Presentation Topic: Social Gaming

I've been deliberating for a couple weeks now, and a few days ago I decided that for the final project for Business of Media, I'd like to dig into the quickly growing world of Social Gaming.

I've taken a quick look at social games in the past, as well as EA's purchase of Playfish.However, as with many emerging trends in the realm of online social activity, this is only the tip of the iceberg. Social games are doing things that traditional games have never be able to accomplish. For example, Nintendo recently bragged about how many female players it has, compared to other consoles like the Xbox or PS3.

This is all well and good, but when you look at social games, women and girls aren't just a small pink chunk on a pie chart: they dominate the field. This is a by-product of the fact that they are spending more time with social media, in general.

And while bridging the gender gap alone would is an impressive feat in the gaming industry (women have always been big gamers in the casual sphere, but rarely have they been so readily talked about), it is just one reason why social gaming is so attractive right now.

EA Drops $300 Million to Pick up Social Gaming

(Image courtesy of Kotaku.com)

I posted some time ago about the rampant success of social games like Farmville, and this is just a quick update in that realm. Techcrunch, Mashable, Kotaku, and PaidContent each ran a story yesterday on EA Interactives's purchase of Playfish for $275 million up front and $25 in "equity retention arrangements."

On the advertisement front, Playfish games clearly have much of the same appeal as successful games like Farmville: they are sugary sweet, colorful, and utterly playful. Like feel-good movies and mass-market paperbacks, this type of advertising easily draws in people where more typical gaming markets may not reach. Games on social networks, along with innovative practices by traditional gaming companies like Nintendo, are expanding the gaming market from being very genre-specific, to being something that everyone can feel good about enjoying.

"Girl" Games: Love 'Em, Hate 'Em

The Wall Street Journal ran an article today titled "Videogame Firms Make a Play for Women." While initially I had my hopes up, the secondary text immediately reminded me why, as a female who loves videogames in general, I can be so jaded about a thing that I enjoy. "Publishers Roll Out Fashion-Theme Games for Girls, Workout and Dance Titles for Older Females," the descriptive second-title reads. Cue the disgruntled harrumph and the cynical eye-roll, please.

"Videogames have long been considered the domain of teenage boys and young men. Though a few publishers have developed computer games for women, the genre wasn't considered significant until the past several years. Nintendo helped fuel the change with its touch-screen DS portable device five years ago and Wii console three years ago, providing easy-to-play games that appealed to a broader audience—including women—and helped spur its sales."

As someone who has been playing videogames since she was old enough to grapple a joystick or smash buttons on the keyboard, I have truly come to despise the way that the female gaming audience has been addressed in the recent years. Before I go further: of course it is better that the gaming industry is address their female market at all, which has by and large been the standard practice for the lifetime of gaming. That aside, it doesn't stop me from wishing they'd do, well, better.

I do appreciate that Nintendo releases a variety of games that introduce many different types of people to videogames as a whole. One of my all time favorite games, and probably the most memorable game of my childhood, was a Nintendo game (Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time to be exact). Nintendo deserves its well-earned success in the market of making extremely user-friendly games that really get at the heart of the light, carefree, and playful videogame experience.

That said, it doesn't just confuse me, it irritates me when the industry seems surprised that girls and women aren't more interested in their products. While there is something to be said for the fact that women and girls are less socialized to enjoy violent pursuits (little boys are targeted for dinosaur ads, while little girls get Barbie), there is a problem with how the videogame industry treats women in its content, and more relevantly to this blog, its advertising.

For example: it doesn't matter if you're making what is considered one of the best franchises (Soul Caliber) in its genre (fighting) -- if you treat women like objects and have players who go on and on about the physics behind how the stupidly-oversized boobs move, guess what, chicks are probably not gonna touch that with a 40-foot pole (unless they have already been introduced into the market by a different game).

The objectification of women -- or their sheer absence from many mass-marketed titles -- should make for a goddamn no-brainer in my opinion. It might be a myth that you draw more flies with honey than vinegar, but what the videogame industry is doing is the equivalent of soaking their product line-up in Raid.

How this relates back to Nintendo and the WSJ story: why do videogame marketers assume that the only way to get women to play games is to give them things that are "easy-to-play," let alone that have to be about fashion and weight-loss?

Since then, publishers have made a serious effort to develop mass-market games beyond the usual shooter, racing and sports titles. According to financial firm Wedbush Morgan, female game players now account for about 40% of the overall market, compared with the IDC research firm's estimate of less than 12% in 2001. Wedbush calculates that a 5% increase in female players could translate into as much as $1 billion in new revenue every year.

Five percent more chicks, a billion more dollars, and no one has had the bright idea to just try to INCLUDE female gamers into the games that are already being made successfully? I posted recently about the controversy behind Left 4 Dead 2, but regardless of how anyone feels towards the release of the sequel, Left 4 Dead is an amazing example of a game which has appeal among female players.

Among the characters one can choose from is a young woman (named Zoey) who is fully clothed, operates with exactly the same stats as the male characters, and rather than being a strained, sex-kitten personality in the post-apocalypse, she is actually more of a stereotypical "geek" than the rest of the characters. L4D, particularly the PC version, is often considered (within the gamer community) as the best chance one has of playing with female gamers in a FPS.

Now that I've been over the "hate" I have for the idea that the only games girls and women want are cutesy fluffy things, I will reiterate that, despite this, I love that girls and women are actually getting some attention from the industry at all. My mother bought a Wii and a WiiFit within the last couple of years and, though I know I'll never get her to play L4D with me (I've tried), it's nice to see someone enjoying the fun that comes with playing a videogame, regardless of how or why it got into their hands.

And who knows... I can snarl and spit about sugar-coated games being force-fed to the young female gaming audience all I want, but maybe Littlest Pet Shop is actually prepping the next 7-year-old girl for her introduction to dominating the leaderboards of future Call of Duty games.