Heh, large words used to sum up just how far from reality she is. Maybe she is in the wrong business?

Rainbird said: In many ways I agree. But this is a little over the top, it's not like there are only games with male fantasies in mind made. And splitting gamers by age only is very narrow minded. There has never been, and will never be, a game that appeals to everyone. And for every great movie there is, there will be a ton of shitty movies. The problem in the game industry I think, is that there are too few great games, compared to the "bad" games, and too few of these great games are given the attention they deserve by the media, compared to the bad games.

There is no reason a game that appeals to everyone cannot be made.   I mean it won't appeal to 100% of the public naturally, but certainly a game that appeals equally to men and women, young and old could be made.  Just like the great classic movies or great classic songs do.

But not with the current reality of geeky males designing games that appeal to only geeky males.  They need to get writers and designers from other industries to come into this one to bring in new ideas and expand the market.  Particularly females writers and designers.

 

Rainbird said: In many ways I agree. But this is a little over the top, it's not like there are only games with male fantasies in mind made. And splitting gamers by age only is very narrow minded. There has never been, and will never be, a game that appeals to everyone. And for every great movie there is, there will be a ton of shitty movies. The problem in the game industry I think, is that there are too few great games, compared to the "bad" games, and too few of these great games are given the attention they deserve by the media, compared to the bad games.

 Bold: I'd say games like Super Mario Bros, Pacman, Wii Sports etc. appeal to pretty much everyone.

"What is that woman saying?"

"...She has nothing but respect for the potential growth of the industry, Ueda-san."

Some interesting points and I guess there's passion in them there words. But you know videogames have arrived at a time when commerce issues tend to far outweigh art.

Films & music already have art as an accepted part of their makeup, but its pretty clear that most of the time its the dumb movies and MOR music that make the most money.

Videogames don't really have the crutch of an established core for art and already the cost/rewards risks are so high that in many ways the industry is in catch 22 - the lowest risk is to produce another slick, well made FPS, etc. game leveraging the same sterotypes or another franchise release such as Mario, etc.

Of course there's also games like Portal, Flower, Braid, LBP, Wii Sports etc. that are all wonderfully original and somewhat risky in nature (although obviously Braid and Flower are a much lower cost risk than something like LBP but consider the risk of Wii Sports and the Wii itself).

At the end of the day a majority of the spending is going to go on low risk projects - that means more of the same in established genres following proven templates.

A quick look at the Live charts and 360 titles shows that a huge portion of its fanbase wants more Halo / Gears titles with more online mayhem and developers are going to give it to them to reap the rewards.  How many developers are going to sit and go 'let's try and change this, let's try and switch those players off those titles onto something much more mature and worthwhile' vs 'hey, do you think there's room for another FPS in there is we add a bit more violence or maybe put in even more online ways to frag'...

The fact is a lot of those buying/playing games are adolescent or aren't seeking anything more than adolescent experiences or just plain fun - and the same is true of films and music in many ways.

The difference is it's accepted (and supported) that you can also turn to films and music for mature experiences as well, even if they are unpleasant ones or difficult truths, and that's just not true for videogames yet. Not remotely IMHO.

Khuutra said: "What is that woman saying?" "...She has nothing but respect for the potential growth of the industry, Ueda-san."

 

LMAO

JGarret said: I agree in some ways, but it´s no surprise that rant is coming from a woman...or have many male game journalists complained about this too?

 

 N'Gai Croal for one.   But most game journalist are also adolescent, geeky male fanboys too.

Look. In the first place, there is never going to be a piece of art that appeals to anyone. Nothing ever became art by appealing to the lowest common denominator. Toccata and Fugue is as artistic as music gets, but not everyone will be able to understand why it is a work of absolute genius.

The fact that this journalist came to the GDC, of all places, to scream at these people - the GDC where World of Goo was recognized for its brilliance, where Wii Sports was praised for its innovation and accessibility, where Shadow of the Colossus was properly recognized as the most outstanding example of gaming and interactive storytelling in 2005 - is ludicrous. It's one thing to speak to developers who do these things, but she was also screaming at geniuses, people who are actually taking gaming in the right diection.

No, sir, I don't like it. I don't much like it at all.

Nothing wrong with being geeky or male but this rant is set to tunnel vision.

I would like to remind everyone interested in the subject of female game writers that we have had several in the past ( Roberta Williams wrote several adventure games - for Sierra, I think).
And recently Rhianna Pratchett penned some pretty excellent storytelling and dialogs for Heavenly Sword. Two women were the main characters and the whole script had undertones of castration of male power, so I guess she had some rage to vent in the same way as Chaplin :)