled it out and looked at the back of the box. You raced remote controlled monster trucks around tracks in toy rooms, parks, and other such locales. I flipped the box to its front and what do I see? There is an RC monster truck jumping over the ample chest of a bikini clad woman with a lip puckered “Oh My!” expression on her face. Really? It did not convince me to buy it.
I have no doubt that the advertising department has the hardest job in trying to sell games to women. The reason is as simple as it is depressing. Growing up, girls aren't taught that women pioneered the field of computer programming, we're discouraged to try hard in math class because “girls aren't good at math”. We aren't encouraged to like electronics, because “computers are boy toys”. We aren't encouraged to get into the game industry, because “it's a masculine job”. What the advertising department is really up against is generation upon generation of mental conditioning of women to not like or even look at your products. We have been lied to and asking somebody to make an ad that undoes that damage is one hell of a tall order. It is getting better though, more women are gaming and the more visible they are, the more the effect will snowball. Just make sure your poster girls aren't air brushed super models.
Final Word – No pink necessary or desired. Besides, it's a *boy color.
If you make a game for a guy, it's probably just as fun for a gal. Also, elements like more interesting stories and deeper characters seen as being attractive to women are also appreciated by men. So where is the dividing line between a girl game and a guy game? There simply isn't one. Sex specific appeal exists at the opposite poles, but there is no dividing line in the vast middle, where most games fall. All you, the game developer, need to avoid is building a gender barricade in the first place.
* aside from her head
* actually it's gender arbitrary, pick whatever you like