Alice Taylor, a truly world-class Quake player, is attending the E3 games conference in LA, and is blogging the panels she attends. They seem to be pretty weak, but this one takes the cake: it's four men discussing how to involve women in gaming. Between the sexist canards, received wisdom, and wild-assed guessing this panel appears to have been one of the lamest discussions of women in gaming in the history of the field, and that's saying something.
What's delicious about this blog entry is that it ends with Alice, an actual woman who actually plays games, running down her view on the issue. Note to E3: asking women to talk about women in gaming would get you genuine insight instead of steaming bullshit:
I have a few things to say now, speaking as a female player and game-buyer (from the shops!):
1. 25 years of gaming history has sent out the marketing message that games are for boys and men. If you change that message, women will buy more games.
2. I think that it's not a lack of games that will appeal to women that's the problem – there are LOTS – it's women even knowing they exist, and that they're fun, and worth the purchase.
3. In *my* 25 years of gaming history, I have never once seen a game explicitly marketed to me, in "female media" or ordinary media like newspapers. Online, in neutral environments (say, Yahoo) a game banner ad tells me a game is available, but the message that that advert is for boys and men is still subconscious. I'll click because clearly I'm a freak, but will a non-gaming female click if that message isn't changed? Will her eye even notice the banner?
4. I want Playstation teeshirts that aren't in XXL and man-shaped.
5. Daytime TV ad slots are cheap as chips. If you advertise a game there like, say, SSX 3, and women (or men) can see how pretty it is, and fun it could be, you may find the message changing slowly. Surely this is worth an experiment. My dear previously-non-gamer flatmate is now an SSX addict after seeing it play.
6. Making games for women at home who have kids will be tricky because they are time-poor – start with the teenage females and "Sugar" magazine or Habbo Hotel, but don't discount the mothers: they'll be bored during certain hours of the day and eager for entertainment. Oh and can we all stop calling them 'they' with that curious aftertaste?
