[MUD-Dev] Gender and Mud Development

[Jon A. Lambert]

On 8 Jun 99,, Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote:
> On 05:01 PM 6/8/99 +00-05, I personally witnessed Jon A. Lambert jumping up
> to say:
> >
> >Consider briefly the recent threads on Achaea and Ultimate Universe.  Are
> >these games that appeal to significant numbers women?  Personally I think 
> >not.  So would you likely find lots of women involved in creating such a 
> >game?  Again, no, unless they were getting paid.
> 
> This is a neat little vicious circle. As long as men design the games, they
> will appeal primarily to men. As long as they appeal primarily to men,
> women will not tend to get actively involved in designing them. Unless
> someone breaks this mold, it will just go on being like this. 

It's more of a self-selective vicious circle.  I think men can certainly 
design games that appeal to women.  But unless we have a sufficient 
reason to do so, we'll design games that appeal to mostly ourselves, and 
perhaps only by accident, chance or coincident preference hit upon the 
features that have a more global appeal.  

Now the demographics I'm shooting for are in the range of a 60/40 or 
70/30 split between men/women.  And I think this is pushing it.  Why? 
Well, as Katrina alluded to in another post, role-play in mixed groups is 
very different.  Personally, I think it is better.  There's a whole 
different level of civility, interaction and tension, than with an all-
male role-play group.  I also think role-play in a mixed group, 
particularly a lone female and the rest male tends to be much worse than 
either.  Males playing females just doesn't cut it either.  As an avenue 
for creative roleplay sure, but as a method to make up for the scarcity 
of women in a game, it just doesn't hunt.  And then there are age 
demographics.  I'd prefer not to have the under 18 crowd dominate the 
mud.  As a rule of thumb, I believe if you increase the numbers of 14-16 
year old boys, you decrease the numbers of women.  Perhaps it has 
something to do with Bartle's clubs-hearts dynamics.     

> Women as a cultural demographic tend to want very different things from
> games than men do. The terms "chick flick" and "guy movie" are
> representative: women tend to want interpersonal relation, character
> development, and intellectual stimulation. Guys, on the other hand, just
> wanna blow shit up. 

Nod.  Demographically that's true.  Hollywood certainly understands its 
audience most of the time and how to exploit it.  But it's the games 
thing that bothers me.  Which is why I asked some time back, what games 
do women enjoy?  Ask a male which games they like to play and you will 
likely get a vary specific detailed list.  The "games" concept is almost 
self-selectively male.  _I_ think women play "games" mostly as an aside 
or supplement to social interaction.  

Here's a list of games/activities that I'd like to see implemented on a 
mud:

Tag or Blind Man's bluff
Team Croquet
Karoake
Multi-player card games, like Hearts, Canasta, Bridge or Euchre
Baseball, Football or Cricket
Ballroom dancing

They needn't be known as the same thing, or exactly the same rules.  
After all many of us like to stay within a theme.  :)




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