[MUD-Dev] Re: Gender specific

[Adam Wiggins]

[Marian Griffith:]
> On Wed 22 Oct, Ola Fosheim Gr=F8stad wrote:
> > But as there are game companies that are specificially targetting
> > female buyers the competition will be there in a couple of years.  You
> > don't want them to get your "customers", so that may eventually force
> > others to follow.  I guess "totally convinced" was a bit strong... :)
> 
> I wonder if many girls are going to buy computer games. I've been

Currently women are reported as purchasing 40% of all PC games sold.
What you want to make of this (ie, if most of them are just buying them
as x-mas gifts for their signifigant other) is up to you, I suppose.
I have a friend (who is not interesting in playing computer games and
considers them silly and a waste of time) whose wife stays up till four
am every night playing games.  She told me that she spends approximately
four hundred dollars buying new games; if this doesn't represent a
signifigant market, I don't know what does.
Also, I think a new generation is now reaching maturity that has grown up
not believing that computers are magical devices which nerdy men like
to play with, but instead thinking of them as household appliances which
can be used for recreation in the same way as a TV.  My two cousins (both
female, one age 17 and one age 12) grew up playing computer games.  There
are, as near as I can tell, very normal and healthy young women, except
for being more articulate and better at problem-solving than most of their
peers who grew up watching TV instead of playing quest games.
Also, although killing things may be considered 'boy stuff', the best
Quake player (very arguably) in the world is a woman.  She beat John
Romero (creator of Quake) soundly, as the final round of world-wide
Quake competition.  Of course there is also the all-female Quake fests
which has become quite popular recently.  I understand that there were
several hundred players in attendance recently.  And that's only one game,
with a supposedly male-oriented theme.
Although not computer games, many arcade games (including Pac-Man,
Tetris, and recently Puzzle Fighter II) have had larger audiences with
females than with males.
Finally, one might note that the Barbie Fashion Designer CD-ROM has
been on the top ten list of best selling CD-ROM games for half a year
now.  I have trouble believing that this product has a lot of marketability
with 25-year-old D&D-playing males.

It's fine to say that *you* don't like computer games, but I think it's
a bit much to say that this is true as a rule.

> looking around a couple of shops yesterday and I can honestly say
> that it is entirely unlikely I would.  I can not say that this is
> the same for every other girl but I strongly suspect that there's
> not much interest.  Just looking at all the games is scaring  and
> hardly inspiring to try to find some game  that might possibly be
> interesting to play.  After browsing through the first rack I was
> definitely tempted to just run out and find something more inter-
> esting. The only computer game I have is Myst and that was a gift
> from somebody who knew I would like it. I never would have bought
> it myself. So I am not sure that there will be games targetted at
> girls anytime soon.

So, what you're saying is that you've never played any computer games, so
wouldn't actually know what they are like?  I'm not saying that you will
like them or not.  Currently I don't play very many games at all, due to
being very busy with work and other interests outside of computers, plus
the fact that not many games have really impressed me lately.  But I
think that making a statement about something which you haven't even tried
is somewhat presumptuous.

> Yes.  Now the next step is to take out the biggest gender biased
> activity of muds and replace it with something slightly more ap-
> pealing than fighting monsters or other players.

Again, I don't think it has to do with 'gender bias'.  I think that the
people that write the games try to create things which they think would
be fun.  Naturally, the people that are going to think these games are
fun are going to be people with similar interests to the game's creator.
So it's not suprising that Roberta Williams draws more of a female audience
to her games than do her male counterparts.  She herself has said, though,
that she doesn't think about how to make the game 'fun for women'.  She
just makes a game she thinks is fun in general.  Most designers say the
same things, regardless of gender.