I'm trying to do some light research on what kind of games women/families play.

Anyone got any idea's about the kind of titles that might appeal to women? or to the family market?

Its hard to think of a game thats not either too simplistic or too patronising.

Sim games? I guess kids would get tired/bored pretty quickly of those, but they'd maybe appeal to the female market.

Any thoughts?

.Z.

Well, it's harder to speak for all women than it is for "family-friendly" stuff, which has some obvious general guidelines.

Obviously, there are women who enjoy all kinds of games - but yes, sim-oriented things do seem to sell better with the female market.

Taking *any* kind of game and making the PC female without being overly sexualised may rate you coverage on women's gaming sites.

However, any suggestions I make are likely to be heavily flavored by the kind of games *I* want to play. That would be: No 3d environments, my spatial orientation is crap. Action-puzzles over mindless, relentless action - my reflexes are good enough for a *96 in Super Mario World but anything that was constant punching/shooting can get boring or unfun depending on the difficulty. Storylines with characters that can be identified with - some emotional investment in the game.

Hrm... Of course, a lot of women devour romance novels. If you can figure out precisely what it *is* about romance novels that makes them read piles and piles of these things and translate that appeal into games... :)

This whitepaper on designing games for kids from a GDC 2003 roundtable might interest you:
http://www.gdconf.com/archives/2003/kahn_ken.doc

Someone from my IGDA chapter said there was also a GDC roundtable on game design that went into what types of games women like to play, but I can't seem to find a paper on the gdconf site that sounds like it was from that roundtable.

I designed and built kid and family CD-ROM games for many years. A lot of the same basic game design principles apply as for a 'gamers' game, but the priorities shift.

Some keys to keep in mind:

- Let the player win. What I mean by this is, use positive reinforcement rather than negative reinforcement. Rather than have a character die or end a round when the player makes a mistake, give them a reward for finishing the round (maybe a bonus round or more points or whatever). Every educational consultant I've met has this at the top of their list.

- No learning curve. Many of my games I made were for kids that couldn't read yet. So, no instructions can be required. The game should just make sense. (We always put instructions in for the parents, because they wanted to be able to tell their kids how to play, even though we tested to be sure the kids didn't really need it.)

- Creativity and simulation games do very well in the kid, female, and family market. The replayability that these two kinds of activities provide is great. Also, the player sees the direct results from their actions: a picture they created, a zoo they built and managed, a roller coaster they created.

- Short play sessions. Don't design a game that requires long play sessions. Kids, by their nature (and because they are often taking turns at the computer) need to be able to play a satisfying game in about 15 minutes.

- Don't design anything that requires great hand-eye-coordination. Most of your players won't be good enough to enjoy the game.

- Use simple mouse controls. The minute you make the player take their hand off the mouse, you are asking for trouble. It can be done, but be careful.

I'm sure I'm forgetting a few, but this is a start.

Does this list look familiar? It is most of the same principles that apply to making your game accessible to the casual game market. No accident here, the casual game market includes those same Moms and Dads we've been working with before, only now we're targeting them, not their kids with our casual games.

Oh, and one interesting misconception about making games for kids: The interfaces are made very simple, not because the kids need it, it's for the parents. I've tested this extensively. You can give a kid a crappy (not my suggestion, just a test) interface to a game and they will click on everything and bang around until they make the game work. Mom and Dad aren't nearly as willing to do this. Mom and Dad can get very frustrated if they can't quickly figure out the game immediately. The kid, due to their lack of fear of doing something wrong, and open minded explorative mindset, will just click and poke at the game until they find something they are interested in.

I hope this helps.

very usefull post thanks, I dont do kids games, but I do try to make my games as appealing as possible to the non traditional gamer.

My mother bought a little handheld with 100 old NES games on it just for her to play a while back. (She's just a casual games player btw), And I was interested in finding out the games that appealed to her. She mostly played "Bomberman" and "LodeRunner" (which she also both finished btw), and a game i think was called "Jewel Tetris" (you know, the old tetris-like game with blocks (jewels) with three different colours on each). She told me that she likes games that dont require a lot of fast reactions or complicated moves, or excessive violence ..

I also think that women players like interesting and/or funny game characters .. and i think this is an important point from watching other females in my family play games ..

Just my 2c.
Later

I think targetting gameplay towards non-casual gamers (males) and casual gamers (anyone) comes down to a simple concept.

Non-casual gamers will play games that make them feel "badass" if they are good at that game. For anyone else, the game really must tell the player that "if you play this game you have fun".

Males can find fun in "badass" challenges, but I haven't seen many girls that do. Think about the older breed of games. Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Ghouls and Ghosts... most older games were freakishly hard, often without much fun by itself. Pac-Man isn't fun in any way other than the challenge factor, at least thats how I see it. This sort of illustrates how some males can find the pure challenge fun by itself. Additionally, considering how many people play games today compared to some years ago leads to the idea that too challenging games are the opposite of what mainstream (and especially casual) gamers like.

Mainstream, casual, families... they all want fun in the broadest term possible. Trying a level over and over and over again is only for the especially patient, the non-casual gamer. Playing a level that is fun, is fun for everyone.

Sure I am saying the absolute simplest of things here, that "fun" is fun, but it is true more than anything else in the business of games.

... older breed?

Sorry, but on the "My Mom" scale of gaming, My Mom was a *lot* more likely to play Pac-Man than most modern games. :) She did play pac-man occasionally... she played the Turbo Racing game that was the only thing my coleco had a steering wheel for and I completely couldn't figure out how to play, and she was a Ladybug freak - I found Ladybug a bit dull, but for some reason she would get into it. Woke me up in the middle of the night once to tell me she'd gotten to a new vegetable.

My mom is not a gamer. She will never seek out a game on her own. However, I can see her trying the PopCap type game if she wandered by the computer when someone else was playing it and was then offered a go. She would never play a bloody shooter/fighter or an adventure game - opposed to random violence, and not interested in anything that would require much time and effort to get into.

My mom does crosswords. I don't really see the fun in crosswords. :)

Anyway, the point of all that is that the gaming market shifted... games started being marketed more with big guns, gore, and breasts... most girls began to equate video/computer games with boys' toys...

My mom could probably have a lot of fun with today's small puzzle games. But I don't think she knows about them... I don't think she'd ever choose to go looking for them, because she probably associates "computer games" with Tomb Raider and Diablo.

The question is, how do you *reach* the no-longer-a-child non-gamer market? If you make a game pitched at young girls, you have a chance of a desperate parent snatching it up when trying to find some "appropriate" entertainment for his/her daughter. Not so easy when they're shopping for themselves and don't know you and your kind of games exist... we can't all get Yahoo to put a mini-screenshot of our games on their front page for attention. :)


(Tangent: I had a computer version once of... Super Pac-Man, I think it was called. One where pac-man blew up to huge size after eating a certain kind of pellet. It was too easy. I played a ridiculous number of levels in a row, racking up a high score, before suddenly pausing - "Wait. This is COMPLETELY BORING." and putting the disk back in its sleeve and never playing it ever again. Do I pass or fail the badass test? :) )

My mother has been hooked on Theme Hospital for a long time now. The interesting thing is, she's not really interested in completing the 'required goals' that allow you to move on to the next 'level'. Shes more interested in watching the little people get cured by the 'amazing machines' as she puts it, and building rooms and hiring staff. Also, if I try and tell her that shes doing things wrong she informs me that its not her fault, but that the "silly little doctors aren't doing their jobs properly" :)

She used to play Theme Park a lot too. Although, once again, she wasn't interested in the 'game challenge' part of it. The first thing she would do was to type in the cheat codes to get loads of cash so that she could play exactly how she wanted.

When I play these games, I'm always trying to figure out how I can meet the objectives more efficiently, or I'm working towards completing the 'level'. Mum doesn't think like that. She just wants to see the little people being happy and watch the cool animations. Maybe its because she's a Mum, maybe because shes a woman, who knows. Maybe its just because shes not a 20-something year old male like I am.

Ooh, a hospital sim! (bounces off to download demo)

I wonder if they tried marketing that through soap opera fansites... "Love General Hospital? Run your own!"

Furthermore...

My wife just read my post about my Mum cheating at Theme Park and exclaimed "Thats what I would do too!".

So there you go... :)

A little bit of psychology can help with this particular product idea.

I realise there are plenty of exceptions to the following, and it's very general but it's just to give you an idea :)

As some of you have noticed, men want to complete the tasks as efficiently as possiblem, whereas women want to look at what's going on and aren't really concerned with completing the goals.

Look at the popular women's programs - soap operas. It's the perfect chance to look at social interaction between the characters, which is the major interest.

Notice how popular The Sims is with women gamers? It's not about the task (as it is with male dominated genres), but about the "people" and what's happening.

Hopefully that should help you along the way :)

Oddly enough I just received a once-every-so-often-with-no-regularity-whatsoever newsletter from PC Format which loosely addresses this topic. Not sure I would agree with the writer being a stereotypical female gamer, and also bear in mind that its a commercial-games magazine (though it does include some shareware and indie stuff on its cover disks) Anyway, just thought I'd post the article here and will let you draw what conclusions you want from it.

-Z-

The lure of sweating crowds, maudlin middle aged men with guitars and being massaged by a burly hairy woman that smells vaguely of incense has proved too much for the staff of PC Format - with all but a jealous, weary looking Geoff having bolted from the stable in the direction of Glastonbury, it's left down to me to see that your trusty newsletter makes it to your inbox. Crushed under the weight of the team's work, Geoff's final breath muttered something about writing about women and gaming then promptly collapsed. With no volunteers to give mouth to mouth, or even shift the corpse, I begin.

On my arrival in the PC Format office a few months ago, Alec Meer made a sweeping but popularly believed statement - 'Not many girls dig games.' Profound, but possibly untrue. According to the Interactive Digital Software Association (ISDA), women make up 43% of PC gamers and 35% of console gamers - much less of a minority than anticipated. It's not to say that it is widely believed that women are still chained to the kitchen sink - only that very few of them are wielding their joysticks (ahem) with pride.

Video gaming is a notoriously male dominated place - game developers play it safe by targeting the young male audience and citing their needs as overdeveloped bosoms and gratuitous violence. There's no need to develop games 'for women' - trying to assess what women want in games is only likely to lead to BakeQuest and Shoe Tycoon... like the rest of the game playing public, we're all happy with 'good games'.

Online gaming communities have been known to exhibit various types of hostility towards women by either excluding them on account of gender or pitying them and 'letting them win for once'. So why on earth would a girl go near a computer game anyway?

This is a prime opportunity to reminisce on my first digitised love - Donkey Kong. Confined to a tiny LCD screen, I lovingly grasped the orange plastic unit and played until my chubby childish thumbs were raw. Things only got better in the glorious 256 colours of my monitor and I became gradually infatuated with playing games. It never crossed my mind that these were 'boy toys'.

The world of girls who play games is shrouded in mystery - are they all 13, lying or bizarre, bug eyed inbreeds? More importantly, does it matter? Judge a man (or woman) only by their frag count. Amongst the thousands of copies of PC Format that disappear from the shelves, we are confident that many of them are scooped up my women (other than our very proud mothers) and they lovingly read every page, be it publicly or privately.

Fortunately, the world of IT journalism is much friendlier and has allowed me to become a slightly more permanent fixture here at PC Format - despite one of the first questions as I entered the office...

"Are you alright using a PC?"

Anyway, I best get down off my preaching soap box before the sweaty hoards return and demand I return to scrubbing the loos with my toothbrush...

Kelly-Marie Dudley

You may not believe it, but "Barbie videogame" sold over 500.000 copies a couple of years ago.
So speaking about money, making a game for a girl is more rewarding than one for a woman.
In general a game for a woman should stimulate her curiosity: as we all know, woman=curious being :D

the first thing my wife does when she starts up the sims is types rosebud a hundred times to get infinite cash to fund her rennovation schemes, all the little people are named after (and look somewhat like) people she knows.

Originally posted by slide
the first thing my wife does when she starts up the sims is types rosebud a hundred times to get infinite cash to fund her rennovation schemes, all the little people are named after (and look somewhat like) people she knows. That's strage, I did the same thing too. Does that mean I think like a woman? :confused:
heh

Originally posted by Jake Stine
That's strage, I did the same thing too. Does that mean I think like a woman? :confused:
heh

http://www.thespark.com/gendertest/

Then you can be sure (99% or so) ;).

Nintendos Animal Crossing is ( I hear ) very popular with women. Ive not seen it yet due to Nintendos ignoring of europe, but it sure could give us a few more clues as to what women like in games generaly.
I must say, this is a damn interesting topic!
From the posts up to now, it seems the girls enjoy simply Being ... existing, seeing.
The guys always want to be Doing something ... always on the way to something else. Improving. Optimising.

papillon & Duncan's comments about thier moms gaming 'techinques' makes brilliant reading, and has made me a little less ignorant now than I was 5 minutes ago!! :)

I never gave girl gamers a second thought.... I think I may have to reconsider!

It's easy to get Freeloader and import Animal Crossing, I have a friend who did and is hooked.. he's a guy though :)

Originally posted by oNyx
http://www.thespark.com/gendertest/

Then you can be sure (99% or so) ;).

Blah it was 86% sure I was a woman, the whole test is retarded.

Two words: EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT

Women tend to sympathize more with their onscreen avatars and the other characters they interact with. The reason that games like The Sims and Animal Crossing are so popular with female gamers could be because of the emotional bond that is formed between the player and her character.

Another aspect that these games present for the female gamer could be the ability to help another being out. For example, in real life if one where to take a poll of elementary teachers one would probably find out that the amount of female teachers would greatly outweigh the number of male teachers. I know that in the area I live in this holds true.

A third aspect that tends to draw in female gamers is social interaction. Games that contain some form of chat system or other form of interaction with other characters are more likely to attract the female gamer.

With that being said, IMHO games that focus on creating an emotional attachment with the characters, upon the ability to help others, and social interaction would attract more female players than one that doesn't.

I sat down with my wife for about an hour and talked about this. I said - what kind of game would you really like to play? And she immediately began to describe to me something that was pretty cool - it was a game where you design and decorate a house - kinda like Trading Spaces meets The Sims. You'd have objectives- like where each piece of furniture has a value, and can add to or detract from the overall score of the house depending on if it "goes" with the others.

She said that while the goals would be fun, she'd really just enjoy creating houses and decorating them and then sharing that with her friends...

Dunno if that equals a game, but I'm convinced there's something of a worthy idea in there.

Triptych,

You should buy your wife a Gamecube and AnimalCrossing. It has similar gameplay. You have to decorate your house, and match colors so it fits according to feng shui. You can also trade items with your friends...etc.

John

triptych,

Thats a great idea...
You got something there...let me know if you ever pursue it...or maybe I will ;)

Alex

similar idea once occurred to my other half when we were talking about MMORPGs and the house/collector/decorator issues (Ultima Online specifically, but I suspect other games have similar things)... he suggested that the game be set up so that wizards had towers and got power bonuses depending on how well they decorated said tower. Croaking raven over door, two points. Stuffed alligator hanging from ceiling, one point. Pentagram made out of red cloth piles, five points, etc. :)

There has been done quite a many studies on this subject. I was in one seminar where the topic was about women playing. It can be said that women "like to play game with horses or like to decorate or what so ever" but mainly the young women (or girls) were usually playing something very simple like solitaire (or minesweeper) and they wanted to play very little time per day.

And basically this number was going down when more age come. Older women played even less time.

Girls argumented this with sentences like this:
-Why should I play?
-I got better things to do
-Naah, playing is stupid.

As this may sound very naive but the fact is that answer to question why boys play and girls don't is: "girls are girls and boys are boys" :)

*glares at Morphecy*

See, here's the other problem. A lot of women are *touchy* about the gender thing - self obviously occasionally included. :)

I was talking about this on another board... You can blatantly market something as being "for men" or even "for real men" and many guys will line up and cheer and try to show off how macho they are. But if you try to market a game specifically "for women", you're likely to make a lot of people suspicious and annoyed. "Oh, are you saying that I'm not a real woman if I don't like your game about baking? WHAT DO YOU THINK WOMEN ARE?" (insert frothing rant and legion of websites screaming about what a sexist you are).

Not to say that men aren't occasionally irked at having blood-guns-and-breasts shoved at them and told that this is what REAL MEN like to play with, but they tend to be more quiet about complaining. Also, this point doesn't hold for the under-14's. Younger girls tend to be happy to wear pink-flowers-with-glitter and scream about "Girl Power!"

Originally posted by triptych
I sat down with my wife for about an hour and talked about this. I said - what kind of game would you really like to play? And she immediately began to describe to me something that was pretty cool - it was a game where you design and decorate a house - kinda like Trading Spaces meets The Sims. You'd have objectives- like where each piece of furniture has a value, and can add to or detract from the overall score of the house depending on if it "goes" with the others.

Actually, this is how The Sims started. Will Wright wanted to make a game based on how a room's layout affected people. You can still see the remains of that idea in the room score used in The Sims. So, I guess WW decided there wasn't enough of a game there, but maybe there is?

I think it points out a fundamental difference in the "favorite" way different people play games. I think that when women (and men, though not the 'primary desire') want to play a game - it's do be able to do something that you cannot do in everyday life - or to do something that you might do in everyday life, only faster, better, or with your friends.

Here's another game idea we talked about - just to give you another idea :)

Imagine a game where you playfully assume the role of a "secret agent" in your household. You go on the web and recieve "assignments" from another person in your group which represent missions for you to accomplish during the day. These could be mundane tasks like "clean out the corner of the house you never touch" or "make plans to take a night class" or even something as simple as "take the car to get oil changed" - the idea being to get you to do the tasks you normally think drear or boring, get turned into "missions" that you enjoy because you can report back and gain benefits for completing them. She is already doing this in an improptu fashion with her friends, and they are not only finding it fun, but rather addicting. I could imagine some online site that might facilitate this idea of being a "secret agent" and completing "missions" with your friends.

Anyway - does anyone know how well that Purple Moon Software company did? It seems like they tried so hard to reach out to what girls might want to do in a game, but they weren't all that successful?

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/tech/WiredWomen/wiredwomen990309.html

I think that by and large games can be designed to appeal to everyone - not just some segment - but that perhaps some research into the "dominant" desires of women vs men might actually tap into something that, before now has been way overlooked in current games.