[brador]

Moat modern games are made to sell. If the buyers are looking for X then it makes sense that a business should provide them with X to turn the most profit.

If females, or anyone, wants separate gameplay mechanics then they need to reward that with cold cash to build an economy and incentivize creation. Else it's all just words and forcing a square block into a circle hole. Cash is the only way to lasting change (see the mobile space for example).

[edblarney]

I get it, I fully agree.

That said: the industry is really built around conventions and culture. Guys making games for guys. Marketing to guys. The entire culture skews guys.

Of course they might have a hard time 'selling to girls'.

This might seem a bit 'sexist' or whatever to use a 'fashion' example, but just as a crude idea ... maybe a social game that made you a 'designer' - and you could design fashion/clothing ... you had to get a budget, design a 'runway show' ... and then get 'audience' (other players) to chime in and comment. You have to hustle and deal to sell the clothes or whatever. Hustle movie stars to schlep your stuff. Have real fashion designers and celebs chime in. Invent new textures, new fabrics.

Ok, ok, maybe a terrible idea in reality - but I'm just trying to illustrate a completely different scenario/culture/setting for which there exists no context in gaming as we understand it today.

Anyhow. I worked at an Fortune 50 and we were trying to market our 'mostly guy-ish' product to girls, and sitting around the table with 50-something rich fat men who all shopped at Wallmart, and their big idea was 'make it pink' - and that was it! :). Too funny.

[Nadya]

>That said: the industry is really built around conventions and culture. Guys making games for guys. Marketing to guys. The entire culture skews guys.

Then there is roughly 50% of the population not being serviced. Hire some female talent, get some investments on your easy-to-market product, and make yourself rich via a successful business catering to the female demographic of gamers.

If one fails in such a large, uncatered to market, it is one of three things:

    1) Failed marketing
    2) Failed product
    3) Your assumptions were wrong

I always see talk about how things need to change - but nobody wants to put their money where their mouth is. If the problem really is a chicken/egg problem then hatch an egg.

The problem: There is no large female demographic of gamers for devs to market to. There is no large female demographic of gamers because there are no devs marketing/making games for them.

The problem as I see it is that nobody pays attention to games like Neopets or Candy Crush skewing female. Girls and woman are marketed to by entirely different genres of games. My money is on the fact they are more interested in the games they're buying and playing and that the industry has enough money and research to have a good idea of what they're doing.

[advantark2]

Why is it that female devs would be required to make a game that women would like?

[Nadya]

Because the argument is that men aren't capable of doing so [0]. I don't believe that is the case, but it is the argument being hinted at. It is also a very common argument.

[edblarney]

I think the issue is culture, not 'female devs'.

Maybe not so much in games - but in almost every other field where devs work - they have a lot of influence over the product. So it's part of the issue.

Devs are usually the one's founding the company ...

But gaming, I guess not so much. So maybe less of a requirement.

But remember that most 'great things' come from inspiration all around. Game devs might 'love games' and put that 'extra umph' into it to make the game great. The little tweaking that's inspired.

[dvtv75]

My suspicion, without a background in marketing, is that marketing concepts towards males are more clearly identified in terms that easily apply to gaming. Men like sports: winning, fighting, competition, stealth, dominance. Some men don't like sports: politics, dominance, competition, exploring.

I recall from a psychology lecture in one of my courses, many years ago, that women tend to play games like the Sims as if they were dollhouses, building their dream lives. On the other hand, my ex- used to play it in a masculine fashion, torturing the Sims by shutting them in a room without a door or a toilet, sending them for a swim and removing the ladder, things like that.

Exactly what this means, I'm not sure, but I think it is a piece of the puzzle.

[edblarney]

"Hire some female talent, get some investments on your easy-to-market product, and make yourself rich via a successful business catering to the female demographic of gamers."

It's not remotely that easy.

If it were, they would have done it long ago.

[_RedPanda]

>It's not remotely that easy.

So why do you guys feel so entitled to have games especially marketed at the female demographic?

Nobody should go out of their way and create a game that is catering to the female demographic, just so some internet feminists can feel better about themselves and afterwards not even buy/play the game

[advantark2]

I feel that the breakdown of gender norms is not necessary, and many people in our country are trying to do so right now in the name of "equality."

However, that's just my opinion. If other people disagree and see potential in the market, then let them design that game and prove me wrong.

Please try to be a bit less condescending on this site. We try to be more professional here.

[pessimizer]

Chicken-egg problem. You can't figure out what different people would like if you keep churning out the same things that once attracted a particular audience over and over again, just bigger and with more pixels. Change is the only way to attract newer audiences (see the mobile space for example.)

[guitarbill]

It's only a "problem" for large game companies with unimaginative executives. For indie developers it's a blessing, and rightly so.

[JoeAltmaier]

The first decade of computer games, the all-time best-seller was King's Quest. It wasn't combat-related. It was problem-solving. It sold double what anything else had ever sold. Because girls liked it too. That was all it took to be #1 - double your demographic.

[edblarney]

If memory serves me, the #1 selling game of all time is Tetris, and it's 50/50 guys girls.

Could be wrong.

[mercer]

The Sims did pretty well too, didn't it, and it was quite popular with the female demographic. I vaguely recall something similar for Myst and the genre it created (not to mention the traditional adventure games).