Over at New Game Plus, Lake Desire shares her feelings on the disconnect between what she, a woman, wants in a game and what male players think she wants:

Final Fantasy X-2 wasn’t my first disappointment in the series (particularly my first time in Spira), but it was the first time that I felt this game is for someone other than me. I didn’t even have a chance to get excited about a role-playing game with an all female party; I remembered just how “strong” a character Yuna was from the last game. When the screenshots and production art made the forums, and I saw pictures like this (a declaration of the game’s intended audience), I thought they were a joke. A Final Fantasy game about collecting outfits? Although many thought the upcoming game looked cheap and insulting, others seemed to be missing the point. I recall reading articles and forum posts written by male gamers who were excited that more games like FFX-2 and Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball were coming out with things women like, shopping and clothes, so girls can have fun gaming, too. Like they thought the game was for women.

[From Alienating Audiences by Lake Desire]

It’s a whole lot easier to think that having a female character, or dressing up feminine stereotypes in new, more sexist ways are appealing to women than actually taking the time to, you know, think of your female audience as people who would like to be represented equally. Women make up almost half of the gaming audience and yet, despite our growing outrage, we still have to put up with games that objectify and demean us, and people who just don’t get it.