Howard Scott Warshaw, the creator of Yars Revenge, gave a talk about the game at GDC. Yars was released in 1982 for the Atari VCS, and if you haven't played it, its a space shooter where you play a big bug and you have to shoot a cannon at this spaceship thing, and you load your cannon by eating its shields - describing it doesn't really do it justice...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvjajVf3BEc
It's pretty incredible! Anyway, he was saying, they were "Play Testing" the game, which meant something somewhat different than what 'playtest' today means. Basically they had people come in and play two games, give their details, and rate the two games. One was somethig that was already out & doing well, & the other was the game they were testing. Basically, they wanted to see how people compared it to games on the market before they released it.
Yars outperformed the game it was running against in the test scores - which was 'Missile Command', a very popular and beloved game. The playtest scores are sorted into four categories: Boys, Girls, Adult Men, and Adult Women, so they can see who they might want to market it to. Yars overwhelmingly performed the best with one group: adult women. Atari marketed it to boys.
Why? Who knows... Warshaw says there was 'a lot of politics' at Atari, which is something Warren Robinett (Adventure, 1980) also talked about during his GDC talk. Atari was a weird company. Warhsaw suggests it didn't fit their profile for what adult women want to play: it was a space shooter, which is something women "dont want to play" according to Marketing (who, he adds sarcastically, "dont play games but know all about who wants to play games"). Atari felt like they were struggling to make games that would appeal to adult women, but kept marketing the games women liked to boys! (Ironically, one of the two female developers at Atari - Carla Meninsky - worked on Star Raiders, another space shooter!)
Anyway, here's my answer: women generally dont hate videogames, but people generally misuderstand how women feel about videogames, and the kind of games women like are often misunderstood or not considered.
P. S. can you imagine what shmups would look like today if they had been marketed to women, and not boys? I can't really imagine it. Regardless, I'm pretty happy with how shmups turned out - dead in the water for the industry, but in continual elaboration in the doujin & freeware world. Some genres only have life when they lose mainstream appeal...
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I dont really hate it but honestly it irritates me time to time. My boyfriend is a gamer, not a pro type but he games regularly and he explained to me that its his hobby and how he connect with his friends. I totally understand that and I dont mind. It irritates me the most when he comes home claims he is so tired then he got all boost up gaming right after dinner and leave me on the bed alone to sleep then he climbs to the bed told me how tired he is. I guess I can never understand why he keeps saying tired tired tired but put his time on the screen then to the bed to sleep. Lol It irritates me and I feel like "Well you deserved it coz you didn't rest" ... but I never hated it as he never treated me as an interruption when I need his attention in between his games. Just as the destiny 2 came up recently, Im adjusting again how he goes all crazy about it, now its still alright as he would still keep his gaming in time not like sitting there for the whole night.. I accept it but still adjusting really lol
Not only do I love video games, I also don't think I've ever had a female friend that didn't also play video games (especially pokemon and fire emblem).
I think a lot of the misconceptions about girls hating video games comes from the fact that, yeah, girls may not always be as interested in the same types of games. For example, a simple game of candy crush may be more appealing than WOW. When games are tailored to different interests, they get different audiences.
https://www. theguardian. com/commentisfree/2014/sep/18/52-percent-people-playing-games-women-industry-doesnt-know
women are slowly taking over...
Sad thing is, 99% of the time on mmo's and games like Minecraft, people automatically assume I'm a guy, and they don't believe me when I say I'm a girl. Apparently it's easier to believe that I'm a guy pretending than it is for them to believe that a girl could actually be interested in trying to build the most badass pixely dragon possible...
oh well.
It's just because they don't see why it's that much fun, I guess. I suppose you have things you don't like too. And you have reasons why you dislike those things.
Girls don't really get involved in gaming, unless they have friends who play games too or they discover it on their own. The stereotype is that girls don't play games, and since society has a huge influence on everyone the chance that a girl does start playing games is small. It's just that we don't really get involved in gaming like guys do. Plus we don't want to waste our time playing games if we can do do other things that don't involve sitting down for two hours straight staring at a screen and getting frustrated over things not going the way we want them to.
(I've stopped playing games because I am a bad loser, I don't own fun games, I don't have that much spare time and I want to focus on school. I do watch youtube pretty much non-stop though, I guess the commentary makes things way more fun.)
They actually think the stupid social pecking order mind games that exist only in women's collective hive mind is somehow more real or more important than Mario eating the mushroom so he can fly.
They have their games, we have ours. And nothing infuriates them more than when we don't play their games with them. So hating our games is their form of "revenge" for the fact that we aren't slaves to the Great Feminine Unconscious, or "The Matriarchy," if you will.
What they call "The Sisterhood" is something all women work for and protect and believe in, but it only actually benefits the young and pretty girls anyway, even though EVERY woman is expected to sacrifice for it constantly, their whole culture of decorating themselves and everything around them is all about conformity to a single standard.
I'm glad, that most women don't mind it.
Because those females, who hate their boyfriends hobby gaming are definitely not girlfriend material, are needy and would only make their lives harder than being single.
And of course those, who hate it don't care about their boyfriend but are fully self absorbed where it's all about me, me and me.
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The same reason guys don't like getting dragged to go shopping with her or watch that incredible cheesy young adult love movie that she and other women are freaking about over. There are just some girls who don't care for gaming all that much and then there are some who do, it's possible that they might not have a problem with their boyfriend/husband playing games. What they don't like is how they becomes so obsessed with gaming that they start to neglect other things that are important in life. It could be education, career, family, but more than likely, her who's being put on the back burner and gaming on the top. It's not saying your hobby is waste of time and that you can't have fun, you just got to know when to balance everything out. I personally don't mind that my boyfriend plays games, I actually like watching him play them cause there are games I have no idea what to do in. I also like watching walkthroughs as well.
I wouldn't really care as long has he had a job and took cardboard of his family and wasn't someone who stayed home and played all day. He definitely also needs to make sure he pays attention to his children and wife. My husband has something similar. It's dirt bikes and he loves them but I'm happy he's happy. Also he has a great job and he makes sure I get loved and taken on dates and he plays cars with the kids and has tickle games. He's a great father. So I don't care that he loves playing on his dirt bikes so much. It would be the same with video games.
I don't know. Seems more like an individual thing than a woman thing. I don't know any women that hate video games, at least not of the top of my head... but those women who do, might just be that they're no good at it, or they just don't see the attraction, or they bought into the "violent video games turns people into killers" propaganda...
Or maybe it's not the games themselves they hate, but the fact that said games steal boyfriends' attentions when the boyfriends should be paying attention to the girls. ^_^ Could be lots of reasons.I like video games (and boardgames) They are cool and stuff. Especially if you play together. But some guys just want to play alone (or with their friends. Usually online) all day. That doesn't really work for a relationship. Also it's like "Is there ANYTHING ELSE you are into?" No and I don't just mean me... But I find people without balance to be well.. lacking. Obviously. My ex was an avid gamer but he also very into fitness (he ran marathons), the outdoors and a bunch of other stuff. Games were a part of his life, not his life.
I've tried to play and I'm TERRIBLE!! I just look at the roof if it's FPS.. lol Being terrible is embarrassing and since I'm so bad I have no idea what's going on when I watch someone else play, so it's really boring for me.. and I've asked many people to help me.. I'm just unhelpable. I can't help but just truly suck at video games.
I wouldn't say I hate video games and I can understand why people like them as I love my mobile games like Hayday and Hungry Shark, but they don't require any skill. Lol
It is really annoying when you come round to visit someone and they're just drooling at the TV and attached to the controller.. like hello? Talk to me and give me cuddles, you loser..
A lot of games that people play are super violent and honestly the shooting and blowing up noises give me a really bad headache. But whatever floats your goat and makes you happy? :)I never used to until my current boyfriend.
The odd game? Fine. A guys weekend? Fine.
My boyfriend goes to work, the second he comes home he's on the computer.
I cook dinner, he comes down to eat and is immediately back until bed.
On a weekend he's up at 9am and games for about 18 hours. If I ask for so much as a hug and a kiss I'm an "interruption"
And then I'm blamed for lack of intimacy 😂
Yeah. Tell me what's to love about that.I love video games!~
My favourite game is Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of SkyI love video games I grew up on them I would play tony hawk when I was like six I would watch my cousin play scooby doo and the cyber chase I would also watch her play spyro games on the playstation 1 at 8 I watched my brother play san andreas whenever he left home I got to play. When I was 9 I played halo with my cousin. I played bully at 10 so games are pretty much my childhood
As a guy myself I even hate how much other guys are crazy about them and spend hours playing. I can understand how women hate that. I myself can't get into discussions with other guys about Call of Duty or the latest games. Growing up they were fun, but now I have other things I'd rather focus on.
I can't play video games at all because i have motion sickness. I can't even watch them at all. If i watch for more than 2 minutes I'll go dizzy and feel like puking so yea. People have told me how fun gaming is and it's not that i don't want to try, i can't.
I think some people think it's a waste of time.
Personally I don't think there's anything wrong with entertaining yourself, so long as it doesn't take up most or all of your time.I guess some think it's immature and for little boys. My boyfriend is a gamer and his ex hated it. He works everyday, but after work he likes to play video games. I don't mind because I love video games.
Seems like some see it like a waste of time, but the same girls spend hours on facebook and instagram.
Haha and its so annoying when they try to bother you and talk to you about your day while you are playing. I see so many women do that in relationships. The few women who do like video games know what I am talking about, they hate being interrupted too.
I've been playing video games since I was 5. Lol
I have to stay away from them when I am in school because if I play any I will end up getting addicted to it and will procrastinate on my homework.The ones that are geared more towards quality time, starting a family... being productive, focused on the the matrix and everything it has to offer - Prolly won't like her hubby playing video games..
I honestly couldn't be more indifferent to video games. As long as a person has their priorities straight, games ain't bad.
i think it's because the person who she wants attention from the most, they give attention to video games more than paying attention to her i guesss
My ex made me hate them because i realized how much they suck there are some games i like but most of them suck nowadays and theyre so boring and its like omg its a fucking video game do something productive.
They hate it because it takes away the focus and attention on them. Same thing with football on TV.
They are eternal insecure children who can not deal with their lack of attention. Without generalizing of course.
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