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DCUO and Female Gamers....
Wolfdor
Member Posts: 123
Foot in mouth moment of the day goes to this DCUO/SOE dev, who probably should have worded his response a little more wisely. 
Be sure to read the comments below the article....
www.massively.com/2009/02/11/dc-universe-online-and-its-appeal-to-female-gamers/
Comments
I agree about the "foot in mouth"
but he also said this, which Massively did not report regarding playing "support roles"
And it’s not a necessarily a male-female thing so to speak, but it’s just what I’ve noticed when it comes to what characters females tend to gravitate to gameplay-wise as opposed to men.
link to the full interview
multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2009/02/09/dc-universe-online-devs-explains-how-their-game-is-female-friendly/
EQ2 fan sites
Jens Andersen gives feedback on DCUO Source forums
dcuosource.com/index.php/topic,446.30.html
I really appreciate the attention this is getting; mostly because it has taught me to answer subjects like this less flippantly. Also because it gives me a chance to elaborate on my brief and rather disjointed answer to the question. I’ll attempt to shed some more light and who knows, maybe Tiger’s wife will forgive me. Wink
First, to give some perspective to the question itself: When I was asked about this in the interview I felt that she was asking about non-gamers. She didn’t ask me how we were going to attract female gamers.
Later, after the interview is over she puts a section at the top which focuses on female gamers.
This is out of context of what she asked me in the actual interview.
I would have answered that question entirely differently if she had phrased it as such. Female gamers are just like male gamers, they like good games and they will play them in a variety of roles. But in the interview, there was no blurb floating in the air over her head, like there is in front of this article, to give her question the actual context it pertained to.
But the fact that the question is even out there means it has some validity. The simple fact is that there are more male gamers than female. This means that the consumer base will grow faster if you bring more females into the market. I find that new gamers tend to be less hardcore initially, male or female. In my experience, not form market research but by watching my friends and family, is that games that are less competitive, have less immediate and severe failure points are more attractive to a new gamer because they tend to have a better chance of leading to an experience that is fun and not frustrating. The way I see it traditional support roles in MMO’s, while important, have a less hardcore barrier to entry. That is not to say there aren’t amazing support players out there and that they don’t make a huge difference in a group, but that is also true of the combat roles as well. It’s not about “girls want to heal they don’t want to fight.” It’s about making the non combat options fun and engaging so that new gamers (which has a higher chance of being a female over a male of the same age and if I’m wrong on this statistic please let me know) have a blast.
Anyway, my response touched on support not only for that reason but because we are not doing a traditional support model. An initial experience, especially in a super hero game has to make the new user feel not only useful, but powerful and fun. My observation is that playing the UI to keep your friend doing superhero coolness isn’t as fun as doing it yourself alongside them. This is a hard thing to understand until we actually show you what support means in our game. It’s not just about being Captain Band-Aid. Our game isn’t about numbers, it’s about action. I can’t wait for people to see what we’re doing with this aspect of the game to make everyone part of the action and feeling like a superhero, not a sidekick.
As for the aspect of the answer detailing the character creation for female characters: I poked around some forums after DS indicated there was some discussion on other boards about this article and I noticed people were saying how WOW just made a great game and males and females play it regardless. The fact of the matter is that they chose the “archetypes” for their females very carefully. And in some cases they made poor choices. For example, men play Tauren because they want to be a Minotaur. Women have been less likely to play the female tauren because they are then looked at Cow, which has negative connotations. Very few women actually played the female troll or ogre in EQ. Thye simply didn’t want their avatar to look like that. On the flipside, we don’t want to objectify every female character in our game to be the waif like supermodel or men’s mag bimbo. So, it comes down to personality types which translates into the avatar, it’s not just looks. WoW does this. The gnome is “cute”, the dwarf is “motherly”, the Night Elf is “sexy”.
Lastly, I was in no way implying, as I have seen some state, that women in the DCUO are all support. Women in the DCUO are bad@SS and they fight side by side, if not in front of, their male counterparts. Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Power Girl, all front line fighters. Lois Lane? Not taking on Brainiac but formidable in your own right in the world of “normals”. So, my point on that was that women are very strong, capable and independent in the DCU and will be great role models, albeit fictional, in our game as a result. I was particularly thinking of young girls when I made that remark.
At this point I have no idea if this helps or hurts but I would like to think it sheds some light on the issue. And please keep in mind, the top of the article is utterly misleading to the question that was asked before that was written. In fact I might contact her to make the intro match the actual question, because it doesn’t.
Anyway, to those offended I’m sorry; I think this should help clear up the intent of the answers.
Once we get to reveal our plans for the character roles, I think you’ll have even more understanding about that comment.
- Jens Andersen
EQ2 fan sites
LOL not surpising that SOE execs are out of touch with reality. Now excuse me while I go heal & buff some faces off in a CoD4 game.
This is what happens when you no longer have "gamers" making your games but people in suits. Suits only know two things and that is how to scam money out of people and make gross generalizations.
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You wouldn't understand
*cough* Speaking about generalizations... You are aware of the irony here, yes?
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I wish my girlfriend would play a healer.
Because frankly, she sucks at melee dps.
She refuses to hotkey, and she turns with her keyboard.