Larian Studios - Swen In Search of Women

Edgy said:
Are you guys idiots or are you playing dumb?
To cater to casuals- and the women group among them.
By making the games easier to digest, pubs attempt to lure this demographic to buy their games.
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Casual gamers are obviously a target audience for publishers, though I'd like to know on what you are basing your other assumption: that women = casual. It may have been true in the past, however, I currently know several women who play complex games like D:OS. My girlfriend played it and hated the story and dialogue content, and played it mainly for the combat and loot. Anecdotes are very weak when taken by themselves, and without solid data, I don't think anyone can claim to know anything; people may have assumptions and opinions, but's that's all they are.
 
Edgy said:
Are you guys idiots or are you playing dumb?

Rant rant rant... <deleted>..
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Maybe you hang out with the wrong kind of women. Sure, there are a lot of females who play causual games, so what? I also know many who enjoy challenging games and love RPGs with complex mechanics. Yes, likely not as many as males (for a host of other reasons), but not an insignificant number. I think Swen is right to ask the question.
 
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Edgy said:
Are you guys idiots or are you playing dumb?

Everyone here knows that most people who play hardcore games are guys. Women play causal games like candy crash and other facebook stuff and only a small minority of them play the games you play.
Why? Because they are complex to them. They don't want to invest the time and effort we spend on games. They want to start the game and immediately play it without the hassle of learning how to.

Why the fuck do you think AAA games are so dumb this days?
Why bioware is so foucesed on turning its games to cinematic experiences instead of making them better games?

To cater to casuals- and the women group among them.
By making the games easier to digest, pubs attempt to lure this demographic to buy their games.

Hell, just look at the fan base of tales of series that goes to tales of festival con. Almost all of them are women.
What do they like about the games? The characters, the story, the costumes. Not the battle systems, character growth and other systems related to gameplay, and Namco acknowledge that.

But no, I am just an edgy person therefore my arguments are invaild.
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Let's see tales of series…. do you mean tales of phantasia or perhaps tales of destiny 1/2, or maybe even tales of Eternia ? You mean the games which have bonus dungeons that only the most hardcore of players can complete ( Monsters which will eat your character and cause instant death for example ) , or the 99 floors tower which maybe 1% of the hardcore gamers could complete? Also, it has a lot of tough battles, even for the "normal" player.

Good way to make your point…..
 
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Wisdom said:
Google analytic is the process that tracks everything you do while signed onto anything google. So if you are logged in as Azarhal in rpgwatch but also as Dave Smith on gmail… analytic can tell that a male has visited RPGwatch.com
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Congrats, you did exactly the same thing as Google Analytic, you pegged me as a guy when I'm not (true story, Google Analytic totally believe I am a guy based on the ads I get).

Myrthos linked the page where Google explain how they do it (thanks Myrthos). They basically label websites as having male or female demographic based on content and on their browser history...hoping that users have browser profiles so everyone in the same house aren't counted together.
 
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HiddenX said:
hmmm - Wikipedia:


Judging by the females here on RPGWatch, I can't see a big difference between female and male gamers. Tastes vary.
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It's different. Hardcore female gamers can be as hardcore as any male gamer, but there are far fewer of them.
 
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Remove the "Larian studios" from this thread, and you have a pretty good name for a porn movie. And I sure as hell, am not the only one who first thought of that, here.
So how many women has Swen found yet? That's the real question, we should be asking ourselves here.
 
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Edgy said:
Are you guys idiots or are you playing dumb?

Everyone here knows that most people who play hardcore games are guys. Women play causal games like candy crash and other facebook stuff and only a small minority of them play the games you play.
Why? Because they are complex to them. They don't want to invest the time and effort we spend on games. They want to start the game and immediately play it without the hassle of learning how to.

Why the fuck do you think AAA games are so dumb this days?
Why bioware is so foucesed on turning its games to cinematic experiences instead of making them better games?

To cater to casuals- and the women group among them.
By making the games easier to digest, pubs attempt to lure this demographic to buy their games.

Hell, just look at the fan base of tales of series that goes to tales of festival con. Almost all of them are women.
What do they like about the games? The characters, the story, the costumes. Not the battle systems, character growth and other systems related to gameplay, and Namco acknowledge that.

But no, I am just an edgy person therefore my arguments are invaild.
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I don't think it's that you're edgy, but more that you don't understand how human beings operate.

Being a casual gamer isn't a gender-related concept.

Gaming is a very male-oriented hobby, that's true. That's about culture, not something inherently gender-related.

As such, you're less likely to find women who're heavily into gaming - but you'll still find a LOT more casual male gamers than casual female gamers. Again, because it's a male oriented hobby. Note that I'm not talking about card games or board games (or adaptions of those), but specifically about computer games.

So, if you "dumb it down" - you'll appeal to a much wider audience, and that will naturally include women - but you still won't appeal more to women who're actually into gaming in a non-casual way.

In fact, you'll be pushing both core male and female gamers away - and that's obviously not what Larian want to do here.

If you want to appeal to women specifically, then it's not about dumbing games down - it's about writing engaging female characters that women can relate to and take a personal interest in. It's not rocket science.

The way to get more women to play games is simply to create great games with great characters of both genders. Then it's simply a matter of waiting until the cultural borders get closed down, which is an inevitable outcome.
 
azarhal said:
Congrats, you did exactly the same thing as Google Analytic, you pegged me as a guy when I'm not (true story, Google Analytic totally believe I am a guy based on the ads I get).

Myrthos linked the page where Google explain how they do it (thanks Myrthos). They basically label websites as having male or female demographic based on content and on their browser history…hoping that users have browser profiles so everyone in the same house aren't counted together.
Click to expand...

Its not perfect but it very accurate for all practical purposes...
 
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DArtagnan said:
I don't think it's that you're edgy, but more that you don't understand how human beings operate.

Being a casual gamer isn't a gender-related concept.

Gaming is a very male-oriented hobby, that's true. That's about culture, not something inherently gender-related.

As such, you're less likely to find women who're heavily into gaming - but you'll still find a LOT more casual male gamers than casual female gamers. Again, because it's a male oriented hobby. Note that I'm not talking about card games or board games (or adaptions of those), but specifically about computer games.

So, if you "dumb it down" - you'll appeal to a much wider audience, and that will naturally include women - but you still won't appeal more to women who're actually into gaming in a non-casual way.

In fact, you'll be pushing both core male and female gamers away - and that's obviously not what Larian want to do here.

If you want to appeal to women specifically, then it's not about dumbing games down - it's about writing engaging female characters that women can relate to and take a personal interest in. It's not rocket science.

The way to get more women to play games is simply to create great games with great characters of both genders. Then it's simply a matter of waiting until the cultural borders get closed down, which is an inevitable outcome.
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I agree with what you are saying however games doesn't really need to have a story hence characters, NPC etc. To me games are really about the game system and how you beat that system is what makes games different from books and movies. So the question is, can you create a game which does not have character, story etc and its all about the game system and still attract lot of female players?

From my personal experiences, women are not really interested in the system heavy games. I know *a* woman who is very interested in such systems more than any guy but for just 1 woman like her I know 10 other guys.
 
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lostforever said:
I agree with what you are saying however games doesn't really need to have a story hence characters, NPC etc. To me games are really about the game system and how you beat that system is what makes games different from books and movies. So the question is can you create a game which does not have character, story etc and its all about the game system and still attract lot of female players?
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Have you heard of a game called The Sims?

Again, it's a cultural thing.

Gaming is becoming more and more accepted as popular entertainment.

But males still dominate the industry, because they started the industry and practically invented all the genres. It's hardly a mystery why games still appeal more to males.

That means that the content of the vast majority of games is still created from the perspective of the male psyche, which will obviously appeal more to males.

But it's 100% separate from "complexity" and "depth". Those concepts are NOT gender-related in any way shape or form.

To claim otherwise is to be ignorant of human nature.
 
DArtagnan said:
Have you heard of a game called The Sims?
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Heard of it in passing but never played it. Are you saying its very "system heavy" in that you need to learn lot of abstract rules and stuff to progress?
 
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lostforever said:
Heard of it in passing but never played it. Are you saying its very "system heavy" in that you need to learn lot of abstract rules and stuff to progress?
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Yes, it's very system heavy and "mechanics" driven. Especially the later examples.

It's sort of a like a sandbox RPG/strategy hybrid.
 
As for the expectation that, because you see a girl for every two guys at a social convention, that will be reflected in your gaming audience - that's just plain ignorance. Then again, he admits as much himself.

A social convention related to gaming is ENTIRELY different from actually playing games. People prefer to show up with friends and partners - much like a party. You might as well throw a gaming-related party and expect to see 33% females in your audience, because the guys brought their partners to the party.

I'm surprised this is a surprise.
 
To be honest I'm not going to proclaim what type of games other people like; but I will note that I 'discovered' that my adult sister loved playing games when she sent me a box with mm5-mm7, bg1, bg2 and some adventure games that she had finished. She had played all these and more so they were 'hand me downs'. She doesn't play games any longer due to lack of time but I would never had guessed she was aware of games much less played them.

Btw I never really played rpg until she sent me that box. I was into stuff like starcraft and half-life.
 
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NFLed said:
Thinking that one's own experiences represents the whole is often fraught with invalid conclusions. I do not know if that is the case here but that's what jumped out at me regarding the conclusions based upon individual perceptions in specific situations.
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Yes, indeed - it's one of the most common and problematic errors in the world. "I went to Paris and got mugged. It must be a dangerous place, and I won't go there again."
 
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Have a young cousin, mid-twenties?, and she has a big group of college (grad) girls that play computer games together. I asked on their group last night if any of them have played Sin. So far, I have 12 girls that have replied but none of them have heard of it. Small sample size, but my cousin asked me for a copy of the game and they're going to try it. These girls are all about Skyrim and Dragon Age, some of them have played Skyrim longer than I have.
 
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I didn't expect the watch to be this retarded but apparently I was wrong.
http://developers.magmic.com/demographic-breakdown-casual-mid-core-hard-core-mobile-gamers/
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/17/women-video-games-iab
However the stereotype that female gamers are interested almost exclusively in casual smartphone titles is tested by the data. 47% of female gamers polled had played a disc-based game in the last six months, and 68% had played an online game. 56% of female gamers have played on a console.
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I am not saying that women don't play this kind of games.
I am saying they play the dumbed down ones.
Very few play hardcore games.
Even if it doesn't explicitly mentioned here, you can imagine yourself what disc-based and console games they play.
If you guys really expect to see hordes of females play wasteland 2, PoE or torment you are in for disappointment.

Furthermore, this article validates any other points I made and there are more like this one.
 
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an interesting link of links

https://www.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/2xa9a5/gender_and_computer_game_players_who_seems_to/

Sims - 60% female
Animal Crossing ( New Leaf ) - 56% female
Professor Layton - 51% female
just dance - 53% female
SingStar - 65% female
Candy crush - 65% - 70% female


devil may cry - 78% male
Skyrim - 70% male
GTA - 85% male
Final Fantasy - 65% male
Metal Gear Solid - 78% male
Assassins creed - 81% male
Diablo - 70% male
Command & Conquer - 83% male
minecraft - 67% male
EVE Onlin - 96% male
Dota 2 - 96% male
LoL - 90% male
 
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lostforever said:
an interesting link of links

https://www.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/2xa9a5/gender_and_computer_game_players_who_seems_to/

Sims - 60% female
Animal Crossing ( New Leaf ) - 56% female
Professor Layton - 51% female
just dance - 53% female
SingStar - 65% female
Candy crush - 65% - 70% female


devil may cry - 78% male
Skyrim - 70% male
GTA - 85% male
Final Fantasy - 65% male
Metal Gear Solid - 78% male
Assassins creed - 81% male
Diablo - 70% male
Command & Conquer - 83% male
minecraft - 67% male
EVE Onlin - 96% male
Dota 2 - 96% male
LoL - 90% male
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So outside of PvP only games, it appear that Sven's perceptions is not that wrong.
 
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Edgy said:
I didn't expect the watch to be this retarded but apparently I was wrong.
http://developers.magmic.com/demographic-breakdown-casual-mid-core-hard-core-mobile-gamers/
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/17/women-video-games-iab


I am not saying that women don't play this kind of games.
I am saying they play the dumbed down ones.
Very few play hardcore games.
Even if it doesn't explicitly mentioned here, you can imagine yourself what disc-based and console games they play.
If you guys really expect to see hordes of females play wasteland 2, PoE or torment you are in for disappointment.

Furthermore, this article validates any other points I made and there are more like this one.
Click to expand...

You don't seem to understand what this is about.

I don't think you qualify as a retard, though I guess I might simply not be edgy enough to confuse people who disagree with people who suffer from a mental deficiency.

In any case, if you want to appear convincing - I can highly recommend using rational arguments, instead of repeating that which doesn't really support your claims one way or the other.

Again, women are not "less hardcore" - they're simply in a small minority, which might make them appear less sophisticated overall to people who can't separate the relevant from the irrelevant.

What you're trying to say, I guess, is that because there are so few female gamers - the amount of hardcore female gamers is much smaller - and likely not something you'd notice, especially not when trying to put them into a box small enough to fit in your limited imagination.

Right?

If I pretended to have your ignorant view of human beings, I could claim that women are actually less casual than men - because there are many, many more male casual gamers.

That's the kind of simpleton perspective you seem to promote. But you have to learn to distinguish what's true for the gender as a whole - and what's true for those of the female gender who're into gaming.
 
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