[MUD-Dev] Re: MUD-Dev Digest, Vol 27, Issue 8

[Adam Miller]

"Sean Howard" <squidi at squidi.net> wrote:

> No, the things which stand in the way of female gamers aren't even
> the games themselves.

I agree. I argue that it is actually the barrier of entry and low
likelihood for a brand-new gamer to have a successful and enjoyable
first game experience, thus never making it to the big time games,
that is the real problem and is not caused by gender. I think it
just happens to be that the biggest potential new gamer crowd is
female, thus we view it as a female problem with existing games.

For example, my wife plays games on the Internet all the time. But,
they are the Pogo.com/PopCap, MSN, and Yahoo Flash-based Web games.

I believe these are popular with her because:

  1. You just click the URL and play. Low barrier of entry. No trip
  to the store, CDs, or install programs to deal with.

  2. She is already somewhat familiar with these games because they
  are loosely related to games she *has* played before (card games
  and board-like games).

  3. Her friends play these games. She learned about these games
  through her female friends sending her URLs in email.

  4. The genre of games are pretty low key and require low initial
  time investment. They are light-weight, short, and fun.

  5. The games require little pre-existing game experience to enjoy
  them.

  6. She is not yet PC hardware savvy, so she these games work well
  since they don't have heavy hardware requirements not require any
  real OS/driver tweaking.

Doesn't this list sound a lot like what simply "new gamers" like?
Consider that after a few years that she might graduate into much
more involved and complex games regardless of gender. I suspect that
eventually, those games get boring to just about anyone if you play
them long enough.

Again, perhaps the issue of missing female players is more about how
difficult it can be for any new gamer (regardless of gender) to have
an enjoyable first gaming experience, which leads to bigger/complex
games later.

How much does our traditionally male old skool gamer knowledge and
experience contribute to our ability to enjoy the newest and most
complex games? I say we (traditional players) only overcome the
barrier of entry because we already approach it with so much
existing skill, knowledge, and experience from previous games.

Female gamers are the same profile as new gamers and that is where
the real problem lies: It is hard for new gamers to get into these
modern games and stick around.

Cheers!

Adam Miller
http://www.tigermud.com
What kind of world would you create?
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