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[NathanS]

Full disclosure - I haven't actually watched the video, but I've read this, and this is the thing which I was referring to. It quite astutely details the marketing moves Nintendo made (which are plain to see) to swing the focus towards boys.

Yet that article also paints that it wasn't marketing that made the situation, it was already their and marketing just amplified it.

The industry did the math. Companies like Nintendo aggressively sought out people who played their games. It began publishing its own video game magazine, Nintendo Power, which had enormous outreach and allowed the company to communicate with its customers. Publishers traveled to cities, held tournaments and got to see firsthand who was playing their games. "That was probably the first age of game demographic enlightenment," says Mika. The numbers were in: More boys were playing video games than girls. Video games were about to be reinvented.

And the roots of sexism predate the NES:

Carol Shaw was the first female developer Atari hired. She is best known for designing and programming River Raid for the Atari 2600 at Activision. She says she never got the sense that the games she made were for one gender or another, and there was never a mandate from higher-ups to target a certain audience. When she interviewed for the job, she didn't believe she was at any disadvantage because she was a woman, nor did she feel that video games were the realm of men. She knew not many women held bachelor's and master's degrees in computer science and engineering,

Bold added for emphasis. sexism in culture at large had already labeled technology a "man's" job one that would have a knock on effect of keeping woman out of the field, adding to the idea that it's not for woman and setting up a situation were the people making games would be men, making the kind of games they found fun adding to the cycle.

 

[SomTervo]

Yet that article also paints that it wasn't marketing that made the situation, it was already their and marketing just amplified it.

Well, no. It says that some market research from one country showed that boys preferred it. A) we don't know what sample size, so it could be flawed market research, and B) as far as we know the sample was from Japan.

So the entire global industry became massively, vehemently boy focused because of one tiny bit of information which is dubious anyway.

Also 'there' not 'their'.

Edit: read your post in more detail. It looks like the precedent was there, indeed. It's still insane how much they affected everything, though. To an absurd, hugely damaging extent. Nintendo are still the ones who catalyzed it, basically.

 

[Daknight]

The video is great and does make sense in the fact marketing was indeed more toward boys. Yet it makes some obvious mistakes too. First it was with Ms. Pac-Man, that wasn't made BY Namco at all. It started as a unofficial Mod that Midway decide to make official distribution and then Namco did made it completely official.

As for Nintendo putting their system in the toy section. It was about the only way to get distribution back then cause of the game crash and store not wanting to carryvideo game systems. Nintendo could only get space if the system was categorize as 'Toy' cause of the way toy payments were done (beneficial for the store since they didn't pay right away and instead pay each 6 months or something and could send stock back). Nintendo gamble in this system, they had to choose a section and based on games, color, add-ons, etc, etc, boy section made the most sense.

Outside of that, everything else is on point about marketing basically ignoring females (and still does). Not so sure about being able to bring female (or people in general) that play on their cellphone to buy a console. Is of course an untapped market...is just not that easy to do. Either you would need to make similar games from mobile, but that wouldn't call their attention cause they can already play that in the cellphone.

Unless Nintendo revives Lolo. That alone will make my Mom buy their system in an instant, she cleared all 3 games in about a week when I gave her a Nintendo and all 3 Lolo games O_O She LOOOOVED those games with a passion. I believe that is the way to tap into the Candy Crush female playing population, with similar, but clearly unique and maybe a bit more advance puzzle games and go from there.

 

[NathanS]

t. Nintendo are still the ones who catalyzed it, basically.

Only if we ignore a BIG unanswered question. What was going in Japan outside of Nintendo? Because as we enter late 80's the balance of american and Japaneses arcade games is tilting in favor of Japan. And if Japan was already in the mindset of "games are for boys" and making arcade titles accordingly (Yes, yes Pac-man was made with woman in mind, a single title does not tell us about trends) then that was going to effect US arcades as well. Sadly I don't think there was a single moment that determined things such a simple answer is strangely comforting "if only for this moment..." but far larger sexist elements in society at large had already set the wheels of games being seen as for boys in motion long before the first arcade machine was released.

Basically both that article and the video seem to believe hilariously enough, in the big-man theory of history.Mostly because it gives you a single concrete target to blame.

 

[kavanf1]

Sensible stuff

Well said, people continually seem to be intent on making an oversimplistic argument that it's all down to one issue, despite it being pointed out multiple times in this thread that it's completely unreasonable to do so. Oh well, human nature I suppose, especially these days when 140 characters is often the upper limit on discussion.

 

[SomTervo]

Only if we ignore a BIG unanswered question. What was going in Japan outside of Nintendo? Because as we enter late 80's the balance of american and Japaneses arcade games is tilting in favor of Japan. And if Japan was already in the mindset of "games are for boys" and making arcade titles accordingly (Yes, yes Pac-man was made with woman in mind, a single title does not tell us about trends) then that was going to effect US arcades as well. Sadly I don't think there was a single moment that determined things such a simple answer is strangely comforting "if only for this moment..." but far larger sexist elements in society at large had already set the wheels of games being seen as for boys in motion long before the first arcade machine was released.

Basically both that article and the video seem to believe hilariously enough, in the big-man theory of history.Mostly because it gives you a single concrete target to blame.

Can't argue with you tbh.

 

[hiryu64]

Only if we ignore a BIG unanswered question. What was going in Japan outside of Nintendo? Because as we enter late 80's the balance of american and Japaneses arcade games is tilting in favor of Japan. And if Japan was already in the mindset of "games are for boys" and making arcade titles accordingly (Yes, yes Pac-man was made with woman in mind, a single title does not tell us about trends) then that was going to effect US arcades as well. Sadly I don't think there was a single moment that determined things such a simple answer is strangely comforting "if only for this moment..." but far larger sexist elements in society at large had already set the wheels of games being seen as for boys in motion long before the first arcade machine was released.

Basically both that article and the video seem to believe hilariously enough, in the big-man theory of history.Mostly because it gives you a single concrete target to blame.

I'll level with you in that the video is a tad reductionist, but then again, its scope is a bit narrower than what we're now discussing (and perhaps its title does it some disservice in that respect). Still, for a quick primer for people who may not necessarily have the deep knowledge of the industry's history nor the historical context, it's a good start. And the message at the end is a good one.

But to go beyond your point, what was the reason for the nearly universal push toward technology in general as a boy's club? From a historical perspective, it's easy to say that it all happened at once, but I'm sure if you look closer you can begin to identify the individual pieces as they fall into place. What's interesting is that, if what you're hinting at is true, then this was a phenomenon that was happening in multiple parts of the world during similar timeframes. Was it a bunch of independent agents separately arriving at the conclusion that "tech = boys"? Was it the actions of one entity that cause others to see the trend and simply follow it? Or was there a deeper, unifying reason for this shift?

 

[GhaleonEB]

Pretty interesting video. I assumed it would be marketing, but the move out of the burgeoning home electronics category and into toys (specifically, toys for boys) with the NES was something I did not know about. The marketing reinforced it and everyone followed suit because of its success. Makes sense. Dammit. :\

 

[NathanS]

. What's interesting is that, if what you're hinting at is true, then this was a phenomenon that was happening in multiple parts of the world during similar timeframes. Was it a bunch of independent agents separately arriving at the conclusion that "tech = boys"? Was it the actions of one entity that cause others to see the trend and simply follow it? Or was there a deeper, unifying reason for this shift?

Yes.

History and how a society develops is complicated and full of feed-back loops. Sexist thought that said that tech was for men was rooted in older thoughts about how woman are bad at things like math, which in turn can be traced back to the idea that woman shouldn't work outside the home, and at each stage you can find the new idea built on the older reinforcing itself (society discourages women from entering the technology industry, which proves that woman don't go into tech jobs which means they can act like boy clubs which makes them even less inviting to women which means women don't the tech industry which proves...) well you can also find individuals that activity moved to make things a certain way because of personal reason.

 

[EventHorizon]

There are some huge logical fallacies in this piece. There are two major ones in this exchange.

Jake: Ok those ads are weird but boys just like video games more than girls do.
Adam: Sorry Jake. That is a straight up myth. More adult women play video games than teenage boys do.
Jake: That's just common stupid phone games.
Adam: Ah. So. Games are games, Jake. All that means is that mainstream consoles like PS4 and Xbox One are refusing to serve a huge untapped market. We're talking millions of women who would love to play more games but are being pushed away from the hobby by weird old fashion marketing that publishers are sticking with seemingly out of sheer force of habit.

Fallacy #1: I don't know what underlying poll is being cited but the analysis given here is just wrong. Why in the world are they comparing adult women to teenage boys. Either compare adult women to adult men, or compare teenage boys to teenage girls. The way they do it here is inherently bias. The population of boys ages 11-19 is less than the population of women ages 21 and older.

Fallacy #2: Taking this exchange at face value, it states that women like "phone games". Those games are not known for being graphically very intensive. People who play those games don't put much emphasis on graphical power so why would they spend hundreds of dollars for a dedicated gaming console with the power to play 3D games in open worlds, when they are perfectly satisfied with 2D games on their phone/browser that they already own for other reasons.

In both these cases the video isn't comparing apples to apples. First it compares adult women to teenage boys. Then it compare the hardware needed to play much simpler phone based games to the hardware needed to some of the most demanding games in the industry. I'm not saying that there isn't a point to be made here, but it needs a much more convincing argument. If the goal is to promote more console games for women then provide data showing that the demand is there. Provide data showing that women want to play games that can't be played on their phones and require a console. Provide data showing that there are just as many of these women as there are men and compare like-for-like categories.

Finally, the exodus of gamers from Nintendo consoles to mobiles proves that they have this backwards. Mobiles are the desired place to be for low technologically demanding games, not consoles. Microsoft already made the mistake with the XB1 this generation thinking that the larger casual audience would pay a premium price to get features and content already available on either lower cost alternatives or general devices already owned for other reasons.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

I also completely reject the video's argument that "games are games."

No, they're not. Some are immersive experiences to which males seem to gravitate (men more than women fancy themselves heroes and day-savers)

Putting yourself in the role of the day-saving hero is a prototypical male fantasy.

The fuck are you talking about? Tons of girls love playing Mass Effect, Skyrim, Zelda, etc. And I bet you'd have more girls fantasizing about being heroes if they actually saw cartoons, comics, games, and movies feature ass-kicking heroines (who aren't all dolled up and/or sexualized to appeal specifically to male viewers or players, mind). Hell, Star Wars is very popular with girls (it's just popular period, really) and the original trilogy features only one major female character. Fantasizing about being a hero is a fun thing every kids do regardless of gender and this can continue into adulthood as well, that's why epic RPGs and superhero stuff is so popular.

 

[Cindi Mayweather]

The major backlash against gamer self-identification was just a response to GamerGate. Since GamerGate supporters claimed the title everyone else was quick to disown it.

Not necessarily true. It had negative connotations before GG. GG just put the final nail in the coffin.

 

[Lime]

Again, everyone doubting this video would benefit from walking on over to this thread that has a much better coverage of this whole thing: http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=1132634

 

[Owensboro]

Pretty interesting video. I assumed it would be marketing, but the move out of the burgeoning home electronics category and into toys (specifically, toys for boys) with the NES was something I did not know about. The marketing reinforced it and everyone followed suit because of its success. Makes sense. Dammit. :\

My memory of the book "Game Over: How Nintendo Conqured The World" is a little rusty, but I could swear it was mentioned in there that Nintendo was basically forced into the "toy" angle because no retailers would buy anything even remotely resembling consoles from the crash, hence also the whole abandoning of the terms "video game" and "cartridges" for "entertainment system" and "game packs". If they wanted to survive, they had to choose a side in a heavily segregated market (boys vs girls toys).

It's an excellent book on the history of Nintendo and I totally need to re-read it. I just wish it would be updated for the post Super-Nintendo eras.