Girl gamers, ah, such a misunderstood bunch. There are those that tout their girlishness in gaming, then there are those reserved ones that prefer not to be a girl gamer, just a gamer, and then there are those that are one of the boys, and it doesn’t matter what they play, they’ll trounce whomever’s holding the other controller. We’re a pretty varied sort when it comes to being a game consumer, so why is it a lot of the stuff specifically targeted towards us fall in the five P’s category? – Pretty, Pink, Princess, Pets, and Ponies. Chances are, if it has one of these five, it’s considered a ‘game for the girls’.
You know, it never started out that way, at least not entirely. If you look it up, pink was actually a color that was supposed to be associated towards boys. A fierce and fiery red was toned down to pink, and that was considered a more male or manly color when dressing the boys, while a pale and light blue was the girly association. But you’ll never catch a Gears of Wars team member sporting fuschia, or Snake in Coral, but you will find an abundance of Imagine, Barbie, and Disney Princess cames awash in all sorts of pinkilicious colors, especially for the DS.
But it’s not necessarily the pink tones that tend to aggravate girls who game. It’s the theme of the games that really throw us off. Babies, babysitting, ponies, cooking, it’s a slew of these genres that give girls who game a bad impression. It’s as if we’re regressing to days of being told our place is back in the kitchen, that rearing a family is our position, and that we can’t adventure because we’re too busy figuring out our makeup and fashion choices. There’s no games that specifically encourage a girl to have fun portraying a female lawyer, special investigator, inventor, construction worker. Could you imagine a Rosie The Riveter game?
These games make a lot of girls who game feel insulted, especially when their personalities are far from being Covergirls and Gucci Gals, but when you stop to think about it, there are girls who are really into these ’specially catered’ games. Girls who love horses, revel in being a fashionista, and do consider raising a family something more to look forward to than regular occupations. And even if these girls don’t buy into this kind of gaming, there are mothers and aunts who end up being the purchasers, thinking these are the games they want their little girl to be into, to feed them a bit of virtual etiquette and prettiness. It’s not wrong for these games to exist, especially since they’re still around and making dozens of sequels. It shows there is marketability in this genre, and that there are girls who accept these games because they do favor the girlishness.
Overdoing the setting, the boxart, the game palette itself, saturating it in pink is another irritation. It’s a wonderful color, some girls like it, some girls don’t, but a game doesn’t need to be 90% pink in the color palette to emphasize just how girl-centric the game is supposed to be. There are other colors in the rainbow.
It’s like trying to market a game towards boys in the form of muscled heroes. Too much greased up muscle, on a hero, will tend to look ridiculous at some point, and guys will either get put off by it or won’t relate to it. Too much pink in a game can do the same for girls who game. Customisability is a booming feature in games, and the same should be done to games marketed towards girls.
I’ll assume that what really irritates some girl gamers is that it feels like these types of game/job associations are pigeon-holing girls into assumed roles. That it’ll influence a generation of young girls that their place is where these games are targeted, in veterinary clinics and in the kitchen. But how is it that, a gal like Cooking Mama can escape such abuse, yet Imagine Happy Chef can get scathed? It’s all in the gameplay.
One of the worst offenses girl games can make is that there is no game at all. You pop in a game, you expect to play something, not look at slides of pictures, not walk a character for 30 minutes, not make the same repetitive motions to a pet every five minutes for the entirety of the game. There has to be a bit of actual fun injected into a game so that gameplay can be a word actually used in reviews. Fun and variety. That is where Mama wins and where a chunk of girl games tend to miss the mark on.
Mama knows she’s good at cooking and wants you to be good too. She doesn’t say you have to grow up to serve in the kitchen, but that good food is universal. If you look at a lot of the top chefs in the world you have men like Ramsey, Jamie Oliver, Ming Tsai slaving over the same stove as gals like Rachel Ray and Julia Childs. They don’t emphasize masculinity or femininity in cooking, they simply cook, and they do it well, with style.
Games have a chance to deliver the same sort of enthusiasm for their game subject to both guys and gals. Guys are into horses, into pets. Nintendogs didn’t market to one or the other gender, they emphasized on cute cuddly puppies and won out to both the girls and boys, men and women.
For those who think that these games are a blight, a negative stain on encouraging girls who game, I say give them a chance, at the very least. You can’t knock something you haven’t played yourself. If you subject yourself to the game, you know precisely why it’s bad and at least you’re better informed to point out the game’s inadequecies, and maybe even ways on making it appeal more to all gamers.
You can’t toss some girls into Halo and expect them to immediately bond with all sorts of games. Sometimes you have to gradually pull them in. If they’re a princess fancy, show’m Peach, move onto Smash Brothers, and then open the doors to stronger princess figures. If they’re still into Barbie games, then don’t ridicule them for their choices, but push the developers to give their games more than just Barbie’s pretty face. Don’t punish developers for jumping on the bandwagon either, it’s all about making money in the end for them (even if they say it’s making the consumer happy…), but do punish them if there’s no substance in what they produce.
Games for girls is just finding a niche to market. Review these games, don’t condemn them outright, and justify why the game isn’t worth it, what changes can be made to steer it in the right direction of both appealing to girls as well as just being a generally fun game to play.
Besides, a game shouldn’t be the only avenue to influence how a girl grows up. Games are made to entertain, though if they supplement to inform and educate in a more interactive way, it makes it twice as nice. One day the little princess may grow up to know the beauties of the katamari or hadouken. If not, then at least they may find a Pet Vet game that’s fun and engaging and not just full of fluffy cotton pink eye candy.
I’m not very girly, nor am I tom-boyish enough. I’ve always been a somewhat ‘in-the-middle’ sort of gal. I like cute and cuddly, but I like action and macabre as well. An inbetweener. As such, I’ve decided to give these games a go, games I would have turned my back on years ago, making faces at things like Horsez and Bratz, to see if any of them have any good qualities to turn a girly gamer into a girl who loves all sorts of games. Go past the genre and see what these games are like, review them for (hopefully) the greater good and understanding for both the girls and their parents who want to buy these games.
Look forward to future articles and reviews, and hopefully I can help someone make informed decisions about these games, provide alternatives, and save a gamer some money on which fashion game is worth its cost, because sometimes one fashion game gets it all wrong while another fashion game is as fun as it should be.
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Wow! Very interesting article! I actually always wondered what girls/women had thought about the whole “pink” situation. Sure, I know girls who play Gears of War, but not so much of the hardcore feminine ones that you mentioned. Yet, they must be selling since they make them on a regular basis!
Video Games were a very much male oriented hobby (just to be sure, check out all the “video game reviews” of older dudes actually reminiscing about playing Contra and Ninja Gaiden). Sure, I’d see a young girl playing Pac-Man at the arcade, but no girls in the playground cared to know what games I played on the Nintendo. In the 90s we’ve seen a huge gap finally bridged and now it’s to the point where it’s pretty even seeing the 2 genders play along. Before then, though, you did see a lot developers use the “Five P” method to force in the female demographic, mostly Barbie stuff. Stuff girls, I would imagine, loved or hated, but what else could you have expected at the time?
I noticed it was the JRPGs, multi-player games, and just general fun-goofy games when I said “Wow! A girl is taking this *seriously*!”, then boom – half of y’all started talking to me on the playgrounds lol!
But, yes, I’m very interested how female seasoned/full-time gamers came to be from my generation since I grew up in those times. Turns out you gals liked to play what I did. Just took some time to warm up, I guess!
BTW, Princess Debut is actually a fun game! Now I remember why I read this article, lol!
Funny thing, i have four sisters and we never fell into the girlie gamer category
We all played what we liked, it didnt matter what it was from RPGs action, fighting, adventure, strategy, racing, e.t.c
the closest we came to girlie gaming was my younger sister playing Sailormoon
but your article is very interesting.lol
Really cool article! It is interesting that there is a major perception that girls that don’t game would be attracted to gaming by huge swathes of pink and fashion games, or that girls who do play games would only want to play those types.
But, it does raise the issue of what girls do like in games (as in the majority of girls) as matty said above, few girls gravitate to the more ‘masculine’ shades of game themes.
How come so many females play mmorpgs and fewer are on quake 3 and halo? Must be the absence of non-stop testosterone! Or something…hehe.
Well, good read. Might actually try and write something on this.
