Kevin Kelly of Joystiq writes a review of a panel that slipped under my radar at SXSW. The panel in question was about getting girls into the game, and how game developers have such a mental block about developing games that women want to buy. (Is there a link to a stream of the panel? I poked around the site and couldn’t find anything).

I could just blockquote the hell out of the article, but instead I’ll just instruct you to go read it. Kevin does a very good job of intersecting the numbers (42% of online gamers are female, but 98% of online console gamers are male), describing the complete dumbassery of trying to address “the female gamer” as a monolith, the fact that on a whole, women gamers are just as bloodthirsty and hardcore as male gamers, and just about any behavior you can ascribe to the female gamer fits the male gamer just as well.

The issue of how much of a turnoff objectifying women on the packaging of your game also came up.

So the old saws come out: If 98% of the online console gamers are male, and the males who play online console games want porny chicks on the package of Super Shooter Man IV, are game developers in the wrong for catering to this?

Well, yes. Yes they are.

The problem is that a porny chick on the cover isn’t going to sell your game if your game sucks, and a bunch of beefsteak guys in camoflage with huge guns will outsell any porny-chick game if they get better reviews.

To Wit (all averages courtesy Game Rankings):

Bullet Witch garnered an average review rating of 59%.

Silverfall squeaked an average of 66%.

Rumble Roses XX averaged 63%.

Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom averaged 60%.

For contrast, let’s look at some less obnoxious covers, shall we?

Rogue Galaxy averaged 85%.

Ar Tonelico: Melody of Elemia averaged 74% (not great, but having never heard of the game, that’s not too shabby).

Enchanted Arms mustered 71% — not great, but still way better than the stuff that just had boobs slapped on the cover.

But what’s selling well? These are the covers that are the top 3 sellers for XBox 360, PC, PS3, and Wii, respectively.

Believe me — this was a completely random sample. I literally went through the EBGames listing of all games available for a platform and looked up the rankings for ones that featured women on the covers via Game Rankings.

The point I’m trying to make is that not only will a porny chick on the cover of your game not sell your game faster, but the trend appears to be that a porny chick on the cover of your game will actually hint that your game isn’t that great, and you needed said porny chick in order to move it off the shelves. A few years ago, women like Lara Croft could move a game based on her boobs alone–but the game-consuming public has matured somewhat since then. What appeals to the average male gamer does not in fact exist in a separate space from what appeals to the average female gamer. And while most of the titles listed have minimalist covers because they’re well-established series’ with an solid fanbase — putting a hot chick in her panties on the cover probably wouldn’t have moved any more product than had they just kept things simple.

So, for all of the game studios out there trying to figure out how to better crack the female market, please read Kevin’s article carefully. Then, look at how you’re packaging your game and decide if it’s really worth it to use outdated marketing gimicks to try to sell your game to a handful of pervy jerks at the expense of a potentially much wider audience.

Mighty Ponygirl posted this entry on Thursday, March 22nd, 2007 at 9:01 am and filed it under Women in Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.