Why games for women have to be made by women
Posted in Articles, Mobile, Nintendo, PC, Playstation, Xbox by administrator 2 Comments
Back when it seemed to matter my only objection with feminists was never the intensity of their commitment or the integrity of their beliefs. It was always more like - Men are grievously flawed - Why on Earth would you want to be equal to us? It’s a step down for Chrissake! The core takeaway from that fairly useless article opening is that women and men are different. Very different. Not just in the hairless and too much hair way but as sentient beings with perspectives on life, the universe, that item on the menu you like so much and everything. And that there will always be a minority which wrongly believes that being like men as opposed to having the same rights as men is an achievement.
Many women gamers that are accepted by men as mates or one of us are often the second kind. They like the same games we like and for the same reasons. For someone like me who believes in video games as the supreme medium of innovation, collaboration and even redemption it is a poorer medium without the fairer sex and their infusion of the collective joy and angst of being a woman into this genre. The more women we have on board the more we all benefit. And at just fifteen percent of the gamer population, clearly women are not being compelled to games and the video games industry’s development teams are not getting it.
There are Playstation 3’s sitting on retail shelves their cell processors gathering dust while Nintendo’s Wii’s are harder to find then true broadband connections in Pakistan. Xbox 360 is over a hundred titles and unlike those of the PSP a lot of them are actually playable. One PS3 is sold for every three Wii’s in Japan, formerly a market dominated by Sony. Japan is the second largest gaming market in the world after the US and X Box has never existed there and the 360 follows this discredited path with aplomb. More X Box Japan heads have been moved or fired then Prime Minister’s in PK-land.
I got a sneaky message on my mobile from my DSL provider. “Dear Max.com customer, your 512K dedicated connection has been upgraded to 1MB for free!” For free? In Pk-Land? What’s the catch? I am a Standard Chartered customer so I know more then anyone else about hidden charges. But it seems that broadband did get cheaper. Usually customers don’t get all the savings passed on but in this case with the decision of PTCL to cut all prices by 25% everyone is forced to follow suit.
Oh by the way R.E.S.P.E.C.T to Maxcom’s Customer Service. When their guy figured out that broadband was not working because my line was dead and there was a “pairing” problem in the telephone exchange he fixed everything just so the broadband could work. I love you guys man.
Whatever happened to Shera Jutt Pakistan’s first truly original 3D game?The guys over at Trango Interactive in Islamabad are a bunch of really talented people (Check out their concept art and 3D shots here: http://www.itrango.com/portfolio.html) who actually made a small but immensely playable and enjoyable game called Shera Jutt. I remember seeing it in Beta over a year ago and despite dated graphics I thought its play on popular Punjabi culture and the sheer originality rocked. There’s actually a scene where a massive buffalo charges at you as major boss and you defend your suddenly vulnerable self with nothing more then a gandasa.Well owing to go to market or business model issues or sheer letahrgy the game was never released in Pakistan. That’s a shame. Such a collaborative original effort should atleast have seen the light of day. Hell I would have released it for free just to get some publicity (After all how much does it cost to put in a CD with each copy of The Daily Times?). I bet you just that stunt would have built a pipeline of local orders to book their developers for two years straight. If you are listening Trango dudes – You can still do it. Or just lend it to us and we will put it up for a free download on p-v-p.com.
