Marketing to women: step 1
(With all due apologies — I don’t have Photoshop on this computer and it shows. I may re-touch this when I get home.)
After going over the latest round of how game marketers ignore women, I decided that game companies are so willfully ignorant about how to appeal to women gamers that we could very well expect to see this on the shelves in the next year or so. (Same product, just marketed toward women)
(With further apologies to Ilyka for stealing her rant)
March 22nd, 2007 at 1:38 pm
Whoa, whoa, whoa; you’re telling me that a significantly disproportionate woman wearing a bikini and firing an assault rifle at monsters somehow *won’t* appeal to women everywhere? That’s just crazy talk!
March 22nd, 2007 at 2:30 pm
ACK!!! NO! DON’T splash all the games with PINK!!!!
March 22nd, 2007 at 4:22 pm
I never understand any of this talk about making and marketing games so they are more appealing to women. Surely the amount women already playing games shows that they dont need much more from video games than male players do, doesnt it? That women dont need huge measures taken to get them to play and enjoy more games? In fact (like with “pink” games, consoles, and accessories) I think that kind of approach is just as likely to take it in the wrong direction and put women off buying them. I reckon probably the most important change needed to appeal more to women gamers comes from the writing and design area for plots and female characters (at least thats the impression I got from my own experience and opinions I sometimes hear from women gamers).
I mean, surely a game with well written and designed, and well portrayed female characters is going to translate somewhat into the cover, or when it comes to marketing a game? So I imagine that could help please female gamers, or attract new ones. “Pink” consoles/accessories should be for people who like pink, not some kind of bait for women, who will see the colour and be drawn like a moth to the flame. Maybe this isnt the right place for this rant, but I just always got the impression that “marketing for the female gamer” was going way over the top than what was actually needed.
I mean, take Gears of War and Rainbow Six Vegas for example. I played both and enjoyed them both, and while they are different in story, I thought they both play in a very similar fashion. Though both seem to have a female character that plays an important role, but one that is completely out of the action, relaying information from afar safe in an aircraft. Would it hurt so much to have a male do that job, and have a female character in the action playing a more important role alongside the player? Or god forbid be the main character? I think the latter definitely would be more enjoyable (and marketable?) for female (and male, as I wouldnt mind the change of character more often), and the former would also. Better than having one of the few women in the game staying safe in a chopper while all the males are getting stuck in.
Sorry, I know thats all been said a million times over (from women), but I needed to say it myself simply because I dont get the enigma that is “how to market to women gamers?” Or at least I hope I do, and what I don’t understand is why these people asking the question dont?
March 22nd, 2007 at 8:17 pm
TheBends — I definitely agree. Were you able to read my earlier post on SXSW? I found a somewhat interesting trend with regards to the way that games are marketed that gives me some hope.
March 22nd, 2007 at 9:44 pm
Don’t they know anything? It should be PURPLE, not pink. Bleah.
March 23rd, 2007 at 8:34 am
Well, if anything, it has to be LAVENDER, m’dear, because we all know that women are incapable of seeing colors outside of the Pastel Spectrum. :p
March 23rd, 2007 at 12:15 pm
What about Halo Kitty?
March 23rd, 2007 at 12:27 pm
Wait, what about jewel tones?
March 23rd, 2007 at 12:48 pm
Norbizness, that is beautiful.
I don’t think Jewel Tones are registered, because naturally the only “jewel” women would be interested in would be a diamond, which tends to register no color at all.
March 23rd, 2007 at 3:28 pm
The problem, as I see it (at least, in part) comes from parents. It’s obvious that women are kind of an untapped market in gaming right now. The perception is that most gamers are overwhelmingly male, and that games need to made for them (er… us). There’s also this really screwed up mentality of what, exactly, male gamers want. Morons like Tommy Tallarico promote this idea of male gamers as caring solely about violence and boobs, and the industry and the media sort of lap it up.
Anyway, I’m getting off-track.
One of the things I noticed from working for years in retail is that parents will often pass over a perfectly good product because it has a female lead- especially if they have a boy child. Girl children, it seems, can read about and play games with male leads, and nobody bats an eye, but suggest a game or a book with a female lead to many parents, and they say “Oh, I don’t know… it’s about a girl.”
It’s a shame, too, because I think that attitude is part of the reason why there are fewer games with interesting, strong, impressive female leads. Games like Beyond Good and Evil, which I thought was a pretty fantastic game, sort of fly under the consumer radar, and I wonder if that’s part of the reason why.
A similar conversation was held over at Twenty Sided (a great gamer site, by the way). I maintain that the best way to appeal to women gamers is to treat women like people, and stop thinking that women only care about X, Y, or Z. When the gaming industry stops doing so many stupid things to alienate women gamers, I think that we’d find a lot more women gaming. It seems like the interest is already there, it’s just that the gaming industry does so much to push women away, right down to the retailing of games- my girlfriend went into a store to purchase a game for her nephew and felt really uncomfortable. From the women depicted on the covers of the games and the magazines and the displays, to the way that the customers and employees stared at her like she was from Mars, to the fact that the cashier hit on her, despite the fact that she wasn’t doing anything to suggest he should do so, she was seriously weirded out.
I think I digressed again. =)
March 24th, 2007 at 12:54 am
Oh, but it’s a fine digression. Sweet festering god, did you see the cover of Exalted Savant and Sorcerer? Pencil and paper gaming doesn’t make us feel particularly welcome. Though I do have to give White Wolf credit for doing quite a lot to make women feel more welcome. Yes, I was referring to one of their products up there, but they actually do a good job with (most of) their books.
March 24th, 2007 at 9:32 am
Jebus.
That’s a game cover? Holy crap.
That’s easily one of the worst covers I’ve seen… erm… ever.