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Taking liberties since 1978

12.3.08

Girl Gamers, the DS and stupid stereotypes

I recently bought my Mum as DS, after she showed more interest than I'd expected in my PSP, but the zillions of buttons and controls were confusing.

Since then I've been looking for games to get her and I've been annoyed by what seems to be the lamest bunch of "girl games" ever. Cooking Mama, Baby Pals and Nintendogs - what a pile of tosh. This reminds me of those bloody barbie games they made to appeal to girls. FFS

I'm sick of all this chatter about attracting the girl gamer market while completely failing to understand what engages that userbase. I don't want a bloody game that asks me about hairstyles, babies or bloody cooking!
I see rants about not enough women being involved in games development but very little actively done to address it.

Ok as a gamer I like a wide variety of games from FPS games to more unusual Japanese games like Katamari Damacy or Loco Roco. I'm rarely attracted to heavily strategy based games.

Gaming is becoming more mainstream and the DS, Nichole Kidman and Brain Training have no small part to play in that. The difference is not in making "girl games" though, but in getting the usability right. The DS and the Wii are triumphs of usability over functionality.

As far a girl games are concerned the closest to a success so far is Facebook. As the web and gaming converge I think that the market will expand and finding new ways for us to communicate and interact with our friends, be it Animal Crossing or Sims.

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