Sunday, June 28, 2009

Video Games and the Female Audience


Finished at last!


16 comments:

  1. Woah! what happened here?

    This was not worth the waiting.

    Is the first talk almost empty of any real content.

    And please! stop the bloody cliche of calling Leight Alexander to oppinionate on EVERY article, essay or speech about this topic. She is not that good, and her only merit is beeing a woman...

    C'mon Daniel, you showed us you can do BETTER.

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  2. Don't listen to that nonconstructive drivel up there, Daniel. Leigh is one of the few gaming journalists worth her salt (quite familiar with accusations that she's only popular because she's a girl, oh wow what a coincidence).

    Concerning the video, I think the most important point in there was about exposing younger girls to games. My girlfriend started playing mario and sonic (just like me) at a young age. She even watched her father play games for hours at a time. Nowadays, she continues to enjoy videogames. Even the shooty shooty smashy smashy bulging power armor of Gears or Halo, gladly tagging along to the LAN parties I go to. Even though her staples tend to be casual games and blizzard games, she is still remarkably receptive to 'hardcore' gaming.

    Just my two cents.

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  3. Im not saying she is popular because beeing a girl, you, oh master of the light reading.

    She does write good articles about videogames, but she write only lightly regarding certain topics, and her incitations to debate are usually really mass-targeted instead of following a line of maturity.

    The point is that just for beeing a woman, does not convert her into a instant special analyst on the matter.

    Very useful comments on your girlfriend, you should ask Daniel to let her write the next talk...

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  4. Sorry this one didn't interest you as much. :(

    It was a topic I wanted to cover and, like I said in the video, I like Leigh's perspective on it. But hers certainly isn't the only valid opinion out there. I've heard a lot of other viewpoints on the issue and you aren't the only one to disagree with the views presented in the video.

    But, the main point of these lectures is to stir discussion and debate, so disagreement is always welcome.

    If it's any consolation, James just sent me great topics for our next two videos. Hopefully, one of those will be more to your liking.

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  5. Well I enjoyed it. Wasn't saying much I haven't already considered at length and in my case you're preaching to the choir but I'm sure this is a fine spark point for those who usually just play games and don't think about this kind of thing a lot already.

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  6. @Daniel: Bah, it was not that bad, I just felt like complaining, due to the excellence you have accostumed all of us to.

    Sorry if I sounded too harsh, you keep doing this amazing work.

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  7. Always love your vids, Dan. I don't think this was "fluffy." In fact, I think there is a real divide in the way MOST women think and the way MOST men think, which makes Quake the wrong entry point for them. That's not to say that Cooking Mama won't lead to Halo later.

    Maybe they could develop a two-player version of FEAR -- girls like to go to scary movies with their guys, right? Make it 2-player co-op. Resident Evil might be less impossible if it was split-screen.

    But that's the problem, right? There's a limit to what you can do with multiplayer on one console. Who controls the camera? I mean, I go cross-eyed playing Rachet & Clank -- Does the PS3 have dual-monitor capability?

    Okay, I'm asking too much. But I'd love to have the fun of a melee like Gauntlet with the first-person view of Hexen.

    Keep up the good work! :D From the looks of it, you've developed quite the following!

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  8. The idea of introducing girls to video games that are "audience friendly", so to speak, is an excellent way of marketing games to girls, I believe. Hell, my mother is a gamer, and she started out on the Atari. She's much more casual now, due to having my brother running around, but I remember sitting with her at the computer and helping her play Call of Duty. (She's an FPS kind of person. They give me motion sickness) She also prefers computer games to the console, which is what my preference is.

    I started gaming on the NES with Super Mario Bros. The NES and SNES still reign in my tops when it comes to consoles. I suppose, however, there is a point to needing to cut down on the sex appeal. I've sort of started to ignore it.

    There are a lot of good points brought up in this lecture. I certainly enjoyed it, as a girl gamer. I think Eidos is doing something decent when it comes to catering to a female audience, but, eh, I think audience friendly is the route to go, not so much HERE'S A BUNCH OF GIRLY GAMES. I was a tom boy, those games would have made me frown.

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  9. Nagash, keep your assholeness for yourself, thank you.

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  10. I throuhly enjoy your lectures most all of them have got me thinking of games in a completely new ways

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  11. As far as I have seen around here (Romania), girls are inclined to dislike video games as being something nerdy. Many actually do like and play them, but don't say it, thinking that would make them lose their status of... umm... just being an "not nerdy" girl. Which is bs, in my opinion.

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  12. Personally, I never really cared about if woman plays video games or not. Sure it might help you meet a woman if you both have the same interest, but their personality will not change if they do play games. Attractive woman who play or pretend to play games will attract men, but in the end what matters the most is the game itself.

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  13. In fact, the girls who play serious games (at least the ones that I know) love Tomb Raider.

    And I think what's putting most women off, is violence: most games are oriented around war, race, fighting and killing. On the other hand, puzzles and story appeal to them.

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  14. This is awesome! I'm a female gamer and I totally know what you mean about being isolated from other girls. Most of my friends don't talk about video games.

    I haven't ever been able to play Halo or stuff like that, though. Why? Because, as I'm growing up, my family's only has Nintendo consoles. I love my Pokemon, Mario, Kirby, Super Smash Brothers, but I haven't been able to play stuff for the XBox or Playstation.

    I think the 'start early' idea works well. I first played Pokemon in kindergarden. Now I'm into SSBB (unfortunatly, we don't have an internet connection and nobody ever wants to play with me).

    You did a great job with this.

    One thing that really annoys me, though, are most puzzle games. I prefer either RPGs (Mario and Luigi, especially) or stuff like Super Mario Sunshine or Kirby Air Ride. I'll have to admit, though. That new Scribblenauts game is EPIC! Never put "nuke", though. Or wave, it'll kill you for sure :O

    I was way happy to hear this. A friend recommended you to me :D I'm totally going to tell others about you, you're underexposed! Keep up the good work!

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  15. Hey, we're talking about you http://borderhouseblog.com/?p=2278&cpage=1#comment-4735

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