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Game Marketers Don’t Get Women

by Erin on October 26th, 2005

I got an email tip from a reader today to an article that I had pegged for a comment on myself after reading it over coffee this morning. Suzanne Freyjadis-Chuberka, director of the Women’s Game Conference that I wrote about last week, had a little chat with Next Generation about a point that I have been trying to hammer home for-basically-ever.

She feels that the diversity present in the current game market is sufficient to appeal to a wide variety of gamers, including that elusive female demographic. She’s bang on. It is not the games that are the problem at all. The type of game that any gamer plays is not linked to their gender, regardless of what reports may tell you. I know men who wouldn’t pick up a sports game if someone paid them to; they find them repetitive and boring. And I know women would turn their noses up at the Sims because they want to blow stuff up on the battlefield. The content of the games, meaning their storyline, their complexity, and the end goals, can be appealing to anyone.

The larger problem, as I’ve always maintained, and Freyjadis-Chuberka backs up, is rooted in the over-sexualization of game characters and the boys club exclusivity present in marketing. She says, quite pointedly, that:

More women could be playing the games as they exist now. The industry could grow even with the current games library that we have, if the games were presented in a way that doesn’t just appeal to this one sector of the population

I agree with her point that almost every ounce of marketing sparkle that comes out of the game industry is aimed at those possessing a ‘Y’ chromosome. She uses Bloodrayne as a key example, stating that the character itself could be marketed differently as a butt-kicking heroine, but is instead the subject of erotic breast-covering marketing posters like the one I’ve shown in this article (taken from the original Next Gen piece for emphasis). No alternative ad campaigns directed towards women, who frankly would probably love to rampage as a blade-wielding vampire, just naked virtual skin and a come-hither look.

Even if such alternative ads were to exist, there’s really nowhere to put them. Games magazines are generally a very testosterone fuelled environment that can make some women too uncomfortable to use as a source of information. Women who are very, very interested in playing games will shrug off the thongs and the skimpy outfits in order to get the industry updates that they need, because they have no other choice. What marketers are missing out on, are the women who may be interested in that game, but didn’t know it existed because they don’t typically read the type of magazine or publication that it was advertised in.

In talking with one of my gamer friends, she expressed frustration at the mixed messages being tossed out by the gaming industry. Their proud assertion is that women characters are showing up more frequently and with skills equal to male counterparts, but as my friend told me:

you can look at it as, this is great, because we have all these lead female characters, which on one hand can be seen as a good thing for women since they’re given more prominent roles in games, except instead of being viewed as strong, empowered females, they are viewed as sex objects to be lusted after

My favourite example, and one that I will continue to draw on, is Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft. Empowered female? Oh you bet. She’s an archaeologist, she’s a martial artist, she’s physically and mentally strong, she’s intelligent, and she’s got capabilities equal to male heroes of the same genre. The first Tomb Raider game showed her more as that type of character, though there was some snickering about her short shorts and inflated chest. I’m currently playing Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness (I’m a huge fan of the series, did I mention that?), and to my absolute shock and horror, they actually took the time and pixels to animate her breasts. They jiggle perkily when I run, they sway seductively when I turn (ladies do your boobs wrap around your body when you turn a corner?), and they wiggle with Jell-o delight at the oddest times. Croft has been demoralized from a game character to a Play Boy pin-up and is risking alienating and offending women like myself, who once flocked to her banner.

I really don’t know what to make of the whole situation anymore except to shake my head and wonder what it is that marketers aren’t getting. Capitalizing on the dormant pool of female gamers (a pool which could easily catapult a game into stardom), is as simple as being a little less derogatory, a little more sensitive, and thinking with an organ that lies above the belt line. I personally would love to challenge developers to make me a short promo for a fake game that had a male character so tremendously well-endowed between his legs that it wagged when he ran. I want to see every bulge, every crease, and every happy little wobble. Maybe in the process, they’ll find out exactly how ridiculous most of their characters appear to women. I want them in little Speedos and see them naked in the shower. Only because I’m a woman and thus supposed to enjoy hot naked man flesh. Mm…

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POSTED IN: Musings