-

How 'bout properly defining the demographic instead of using any description that's so broad as to be useless? Neither "white male" nor "teen male" actually describe a group in any useful manner, perhaps unless you're selling male-oriented hygiene products... or food...? Y'know, stuff that's actually, genuinely applicable to that broad an audience.

 

I think some of the vitriol spouted at white males (e.g. calling white males "white trash" - your example, or "white devils" - my example) can be problematic and borderline racist, but as a simple demographic for game research, I think "straight white male" can actually be a useful one and is not in itself racist. So I hope you are not saying that the term "straight white male" should be banned. I do agree everyone should try to be more respectful of each other in terms of race and gender and not get so emotionally wound up.

And I don't think teens are actually the biggest consumers of games in general; the most highly represented age range is more like 18-35. So in the US, the majority of gamers could loosely be categorized as young 18-35 year-old straight white males. That would represent the largest market to target in general.

I believe someone else pointed out that the average casual mobile game player is now a middle-aged white female. That would represent the largest market to target for casual games.

And then there are those demographics that no one has really been targeting, like teenage white, hispanic, and black females, which Glu has now proven beyond a shadow of a doubt are game players who spend significant money on games. Which I'm guessing would be the reason for the OP making this thread.

 

Entirely disagree. Colour has nothing to do with national identity. Americans will be black, white, and any other racial identification and still be in the US military, or feel militaristic and enjoy COD and Battlefield. The white male argument makes so little sense, that it can only be called offensive and sets a dangerous precedent - judging by skin tone.

That is racist I believe. People didn't fight against racism so only black people could benefit from it. The fight against racism is so all people might benefit from it. Doing a head count on the number of people of a specific colour to judge a target demographic is a terrifying concept.

If we head to Japan, should we be upset that the majority of the content in entertainment contains Japanese characters? Even though these games are readily enjoyed in the west and top the charts? I don't understand how its relevant to say white male as opposed to teen male, or older male.

Should all games contain a precise % of each colour and 50% of them should be female with a requirement that it pass the Bechdel Test? Would this somehow make it suddenly more enjoyable than this so called white male targeted game? Where does LGBT fit into this? I should expect n% of the characters at least identify as queer.

In the end I think it diffuses so badly that one can't ever target or please everyone. But respect towards people isn't a hard thing to add to a game. Or disrespect everyone equally

 

I keep telling everyone that games have so much power to improve our "real lives" ... for example, playing a car racing game a lot will improve your reaction speed and helps you drive better in real life. Some people agree with me, some are very skeptical.

I felt a bit vindicated when I saw on the Discovery channel a clip about a US Army tank driver in Iraq who was promoted to tank driver at the apparently unusually young age of 19. They interviewed the tank commander and he said the tank driver had developed sharp skills from playing tank and other video games as a young teenager, and therefore developed the aptitude to drive a real life tank. If anyone saw this interview and has a link or other info on it, please let me know... I've been trying to find it for a while.

 

Hippocoder, when used as a demographic, it is neutral and used for scientific purposes. It just stands for a subset of culture. I am a white female. I don't feel at all demonized when a poll breaks down women into color. Please don't take it so personally. There is absolutely nothing attached to the term that is racist.

I have seen racism first hand and using the term white male for a demographic term is not racist. My husband and I happen to have an adopted multi-racial child. You wanna know what it is like to deal with racism? A term? I wish.

BTW, white man is not an American term. Sorry to burst your bubble but there are white men everywhere. Wow...and I thought things were getting better. Can I put a moderator on ignore? Does Unity even have ignore? I sure hope so.

 

Why is that terrifying? Advertising companies do this all the time. Break down consumers be age, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, height, weight, fitness level, etc. That's why they roll out, say, Spanish ads in heavily Hispanic neighborhoods, etc.

 

Argh, Teila don't leave. You are kind of representing an entire demographic here. Your input is highly valued by many.

 

If she's had enough and can't discuss because I feel that it's racist to single out white males on a constant basis as opposed to accepting males of all colours can enjoy game x then that is her decision. I am neither American nor fully white for the record.

In any case I've said my piece - I feel that it offers a dangerous precedent for a game to be judged as a white male game as much as a game would be judged as a 'Japanese' game. I think that the world should be more open to enjoying a so called demographic regardless of what it apparently represents (I love all kinds of eastern entertainment for example).

 

Thanks, Eridani. I guess I can't put him on ignore. Geesh, that seems a little unfair.

Not sure what else I can say. In a thread about gender in games, we are threatened by the moderator who doesn't like the term "white male" as used in demographics. Would Caucasian male work? How about Male of European descent?

How crazy...gesh. From now on, I use Caucasian male.

 

I'm not saying all games, but if you are targeting females, it would be wise to make a game that passes the Bechdel Test... I'm pretty certain this would absolutely make the game more enjoyable to females. That's the point of market segmentation research. I still don't see why you think "white male" is a racist term.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_segmentation ... lots of criteria market researchers use to group consumers.

 

I'm not offended at white male. I'm pointing out the direction makeshiftwings repeatedly ventured.

 

Utopian, maybe that is what you are. Idealism makes for a good game developer. I am sad though. I was actually liking you.

I stopped reading Makeshiftwings. Lots of....stuff. I can understand your not liking his stuff. Just don't throw out all of us because of him.

 

To be fair to Hippocoder, he is mainly lambasting the term as it was used by pretty much a single poster. I agree that poster has to stop using the term in such a manner, but the term itself is neutral, as Teila pointed out.

 

Yes, I'm not offended by it (or any people here) - I just felt he began to venture into racism, rather than just a demographic (which I agree exists btw). Actually I think the manner in which I discuss (which is an observational slant) is a little unusual and people are feeling attacked. You shouldn't feel attacked. I don't have that intention or anything. I am merely speaking observationally with good intention, as I think its a very current subject in game development.

In any case I must bow out now as there's much more to be said by others and I've said quite enough it seems - I will keep my eye on the thread and enjoy the posts to follow.

 

I don't think you can say any game is a "white male game" per se, but if it has a powerful, benevolent straight white male protagonist, I think it has a good chance of appealing to straight white males. Like others have pointed out, all kinds of people may enjoy it too, including a handful of, say, black lesbians.

But if you make a game featuring a powerful, benevolent lesbian black female protagonist, I think it has a good chance of appealing to lesbian black females. So you may potentially capture a large market share if it is being under-served. Hence the power of segmenting the market into white males, black females, straight white males, lesbian black females, teen white females, teen Buddhist French lizards (lol, or something like that, which Makeshiftwings wrote).

 

I think the reality is that we are actually on the same page. Whew, what an emotional thread. Shake hands all around? Teila you gonna stay right?

 

Okay, I like you again.

 

Make your mind up

 

Group hug lol

 

How about now?

Surgeon General's Warning: Don't stare at the link, or what's beyond it, for too long. Especially if you have epilepsy. In fact, if you have epilepsy, just imagine a flashing llama. That's good enough. I'm also disappointed that my efforts to use this GIF to get the thread closed have failed. I'm clearly not trying hard enough.

 

I am a woman! I don't have to make up my mind.

 

Now, let's get back on topic. So according to Teila, women like games in which they don't have to make up their minds. That would imply giving them broad options and "unlimited undo" functionality

It is quite funny how enraged some of the Kim Kardashian game players got when they couldn't choose a different boyfriend or something like that in the game.

 

Gah Asvarduil, an seizure warning under the link might be in order my friend.

 

You should see the Sims fans, although there are plenty of guys there and they are as bad as the women. A very demanding and hard to please group. I tell you, I would not play a game that had the word Kardashian in it. But then I am probably not in the demographic that game targeted.

 

Why do you get so upset about people who want to stop the trashing of white males? I left the thread because of your attitude and all the straw flying about as a couple others went to town like hyped up Mexican cartel members smashing a pinata in their zeal to demolish straw men of their own devising. I may suggest you follow your on advice and put yourself in others shoes. It would not be egalitarian of you and taking your toys and leaving the party would suggest you are simply another petulant woman who twists others to their ways with emotional blackmail gambits. You would not want that to sully your fine reputation.. So buck up, stop the passive aggressive BS and enjoy the rest of the thread. I am outta here.

 

ARGH omg not again

 

Ippdev man, these are borderline racist, sexist comments. You can say your piece, but - like Makeshiftwings - I don't think people will listen to you if you frame it in these terms.

 

It is okay. The funny thing is I am the opposite of passive aggressive. I tend to get myself in trouble by saying too much and being a little too blunt.

 

Done.

 

Thanks friend. Don't be too sad. If I were the mod I would definitely have closed this thread because of the llama. And kicked you out of the Unity forums permanently. And found where you live and beat you up

 

Ok question for Teila. Do you think girls would even want to play such a game where the protagonist is a strong female who has to "rescue" a male for some reason, possibly a romantic partner? Think Sleeping Beauty, but in reverse. Solving puzzles, fighting dragons, etc.

If so, I'm thinking game devs could use popular games such as Zelda and just switch the genders.

Or would girls be "blah" about the whole thing, especially any combat -- "all that effort just to rescue a BOY?" Lol.

 

I think if you did it in a way that had a little humor was a little touching, it might be fun and you might find that girls and women play it just because it is different. I can't answer for all women, but I would buy it and check it out, especially if it were a bit funny!

Once Upon a Time, the TV Series does that well. They use humor to turn the tables on the fairy tales. Yes, Snow White was rescued by the prince, but she saved his life a few times as well and she was pretty tough. And the main female character was a bounty hunter, who in one scene takes off her heels and puts on a leather jacket.

My daughters love the TV show Fringe because of the strong female lead. They LOVE that show, the male stars too. There are a few very good scenes, like one where the female lead goes to her boss to let him know she can handle the job. I like how they did that...much better than in most shows. That one is not funny, but it also doesn't ignore the fact that she is a woman. She is not just a non-gendered person...she is a woman, and deals with that in the show. Very well, in fact. They would definitely buy a game and play it that had a woman like Olivia in the lead role.

So either funny, or make her a woman and make that part of the character and her development. Just replacing Link with a girl probably wouldn't be as much fun as making a few other changes to the story.

 

Is the character gender the issue or a symptom, though? Many games are focused on masculine activities as well as masculine characters. Does playing as a female space marine change the fact that you're solving problems by violence and strength? I see Tomb Raider and still think that it's a pretty ridiculously masculine game, despite the fact that its main character is indeed a self-empowered, strong female character*.

One way to look at game designs is by the types of interactions they primarily use.

• Destructive interactions, using violence or force to overcome challenges.
  
  
• Creative interactions, where you build or grow things to overcome challenges.
  
  
• Manipulative interactions, where you change or re-configure stuff to overcome challenges.
  
  
• Explorative interactions, where you progress by exploring and finding new things or areas. (I could be wrong about the 4th one... it could have been something else.)

Most masculine games go hand in hand with the destructive interactions. There's typically lite exploration and a little manipulation and mostly blowing stuff up or killing things. Pretty much testosterone candy. Is it then surprising that the story, characters and presentation carry on that trend?

Games that focus on creation, problem solving or exploration tend to be far more balanced, don't they?

* Yes, I realise that Tomb Raider is hardly an example of a game made with ladies in mind. That's really my point. The gender of the character isn't the only and/or most important thing.

 

I was mainly thinking of saving game dev resources... since most of us male devs probably make male-protagonist combat-oriented games, I was thinking of ways to capitalize on game code and resources we have probably already possess... doing a simple protagonist gender swap would be a fast way for me personally to implement what I asked about.

Your points are well taken though. If I was starting a game targeted toward females from scratch, I would definitely try to do something along the lines of what Teila sugggested, and your suggestions regarding creation and problem solving. I hear girls love co-op exploration and building, while guys love to compete head to head (or compete in co-op fashion against other teams).

Testosterone candy haha. That makes me think of Michael Bay.

 

You are right. The Sims is popular because it allows creation as is Minecraft. I have no idea how many girls play Minecraft but I know a lot of kids love it...and adults.

I would love to see more games that use creative solutions than violence. They are tough to find though.

I loved the Longest Journey (did not like Dreamfall) and Siberia. I sometimes search through Steam looking longingly at the old Adventure games that no longer work on my computer. Both involved exploration and puzzle solving.

Another one many women like is social games, playing with their friends. And that can be a card/puzzle game or an MMO. My son tends to go out in the game and kill stuff with group of other mostly guys. I tend to stay in areas where I can talk to people. I role play and set up businesses. Any game that allows you to play with your friends is a good game that will draw a variety of people.

Bedtime for me..I realize I am repeating myself. I need sleep so I can back to my house modeling tomorrow.

 

Using what we've already got vs. starting from scratch is another thing. As long as non-masculine-focused games are an afterthought how are they ever meant to represent as well as the action blockbusters? "Now that we've made a bloke's game, can we shoehorn some of the stuff into a less blokey thing as well?"

 

Don't forget city builders, a lot of strategy games, plenty of racers, some MMOs (they all seem to have combat, but the good ones always chuck in plenty of other stuff as well), adventure games in general, plenty of simulations, puzzle games in general...

As soon as you take the testosterone candy out of the picture things look pretty darn different. I think the issue in this regard is that there's just so darn much of the testosterone candy that it's kind of the default ambassador for video gaming in general.

I have nothing against action games, for what it's worth. I play and enjoy plenty myself.

 

I agree it's better to design games from scratch when targeting a certain demographic, if you have the ability to do so.

I was just asking for my own personal sake, since I am forced to basically shoehorn everything due to my limited resources as an indie dev.

I don't think I would personally ever make a puzzle game though... I need at least a little bit of combat in there somewhere. Otherwise I'd get so bored making my own game.

 

I've always had this emptiness inside me, until now. I looked at that, and suddenly... my life felt complete.

 

I would agree that I like poking holes in people's posts and being a general nuisance, but I still don't think it's racist to say that straight white men tend to make games for straight white men. And for the record, I did also say that black women, Japanese people, North Koreans, gay Chinese women, Muslims, and... er... let me check... "Middle Eastern lesbian Buddhist French immigrants" all would also tend to make games influenced by their cultures. But I will cease posting in the thread now; I think I've worn myself out and I don't want anyone to keep asking me about the iron bottle.

 

I am not smart enough to make a good puzzle game. I am barely smart enough to figure out some of the puzzles in games I play!

 

Hey Makeshiftwings, I do think you had valid points but I think people were reacting more to the manner in which you presented your arguments, kind of ranting and attacking instead of laying out your case in a reasonably calm manner. People got really heated and emotional in this thread but I think it's settled down now. I think people are totally willing to listen and debate, as long as things don't get personal and belligerent.

So why don't you stay and keep contributing... for example, it was very enlightening to read the demographics-related posts you provided from Apptopia and Gamasutra.

 

And if it gets belligerent again, I've got my llama.

 

This is what I believe is the reason for the disconnect between you and other posters on this thread:

I don't think most straight white male game devs consciously and explicitly target a market in that manner. In fact, I don't think the typical game dev does any market segmentation research at all. What I think is going on is that the typical game dev of any demographic makes games reflecting him-or-herself, that he or she would enjoy playing. To get off the "white male" term for a moment, let's use a straight black male game dev in this example.

I think what happens is that straight black male dev says to himself, hmm, I think it would be cool to have a protagonist in my game that looks like me. So he puts in a idealized buffed-out black male as the hero, someone he can relate to. Being a typical straight male, he likes to play fighting games, so he makes a combat-heavy action game.

He launches the game, and many white males and Asian males download and enjoy the game. However, interestingly, a huge number of black males download the game and enjoy it.

The same thing happened in Hollywood. At first, back in the day, white producers refused to cast black males as powerful, benevolent leading men, as they believed that general society would find the idea unpalatable. So black producers eventually "targeted" black people by releasing movies with strong black protagonists.

Over time, the idea of a leading black man being unusual faded away in general society. Nowadays, moviemakers no longer specifically "target" black audiences when making movies featuring, say, Denzel Washington or Will Smith. They just make the movies knowing that wide audiences will come watch, not just black people.

So the fact that any movie featuring Denzel Washington or Will Smith as the leading man is HUGELY popular among black people (which they are, but they are also HUGELY popular among white people) is now essentially an unintended side effect.

To tie it back in to your example, the typical straight white male game dev doesn't consciously try to make a game catering to straight white males. He doesn't think, "Hmm, how can I make a game that would be downloaded by many straight white males?" In fact, he does no market research at all. He just makes a game he likes (probably combat heavy) featuring a protagonist he can relate to (most likely but not always a straight white male) and then he releases the game.

Many non-straight non-white non-males will end up enjoying the game, but a huge number of straight white males will enjoy the game as an essentially unintended side effect, simply because they can relate so strongly to the main character.

And I think hippocoder made the point that male gamers are not that heavily broken down by ethnicity when they play male-oriented combat-oriented games. Male gamers tend to like the same games, no matter if they are black, white, Asian, Hispanic, Arab, etc. Meaning a black male won't be thinking, "I was going to play Call of Duty but since it has a white guy as the main character, forget it." In short, a huge number of male gamers will download and enjoy Call of Duty, regardless of their ethnicity.

That being said, it's no accident that big game makers put in main characters in combat games who are say, black or Asian, especially when releasing to overseas markets. They know that non-white players will play and enjoy the game regardless, but they also know MORE non-white players will play if they actually see a character they can directly relate to, who looks "just like them." Now we are going back into the realm of market segmentation research and doing specific "targeting."

Remember the male and female Korean spec ops soldiers in SOCOM? Korea is a huge gaming market, so I'm sure that move brought on more Korean gamers simply because they were intrigued to have Korean characters in a big budget US game. I doubt it brought in a lot of Korean FEMALE gamers, because having a female character alone in a combat-oriented game is not enough to bring in many females (e.g. Tomb Raider is still played mostly by males, despite a strong benevolent female character). But SOCOM would have been played and enjoyed by many Korean gamers whether it featured any Korean characters or not.

So the issue is more nuanced than it appears on the surface.

The debate is re-opened. Let's keep it calm and rational. I fear the llama!!

 

Wow, you said that so well!

 

Actually, most big game studios do. If you read any of the marketing responses from any companies that have gotten heat for catering to straight white men, they usually do admit they did it on purpose. Q: "Why are there only straight love interests?" A: "Most of our audience is straight, we didn't have enough money to also do gay." Q: "Why is there only a male playable character?" A: "Most of our audience is male, we didn't have enough money to do female", etc. There are tons of articles where marketing reps say that their primary audience is men; reps from all the big game companies have said that. Similarly, reps from lots of the big mobile and puzzle game companies have said they primarily target women. Marketing is a huge industry.

Depends on what you mean by "typical". A random one-person hobbyist making a game for fun, yeah, probably doesn't do any market research. But one of the big mainstream companies? They all have entire departments stocked full of people whose entire job is to spend day after day doing nothing but market research.

Yeah, that's exactly what I've been saying. I don't see why you think we're in disagreement. Maybe you should read what the people who were arguing against me were saying so you know what I was replying to. For example, Dabeh claims that nobody cares about whether or not the protagonist is like themselves and that the prevalence of a certain not-to-be-named orientation/gender/race combo is a magical mystery that can never be answered; hippocoder thinks certain genders are naturally superior but that races should not be mentioned, etc.

Sometimes. And sometimes they make a movie about ancient Egypt, and cast the entire crew as a particular race who shall not be mentioned whose skin color is probably the furthest possible from the actual skin color of actual Egyptians.

Assuming you're really just talking about small indie devs with no marketing team... so? The question in the topic was specifically about how to make a gender and ethic neutral game. My whole point was that people giving the advice of "just do whatever you want and don't even think about it" meant that if the devs are of a certain culture, and they don't even think about it and just make whatever they like, then it would reflect their culture. Which is exactly what you're saying. So again, I don't know what you think we're in disagreement about. It doesn't matter if they're doing it "on purpose", and I thought I was clear when I was saying they weren't doing it on purpose, since the question in the OP is about how to NOT do it on purpose. My point is that just ignoring all other cultures and pretending you don't have any cultural biases and making a game is not going to magically have it come out "gender and ethnically neutral".

This is also not true. Male American gamers, especially black and white, enjoy CoD. But Japanese gamers prefer RPG's, Koreans prefer MMO's, etc.

I doubt it, but I wasn't able to find Korean sales data for SOCOM with a cursory search and don't feel like it; but generally South Korea greatly prefers MMO's, RPG's, and RTS's, especially competitive eSports styles. They play Starcraft like Americans play football. Military shooters are mostly hugely popular in the U.S., where everyone loves guns, less so in other countries. Buuuuut, I don't really know what any of this has to do with anything, since I think we're still mostly in agreement that different cultures tend to like different things, and devopment teams within a certain culture tend to lean towards their own culture if they're not intentionally trying to do otherwise.

 

I'm going to re-read your post in depth later, but to be clear, yes, I was talking about indie game devs in this forum making small Unity games.

I think we are both in agreement that big game companies and Hollywood do lots of market segmentation research.