No Girls Allowed: A story of the sterotype of male gamers

Fascinating article with a side of gaming history I didn't really know before, and you're right, the layout is something I've never seen done! Thanks for sharing Zoombie!

That's a good article. It does gloss over the fact that there were a few heavily-gendered games aimed at _both_ genders pre-crash, notably porn games. But I don't think that invalidates anything else it has to say. But it does point out that the game industry has the same problem all entertainment industries do - ever since marketing became a thing, it's difficult to get anyone to put money into developing a product for a minority market. (I'm not saying women are a minority; however adult women gamers are a minority market because we spend fewer dollars on games for our personal consumption than other gamer market segments.) I would love, love to design an MMO or skyrim-like RPG intended to pull a 2/3 female audience of 16-50 year olds, but who's going to put up the funding to aim at a demographic that's more choosy and hesitant to spend time and money on games than a less-discriminating younger audience?

I also like the insight that yes, Solitaire, AngryBirds and Myst ARE computer games. One does tend to think of computergames only when speaking of the first-person shooters and such.

I would never have considered myself a gamer, but you know, if I look at the sizable space my computer games take up in the closet and what money I've spend on them? I think I should reconsider. Huh.Weird.

As long as the vast majority of game designers are men, sexism in the gaming industry will never go away.

Really great article. I love that style of article design.

sunandshadow said:

I would love, love to design an MMO or skyrim-like RPG intended to pull a 2/3 female audience of 16-50 year olds

Click to expand...

In what way is Skyrim not aimed at that audience already?

onesecondglance said:

In what way is Skyrim not aimed at that audience already?

Click to expand...

The themes and main gameplay; to a lesser extent the graphical style chosen. Skyrim isn't testosterone-drenched, they made some efforts toward being gender neutral even if they didn't get quite all the way there. Certainly the game had a significant percentage of female players; but not more than half. (The age range is fine.) I've seen a lot of commentary about how the main draws for female players were things that were tangential to the main gameplay and story, while male players connected more with the main elements. (Insert the usual disclaimer about how women have a diversity of tastes, just like men do, and there were both women who loved the core game elements and men who were indifferent to those but highly interested in some of the peripheral elements. I'm just talking about percentages, averages, and statistics.)

I wanted to comment on the issue of "as long as the vast majority of game designers [developers] are men..." This is an issue I have run into personally, and continue to do so. I would not call it sexism. Instead, it's simply that men are more likely to have the same taste as other men, and less likely to have the same taste as women. Game development is "art by committee" and whether the decisions about what to make are done democratically or by a leader, if the majority of the people making those decisions are men they are going to decide to make mostly things that appeal to themselves and, as a side effect, appeal more to other men and less to women. Any piece of art/entertainment created by a group of men has a really high probability to be of central interest to men but only peripheral or half-on-target interest to women. (The group creation factor evens out individual variation among the male creators and also adds social pressure on them to suggest things they expect will be deemed 'awesome' by their (male) co-creators.)

sunandshadow said:

The themes and main gameplay; to a lesser extent the graphical style chosen. Skyrim isn't testosterone-drenched, they made some efforts toward being gender neutral even if they didn't get quite all the way there. Certainly the game had a significant percentage of female players; but not more than half. (The age range is fine.) I've seen a lot of commentary about how the main draws for female players were things that were tangential to the main gameplay and story, while male players connected more with the main elements. (Insert the usual disclaimer about how women have a diversity of tastes, just like men do, and there were both women who loved the core game elements and men who were indifferent to those but highly interested in some of the peripheral elements. I'm just talking about percentages, averages, and statistics.)

Click to expand...

Sorry, I'm still not understanding. In what way is the main gameplay catered towards men over women? And what is it about the story?

I'm not trying to pick a fight. I just want to understand where you're coming from, because I don't see anything in the elements you're describing that are tailored towards men specifically.

I can definitely see where Sunandshadows is coming from, though I'm struggling to put it into words. Skyrim is a fun game for both genders, but it definitely appeals towards the male power fantasy. It's a game about being manly--fighting and killing things, shouting a lot, hunting dragons.

Compare and contrast Dragon Age to Skyrim. Both high fantasy RPGs, but Dragon Age appeals much more to the female audience. For me it's because there's more focus on characters, strong dialogue, and fun romance quests, but that's just one lady gamer's opinion.

Do I enjoy both games? Of course. Do I feel like the target audience for Skyrim? Ehrm. Errr. Not really.

EMaree said:

I can definitely see where Sunandshadows is coming from, though I'm struggling to put it into words. Skyrim is a fun game for both genders, but it definitely appeals towards the male power fantasy. It's a game about being manly--fighting and killing things, shouting a lot, hunting dragons.

Compare and contrast Dragon Age to Skyrim. Both high fantasy RPGs, but Dragon Age appeals much more to the female audience. For me it's because there's more focus on characters, strong dialogue, and fun romance quests, but that's just one lady gamer's opinion.

Do I enjoy both games? Of course. Do I feel like the target audience for Skyrim? Ehrm. Errr. Not really.

Click to expand...

I see what you're saying...after a while, I found Skyrim kinda repetitive because there's not really a strong storyline...

As a sidenote, I totally don't get why there are so many fanfics about Anders. I mean, he fucking tricked my character into helping him with his terrorist scheme! Urgghhh I was so pissed off about that. Damn you, Anders.

As a side sidenote, more so than Skyrim or DA, I much prefer Borderlands, just because the characters' dialogue make me laugh so much. Tannis is probably the best NPC I've ever come across. "I require a new ventilator -- this lab smells of bacon. Bacon is for sycophants, and products of incest." Ahhhh Tannis, please be my BFF...

Uh, okay, end derail.

Putputt said:

I see what you're saying...after a while, I found Skyrim kinda repetitive because there's not really a strong storyline...

As a sidenote, I totally don't get why there are so many fanfics about Anders. I mean, he [chop!] Urgghhh I was so pissed off about that. Damn you, Anders.

As a side sidenote, more so than Skyrim or DA, I much prefer Borderlands, just because the characters' dialogue make me laugh so much. Tannis is probably the best NPC I've ever come across. "I require a new ventilator -- this lab smells of bacon. Bacon is for sycophants, and products of incest." Ahhhh Tannis, please be my BFF...

Uh, okay, end derail.

Click to expand...

I never quite get the Anders thing because I'm usually too busy obsessing over Shale. Shale is perfect in every way. I'm still slightly sad that they were cut from the main game into DLC.

Borderlands is SO GOOD. I love it to pieces. My Borderlands 2 Mechromancer is a beast of a lassie, and I adore her even despite all the problems surrounding her release. I'm not a big fan of FPS games usually (I prefer RPGs) but Borderlands and Left4Dead are amazingly fun to play.

EMaree said:

I can definitely see where Sunandshadows is coming from, though I'm struggling to put it into words. Skyrim is a fun game for both genders, but it definitely appeals towards the male power fantasy. It's a game about being manly--fighting and killing things, shouting a lot, hunting dragons.

Compare and contrast Dragon Age to Skyrim. Both high fantasy RPGs, but Dragon Age appeals much more to the female audience. For me it's because there's more focus on characters, strong dialogue, and fun romance quests, but that's just one lady gamer's opinion.

Do I enjoy both games? Of course. Do I feel like the target audience for Skyrim? Ehrm. Errr. Not really.

Click to expand...

I suppose I'm not seeing the nuance in the gameplay: DA and Skyrim seem pretty much the same to me. If anything, DA seemed more male-gaze oriented in its portrayal of the characters, and had more gore and nastiness to the violence, traits that are typically put in the "appeal to men" column.

I guess I'm not in the camp that sees games with "fighting and killing" as being for men and only non-violent games being for women. I'm willing to accept that there is a tonal element in Skyrim that I'm not picking up on - I can be blind to that sort of thing - but I'm not so sure there's anything in the core gameplay (apart from the shouting).

onesecondglance said:

I suppose I'm not seeing the nuance in the gameplay: DA and Skyrim seem pretty much the same to me. If anything, DA seemed more male-gaze oriented in its portrayal of the characters, and had more gore and nastiness to the violence, traits that are typically put in the "appeal to men" column.

I guess I'm not in the camp that sees games with "fighting and killing" as being for men and only non-violent games being for women. I'm willing to accept that there is a tonal element in Skyrim that I'm not picking up on - I can be blind to that sort of thing - but I'm not so sure there's anything in the core gameplay (apart from the shouting).

Click to expand...

I'm not sure that it's about the violence as opposed to a stronger focus on story and character development. I could be wrong, of course, I'm speaking more from a personal bias than actual facts. I'm drawn to both the combat (which is why I prefer DA1 to DA2, and why I prefer Borderlands over DA and Skyrim) AND the storyline and character (which is why I prefer DA to Skyrim). I also love funny character dialogues like in Borderlands and Gears of War (oh lawd, the bromance! How can anyone not love it. FIGHT THROUGH THE PAIN!)

Guhhh urrr...I have forgotten what my point was. Personally, I would prefer it if Skyrim had a stronger storyline and character development, but I have no idea if I prefer that because I'm a woman...but I know that Mr. Putt had the same complaint about how, after a while, Skyrim just felt really repetitive. (But then this is coming from the guy who plays Forza 4 every damn day...)

I uhh...had a point, but I don't know where it went. Sorreeee.

onesecondglance said:

I guess I'm not in the camp that sees games with "fighting and killing" as being for men and only non-violent games being for women.

Click to expand...

I'm not in that camp either, and I definitely didn't say "only non-violent games" were for women. You said yourself that you consider Dragon Age the more violent of the games I mentioned.

Dragon Age, Bioshock, Tomb Raider, Left4Dead, Assassin's Creed.... these are all games that are popular, and violent, but they appeal to me equally as well as guy.

Skyrim, Call of Duty, Just Cause, Grand Theft Auto... these are all aiming at guys. I've played them, and I've enjoyed them, but I still didn't feel like their target audience.

(I'm leaving indie games out of this, because indie games are generally excellent at a lot of things the big game studios are weak at.)

Tomb Raider is a particularly powerful example here. It has everything you just mentioned, fighting and killing, violence galore, but it doesn't feel like it's "for guys". It's definitely not a power fantasy and (despite some awful, misleading trailers) there's very little male gaze.

I think that's a trait of Bethesda games in general. I've got about 200 hours on Fallout 3 and I can attest that, yes, it does get pretty repetitive after a while. Not that that stopped me, obviously.

And yes, I agree that DA has much better party interaction. I suppose I'm coming at this from the angle that, in my eyes, the lack of that sort of characterisation doesn't make Skyrim a male-focused game per se. I'm inclined to see a lack of story focus in RPGs as a feature of the genre as a whole, rather than a problem with specific games.

Ah, fair play. I can't fault that logic at all. I love Bethesda's atmosphere but Bioware's characterization seems to hook me much more.

I still love 'em all though, but it's a love that sometimes tangents into strong opinions, haha.

EMaree said:

I'm not in that camp either, and I definitely didn't say "only non-violent games" were for women. You said yourself that you consider Dragon Age the more violent of the games I mentioned.

Dragon Age, Bioshock, Tomb Raider, Left4Dead, Assassin's Creed.... these are all games that are popular, and violent, but they appeal to me equally as well as guy.

Skyrim, Call of Duty, Just Cause, Grand Theft Auto... these are all aiming at guys. I've played them, and I've enjoyed them, but I still didn't feel like their target audience.

(I'm leaving indie games out of this, because indie games are generally excellent at a lot of things the big game studios are weak at.)

Tomb Raider is a particularly powerful example here. It has everything you just mentioned, fighting and killing, violence galore, but it doesn't feel like it's "for guys". It's definitely not a power fantasy and (despite some awful, misleading trailers) there's very little male gaze.

Click to expand...

Cross-posted, sorry. I'm actually playing Tomb Raider at the moment and enjoying it a great deal, partly because of the inclusion of an actual story.

I'm not trying to defend Skyrim - I just wouldn't have put it in that second category and I don't really understand why it would be seen in that way, because I do agree with all the other examples you give. This may be one of those things that I can't understand (being a man and having had video games designed for my demographic my whole life).

Double crosspost! Crosspostception! Onesecondglance, you're just too fast for me.

Yeah, the Skyrim thing is hard to explain and I think a lot of it has to do with my preferred gameplay styles, the friends I see playing it, and a little bit of subconscious cultural stuff where I associate epic fantasy with a primarily male audience.

Ideally I'd like to replay it some time and analyse why it seems more a guy-game to me.

EMaree said:

Double crosspost! Crosspostception! Onesecondglance, you're just too fast for me.

Click to expand...

Either too fast or too slow...

EMaree said:

I'm not in that camp either, and I definitely didn't say "only non-violent games" were for women. You said yourself that you consider Dragon Age the more violent of the games I mentioned.

Dragon Age, Bioshock, Tomb Raider, Left4Dead, Assassin's Creed.... these are all games that are popular, and violent, but they appeal to me equally as well as guy.

Skyrim, Call of Duty, Just Cause, Grand Theft Auto... these are all aiming at guys. I've played them, and I've enjoyed them, but I still didn't feel like their target audience.

(I'm leaving indie games out of this, because indie games are generally excellent at a lot of things the big game studios are weak at.)

Tomb Raider is a particularly powerful example here. It has everything you just mentioned, fighting and killing, violence galore, but it doesn't feel like it's "for guys". It's definitely not a power fantasy and (despite some awful, misleading trailers) there's very little male gaze.

Click to expand...

It's funny that you mention Tomb Raider because I would've thought it's a game aimed at guys. I mean, her boobs. I can't even.

Putputt said:

It's funny that you mention Tomb Raider because I would've thought it's a game aimed at guys. I mean, her boobs. I can't even.

Click to expand...

Ahaha, I can't access that picture from my firewall but I'm guessing it's the PSOne Tomb Raider?

I should have clarified -- the original games were definitely for boys. 100%. (I played them, too, but I was 10 and didn't care about boobs yet.) But the new 2013 Tomb Raider game took an abrupt swing in the other direction and has some powerful lady friendly twists on popular tropes.

(Spoiler: ALL THE GUYS DIE. TO FORWARD HER PLOT. This happens fairly early on. )

Our own sesinkhorn had a great blog about it.

EMaree said:

Ahaha, I can't access that picture from my firewall but I'm guessing it's the PSOne Tomb Raider?

I should have clarified -- the original games were definitely for boys. 100%. (I played them, too, but I was 10 and didn't care about boobs yet.) But the new 2013 Tomb Raider game took an abrupt swing in the other direction and has some powerful lady friendly twists on popular tropes.

(Spoiler: . )

Our own sesinkhorn had a great blog about it.

Click to expand...

Wuuuut, I totally did not know that! Thanks, I will check it out the fastest!!

ETA: I lie, I saw Legend of Korra on sesinkhorn's blog and quickly closed it cause I haven't caught up yet...