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Is there any non-anecdotal evidence that marketing has anywhere near the power this article ascribes to it? I think you're overstating how much power the artic
by alex_c 13y ago
Is there any non-anecdotal evidence that marketing has anywhere near the power this article ascribes to it?
I think you're overstating how much power the article ascribes to marketing.
The article makes two arguments:
1) Video games being mostly "male" is a feedback loop of marketing (targeting) and product design, amplified by most of the industry being male. It's not that marketing has overnight caused everyone to decide that video games are for boys: it's that video games designed for boys are marketed to boys, sell well, and lead to more games for boys being produced and marketed.
2) Video games are not as "male" as we think, but video games that do not fit the stereotypical mold - The Sims, Farmville, casual games - are dismissed as "not real video games". The reasons for this are complex and the article does not go into them (that would be an essay in itself). Marketing is certainly part of it, but far from the only factor.
You're doing a big disservice to a great article by reducing it to something it does not claim. It's a bit unfortunate that this simplification is influencing so much of the discussion here (not attacking you, it's just a property of ranked threaded discussions).
- gcb0 13y agoNo, the article just stirs a lot of empty fox news style outages. First makes you feel bad because there are a girls toy section. Then right away tries to make you feel bad because there isn't one game girls section. Anyone with half a brain would notice this paradoxical trolling and ignore this article. The fact it has so many votes is scaring. Nobody reads anymore.
- mindcrime 13y agoThe fact it has so many votes is scaring. Nobody reads anymore. Votes don't necessarily mean "I read this article and agree with every word in it" or even anything close to that. In fact, as ill-defined as the semantics for voting are, a vote could just as easily mean "I read this article and disagree with almost everything in it, but I think this is a topic that is worthy of discussion so I'm upvoting it", or even "The headline sounds interesting, and since 'upvote' and 'save' are the same thing on HN, I'm upvoting this so I can find it to read later".
- alex_c 13y agoYou... missed the point of the article so completely that I don't even know where to start. That, or you're trolling.
- newnewnew 13y agoFeminist link-bait is popular nowadays.