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[increpare]

The female characters would have to be well-developed,

so to speak...

I think this idea has potential, but it would probably require an all female dev team.

I don't see any reason why this should be the case.

In fact, I would think it might be a pretty cool idea to have a competition on this board where the brief is exactly as you describe (Except for the all-female dev part, of course).

[AdamAtomic]

There are a bunch of things that muddle the "games for women" issue quite a bit I think.

One is that this issue is mainly discussed by people who have been playing video games since they were like 3 years old.  Lifetime gamers tend to be male.  Their taste also tends to differ quite a bit from most female gamers.

However, their taste also tends to differ quite a bit from most MALE gamers as well.  How many of you have Madden 08 at home and are working through the season?

I think lifetime gamers have acquired a taste for bad games to some extent, or highly specialized games that rely on a lifetime of acquired gaming language to fully enjoy.

Mainstream game consumers tend to have about as bad an opinion of games as they do of movies, or books, or anything else.  That is, they will play what the tee-vee tells them to play.  So the question of "what kind of games will MAINSTREAM female gamers like?" is probably best answered by "what game was advertised on Sex In The City last week?"  Which is to say, no games.

As for the discerning female gamer who lacks a lifetime of gaming language but still has TASTE?  I assume that's what is actually the question here, and the answer, I think, is definitely "any good game," and it is totally safe to disregard the fact that this audience is female!

I think this was a long confusing ramble, my apologies if it hurt more than it helped!

[increpare]

So the question of "what kind of games will MAINSTREAM female gamers like?" is probably best answered by "what game was advertised on Sex In The City last week?"  Which is to say, no games.

computer games, that is

[Anna]

It's not impossible for male developers to make such a game, but I'm skeptical that it could be done convincingly. I suspect that most men would make subtle mistakes that would show through in the dialogue, character design, animation, etc. and make it less authentic. Or maybe I'm just bitter about the way women are usually portrayed in games and other media. Anyway, I would love to be proven wrong

[Shambrook]

So the question of "what kind of games will MAINSTREAM female gamers like?" is probably best answered by "what game was advertised on Sex In The City last week?"  Which is to say, no games.

To be fair though, no games being advertised on Sex and the City recently probbably has a lot to do with the show being canccelled 4 years ago.

[increpare]

Anyway, I would love to be proven wrong

Still sounding like a good challenge to me

[AdamAtomic]

To be fair though, no games being advertised on Sex and the City recently probbably has a lot to do with the show being canccelled 4 years ago.

I have just made it painfully obvious that I have not had cable in about 4 years :-/

[Sar]

To be fair though, no games being advertised on Sex and the City recently probbably has a lot to do with the show being canccelled 4 years ago.

The first time I read this I interpreted it as "Sex and the City would still be on TV if only they'd advertised games in the breaks".

;-)

[moi]

Women are all watching "desperate housewife" these days , so a game where you could devise a scheme to take the most  advantage of your husband, make his life miserable and live the great life with his money would probably be a hit. Something like "Trophy-wife tycoon".
What? jaded? me?

[Bree]

Didn't they make a Desperate Housewives game, though?

Proof!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desperate_Housewives:_The_Game

[Shambrook]

I'd also like to disagree with the notion that women don't like violent games.
My sister came round recently and started up on GTA 4, now that game has a lot of non violent things in it, She could go shopping, participate in races etc.

She instead grabed a sniper rilfe, headed to a roof top and proceeded to snipe out pedestrians and then cops when they came.

This isn't even touching my older sister who loves zombie games and mutilating the zombies in dead rising in fun ways.

[increpare]

I though of another way to appeal specifically to women: a game where most or all of the characters are female, and the male characters are irrelevant or nonexistent. The female characters would have to be well-developed, realistic, and not sexualized. I think this idea has potential, but it would probably require an all female dev team.

I had a dream last night that you had developed a game in which the main character was female.  She was on a bicycle, cycling around in the dark, and it was really foggy, and she was humming some music to herself (what she was listening to on her mp3 player I guess).  And loads of other details I think. And I thought: "gosh! that's really impressive.  Anna did have a point here about women having the edge when it comes to doing female characters".

[AdamAtomic]

This isn't even touching my older sister

Not going there, not going there, not going there...

[Corpus]

You basically just went there.

[the_depraved]

Only game my mum actually appreciated was like Mouse Diving or old little mouse clicky game for MacOS VII. And then she hated it.

[Hideous]

My mum and her friends rented a NES once before I was born.

[Corpus]

Saying that games should not be aimed at a particular gender is just plain, uh, silly.

There should be games for everyone, games for men, games for women, games for overweight 6-year-olds and game for underweight 24-year-olds. There should be games for one-legged old men who served in an obscure war! There should be games for that pretty girl who means well but always ends up acting like a slut at parties!

Excuse me - I'm getting misty-eyed.

[increpare]

What I would be rather interested in knowing would be what sort of games are produced from developers who target particular demographics?  And then: if these games are lame, are they lame because the idea of targeting a particular is lame, or because the developers were lame?  I have a feeling in my gut that demographic-targeting must tend to be more fruitful than, say, developing games tied into certain franchises, but I don't really know enough to have any concrete opinions.

(That said, Barbie Super Model for the snes was pretty classic ... ).

[Anna]

It's not impossible for male developers to make such a game, but I'm skeptical that it could be done convincingly. I suspect that most men would make subtle mistakes that would show through in the dialogue, character design, animation, etc. and make it less authentic.

To clarify, I think what I'm getting at is that a game for women would have to incorporate some kind of examination of the social impositions faced by women as a class in order to really resonate with the target audience. (This is difficult to do unless you've lived as a woman.)

[increpare]

To clarify, I think what I'm getting at is that a game for women would have to incorporate some kind of examination of the social impositions faced by women as a class in order to really resonate with the target audience. (This is difficult to do unless you've lived as a woman.)

I can buy that.