Why Video Game Designers Are Missing The Mark With Women

A Growing Demographic

The statistics and the research may vary, but it’s quite clear: girl gamers are here, and they’re here to stay. Especially in the online realm, women make up a growing demographic of gamers who are just as passionate about playing as your typical gamer guy.

But as a girl gamer myself, it’s abundantly clear that the video game industry is not only run by a majority of men, but it’s catered to them as well. And it doesn’t seem to be changing much. Of course, catering to men makes sense from a business perspective, or at least it used to. But statistics indicate that’s no longer the case. And for some reason, many video game companies are just not willing to change to accommodate that shift. Maybe it’s part of the whole industry, so deep-seeded, that executives and producers can’t think outside of the box. But really, it’s still not an excuse. It’s honestly disgraceful at times, and downright disrespectful.

The Lara Croft Syndrome

Now, my intent here isn’t to start a flame war. There are plenty of women who are completely content with video games the way they are, and have no desire to see games change into anything other than they are. In fact, they like that they’re playing in a “Man’s Realm”. And that, of course, is absolutely fine. What irks me is that, so often, playing video games still feels like crossing into a man’s territory—like finding yourself in a world you weren’t taken into consideration. Aleah Tierny puts it into perspective in her article “What Women Want” when she talks about the Lara Croft syndrome:

I couldn’t wait to load and play Tomb Raider when it first came out, but when I saw Lara, I just couldn’t take the game seriously. The giant twin pyramids mounted onto her chest look like something she could use to impale her enemies. In many ways her kick-butt presence is a triumph, but the designers’ decision to sexualize her to the point of deformity angered me. I couldn’t get past her proportions, so I put the game away.

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StarCraft II: Brick Rush!

Here’s what StarCraft might look like if Blizzard would release a LEGO version of the game:

Speaking of Starcraft, have you guys bought the new edition yet? How’s the story mode so far? Let us know in the comments section below!



Sucker Punch: Dragon, Samurais, Steampunk. Oh my.

Fantasy lovers and Steampunk fans rejoice: Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch promises to be a visual orgy of everything you guys love. Check out the trailer:

Sucker Punch is an upcoming American action-fantasy film written by Steve Shibuya and Zack Snyder, and directed by Snyder. Sucker Punch features an ensemble female cast that includes Emily Browning, Vanessa Hudgens, Abbie Cornish, Jamie Chung and Jena Malone. The film follows a young girl in the 1950s about to be lobotomized and as she attempts to escape an asylum with her inmate friends.

The movie is scheduled for release on March 25, 2011.

[Via io9]

Neil deGrasse Tyson on Dark Matter & Dark Energy

Thanks to Neil deGrasse Tyson, this is one of the simplest, most straightforward summaries of one of the greatest questions facing modern science today.

TED Talk: The Art of Choosing [Video]

Sheena Iyengar studies how we make choices — and how we feel about the choices we make. In the following video, she talks about both trivial choices (Coke v. Pepsi) and profound ones, and shares her groundbreaking research that has uncovered some surprising attitudes about our decisions.

Fighting games collide in ultimate rumble

The world of entertainment has given us plenty of classic crossover clashes over the years. ESPN brought us Rocky Marciano vs Muhammad Ali, while movies presented both Freddie vs Jason and Alien vs Predator, though sadly the two winners didn’t move on to meet in the final.

Now Capcom is releasing the fighting game Street Fighter X Tekken, the X being “cross” and referring to the crossover rather than the traditional “versus”. That may be a clue that the game will be more about individual characters clashing than a full on factional war, though it may also just be the results of English-Japanese translations.

While few details have been released so far, it will be a Capcom-produced game using characters licensed by Tekken manufacturers Namco, meaning the gameplay will probably be closer to Street Fighter.

To make things really interesting, though, Namco will have a later release named Tekken vs Street Fighter, which in turn looks likely to be Street Fighter characters ported to the Tekken game engine. The two companies have even implied that they will be locked in a genuine competition to produce the better game, which means the industry will be watching sales figures closely.

It’s been confirmed that characters will bring their signature moves to the new games. What isn’t so clear is to what extent designers will make sure both sets of characters are balanced: there’ll certainly be a temptation to sneakily set things up so that the “invading” characters are more likely to lose.

This isn’t the first time characters from the two games have interacted (and I’m not talking about the seamier side of fan fiction). The 2005 PS2 release Namco x Capcom brought together characters from both company’s catalog in a role playing game.

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Epic DC Universe Online Promo Trailer

After watching this, here’s one question to you: Why does Hollywood keep making live-action superhero movies when CGI is now clearly advanced enough to make absolutely anything possible?

[Via Reddit]