It seems there is no end to marketing opportunities and development of products that we clearly ‘need’ to keep your brain well oiled. From brain training to this.

A gaming pill to improve your first person shooter performance. Its been introduced by German PC builder Tomarni who state that their “staff use FpsBrain at least four times a week to enhance their mental performance and their work efficiency.”

From what is reported from Gizomodo, its just a load of vitamins with a shot of caffeine. I can’t see an audience for this, although I said that about brain training.

There may be a rationale for this product: If hardcore game-geeks exist on a diet of pizza and Dr. Pepper then A multivitamin supplement like this might be just what they need to live a slightly healthier lifestyle. As the nature of gaming is changing, this cliche of the nocturnal acne-faced game-nerd is on the wane – I’m not sure that there is a substantial audience who would identify with the need for this product.

Are we so vulnerable and dissatisfied that we would resort to products like this? I hope not. I am sticking to my decaff latte (recently told it was referred to as a lesbian latte)

After hearing that Sony Playstation 3 is set to spend a whopping £4million on its first Christmas TV campaign, I was intrigued to see what they had produced – would this campaign be effective in helping Sony attract a broader audience? Could they reach beyond the teenage and twentysomething audience they have traditionally been very good at reaching?

I wanted to find out if the ads would connect with women, who make up a large growing proportion of the casual gaming audience and whom in the main, with the exception of Nintendo’s activity, have been neglected or patronised up until now.

Their strategic positioning of ‘entertainment super computer’ was not particularly inspiring. I expected that the campaign would focus on the exceptional computing features of the campaign: i.e processing power, gigabytes and they would fail to sell me the overall benefit of how the Sony Playstation would enhance my life. However I was pleasantly intrigued when I watched the Dr Beautiful ad which is based on the idea of the world being a stage and Sony being the entertainers. Its designed to showcase the wealth of entertainment available on PS3. The commercial will run in 17 territories in Europe and Australia.

Executionally, this is a visual treat; using old fashioned theatrical music which contrasts to the state of the art technology. The message was benefit led, emotional and humanazied the technology and got me excited about the possibility of some of the exciting features of the console. And it certainly was unique.

My only critique would be that it feels like a teaser ad- it has the power to seduce and intrigue but the PS3 has been out now for 8 over months. The role of the advertising now needs to help a broader audience understand how its going to enhance their life, how its better than the Wii & Xbox, and how its so much more than a pure gaming platform.

I spoke to my panel of Lady Geek experts and got their visceral reaction to the ad. They felt in the main, whilst visually spectacular, it still wasn’t enticing them towards to the console and didn’t improve their understanding of why they should spend all that money. They think of the Playstation as sleek, fast, with the best games and newest technology (vs. nintendo-easy, cartoony and fun for all) (x-box, multi-player, graphics). They weren’t quite sure of this positioning. They wanted to see more of the social aspect of gaming, the PS3 as the catalyst for bringing the fun factor to their families, friends.

That’s a big job for one ad. Its a fully integrated campaign so I look forward to seeing what else Dr Beautiful has in store for us…

 

In the recent article Would the ‘real’ girl gamer please stand up? Gender, LAN cafés and the reformulation of the ‘girl’ gamer, which appeared in Gender and Education, Catherine Beavis and Claire Charles look at girl gamers in a cyber LAN café in Australia. Earlier research in the field has suggested that gaming is seen as something that boys and men do. Women and girls just do not play. This article highlights how girl gamers construct their identities.

 

What is interesting is that these girl gamers often claim to have started gaming due to their boyfriends or other male friends. This is very similar to what I found in my research on IT workers. While men regularly claimed to have a natural interest in technology, women claimed to have become interested in technology though fathers, uncles, brothers or boyfriends. I have analyzed this in my PhD thesis as a way in which gender norms are reenacted in society. Whereas it is normal for men to be interested in technology, women somehow need an excuse to be fascinated by technology.

 

The article on girl gamers argues that these young women create new ways in which being a woman is performed in society. In the long run it might then be seen as less ‘odd’ that women have a genuine interest in technology and they might finally been seen as a target group for technology that is taken seriously.

“38 percent of video-game players are female, and most of the industry doesn’t know — or care — what they want” according to an article in Yahoo this week.

They review “Babyz” is one of Ubisoft’s “Imagine” series of girl-oriented games, which also includes “Fashion Designer,” “Animal Doctor” (can you believe that they didn’t want to use the word veterinarian as they thought it would put children off?) and “Master Chef.” I haven’t tried any of the games so can’t agree or disagree if its as dire as the reviewer makes out. What I do know though, is with the amount of “shovelware” targeting this group needs a deep understanding of what young girls want and like and this goes beyond the superficial of make it pink, girly and princess like. Young girls are so grown up these days, I am often shocked like most parents I imagine, at how sophisticated and complex my 8 year old niece is.As one woman writes in womengamers.com, “Most of the content sounds like “girl sanitized” versions of other games. I think this stuff is dreamed up in the minds of clueless marketing people that just see a marketing demographic and strategize how to make a game more “girly.”

Whilst there is clearly a market for this genre of games, otherwise games companies would not keep churning them out, there are girls out there who do not respond to this and companies have to be brave and be amongst the few to really push the boundaries and not end up sanitizing the game play. Lets hope that the Imagine range goes onto show a true understanding of young girls and the imagination of the marketers behind it.

I was spending an afternoon with a group of young girls this week getting under the skin of whats its like to be a ‘tween’ for a client. I met Hannah 9, Emily 10 and Grace 10 years old. They have been friends for ages.

I was asking them about how it feels to be a young girl, what’s important to them and how they feel about technology. I was expecting the whole pink think to be super appealing but i was shocked to find out that at this age, ‘pink’ anything, let alone pink gadgets are NOT cool:

Neither are dresses, particularly not pink dresses, nor are boys (the gender thing kicks in around now), nor is Barbie or Angelina Ballerina. This stuff is reminiscent of their earlier years and is for ‘young girly girls!’ I got them to do some drawings of what isn’t cool.

What’s also interesting is what is cool. All 3 cited their nintendo DS lite as super cool and when I mentioned the new silver version (sorry to their mums in advance) they got really excited.

The other interesting thing was I asked all their mums if I could get them a game for their DS as a thank you, and all the mums said ‘it would be better to get them a book voucher’ which was insightful in itself. Clearly their is still prejudice as to the value of games and many parents still see them as a ‘waste of time.’

As Kitt, the frag doll highlighted, there is so much ‘shovelware’ out there and over 450 titles for the DS lite launching between Oct and Dec, a lot of which are targeted at the young girl (My Pet Dolphin, Animal paradise, I Did It Mum, Fashion Designer to name just a few) that there is serious competition for manufacturers, not only for the girls but for the parents who are so often the gifters. Games publishers need to really understand what is it like to be a young girl and what is going to have enduring appeal and the potential to be a true Lovemark for this audience not just a fad.

My advice for mums and dads is don’t go for the pink. It seems silver is definitely the new pink.

I love this post by Alice. Funny how sophisticated women who used to love pink would not been seen dead using a pink bit of kit. The recent research I did highlighted how only 9% of British women actually want a gadget that looks feminine. Women want technology to be beautiful, sleek and sophisticated. I’d like to see the new silver DS lite although still think the PSP in piano black is gorgeous. There’s so many opportunities for tech companies to deliver the kinds of technology women actually want to buy. As I have said before, pinking up is dumbing down.

“I hate the games shops as much as his Xbox. The boys make me feel stupid. All I want to find him something new he’ll enjoy, not made to feel dumb.” Frustrated Mum, trying to find a gift for her son, aged 8

Recently I’ve been thinking about this Christmas and the number of women responsible for buying the presents for the whole family.

If my own family is typical, I will be responsible for the tree, decorations, in-law relations and presents for th whole family. The Christmas shopping is perhaps the most tedious of the festive-chores, a task which strains even my super-human powers of empathy. The overwhelming majority of my friends feel the same way: One friend agreed that she would rather have her teeth drilled than experience the bustling pandemonium of suburban Xmas retail!

What should be a delightful magical experience is to Jingle Hell. I share the frustration of the brave gifters who try to engage the acne-faced teenage game-store assistants. The only thing worse than their appearance is the quality of advice they give:

Most women who are not gamers themselves have no idea how to shop for games. They have no way of knowing what is cool, a fact that the producers of games readily exploit. This accounts for the extrordinary popularity of games based on film and cartoon licenses (e.g. Bratz, Spiderman and Harry Potter).

These games are chosen not because of critical acclaim or any knowledge of the game’s content. it’s more a case of basic brand-recognition and desperation. After spending more than five minutes amongst shelves of almost identically packaged plastic boxes a typical mom will grab at the first recognizable brand she see.

It’s no surprise that the game-gifting experience causes anxiety, frustration and the sense that we have grown apart from our Children’s generation both technologically and culturally. The end results are usually disapointing. The gifters leave with pangs of doubt about their choice. These are made worse by the frenzied manner in which kids will enthusiastically rip into their brand new games before apparantly loosing interest the moment they open their next present. Could there be a retail experience less satisfying?

We are told that the new breed of consoles have brought the gaming experience to the masses, however spend a moment in a game shop and you will certainly agree that nothing much has changed. Around this time of year the stores are full of glum-faced women trying to figure out just what their kids are likely to enjoy. The hype about mass-market gaming is making mums feel even more dumb.

I’ve noticed that all shoppers seek refuge in comfort zones. This means we tend to go into shops we know and feel comfortable in. Women who find comfort in spacious, tactile department stores often do not understand the language of the game-store boxes: The fact that the art on the game-boxes often bares little resemblance to the game only adds to the confusion when you cannot remember which console your child actually owns.

The end result is lost-sales as mothers will drift back towards the safe areas. Perhaps, she thinks, I can buy little Harvey something else this year. This is how game-retail is failing the games industry.

The answer that some pundits suggest is to abandon retail entirely: To shift the games-buying experience entirely online. But this is not a solution for many women. The Internet is great if you know what game you want if you don’t it can be even more daunting than browsing the shelves.

I think the solution is much simpler and requires a less radical shift in the way retail works. Games retailers need to recognize a few simple facts about the way women like to learn about the products before buying.

For example – around this time of year many lingerie stores employ male assistants in order guide male shoppers through the complexities of buying female underwear. Why can’t games and tech retailers provide a similar experience to help the mums? All I’m asking for is a little bit of empathy from the sales-people and designers of games-retail.

There are now more self-help books in print than cookbooks. The majority of self-help books are bought and read by women in their millions. Rightly or wrongly, all promise the same thing – to make you happier; improve your marriage, your parenting, your homemaking skills, your finances, your figure, your attitude etc.. This inspired me to think about what motivates women and what games manufacturers could learn from this. I am a casual gamer just getting into gaming. I am reflective of a group of women in their late twenties or early thirties haven’t necessarily grown up with gaming but are openly interested in what gaming has to offer. Brain Training has sold more than four million copies worldwide and tapped into 2 key insights. Firstly that women want games they can ‘snack’ on in between putting the kids to bed, doing the shopping online etc. But most importantly, women’s need to self improve and explore new areas in order to ‘better themselves.’ This appeases their guilt of self indulging. Men and women are wired differently. For men, the games that appeal are ones that are competitive, with stats and clear objectives. For women, its much more about learning new skills and socialization.

Each night I am on my DS lite trying new games and whilst they intrigue me on the ‘cutability’ factor (MySims, Amimal Crossing, Wii play), none of them really make me feel rewarded in that way of ‘I’ve achieved something.’ If you are asking working women with children to give up their time, time that could be devoted to getting the shopping, making the dinner…, you need to make them feel they are improving themselves and not give them a reason to feel guilty. A great example is when a new game “Beginners Wine DS” offering advice on wine tasting and learning a new skill with this year’s Beaujolais. Unfortunately its only available in Japan but this feels like an a step in the right direction. Games that can make me feel rewarded. Games that make me feel I have learnt something. Games that intrigue and engage me and make me want to keep going back for more…

“I am a 29 year old woman and I love the Sims”, Anna whispered to me. I was out in HMV the other day observing and chatting to female gamers, when Anna whispered this to me. As a fellow woman, also starting to break the cliches and get into gaming, I asked Anna why she was whispering. She told me that she was embarrassed.

Embarrassed because first and foremost, she was a girl gamer (it was like she was telling me she had a drug addiction or regularly beat her children) and secondly, the Sims- well that was for kids wasn’t it? This one sentence was so insightful. This is the way that many women I have spoken to feel about gaming. That its not their right to game. That it is something that should be discussed in corridors and whispered rather than actively debated and discussed.

This is astonishing when you consider that according to a Daily Telegraph survey, more women than men play games between the ages of 24-35 – that is if you include mobile and online gaming. And women aren’t just playing the Sims. World of Warcraft is now evenly split between men and women. And according to EA, even macho driving-games like “Burnout” are showing an increase in female players.

As a thirty something mum, I went into some games stores to see what the retail environment was like and whether it was appealing to women. With the exception of Hamley’s, it was quite an intimidating experience, mostly full of gothic-looking men in a fug of sweat.

I asked a few sales people what games I could play as a novice gamer for my DS Lite: Although, they were friendly enough, the choice they offered to me was Bratz or Brain Training. Surely there is more to games than having an imaginary pet or who wanted to train her brain, not according to London’s game store shopping assistants. I walked away feeling disillusioned.

When I spoke to Anna, her face lit up when she spoke about gaming. Contrary to recieved opinion, she told me she was a ‘basher and shooter,’ that is her favourite genres of games were not at all the ones that women are supposed to love. She had been playing games since she was a teenager. It was ‘her’ thing. It made her feel alive. It was her “me-time”.

Anna isn’t a one-off. There are thousands of wealthy working women who feel exactly the same as she does. These women want games to play on the way to a board–meeting, not just games intended for a pinked-up teen bedroom.

It occurs to me that this perception about the appropriateness of gaming is one of the biggest barriers that prevent women buying the games they secretly desire. I’m sure games companies have the resources to deal with it, but the question is do they have the will? The entire games sales and marketing channel is still focused around teenage to twenty-something men.

To shake-up this channel will require games producers, retailers and marketers to transform this dirty little secret into inspirational form of recreation.