Okay, I'm a female and these are my favorite games. I LOVE RTMI and other similar role playing games that make you think and are well polished. Jules Verne Return to Mystery Island (can't wait to play the sequel that was just released) ******All Time Favorite Cookie Bonus Solitaire (love the online chat) BlackJack Revenge (love the online chat) Puzzlings (loved until the bugs came and by the time they fixed it I was completely over the game) Bejeweled Snood (iPhone game isn't as good as expected) Crash Bandicoot Darkest Fear (If they could fix the guy who walks like a turtle it would be amazing) Topple 2 Plus 1112 Episode
Hi, My wife likes playing The Creeps, ToyBot Diaries, and lately has been playing WordJong. Mostly she plays The Creeps though. David
lol lol I am not a core gamer nor are my friends. As you can see from my list above none of your research matches up. Most of my girl friends enjoy word or puzzle games. Facebook is a good place to gather research as to what type of games females play. All of my friends (females) play word games on there. I don't know where the flight attendant, Nurse, Hair Stylest came from. That is as far from the truth as possible. I'm also a teacher and none of my female students play and/or enjoy those types of games either. Not to be rude but it may be time to update your research or change the demographics.
Time to update your research. Or else completely ignore Nintendo whose recommendations of their top games (as they say in alphabetical order) to get your daughter/sister/niece - Cooking Mama, Professor Layton (1 or 2), Scribblenauts, and the new Zelda. Funny how a company that has a gazillion "Imagine..... (fill in occupation of your choice, many of which you mentioned) did NOT recommend those games for girls. If you have ideas for those kinds of games to develop I suggest your target age to be about 5. Sexist? Nah. Ignorant? Yes.
Jaybot is actually pretty worldly, so I'm thinking that he isn't specifically speaking about the USA, nor English speaking countries in particular. Certainly, his research still fits within the USA demographic, and within the specification you yourself provided: Puzzle games and Facebook games. A lot of Socialization and Role playing. What is the difference between playing a Vampiress or a Hair Stylist? Can you explain the rampant success of Twilight? Jaybots research isn't too far off.
I think facebook has opened up a world of games to people who don't normally play. I bet the demographics or what-you-call-em will probably change or shift because of this. Some of my friends who I thought were not into games, are playing farmville or cafeworld regularly. Jaybot seems to be talking about younger girls when he talks about those wanting to play hairdresser or air stewardess. Nintendo DS has those "Imagine" games which has titles like that. I did see a girl at a game store pointing that out to her friend that those are fun.
Those are two loaded words, how ever much we don't mean them to be rude even by disagreeing with one. This is also the reason many guys stop speaking about the topic to women -- because they get beaten down by a chorus of "you're sexist/ignorant/narrow-minded" when in reality we just mean "conventional". Jaybot has 6 posts to his name. I think it's gratifying that he came to this thread to chat about this topic. Perhaps many men and boys come in thinking one thing about women and gaming. But only a very narrow-minded man would walk out of the thread thinking the same thing after he's heard the ladies of Toucharcade express themselves on the topic.
Good point. I know even some hoity-toity eurosnob friends of mine who, because of Facebook, now play Farmville and Mafia Wars.
Actually Jaybot said "Call me sexist if you want (I won't mind)" if you read his post - the thing was I didn't think his post was as much sexist as it was ignorant of the gaming habits of females in general as seen in arguments we have stated over and over in as many ways as possible! So please don't accuse me of something that is the farthest from the truth. Really sounds like you thought I was flinging around "fighting words." Perhaps its better stated by Flickitty that its a more worldly viewpoint than an American one. I know I have cousins that live in another country and neither they nor their friends own any kind of games. I know people in Japan however that have every system you can imagine and every game possible! Doesn't matter boys or girls, its something that is either popular in that country or not. Facebook HAS opened up a whole new world to a new generation that might not have been exposed to some of these games otherwise. The whole social networking of "beat my score" has made it appealing to those that might not have taken the time to set up a new console or purchase a new system - its there for the taking at your fingertips. My daughter who never really played games before can kick my butt in Tetris now - all because of facebook. I don't really know much about that network since I don't have an account. As I stated before, the DS Imagine series has every occupation you can think of, many of which are appealing to a younger set of gamers. Yeah probably girls. But its interesting that what Nintendo is recommending to get along with that new DS for your daughter/sister/niece are not one of them! In this country at least, I know that my 8 year old niece and her friends like some of those games along with Cooking Mama and gasp - Hannah Montana, but my 12 year old niece and her friends do not. They ask for help with Zelda and Super Mario and Yoshi and believe it or not Izuma.
Nono, don't worry, I knew were you were coming from (hence the "disagreeing with one" comment; by that meaning his invitation to call him sexist). I just find men browbeaten a lot as sexist even by inference, and it makes them clam up, even though they're big boys and can take what they are also at times dishing out. Asian countries are exceptional though. Their cultures are tied to technology, which forged the modern versions of their nations economically. I used to live in Japan myself, and saw grandmothers on trains reading manga and playing with their super-newfangled phones as yet unavailable in the US and Europe. Heh. As we have been trying to din into many people's heads, there isn't one kind of woman gamer out there. We like all kinds of genre, and as this newish medium continues to grow, you'll have a whole generation of girls who can't be pegged down as to tastes. That's the challenge for devs.
I'm female and this is what I like Eliminate, Spider, Drop 7, Monkey Island, iSamurai, iBomber, Canabalt, Eliss, Sway, Touchgrind, I Dig It, FlightControl, RogueTouch, Galcon, TapTapRevenge, MiniGore, Edge. Go ahead, try to draw some kind of conclusion of "what women like" from the above.
Eliminate?well i didnt expect that but its an awesome game what can you do anyway girls that i know like scoops,word games and when i showed boost 3d to my sister she really liked it.im not a girl but hope i helped
There is a difference between what women like and what a particular woman likes. One, two or even thirty people do not make a demographic when it comes to game design. Here is the main difference: I can make ONE game and sell it to 30,000 women for a dollar, or I can make ONE game and sell it to ONE woman for $30,000. My girlfriend isn't the normal female demographic: L4D and Guild Wars. However she will also play the more casual games (she's been looking for Cubix on iPhone) and she uses the Social Network games. For her hardcore gaming, I would consider her in a much different demographic than my 16 year old daughter, my 18 year-old niece and my 57 year-old mother. Look at the original post. That person seemed to be looking for like-minded female gamers, not someone like my girlfriend (although, my gf could suggest some great puzzle games too).
My girlfriend is definitely not a gamer but occasionally I get her to play some games with me. She likes the Wii Sports games- bowling, baseball, and tennis. She likes playing fighting games like street fighter and soul caliber on PS3. We play a cheap PS3 teenage mutant ninja turtles game ($5 bucks on PSN store i think) in co-op mode which she likes. The only time she will ever game is with me though, it's not something she would ever do on her own I think. So for iPhone games we play games you can play together. Monopoly here and now, Game of Life, and Trivial Pursuit gets the most play time with us together, because we can sit there together, pass and play, and she doesn't have to fumble about with much.
Hmm... ignorant? Probably. I think everyone is when it comes to games for females, even females. I don't know that many girls who honestly want to spend time playing a flash application where you dress up barbie in pink clothing (nor would I call that a game), but it's really, really popular. Perhaps because some culture brings up their kids to like barbie and playing dress up with dolls and such (perhaps due to some natural instinct that females are born with, perhaps not). A lot of people keep bringing up Japan and gaming. This pic is for you: http://jaybot7.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/girlscorner.jpg Girl's コーナー (Corner). They have separate sections of games in Japan directly aimed towards girls. Most of the games are sim and RPG type games similar to what I discussed earlier. Which is what I was kinda pointing to... And that's just the lame PSP section. I didn't have enough room to take up the DS section which took up half the damn store. I'd play a flight-attendant game [edit: err PS2 section, not PSP. meh]
So not to make this any deeper than it has to be - the debate begins at birth. A parent is just generally going to treat a boy differently than a girl - getting boys trucks and girls those Barbie dolls you mention. Here is a brief article describing the phenomenon and the results - http://anthro.palomar.edu/social/soc_1.htm Lots more people I notice allow their little boys to carry around dolls and their little girls to play in the sandbox with trucks. Frowned upon when I was a kid and a girl that liked to play sports or do other "boy" activities was termed a "tom boy." Just proves that things are evolving. Thankfully. Socialization rages deeper than just playing with dolls or trucks, as a child taught to be abusive by being abused is more likely to grow up to be an abuser - for one example - etc. Socialization runs rampant in all societies, though each culture may have a different understanding what is expected from girls or boys. I don't disagree with you Jaybot, and knowing you are looking at it from a viewpoint from outside the US helps explain your thoughts. I actually do believe that girls in other countries than the US would play some of those RPGs you mention at an older age than the girls in the US. Honestly I believe that the Nintendo is one of the more blatant stereotypes of a company in their offerings - they offer a "boy special edition" and a "girl special edition" for Christmas gifts - boys have a bright primary colored SE with a mario game and for the girl its a pastel with a word game. For Mother's day they released another pastel with their Cookbook program (whatever its called) complete with a case that actually looked like a purse. How stereotypical can one get with THOSE choices? I can see how your photos from Japan divide games into girls vs boys but hopefully they are tolerant of those that want to "cross the line!"
Curious question that just popped into my head: Do gals typically get more defensive with the statement "girls prefer pink things and puzzle games" than guys with the statement "boys prefer blue things and playing shooters?" Would a guy call someone sexist for saying to him, "hey you are guy, you play games, I bet you like shooters." (Female equivalent, "Hey you are girl, you play games, I bet you like playing cooking mama.")
Interesting question. You are all sexist for assuming that I play shooters, even though I play shooters. That makes you sexist. Or something like that.
Sometimes when you give a girl something pink and she doesn't like it, she might say something like, "Oh you gave me a pink present because you think that girls like pink don't you?" And then one can get into argument about how annoying it is that people believe that girls should like pink. If someone gives a boy a blue present, and he doesn't like it, will he say, "Oh so you think that just because I'm a boy and a boy should like blue, don't you?" Would a guy be similarly annoyed and get into argument about why people believe that boys should like blue?
Not just Nintendo, New England Gamer. Guess who has joined the "What each gender likes" category for selling? Yes, our beloved Apple. Check out the just launched App Store featured section called "Apps for Girls". You know...technically, I shouldn't be surprised nor hurt. I'm not a girl anymore, I'm a woman. Heck, I love Hello Kitty. But I just can't help feeling a twinge when an entity tries to narrow down tastes so obviously like this. Poor little boy if he has a macho dad who sees this and says, "There ain't no way I'll get my son a Disney app now. He's no sissy!". (Of course, they tried to cover their ass by placing "Math Flash Cards" there, so as not to be accused of stereotyping. But we know better)
