Well this thread made me think about the girl demographic in general. Why don't we have more games geared towards girls and women? Is it because developers/publishers feel that they are not profitable as a group to worry about? Or is it because this industry is so male-centric that we just forget to include them? I think that surveys should be done (and I don't mean only online ones, though they do work) to see what interests girls and women in terms of playing. From what I've read and heard from other girls/women (18-24, actually) they like a game they can quickly get into that doesn't have complicated rules and button combinations and not overly violent. Games that were pick to be favorites are: Zelda, Solitare, Tetris, and Mario Kart. The only problem was their attention to the game was proportional to their amount of boredom. So how do you think that we target this demographic and make them, make us a little richer...?? (or at least gain us a new playing partner [smile])

We tried to get this demographic with our first title. It had all the ingredients of a perfect title for the female gaming market. Based on the extremely positive feedback we have received over the years, we feel pretty good we hit the target. The one piece of the puzzle we missed is marketing to this group. Unless you have a huge marketing budget, this group is very hard to get to notice your product. The traditional channels don't work because they are flooded with all the stuff that has no interest to them.

So, from my experience, I think the return on investment is much higher in the male-centric channel. This group of consumers are actively looking for your product, and have shown the will spend the money in this segment. On the other hand, if you did a survey, I think you would find that most of the female market stumble on to the games they play.

--
Robert Costello
www.playfulminds.com

www.itgames.com is best known for games like Golden Tee. Stuff you see in bars. They apparently get plenty of women to play their games, and one of their employees gave a talk at a Chicago chapter's IGDA meeting on girl gamers.

The key isn't to make games geared towards women. Female gamers play Quake 3, too! The key is to make your games intuitive and easy to get into. Provide help on the screen that isn't intrusive. Check out Super Mario RPG or Paper Mario for examples of games that can be played with on screen help that doesn't detract from the game if you don't want to read it.

And the casual gamers market tends to be supported by females.

There are other things to keep in mind when developing games, but this topic has been discussed to death before. Generally, make your games accessible. If the player has a choice to make, like what stat to upgrade, keep in mind that in general female gamers tend to worry about messing up, so providing on screen assistance in the form of "Upgrade this stat to increase strength, allowing you to take on stronger enemies" so they can make an informed decision. This not only makes your game better by default, but also makes it accessible to more females.

And that sort of help makes your game accessible to non-gamers too. I showed my wife a game once in order to use her as a non-gamer test subject. I was stunned to find she never got to the game. She looked at the menu and froze because she simply didn't know what to do. She didn't have a gamers understanding that a menu is controlled my the D-pad etc.

The latest Revolution adventure game (Broken Sword III) has onscreen prompts for the controls, which work really well.

Quote: Original post by GBGames
www.itgames.com is best known for games like Golden Tee. Stuff you see in bars. They apparently get plenty of women to play their games, and one of their employees gave a talk at a Chicago chapter's IGDA meeting on girl gamers.

I think this is a clear example of how this group is hard to market to. If Golden Tee had only been an arcade machine, and not in every bar in North America, I really doubt they'd have the same female following.

Quote: The key isn't to make games geared towards women. Female gamers play Quake 3, too! The key is to make your games intuitive and easy to get into. Provide help on the screen that isn't intrusive. Check out Super Mario RPG or Paper Mario for examples of games that can be played with on screen help that doesn't detract from the game if you don't want to read it.

I'm not sure I entirely agree with this statement. While I think as a whole, the game industry should spend a little more time on usability, I don't think you'll get very deep penetration into this demographic without tailoring your game to it. I think this is true whenever you go after a specific user community.

Quote: And the casual gamers market tends to be supported by females.

Yes, the casual gaming market is probably one of the faster growing markets right now. I've very interested to see how the market reacts to this. As this segment grows, I think there will be less pressure to deliver games with cutting edge technology, and shift back to deeper content. And you are right, this segment has a huge female following. Here's an interesting read on the topic, although its more geared towards the mobile market. There are some interesting posts at the end.

And here's another from the same site.