These days, gamers come in both genders — yet our numbers are few, and like the cavemen of days past we must seek outside of the clan to mate.

This sentence is just bizarre. On the one hand, he tries to say that yes, women play games as well - but then he goes back to the assumption that (a) all his readers are male (raising the specter of evo-psych while he’s at it), and (b) they are dating non-gamers. (Did it ever occur to him that maybe the reason he has to “seek outside of the clan” is patronizing attitudes like this?)

Yet it is possible to bring non-gaming significant others over to the dark side, through a number of games designed to grab those who couldn’t care less how many frags you got in Counter-Strike last week.

Pet peeve: first-person shooters are not the only “serious” games out there. I couldn’t care how many frags anyone got in Counter-Strike either, but bring up Infocom, Origin or Black Isle and I’ll talk your ear off.

As far as the list goes: Sims, DDR and Katamari are all good (if obvious) choices, but not for the reasons he cites. The Sims is good not because the gameplay is simple, but because it’s *varied* - you can focus on the part of the game you enjoy, whether that’s designing Sims, interior decoration, navigating the career path, socializing, etc. It’s a well-designed game.

DDR and Katamari are just plain fun (though the former can be very frustrating for the casual gamer due to the emphasis on pattern memorization).

The puzzle/toy games (Bejewled, Nintendogs, Dr. Mario, Animal Crossing - why not just add FreeCell and Minesweeper while you’re at it?) may catch on, but I don’t think they’d be good introductions.

I can’t see introducing anyone to modern gaming with Ms. Pac-Man or Centipede. They’d look at what they’re playing, and then look at what you were playing, and think you were being patronizing.

That leaves Suikoden, which is in my backlog of RPGs to play but which I haven’t seen beyond the first few minutes. I’ve played Suikoden III, however, and it’s not particularly less tedious than other RPGs. If I were going to pick an intro RPG, Suikoden III certainly wouldn’t be it. (I’d probably pick FFX.)

Now I’m wondering what the stereotypical “Top 10 Games for Your Non-Gamer Boyfriend” would be like.

Gary Polimo said:
A great majority of the game downloads/casual games are marketed towards women in general. There are reasons for this, and there are ans will always be women out there that will argue this.

Uh, I’m not entirely sure what you mean by this.

I assume by “game downloads/casual games” you’re referring to the puzzle type games like “bejeweled”, the ones on Yahoo games, etc. I don’t know about marketing in that area, though I do know that according to a few surveys I read those kinds of games most definitely have a majority of female players.

As for your second sentence… I’m not sure what kind of “reasons” you’re referring to - essentialist reasoning (ie. because girls are “naturally” drawn to those games), social reasoning (ie. women are told that it’s ok to like those games and not the others), marketing reasons (ie. women are marketed towards casual rather than “hardcore” games), or a combination of or none of the above. Until you specify, I can’t agree/disagree/discuss that.

Also, I don’t know what you’re getting at with your conjecture that there are and will always be women out there who will argue with “that”. First off, are they arguing with the so-called “reasons” or with the idea that there is an area of gaming marketed towards/dominated by women? Also, you seem to have an opinion on the idea that women are arguing with a concept. What are you trying to say with that idea? Do you think it’s a good and necessary thing for women to argue, do you think that the argument is futile, or something else?

I’m sorry I can’t have a better reply, but I need to know what you’re trying to say before I can get into things.

But, even assuming that the marketers are really playing to their market (rather than what they believe is their market) I still don’t accept that as an excuse. First, I don’t think that it makes sense to push advertisements/articles that turn off about 50% of the potential market (ie. the female half), especially since they’re probably not needed for the majority of either the current audience or the potential male half. For instance, most guys would buy World of Warcraft even if their mascot wasn’t a busty Night Elf because, well, it’s Blizzard and that company knows how to make a good game. Heck, I bought WoW because Blizzard makes a good game, despite the sexist environment they created. But I wouldn’t recommend it to any of my female friends wanting to get into the MMOs because the community has proven itself to be unfriendly to women. What I’m saying is that these kinds of plays aren’t neccessary to pander to the market and, in choosing to do what they do, these advertisers are shooting themselves in the feet. Using gender neutral language is pretty easy and when you make girls feel like they’re included then they would be more likely to want to buy your stuff.

And, in regard to the article I critiqued in particular, as far as I could tell there were many women who were members of the site (unfortunately I can’t give you exact numbers because I was unable to find any way to get a statistical breakdown of the membership). So, the article in question was most definitely excluding a significant portion of their audience.

I don’t think I’m asking for too much: a little consideration in the language one uses when writing an article. Something that takes almost no time to do would go a long way in making me, and people like me, feel more included. Like I said in my article, I don’t think that I should have to go to a site specifically aimed at women to be included in video game reviews, articles, advertisements, etc.

So, sure: sexism. But, also: they’re playing to their market, which is overwhelmingly male.