The Feminine Side of Video Gaming

The videogame industry has always been male dominated, but the times they are a changing. Videogame groups solely made up of women, developers creating more games designed for the masses instead of a gender, individuals actually paying attention to the wants and desires of everyone, trying to provide a gaming experience that everyone can enjoy - all reasons why more and more women are making their voices heard when it comes to videogames.

From the article:

At the Edinburgh Entertainment Interactive Festival last month, one of the keynote addresses was about the necessity to recruit more women in the business to connect with girls.

"It's a massively underserved and overlooked segment of the market," said David Gardner, chief operating officer of Electronic Arts, the leading video game company. Gardner said he would urge other executives to hire more women.

"We don't want to be just for the stereotypical, spotty male teenager," he said during an interview, adding that the company's philosophy was "not to make games for girls, but to make products that are more socially inclusive."

Game developers are loath to create what they call "pink games" for girls and women. But they are aware that female players tend to scorn games of wanton destruction, preferring "simulation" games, which allow them to create their own worlds where the game itself is more important than winning or counting cadavers.

The best-selling example of that is a video game called "The Sims," published by Electronic Arts, which in the past six years has sold 70 million copies, more than 60 percent of them to women or girls. There is no goal or objective to the game other than controlling a hermetic suburb inhabited by Barbie-doll-like Sims who eat, work and decorate. They also carry on secret love affairs, and spectacular break-ups are often consoled with shopping sprees.

"Girls want a good story, a good scenario," she said. "They want to be able to identify themselves to the character they are playing. Somebody much more like them. Someone with more personality, more character and maybe a little more fat and less, uh, physical."

Read the full article over at the International Herald Tribune