Games for the other Gender

#1 I think the love story RPG's (Like Final Fantasy) attract quite a few females too. They probably don't want just a straight love story, it'd have to incorporate the perfect balance between Love RPG, and Action.

#2 I think this is very individual.. females don't like THIS or THAT, but a combination if you're looking to generalize.

Instead, try and see what makes Sims so good, and what makes it so bad; and try to improve your game idea upon it?

#3 Love is cool... But the combine this with Action(?)... Isn't there another way?

Stefan: I disagree... Females do like THIS and THAT... Same as Men... The thing is, we need to generelize...

Men like Cars (in Games already), guns (in games already), women (Softcore/Hardcore). Those are things you can;t deny. OKay, Now what does women like? As easy as it is for me to put that 2gether... What will a women put in such list? Cuteness? Clothing? Loving? What do Women want to do, but can't always? Shopping and ???

I also don't want to remake Sims. We need something new, fresh
for women! There's not much for women out there... so this shouldn't be too hard, eh?

#4 Almost all of the women I know loved Devil May Cry. Even if they don't usually like videogames. And you don't get much more adrenaline charged than Dante...

The problem with generalizing the female audience is that it's been done to death with horrible results. We have crap like Barbie Vacation Adventure (which I wrote a FAQ for and had a Masters student request to use as a source on gender and business mis-analysis), Britney's Dance Beat, and a whole host of "games for girls" created to "hook them while they're young."

It's better to target both genders with games that are entertaining than to cut out 50% of your market (and even then only appeal to a mere sliver of the gender market if you happen to misanalyze them as every major software company has done in the past).

Among the adult (or late-teen to adult), men and women often prefer simulations (Civ, SimCity, The Sims), RPG's (Bauldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment, and story-oriented console RPG's). MMORPG's are another major market for both genders. Puzzle games are entertaining to both, but have burst play-times.

*need to fix bits of my crap grammar. Maybe I'll get to fix more...

#5 Here's a handful of the best gamedev threads relative to this topic. The general conclusions: Women prefer games that are less violent, that require more creatvity and thought to play, that have complex morality if they have any morality at all, that are about characters' emotions, motivations, and romances, that are constructive rather than destructive, that have pretty male characters, where the player can chose to play a female character, and where the player can decorate/esthetically customize their character and/or house.

(And I'm a woman btw.)

www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=58632

www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=24284

www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=69552

www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=21090

www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=189921

www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=14569

www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=105030

www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=213827

#6 While I can't tell you how to specifically and successfully target a game to one sex or the other, I can tell you how to make a game that sells best to both!

I'll tell you what games women buy most -

1) Games that are fun.

2) Games that don't alienate them.

It's not a matter of targeting your game to women by adding things. It's more of a matter of leaving out things that they dislike and things that alienate them - EG - "Tits on sticks" female character design.

And there you have it. An overview of games that capture the female audience. Make a fun game that doesn't alienate them. Pretty simple, huh?

#7 Please read:

Gender Inclusive Game Design
and
Creating Emotion In Games

There is also the "Women in Game Development" mailing list.
And the IGDA also promotes women in game development and gender inclusive game design through various forums, workshops and gatherings at developer events. Please do not relegate "games for girls" in to the pink ghetto (barbie fashion designer, et al) as those generalizations do not work in the market place other than for a few exception cases. RealArcade and Big Fish Games are showing that more than 70% of the people playing their games are female, that is a huge market and its the market segment that my development studio is aiming at with very clear goals.

NB: I was approached to be the Lead Programmer on the very first Barbie Fashion Designer back in '96 where most of the money on offer was through royalties (there was still a generous salary attached to the job too). I didn't think it would sell well and was quite happy creating a new-kind of multiplayer FPS. Boy! Was I wrong! Barbie Fashion Designer went on to sell millions of units, the Lead Programmer they did choose (a friend of mine) laughed all the way to the bank with the royalty cheques, and the ground-breaking FPS I worked on sank without a trace when Quake hit the market two weeks after we launched.

#8 This is a topic I do love and find quite interesting, as I've had a multitude of gfs who do not play games, but will play some...

From personal experience I can say that girls like games that are very easy to learn, dont require "twitch" fps skills and can be put down and picked back up again. RPGs? Too much for even my patience, BUT baldur's gate for the PS2, had 2 gfs who LOVED it and made me beat it with them (helped that it was coop).

My current gf LOVES Ghost Master (until the bugs pissed her off too bad) and really likes The Sims (I think she's buying a PC today just to play games actually)... Not so much because of growing the sims, but she likes being able to shop for them and she gets really happy when they see her new items and do their clapping/happy thing. She will play Diablo sometimes too, and she said she used to like the kings quest series/genre as well.

In addition, a lot of girls (including my own) like cubis and similar puzzlers. Tetris Attacks was a big hit amongst the girls in the old college crew... I always see girls playing bust a move at the bars too...

Overall, I think the moral of the story is: Instant (or near) gratification and control. Colorful and quirky seem to attract them as well. I think if you made bust a move w/ auto-aiming and craploads of particle effects you would have a winner...

#9 Burning: I disagree too :) Reason is that it's still very individual, at least from what I've experienced. I can't say that I love guns and certainly not cars. If I find a story and is strong and has love, that could very well attract me. I'm a male.

Five of my female friends play Anarchy Online & two of them play Max Payne 2. It's just very individual.. I'm sure you know that already but what my point is, is that you can draw a line.. but still won't catch most women that play games, because some of them like "guns and cars".

That's why I said you can't say they like THIS and THAT :)

#10 Its not a universal panacea, but one thing that attracts women is Glamour. There was Devil May Cry mentioned, and although i havent played the game, from what i have heard and seen, game packs quite a dose of glam. So does turn-based Disciples and my wife loves the game. She's attracted to tens of other small details and the gameplay itself, but glam certainly helps.

We have code words with her when I'm going out for renting a movie. When I ask what to bring, she sometimes says "kinda Matrix". In our code it doesnt necessarily mean sci-fi flick, it means something brain relaxing, action packed, *glam-filled* and intelligent enough.

Intelligence is other thing, I guess. Why do we imagine that females want fluffy stories that can be dumb as long as they're sweet? Males are more attracted to gameplay mechanics while women pay attention to wrapping as well. It must be smart.

Now, can someone name me couple of smart and intelligent games coming out lately? I struggle myself.

#11 Thanx for the comments people...

I agree with pretty much all of you on the matter of the subject.
I went to read those articles Mare pointed out and this person
had something that I found quite annoying and sad, but truthfull:

[quote]
Now, I'm not saying we should all release games with lots of naked guys running around, I'm just trying to make a point that nudity in games isn't actually there for "realism" or "artistic reasons" as some people want to believe, it's really just some naked chicks to keep the teenage boys interested.
[\quote]

I began this dicussion to get more gameplay ideas and/or styles... What a female player would prefer in a chracter... I'm trying to come up with a game that captivates the female player rather than the male player, but also the softer side which some males do have (but never show). If anyone has ideas, drop them here... If you think of one in about a month please drop em here as i'll check in regulary :)

L8er
James

#12 Women like creating relationships, I think. And it doesnt necessarily mean falling in love and/or romance. My wife loved both Gothic and Gothic2. Very much. So much that it was her who insisted on upgrading PC when we couldnt play GothicII without glitches.
I carefully inquired time to time what exactly she liked the most in the game, and figured out that it was her ability to become friends or enemies with wide range of believable characters. There were those she hated much and didnt hesitate to wipe out when the right time came and there were those she found "contact" with and "took care of".

So, its is "meeting new and exciting people", making friends and enemies. But she has to have a choice or illusion of one. No wonder women dont find FPS immersive, because you have to kill everyone who moves. (Although she enjoyed watching me playing Medal of Honour, and in missions where i had to lead squad, she named the soldiers and decided whom she liked and i must defend at all costs. Boy, was it hard :D)

#13 Plenty of women like FPS and racing as well as other games. Your first mistake is assuming that one type of game is more appealing to them than another. While you may be able to find evidence that supports that claim, it is evidence that is based on available data and not actual test data.

IMO your best bet is to grasp these two concepts....

Men are adversarial by nature. Competitive and even shallow for the most part. Death and destruction can easily get our attention, and in a LOT of cases having fun is second in command to the thrill of victory. For men, there is no such thing as a "fun" game for the most part. Ask a man what is fun and he'll say "WINNING!!!!". He usually doesn't care what he wins, as long as he wins, lol. I've never played the Sims, but to me it doesn't lok like a game of Winning and Losing, it looks more like a game of just plain "playing". Which if that is any where near the truth, it would help explain why the Sims is more popular with women than men.


Woman are social creatures by nature. They like to interact, they like to talk, they like to compare, they like to gather together in groups, and they like to have fun. Ask a woman what's fun and one of the last answers you are likely to get is "Winning." It's not that they don't like to win, it's just that it's completely secondary to women. They don't "need" to win like men typicaly do. They can derive more pleasure from the trip than the destination. It's a gift they have that we don't.


IMO, if you made a game that was fun to guys, and even remotely fun to women but allowed them a way to "just play" without any real pressures to succeed, or without any real demands on the individual to perform, and a way for them to socialize that is easy and fun, then you will have a hit no matter what it is. Well, I don't know about racing games. My wife will kick your butt in John Madden football, but you cant get her to race at all. I have seen this behavior before a lot of times also. My guess is that the vast majority of women don't like "intensive" games. Games that require 100% attention, 100% of the time or you are toast, is not likely to draw much favor from women. Racing is a good example because in most racing games you cant just take your hands off the controls and light a smoke, or dial your best friend and see if they want to go out, or just get up and go pee. Women don't like being constrained to conditions where it is all or nothing. Men do, that is where we thrive.

This is a facinating subject. I have been playing games since the early 70's and sincethe first time I saw a girl in the arcades in the early 80's(Men only thing at that time) I have been fascinated with the approach and attitude that women take towards games. I could go on for hours about it, but I doubt anyone would want to hear it, lol.


I will say one thing for this subject, it just gave me a great idea for a game women would like.(Starts jotting down notes)

:-)

#14 I would like to hear what you have to say, Gonzo About going on for hours... i Don't mind... This is my next project.

Quote:
Your first mistake is assuming that one type of game is more appealing to them than another. While you may be able to find evidence that supports that claim, it is evidence that is based on available data and not actual test data.

Hmmm... I agree in a way here... but not Fully. I promise you
women like a different genre of games. This was discussed in
the conference we had, and it's Statistics gathered by EA.

The way Culture also plays a role in what people tend to like
(eg. You've got the highest % sales per PC owner in Rugby 2004
in South Africa, and the highest Football in USA.), the same
way there are racial,religious and gender differences, that
should (and this is what i'm trying to get at) be used in games.

You're not going to try and sell a game where you are an Angel trying to convert Muslims to Christians in Afghan, are u? What
will you sell there? Hehhe... guns? Just Kidding... Back to the
topic. What do women like more than men do?... Compassion is what most of the people mentioned here. And all say, "well i know a person who liked and played this". Thats like saying you know a friend who crossdresses... The odss are there that an individual likes a certain game, i know. But i'm looking for the right spice to add to gaming that what makes a women go. Sheeeeshhhh... i Want more from this game! I don't want to stop playing! I need to own this, I need to kill this bitch, I need to get to the top managerial (Spelling) position of this beauty mag...

That's my mission... ;) I'll find it! Although i'm starting to think innovative game design has almost come to an end, and its rather to build on what there already is. When last did you really see some really interesting, captivaing and adictive gameplay? I haven't for ages! it's all the same, why? Cause we aim to think what would i like in a game? Who's more involved in gaming? Men? And the big companies are after money, so it makes perfect sense. Make games for boys. I want to break that! Wouldn't it sometimes be cool if your wife,fiance or girlfriend said: "Now you wait, i Sweeeeeaaaarrr just one more stage!"?

#15 Nauris Krauze - Yeah that's a great point, the glam (and relatedly goth, punk, club, and urban tribal) look is well liked by women. And I agree with you about the relationships too - soap operas and things like Survivor are very popular among women and they're all about forming and managing relationships, in the strategic sense as well as the esthetic sense. The ethical sense too actually.



Burning - I'd be happy to help you work on a female-oriented game design. Here's my recipie for how to do the characters:

The main character should be either female or a gay male - some women prefer one and some prefer the other. If a female, this character should be attractive but not blatantly sexy, and should not wear absurd impractical clothes like stilettos; if male otoh the character should be eye candy. The main character should be idealistic, optimistic, and artistic at heart but on the surface very pragmatic, practical, and oriented toward creatively solving problems. The character should be assertive, never aggressive, violent, stoic, revenge-oriented, depressed, whiny, or bitchy. They should have a wry, benevolent, or slightly sarcastic sense of humor. For example, odd though this will sound, when playing Starcraft the character I was most at home playing was not Kerrigan, who really has a pretty masculine personality, but instead the Zerg Cerebrate who is calm, practical, and managerial (if not actvely nurturing).

The other characters should be bishounen of assorted types, unless you want to have a rival, who should be the blatantly sexy and aggressive female we avoided above. (This character would also function as eye candy for the males playing the game.) In case you don't know, 'bishounen' is a Japanese word meaning 'beautiful boy', and is used generally to mean male anime and game characters women find particularly attractive. Sephiroth is the most obvious example.

Take a look here for a list of popular bishounen:
www.animemusicvideos.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=29099&highlight=eliminator

These can be grouped into four body types: skinny as a rail, swimmer's build, sleek almost femininly plump, and muscle man. You may observe that women generally don't like bald or buzzed characters or haracters with facial hair. The most popular hairstyles are jaw length obscuring one or both eyes, shoulder length loose wavy, pony tail, and really long with earlocks or bangs (fringe) to frame the face. Some standard bishounen visual categories: the big golden barbaran (must be a good guy), the delicate but dangerous china doll or goth (minor or major villian), the dashing and charismatic athlete swordsman (usually there's a good one and an evil one), and the helpful cute feminine puppy-like sidekick (if he belongs to the villian he must either be ignorant of the villiany or be abused).

o.O too long, continued in next post...

#16 As for the other characters personalities, there are some standard types of attractive male character traits (a quote from one of my posts in the Designing Romance thread linked to above:

[quote]

1. If the character is wounded in some way, either physically or emotionally, this will call on the woman's instinct to nurture and heal. The area of fanfic known as 'hurt/comfort' deals with this. Examples: Saionji from Revolutionary Girl Utena, Chichiri, Nuriko, Nakago, and Tomo from Fushigi Yuugi (which is practically a hurt/comfort series, athough it could use more of the comfort part), Harry Potter and Severus Snape from Harry Potter. (This character must have either a melancholy temperment, an angry temperment, or a smile-to-hide-the-tears temperment to convince the reader that they haven't gotten over their injury.)

2. Women can tell what a character's testosterone level is and will pick one which either matches of complements their own, depending on the woman's goals. A woman who is a natural leader will pick either a man who is a natural follower or a man who is as dominant as she is and won't let her manipulate him. A woman who is a natural follower will pick either a man who is a strong leader or a submissive man who won't try to dominate the woman. A woman who is neither a leader nor a follower may pick a man who is the same, but may also pick a dominant man or a submissive one. A more dominant man will defend his family and fight other men for resources for them, and a more submissive man will be more loyal to the wife, helpful with childcare, and be less likely to get killed while competing with other men. Mathematically, this results in characters at both extremes of the spectrum being more popular than those in the middle.

3. Egotism as aphrodesiac - arrogance is this odd trait that makes a disliked character easier to hate but a liked character loveable. I think it's like, not only is the character self-confidant, which is appealing to a lot of people, but their overweening pride becomes a tragic flaw - you have a character who's rich, powerful, handsome, etc. but instead of being boringly perfect, he's a spoiled arrogant SOB, whch is like a challange to women to 'see past all that' to 'the inner him' which they often imagine to be a 'sensitive soul'. Plus you have someone who acts arrogant as a defensive tactic, which takes us back to hurt/comfort. Examples: Touga from Revolutionary Girl Utena, Kuno from Ranma 1/2, Nakago from Fushigi Yuugi, Draco Malfoy from Harry Potter. It's interesting to note that these characters are all minor villains in their respective story worlds. My evolutionary psychology book also says that self-confidence is sexy because it means the character (who is the one who knows themself best, after all) sees themself as likely to be approved by others, which means that the character probably is worth approving of, i.e. a good candidate to be a father.

3b. Conversely, low self esteem can be attractive because people with low self esteem are usually very loyal and clingy mates which is flattering to the ego of whoever they are clinging to. While more submissive wome might like dominant egotists, more dominant women might like submissive males.


o.O; Continued AGAIN...

#17 4. The Man who's Good With Children - ever notice how a guy who is taking care of a kid by himself is the target of all sorts of female eyes? Particularly if the women know that the child is not the guy's, but is his sibling or cousin? Women who like children (and not all of them do) look for men (and male characters of course) who like children too. Examples: Tamahome from Fushigi Yuugi (Probably Nuriko too, but he's never shown interacting with kids), Carrot Glace from Sorceror Hunters, Ryoga from Ranma 1/2, Remus Lupin from Harry Potter. (Except for Tamahome these characters each have some disability that gets in the way of them becoming fathers, which increases their character pathos but may also make them less attractive to the audience.) This is also where MPREG stories come from, but I won't frighten anyone by explaining what those are. You would probably rather not know.

5. Golden Blood - A male character who is one of a very few, or even the last, of a sub-race, who has special powers or abilities or riches because of his heredity. These are ideal fathers genetically, as opposed to behaviorally. This is often a large part of the appeal of vampires, aliens, werewolves, heirs to the estate, etc. Examples: Count D from Petshop of Horrors, Nakago from Fushigi Yuugi, Severus Snape and Draco Malfoy from Harry Potter. (Again, these work well as lonely mysterious minor villains, and they often have that isolation/loneliness pathos going for them.)
[/quote]


Some archetypes based on these principles:
- a dominant macho guy who orders others around and glares a lot; outwardly a cold-hearted strategist, he probably has a hidden burning passion about something or will develop one during the course of the plot.
- a talkative fop who goes through extremes of enthusiasm and depression, might be a poet or singer
- an egotist who is probably also seductive and manipulative, often has political power or is nobility
- a guy everybody is prejudiced against and mean to who consequently is lonely and has terrible self esteem, covered up with bitterness/sarcasm.
- an angry loner hiding a wounded heart
- a responsible noble guy who works hard to protect and rescue others
- an irresponsible wild party boy who takes absurd risks and plays jokes
- a charismatic, chivalrous, honor-bound leader, probably a knight or captain
- a mystical myserious guy in tune with spirits and magic (probably has white hair and/or wierd colored eyes)


*whistles* damn that was long, you can tell I'm a writer when I babble on for 8k words and have only covered half the topic, lol. I'll came back and talk about genre, gameplay, and themes a bit later.

#18 Okay, swear this is the last I'll post for a while, don't wanna flood the thread, I just have thought about designing games for women a lot so have a lot to say about it. :P

Genres - In my experience women play adventure, puzzle, sim, and RPG games a lot, sidescroller, arcade, and strategy games sometimes, and FPS and racing games very rarely. Why is this? Well, as Good ol' Gonzo and Stephen Clark say, women tend not to like fast-paced games requiring twitch reflexes and extreme concentration. I would go so far as to say that fewer women than men are interested in any kind of adrenaline-rush-causing action, and some women (including me personally) tend to feel ill if they get too tense, rushed, or worried.

I especially hate death timers; I had a lot of fun playing Super Metroid, but the obnoxious alarm and time that appear to harass you after you beat the fina boss nearly ruined the end of the game for me, and similarly Vagrant Story, my favorite RPG is flawed by having a timed gauntlet run in the middle that is really irritating to play.

(Female horror fans are a big exception to this adrenaline thing I suppose, but then again the thrill of horror is not quite the same as the thrill of violent combat, is it?)

I would guess that this kind of action is more tolerable in sidescrollers and arcade games than fps and racing games because the first two types are less immersive and less likely to have a serious atmosphere and realistic characters. Nobody gets upset when they have to defeat bowser, but people do get upset when you have to blow human-looking npcs away, especially if the npc has gotten any lines of dialogue. This also seems to be the aspect of RPGs that women like least (along with the repetitiousness of monster whacking and ovrly complicated equippage systems). Eh, I better clarify - it's fine to kill a human npc if he _deserves_ to die or if his death is necessary to protect lots of others, but it's _not_ ok to slaughter little peon soldiers who are only doing their jobs, and it's _not_ okay to kill people just because they're in your way or standing between you and some foozle you need.

So that's generally what women don't like to do in games. What _do_ women like to do in games? Women like themes of:
- fixing problems (of communication and relationships as well as physical or strategic puzzles)
- organizing things to create or complete a pattern
- building/rebuilding/repairing/artistically customizing/improving houses and cities
- nurturing/managing things that grow
- rescuing/healing/rehabilitating animals, children, and men (lol that sounded funny)
- teaching and learning
- strategic dialogue puzzles where you must psychologically manipulate an npc, strategically matchmaking npcs, and social and technological community building like that seen in Survivor and other stories about marooned groups (McGuyver too)

So a basic recipie for a game popular with women would be an adventure/strategy sim where the world has lots of problems of assorted types which are making npcs unhappy, and the main character runs around creatively and strategically solving them, clearing the path for (re)growth and artistically directing that growth. ^_^

Or if you wanted to do a more traditional party-based RPG, you could have the player be a guardian angel taking care of a group of bishounen. They could be fighters/athletes, ideally fighting in some sort of non-fatal way, like duels or a war game or some other sort of competition (but not a real sport please!)

I have several more specific game design ideas for games of these types, ask if you're interested and I'll email them, don't want to post them publicly.

#19 Good topic all, brought up a lot of things I hadn't really considered.

Thank you Mare, this is excellent stuff. Probably worth tiding up and submitting as a resource at some point. Wouldn't want it to eventually fall into the abyss that is the GG forums ;)

I fear you watch too much Anime though :)

#20 @Gareth - there is no such thing as watching too much anime. Baka! *goes to find his massive oversized hammer*

@Mare - Exhaustive amount of info. Really. :)

There is one point, I think, or one sub-class of gamer which seems to have been vaguely hinted at in the discussion. To put it bluntly, what about the Quake chicks? The gals like Stevie "Killcreek" Case who like the sound of big guns and the sight of gibs on the arena floor. Should we keep building the usual blood & thunder games for guys and the occasional "tomboy" girl gamer? Should we skirt the edge of what one poster called "the pink ghetto?"

Somehow, I don't think the issue is quite so cut and dried as that. Nor do I think that it will always be possible to develop a game that will appeal to both genders. If it does, cool. If it doesn't, also cool. What matters most is that you made the game you wanted to make.