Hello
My friend linked me to a video on Youtube which talks about why women are a minority in videogames industry and the reasons he or his guest think female gamers aren't attracted to "hard core" games. As a female and as a gamer, I was furious at the video for many reasons and one of them is the inaccuracy. The video was missing alot of facts and I could tell just by watching that the guy who made it hasn't touched a single game of the games he labelled as "games directed to the male audience" Just because those games had one or two women with little cloths on them.
First of all, we don't care... really. Who gives a damn about whether a game was made by a male or female or a mutant? As a gamer and as a female, I don't care if a game was made by a man or a woman as long as it's good. Now, a game being good or not has nothing to do with gender. A good example of this would be Assasin's Creed which is a game that was produced by a woman. I detested the game even though it was made by a woman.
Does the fact that a woman made that game made me like it? No.
Was the reason I bought it because it was made by a "fellow female"? Hell no! I bought it because its setting and concept.
Who actually thought of buying Assassin's Creed or any game made by a female just for the fact that they were made by a female here? Share your opinion with us.
Second, since the guy who made that video used Tomb Raider games as an example of games which are directed to males, as a fan of the series, allow me to explain where he sinned. Eidos/Core has never relied on sex to sell TR games all the time Core was making Tomb Raider games. The posters that included naked Lara were some of the many postersCore used to promote for the game. There were many posters with Lara doing things other than showing her assets to lure male gamers. That was for marketting, as for games, none of the six first games had a single scene with sexual themes or nudity so Lara Croft wasn't really a"sex symbol" in video games until Crystal Dynamics were made in charge for Tomb Raider series. As for the size of her boobs, when Lara was first made, the designers made her too manly, so, in order to make her more feminine, they enlraged the size of her breasts. They probably overdid it but the point is, she was never meant to look "sexy" Last, the story behind Toby Gard dreaming of creating a sexy, attractive, beautiful female protagonist in a game wasn't true. Toby Gard was inspired by his little sister who was playing with water pistols and had a long braid. Toby himself isn't happy with Crystal Dynamics' version of Tomb Raider. Here's the difference between the two:
I don't mean to come off as rude or anything but I really don't get why this genderissue matters. It's not like women in videogames industry will help increase the number of female gamers, let alone the fact that the gender of consumers is irrelevant to game companies because what matters to them the most is sales number and not the male to female ratio unless they plan to make games specifically for a group of people such as The Mother Game? Also, In fashion industry, the majority of fashion designers are males yet they make outfits which appeal to most women so hiring more "females" in the industry as an attempt to increase the number of females isn't really a solution. Women and girls not being attracted to games such as Halo or Prince of Persia *a big fan of prince or persia games here* isn't an issue either. It's all about preferences.
I have two brothers. My brothers are totally clueless when it comes to videogames and the only type of games they play is soccer games. I'm the one who buys consoles and play videogames religiously at home. None of my brothers bought a videogame and sat for hours to play it only because it had a naked woman in it. I find the notion of men willing to buy videogames with naked women and vice versa so offensive because it shows how marketers/game designers ridicule the mentality of gamers.
Dear readers, is there a reason I should care about the number of women in the industry or the number of female gamers?