6 ms·

Personally what I find weird about this whole ordeal is that from my many years of interacting with nerdy (or maybe not so nerdy) women who played computer game

Personally what I find weird about this whole ordeal is that from my many years of interacting with nerdy (or maybe not so nerdy) women who played computer games is that there exists one franchise that combines the holy grail of complex gameplay (so it can't be dismissed as another match 3 clone), with insane amount of female appeal, both in the number of hours played and the number of people who play it. And that franchise is The Sims. Despite the fact that there has been a huge industry push in the last 10-15 years to make a game that draws in tons of female players, there has been no new game in the franchise other than the safe but ultimately unambitious Sims 4. I've heard a ton of complaints about players about how much better, more complex and featureful the Sims 3 was (and that game was a glorious mess), and Maxis themselves have acknowledged this. I think there has been a sequel in work at some point in time, that promised to bring back the complexity, which has been cancelled unfortunately. So in a nutshell, despite all the rage around this question, the industry somehow doesn't even make the games that are known to do well with a female audience. Another example would be Stardew Valley, or Undertale, which had a huge female following (and sales to match) but had to come out of the indie scene, because all these super politically progressive AAA gaming companies somehow are worse at making things that appeal to women than either companies that existed before, or random indies coming from outside the professional world.

ecshafer 7mo ago
Animal Crossing would be another game that has a massive female audience from a AAA studio. > Despite the fact that there has been a huge industry push in the last 10-15 years to make a game that draws in tons of female players Ultimately its poor marketing. They want to make Call of Duty and get that audience, but also get girls to play Call of Duty. Instead of making a game with mass appear to both boys and girls.
- bluefirebrand 7mo ago
  > Instead of making a game with mass appear to both boys and girls. Or admitting that there's just no such thing as universal mass appeal
  - ecshafer 7mo ago
    Stardew Valley and Minecraft are probably the closest of any games I have seen that has universal mass appeal. But even they aren't really universal.
    - bluefirebrand 7mo ago
      Not even remotely universal, honestly. They appear to have a reasonably balanced playerbase but that doesn't mean universal at all. Your average COD player doesn't give a rats ass about Stardew Valley, for instance Universal implies more than just 50-50 split between sexes, imo. It's an impossible standard to reach for any consumer product
      - saltcured 7mo ago
        Could you imagine a game mechanic complex enough to have these different audiences participate in the same "universe"? I.e. the FPS players could embody the military forces in a complex society where more RPG players are doing the diplomacy and strategy, others are playing in engaging "home front" social environments, someone is off doing city-planner/factory logistics stuff, etc. There could be some deep-diving, dungeon-crawling sub-games within all these realms, but also more casual modes too. But, crucially, it is all tied together in a unified simulation so that these different player groups are actually steering a coherent story and state space for the shared world. The outcomes of diplomacy, warfare, industry, trade, local social groups, etc. should all have impact on each other.
        lstodd 7mo ago
        It's what Eve Online was in better days.
        Am4TIfIsER0ppos 7mo ago
        The timescale between shooter and strategy layers sounds too great for that to work. Imagine playing Civilization like that. You build and set your army to attack the enemy but then you have to wait for the hour long shooting match in Battlefield to resolve. Sounds as exciting as playing multiplayer Civ where you have to wait for the others to spend as long resolving their turns as you did yours.
TulliusCicero 7mo ago
World of Warcraft has been super successful in its space, and yet Blizzard has failed to make an actual sequel. > Another example would be Stardew Valley, or Undertale, which had a huge female following (and sales to match) but had to come out of the indie scene, because all these super politically progressive AAA gaming companies somehow are worse at making things that appeal to women than either companies that existed before, or random indies coming from outside the professional world. Boomer shooters also came out of the indie space. Survival craft hits? Generally indies. There's plenty of genres that, for whatever reason, have been largely ignored by the biggies.
- nkrisc 7mo ago
  The “sequel” to WoW is already here. Compare modern WoW to the original. It is essentially a sequel, rebooted several times times over.
  - TulliusCicero 7mo ago
    And The Sims 4 has similarly had a multitude of expansions for it, but the GP is still pointing out there's no sequel, hence me bringing up WoW as the obvious point of comparison.
    - MidnightRider39 7mo ago
      The Sims expansions aren’t comparable to WoW expansions - Sims exp are optional addons while WoW exp reinvent the entire game over and over again and aren’t optional. It’s crazy to me that WoW exists but I think there won’t be a WoW 2. But who knows i was wrong about this with StarCraft as well and StarCraft 2 has turned out OK
    - nkrisc 7mo ago
      I’m not even talking about WoW expansions. The game has been so thoroughly modified and improved over the years it is simply not the same game it was at the start, though it retains many familiar elements. Is is essentially a sequel in all but name. Anything they would add in a sequel is just added to the existing game.
ericmcer 7mo ago
Simulation/Sandbox games probably do well because of their open ended nature. My GF, daughter and me all play Stardew Valley but we play it wildly differently. It is a farming/relationship simulator for them and some kind of capitalist min/max farming and mining simulation for me. But yes, the Sims 3 and the 700 add ons are all heavily in their rotation, they make me look like a gaming amateur if you go by hours logged.
- sumtechguy 7mo ago
  My wife plays 'dont starve' like mad (well into 4k hours). She has never step foot in the underworld. Building huge structures on the main area. So I figured I would show her terraria and minecraft. No interest at all. She voraciously played any point and click adventure game she could. That included many hidden object games (good and terrible). There is one Sudoku game she has also several thousand hours into. The match 3 games were amusing to her for a few weeks and she gave up on them. FPS and factory sims are out for her ('they look boring'). So what sticks and doesn't is all over the place.
  - bee_rider 7mo ago
    What about Rimworld or Dwarf Fortress?
    - card_zero 7mo ago
      Don't Starve has a certain point-and-clickiness about it. There's one player character and a lot of noticing objects of interest and clicking to pick them up. That's probably important.
    - sumtechguy 7mo ago
      If I had to guess, I would say no. Also if I had to guess she would say Rimworld is 'too scifi' and Dwarf Fortress would be wildly too much management for what she wants. I showed her Oxygen Not Included. It was too sci fi even though she liked the graphics. I can usually spot games she would like, with an occasional miss. Those two would be surprising if she did. I can usually pick out the ones she would not like. There is even a bugged out game 'tale of a pale swordsman' that she used to play all the time. But I think she has grown tired of that one. As it is bugged out on the ending. Me on the other hand 'yeah I forgot about those two and need to check them out'. My back catalog is quite deep at the moment so I am trying not to buy anything until I play what I got. That is the thing about suggesting games to someone. It is tough to do. Even though you wildly like the game others do not.
password4321 7mo ago
> all these super politically progressive AAA gaming companies somehow are worse Corporate interest is primarily financial, anything beyond that is unfortunately all too often only (financially motivated) virtue signalling.
- TulliusCicero 7mo ago
  I think it's that the biggies are focused on big budget AAA titles that they can sell for $70 or monetize as a FOMO live service, their distinguishing factor compared to indie games is high production values, and they don't feel like they have enough of an advantage in this space, or that they can get enough revenue to justify the huge expenditure of a AAA game. Basically the same reason many other genres (e.g. roguelites) are dominated by little indie studios.
  - bee_rider 7mo ago
    Plus the studios that have become AAA did it because they implemented interesting ideas, limited by their size constraints. The they get scale and lose the size constraints that caused the to go after interesting ideas. The real successor to an old AAA series is the new series made by people who played it as kids.
- torginus 7mo ago
  I'm sure there's a huge incentive in these studios to sell games to women, but women (mostly) aren't buying them. That is despite overwhelming evidence that women play games they do like, and play them a lot. So by greedy capitalist standards, these companies are falling short of what they want to do.
- sapphicsnail 7mo ago
  The parent pointed out that there are financially successful games targeted at women that AAA studios won't make. Corporations are made up of people who have their own biases. I know so many people who would kill for a more modern Sims game.
  - 7mo ago
CobrastanJorji 7mo ago
The Sims 4 continues to mint money. It came out in 2014, but they've released expansion packs for it every year since then. The latest one came out last month. It costs $40. They've sold tens of millions of these expansion packs over the years. I agree that it is weird that there hasn't been a AAA attempt to unseat it. You'd think that it'd be a safer bet than yet another hero shooter.
t-3 7mo ago
I think the real problem is "AAA". AAA games and consoles/gaming computers are expensive and rely heavily on marketing tech-specs and graphics for their appeal. These games usually don't innovate much in gameplay, design, or aesthetics. They are just the same game as last year with higher resolution and more jiggling. With marketing and design culture being male-oriented as discussed in TFA, the studios making AAAs don't/won't have the confidence to make new kinds of games, because they haven't yet identified an archetype that can be sold repeatedly.
socalgal2 7mo ago
If you want girl games, make them. Don't expect others to make them for you. Asking for AAA game studios to make something else is like asking a pizza shop to start making burritos. Sure, you can ask. But really, you should just make your own rather than trying to convince someone else to do it for you.
- grantith 7mo ago
  They're not asking for anything, they're pointing out a thought provoking observation.
fragmede 7mo ago
> (so it can't be dismissed as another match 3 clone) As a "serious" gamer, dismissing (and other dismissable games like smartphone Monopoly) makes sense, but if the topic is "girl games", dismissing them is a mistake. I don't have official stats, but based on women around me, they're very popular, with several saying they're addicted to it/them. So what if they're not Baldurs Gate 3 or Stardew Valley. While we want a depth of discourse deeper than "make GTA6 but in pink" in order to actually appeal to women, leaving out a popular genre with women as Ann address of study because they're insufficient complex while trying to study that area seems shortsighted.
worik 7mo ago
> my many years of interacting with nerdy (or maybe not so nerdy) women who played computer games You have a particular experience. I am not a girl, I do not play games. The women I know who play games, none play games like that.
- sapphicsnail 7mo ago
  Me and my friends do. Everyone is different but there are patterns.

ecshafer 7mo ago

Animal Crossing would be another game that has a massive female audience from a AAA studio. > Despite the fact that there has been a huge industry push in the last 10-15 years to make a game that draws in tons of female players Ultimately its poor marketing. They want to make Call of Duty and get that audience, but also get girls to play Call of Duty. Instead of making a game with mass appear to both boys and girls.

bluefirebrand 7mo ago
> Instead of making a game with mass appear to both boys and girls. Or admitting that there's just no such thing as universal mass appeal
- ecshafer 7mo ago
  Stardew Valley and Minecraft are probably the closest of any games I have seen that has universal mass appeal. But even they aren't really universal.
  - bluefirebrand 7mo ago
    Not even remotely universal, honestly. They appear to have a reasonably balanced playerbase but that doesn't mean universal at all. Your average COD player doesn't give a rats ass about Stardew Valley, for instance Universal implies more than just 50-50 split between sexes, imo. It's an impossible standard to reach for any consumer product
    - saltcured 7mo ago
      Could you imagine a game mechanic complex enough to have these different audiences participate in the same "universe"? I.e. the FPS players could embody the military forces in a complex society where more RPG players are doing the diplomacy and strategy, others are playing in engaging "home front" social environments, someone is off doing city-planner/factory logistics stuff, etc. There could be some deep-diving, dungeon-crawling sub-games within all these realms, but also more casual modes too. But, crucially, it is all tied together in a unified simulation so that these different player groups are actually steering a coherent story and state space for the shared world. The outcomes of diplomacy, warfare, industry, trade, local social groups, etc. should all have impact on each other.
      - lstodd 7mo ago
        It's what Eve Online was in better days.
      - Am4TIfIsER0ppos 7mo ago
        The timescale between shooter and strategy layers sounds too great for that to work. Imagine playing Civilization like that. You build and set your army to attack the enemy but then you have to wait for the hour long shooting match in Battlefield to resolve. Sounds as exciting as playing multiplayer Civ where you have to wait for the others to spend as long resolving their turns as you did yours.

TulliusCicero 7mo ago

World of Warcraft has been super successful in its space, and yet Blizzard has failed to make an actual sequel. > Another example would be Stardew Valley, or Undertale, which had a huge female following (and sales to match) but had to come out of the indie scene, because all these super politically progressive AAA gaming companies somehow are worse at making things that appeal to women than either companies that existed before, or random indies coming from outside the professional world. Boomer shooters also came out of the indie space. Survival craft hits? Generally indies. There's plenty of genres that, for whatever reason, have been largely ignored by the biggies.

nkrisc 7mo ago
The “sequel” to WoW is already here. Compare modern WoW to the original. It is essentially a sequel, rebooted several times times over.
- TulliusCicero 7mo ago
  And The Sims 4 has similarly had a multitude of expansions for it, but the GP is still pointing out there's no sequel, hence me bringing up WoW as the obvious point of comparison.
  - MidnightRider39 7mo ago
    The Sims expansions aren’t comparable to WoW expansions - Sims exp are optional addons while WoW exp reinvent the entire game over and over again and aren’t optional. It’s crazy to me that WoW exists but I think there won’t be a WoW 2. But who knows i was wrong about this with StarCraft as well and StarCraft 2 has turned out OK
  - nkrisc 7mo ago
    I’m not even talking about WoW expansions. The game has been so thoroughly modified and improved over the years it is simply not the same game it was at the start, though it retains many familiar elements. Is is essentially a sequel in all but name. Anything they would add in a sequel is just added to the existing game.

ericmcer 7mo ago

Simulation/Sandbox games probably do well because of their open ended nature. My GF, daughter and me all play Stardew Valley but we play it wildly differently. It is a farming/relationship simulator for them and some kind of capitalist min/max farming and mining simulation for me. But yes, the Sims 3 and the 700 add ons are all heavily in their rotation, they make me look like a gaming amateur if you go by hours logged.

sumtechguy 7mo ago
My wife plays 'dont starve' like mad (well into 4k hours). She has never step foot in the underworld. Building huge structures on the main area. So I figured I would show her terraria and minecraft. No interest at all. She voraciously played any point and click adventure game she could. That included many hidden object games (good and terrible). There is one Sudoku game she has also several thousand hours into. The match 3 games were amusing to her for a few weeks and she gave up on them. FPS and factory sims are out for her ('they look boring'). So what sticks and doesn't is all over the place.
- bee_rider 7mo ago
  What about Rimworld or Dwarf Fortress?
  - card_zero 7mo ago
    Don't Starve has a certain point-and-clickiness about it. There's one player character and a lot of noticing objects of interest and clicking to pick them up. That's probably important.
  - sumtechguy 7mo ago
    If I had to guess, I would say no. Also if I had to guess she would say Rimworld is 'too scifi' and Dwarf Fortress would be wildly too much management for what she wants. I showed her Oxygen Not Included. It was too sci fi even though she liked the graphics. I can usually spot games she would like, with an occasional miss. Those two would be surprising if she did. I can usually pick out the ones she would not like. There is even a bugged out game 'tale of a pale swordsman' that she used to play all the time. But I think she has grown tired of that one. As it is bugged out on the ending. Me on the other hand 'yeah I forgot about those two and need to check them out'. My back catalog is quite deep at the moment so I am trying not to buy anything until I play what I got. That is the thing about suggesting games to someone. It is tough to do. Even though you wildly like the game others do not.

password4321 7mo ago

> all these super politically progressive AAA gaming companies somehow are worse Corporate interest is primarily financial, anything beyond that is unfortunately all too often only (financially motivated) virtue signalling.

TulliusCicero 7mo ago
I think it's that the biggies are focused on big budget AAA titles that they can sell for $70 or monetize as a FOMO live service, their distinguishing factor compared to indie games is high production values, and they don't feel like they have enough of an advantage in this space, or that they can get enough revenue to justify the huge expenditure of a AAA game. Basically the same reason many other genres (e.g. roguelites) are dominated by little indie studios.
- bee_rider 7mo ago
  Plus the studios that have become AAA did it because they implemented interesting ideas, limited by their size constraints. The they get scale and lose the size constraints that caused the to go after interesting ideas. The real successor to an old AAA series is the new series made by people who played it as kids.
torginus 7mo ago
I'm sure there's a huge incentive in these studios to sell games to women, but women (mostly) aren't buying them. That is despite overwhelming evidence that women play games they do like, and play them a lot. So by greedy capitalist standards, these companies are falling short of what they want to do.
sapphicsnail 7mo ago
The parent pointed out that there are financially successful games targeted at women that AAA studios won't make. Corporations are made up of people who have their own biases. I know so many people who would kill for a more modern Sims game.
- 7mo ago

CobrastanJorji 7mo ago

The Sims 4 continues to mint money. It came out in 2014, but they've released expansion packs for it every year since then. The latest one came out last month. It costs $40. They've sold tens of millions of these expansion packs over the years. I agree that it is weird that there hasn't been a AAA attempt to unseat it. You'd think that it'd be a safer bet than yet another hero shooter.

t-3 7mo ago

I think the real problem is "AAA". AAA games and consoles/gaming computers are expensive and rely heavily on marketing tech-specs and graphics for their appeal. These games usually don't innovate much in gameplay, design, or aesthetics. They are just the same game as last year with higher resolution and more jiggling. With marketing and design culture being male-oriented as discussed in TFA, the studios making AAAs don't/won't have the confidence to make new kinds of games, because they haven't yet identified an archetype that can be sold repeatedly.

socalgal2 7mo ago

If you want girl games, make them. Don't expect others to make them for you. Asking for AAA game studios to make something else is like asking a pizza shop to start making burritos. Sure, you can ask. But really, you should just make your own rather than trying to convince someone else to do it for you.

grantith 7mo ago
They're not asking for anything, they're pointing out a thought provoking observation.

fragmede 7mo ago

> (so it can't be dismissed as another match 3 clone) As a "serious" gamer, dismissing (and other dismissable games like smartphone Monopoly) makes sense, but if the topic is "girl games", dismissing them is a mistake. I don't have official stats, but based on women around me, they're very popular, with several saying they're addicted to it/them. So what if they're not Baldurs Gate 3 or Stardew Valley. While we want a depth of discourse deeper than "make GTA6 but in pink" in order to actually appeal to women, leaving out a popular genre with women as Ann address of study because they're insufficient complex while trying to study that area seems shortsighted.

worik 7mo ago

> my many years of interacting with nerdy (or maybe not so nerdy) women who played computer games You have a particular experience. I am not a girl, I do not play games. The women I know who play games, none play games like that.

sapphicsnail 7mo ago
Me and my friends do. Everyone is different but there are patterns.