The Shrine

So I was on my fav feminist website and they posted this video that may be an instructional video for their employees. Well, as you can guess it is very sexist in that it teaches how to sell to clueless women. I had to barf on myself when they talked about their DS/Wii promotion where if you spend over a certain amount you can get a free subscription to a magazine like Oprah, Marie Claire or Cosmo. Really? I can get a game about cooking AND Cosmo!!!! BARF!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Its moments like this one where I am happy to have a super nerd for a boyfriend. Thats right Gamestop I know that Wii has a lot of craptacular games so I will be sticking with my(his) Xbox 360.

http://www.heartlessdoll.com/2009/02/ga ... _women.php

I watched more than half of this, and it's not sexist. It's basic retail strategies and a dash of "know your demographic."

Girl who plays Wii/DS = Girl who reads Oprah and Cosmo

Yeah.....no. Thanks Gamestop but I buy games to play them not so I can have the opportunity to read about the many ways I can please my man or how to dress for the fall season.

I saw the first 4 minutes of it and I honestly have to say, it's an excellent training video. We can sit here and scoff at its dry humour (which also means it's likely not nearly as effective as it should be) but I can unequivocally say that most EB/Gamestop employees need to sit down and take serious notes here.

Put bluntly, most employees of those stores have no clue how to sell anything. And if you sit in a store (I often sit at my bud's store for an hour or more chatting) you can see that there are a great deal of these "non-traditional" game buyers who come in and need the extra help, particularly around the holidays. It's not like they're selling to you or me. We know what we're buying before we get there and can easily find it for ourselves. These people need exactly what this video says, someone to ask the right questions so you know how to help them (and help make the sale). This video is trying to get that message across, that you have to treat these people differently than the nerds or regular gamers. I think it's quite a good way of doing it.

Of course, the assumption here is that the audience (employees) give a rats ass about helping out or even have the inherent skills to do so.

Sassafras wrote:Girl who plays Wii/DS = Girl who reads Oprah and Cosmo

Yeah.....no. Thanks Gamestop but I buy games to play them not so I can have the opportunity to read about the many ways I can please my man or how to dress for the fall season.

They're trying to use one stereotype that a young male (their largest employee demographic) can understand to label this "new" type of customer so they understand that they have to treat them differently than the regular customer - you or I - that they see all the time. Sure, it's not the best or most effective way (or truthful) , but it is easy to understand. So it'll probably register better to the relatively unskilled employee than trying to develop a whole new stereotype for them to label people against.

Sassafras wrote:Girl who plays Wii/DS = Girl who reads Oprah and Cosmo

Yeah.....no. Thanks Gamestop but I buy games to play them not so I can have the opportunity to read about the many ways I can please my man or how to dress for the fall season.

They don't say that has to be the case, that a girl who plays Wii or DS will read Oprah or Cosmo. But it's not a bad bet. I don't have the demographics for Oprah or Cosmo, but I bet they're similar to what they mention in the beginning: women aged 25 - 54. They're recognizing they have a new demographic in the store, and they're trying to market to it. That's not sexist.

Now, it's completely obnoxious, because while it's a good bet, I get annoyed when anyone starts to sell me something I didn't ask about.

This is relevant.

Sassafras wrote:Girl who plays Wii/DS != / <> Girl who reads Oprah and Cosmo

hahahahahaha

that's worth a "true dat"

Heh I have a friend who's a manager of a Gamestop (and a girl). I'll have to ask if she's seen this and if it's legit.

Seraphina wrote:Heh I have a friend who's a manager of a Gamestop (and a girl). I'll have to ask if she's seen this and if it's legit.

Keep in mind that it's a UK training video.

How do you know? Everyone in the video, excluding the "Director of Womanly Studies" speaks perfect American English. And I know the promotion is one they just had going on. The sister in law and I were making fun of it last time we were in Gamestop.

Seraphina wrote:Heh I have a friend who's a manager of a Gamestop (and a girl). I'll have to ask if she's seen this and if it's legit.

There was a girl running the Gamestop I got SFIV and a House of the Dead game for the Wii at the other day.

Man, she was CUTE. She was twenty-one, apparently - I initially had her on the "she must be jailbait" list, I wondered if she was a trainee, but I guess not. I wanted to hit on her but didn't feel like taking on the extra stress.

I might still go back and flirt with her some, but I feel like I actually ought to play both of the games I bought from her first. ;P

Sassafras wrote:Girl who plays Wii/DS = Girl who reads Oprah and Cosmo

Yeah.....no. Thanks Gamestop but I buy games to play them not so I can have the opportunity to read about the many ways I can please my man or how to dress for the fall season.

Well, considering that the previous stereotypes were this:

Gamer = 16-year-old male
Females != Gamers

At least it's a step forward. Not much, but let's hope that the next step is to quit trying to DESIGN games for women, and just make stuff that works for both sexes. (For one, quit relying on fan service so much.)

Replay wrote:There was a girl running the Gamestop I got SFIV and a House of the Dead game for the Wii at the other day.

Man, she was CUTE. She was twenty-one, apparently - I initially had her on the "she must be jailbait" list, I wondered if she was a trainee, but I guess not. I wanted to hit on her but didn't feel like taking on the extra stress.

I might still go back and flirt with her some, but I feel like I actually ought to play both of the games I bought from her first. ;P

This is an awesome fail in a thread about sexism...

Sine, how do you design a game for women?

Just don't make it some sort of aggressive nerd fantasy (Guns, roid muscles, space marines, etc..) and I can see a potential female audience.

Seeker's List wrote:Just don't make it some sort of aggressive nerd fantasy (Guns, roid muscles, space marines, etc..) and I can see a potential female audience.

There's much more to it than that. Making a game for "girls" without making it insulting to them is very, very difficult

Zeus wrote:There's much more to it than that. Making a game for "girls" without making it insulting to them is very, very difficult

The Key is to make something that has "girly" elements like rainbows and cute pandas. But you also need to have regular game stuff like massive shotguns. Meld them together and what do you got? Shooting cute pandas with shotguns that use rainbows as bullets. Im there!!!!!

Sassafras wrote:

Zeus wrote:There's much more to it than that. Making a game for "girls" without making it insulting to them is very, very difficult

The Key is to make something that has "girly" elements like rainbows and cute pandas. But you also need to have regular game stuff like massive shotguns. Meld them together and what do you got? Shooting cute pandas with shotguns that use rainbows as bullets. Im there!!!!!

LOL.

In all seriousness, the problem is girls don't want to be discrimitated against when it comes to game development. They don't want a "girl game" they just want something they find interesting and fun. It's more trying to find out what kinds of games certain female demographics tend to enjoy (ie. Sims, some puzzle games) and maybe have more of these games available.

I mean, do you really want more of the Imagine series?

Zeus wrote:Sine, how do you design a game for women?

I think the fact that you actually have to ask this question illustrates a real blind spot to a glaring obvious problem. You want to know how to design a game that women would play? Well, for starters, stop designing female elves with assless chaps. Try to make some more intelligent stories that don't revolve around a man and his BFG.

Fan services works fine the other way around. That's how stuff like Prince of Tennis and Hikaru no Go become popular.

When I pick a male character in MMORPG I try to pick either the ugliest model or the most average model because there's no such thing as a good looking male character anyway. But you can tell they clearly tried to make the female characters look attractive.

Don wrote:Fan services works fine the other way around. That's how stuff like Prince of Tennis and Hikaru no Go become popular.

When I pick a male character in MMORPG I try to pick either the ugliest model or the most average model because there's no such thing as a good looking male character anyway. But you can tell they clearly tried to make the female characters look attractive.

Blood Elf Males.

SineSwiper wrote:

Zeus wrote:Sine, how do you design a game for women?

I think the fact that you actually have to ask this question illustrates a real blind spot to a glaring obvious problem. You want to know how to design a game that women would play? Well, for starters, stop designing female elves with assless chaps. Try to make some more intelligent stories that don't revolve around a man and his BFG.

But that's not just for women. Anyone who's not a teenage male wants that. Hell, I want that. I hate how they make characters sexy for no reason and all I want are nice, complex stories like in Mass Effect.

What I was trying to say is there's no such thing as a "girl game". Anything that is made for "women" is either for young girls (Hannah Montana) or tweens (Imagine series). And I somehow doubt that women want a "girl" game. They just want a good game that ain't all about sex and violence. Well, that's something that appeals to a helluva lot more than female gamers.

Zeus wrote:But that's not just for women. Anyone who's not a teenage male wants that. Hell, I want that. I hate how they make characters sexy for no reason and all I want are nice, complex stories like in Mass Effect.

What I was trying to say is there's no such thing as a "girl game". Anything that is made for "women" is either for young girls (Hannah Montana) or tweens (Imagine series). And I somehow doubt that women want a "girl" game. They just want a good game that ain't all about sex and violence. Well, that's something that appeals to a helluva lot more than female gamers.

bovine wrote:

Zeus wrote:But that's not just for women. Anyone who's not a teenage male wants that. Hell, I want that. I hate how they make characters sexy for no reason and all I want are nice, complex stories like in Mass Effect.

What I was trying to say is there's no such thing as a "girl game". Anything that is made for "women" is either for young girls (Hannah Montana) or tweens (Imagine series). And I somehow doubt that women want a "girl" game. They just want a good game that ain't all about sex and violence. Well, that's something that appeals to a helluva lot more than female gamers.

Yes, it's a good game and it appeals to more than just female gamers. But that sure ain't why there's a chick on the cover. Call that the Tomb Raider effect ;-)