How can you prove that Peach being playable has had no impact on sales?
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"No Girls Allowed": Why the Stereotype of Games for Boys Exists [Polygon]
- Thread starter Jintor
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How can you prove that Peach being playable has had no impact on sales?
taught to think?
This scientific study here says that there are differences in the structural connectome of the human brain between males and females.
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1316909110
"Strangely" those differences were not detectable below 13 years. Which means hormones are probably causing those differences. If it was "treatment" related, those differences should be detectable much earlier.
And that matches my personal experience. 10 years ago I helped a young girl (early teenager) with her computor. The "computor" was placed in her own room. She loved games, especially Nintendo games. But she wasn't interested in how it all works internally on a technical level - which includes both hardware and software. She didn't ask any questions about technical tinkering at all. And that matches my experience with almost all females I ever knew. For them (and it is for plenty of males as well) technical stuff is just Star Trek techno-babble w/o the interest of a Trekie nerd. I learnt pretty fast that talking in that language is bad, which is why I stopped doing it.
The whole thing makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint as well. What's better - 2 humans with no special skills, just average having to take care of a child for years. Or 2 humans with highly specialized skills and different viewpoints? The specialized ones of course.
If you read my post it says "suggesting" and "possibly" twice in it. I never said anything about proving it. This is just a conversation. You need an international data collection organization to prove any of this. We can only speculate. This is extremely obvious.
And I'm sure there are countless studies "proving" the opposite, as well. I'm not siding with either one because I think either one is possible (and if that study's results are accurate, I'm inclined to agree with your conclusion) but this has been a point of debate for psychologists for ages and still is.
Red Liquorice
Member
Can we identify with a protagonist that isn't a generalisation of our own state? I think it's lazy artistry and marketing to target entertainment products like they're fashion or vanity products - i.e. playing this game will make you a sexy muscle-bound action hero.
All this discussion about gender and gaming isn't new, but the recent visibility of the discussion is proof that there is an increasing audience out there saying "Hey!... We are more intelligent than this. We're not ten years old any more, we can handle more". Princesses and ponies vs Lone heroes and guns doesn't cut it any more for me, even ironically. Clever product makers will see this audience as a chance to carve a niche for themselves. Clever marketing can turn that niche into the mainstream.
Games for girls are just as patronising as "mainstream" games (i.e girls are an afterthought, boys are main focus of society and culture) - I feel just as patronized when I see "Fashion Doll Poniez" as I do when I see "Big Gunz N Blowin' Up Shit".
Games should be about imagination, wonder and excitement not monetized wish fulfillment and gender stereotype reinforcement, we have enough of that pervading every other area of modern life.
All this discussion about gender and gaming isn't new, but the recent visibility of the discussion is proof that there is an increasing audience out there saying "Hey!... We are more intelligent than this. We're not ten years old any more, we can handle more". Princesses and ponies vs Lone heroes and guns doesn't cut it any more for me, even ironically. Clever product makers will see this audience as a chance to carve a niche for themselves. Clever marketing can turn that niche into the mainstream.
Games for girls are just as patronising as "mainstream" games (i.e girls are an afterthought, boys are main focus of society and culture) - I feel just as patronized when I see "Fashion Doll Poniez" as I do when I see "Big Gunz N Blowin' Up Shit".
Games should be about imagination, wonder and excitement not monetized wish fulfillment and gender stereotype reinforcement, we have enough of that pervading every other area of modern life.
I must not have followed what you said very well because I have no idea why you made this assumption, or have you not explained that yet?
NuclearSpy
Member
These topics are always so heated, but its awesome that people feel so strongly about their positions. I just hope that everyone keeps an open mind and at least willing to examine the rationale of their position before they make accusations.
Reading the article I feel like it is begging the question in a rather serious way and for some posters here; they just flat out say it. I do not concede that video games (at any point in history) are marketed "wrong" or (by identity) "bad" in respect to gender. To me it appears like a moral argument that just does not belong.
If it is in fact not a moral argument, then I wonder what the problem actually is because it appears to be arbitrary.
I don't feel wronged at all by any other entertainment outlets that do not market to my testosterone fueled biology. In fact, there are plenty of date flicks out there that stereotype the male into a complete fantasy to appeal to females much more exclusively and that does not wrong me, either.
Saying that the video game marketing stereotyping shouldn't be around is the equivalent of saying that nobody can choose to be an team edward or team jacob, and they have to be both.
Maybe its just me, but I am not so petty to tell people that they have to pick team everyone.
Reading the article I feel like it is begging the question in a rather serious way and for some posters here; they just flat out say it. I do not concede that video games (at any point in history) are marketed "wrong" or (by identity) "bad" in respect to gender. To me it appears like a moral argument that just does not belong.
If it is in fact not a moral argument, then I wonder what the problem actually is because it appears to be arbitrary.
I don't feel wronged at all by any other entertainment outlets that do not market to my testosterone fueled biology. In fact, there are plenty of date flicks out there that stereotype the male into a complete fantasy to appeal to females much more exclusively and that does not wrong me, either.
Saying that the video game marketing stereotyping shouldn't be around is the equivalent of saying that nobody can choose to be an team edward or team jacob, and they have to be both.
How do you NOT pick team jacob?
But the fact you and me don't like it doesn't make it wrong. I don't give a shit about sports, Michael Bay movies and cars, but I have no problem accepting lots of men do just like I see nothing wrong in women enjoying 50 Shades of Grey, True Blood or fashion. What is wrong with wish fulfillment?
I don't feel patronised or offended by pretty much any videogame character and I very rarely identify with any character based on gender or visual representation. I felt more for a non human like Abe or for an abstract concept like my aristocrat family in Rome Total War than for countless other characters who looked more like me in real life.
I think the problem with games is that it's almost an entire medium being marketed exclusively to males. "Chick flicks" are only a small part of the overall medium of film and there are many films which are marketed to both genders and, just like there are "chick flicks" there are also films made primarily for a male audience.
captainnapalm
Member
Seriously, I can not think of a worse place to look for social justice and progressive equality than marketing. They will continue to make cold, calculated business decisions that do not take little Sally Jones who likes playing shooters into account.
Like it or not, this is pretty accurate. Many women considered men who played videogames as nerds, losers, etc., and you even have some today who attach connotations such as 'living in mom's basement' and the need to 'man up' to guys who play games.
There's no stereotype. Console gaming is a mans world for lack of a better term. Men (boys) are the driving influence to games because they are the predominant players. Girls are welcomed wholeheartedly into gaming as far as I can tell. If anything, they are bending over backwards to include them. Mass Effect, Call of Duty, Okami, Tomb Raider, Remember Me, Mirrors Edge. There are a lot of games featuring female protagonists. It's not equal yet but considering 90 percent of your gamers are boys, why should it be? Women start gaming as much as men and believe me, the market will be more than willing to accept their money as the men's.
Developing a game with a female protagonist and developing a game with a female target audience in mind are two entirely different things.
captainnapalm
Member
I think the article is implying that marketing is responsible for this, but that's an absurd case of putting the chicken before the egg. If marketers and their clients thought for a minute they could increase revenue by tailoring console gaming equally to both sexes, or even by targeting girls more than boys, they would do it in a new york minute.
As I read that quote I immediately thought of this board. This happens so often here, where people should know better, that it blows my mind. We're all part of the problem people:
This article is fantastic, and it really is worth the long read instead of just skimming it.
That's not entirely true, the article is saying that multiple things are responsible, and it all happened very organically.
1) Videogames are created, and marketed towards everyone (see Atari adds in article).
2) Videogame crash happens, public looses faith in games as a business.
3) Videogames are marketed as toys to sell them to retailers, who are fine selling "Toys" but not videogames. Research (somewhere) shows that more boys up to age 10 play videogames than girls.
4) Limited marketing budgets push companies to focus on one demographic (Boys).
5) The effect snowballs to where we are now.
captainnapalm
Member
Then we're in agreement. There was never any agenda, other than to maximize revenue.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Well some of them did with the Wii and the one's that made half-decent software made bank. I think people overstate the rationality of most of the AAA industry, its still a lot of guys making games for themselves. Which brings us back to the point of the article: why are things so narrowly focused? There are plenty of men working in Hollywood making movies that appeal to both genders.
Pokemon was pretty great. In the 90s everyone was into that. The Pokemon ranged from adorable to cool so it brought in boys and girls. Not to mention the social aspect of trading in schools.
Pokemon reached mass appeal with girls for sure.
Final fantasy seems...good for the girls but it definitely feels more reserved for girls who also like anime and other "uncool" things. The stories at the time were much more emotional than other games. And square always had a sharp eye for beauty and elegance.
So yeah FF is good for girls too. Zelda's my favorite series though.
It's not. The game industry is not made of just AAA console games. In environments with a more even gender split in the audience, such as in mobile, game are just as likely to be targeted at women as at men.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Yes, but that wasn't always the case. The whole history point of the article is that consoles were not, and are not intrinsically, the "men's" gaming space
Yes. But everything was so different (games were novelties and they were simpler etc.) that I don't see how it can be compared to now. The iPad is the new Atari: the whole family uses it, software is extremely varied even if not always consistently good etc.
The idea that the general female public would start buying 400$ consoles and 60$ games is just not likely. Moreover, the Wii has shown how that kind of public doesn't move to more complex (and expensive) experiences, while the traditional console audience does and is way more loyal. So, why should console makers invest in a segment that is not likely to spend and not likely to ask for more?
The problem with anything money-driven that relies on the status quo is that it ends up as a self-perpetuating cycle.
Now whether you care or not about that cycle being self-perpetuating is up to you, but it's still interesting. I wonder if Ms Blue Ocean Gamer who has been playing games on her family's iPad from young will move up to her preteens and suddenly discover that games aren't "for" girls. Hell, I bet it's already happening with the Minecraft generation...
Really great feature by Polygon here. I like it how they explains the problem without pointing finger, or blaming anyone or anything on a negative light. As I college student that studies about advertising and marketing, this is scarily true. While mass media is a powerful weapon, this is the firs timet I see a feature or article about the cause of stereotype takes a perspective on marketing instead of culture. This gives realization that, unless major power holder wished to changed the thing, the status quo of video games are for boys will remain as this is include a lot of money, and without any major power holder break the status quo this self-perpetuating cycle will continue.
I think that the general consensus has made a pendular swoop as a visceral rejection from the early XXth's century "everything is biology" towards an equally stupid "everything is social" at our early XXIth century. We are social and political animals, yes, but we aren't only that. We are biological, economical, rational, emotional and individual actors as well. We humans are complex creatures with a myriad of different personal motivations, and that is a fact that doesn't sits well with ideologies, which are, by definition, oversimplifications. And that includes political correction as well.
The whole Rousseaunean vision of how "everyone is born good until the big bad society incoluates them with bad ideas and then they become bad people" is childish, to put it mildly. Yet it suits media pundits and sociologists like a glove, since it elevates their world of abstract ideas and cultural battles to an overrated spotlight.
This type of thinking is reductionist, and thus, it can be downright anti-intellectual at times. We often forget that culture is largely shaped by necessity, not by a closed door comitee of elites and experts. We humans band and relate together, forming societies because it help us to survive. It is not a coincidence that the more opulent the society becomes and the less urgents needs there are, the more these types of debates becomes their focus.
"Diamonds are forever" are a far better example, indeed
But that is precisely my point. Marketing doesn't act in a vacuum. "Diamonds are forever" needed of a far more powerful and ancient pre-existing institution (marriage) and custom (wedding rigns) as well as appealing towards a deeper, wholly personal value (relationships should be built to last, if possible, forever) in order to work. Notice how as relationships have got more liquid in our modern times, wedding diamond rings are becoming more scarce again? Yep, that is a good example because it shows what marketing does to our culture: superficial impact and additions that have little effect over our personal life albeit a big effect in our economies due to extension (like using a diamond in your wedding ring) built over far more deep and powerful beliefs and customs. Marketing always takes already existing beliefs, trends and social constructs and combines them. If you observe its messages, you can see that its discourse is not an original creation, but rather a collage, a sum of many, many "common places" (or as I say, "motivational facebook wisdom"). Advertising is by far, a force of societal conformity rather than change and disruption, either for bad or good.
Psychology is no exact science, there's room for different opinions, interpretations and explanations. Neurology on the other hand is an exact science, as is endocrinology. If it's proven that there are neuro-physiological differences, then that's that - there's little room for opinions.
"suddenly discover that games aren't "for" girls" or "suddenly lose interest in games"? Data shows that until puberty girls and boys play videogames pretty much in the same way and quantity. After puberty, a majority of girls stop playing. I really don't think gaming companies like losing a good chunk of money, and the fact that this change happens around puberty makes me think that it may be more about biology than some mysterious forces conspiring to exclude girls from gaming. Adolescent girls, on average, want to feel adult and care about status and "the social game". Good luck with sparkling their interest in videogames. If really the problem was that girls do not feel welcomed or that the objectification of women keep them away from gaming, then the average adolescent girl would also avoid most hip-hop, despise Robin Thicke and be horrified by celebrity culture.
That study you just posted asserts that women should are better at connecting analyitical and intituive thinking. Thus, they should be better engineers and more interested in how the "computor" works.
You took a study that highlights differences between men and women in the structural connectome to confirm your bias, even though it goes against it.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Or the console games aimed at adolescents and beyond are aimed almost exclusively at boys.
And what do you know, some of the console developers who leveraged the social aspect made out like bandits with the Wii. How many bajillion copies has the Just Dance series sold again? Social game does not have to be synonymous with crappy minigame collection, I would love to see some proper console game development that pushes the social angle from anyone besides Nintendo.
Really? Come on, there's plenty of stuff that can be appealing to anyone. I'm playing Tearaway and Spelunky these days, and in my "to play" backlog there's Rayman Legends, Puppeteer, Mario 3D, Luigi's Mansion 2, Pikmin 3. I'm a 31 years old male. I don't see why those games would be repulsive to an adolescent girl or to anyone with the slightest interest in games.
(Apart from the fact that adolescent girls in general do not care about videogames regardless)
I mean, if the situation was that teenage girls only buy some games for everyone and refuse to buy games targeted at males I could understand your point. But girls 13 and up just stop playing games altogether. It can't seriously be because "all of a sudden there are no games for them".
I doubt Just Dance sold because of adolescent girls. I would say that its audience was probably slightly older women, with their own purchasing power. And, again, we are talking about the Wii. That time has passed. That audience is on iPad now, spending 99 cent or playing f2p games. Focusing on them, for a console manifacturer, doesn't make sense.
Middle aged women are becoming increasingly popular as target demographic, young girls get games specifically targeted to them too and there are plenty of games aimed at older men.
It's games targeted at females 15-30 years old that are almost nonexistent. Just as you said, the Sims or Just Dance re really popular, so it's not like they won't pay for bigger games. Where is the "twilight" equivalent, the game that let's young women do "cool" things and fulfill the "power fantasy" like a COD can.
It's easier said than done though.
My main problem with girls becoming a target demographic in video games is that developers are forced to start morphing already established franchises to suit their needs, instead of creating separate ones to keep everyone happy. A good example would be Final Fantasy using female leads, when it's been traditionally male leads.
I have no problem with female gamers, I just don't like it when my favourite franchises need to change because of them.
I have no problem with female gamers, I just don't like it when my favourite franchises need to change because of them.
How is that a problem? Did FFVI suffer from having a female lead? Isn't it regarded as one of the best FF games?
... I really don't think XIII chose a female lead to be more inclusive, gonna be honest there(I get quite the opposite impression from Lightning actually). And FF VI also kind of had the technical lead as female(Granted the lead swapped a lot, but the 2 characters that were most focused on were female).
Tales of Xillia also sold fine with a female lead. But I can understand that you don't want things to change in -every- franchise to try to target a broader audience.
Yes, but while there are games to appeal to everyone, particularly on Nintendo consoles, they are woefully outnumbered on the PS3/360/PS4/XboxOne by the amount of violent, 15/18+ rated shooters, hack-em-ups and beat-em-ups, plus sports and driving. There are thousands of games released every year, of course you can find a few hundred to prove any point you want to make about variety, but the charts, store shelves and media usually focus around guns/swords/sports/cars, not a handful of platformers. Walk into any games shop or look at any games site and the promotional material will be about guns etc, not brightly coloured platformers.
It would be like going to the cinema to find, out of the top ten films on display, rather than a mix of stuff, that most of it is stuff about cars and explosions and guns aimed at adolescent males, with a couple for the kids.
It's not that games anyone might find interesting don't exist (my backlog is similar to yours), it's that the majority of high profile AAA titles, once you leave Nintendo consoles, are still squarely aimed at one demographic. Indie stuff seems to have adopted the 2D platformer, but I'd like to see more AAA adventure games aimed at a family audience rather than having a body count higher than watching Arnie in Commando four times back-to-back.
As for arguments from the other side of the coin, just to play devil's advocate for a moment, I'm not sure that the female protagonist is a great one to be taking a stand on when offering third-person examples like Mirrors Edge, Tomb Raider and Mass Effect. A lot of guys just like having a nice girls ass to look at for 30 hours rather than staring at the hairy arse of Stabby McCoolname the Space Marine. At least Femshep really added something in terms of decent voice acting and appropriate dialogue changes etc, and, personally, I do think we should have more female protagonists, but I don't think the high player stat for choosing Femshep is entirely due to Bioware's admittedly high female fanbase. I'd centre such an argument on good female characters that make people want to follow their stories, not just their nice bums.
My gf loves watching the characters and story in Uncharted and Mass Effect but wanders off while I deal with the endless hordes that need shooting in the head that fill out the running time. For as long as games are fixated on combat and death as virtually the only method of problem solving, I think it'll always be that way, but would an AAA console rpg/adventure genre that mainly revolved around talking and thinking your way out of problems (perhaps Portal 2 is the closest I can think of, but with more social/speech stuff), ever become popular? I doubt it very much, it's why so many genres are named after the way of despatching the enemy, and the main console gaming audience is consolidated around them.
I'm not offering any answers here, just my two pence.
Riposte
Member
My sister told me Pokemon is for boys lol. I don't know why she said that, but it makes me wonder. I get the feeling none of her friends play games.
I wonder how many women who've grown up playing games had female friends they could talk about videogames with. What your friends are doing is the ultimate reinforcement for a kid.
It would come down to a mostly unrelated semantic issue. "What is a game?" is actually quite complicate question when taken honestly, but even before you approach that, you are going to get all sorts of hyperbole and such. What you are really asking is "Are they relevant to you?" with the lack of relevancy being based on how simple, dull, fraudulent, etc they can be. (Using the word "proper" only makes this more vulnerable.)
Yes. I forced all of the friends I made to play games and enjoy them. >:C
If your a girl gamer, it's easy to find other girl gamers or forcibly create them.
HolyBaikal
Banned
If it's that one with a comedian, I'm not clicking it. Because I've seen it and been linked to it many times before. People seem to enjoy linking to it and find it very poignant. It, any many other videos are very commonly used by pro evo. psych folks to prove a point. And most of us on the anti side have already seen them many, many times.
It made me lose all respect for that comedian. And I wouldn't call it a "great Norwegian documentary". I would call it a disgusting and repugnant documentary with a clear agenda. It makes use of lots of poor anecdotal evidence to attempt to prove a point. As well picking certain people and claims from them in order to try to make people on the nature and pro equality side of arguments look ignorant. The man in the video claims that he is only trying to be curios and "raise questions" without an agenda. But the sexist agenda in the 'documentary' is very transparent. Also Simon Baron-Cohen is also doing a disservice to millions of girls and women with autism everywhere. The claims of people like Simon Baron-Cohen are leading to further discrimination against and under diagnosis of girls with autism around the world. Girls with autism are far less likely to be diagnosed than boys. And people are far less likely to be sympathetic to their struggle in society by thinking differently due to gender roles. And the reason for this is because people like Simon Baron-Cohen are promoting extremely backwards neurosexist notions that "Autism is the extreme male brain". Which is complete psuedoscience, and is significantly contributing to the double oppression of women with autism.
That video isn't a revelation and it isn't new to many familiar with nature vs. nurture and evo. psych arguments. It is a very very commonly posted video used to promote an evo. psych agenda. Of course, if that isn't the video you posted I'm going to look a bit silly. But usually when a "Norwegian documentary" is posted, its the sadly oft cited very disgusting one with the Norwegian comedian. It is a documentary with a very sexist agenda. And I'm very saddened for how often is it used in arguments. If it is indeed the video with the comedian, then this is probably more than the 100th time it has been "recommended" to me.
I'm sad that a documentary with such a repugnant sexist agenda is so revered by so many people.
Here, is a good book about the subject refuting many of the claims in the video I assume you are posting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUdtb6rF6OU
1976 - Girl and Guy playing games together on the couch. Girl is kicking the guy's butt.
1976 - Girl and Guy playing games together on the couch. Girl is kicking the guy's butt.
Selective biology that means most girls stop gaming but a rare few mutants continue their pursuits? Societal pressures are a far more reasonable answer than their ovaries suddenly rebelling when they get to their preteens, methinks.
Maybe the average adolescent girl does avoid the more sexist areas of hip-hop. I don't know what the audience ratios are like, but it might be comparable with the gender skew gaming audiences - or maybe music is enjoyed and consumed so differently to gaming the comparison you're trying to draw isn't valid.
Gentleman Jack
Member
Who forced Square Enix to use a female lead in XIII? How is this evidence of the game's content being molded to pander to a female demographic? In what ways would a male lead for XIII been the superior choice?
EchoedTruth
Banned
Wonderful post. As a sociologist, I cannot stress how important "nurture" is. "Nature" is up for debate (IMO), but the effects of "nurture" can be seen quite clearly in many cases (extreme examples being child abuse > abuse cycles, and such)
HolyBaikal
Banned
No human is an island. And all of those things are very connected to society.
Society itself changes the biology of the mind. And the structure of the mind changes from day to day with experience.
More importantly, who forced them to use TWO female leads for VI? The scandal runs deep! THE FEMINIST CONSPIRACY IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE!
Gentleman Jack
Member
Back in my day, we didn't buy Final Fantasy games unless it included at least one scene of a woman being debased, imprisoned or murdered.
flabberghastly
Member
So, did the human genome in advanced (post-)industrial states around the world rapidly adapt in the last half century, during which the entirety of the population is unlikely to have even played video games, or are you suggesting that a supposedly natural feminine aversion to video games as a medium is the epiphenomenal result of some other phenotypic expression that has seemingly no corresponding result for other, similar media (entertaining or otherwise) such as, e.g., television, film, books, music, etc? Each seems like wildly conjectural, completely irresponsible, pseudo-scientific hogwash, but I'm just curious which sort of wildly conjectural, completely irresponsible, pseudo-scientific hogwash you prefer.
I Wanna Be The Guy
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