Shame, there are no games for women

[Xion Valkyrie]

Most of the industry doesn't want to alienate male games, which still consist of the core of the more 'hardcore' or 'traditional' gaming market. If you look at movies/book which specifically target the female audience, you'll notice there's usually a focus on the main female lead having relationships with one or more male partners. Male audiences already dismiss many of them as 'chick flicks'. It's going to be even harder to get the average male gamer to accept it in their games, hence why most games that are not targeted at the male audience are gender neutral.

It's probably going to take some indie game that specifically targets the female audience to make it big and go mainstream for more devs to follow that path.

[Flying Dagger]

Outside of certain "sex appeal sells" games, as a guy I actually don't often notice games being too tailored toward guys. At least, other than eroges (but some girls play those too! Just look at Kirino!), game like Dead of Alive come in mind but games with "too much sex appeal" does not bode well with all the male audiences: at least as a self proclaimed hardcore gamer I need actual quality gameplay and story and not hours of boobies joggling (I also have a very very strong distaste for nukige).

Maybe its natural instincts, but one thing I learned while watching Olympic weight lifting is that I find muscular guys all right but muscular women to be... not really my thing... (I am sorry if any muscular woman read this! Don't beat me up! - and no, I am not gay :O)

But while playing this muscular guy with guns or swords kicking ass, I rarely feel as if I am really playing a guy game, but a game where I just, blow stuff up. Will women be more attached if the main character is changed to a muscular female instead? (I am curious)

There is also this stereotype brainwashed into us during our childhood: its all right for the guys to be violent or "become the hero" (this is what a lot of games are about), while girls are fawned upon if they get slightly violent. I guess here is another question to girls: do you picture yourself in place of the hero (ie: sense of immersion) while playing games? If so what type of girl do you imagine yourself to be? - the muscular type that is a male counterpart, or some good looking pretty girl by social standards (which might come around and cause the game to be classified as a male game due to the sex appeal).

As a fan of blizzard games, I find their games to be generally gender neutral.

Originally Posted by ninryu

I'm usually too shy to join any parties, but I heard of things like that. I'd be annoyed to get hit by some "white knight", though.

It can be "completely not their fault". In MMOs where the social aspect is strong, a female gamer is bound to make a lot of male friends when surrounded by guys (due to the high male:low female ratio).

I have seen quite a few cases where guys hit up on "girls" with girlish names... its amazing what adding some ^_^ and at the end of your lines can do .

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by SilverSyko

Developing a game that's only going to appeal to a female audience isn't particularly a good move. The majority of the gaming market is still presently comprised of men so if you completely remove that audience from the potential consumers of your title, income is going to drop dramatically.

There's an interesting article on wikipedia on the subject.
And the link that provides statistical data on the demographic, show that the gap between female and male players nowadays is a lot smaller than people think.
47% female VS 53% male

At this point the idea that "female oriented" games wouldn't work is more of a preconception due to a long history of male oriented games than anything else. Raw data prove that best selling games are often the kind that significantly appeal the female population. "The sims" and particularly "The sims 2" and "The sims 3" are very good examples of this.
And let's not forget that the game that previously had the crown for best selling game of all time was Myst, which was an adventure game, in other words the genre that mostly attracted females to the gaming industry when "female gamers" weren't even considered.


There was a time when people thought shoujo manga would never work in the west, because "comics are for boys", and let's face it, the west comic production particularly in America has always been dominated by comics meant for a male only population. Why is that DC or Marvel never realized how much they could sell if they started making comics for girls as well? Because they never thought it would work, and we know that's absolutely wrong now.

Video Games are no different.


But to be honest things are already changing and I can't really agree that there are absolutely no games especially made for women. There are a lot of them... it's just that most of them suck... and nonetheless some of them sell fairly good.

I guess that what Joyce-steele is really complaining about is the fact that games that are traditionally male oriented, such as action games, RPG and so on, are still predominantly male oriented despite the change in demographic.

One of the main problems is the fact that women are already used to play male-oriented games, while men are not. For a company it's safer to continue as they always did. It is difficult to predict how the male population, which is still consistent, would react.

Moreover a franchise with a long history cannot suddenly make a turn on its gender orientation. Asking Tomb Raider to suddenly stop pandering the male audience isn't very sensible, since it's always been like that. It should be rather asked a new kind of game entirely.
BTW I'm not really into Tomb Raider and its sequels, so I don't know how the latest installment is, but I'd be very surprised if it was strongly male-oriented considering that the story was written by a woman.

PS: Can you honestly say that lately the Final Fantasy franchise isn't blatantly pandering female gamers?

[Kafriel]

Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy and Tales of... are 3 admittedly large and successful game series that target men and women alike; that is probably because they are (at least were, in some cases) more focused towards the basic elements of the game (learning curve, gameplay, plot, environment, replay value) rather than what seems to be the trend these days (graphics, character/avatar customization to a ridiculous degree, cookie cutter cast, etc).

I'd say there's plenty more games that female gamers would enjoy just as much as male ones: super smash bros, puzzle quest, all the MegaTen/Persona games, kingdom hearts, gurumin, ZOE 2, monster hunter, etc. As for games with female protagonists in particular...well, the 3rd birthday is pretty recent and awesome :P There have been a few attempts in the past though, see CY-girls, Tenchu: Fatal Shadows, Dark Angel, summon night 2 and let's not forget about...miss pacman^^

P.S: FFX-2 was also one of those games that get...well, girly, at certain points.

[cronnoponno]

Originally Posted by Kafriel

Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy and Tales of... are 3 admittedly large and successful game series that target men and women alike; that is probably because they are (at least were, in some cases) more focused towards the basic elements of the game (learning curve, gameplay, plot, environment, replay value) rather than what seems to be the trend these days (graphics, character/avatar customization to a ridiculous degree, cookie cutter cast, etc).

I'd say there's plenty more games that female gamers would enjoy just as much as male ones: super smash bros, puzzle quest, all the MegaTen/Persona games, kingdom hearts, gurumin, ZOE 2, monster hunter, etc. As for games with female protagonists in particular...well, the 3rd birthday is pretty recent and awesome :P There have been a few attempts in the past though, see CY-girls, Tenchu: Fatal Shadows, Dark Angel, summon night 2 and let's not forget about...miss pacman^^

Tales of series is aimed towards men:

Tales of innocence had a shota protagonist with a spunky girl who held his hand.

Tales of Symphonia had Colette, the most vanilla blonde haired blue eyed passive and weak but still plot-important little fairy that Lloyd, the man, protects.

Tales of Graces: MYSTERIOUS WAIFU GIRL WHO LOST HER MEMORIES.

Tales of Phantasia: Mint looked pretty cookie-cutter to me but I never completed this game.

Just because the females aren't dressed in bikinis with giant boobs doesn't mean it's not meant for guys.

I think a few other examples you put there are subject to the same examples as well.

[Kafriel]

^ The tales of male cast pretty much evens out with the girls, there's still a variety of roles that each character gets (e.g. Suzu and Arche are the 2 strongest characters in tales of phantasia, classified as ninja and offensive mage respectively - their characters are also much more solid than Mint's, who gets the role of the pacifist). Some of the other games I listed might have a few characters who fall into stereotypes, but my point is that they don't focus on that in particular and seek to expand a title's value in other areas.

A couple of titles I forgot to mention: Breath of Fire 2 in particular, where Katt, your first female ally, proves to be the strongest fighter when fused with Shin (with over 500 ATT when final gear Ryu gets ~360) and Spar, the game's bonus character, can turn into a girl via fusion and become #1 in magic (maybe #2 after sun Nina, don't reeeally remember that one). The characters all get an equal share of focus as well, with everyone being assisted by Ryu before joining him.

...and then there's Kirby.

[cronnoponno]

Originally Posted by Kafriel

^ The tales of male cast pretty much evens out with the girls, there's still a variety of roles that each character gets (e.g. Suzu and Arche are the 2 strongest characters in tales of phantasia, classified as ninja and offensive mage respectively - their characters are also much more solid than Mint's, who gets the role of the pacifist). Some of the other games I listed might have a few characters who fall into stereotypes, but my point is that they don't focus on that in particular and seek to expand a title's value in other areas.

But the core, main people we're paying attention to clearly fits the roles and fantasies of a male far more than they do a female, every example I've given are from the main guy character and the main girl character which is the most important.

Tales of Symphonia 2, Dawn of a new world, guy with confidence issues manages to score a hot chick who is illogically head over heels for him and spends the whole game making ''comedy'' flirtations to him.


All the main characters are in some way, dull to a point where we as players can project ourselves onto them pretty easily, so it reaches out to us as gamers and fits our ideals more than a females.

It's aimed towards men and has men in mind first over females, there may be a few little sub-parts of the game that has some awesome female who is level 9million and can wipe out entire legions with the flick of her hand, but it's still aimed towards males.

[Jan-Poo]

What about this:



Or this:




I wonder if they wouldn't be classified as male-oriented as well if it wasn't for the fact that they are based on shoujo manga.

[Sides]

Gamers are gamers and their gender don't matter. Most female gamers I know play games because they enjoy the stories and the game mechanics, just like male gamers. The divide of games targeted at certain genders is actually something new and heavily pushed by publishers, who don't seem to have a clue that games are different then other media, like books, films aso.
The fact that they trying to target specific games for certain genders is discriminating. What is next, games made specifically for homosexuals, just for specific ethic groups or just for old people?
Most game developers are set out to create an environment and world, where people can have fun. If people find that most games to be male centered, that is because most games are designed by men, specifically old men that pioneered the industry. The only way that is ever going to change is if more females take up programing and make their way into the industry. Yes there are a lot of female work forces in the industry, but only few are leading team and have programing experiences. Creating art, characters and sound is one thing, but if you want to be respected, you need to know how to code, this it also true for men in the industry.
Most of the arguments about gender specific things boils down to, how the hell are men suppose to know what females like or enjoy. We are two different species, we men say that we understand women, but we don't. Same is also true the other way around. For example, if i write song or a story, it will always be from a man's perspective, i'll never be able to write something from a woman's point of view, and if i try it will just end up being something stupid and then branded a sexists. Yes, I hear about female advisers dragged in for games development, but that isn't the same if the game is made by a woman, because men will always misinterpret advises from women all the time, because we don't really speak the same language.

[Kafriel]

Tales of Symphonia 2, Dawn of a new world, guy with confidence issues manages to score a hot chick who is illogically head over heels for him and spends the whole game making ''comedy'' flirtations to him.

Tut, "scoring a hot chick" and ending up together are two very different things. My point was that female characters are not left to decorate the main character's side like the rest of the environment, you can have them as party leaders and they are important to the main plot, not just an extra story because the game must have romance.

All the main characters are in some way, dull to a point where we as players can project ourselves onto them pretty easily, so it reaches out to us as gamers and fits our ideals more than a females.

Not quite true, many games have insightful male leads or even reverse situations of your list (e.g. Trails in the sky, where amnesiac Joshua travels with his (not really) sister, Estelle, which is 100% female romance).If you were referring to just Tales, Cress didn't show any particular interest towards someone except the final boss; even Zelos switched from comic relief "hit on everyone" to noble with issues, and Kratos was a no-nonsense guy from the beginning.

What's truly aimed towards guys anyways?

[cronnoponno]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

What about this:



Or this:




I wonder if they wouldn't be classified as male-oriented as well if it wasn't for the fact that they are based on shoujo manga.

In the first Screenshot, I don't see how that changes much, saying Shakugan no Shana is not male-oriented because Shana is a total badass is completely false, the main character is very much a guy and the romance is played through his perspective 90% of the time, unless that Screenshot was supposed to say something else.

To bring Shakugan no Shana as an example, yes she is awesome and does almost all the fighting, but she is still very Tsundere, she has girly moments and tropes that she's mostly remembered for that are cute ''Urusai urusai urusai!'', and constant pro-male stuff happens in the entire series such as Shana randomly sleeping with the main character because ''She was tired and couldn't make the proper enough judgement to realize she was jumping in bed with some guy she just met''.

Skullgirls is a fighting game with a primarily female cast, which will have at least one male character added in, is this game aimed at females?


Sailor moon is a red-card, it was one of the earlier manga/animes that were released to us as a western audience and it has constantly been sexualized, I haven't seen much of sailor moon though so I'm not sure if it's male-oriented(that second pic was of sailor moon right?)
, It's very similar to Inuyasha, which from my point of view is more centered towards females; it has a very strong male fanbase though because there are a lot of things males can enjoy in the series, so I don't know on Sailor moon.

Originally Posted by Kafriel

Not quite true, many games have insightful male leads or even reverse situations of your list (e.g. Trails in the sky, where amnesiac Joshua travels with his (not really) sister, Estelle, which is 100% female romance).If you were referring to just Tales, Cress didn't show any particular interest towards someone except the final boss; even Zelos switched from comic relief "hit on everyone" to noble with issues, and Kratos was a no-nonsense guy from the beginning.

What's truly aimed towards guys anyways?

It doesn't matter if there are side-characters that don't fit into the tropes, Tales of Symphonia introduces the main character as Lloyd Irving, Kratos as his obstacle, Zelos as a side-character with his own issues along with Regal and Presea, Genis as the ''bro who is not as strong as he is'', and so on, it opens itself as something for males to get into easily and furthers this with Colette being the center of attention, and the development between Lloyd growing up and Colette being saved from being a pawn in the angelic schemes, to say that the game is not oriented towards males you have to mostly ignore the entire main characters plot and focus on other things, which doesn't suddenly make it gender-neutral, almost everything in the game was an obstacle that affected Lloyd and Colette in some way, the developments of other characters were entirely seperate.

[Key Board]

I'm honestly not sure what a game targeted for women is supposed to be like. I'm sure if I asked 10 people, I would get 10 distinctive answers.

But have you tried playing gender neutral games such, say Dark Souls?

death is the great equalizer

[Kyero Fox]

Originally Posted by Key Board

I'm honestly not sure what a game targeted for women is supposed to be like. I'm sure if I asked 10 people, I would get 10 distinctive answers.

But have you tried playing gender neutral games such, say Dark Souls?

death is the great equalizer

Yea cept they give the female's a super model walk kinda dumb if you ask me.

40% female and 60% male in gaming? Does that count small casual games as well?

[Newprimus]

This video is pretty relevant to this thread:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=X6p5AZp7r_Q

It talks mainly how the damsel in distress trope has become so entrenched in much of gaming.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Oh, her again...

[Newprimus]

The video itself is good though, and it's relevant to the subject of the thread.

[cronnoponno]

Originally Posted by Shinova

The video itself is good though.

And surrounded by tons of criticism and controversy, disabled comments/ratings, many videos made against it, and generally made by an extremely disagreeable person.

[Flying Dagger]

Originally Posted by cronnoponno

To bring Shakugan no Shana as an example, yes she is awesome and does almost all the fighting, but she is still very Tsundere, she has girly moments and tropes that she's mostly remembered for that are cute ''Urusai urusai urusai!'', and constant pro-male stuff happens in the entire series such as Shana randomly sleeping with the main character because ''She was tired and couldn't make the proper enough judgement to realize she was jumping in bed with some guy she just met''.

I had a previous gf and a cousin who both have rather bad temper at times and I joking call them tsunderes. My life is centered around a male protagonist. Real life is male oriented? :O (lol)



As I stated in an earlier post there are a lot of "cute" cartoony games that I think are very female player oriented such as [ur="http://www.hellokittyonline.com/"]this[/url].

Just because those female oriented games don't get classified as AAA titles or gain as much popularity as other games does not mean there are no games for women.

Two esports giants: League of Legends and Starcraft, are very gender neutral. Sure, there are "pretty girls with revealing clothes", but there are also male characters of various stereotypes: once again, classifying a game as a male game because of "attractive characters" would be quite unfair.

I also do not believe in true gender equality in such area (when it becomes down to interest/entertainment genres) (food for thought: why are the products advertised on mother's day and father's day different? This has became a socially accepted stereotype). I believe in equal rights though.

You can't force others to like a certain thing until the player base is gender equal... I am sure a lot of guys do not mind that: how cool would it be in a world where gamers of all games share a 50-50 split? I can now chat with a girl about starcraft without having her hang up on me over skype and label me as a nerd.

[cronnoponno]

Originally Posted by Flying Dagger

I had a previous gf and a cousin who both have rather bad temper at times and I joking call them tsunderes. My life is centered around a male protagonist. Real life is male oriented? :O (lol)



As I stated in an earlier post there are a lot of "cute" cartoony games that I think are very female player oriented such as [ur="http://www.hellokittyonline.com/"]this[/url].

Just because those female oriented games don't get classified as AAA titles or gain as much popularity as other games does not mean there are no games for women.

Two esports giants: League of Legends and Starcraft, are very gender neutral. Sure, there are "pretty girls with revealing clothes", but there are also male characters of various stereotypes: once again, classifying a game as a male game because of "attractive characters" would be quite unfair.

I also do not believe in true gender equality in such area (when it becomes down to interest/entertainment genres) (food for thought: why are the products advertised on mother's day and father's day different? This has became a socially accepted stereotype). I believe in equal rights though.

You can't force others to like a certain thing until the player base is gender equal... I am sure a lot of guys do not mind that: how cool would it be in a world where gamers of all games share a 50-50 split? I can now chat with a girl about starcraft without having her hang up on me over skype and label me as a nerd.

Um....what at the first part...

You're misunderstanding me, I was only trying to say that Tales of series, and many games that are considered gender neutral, are actually very male-oriented , making a bunch of badass chicks does not take away the male-oriented nature of something, the tales of series is first and foremost aimed at guys and has acceptable amounts of side-material that can take in a female audience, but that doesn't make it gender-neutral at all.


Whether or not there are plenty of female games out there is something I don't think I can say yes or no to, but the tales games is definitely designed with males in mind first, and I really hope you're not using that top example to disprove me saying Shakugan no Shana is male-oriented.


Star Craft IS male oriented, have you played the second one? It's in a cowboyish-themed setting with a total outlaw badass who meets a hot scientist chick and so on and so fourth, it has settings that are much more comfortable for a male, if I was a female I definitely wouldn't play Starcrafts story and think ''Hm, this is pretty gender neutral''. Then again, you could just ignore the entire plot and focus on the gameplay which is acceptable for Starcraft, in that case you could probably consider it more accessable for females.

[RRW]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

PS: Can you honestly say that lately the Final Fantasy franchise isn't blatantly pandering female gamers?

lately? is been like that since FF7

Originally Posted by cronnoponno

And surrounded by tons of criticism and controversy, disabled comments/ratings, many videos made against it, and generally made by an extremely disagreeable person.

I had many critism to that video (i.e. blaming it on stereotype) thought it do some great justice on how women view video game.

also it's just 1st part of the video and mainly talking to old video where most of the game use excuse plot. i will see how 2nd video goes.

Originally Posted by cronnoponno

You're misunderstanding me, I was only trying to say that Tales of series, and many games that are considered gender neutral, are actually very male-oriented , making a bunch of badass chicks does not take away the male-oriented nature of something, the tales of series is first and foremost aimed at guys and has acceptable amounts of side-material that can take in a female audience, but that doesn't make it gender-neutral at all.


Whether or not there are plenty of female games out there is something I don't think I can say yes or no to, but the tales games is definitely designed with males in mind first, and I really hope you're not using that top example to disprove me saying Shakugan no Shana is male-oriented.

say how do you make Tales to be more female orientated?