Original post by ID Merlin That's my question. What do women want? My first guess is non-battle interactivity. Perhaps romance and interpersonal interactions of other sorts?
I think that's exactly the sort of mindset that KoM was lampooning. A woman isn't going to be turned off by a lack of romance in a wargame, anymore than a man is going to be turned off by a lack of muscle cars in a football game.
In my experience, women don't like wargames. But there were a binch of women playing King of Chaos, which had no plot and no game play. But what it did have was alliances (off-board) and not much else.
Original post by ID Merlin In my experience, women don't like wargames.
Really? AoE 3 and Civ 4 (?) were both received very well by the reviewers at GrrlGamers. Perhaps in your experience women don't like wargames, but I would suggest that it is the women's experience which is more useful.
Original post by ID Merlin In my experience, women don't like wargames.
Really? AoE 3 and Civ 4 (?) were both received very well by the reviewers at GrrlGamers. Perhaps in your experience women don't like wargames, but I would suggest that it is the women's experience which is more useful.
AoE? Really? What do you think set this apart from the standard game, for women? (I haven't played it. Should I?)
Anybody truly interested in this topic should read the game Gender Inclusive Game Design by Sheri Graner Ray. It's not a perfect book, but it gets a person thinking about how you can make games that aren't "aimed" at women but that include them in the target demographic. The trick isn't to try and "get women to play"... it's to not scare them away!
This also extends to different races, religions, fat people, old people, etc. They would play games if games existed that didn't scare them away.
Guitar Hero is a great example of a game that includes all demographics. Wii Sports is another. The Legend of Zelda, Fable and Deus Ex all appeal to a wide demographic (according to Warren Spector, Deus Ex was a surprisingly big hit with women) even though you play as a male character in all three, because they didn't actively target men only. Chicks with big guns in skimpy clothing appeal to the base instincts of men, and both women and most mature men find it unnecessary and childish.
Of course chicks with big guns aren't the only thing that bugs women. My wife has told me that she is annoyed by the portrayal of men in games as well. Men are designed (in American games especially) as the "ideal man's man", small waist with an unrealistically large upper body and ironman muscles. Women often find this design intimidating and a little bit sad.
Get an artist with some sensibility, and design your gameplay to not specifically target high testosterone levels and you will have a game that appeals to all demographics.
Of course, custom playable characters also help... male/female, skin color, body shape are the three main things to pay attention to if you go in this direction.
-------
Note: The below might not help for a war game, but it might help with the frame of mind.
With Rumble Box we originally had the characters have randomly chosen names. We have a list of over 50 gender-neutral names (like Skip, Bloxy and Grasshopper) that never made it into the game. The abstract character designs also helped keep it neutral, though we were a bit worried that the thug was too "Native American". Luckily nobody else saw that and we actually received praise from our art professor for making a game that anybody could enjoy.
