Grrls + games
Once again, the issue of why more women (and girls) don't play games came up at a conference in Edinburgh this weekend, when an EA exec mentioned that the industry was "failing women."
This is a complex issue, and one that isn't just about the lack of "female-friendly" video/pc games. Companies like EA are looking to essentialize certain titles as "female-oriented," because they're an untapped part of the vidoeogame market. What frustrates me most about the rhetoric by game execs is that while they finally get that women don't want pink-colored XBoxes (well, most grown women don't, anyway) or overtly "feminine" games like "Shop with Paris Hilton" and "Be Katie Holmes' Nanny," they still suggest women want is more dialogue, more "chat-friendly"/casual games. Says who? The last thing I want is to have to talk to a bunch of people I don't know online. While I'm personally not into the whole FPS-killing-people/robots/mutated animals/whatever until your fingers bleed, I'm also not interested in turning into "Chatty Cathy" playing bridge with a bunch of old biddies. Not my scene. At the same time, I'm interested in playing games that are fun and creative. Hence my willlingness to experience GTA: San Andreas, despite its abhorrently racist and sexist gameplay. After playing it a few times, I understood the appeal - it was fun. Not socially responsible or appropriate for most people under 17, but fun nonetheless. The problem is that there are few games geared specifically to women or girls that do a good job with the whole fun factor.
Some other irksome parts of this article: I love that the video game industry is now looking to Hollywood for pointers. As David Gardner, COO of EA argues,
The movie industry doesn't just make films for boys. Star Wars was the biggest film of all time until Titanic came along; Titanic became the biggest because women went to see it and women went to see it multiple times. Just as boys saw Star Wars multiple times. (from the BBC News article)
While I'm glad that some game executives are talking about the apparent lack of females playing games, I find Gardner's perspective highly problematic. Titanic appealed to SOME young women (mostly those under the age of 17), but it was marketed almost exclusively as a "chick flick." Hollywood is no place to look for examples for, well, much of anything, really. The number of female directors working for the major studios is embarrassingly low, and except for a few movies (usually geared towards younger viewers) that have crossover appeal, women are stuck going to movies like Braveheart (which some misguided ex-boyfriend of mine tried to pawn off as "romantic") or cheesy-almost-Lifetime-movies like My Best Friend's Wedding. The only exceptions seem to be coming from more independent releases (I'm thinking about those by Wes Anderson, Nicole Holofcener, etc.) - but even these tend to shy away from specifically trying to attract women, lest they be considered too Terms of Endearment-ish.
It's pretty clear that most game companies are going for the lowest common denominator - release even a mediocre FPS with a poorly-conceived plot line and you're likely to at least get somebody's attention (and make $$), especially if the game includes lots of large-chested, scantily clad women cheering you on from the sidelines. These sorts of stereotypical portrayals do women (and men) a disservice, suggesting that all of us have to be stuck in some sort of socially-awkward teenage boy's secret fantasy life to enjoy videogames.
Hopefully, the next generation of gamers will have better options (picture from MonkeyJunkie's Flickr pool)
As I mentioned earlier, much of this debate has to do with a lack of understanding of the types of games that women would want to play, and that's almost entirely the result of a serious lack of interest in researching women (and girls) to find out how they actually spend their time. The last company to seriously design software with young girls in mind was Purple Moon, and although Brenda Laurel was amazingly attentive and interested in the deeper social issues involved in computer game development,* and consciously made a real effort to have women involved at all levels of the design and development process, the company went under. (This is not to say that Purple Moon was without its own share of problems, as this 1998 article points out.)
While I don't think that "women's games" should be specifically social in nature, the whole crafting-DIY resurgence suggests that women (and men) are interested in social pursuits, especially if they revolve around creativity and collaboration (just look at the success of sites like craftster.org). So, I think it's possible to create games that encourage this type of community building - but it's likely going to require an entirely new genre. What about more ARG-style games that involve some collaboration on- and offline? What about incorporating more casual/puzzle games (one place where females outnumber males) into larger MMO or stand-alone adventure games? Why not incorporate more ways to interact with the environment besides simply fighting (like the old Star Wars Galaxies did) or buying/selling? Perhaps incorporating more player-created content would help as well.
The point is that attracting women to the console or PC will likely require much more research, effort, and broad cultural/social changes at game companies. That is, most women are not going to flock to games that simply reproduce what's worked for predominately male-oriented games (Halo, Quake, RPGs and war-based strategy games) with more female characters. At the same time, game companies would do well to spend more time researching just what kinds of gameplay appeal to women, and less time lumping them into one big category. Not all men like to play first-person shooters or sports games, just as not all women will want to play Dreamfall or The Sims (just look at the diversity of games favored by contributors to GrrlGamer.com, for example). Creating innovative games designed with/by potential female players would be a good start. And actively hiring female developers/producers/executives would be an even better one.
* I remember that when I attended E3 in 1997, the Purple Moon booth was the only place on the exhibition floor where I felt comfortable since I wasn't being leered at or hit on.