Here is a true confession….I am a Legend of Zelda addict. I don’t know what there is about the little guy in green, but unless I’m careful, inordinate amounts of time may be spent running him around Hyrule.
I always felt a bit alone in this hobby. Tetris has a large female following, but I didn’t think other games did as well with women. Although my daughters are all videogame officianados, including playing Mortal Kombat, I thought we were the exception, not the rule. We have also been known to play some really rough 4-player MarioKarts.
Personally, I worry that girls put themselves at a disadvantage in computer science by not playing videogames. As many of my male relatives and students have pointed out, they learn the most about computers while trying to make a new game work. I do recall one male neighbor going to great lengths to download a patch for Doom that turned all of the ghouls into Barney the dinosaur….
Now I read that Jo Clay of the Strange Agency in Great Britain has a new analysis tool, called Strange Analyst. I’m way out of my expertise here, but it looks like this tool can help game developers compare their concepts to “thousands of others on the market.”
Jo used the Analyst to search online reviews for certain key words. According to her presentation at the 2006 Women in Games conference, women like games with confrontation, attack, and puzzles, as long as the story line is a good one. Sounds a lot like my friend Link!
By the way, doesn’t the Women in Games conference sound like wonderful fun?
3 Comments
Vix · May 1, 2008 at 7:04 pm
I’m the only true video game officianado in this family, and I’m also the owner of all the video game systems in our house. The rest of my family only use it as a hobby when bored. No offense to my family but I’m telling the truth. I’m just very protective of my family and I want them to be safe from harm.
Vix · May 1, 2008 at 7:23 pm
I know you like to study about them. But understand my thoughts first before you do. And yes, I’m a very tough competitor who hates losing.
Laura’s Psychology Blog » If I went back to school…. · August 31, 2006 at 10:17 am
[…] The interactive media people are becoming very sophisticated. In an earlier post, we mentioned Jo Strange’s Strange Analyst software. I’ve had some nice email conversations with Jo about women and gaming. But back to her software….it allows game developers to compare their concept with 18,000 others. I didn’t know there were that many games! You can download a trial copy here. Sounds like this would be a very useful item for USC’s budding game developers. […]
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