Help with idea for game for girls

#21 My wife seems to be the norm and prefers the puzzle game type mostly as well as sim style games (her favorites have been Rollercoaster Tycoon and Zoo Tycoon). What is more interesting to me, however, is that when playing the tycoon games she prefers the 'Sandbox' mode, where there are no set goals and money is not a problem. I prefer the 'campaign/career' mode where you have the goals and limitations. We just recently got RCT3 and the first thing my wife did (after I installed it) was go straight to the sandbox mode and play for a while, she also is much more likely to micro-manage every little thing in the game (tweaking prices every little bit, making multiple menu orders, watch the staff like a hawk for performance). I'm posting this because I'm curious if there's something to that? Is that more typical of women, prefering a more open ended play still, without a set of goals?

As an aside, I'm personally happy we have installed RCT3 because we now have a game that my wife really likes that doesn't look nearly as good as it could (as demonstrated by the screenshots showing when in the menu) because our video card is so old and crappy. Yeah now she wants a new video card too!

#22 And good grief, why is everyone so worried about 'offending someone', just present your points in a professional manner and they wont offend anyone who actually has a spine. I read some of the links that Kirby posted and think it would behoove you to also read them. Theyre pretty good material.

Just DONT put scantily clad females in your game idea - Im sick of it myself so I can imagine how females feel about it.

@Pat:

I agree with your point if the class it was assigned in was a game development class, but what if the class is something like psychology or some sort of social studies class? If thats the case I think its a GREAT idea to have people think out of the box in such a way as this.

#23 Hmmm...
I couldn't help but notice that not a single woman has posted in here...

#24 Generally, I find girls like to play the same games as guys (unless your talking like... 6 year olds, which your not) so just develop a game as you usually would.

#25 @ Jeff. its actually a writing for games class so the assigment is quite valid. I went to a recent local IGDA event and the president of Day 1 studios (the mech assault guy) alluded to the fact that we need to get the other 50 percent (women) involved in gaming if we want the industry as a whole to mature. but alfredo makes a good point. i wanted the perspective of the fairer sex. because our first pass at this assignment did yeild stereotypes like "women like puzzle games" we as men can think all day long about what women like but if we dont get thier actual opinion we're gonna keep missing the mark. but lots of good points so farg uys.

#26 @Gary
Actually, that's been the way I've been lately as well. I've found that I've been enjoying more "quick" action games like Devil May Cry, Viewtiful Joe, Zap, etc than I have long-drawn out games. Strangely, almost every woman I know who has played both Devil May Cry and Rez has loved them (even without the Rez attachements).

#27 @ Alfredo - Hey, I'm a woman.

#28

Quote:If you set out to make "games for females", you will fail.

I have to agree strongly with Jeff (whether it's an assignment or not). I researched the heck out of this very topic for a previous title I was working on and drew the same conclusion. There's top-down game design ("Let's make a game that will appeal to X"), and there's bottom-up game design ("Hey, what do you know, this gameplay is attracting more female players for some reason.") The latter isn't wholly accidental -- there are considerations like adding puzzles, exploration, cooperation -- but it can't be artificially constructed. Games that "shouldn't" appeal to women do. Why? Women, like men -- like people -- like a range of different things.

Quote:He did state that the object was to present a concept that would appeal to women 25-30.

For some reason I've been meeting a lot of women who play video games lately. All of these were very feminine women with fairly mainstream interests. Their favorite games? Let's see, GTA, Halo... you get the idea. Never was a Zelda or Tetris mentioned. These girls had more "masculine" game interests than I do!

Look at the the other way. When you say "let's design a game for women" another way of saying that is "let's design a game that will NOT appeal to men." If you think in terms of exclusionary/inclusionary, you're thinking the wrong thing. All you need concern yourself with are balance and fun.

If you want to knock your tecaher's socks off, present a concept that's just a perfectly normal, balanced game in every regard. Just be prepared to defend yourself :)

#29 Now that you mentioned women and GTA in the same sentence....I spent a month at home and my mom liked GTA:SA just as much as my dad did. I think it was because she has a sick sense of humor (I think thats where I get mine) and we both were doing a lot of laughing as we watched each other play. My dad on the other hand was interested in what kinds of cars, speeds, mods, etc as we played the game. Now mom didnt care too much for Gran Turismo and actually got a little irritated when pops and I were playing it, and showed no interest in it. At work its also very similar to this - the females like the GTA series, but dont much care for games like Gran Turismo, Test Drive Off Road, etc.

So I gathered that even tough a game can have shooting, obscinity, etc it seems that women look past it as much as we do if the game is fun or emotionally involving (i.e. humor) somehow.

@Josh: Interesting point about women playing games that shouldnt appeal to them. I was reading an article about my truck a few years ago, and it brought up the point that Nissan had designed the styling to attract more men my age but that it ended up attracting more women also. I guess a nice design cant really be based on gender, in most cases at least.

#30 The Incredible Machine turned out to be very popular with women. We didn't plan it that way - Jeff and I just talked every week or so about what was and what was not working with the game as we developed it. I have a feeling that if we had consciously attempted to make something that appealed to women we would have fallen on our faces.

#31 GAME DESIGNERS shouldn't care who is playing their game... leave that to MARKETING to figure out!!

#32 IMHO. girls don't like to be beaten very much. They lack that male drive to NOT be beaten. If they get killed 10 times in a row they walk away. They tend to like games that they progress in at a steady rate, the difficulty curve needs to be even, not incremental like in most FPS type games.

My GF likes Soul Cailbre, Tekken Tag and various puzzle games.

#33 Just for a laugh, heres a document about men and women and the differences I did for my counselling project. BeingMale.zip

#34 @ Josh

I think you're right at first I accepted the challenge because when i think games i think about what i would like to play. so the assignment is helping me think outside the box but the first game designs my entirely male class came up with were entirely sexist. even my idea catered to the girls like clothes crap but even still i tried to make my appeal to both groups becuse yeah if you try to appeal to one side you're going to leave somebody out. but the question is what if its just market research that you use to add little touches to make that group (in this case women) more interested in your game.

but yeah saying girls like this guys like this is a steotype. and i think pats idea is hilarious. if only i werent such a whore for good grades.

#35 Another way to turn it back on the teacher is to pose the challenge of trying to design a game with a different demographic delimiter in mind. For example, "Let's make a game that will appeal to blacks," or "Let's make a game that will appeal to homosexuals," or "Let's make a game that will appeal to people over 50," or "Let's make a game that will appeal to socioeconomically deprived people." Sound ridiculous? It does to me. Then what's the difference between those questions and the male/female one? What makes designing a game for women valid, but designing a game for blacks not?

Also remember that gender and sex are two different things. Sex is biological, whereas gender is sociological. There are biological differences between men and women, but does that translate into game preferences? Not nearly as strongly as social markers do. Women might identify more with certain things (like you said, clothes, shopping, whatever), but those are culturally engrained, not biologcally. There are plenty of cultures (especially historically) where women would hunt right alongside the men... and even matriarchial societies where women ruled the roost. Imagine how different game design "for women" would be in a culture like that!

#36 Yeah, that's why I prefixed it with that warning, Marvin.

I'm on my 2nd academic probation currently. Taking school advice from me is like having a hydrophobic swimming coach.

#37 @Pat:
Your first post is like something I would do, but I would add in a bit more controversial content.

#38 It is still pretty funny pat. okay based on the ideas presented here and in the artilces that were presented thanks all for the links. I came up with an idea.

Theidea is called 'school of the dead' but one of of my female friends pointed out just how generic the title is so don't harsh on the title. School of the Dead is a survival horror game in the vien of Resident evil. basically you play this girl who wakes up to a town full of dead ghost and other ghouls of the night. everyone in the city is gone. as the girl you must figure out the mystery. is it a dream? is the world over? Is something sinsiter behind it? (of course it is) but as the character you solve puzzles like trying to build weapons to combat the ghosts. you meet characters that know how the ghosts died and why they're in the town so you have to talk to the survivors to find out whos in doing what and why? there is a male character in the game. he needs saving from time to time. not to make it condsending to us men folk but to allow for some basic reversal of roles. oh and of course the characters intearct with each other in a way that makes the plaayer care. i know this sounds generic but hey what do you want out of five hours of research. so how does this sound guys and gals?

#39 Some things to think about:

Your assignment is more complicated than it seems. The demographic you are targeting is supposedly 20-35-year-old women, but more likely it is supposed to be 20-35-year-old women who don't already play games. You might want to consider why they aren't playing games even though they almost certainly count as friends both men and women who do play games. What is keeping them away? Here are some ideas:

1. Haven't played games since they were kids, so they lack the instinctual/intuitive understanding of how modern videogames work -- and kids games are too silly and immature to appeal.

2. People look and act immature and stupid while playing videogames -- why would they want to be like that?

3. So many games -- most of them probably suck. Videogame journalism is repellant, so that's a no-go, and just buying what your friends bought looks and feels stupid.

4. Have been forced to play Halo by male friends, who refused to teach them the controls and systematically sucked any trace of fun out of the experience for the sake of a big win. Videogames are supposed to offer relief from emotional abuse, but instead just compound it with frustration and boredom.

5. Aren't in love with the Hot Topic aesthetic.

And if all else fails, just throw something together and quote a famous feminist!

"The feminist perspective is partly a reversal of patriarchal views. Feminism sees women as at least equal to men, humanly if not politically or economically; it considers transcendence illusory or factitious and pursuit of power a fatally doomed enterprise, since it cannot ever be satisfied, and usually or always involves the destruction of vital qualities and even life itself. Domination is not divine but lethal to dominator and dominated. It harms the dominator by cutting him off from trust and mutuality, the foundations of friendship and love, the two primary values; it harms the dominated by forcing them into dependency, which precludes truth in relationships. Domination creates false forms of friendship (society) and love (conventional marriage) which mask power relations. And feminist art focuses on people as wholes; the human is made up of body and emotion as well as mind and spirit; she is also part of a community, connected to others; and -- on the broadest level -- to nature in both positive and negative aspects."

Marilyn French, "Is There A Feminisit Aesthetic?"

#40 Since it is a research project.... why not put together a series of game concepts, over a broad range of genres and playstyles. Then go around all the people you know within this demographic, and ask them to rank the games, comment on what works, what doesn't, and suggest improvements.

Use this to whittle and refine it down to a singular game concept, and present it to your teacher. With a sample size of about 30-50, your statistics won't be conclusive, but it will be substantial enough to challenge any challenges from your teacher.

Even if you end up with Bikini Barney and the seven dwarvettes, you can always say that 95% of the sample population can't be wrong. After which you can challenge any doubts your teacher has with your unquestionable statistics, at least till somebody else does another study.

Sure beats asking the males and techie females you will find here!