[MUD-Dev] Girl appeal (was: Boys and Girls)

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

From: "Matt Mihaly" <the_logos at achaea.com>
> On Thu, 7 Feb 2002, Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote:
>> From: "Freeman, Jeff" <jfreeman at soe.sony.com>

> If they performed as expected, 90% of games wouldn't fail to break
> even, because I promise you developers don't start out expecting
> to lose money, even if that might be a pretty valid expectation in
> most cases.

I am not talking about commercial success, I am talking about simple
popularity. Companies reliably and consistently produce games that
are popular among males. When a sequel is produced, it will have
similar popularity to the original. Among females, however,
companies cannot reliably produce popular games -- nor can they
explain why the games are not popular. When a game is popular among
females, they don't know why. If they make a sequel to a popular
game, it will generally not be popular... and they don't know why.

I am concerned with how to make games that are popular with
females. I do not care whether they are popular with males. I do not
care whether they make money. I do not care whether they are popular
for profound reasons related to what women "really" want. I don't
care what makes them game players in the first place. I don't care
how many women are players or how much money they will spend or how
many games they will buy or any of that crap. I *only* care what
makes a game popular with females. This will have obvious commercial
possibilities, of which I am sure some enterprising companies will
avail themselves, but that's as may be. I am interested purely in
the philosophical notion of what makes games a desirable experience
for females, and stand to gain absolutely nothing tangible from that
knowledge.

> I don't see how you can draw your conclusion that games companies
> know what male gamers want.

I didn't draw any such conclusion. I presented the obvious evidence
that games companies reliably and repeatedly sell games to male
gamers, while they cannot reliably or repeatedly sell games to
female gamers. Whether they know what male gamers want or are merely
representing the least of many evils is a matter that could be
discussed forever and yield no useful results. Feel free to ponder
the matter at great length, if you like, but I honestly don't care
-- except inasmuch as it provides insights on how we can make better
games. How much things suck may be a matter of great concern to you,
but I'm more interested in how much better we *could* make things.

> So in other words, "When I got older, my interests changed and the
> games companies haven't figured out how to make something I still
> want to play."

No, what I was saying was that the prevailing Western thought
process on games is that "grown-ups don't play". Games are for
children, and when you grow up you put them away and do serious
things instead.


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