Games for Girls

The game industry has always been overwhelmingly male, and male developers have tended to design games that they themselves would like (or would have liked when they were boys). For most of the industry's history, no one made an effort to design games specifically for girls, or to even to think much about what kinds of games girls would like. It was a Catch-22 situation: If you proposed a game for girls to a publisher, you would be met with the reply, "Girls don't play video games." But, of course, the reason they didn't play video games was that there weren't many games they liked to play ”or, at least, that was the general perception. (Further research showed that this was an unfounded stereotype; far more girls played games than people realized, even though no one was considering their interests.)

In the mid-1990s, a number of people realized that girls represented an untapped market, and several companies were set up to exploit it. One in particular, Purple Moon, did a great deal of research to try to discover how girls play games and what kinds of games they would like. Unfortunately, the games that Purple Moon published on the basis of this research took little time to finish, and they offered less value for the money than most other games did. They didn't sell very well, and eventually Purple Moon got into financial trouble and was sold to Mattel, the toy company. Industry attention waned, and games for girls ceased to be a major subject of debate.

However, we think it's an area worth discussing because some people are continuing to make money with games for girls, and this remains an underserved market. Remember, however, that we're talking about girls, not women. Adults are more diverse than children are: They live in a larger world, and they've been exposed to more things and have a wider variety of interests. Don't make the assumption that what applies to girls also applies to women generally .

Mattel's Approach

If you want to make games specifically for girls, as opposed to games that appeal to children of both sexes, you have to ask yourself what girls are especially interested in ”and, perhaps more important, what they're not interested in. For the answer, you need look no farther than Mattel. Mattel is the manufacturer of Barbie , the single most famous toy for girls in the world. Mattel has had great success developing games for girls because it understands its target market. (Mattel doesn't publish software itself anymore, but it licenses its brands to others.)

Part of the reason for Barbie's success is that she follows a proven, time- tested formula. She is aimed a core age group from four to eight years old; after that, girls' interests change, and Mattel does not try for a one-size-fits-all approach. The company has no social agenda and makes no claim of political correctness.

Jesyca Durchin is the owner of the consulting company Nena Media (www.nenamedia.com), which creates media content for young girls, and is a former executive producer for Mattel. At the 2000 Game Developers' Conference, she gave an extremely useful summary of what she had learned about how girls in this age group play games:

Developing Games for Girls

Girls Have a Wide Variety of Interests

It is vital to identify what type of girl is interested in your type of game. Girls are much more fragmented in their interests than boys. Girls change more rapidly , and their emotional and intellectual growth happens differently. A girl will have different needs in her playtime almost every year of her childhood ”loosely defining childhood to be ages 4 to 14.

Hinge Interactivity on Proven Play Patterns

A play pattern is a traditional and almost instinctual way a child will approach an object or an activity to entertain her. Girls traditionally value the following:

Fashion play
Glamour play
Nurture play
Adventure play
Action/twitch play
Collection play
Communication/social play

As well as exercising their own imaginations, girls like to reproduce daily life in play. Barbie is a vehicle for projecting adult activities into a child's world. Don't be afraid of open -ended or non “goal-oriented play.

Girls Like Stuff

Stuff is what the girl can collect, display, or take away from the product. It is incredibly important for the girl to feel there is a reason for her to play. In some ways, collecting stuff replaces the concept of scoring in traditional boy's software. Collecting each one of a variety of shells , for example, is more interesting than trying to achieve a high, but abstract, numerical score.

Create Environments That Are Attractive to Girls

Girls like environments that are reality-based but either are beautiful or make sense to the story line. Symmetry and color coherency are important to girls. Not everything has to be pink, purple, and pretty, but each environment should give the girl the feeling of being in another place. Girls (and boys) are highly imaginative, and they will create alternative story lines in their own heads. Be aware that the girl's imagination will influence her view of your environment.

Girls Appreciate Sensual Interfaces

Girls tend to respond more positively to what I refer to as the sensual interface. They need colorful , sound-driven interfaces that "feel" good. The interface needs to feel magical and needs to have what I call the brrrring factor. Don't give girls a group of identical gray pushbuttons, no matter how logically organized they may be; give them buttons that ring and change shape and color.

Extend the Play from Existing Toys or Media into Software

Branding is becoming more and more important in the business of software. It is doubly important in the girl's software business because girls are still just getting involved in viewing the computer as an entertainment tool. Branding is important to rising above all the muck.

Don't Be Ashamed of Your Work

If you're embarrassed by what you're doing, it will show. Do it wholeheartedly or don't do it at all. Girls can tell if you're ashamed of making games for them. If you're uncomfortable using terms like "hair play" or "relationship games," don't bother.

A Few Misconceptions

Because people see fewer girls playing hard-core games than boys, they have tended to jump to conclusions about what girls want.

Girls don't like computer games because computers are techie. This is patently false. Although most girls and women generally are less fascinated by the technical details of computers than boys and men are, that doesn't discourage them from playing computer games any more than automotive specifications discourage them from driving cars .
Girls don't like violence. No, what girls don't like is nonstop, meaningless violence. It's not so much that they're repulsed by it as that they're bored by it. It doesn't stimulate their imaginations. If you've seen one explosion, you've seen them all.
Girls want everything to be happy and sweet. Not true. Ever see a group of girls setting up a party and planning to exclude someone? Girls are perfectly capable of being deliberately hurtful. If you read books written specifically for girls, you'll see that they're not just saccharine from one end to the other. Girls like stories filled with mystery, suspense , even danger ”but again, it has to be meaningful, not just random or pointless.
Girls don't like to be scared. This is only partially true. Jesyca Durchin makes a useful distinction between spooky and scary. Girls like things that are spooky but not scary. The abandoned house that contains a clue to the mystery, or the carnival at night, are spooky. Walking through dark streets with a murderer on the loose is scary. Spooky is about the possibility of being startled or frightened; scary is about the possibility of being hurt or killed .

A Final Note

Bear in mind that these are generalities. In her 1989 book Gender Blending , Holly Devor quoted studies that showed that as many as 50% of heterosexual women identified themselves has having been tomboys as children. We wouldn't claim that the characteristics described previously appeal to all girls, but they certainly appeal to many. You should take them into consideration if you're trying to make a game for them.

Some developers, both male and female , are repulsed by the idea of making games about hair and clothing and makeup ; they feel that this perpetuates a stereotype of femininity. Although there's some merit in that argument, goodness knows that a vastly larger number of games perpetuate a much more unfortunate stereotype of masculinity : They depict men (and reward players) who are violent, greedy, wanton, and monomaniacal. To condemn games for girls on the basis that they're stereotypical is to establish an unfair double standard.