Girl Gamer Award nominations for 2006 -- 2007 out today

by Kevin Kelly { Mar 28th 2007 at 5:25PM }

Several different girl gaming networks and groups have pulled together a mass of games from different sites, forums, and other networks devoted to female gamers, and have put together this list of the final nominees. While they encourage female gamers to log in and vote, it doesn't look like they'll be screening for X or Y chromosomes at login.

We've recently been talking about developing and marketing games for females, and this is a great example of how to do that -- find out what they're playing, not tell them what they should be playing. However, in all honesty ... this looks like a list of games that could have been pulled together from sites populated by only male gamers. Further proving that the line between girl gamers and guy gamers is something created by PR and marketing, not the people who play the games.

Our advice? Open up the voting to everyone, but have them identify which sex they are (Austin Powers: "Yes, please!) from the outset. Once the awards are done, give us the winners, and show us how the demographics break down by sex, age, toothbrush color, favorite type of pizza, etc. That way the marketers will see we're all just playing games.

Tags: awards, female, games, girl gamers, GirlGamers, nominations, women

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

dark @ Mar 28th 2007 5:41PM

This is stupid. Why do girls always have special treatment. Its not like we have Guy Gamer Award. lol, and they want equality. This is not equal at all.

Hello @ Mar 28th 2007 5:45PM

kitchen, lol, etc.

Eric Robbins @ Mar 28th 2007 5:52PM

Uh, Gears of War isn't an FPS.

hoop @ Mar 28th 2007 5:52PM

"Further proving that the line between girl gamers and guy gamers is something created by PR and marketing, not the people who play the games."

Just as a counterpoint, it could also potentially point out that there simply aren't any games that are specifically geared toward and more fun for girls to play. They do not have a choice in games, ergo, they must play the same games that guys play.

I'm not necessarily advocating that this is the case, or that girls don't enjoy "guy" games (FPS, etc.), but it doesn't prove that there isn't a difference or a line between the kinds of games girls like and the kinds of games guys gravitate toward.

Food for thought.

anon @ Mar 28th 2007 6:00PM

Cooking mama.

Crrash @ Mar 28th 2007 6:00PM

this is bad this wont help their position... they want equality and then they end up differentiating themselves by calling themselves "girl gamers"...
and how can you take it serious when they put just a couple of games there and even into the wrong genre? they put adventure RPG and action together? they call it girl gamer awards 2006-2007 and include games that arent from 2006-2007 (mario kart for example, i think)

Author X @ Mar 28th 2007 6:03PM

@Hoop: oh, but there are such games out there. Unfortunately, they're usually crap, because they're more focused on pretty-sparkly-princess-puppy-dress-up-time than making a god game. There are also games out there that just try to appeal to guys' stereotypical demand for sex and violence without even attempting to make it a good game for any other reason, and unsurprisingly those are also crap.

I'm not saying that there's no distinction either - I'm sure there are girls that feel like they have to settle for games that appeal to the male 18-15 demographic, but what we SHOULD take out of something like this is that even if there are "guy" games and "girl" games (I still don't think most of them are like that anyway) they'd still rather play good "guy" games.

...also, I dunno whether or not Gears of War is an FPS (looks like it to me, but I haven't played it so I can't make an argument), but there is HOW IN THE WORLD is Elebits a PLATFORMER? You can't even jump, let alone do anything like platforming.

wait in the car @ Mar 28th 2007 6:11PM

I would have to agree that there really aren't many games out there geared towards women. Attempts at such are usually more insulting than anything else, and always seem to be along the lines of Barbie Super Shopping Spree Pink Princess Flower Adventure.

Even more run-of-the-mill games that feature a female protagonist usually portray that female with severely overexaggerated proportions. Geared towards women? They're certainly not the ones forking over the cash to gawk at the jubblies.

Brinstar @ Mar 28th 2007 6:48PM

The women who identify themselves as "girl gamers" seem to be younger ones who are all "Rar! I'm a girl! I can pwn boys!" or clans like the PMS Clan or marketing teams like Frag Dolls.

Most of us just call ourselves "gamers", and if the issue of women gamers come up, yeah I'll discuss it. There are lots of issues concerning gender that one can discuss in the context of videogames.

The fact that some of the commenters here are not able to conceive of the fact that not all gamers (who are women) identify themselves "girl gamers" is a bit insulting. Gamers are all different, and for you all to treat particular groups of gamers, in this case gamers who are women, as one unit is a bit hypocritical isn't it? You certainly don't say that all men gamers think or act in a certain way, do you?

Derrick Schneider @ Mar 28th 2007 7:12PM

"Further proving that the line between girl gamers and guy gamers is something created by PR and marketing, not the people who play the games."

I agree with hoop that this is a tautology. Female gamers play the games that are available to them, so naturally those are the games that make it onto their top list.

So if girl gamers and boy gamers like the same things after all, why are there lots more boy gamers than girl gamers?

Eric @ Mar 28th 2007 7:18PM

Actually, after rereading the list I feel this wasn't made by real female gamers. Gears and GRAW aren't really FPS games, they're both more action games. Raving Rabbids and Elebits really aren't platformers. Hell Age of Conan isn't even released and The Sims 2 came out in 2004. Who the hell made this list?

Judd @ Mar 28th 2007 7:34PM

"for you all to treat particular groups of gamers, in this case gamers who are women, as one unit is a bit hypocritical isn't it?"

Hypocritical! We are only talking about female gamers as a single group because female gamers decided to be regarded as a single group. Who do you think came up with the idea for Girl Gamer Awards, or the PMS Clan, or girl gamer panels at gaming conventions? People who don't feel as if they are in power say that they are treated differently, yet want to be considered seperate because that means they are getting preferential treatment.

It's like hate crimes. If I beat someone because I didn't like their smile, I would get a certain sentence by a judge. But if i beat someone because they were black, I would get a worse sentence by a judge. Don't get me wrong I am not saying the latter isn't a horrible thing, but how is it any better than the former? This is supposed to prevent racism because someone is being attacked due to their race. But in actuality the law itself is racist because it delegates seperate crimes to someone simply because of the color of skin.

I know that last paragraph didn't seem relevant but this is my point. Don't want to be regarded as a girl gamer? Tell it to the girls who are designing material geared towards females. Most diversity is created from within.

Mr Khan @ Mar 28th 2007 7:36PM

I agree with the article, they should do this kind of like Nintendo's Everybody Votes

Make everyone register their sex (and track IPs for their region of origin), then breakdown the results to determine what Female gamers voted for, instead of pandering to them like this, it's sickening

There's a reason i go back to Everybody Votes, and its not because of the lackluster topics, it's because of how they breakdown the results

Did you know that the one nation where people are generally most angry if their friends are late for a date is Spain?

Bluebreaker @ Mar 28th 2007 10:17PM

Harvest Moon, Pokemon, Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts Suikoden...all these are enjoyed by women and have a VERY large female fanbase, so I don't know what the problem is with the statement "no games that appeal to girls"

Anonymous @ Mar 28th 2007 10:31PM

This is just another case of a group singling themselves out within the video game world, in an attempt to fill their insatiable need for attention (the other being gay gamers -_-). It's funny, because at the panel "Making games for Female Gamers" the "Female Gamers" couldn't find a way no matter how hard they tried to say that female gamers like different games than men. Maybe 10% of all gamers are female, but what is the point of segregating themselves if they can't even figure out what is different about a female gamer when compared to a male gamer? What is the ultimate goal? Get a bishie into a game like Gears of War? Even though the girl panels came to the consensus that girl gamers don't necessarily like "Cute" things (which is the stereotype)?

If we made a Male Gamer Awards, we'd be called sexist. This is the latest step in the continuing idiocy.

Bluebreaker @ Mar 28th 2007 10:36PM

In Japan games marketed towards women sell very well so I don't know why they won't take a chance over here with such properties.

Women and men both want different things from their games but I think they both want a game that plays well and is enjoyable. Period.

Sophie @ Mar 29th 2007 3:14AM

As I have said before, girls like this often have double standard. They push out the "gamer girl" image in men's faces, yet demand equal respect when it come to how good they are in games. It's odd that women should first go out of their way to make the "we're different" statement and categorise themselves, then critise men who don't seem to class them as real gamers.

Personally, in MMORPGs like WoW, when I played them I was often considered "cute" but not very good at the game, granted I could get flustered, but often when speaking on TS I'd get the "Who's the 13 year old boy?" remark. I found that people thought I had no input often and not being treated as equal was a bit sad.
If girls want respect from men, we have got to eliminate the gender issues that are with games, but by doing this, we're just alienating ourselves more.