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Women want simple, family games.
From the New York Times article titled "In the List of Top-Selling Games, Clear Evidence of a Sea Change": "Back in the living room, Nintendo’s revolutionary Wii system has helped forge a new audience for gaming among families, women and older people, who had been turned off by the complex, violent and solitary adventures that once dominated the market." Normally, I live in my own little world of books and video games. I've been playing video games since I was at least seven. I have a clear memory of getting Super Mario 3 for my eighth birthday, so I know I already had the NES. Later, on the Sega Genesis, I played Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Judge Dredd, and a basketball game featuring Charles Barkley. My first Playstation game was Monster Rancher. I have all but the most recent sequel, I think. I also play a lot of RPGs and fighting games, like Dead or Alive, on the first two Playstation consoles. Ooh, and Tecmo's Deception. On my brother's Wii, I play The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and some of the virtual console games. On his Xbox 360, I play Dead or Alive 4, BioShock, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and The Orange Box. I have a Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance SP, I borrow my brother's DS until I can buy my own, and I bring my PSP everywhere. On the computer, I have Dungeon Keeper 2, Diablo, Diablo 2, Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate 2, Pharaoh, and every Sims and Sims 2 game, expansion pack, and stuff pack, to name a few. On my first computer, which ran DOS, I played games like Jill of the Jungle and Hugo's House of Horrors. At times, when I could afford it, I've had subscriptions to various gaming magazines. I tend to forget that I'm supposed to be one of a tiny, tiny number of female gamers. I like "complex, violent and solitary adventures". When I finally had access to an Xbox 360, the first games I wanted to buy were Dead or Alive 4, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, BioShock, The Orange Box, and Mass Effect. BioShock is on my personal top ten list forever. I enjoy blood and scantily clad female characters, so I normally forget that gaming companies don't think they're marketing to me. I've never really noticed a lack of female gamers. Oh, but the employee at GameStop was so funny when I was buying the Diablo Battle Chest. My cousin recommended Diablo. I asked the guy at GameStop how it compared to Dungeon Keeper 2. He didn't know what I was talking about. I decided to buy it anyway, because a lot of people seemed to like it and my cousin and I tend to have some similar tastes in games. The guy then tried to talk me out of buying it. He said it was really scary and had satanic themes. I was 19, and I was with my mother, who was getting a bit angry with the guy at this point. She mentioned my age and said I was old enough to buy any game I wanted. Not that she ever stopped me from playing mature games when I was little. I mentioned Judge Dredd, didn't I? I watched Stephen King's IT when I was six and have been in love with the horror genre ever since. I used to watch my dad skin and clean deer. I brought a deer heart to show and tell in third grade. I even tasted the blood one time. I took an anatomy class in tenth grade because it sounded like fun, and I brought jars when we did dissections so I could bring things home. I'm not easy to scare. What was wrong with that guy? Ok, there's my rant for the week. Another major problem with this article: "Wii Play was the No. 2-selling game of last year even though it received an abysmal score of 58 out of 100 at Metacritic.com, which aggregates reviews." Nobody buys Wii Play for the game. They buy it because it comes with a controller. The Wii, like most systems, if not all, only comes with one. When buying the second, it's natural to buy the one that comes with a little something extra. How many seconds of research went into this article?
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