Video Games Are For Boys, No Girls Allowed

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This is a bit of a long read but definitely worth your time. If you have a few minutes to spare today, I highly recommend reading "No Girls Allowed."

"Maybe our perception of the problem is the problem, rather than there actually being a problem," says Ian Bogost. "We're not looking at diversity in the marketplace. We're looking at where there isn't diversity and we're saying those games are the most valid games."
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Where were these articles in the days of Mario and Link?

I fucking hate our fucked-up culture that is obsessed with our differences.
 
Didn't have time to read it, just skimmed a few sections, I love how the scroll work is on that page though!
 
I fucking hate our fucked-up culture that is obsessed with our differences.
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You know how this goes Stiletto;

Any group that is willing to wear a label can claim that their fellow label wearers are getting the shaft and that something must be done to help them so they can get on a level playing field with the everyone else. But everyone has a label, many wear two or three, and it is never going to be a level playing field as long as this continues. Of course the label wearers will bring up the voting power of their particular label and the politicians will continue to weight the value of said labels in legislation.

As long as we think that we have to treat people differently in order to treat them the same people will never be equally treated.
 
This is such BS, men and women have different interests by and large, and that is perfectly fine. Society does not benefit by trying to force the masculinization of women or the feminization of men.

And products and marketing exist based on CONSUMERS habbits, not the other way around. Free market capitalism will NOT tolerate a vacuum, and if there were high demand from masses of female gamers clamoring for more effeminate games, they would exist.

They don't, because there aren't many females that are interested in video games and a big portion of those that are can play the same video games as everyone else and don't need special marketing or special titles aimed at women.

So who's fault is it that there aren't more femine games marketed towards women? WOMEN'S FAULT! Speak with your wallets, and the market will work damned hard to get that money. I don't bitch that there isn't much selecting and marketing of balet gear towards straight men, because I recognize that straight men are by and large not interested in that sport/hobby.
 
Stiletto said:
I fucking hate our fucked-up culture that is obsessed with our differences.
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Blame your girlfriends, not the guys. Take a look at motorcycle equipment for example. For one your selection is down because many women won't ride because they hate that it messes up their hair. Is that my fault, or the choice of the women that don't want to ride? Of the selection that exists, the protection is often poor compared to guys for the sake of being sexy. Is that my fault, or is it the fashion concious women that are creating that market?

Its fine if you girls want to be mad, but be mad at the right people... the other chicks.
 
Keep them barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen where they belong......:D


/jk
 
lcpiper said:
You know how this goes Stiletto;

Any group that is willing to wear a label can claim that their fellow label wearers are getting the shaft and that something must be done to help them so they can get on a level playing field with the everyone else. But everyone has a label, many wear two or three, and it is never going to be a level playing field as long as this continues. Of course the label wearers will bring up the voting power of their particular label and the politicians will continue to weight the value of said labels in legislation.

As long as we think that we have to treat people differently in order to treat them the same people will never be equally treated.
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The culture of victims will soon learn what real victimhood is when they discover that their endless wastes of time have distracted them from the fact that politicians have restricted much of their potential for empowerment and self-control...all in the name of "equality".

Somehow, I don't worry about being "equal" with the majority of assholes in the world. I worry about being the best I can be at whatever I want to do. This is apparently an outdated mindset that is incompatible with our enlightened new world.
 
I'd better let my wife, and cousin know, that games aren't for girls maybe they will stop playing Call of Duty?
 
Seems obvious to me that every segment of the entertainment industry has problems relating to the female gender, so why should it be so hard to write about without resorting to myths and painful contradictions? Meh. But overall, this reads more like a primer on marketing than anything else. I'm ok with shifting the blame to marketers. Marketing sucks.
 
Wow, more feminazis trying to kill fun.

Besides, doesn't farmville exist purely to cater to that demographic?
 
Depends on the game. Girls generally don't like blood and guts shooting games.

My daughter likes pokemon, digimon and generally any non-blood and guts game with animals or dragons. She would spend most the day playing video games if we let her. However, many of her friends (girls) are more interesting in texting and gossip.
 
Video games are designed to make money.
You make the most money by giving the market what it wants, within the scope of your game...

Questioning why a market, that you are not a part of, exists is a very real question. But if the most apparent reason to the difference is that the markets compared appeal to different genders, that should not stop the analytical process, it goes deeper. But stopping at gender diversity is easy, and for most, is all they can do.
Business is about money, not favoritism.

So what I'm saying is, games are made to be enjoyed by those who enjoy them, if on average more boys like a game then girls,
 
Catalan said:
Seems obvious to me that every segment of the entertainment industry has problems relating to the female gender, so why should it be so hard to write about without resorting to myths and painful contradictions? Meh. But overall, this reads more like a primer on marketing than anything else. I'm ok with shifting the blame to marketers. Marketing sucks.
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Eeeehhhh... marketing is a piece of the pie. A major piece, but not the entire problem. First, it is a self-perpetuating cycle. For example, Call of Duty has always been popular with males, and they tend to be a safe demographic to rely on, so the games focus on maintaining that demographic. It makes business sense, if a bit lacking in challenge or scope.

I have to say that the focus on male gamers is like... a stereotype that could be exploited in order to make money. And you know what? That works. You can make money that way. And, just like how I wrote two small paragraphs that say the same fucking thing, it leads to circular logic.

And to be perfectly honest, you can't even say it's a really concious thing, at this point. At least not entirely. It's the way it's always been, and much like a habit, it's hard to break such things. A majority of established franchises and characters are either filled with male protaganists, or aimed at a male demographic. Some of it is fundamental and not easy to change without changing the game itself. And with it being more and more difficult to create a new franchise or IP and to get it to sell well anymore, it feeds on established rules and expectations.

And really, a lot of problems I have is that everyone relies on stereotypes and prejudices to pigeonhole people, ideas, etc, which is a natural human tendancy. You don't have time to listen to or think about what each person is saying, so you save time by making assumptions. Problem is, many of these assumptions are false. For example, whenever I hear someone say "feminazi", I feel like punching them in the face. "Feminist" is an incredibly broad term for a number of different groups that operate under different ideals, goals, beliefs, etc. Like every group, you get a bunch of people within it that, in addition to being stupid, are incredibly loud. These loud idiots can seriously damage the image of a group they don't even share much in common with.

Hell, depending on who you talk to, "humanist" and "feminist" are almost interchangeable. Many feminists don't blame men, but they blame the patricarchy-based society that places expectations on people based on stupid shit. For example, the Miami Dolphins had that scandel where Ritchie Incognito was harassing and threatening African-American Jonathan Martin with racist messages and stuff, and when Jonathan complained, his manager told him to punch Ritchie to "solve the problem". Realistically, this would probably have lead to Jonathan Martin to being sued for assault if he followed through with that. And to some feminists, these expectations are as much of a problem as the expectations put on women. Women aren't barefoot housekeeping baby-makers, and men aren't drunk brawling idiots.

That's not the best example, because the race thing might muddle up the interpretation. If it was 2 white men having an argument and being pressured to fight it out would have been just as much of a problem. And it should be. Real equality shouldn't favor one side over another, and you shouldn't be called a pussy for just not being an asshole.

Again, no group is a monolith. Not everyone who likes to call themself a "feminist" is going to believe in that. I think they should, but some people are narrow-focused, and in some cases, entirely narrow-minded, regardless of sex, gender, race or group affiliation. It's hard to objectively see people as huge groups of individuals, but it's the most accurate way to see them. And this is the society that these games come from, and that's what keeps it going.

TLDR; something something something equality something something. I forgot what my conclusion was going to be.
 
Why games arent marketed to women: more men buy games than women.

Why makeup isn't marketed to men: men don't buy makeup.

Why Barbies and other dolls aren't marketed to boys: boys don't buy Barbies.
 
mavrocket said:
Why games arent marketed to women: more men buy games than women.

Why makeup isn't marketed to men: men don't buy makeup.

Why Barbies and other dolls aren't marketed to boys: boys don't buy Barbies.
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Smartest man alive! You get it! :D

Maybe I should start a huge campaign that they need to develop tampons for men. :rolleyes:
 
how would a gender inequality title would inspire me to read the article? we are in 2013 not in 1950 ¬¬
 
Isn't this all about the target demographic of the product?
I mean, you wouldn't have a Victoria's secret type catalog for GUNs now would you?

Damn, now that I said that....
 
lcpiper said:
You know how this goes Stiletto;

Any group that is willing to wear a label can claim that their fellow label wearers are getting the shaft and that something must be done to help them so they can get on a level playing field with the everyone else. But everyone has a label, many wear two or three, and it is never going to be a level playing field as long as this continues. Of course the label wearers will bring up the voting power of their particular label and the politicians will continue to weight the value of said labels in legislation.

As long as we think that we have to treat people differently in order to treat them the same people will never be equally treated.
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On the flip side of the argument, if everyone is treated like a special snowflake, with incredibly specific demands, then you have a massive amount of waste / redtape; especially when talking about government run facilities. The push towards everything becoming "politically correct" is what stops the cogs of all great things. Be it a business, a hobby, whatever.

If a law was passed that every public building must have Male, Female, Trans-Male, Trans-Female, and Bi-Gender facilities, you'd have a real funding issue at hand (not to mention 3 sets of restrooms that are not used 99.9% of the time). That's what some of these people want and it is incredibly unrealistic. There's even a southpark episode about it (Stan's Dad becomes a Dolphin-man and demands dolphin-man friendly facilities). Kinda hits the nail on the head on how ridiculous some of it is.

Start demanding extreme equality in entertainment and you'll have something that is completely the opposite of entertainment. Its hard NOT to offend someone these days, especially when every single person in the world can make their opinion be heard (especially with click-bait whoring websites like Polygon / Kotaku). Companies are forced to tread extremely lightly, as Facebook-Activist-Cindy and Twitter-Guy-Bob will viral the hell out of even the most minor PR incident, despite them really not giving a shit whether some girl that put 2.3 hours into Skyrim got offended at a low bust line.

And no, I didn't read that ridiculously long article. They gave a point and click "adventure" a 10/10 simply because it dealt with LGBT issues. I have no respect for them as journalists, gamers, or gaming journalists.
 
Why games arent marketed to women: more men buy games than women.
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The all time best selling games ever were games that crossed gender boundaries. Here is a list of the top ten sellers across all console platforms and consoles demonstrate a difference from PC.

Wii Sports Wii 82.98 million
Super Mario Bros. NES 40.24 million
Tetris Game Boy and Game Boy Color 35 million
Mario Kart Wii Wii 34.26 million
Wii Sports Resort Wii 31.89 million
New Super Mario Bros. Nintendo DS 30.38 million
Grand Theft Auto V PS 3, Xbox 360 29 million
Wii Play Wii 28.02 million
New Super Mario Bros. Wii Wii 27.88 million
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
PS2, PC, Xbox, Mac OS X, Xbox 360, PS3 27.5 million
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The Top 10 PC games.

The Sims 2 20 million
The Sims 16 million
Minecraft 12.9 million
Diablo III 12 million
Half-Life 2 12 million
Battlefield 2 11 million
StarCraft 11 million
The Sims 3 10 million
Half-Life 9.3 million
Guild Wars 6.5 million
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Ducman69 said:
Blame your girlfriends, not the guys. ... Its fine if you girls want to be mad, but be mad at the right people... the other chicks.
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While you are looking in the right direction, women can't blame other women to be feminists or believe in the feminist ideology as the basic principle is an invisible male force of male domination that attempts to make women subservient and put them down at a every opportunity called 'The Patriarchy'. For example, when only men were sent to war for thousands of years, that was the Patriarchy putting down ...women.

There's a whole lot of other examples of why feminism is inherently a bit ... full of it and irrational as most religions and political ideologies based of 'faith'. There's a series of videos on youtube by a woman named Karen Straughn under the alias 'Girl Writes What' that has a number of pretty in-depth analysis but she does talk a little slow. Very intelligent woman though.
 
lcpiper said:
The Top 10 PC games.
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Strange question but why isn't world of warcraft on the Top 10 PC games list. At times, there have been up to 14 million subscribers, plus many people have left and new gamers taken their spots -- each whom presumably bought at least a copy of the base game 'World of Warcraft'. So, shouldn't World of Warcraft be on that Top 10 list if only for the retail box copies sold?
 
lcpiper said:
The all time best selling games ever were games that crossed gender boundaries. Here is a list of the top ten sellers across all console platforms and consoles demonstrate a difference from PC.



The Top 10 PC games.
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And the games which tend to appeal to both genders equally or to females more are marketed as such.

I don't see a huge problem with marketing games that are primarily bought by males to males.

If there's a gender bias that pushes girls one way and boys another it happens long before it comes to purchasing a game, it's the parents, schools and local community that are responsible for directing girls to one thing and boys to another.
 
WBurchnall said:
While you are looking in the right direction, women can't blame other women to be feminists or believe in the feminist ideology as the basic principle is an invisible male force of male domination that attempts to make women subservient and put them down at a every opportunity called 'The Patriarchy'. For example, when only men were sent to war for thousands of years, that was the Patriarchy putting down ...women.
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No, I'm pretty sure that The Patriarchy for those thousands of years had to do with the institutionalized, near-universal treatment of women as chattel. But don't let the truth get in the way of a perfectly lovely misogynistic rant...
 
As the article notes women dominate certain game genres when it comes to sales and men dominate others. Ask PopCap what they think about women gamers for instance: just because they tend to be more concentrated in sim, social, and puzzle games doesn't mean they don't exist.

Women also buy the 'AAA' games out there, but in considerably smaller numbers. Whether nature or nurture I have a tough time blaming the games industry too much for women's lack of interest in the FPS genre even if there has been some questionable advertising.
 
Babbster said:
No, I'm pretty sure that The Patriarchy for those thousands of years had to do with the institutionalized, near-universal treatment of women as chattel. But don't let the truth get in the way of a perfectly lovely misogynistic rant...
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Right, except its not misogynistic at all. Simply stating a few true facts that men have traditionally always been the one forced to risk life and limb in war, is somehow anti-woman? Why?

Men were considered disposable and women essential. If you had 100 women and 10 men, you could re-populate easily. The opposite situation around, its hard to repopulate with only 10 women and 100 men. Women were the ones never forced to take risks. If men were really trying to enslave and put down women, why is it women never had to comparatively assume risk and were inherently valued higher? Patriarchy is about as real as Santa Clause in my opinion. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vp8tToFv-bA
 
It's how they are raised. I have a friend whose daughter grew up watching her dad playing FPS games starting at a young age. She is now 15 and loves playing those games. She begged her dad to buy her a copy of BF4 for Christmas present among other PC games. She barely has any interest in console games even though they have an Xbox 360.

Her mom, completely different. Other than browsing the internet, she views computer as a tool and knows just enough to use the programs she need for work.
 
WBurchnall said:
Right, except its not misogynistic at all. Simply stating a few true facts that men have traditionally always been the one forced to risk life and limb in war, is somehow anti-woman? Why?
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No, it's anti-woman to dismiss the concept of Patriarchy based on the fact that men fought and died in wars while women didn't. In fact, it might make the top 10 of dumbest arguments I've ever read. For example, it's only a relatively recent development in the US for it to be against the law to rape one's wife. Can you really be surprised when feminists are pissed off? It's got to be particularly irksome when neanderthals dismiss their issues with appeals to war, as if men were the real victims of history. For me, it's just nauseating.
 
Babbster said:
No, it's anti-woman to dismiss the concept of Patriarchy based on the fact that men fought and died in wars while women didn't. In fact, it might make the top 10 of dumbest arguments I've ever read. For example, it's only a relatively recent development in the US for it to be against the law to rape one's wife. Can you really be surprised when feminists are pissed off? It's got to be particularly irksome when neanderthals dismiss their issues with appeals to war, as if men were the real victims of history. For me, it's just nauseating.
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I can't speak for the intent of the person you're quoting, but if you're suggesting that women alone have been disadvantaged by traditional gender roles then you're either being ignorant or disingenuous.
 
LeninGHOLA;1040"434432 said:
Thanks Obama
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To upgrade to "the standards', my mother's Medicare plan is dropping one of her diabetic medicines but added a full array of birth control options.

So, ya.
 
Runningflame570 said:
I can't speak for the intent of the person you're quoting, but if you're suggesting that women alone have been disadvantaged by traditional gender roles then you're either being ignorant or disingenuous.
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Not at all. All of humanity has suffered because of "tradition," in oh so many ways. However, that does not make that "The Patriarchy" an imaginary construct any more than does the fact that women were not allowed/asked/compelled to serve in militaries throughout most of history. Bottom line: Women were chattel as a matter of law for most of human history and as a matter of tradition for a while longer than that - and they are still treated as such in nations even today.
 
Babbster said:
No, it's anti-woman to dismiss the concept of Patriarchy based on the fact that men fought and died in wars while women didn't. In fact, it might make the top 10 of dumbest arguments I've ever read. For example, it's only a relatively recent development in the US for it to be against the law to rape one's wife. Can you really be surprised when feminists are pissed off? It's got to be particularly irksome when neanderthals dismiss their issues with appeals to war, as if men were the real victims of history. For me, it's just nauseating.
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I am surprised when feminists are pissed off, at least in America or other Western nations. Wake up: the places where you spend your time complaining give you the most rights, freedoms, and protections...and most organizations like NOW usually have little or nothing to say about the rights of the other 90% of the world who are STILL treated like chattel and worse. I'm sure the Saudi women being whipped for driving a car or being raped really feel your pain about not having sufficiently tailored characters in electronic entertainment.

When you have that perspective, and some woman complains about not being represented enough in video games, can you really be surprised when men(and plenty of women) roll their eyes with disgust?
 
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