Pretty sure mobile gaming doesn’t supplant other activities, it’s added to activities during which people couldn’t or wouldn’t be doing anything else. Public transit, standing on line, that sort of thing.
It has made a huge dent in “listlessly paging through eight-month-old copies of People Magazine in waiting rooms” and “staring at the clothes dryer” though.
Nonsense! Men who use those things have to pay just as much as women do. And they usually have to pay even more if they want the shoes.
One immediate flaw in her logic is that there are games in the same groupings she’s made where the sole or main character is female. For example, “Temple Run: Brave”.
How is that a flaw in her logic if those games are the exception?
Simply because she may be cherry-picking. She’s choosing more than one of the Temple Run games, but not the ones where the issue she’s raising doesn’t exist.
I’d’ve hoped my response to the article would not have been read as some kind of “more power to 'em” approval.
It’s a straightforward enough gut reaction to the monetisation of anything and everything. If you have statistical data that can be used to make a buck, why would you care what the data was actually about?
Is all I meant.
She ran the stats for the top selling 50 apps. Nothing in the article suggests that she is cherry picking. Just because she didn’t mention “Temple Run: Brave” in this summary doesn’t mean she excluded it (assuming it’s even in that top 50 to begin with).
As a man who just switched to a double edge safety razor, I encourage everyone to give it a try, male or female. Blades are about 10-15 cents a piece when you buy in bulk. People spend money because they want to, or because they can’t be bothered to look for alternative products. Switching to double edge razors and from a Keurig to an Aeropress coffee maker has saved me plenty of money and increased my satisfaction. Who says you have to use make-up? I know plenty of women who don’t wear it, or use a minimal amount of cheap make-up. Just because they advertise a product doesn’t mean you have to buy it.
I’d expect that both effects play into the end results. They’re not mutually exclusive demographics, but overlap significantly enough in how they’re exploited.
Nope. If girls don’t play, girls don’t pay. The extra money won’t come from the boys who still play. So the game publisher loses a chunk of income.
Your analogy doesn’t make sense to me. Can you explain?
The solution is never “stop doing the thing you enjoy”
The solution is “make things equal”
Girls should pay the same amount of money as boys to have a character their sex.
Temple Run:Brave is $2. i.e. It’s $2 more than the version with a default male character.
Yep, that’s what I was thinking too.
Men are three times as likely to pick a female avatar.
But the “staring at the butt” reasoning, so far as it may go, would apply only to games with third-person avatars. Much of my game activity tends to be of the Quake/Half-Life deathmatch-style, in first-person only.
Also, the linked article discusses distinctly different playing styles between male and female players. These may or not be valid in WoW, but not so much in my experience. I have played in groups with some of the same players for years before knowing what their meatspace sex is. When it comes to hardcore twitchy competitive gaming, males and females alike tend to move aggressively, evasively, and however they need to to stay in the game. And no, I have no reason to assume that the females I play with are more beautiful or more emotional than anybody else. Also, these games allow for easy creation of user-made avatars, so nobody gets conned into buying them.
I consider myself quite fortunate to play with many fun and skilled women and girls, and feel badly for those who have had troubles, and been made to feel unwelcome.
There used to be an amusing exception to this. (Don’t know if it’s true anymore.) When I used to buy hair dye, it would cost about a buck extra to get the “men’s” hair dye. It was the same stuff, one would just pay extra to have a picture of a manly man on your hair care product.
I pick female avatars because male avatars are more likely to give me free shit.
More than one way to take that…
Naaaaaah. I am an adult. I don’t really need your help in this area, dude. Really. I got this.
Many professions expect women to be put together in a certain why. I personally don’t wear makeup much at all, actually, but that hasn’t always helped me professionally, you know.
IDK maybe we women understand this a little better than you and don’t need your help and ‘splainin’, you know? We got this. I promise.
Also I’m totally sure you watch your female friends get ready and apply makeup and purchase it. Totally. Most men are TOTALLY great judges of what is “minimal makeup” and on the cost of makeup, yup. And I wonder what you consider “cheap”.
Christ. Can we seriously not have men try to explain to women about makeup and shaving?
Switching to double edge razors and from a Keurig to an Aeropress coffee maker has saved me plenty of money and increased my satisfaction.
And what the hell does your coffee habits have anything to do with this? Swell! You know how to make coffee! I am totally impressed, man. You’re so superior and smart and really know about this money stuff. TELL ME MOAR. I’m just a silly little woman who doesn’t know how to buy razors and man oh man that makeup stuff! If it wasn’t for you, Mister, I would have no idea I could just not wear makeup! And I can buy “cheap makeup”!? Wow! You’re so knowledgeable. Thanks for teaching me, sir, about this shaving and makeup stuff. I haven’t been doing this for 25+ years or anything. Without you I’d be oh so lost!
Really? I’d like to see a “freemium” game start out with only a black woman as the avatar, then.
Those who are exploiting girls should be exposed and held up to public ridicule. I would definitely throw cow patties at them. Nice fresh ones…
