[MUD-Dev] "Men are from Quake, Women are from Ultima"

[Tess Snider]

On Fri, 12 Jan 2001, Koster, Raph wrote:

> > At womengamers.com, Kestrel says:
> > 
> > 	"I can honestly say that in my opinion, women gamers can
> > 	find a haven in this game."
> > 
> > That's *definitely* not something you hear too often!
> 
> I couldn't find this on the site...

In addition to doing game reviews, womengamers.com does reviews of the
women that appear in games.  It's under the "Digital Women" section.
Things they address are pros, cons, look, attitude, intelligence,
stance, scripts, and marketing effort.

Their review of the UO women can be found at:

  http://www.womengamers.com/dw/uo.html

The same for EQ can be found at:

  http://www.womengamers.com/dw/eq.html

> My understanding is that most of the women gamers are in fact
> playing casual games, card games and the like. And my other
> understanding is that the conversion rate from those games to
> subscription based games is abysmal (sub 5%). Has anyone on the list
> seen a spike in female players over the last five years, and does
> anyone attribute it to increased gender balance on the Internet?

Yeah, that's why I said "put down their cards."  Still, you're
absolutely right: that number IS pretty darn awful!

My mother is an avid internet user and casual gamer (she has even been
known to dabble with non-casual games), and I know *exactly* what the
barrier keeping her out of this entire genre is.  I've watched her pay
*rapt* attention to certain games my brother was playing, up until the
first fight.  At that point, she looks horribly disappointed, and says
something to the effect of, "Oh, it's just another *fighting* game,"
and go back to whatever she was doing before.

Likewise, I've heard my housemate remark that the only reason she puts
up with the combat is so that she can get further in the story.

Yeah, sure, some of us women *like* to do some serious monster-bashing
once in a while, but we're the ones already playing.  One of the
things UO was good for was providing opportunities to do things other
than run around killing stuff.  However, as long as these games have a
reputation as "just another *fighting* game" there are a lot of women
who aren't going to feel particularly compelled to find out enough
about the game to learn that you *can* do other things.  Maybe it'll
be a "gateway" game of some sort that ends up bridging the gap -- a
MMORPG-light, if you will.  I always remember that scene at the
beginning of _Count Zero_, when the kid mentions his mother being
addicted to the virtual soaps...

Tess Snider

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev