Is Pink Really Girls' Favorite Color?
How does one woo a girl into becoming a gamer? If I knew the answer to that, I’m pretty sure that I could become a billionaire by marketing such secrets to lonely nerd-boys. The British extension of Pocket Gamers has taken a long look at this little puzzle (did I say “little puzzle? Sorry, I meant “black hole of a conundrum”), and examined the effectiveness of recent marketing ploys like pink handheld consoles. Krystyna Larkham’s opinion? Simply making something pink may not be the best recruitment idea.
It’s not hard to see the industry’s motivation, either. Recent research by games publishing giant Electronic Arts revealed that only 40 per cent of teenage girls play video games as opposed to 90 per cent of teenage boys. That means a huge market remains untapped.
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It all leaves Sony and Nintendo in quite a sticky situation. If a significant number of the 60 per cent of young women who the hardware maker’s are trying to attract still feel there’s a stigma attached to gaming, then a simple dye job is unlikely to rock their world. To attract those unconvinced females, pocket gaming needs to further change how gaming is perceived, and the kinds of games it offers.
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Boy of Tomorrow
Posted to on 27 October 2006
· Comments (3)
Other stuff like this: ds, frag dolls, Girls in gaming, lonely nerdboys, nintendo, pink, sony
In my case, it was “Give her a GameBoy and Tetris Attack to play with.” Dad’s GB made a gamer out of me. I remember sitting for hours playing this one Indiana Jones game on GB… never made it past the first level back then, but nowdays, I’d probably beat the whole thing in an hour or two.
Nintendogs and Animal Crossing seem to do the trick. That pony grooming game I read about on some other site tonight will probably suck in more girls than would want to admit it, too… I ran it by one of my girlfriends and she said, “Like ACWW isn’t taking up enough of my time already.”
I think my first game was the same as Freezair’s… Tetris Attack. That sort of thing’s never really smart to give to a near-infinitely patient 7 year old. Now, I’m more of an RPG&FPS kind of gal… Alright, I’ll admit, I borrowed my friend’s Harvest Moon GBA game, but I haven’t bought the thing!
I’m not a ‘pink’ person. I proudly display my Star Wars merch and swap ‘idiot with a gun’ moments from Halo with friends. I’m not the best indicator of a trend, but the whole idea of marketing pink things to women is insulting to me. Most of my female friends are infinitely more interested in the things they’re seeing from the Wii’s control scheme than a cheap paintjob gimick.
Just my two monetary units.