Games are mostly targeted at guys? Did I miss something? There are so many different types of games available and through so many different avenues that you really can't say "games are targeted for guys." I disagree with this. A good game is a good game. It isn't suddenly a good game that's targeted at guys but not so much for women.
I'm certain people will disagree with me on this, but take a look around. Just looking at your ten last rated games with Civ. V, Super Mario, The Binding of Isaac, GTA: Vice City, Portal 2, Megaman 2, Pokemon black and white and Super Meat Boy, not one of those is targeted specifically at a male demographic. This isn't 1999 anymore.
@NeonNinja Male lead only games are very focused on the male demographic, GTA is one such example. Rockstar has proven over the years how deep their hatred of women is and their constant refusal to allow for playing as female, Activision have been doing the same thing as well.
Female gamers are always looked down by developers and publishers, we are constantly unwelcome and made to feel even more unwelcome due to the immaturity and backwards notions that only males play video games and females are only meant to spread their legs on demand.
It's something that needs to change for the seek of the video game industry's future if it's to progress and grow beyond the very backwards 'males only!' mentality that is constantly enforced.
@NeonNinja you're right: it's not 1999 anymore. and games should have come a lot further than they have, but the target audience is still male for the majority of games, even though female gamers are making up more and more of the population.
an interesting editorial along these lines has a few statistics, and how can you dispute that most games are made for the (straight) male audience when you look at the advertising and marketing of games in E3, where most booths have booth babes to sell their product? do you really think they'd be doing this if they weren't mostly targeting a male audience?
I'm not saying things are perfect. These issues run across more than gaming. But outside of the hype machine that we see with E3, Call of Duty and its copycats, etc, where everyone is trying to one up one another in a big show of fluff, there are games.
And games that are marketed as good games. Games that are marketed to more than just boys who want to see blood and boobs. Those games should exist too. That market needs to be served. But that's like condemning movies because summer blockbusters are based around drab superhero flicks. Yeah, they get the most attention, the most ticket sales and break all the records. But at the end of the day there are still movies for people of varying tastes. The same applies to videogames.
I stand by that.
1 Like @NeonNinja That's all well and true. BUT. So many replies in posts concerning this subject completely miss the point. Nobody says these kind of games should not be made - really, nobody suggests anything like that. Most of us enjoy those kind of games once in a while. We just ask for more variety - why does the majority feel so threatened when minority wants its voice to be heard? Too many people take these discussions on a personal level, feeling that in defending the opposite view, they are defending their tastes. But, nobody is attacking your taste. We just want more - you guessed it - variety. I think you keep forgetting you are in the group catered by the industry. Try accepting there are lot of human beings out there (both female and male) who would like a wider array of games to choose from, more female developers (their numbers are still extremely low), and more various worldviews reflected and represented in the games. Like it or not, most of the games are still targeted at guys.
