Only person I know who plays this game is a dude lol
I applaud that they’ve made a game many women (and, delightfully given it is a typically “girly” craft, men) are enjoying, and I am glad they chose to (mostly) respectfully portray a craft which has historically been almost exclusively practiced by women. I’d love if they’d change “journeyman” in the game to “journeywoman” since that is what they were called historically, and the term is absolutely gendered.
women are such an underserved market in video games
I don’t think this statement deserves all the critical comments. It may be a little simplistic but I do think values and characteristics traditionally associated with femininity are underrepresented in plenty of games markets, even when the protagonist is a woman. Dressmaker’s a breath of fresh air. I may not be a woman but it caters to me feminine side for sure.
There are plenty of video games which require exactly zero dick interactions to play. There are also plenty of games which target things like dress making and hair styling.
What they are getting at is traditional gender role-based play where women should only make dresses and cook and clean, and that thinking can get entirely in the bin.
My little girl loves playing Party Animals. It’s technically a fighting game where fuzzy animals bonk each other with stuff around them.
Little boy loves brushing unicorns hair. Go figure, such games actually already exist in huge abundance.
Also: would love to hear a take from Dodger, Felicia Day, WGG etc. to get their opinion on these games.
I remember teaching a young lady, many years ago(30?), to play Killer Instinct and Mortal Kombat, took her a week to beat everyone but me, took her a month to be a toss up who would win between us, no one would fight either of us at that point. Had another friend, woman my age, that loved Warcraft 2, Star Craft, and I think it was an isometric Fall out or some other tactical game from 30 years ago. Hell, my gf plays Minecraft and Elder Scrolls Online. She runs 3 or 4 ESO guilds that are mostly capped on players. To me, a “girls” game is any game “girls” enjoy playing period. Personally I enjoy zombie type and extraction/horror games
Less gender stereotypes, more women game directors
Man, fuck this.
“Targetting women from the get go” by doing what? Women hate patronising. Just make games not be sexist. Options to customise the character and treat each sex as equal.
I know plenty of women that love games like Witcher or elder scrolls. MMOs got huge population of women. Hell, even fallout is very popular.
Why? Because they weren’t trying to “target women” they just weren’t shitty about them.
Make good game, people will come, people, not men or women. This is bad message to send.
(And yeah, game is cool)
Dont you think giving examples that are 10+ years old reinforces the point that not many games seem to appeal to women?
Most games that aren’t at least 10 years old are unappealing to anyone, not just women.
Most games at least 10 years old are appealing to at least someone
Most games are unappealing to almost all people
There are a lot of people and a lot of games
They were anecdotal examples, not an exhaustive list. We could add Baldur’s Gate 3, Hades II, Grounded 2, and Farming Simulator if you want more recent ones (again, anecdotal).
I have been hearing about this game and I think it’s worth celebrating because:
A) It was made as a labor of love, spearheaded by a dev who wanted his wife with health issues to be able to make dresses again
B) it was made on a shoestring budget by a small team of devs (non-corpo)
C) It is staunchly anti-AI in its assets and code
D) Its assets are hand drawn with original music composed for the gameHonestly the fact that its geared towards women is one of the less interesting things about it. I’m so happy for them and wish them every success.
The problem has never been that women don’t like games, it is that men have made women feel unwelcome in many ways in gaming culture.
So true! The number of times Gamers™ act like apes when a woman is discovered to exist in a gaming environment… Sigh
As a guy, other guys acting misogynistic infuriates me. The label incel is also very cringe, almost as cringe as the incels themselves. It is alright to be single okay? Its actually fucking awesome sometimes. Furthermore, some people are not meant for relationships. And guys blaming all women for some unspecified grievance when they themselves won’t look three seconds at themselves and their behavior, or somehow deludes themselves into thinking “supermodels should be throwing themselves at me the second I climb out of my basement, and if they don’t, it’s obviously because of trans/LGBTQ/woke and I just need to double down on being s toxic piece of shit. That surely will make me attractive!”. /rant
Even 4chan liked Dressmaker. A good game’s a good game.
I do not usually ask basement dwelling neckbeards what their opinion is. It is not really important.
Same reason I didn’t ask you.
“Target women” Most sexist shit someone can say. Reminds me dropdown with 2 options
- Human
- Woman
I would argue that all games are for whoever wants to play them. Shitty take from a dev trying to market their game.
The real lesson here is make a good game and people will play it.
Women do love games. The market share before the toy stores made it a choice of who to cater to were about even. Women made some of the best games early on, and the female gamer demographic never went away, it just got shoved to the side for fanservice.
There are plenty of games for women, and im not saying this dismissively. It depends what these women like. They just aren’t hardcore soulslikes. Most women arent into that. They prefer casual or social games they can fit onto their existing life, like candy crush or farmville.
I’m a woman gamer, most of my ladyfriends are gamers. I definitely play a different subset of games than most of them, but there’s no real lack…
We even have big franchise games that are aimed toward women like horizon. I fucking loved those games, and we need more like that! They made me better at shooters in general, a genre I have never been good at or spent time with due in part to how male-focused it was.
They just aren’t hardcore soulslikes. Most women arent into that. They prefer casual or social games they can fit onto their existing life, like candy crush or farmville.
I think this is a symptom of how women are ostracised/marketed to in the gaming sphere rather than an actual predisposition. The split of women and men (and everyone in between) in my life who enjoy more action oriented games, vs cozy games, vs strategy games, vs etc, is pretty much even, but the women (and non women who were Arab) had a harder time getting to the point where they felt they were “allowed” to try the games that are typically heavily marketed toward men, and typically associated with men.
I can speak to it from the opposite side as well, having grown up assigned male, I spent a great deal of time feeling like I wasn’t allowed to play, or should feel shame for enjoying, cozy games, farming games, games with a more “typically feminine” aesthetic. And that shame came from other gamers, and from the wider conversation around games by media and marketing. But I do like cozy games and farming games! (And I’m a woman, but that discovery came later xP)
What I can agree with, which I think is slightly buried in the subtext of your comment, is that it’s far more socially accepted for a man to base his life around games. For (some) women who enjoy soulslikes, they might play for shorter times, or less frequently, as lapsing on other facets of life or responsibilities is more heavily frowned upon (by wider society) in women. But (many) men can happily spend 3, 4, 5, 8 hours a day playing video games without all that much judgement (which is fine! I don’t think people should be judged for doing what they enjoy as long as it doesn’t cause harm - the same “social leniency” is simply not offered to women).
They prefer casual or social games they can fit onto their existing life, like candy crush or farmville.
what even is this take
People gave up reading halfway through his comment…
I’m a woman gamer, most of my ladyfriends are gamers.
Obviously hehe
I know a lot of women who actually deeply appreciate soulsbornes and i dont like this “women arent hardcore” narrative.
Bloodborne, for easy example, has a deep maternal-horror throughline. Disconnecting the female experience from bloodborne leaves you with… British people?
My wife loved god of war 2016 (not a soulsborne, but you get it) and it helped her to fix a part of her relationship with her father. She also defeated the last valkyrie hitless on Give Me God of War.
Damsels in distress arent off the table, but dont be misogynistic about it. Fanservice can be done tastefully (and there are plenty of female gooners who appreciate the female form as well).
What women dont like, is being objectified or forced to look at their struggles as fetish content.
Male power fantasies are often hit or miss too. My wife loves doom but cant stand the call of duty campaigns.
British people?
Oh the horrors!
Sorry, but you cannot honestly think that most women are into soulslikes when not even most men are into them. Idk about the other references you are making because I’m one of the vast majority of women who have no interest in soulslike. (Actually that’s not structly true, I despeately want to like them, but don’t, but I still have no clue what you are on about)
I never said women aren’t hardcore, we give birth and raise kids. That’s hardcore. We do whatever the fuck we want against society, that’s hardcore. We can like anything across a broad range, but it would be silly to think that most women give a fuck about being represented in wwe, for example. This is similar.
What I’ve been saying is that women are more into social games, overall as a statistic, because that is factually correct.
I didn’t say most, i said “a lot”. I also covered much of the second paragraph here so im not sure what the argument is. I agree that ~50% of the population is also capable of greatness, mainly because i also belong to it :3
Theres definitely a stigma against women in gaming spaces, but believing thats the fault of the games’ content is 1/8th of the story; the majority of it is just regular ol’ misogyny and systematically-instilled self-doubt.
Im not mad at you or trying to downplay your opinion, i just disagree with the notion that women are for some reason repelled from “difficult” games by the content itself, primarily soulsborne games, because they have intricate feminist views on occasion. I think its far more likely they are drawn to unpopular games because male audiences are absent, allowing a female space to flourish.
just disagree with the notion that women are for some reason repelled from “difficult” games by the content itself,
Which I never said and in fact have disgreed with, so that’s probably why.
If you don’t make up my position, you might get it :)
Sorry, but you cannot honestly think that most women are into soulslikes when not even most men are into them.
What you just said amounts to ‘nobody likes soulslikes’ which is just fucking insane, soulslikes are obviously popular.
What they said is true, its not a jab at the genre.
Well said! I think it’s a matter of identity too. My mom plays bejeweled and Farmville, and used to play SNES. She didn’t like 64, but played Myst and Riven and lots of PC games.
But if you ask her if she’s a gamer she’ll say no without hesitation.
I think “gamer” has been pretty tainted and is mostly used pejoratively nowadays. I play a lot of games but do not want to be associated with capital G Gamers and all the toxicity
A woman I work with only plays one game: Call of Duty.
Cool, I’m glad she’s into it.
Why is this being treated a a refutation to my personal opinion?
It isn’t.
Then why does it matter?
It was another example about the variety of games that women play, intended to be positive but you seem to think it was somehow negative.
Sorry for agreeing with your point that women have made and played a wide variety of games.
I’m so happy the game is doing well. It’s been delightful but I am the absolute core audience for it. Felt very good! I wish there were a few more pigeon commissions though.
Not enough? There are more games than you could play in a lifetime that women can enjoy, even after you exclude all of the male-fantasy shit.
this sounds perilously close to “skill issue”.
there may be lots of games to play if you cut out all the ones you don’t want, but there’s no button that does that, so you have to wade through an ocean of stuff to find the comparatively few small tidepools where the things you want exist.
there’s a lot of everything now. it’s the proportion that matters.
It really isn’t, and yes you have to wade through, but that’s true of everyone, we all have to find what we like. There are a fucking ton of games.
Most of my ladygamer friends are into cozy games where they grow things, or games where they can be social with their friends who also play. Bonus if it’s both. Extra bonus if it’s cute. Its why all the facebook games were such a huge hit. Social sims are great for helping people stay in touch and giving them a reason to talk, which is a big focus of most women’s lives. We tend to have very strong social bonds, because we look for ways to reinforce them, like games.
So we don’t need a lot of games, necesaarily, we need games that suit a purpose for the people who want to play. And long-term same games are great for that.
i can’t think of a recent, decent game that screamed more “this is for girls” than this one. yes, there is stardew, which isn’t particularly gendered, even if it tends to attract more women than other games, and the less good, uh, homages to it, like the disney princess one (not sure i would call that decent, tbh). and there has always been the sims. facebook and mobile games have always had a large, often predominantly female audience, but most of those are very cheap. and world of warcraft cuts pretty well across gender lines.
but this one is so overtly about traditionally women’s hobbies and it’s also really good. that makes it rare to me.
and you know who doesn’t have to wade? people who like call of duty, madden/2k/whatever, etc. while a lot of men don’t like those games either, it’s hard to argue that their fan base isn’t primarily men and that they are marketed exclusively towards men. there is a lot of that stuff. the rest of us have to wade. women have to wade harder.
proportion is what’s important, and women are vastly under-represented.
i can’t think of a recent, decent game that screamed more “this is for girls” than this one.
Why does it need to be “this is for girls” though?
I’m not saying having more games aimed at women is bad, it absolutely isn’t.
I’m challenging the idea that there aren’t a lot of games for women. Which is objectively not true for exactly what you yourself pointed out. The games that women gravitate toward are ungendered. And that’s fine.
I’m personally never going to be interested in playing some game about fashion. It feels like barbie games from the last 40 years and no thanks. I’m glad some women and probably a ton of men who like fashion are into it. (Like you do realize there are tons of male designers?)
Gendering this shit is dumb.
I loved the crap out of Hello Kitty Island Adventure to be honest, and while I haven’t personally played dressmaker it’s awesome that it’s an expanding targeted demographic.
I love that fact that the devs of Broforce and Gorn made this game.
