HEAD BLOG

Yesterday I posted an article written by one of our interns here at Head First. Helen had done a lot of thinking in a short time and found that there was a wealth of things to form an opinion on. She said how our work opened up new ideas for her because although she had an interest in marketing, games were way down low on her what to think about list. So with all those ideas buzzing around in her head she decided to write another article, this time about how the title of a game can affect people’s (specially women’s) perception of that game. Here’s what she wrote:

A title is meant to grab your attention, give you some idea of what you are to be getting, entice you to look further and explore…right??  Umm, not with games aimed at females or so it seems.  If a game producer wants to target the female market, surely they need to give the game a title that will instantly tell the female that this game is for them.  they have to make is blatantly obvious given the fact that many women don’t play video games and aren’t too interested in them.

With games that are targeted at men on the market at the moment, it doesn’t seem to really make a huge difference what the title is, most male gamers already know about an existing game or one that is due to come out and probably what it is about whether it be war, motor racing or street fighting as they play these games, read the magazines and talk to other fellow gamers.

They don’t need the title to tell them what they are getting, therefore it doesn’t seem to be too important.

Games currently on the market that are designed with women in mind appear to lack substance in the title; they give no lasting impression of what the game is about and so why would women want buy them let alone play them?

www.giantbomb.com says that there are 367 games where a female is the protagonist, so it isn’t that there aren’t games out there aimed at women, but with titles like ‘mass effect’ and ‘alien syndrome,’ (these games have females as the main character) women would probably take one look and think, oohh, i’ll buy that for my 14 year old nephew!

After looking through some of the 367 games, I found a few titles of games that may scream out to women.  For example, Catwoman.  Fair enough, it may still have been aimed at men primarily, but women will instantly look at it and want to know more.  They will then see this powerful sexy woman who battles against evil using her senses and the use of a whip, and decide whether this would be interesting to play.

Another title which will immediately appeal to women is Cooking Mama. Yes the words used in the title are very obviously aimed at women: mama and cooking, but is this what games aimed at women need?  To really get women to look, is this the bluntness that is necessary?  From this title it is clear that there is a mother who cooks and after looking at what the game has to offer, you can see that cooking mama designs recipes and tests them on her friends and family and has to rise up to cook-off challenges.  Cooking Mama’s title grabs your attention, then shows you that it is a worthwhile game to play; women will get something out of it.

Cooking Mama may have got it right. A title that intrigues you followed by a game that is interesting to play.  So if there is a game for women where a female is the protagonist that fights the baddies and protects the good, why not tell the intended audience this.  For example ‘Kick-ass Mum.’

Maybe games titles should be more like the titles of films.  For example, The Orphanage released in 2007 was a horror which largely appealed to women possibly because the word ‘orphanage’ creates images of children and therefore is more likely to pull at a woman’s heart strings.  This idea focuses on softer and more feminine words and phrases used to appeal more to women within the horror genre in gaming.  If a game was released called ‘Unnerved Children,’ this may be more likelyto capture the female audience.

The top and bottom of this argument is that the title is seen first, before the overview of the game, before the colours and characters, so why not focus on making the title jump from the shelves at the audience that it is aimed at? Simple? Well not, apparently, for game makers.