Rethinking my Blog: Girls & Games
I came home today from playing soccer, injured. If you know me, then you know that is not all that uncommon. I may regret this in the morning. Or perhaps not as it got me inspired to blog.
First I want to state that for 2010 I think I will be talking about User Experience in a more generalized way. I find I put too much pressure on myself to say something profound in my blog. Like every blogger in the blog-o-sphere must say something profound that has massive universal impact rather than simply saying, “I think this about that.” Thus in order to take the pressure off and to encourage more blogging, I will blog about anything I think impacts experience or technology. I’ll ask more questions. I’ll talk about stuff that inspires my thinking. Speaking of, my biggest inspiration lately has been gaming.
Girls and Games.
Ask most females and they would tell you they are either 1) not a gamer or 2) there aren’t enough “girl games” out there for them. What does that really mean though?
Let’s start with point one: “I’m not a gamer”
Any girl who tells you this is simply lying. Truth is they have probably played several games as a kids. As a member of the female gender, they play games with their friends, lovers, and others they come across. They are just not the “normal” type of game we might think of. Girls are competitive in nature. If you don’t believe me, watch females play soccer or volleyball. (Or fight over a man.)
That brings me to point two: “The games out there aren’t interesting to me.”
I had an interesting conversation with the people at Playdom during an interview a few weeks back. It turns out the game, “Sorority Life“, has a strong appeal to women in their 30/40/50’s whom have the desire at the end of the day to “kill”. (In other words they love the fight feature where they can challenge other women and win battles for money, power, status, or game items.) It is a release of stress for them.
While I was not a fan of Sorority Life (because it felt too girly), ”Mafia Wars” (by Zynga) appealed to me for much of the same reason. Fascinating, isn’t it?
Why then aren’t more games built for girls that allow us to play to our competitive natures? The game industry is missing a key component to the type of experience girls would want in games. Perhaps there would be more peace in the world if we could take out our aggression within games?
Then again, probably not.
Gaming, User Experience
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female gaming, fun, games, girl games, Mafia Wars, Playdom, Sorority Life, technology, User Experience, Zynga
Themocracy
One of the things to consider is not just what motivates women to play games, but also how that is balanced.
Many women don’t seemed to be as inclined as men to spend hours sitting in front of a screen grinding up levels – but they will play Fairyland on FB all day and night both collecting items and building a broad social network sharing their finds and items with others.
Many women don’t play aggressive PvP games – but when the PvP is balanced so any person starting is matched to similar starting people or boosts are evenly distributed amongst new and old players, then you see women playing a variety of PvP games consistently.
I think the gap may be how the game is structured and marketed for balance. A comedian I watched emphasized the absurdity of marketing a new razor – with FIVE blades – and many games are marketed in similarly disingenuous ways. I don’t think women respond favorably to half naked warrior types running around the screen nor to piles of big weapons and blowing up stuff without purpose – so why would they buy the game to hope to discover good content and playability?
In fact marketing to men is largely about how imbalanced a game can be. You never see the weak newbies struggling to survive attacking parrots. Instead the marketing shows god like monster players slaughtering everything in their path. Maybe that’s not quite the right message to motivate women gamers. Also you see things like team play and messaging in the context of military style operations – or non-military disciplined teams being obliterated by military disciplined teams. You don’t see marketing aimed at social teams that play well together toward objectives.
Women definitely do play games. Women definitely enjoy playing games. But when you don’t market games to women, and the cost of entry for a game may be high (console games are ridiculously overpriced), then women are sensible enough to wait for something better priced and more enjoyable to come along. Microtransaction games in particular seem to have captured a broader female gaming population because the ability to try the game without the high entry cost allows women to discover the playability and enjoyment even if the marketing isn’t appropriately aligned with their interests.
Just some thoughts.
The games I was speaking of are actually built that way. In both Mafia Wars and Sorority Life the players are matched to other users at the same level. Thus if you are level 200 you will be matched with anyone from 190 to 210. The only problem I have with these structures is that given their role playing like structure, it feels like a dice roll as to whether you win or lose. I have been told that it matters which weapons you have (as in the case of Mafia Wars). However, even stocking up on weapons doesn’t seem to help me win more fights. It’s gotten me so frustrated that I have simply stopped playing the PVP section. Rather I just do the jobs and earn the points but that gets old after a while.
I actually think it’s the casual game environment or as you called it, micro-transaction games as attracted the female audience because we’re often too busy to play. We’ve got the house to clean, the kids to take care, and a job to be at from 9-5. Thus games like Bejeweled Blitz (known to be very popular amongst women) are the ideal games for us. It’s a short break from the world. Sorority Life I find to be an interesting pull away from the world because it’s not one that is attractive to me but yet there are many women who enjoy it. For example the house wife in her 40’s who’s life hasn’t gone quite the way she wanted it to go.