Girls & Games
I came across this post in my internet wanderings while I was trying to find out what percentage of players of The Sims 2 were female (about 60 or 65 percent, by the way), and it got me thinking. What draws the female audience to games like The Sims? What qualities could a game have that attracts women in general?
I’m in agreement with Ms. Knight that games can be made to cater to a wide female audience without having to be “pink” games that nobody with a penis would be caught dead with, and that women who are potential gamers are a market widely untapped by the industry. And the differences in the way these games were made could be a lot more subtle than the hammer-hitting done by the toy industry:
I’ve always been what I consider to be a feminist, but I was turned off to it for a while in high school when I found out that it can also involve a lot of screeching and the annoying denial of any innate differences whatsoever between men and women. A while ago, however, I came back to it, determined to find a more reasonable way to believe in rights and respect for women. My sister, who went through the same process, calls this “born-again feminism.” I think that young women of my generation (and the generations to come) are going to learn to stand up for themselves without being shrill. In many ways, they already have. And hopefully, the games the corporate world is trying to aim at us will highlight the ways men and women can communicate with one another and not rely on further division between us.
I Love Fantasy, Except for Most of It
It would seem that the fantasy genre and a lack of originality should be diametrically opposed, but in my opinion they too often go hand-in-hand. By “the fantasy genre,” I mean that style of storytelling, whether through games or movies or literature, that transports the player/audience/reader into a world that departs dramatically from what we consider to be normal in our day-to-day realities. Thus, my definition of fantasy includes science fiction and surrealism, although these are also both distinct genres of their own. But personally, my main interest lies in “historical” or “classical” fantasy, the kind that takes its cue from human myth and the ancient world, the kind involving adventures and princesses and copious amounts of swords and sorcery.
This is my favorite type of fantasy, and it is also the type most likely to be derivative and uninspired.
We created a unique fantasy world, so our elves and orcs are slightly different from everyone else's.
You might ask why, if it is so often poorly done, it remains my favorite genre. To be honest, I can’t fully explain it myself. There is simply something about quasi-medieval settings that causes my heart to skip a beat. Something about the short, brutal, struggling lives most people led back then. Something about entire societies of people up to their necks in mud, superstition and cultural imperative, yet slogging onward towards hope and progress. In this way my vision of medieval fantasy more closely matches the interpretation of Terry Gilliam than it does that of J.R.R. Tolkien, which is odd considering that the latter is the template the entire genre is built on.
Must be a king, he hasn't got shit all over him.
Unfortunately, Terry Gilliam’s medieval fantasies are among few that I consider to be truly original. Movies and video games, especially, are guilty of simply reiterating the worlds of Lord of the Rings or its offshoot, D&D, over and over again. Don’t get me wrong, I love both those worlds, and gladly acknowledge that LotR practically invented the fantasy genre as we know it. But a continued reliance on classics at the expense of fresh ideas is weakening the genre overall.
