I dont think that you have to design your game specifically for "girls". Actually I find the "games for girls" (horsies and pink stuff) idea pretty sexist to start with.

If you want to get at the female audience you have to look at what they like to play, and there´s lots of games which are being played by girls (and I´m not talking about Barbies little Dress-Up).
And I don´t think that its so much about characters. Women have no problem with male characters and vice versa (Larry Laffer and Lara Croft for example). I believe that it is more about the underlying game elements.

1) From my experience most of the games which enjoy a large female audience would be categorised as casual games. Games which you can play for twenty minutes, have some fun with, then put away. Puzzle Games, Card games, but also full price retail titles.

2) Games which have a strong "building/creating/influencing" component. This encompasses classical building games such as SimCity, Pharao and Settlers, with more emphasis on those where you can actually see people (Pharao and Settlers). This component is also found in hits like Diablo, which has a simple principle, is easy to learn and the typical casual game AND gives you the option of customising/influencing your players character.

3) Story and Puzzles. From what I´ve seen so far the old adventure games are very popular with the female audience, mostly so when enjoyed with others. Guys tend to sit down and play adventures alone, at least more so than women. So it could be possible to gear an adventure game to the idea of more than one player playing the game (I´m not talking about radical new things, just keeping in mind that there will probably be more than one person playing usually helps enough).

There are of course a lot of other factors which make games attractive for the female audience, but if one takes a closer look one sees that these features are not just for "games for girls", but can easily fit a general audience as well.
So the point for the future will probably not be making games for girls, but to stop making games exclusively for boys.

You can either leave all your raygun/bikini stuff in, I doubt that female players would mind that so much, as long as you have features that are not exclusively enjoyable by the male players. Alternatively you can take all the gender-specific items out of your game to make it fit everyone.

Hase,

>>future will probably not be making games for girls,
>>but to stop making games exclusively for boys.


That is my point exactly. eye to eye all the way!

Sorry no comment yet on the subject, but...WB MadKeithV!!!

quote:Original post by Bunnz
Unfortunately this market is very very small!

A common misperception. Statistics indicate that about 51% of the purchasing population are women, though they tend to buy the games for husbands, sons or boyfriends. If you were to make a game that had appeal to them as well, they might pick up a copy for the self (or at least share in the gaming).

Lots of women play games; they just happen to stick to games that interest them like Solitaire.

Welcome back, MadKeithV!

Games that interest them, huh?

My girlfriend must be kinda odd...her favorite game is DOOM.

Hrm...maybe I SHOULD have been afraid when she held a BIG kitchen knife up to my nose the first time I visited her place.