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> In an industry known for high levels of testosterone, Fortnite has become the hottest game going partly because of its appeal to an unlikely cohort: women. I

> In an industry known for high levels of testosterone, Fortnite has become the hottest game going partly because of its appeal to an unlikely cohort: women. It's worth noting that women have always enjoyed video games, that the hyper-testosterone driven marketing was an invention to get young boys interested in games after the huge video game crash. Ever since then appealing to young males has been the default because no big players wanted to rock the boat and mess with a good thing, and as a formerly young male, I was catered to hard and frankly it's gotten old. I'd love to see some new blood in the industry, and especially to stop feeling cringey when I watch game reveal shows featuring faux-masculinity, booth babes, and the rest of the pandering nonsense. Fortnite is obviously a very casual game. Not saying that's good or bad, that's up to your taste, but it having mass market appeal is not an accident, that's what it was designed for. The fact that people find it so shocking how wide it's appeal is when it was basically designed to be widely appealing is somewhat disconcerting.

zrobotics 8y ago
How is it still possible that so much of game's marketing budgets are still almost exclusively aimed at male players? For example, Fallout 4 has the creative building, storytelling, and (much more so in New Vegas, but even in 4) it is to your advantage to play a female character due to perks. And yet I don't see any marketing stills with a female PC in the first page of Google image search. This is anecdotal, but I have two female friends who both continue to play skyrim, but never tried any of the fallout games. The saddest part is the very vocal outcries any time a studio tries to appeal to women. Sure, pandering is bad, but there's a wide difference between pandering and what epic games is doing. Plus, a bonus is that inclusive marketing also seems to attract more 'non-gamers' in general,leading to their current throne of cash.
- FussyZeus 8y ago
  Like any other situation where tons of big players with big budgets are doing a thing that seems stupid, it's because it does work, even if stupid, and because none of them want to "risk" being the studio known as the one that makes the "girl games." Doesn't help that historically games aimed at girls are just... atrocious. Not even talking about the themes or whatever, I mean simply from a software and interactive standpoint, they're just godawful point and clicks. Edit: Let me be VERY clear here, I'm not blaming girls or women for this AT ALL. Just saying that the shovelware-to-quality ratio is a LOT worse on the more girly end of things, stuff like the Barbie games, animal-centered games, etc. There is nothing wrong with making a game centered around being a model or whatever the hell, and you could probably make some pretty interesting ones with what are traditionally strong female interests. Just saying that a lot of what has been made is pure and utter dreck.
- ravenstine 8y ago
  Have you had the same thought about why purses, hand bags, dresses, and floral scents are exclusively marketed to women?
  - FussyZeus 8y ago
    Purses, Hand bags: Because women's clothing is atrocious with regard to pockets of usable size. Dresses: Because women traditionally wear dresses, however, you do find Kilts on the man-centered end of the spectrum. Floral scents: I love floral scents and find most scented products intended for male consumption to be ludicrous, insulting to my intelligence, and obvious marketing pandering put up around the same Axe-scented products. Also if you buy tactical bath wipes, you're pathetic until the end of time. There's nothing un-manly about wanting to be freaking CLEAN and smell nice.
    - ravenstine 8y ago
      No, that's not why men don't wear women's clothing. Those are complains women have about their own clothing(and they're right!). Men don't go walking around with hand bags and purses in general, in fact I'd guess 99% of the time. Messenger bags don't count. Yes, there are kilts, but the vast, vast majority of men would never wear kilts casually. I should rephrase that by "without exception", I mean the "vast majority of the time". There's a reason that products marketed specifically towards men feature dull/drab colors and tend not to have floral scents. I don't blame you for how you feel about the products you prefer to use; I happen to buy products from Lush, which have flowery scents that are nose-numbing. Still, I don't think that the vast majority of men would use such products. Then again, if the color of the product was army green and came in bullet casings... maybe.
  - zrobotics 8y ago
    https://duckduckgo.com/?q=messenger+bag&t=fpas&iax=images&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?q=messenger+bag&t=fpas&iax=images&ia... Most of these links are targeted towards men (Nordstrom's site even explicitly mentions they are men's). Aside from pattern, how are these not purses marketed to men? And not all floral scents are marketed to women, any auto parts store that stocks air fresheners will have floral scents that I've always considered gender neutral.
watwut 8y ago
Why was this downvoted? If someone disagree with history, it might be better to argue about history.
jerf 8y ago
"I'd love to see some new blood in the industry, and especially to stop feeling cringey when I watch game reveal shows featuring faux-masculinity, booth babes, and the rest of the pandering nonsense." My recommendation is to disconnect from the AAA games industry entirely then, whereupon you'll likely find that there is plenty of new blood in the industry. In fact, the games industry right now is something where it's almost impossible to stand out anymore, because there's so much new blood. Unless you need to play the top shooters, you can leave AAA pretty easily. Maybe at best you dip your toes back in to the Ubisoft Open World Du Jour once it drops to $5 or something.
- FussyZeus 8y ago
  I pretty much have, to be honest. I still go back for my Halo and Gears of War fixes but that's mostly a nostalgia thing. I've become the indie-shill of my friend group, much to their benefit/chagrin.

zrobotics 8y ago

How is it still possible that so much of game's marketing budgets are still almost exclusively aimed at male players? For example, Fallout 4 has the creative building, storytelling, and (much more so in New Vegas, but even in 4) it is to your advantage to play a female character due to perks. And yet I don't see any marketing stills with a female PC in the first page of Google image search. This is anecdotal, but I have two female friends who both continue to play skyrim, but never tried any of the fallout games. The saddest part is the very vocal outcries any time a studio tries to appeal to women. Sure, pandering is bad, but there's a wide difference between pandering and what epic games is doing. Plus, a bonus is that inclusive marketing also seems to attract more 'non-gamers' in general,leading to their current throne of cash.

FussyZeus 8y ago
Like any other situation where tons of big players with big budgets are doing a thing that seems stupid, it's because it does work, even if stupid, and because none of them want to "risk" being the studio known as the one that makes the "girl games." Doesn't help that historically games aimed at girls are just... atrocious. Not even talking about the themes or whatever, I mean simply from a software and interactive standpoint, they're just godawful point and clicks. Edit: Let me be VERY clear here, I'm not blaming girls or women for this AT ALL. Just saying that the shovelware-to-quality ratio is a LOT worse on the more girly end of things, stuff like the Barbie games, animal-centered games, etc. There is nothing wrong with making a game centered around being a model or whatever the hell, and you could probably make some pretty interesting ones with what are traditionally strong female interests. Just saying that a lot of what has been made is pure and utter dreck.
ravenstine 8y ago
Have you had the same thought about why purses, hand bags, dresses, and floral scents are exclusively marketed to women?
- FussyZeus 8y ago
  Purses, Hand bags: Because women's clothing is atrocious with regard to pockets of usable size. Dresses: Because women traditionally wear dresses, however, you do find Kilts on the man-centered end of the spectrum. Floral scents: I love floral scents and find most scented products intended for male consumption to be ludicrous, insulting to my intelligence, and obvious marketing pandering put up around the same Axe-scented products. Also if you buy tactical bath wipes, you're pathetic until the end of time. There's nothing un-manly about wanting to be freaking CLEAN and smell nice.
  - ravenstine 8y ago
    No, that's not why men don't wear women's clothing. Those are complains women have about their own clothing(and they're right!). Men don't go walking around with hand bags and purses in general, in fact I'd guess 99% of the time. Messenger bags don't count. Yes, there are kilts, but the vast, vast majority of men would never wear kilts casually. I should rephrase that by "without exception", I mean the "vast majority of the time". There's a reason that products marketed specifically towards men feature dull/drab colors and tend not to have floral scents. I don't blame you for how you feel about the products you prefer to use; I happen to buy products from Lush, which have flowery scents that are nose-numbing. Still, I don't think that the vast majority of men would use such products. Then again, if the color of the product was army green and came in bullet casings... maybe.
- zrobotics 8y ago
  https://duckduckgo.com/?q=messenger+bag&t=fpas&iax=images&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?q=messenger+bag&t=fpas&iax=images&ia... Most of these links are targeted towards men (Nordstrom's site even explicitly mentions they are men's). Aside from pattern, how are these not purses marketed to men? And not all floral scents are marketed to women, any auto parts store that stocks air fresheners will have floral scents that I've always considered gender neutral.

watwut 8y ago

Why was this downvoted? If someone disagree with history, it might be better to argue about history.

jerf 8y ago

"I'd love to see some new blood in the industry, and especially to stop feeling cringey when I watch game reveal shows featuring faux-masculinity, booth babes, and the rest of the pandering nonsense." My recommendation is to disconnect from the AAA games industry entirely then, whereupon you'll likely find that there is plenty of new blood in the industry. In fact, the games industry right now is something where it's almost impossible to stand out anymore, because there's so much new blood. Unless you need to play the top shooters, you can leave AAA pretty easily. Maybe at best you dip your toes back in to the Ubisoft Open World Du Jour once it drops to $5 or something.

FussyZeus 8y ago
I pretty much have, to be honest. I still go back for my Halo and Gears of War fixes but that's mostly a nostalgia thing. I've become the indie-shill of my friend group, much to their benefit/chagrin.