Friday, January 30, 2009

She's Geeky - Session on gaming

There are some hard core gamers here, about 10 women, a lot of them gamers for many years. STories of AFT, All Female Tournament, Female Fragfest 99, women playing for years with male online identities to avoid harassment and then coming out. Funny story from Kim F. of the moment she realized a bunch of other teenage gamers she played with were female because they were the ones who got emotional at the death of Princess Di.

Someone said the words "Barbie Mortal Combat"...

I mention the Iris Network and Cerise, an online magazine for game geek women.

A divide in the industry between games for guys which are seen as monetizable in a certain way while "casual games" that 35 year old women play are treated as exploitable b/c they're idiots like you can get a stay at home mom to give out the credit card number... it has attracted the seedy underbelly, the shady side of the industry. Annoying!

It's still hard to find exciting games for young girls that aren't sexist and condescending and stupid.

Games that aren't totally dirty sexist first person shooters (though a lot of us here like them too) Katamari...

Board games, german games, this craze not realy picked up on yet by online industry.

We all want this: A sort of imdb for gaming. It would list all games, across all platforms and genres, mmorpgs, video games, flash games, board games, rpgs. Reviews, rating system, recommendation engine. tHis should cross platforms in the rec engine too and patterns might be detectable that if you like X flash game you might love Y MMORPG.

what makes a game addictive? is it different by gender?

Spore. Everyone hates ont he DRM. some are boycotting. Everyone likes the ideas in Spore!

Small companies can now build games very quickly because the game dev tools are better. Story about Artemis Software and their quake engine/ greek mythology game attempt. the tools weren't there. Now, 3 or 4 people can get a game out in 4 months.

People customizing their wii avatars. body image and gaming discussion.

gamefaqs.com, defectiveyeti, metacritic, cerise, iris network, playrag, alltop gaming blogs, twop, scorehero (used to be good, then not enough moderation)
we want something like allrecipes.com but for games and strategy. Kongregate.

The best communities and information is built when there is strong moderation.

Rec of a game called Braid. (xbox.) it is back in the hands of the people.

Look on youtube for women gamers reviewing games.

Tomorrow: BSG, science fiction sessions!

There is more but i missed it while typing up my notes.

If you were at this session and are reading this (or weren't but have something to say) please drop in more info and links to anything awesome and cool, in comments!!!

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

From Barbie to Mortal Combat is the book I was in - I need to find that link :)

I'm posting my ramblings about the session over on my blog now...loved it! Hopefully all the women from there will check in here so we can stay in touch.