[casual_games] Why We Need Women

[Dave Walls]

Based on my experience with Casual Games, having one of these "females",
hell a bunch of 'em, on a team is an amazingly good thing. So much so, I
sometimes don't even like to bring it up to those who don't have a solid
female perspective on their team, as I don't want to share what I feel is a
huge competitive advantage.
 
I tend to think that high production values, polish, etc are actually the
easy things, just time, money and talent, while getting the correct
perspective into the audience that tends to be 'not us', getting a game to
have right feel that really connects with the true audience exactly, that is
the harder part... 
 
So having a team, or at very least advisors, for a game, comprised of
females, non-gamers, kids, crazy old people... anyone who is not "a guy who
loves games, been playing and making them for years and has completed every
Zelda game ever made" is a very good thing when making a happy fun casual
game designed to appeal to everyone and can greatly help you target the
experience of your game.
 
Cheers everyone,
 
Dave 
 
 


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From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org [mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org]
On Behalf Of Hugh de Loayza
Sent: Friday, January 12, 2007 12:07 AM
To: IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List
Subject: Re: [casual_games] Why We Need Women


Rarely, if ever do I post to his but  Joel's rabble rousing tactics worked.
So what the heck tonight. 
 
I have to agree with James here that the success of a casual game is based
on how much "fun" you make it for Everyone and that has nothing to do with
gender. This comes from the teams who apply the right level of polish to the
core mechanics and spend the time to focus on the dramatic highlights at key
points in the experience.
 
If you look at the games industry as a whole (PC, Console, etc.) you will
see that an abnormally large portion of the members of the teams building
games targeted at men are men. And if you look at the history of those games
very, very few are runaway hits even though the people who are making them
are part of the core demographic and have spent time in "the trenches". 
 
I am all for women working in the biz and have had many of them on my teams,
but at the end of the day the success of the game is based on everyone's
passion for great design, mechanics and polish.
 
Man, that rabble rousing gets me every time.
 
Hugh
 


James Gwertzman <james at popcap.com> wrote:

What prompted the editorial, Joel? Trying to rabble rouse? :)

It's not like this isn't a topic that already gets a lot of attention.
I've seen it discussed at every single game development conference I've
ever attended, and the IGDA even has an entire SIG dedicated to it
("Women in Game Development"). 

Frankly I don't think the evidence bears Vinny out. There are game
studios which have significantly higher percentages of women in design &
engineering roles than others, and it's not clear to me that they
consistently do any better in the market than companies with mostly male
design & engineering teams.

I personally don't think it matters whether the designers, artists, or
engineers behind a game are male or female, and I'd argue that Popcap's
success with female gamers, notwithstanding our nearly 100% male design
& engineering team, bears this out.

What DOES matter is the passion level of the design team for building
games that appeal to everyone, and how much energy they spend getting
inside the heads of their customers.

---------------------------
James Gwertzman
Director of Business Development
PopCap Games, Inc.
+1-206-256-4210

-----Original Message-----
From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org
[mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org] On Behalf Of Brian Robbins
Sent: Thursday, January 11, 2007 2:17 PM
To: IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List
Subject: [casual_games] Why We Need Women

There's a great editorial by Vinny Carella up on Gamezebo today
entitled "Why We Need Women"
http://www.gamezebo.com/2007/01/why_we_need_women.html

I'd love to know what people think of this. Is Vinny right, or is he
way off target?

-- 
Brian Robbins
Executive Producer and Gaming Evangelist
Fuel Industries - www.fuelgames.com
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