There’s no name more feared by the makers and vendors of video games than the “R4″, the cheap, popular add-on to the Nintendo DS that allows gamers to load approximately 100 illegally downloaded games onto a single ‘cart’.
Naturally for some, the allure of this technology is the ability to get something for nothing. There are others who claim that they only use this technology for legitimate ‘homebrew’ software. I think there’s another really good reason that gamers like these things:
As you can see from the demonstration above, the DS is not quite as portable as it’s makers claim. Users of R4 cards have the advantage of combining many games into a single package, effectively allowing them to carry an entire collection in a tiny handbag.
The thing that Nintendo seem not to have noticed is that the pirate product really is delivering a better user-experience than the legit product sold in shops. The R4 cards and their many imitators have freed DS gamers from constantly needing to swap easily lost game-carts.
As a gamer whose happy to spend money on games but really appreciates not having to carry a load of crap with me, I’d like to see Nintendo respond to this threat not by the usual litigation and threats to ban products which hurt their business model. How about some innovation?
Nintendo needs to release it’s own R4 killer. Imagine an official game-download service like WiiWare for the DS that allows affordably priced games delivered directly to the hand-held, plus it should allow a large number of games to be stored on one cart.
That would kill my R4 envy and make room in my over-filled handbag, which would be a real bonus for many women, considering the average woman’s handbag is now 40% heavier than 5 years ago.
The Times last week picked up my Lady Geek report along with lots of surprising and somewhat dismaying points about how even fewer women are reaching boardroom status and failing to put their talents to use. In 2006 the Women and Work Commission calculated that if women’s skills were better harnessed, the country would gain £23 billion. It also states, to my horror, Rwanda has a higher female representation in its parliament than does the UK (49 per cent to our 20 per cent)
That is the question posed and answered in Why Women Mean Business: Understanding the Emergence of our next Economic Revolution. Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, the author of the book, states that men need to become ‘gender bilingual’. “When a major business moves into China, it tries to learn and understand Chinese culture and language. That’s no different from learning to work with female differences in terms of aspirations, vocabulary, attitudes and priorities.”
Companies that have adopted this ‘gender bi-lingual‘ approach have seen the positive results in the workforce. PwC has more than doubled the number of women who return after maternity leave. Quite a feat as most men in business in my experience really believe that your brain disappears along with your pelvic floor muscles. I remember being introduced in a meeting after my first week back after maternity leave as “This is Belinda, and only half her brain works since she has had her baby.” Not quite the confidence building introduction I would have hoped for.
Work has taken on a new meaning in my life since having children. I am much more focused. I am less likely to talk corporate bull. I am less tolerant. I am better at multi-tasking. I deliver more albeit in a shorter worker week. I refuse to sacrifice time with my children unless it is for something I believe in. Something I believe that is actually going to make a difference.
In the 1990s Deloitte, the professional services firm, organised a two-day workshop on gender issues for 5,000 staff. It cost $8 million (£4 million). Douglas McCracken, the CEO, said: “The message was out: don’t make assumptions about what women do or don’t want. Ask them.” There are numerous studies on how women in business positively impact the bottom line but many companies still fail to realise the potential of women especially after they have had children.
I love the quote the Churchill quote they end with in the book, “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”
The Lady Geek seminar in Finland got excellent press coverage, once again highlighting the universality of the challenge for tech companies when targeting women. The two major business papers wrote a 2-3 pages story on the subject (and yes as you can see took a dreadful photo of me) and the press release by the Finnish News Agency was quoted in most of the Finnish newspapers, radio and web with over 2000 hits with the Google search term “naiskuluttajaa ei houkutella teknopornolla” “Tech Porn does not attract female consumer”
‘There’s a real opportunity here for brands and retailers in the consumer electronics sector to target women. They told us loud and clear that they do not want diamante encrusted mobile phones and baby pink DAB radios. Our aim is to get clients to think differently about how they develop, distribute and market products to women.’
Here is the full press release..
The Spectator highlights my Lady Geek findings this week. Its a good article written by a talented journalist Amelia Torode. Amelia talks of what women want from technology: style and simplicity. I totally agree that women have little desire to to spend time working out technology. We just want the damn thing to work. Men have much more of a battle with technology. Whilst my husband can spend hours tinkering with our new PVR (which is VERY complicated in my view- bring back TIVO) and telling me about all the great features it has, I just want to know if its recorded Ugly Betty. Lets hope the men listen up to Amelia’s advice.
Although not directly related to Lady Geek, people might find the article Still too few women (FT, 22 October 2007) on gender in management education and the article Developing world cracks glass ceiling (The Guardian, 15 October 2007) on gender stereotypes across the world of interest.
“One final thought. Please, for the next five years at least, lose the pink. Pink has become a cliche: make it pink and bingo, that’s the woman thing taken care of.” -Kevin Roberts, chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi world-wide, writing in the NZ Herald.
I agree with Kevin about the over-reliance on traditional research. Much of the qual research done today is similar to the 1950’s, where you take your ‘respondent’ and stick them in a focus room, and the women feels like an experiment. The way to find the truth is to stand next to the till while a women is multi-tasking with her two children, husband on the phone and trying to find her purse. You end up hearing whats going on in her life, not whats going on in your store.
A short but sweet article in last week’s campaign, but I think Campaign should go into a lot more depth into the way technology and gaming is currently marketed to women if we are really to make a change. Campaign are well placed to raise this issue given their status as advertising’s most widely read mag, lets hope this is the start of an interesting debate on advertising to women.
Campaign, 14th Sept
Saatchi & Saatchi planning director Belinda Parmar says: “There’s a real opportunity here for brands and retailers in the consumer electronics sector to target women. This group of women told us loud and clear that they do not want diamante-encrusted mobile phones and baby pink DAB radios. Our aim is to get clients to think differently about how they develop, distribute and market products to women.” -Marketing Week, 10th Sept 2007
“There are clearly some smart, forward-thinking marketers in the industry, but for some reason, when it comes to targeting women, things haven’t moved on,” said Belinda Parmar, planning director at Saatchi. “Most women feel cheated when they walk into stores or see ads with baby-pink, diamante-encrusted products.” - Wired Magazine, 10th September 2007
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