Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
clothing, makeup, jewelry, and so on. The more desirable ones are unlockable
rewards the player can earn for completing mini-games.
Creativity.
Creative play is a big part of what makes
The Sims
successful with
girls and women. Creativity gives players a chance to express themselves and show
off what they made to others. It's not confined to girl games by any means; even in
Halo 2
players can design unique clan badges.
A Few Misconceptions
Because people see fewer girls than boys playing hardcore games, they tend to jump to
conclusions about what girls want. This section corrects a few of these misconceptions.
Girls don't like computer games because computers are techie.
This is
patently false. Although most girls and women generally are less fascinated by the
technical details of computers than are boys and men, that doesn't discourage
them from playing computer games any more than automotive specifications dis-
courage them from driving cars.
Girls don't like violence.
No, what girls don't like is nonstop, meaningless vio-
lence. It's not so much that they're repulsed by it as that they're bored by it. It
doesn't stimulate their imaginations. If you've seen one explosion, you've seen
them all. Elling also points out that when violence is casual, sadistic, or excessively
gory, it becomes brutality, and girls do not like brutality. When violence is defen-
sive, provoked, or cartoony, it is more acceptable (Elling, 2006).
Girls want everything to be happy and sweet.
Not true. If you read topics
written specifically for girls, you'll see that they're not just saccharine from one
end to the other. Girls like stories filled with mystery, suspense, even danger—but
again, it has to be meaningful, not just random or pointless.
Girls don't like to be scared.
This is only partially true. Jesyca Durchin makes
a useful distinction between
spooky
and
scary
. Girls like things that are spooky but
not scary. The abandoned house or the carnival at night is spooky. Walking through
dark streets with a murderer on the loose is scary.
Spooky
is about the possibility of
being startled or frightened;
scary
is about the possibility of being hurt or killed.
A Final Note
Bear in mind that these are generalities. The characteristics described previously
do not appeal to all girls, but they certainly appeal to many. You should take them
into consideration if you're trying to make a game for girls.
Some developers, both male and female, find the idea of making games about hair,
clothing, and makeup repulsive; they feel that this perpetuates a stereotype of fem-
ininity. Although there's some merit in that argument, a vastly larger number of
games perpetuate a much more unfortunate stereotype of masculinity: They depict
