Gender Inclusive Game Design: Expanding The Market (Advances in Computer Graphics and Game Development Series)

Book Description

Women and girls of today are more tech savvy than ever before and research shows that they currently make up over 52% of Internet users and 70% of casual online gamers. Why then, is the game industry still producing computer games that primarily target males ages 13-25? With this tight focus, game developers are not only sharply limiting their possible total income, but they are losing sight of the bigger picture. The games industry is currently growing faster than the target market. To keep the industry strong and growing, game developers must start looking at expanding their market, which means designing titles that are accessible to the female audience. Successful entertainment industries have sustained growth for decades because they have considered the diversity of their audiences. Today's blockbuster products, be it movies, recordings or books, are most often the ones with elements that directly appeal to many market sectors, while containing very few barriers to access for others. By understanding the issues and barriers connected to gender, the game industry can benefit from a similar growth strategy. Gender Inclusive Game Design: Expanding the Market addresses issues that help designers and developers understand the real differences between how the genders approach and resolve conflicts, and what their entertainment criteria and responses are. It also explores the differences in reward systems, game play preferences, and avatar selection criteria, and how these issues all apply to game design, regardless of genre. By understanding these differences, designers can apply this knowledge to the traditional genres that make up the contemporary computer game industry and begin tapping the future market. Perhaps the real question developers need to be asking themselves is, "but what if the player is female?"

Customer Reviews:

Best book on game design.......2007-07-14

I loved this book. I learned how to write a game proposal.
There were a lot of thought provoking ideas on how to make a
game that isn't just geared to pre-teen boys.

Important subject - poor analysis.......2007-07-06

Graner Ray raises an important topic: how game designers can create games that appeal to women as well as men. Unfortunately, her advice is simplistic and poorly motivated. This is a summary of what I take to be the most important suggestions the book has to offer:

- Don't use stereotype or hypersexualized avatars
- Provide a well-designed tutorial
- Don't force the player to resort to confrontational resolution of conflicts, provide non-confrontational options
- Females only respond physically to emotional and tactile input, males only by visual input - so include an engaging back-story in the game
- Males prefer punishment for errors in a game, females prefer forgiveness
- Females want non-zero-sum (mutually benefitial) game designs
- Males want to conquer the computer, females want to work with the machine - so don't include hidden benefits that you have to "explore" the interaction space to uncover (e.g., hidden combos in fighting games)

The research results quoted are, when not of questionable quality, often taken out of context. Graner Ray also has a tendency to generalize from isolated anecdotes, which doesn't help. Another problem is that much of the research is dated: some of the games research quoted is from the 1980s and is surely not relevant today! Because of its publication in 2004, the book does not foresee the cross-gender success of titles such as World of Warcraft, and it only consideres the North American market: Europe and Japan are ignored altogether.

Game designers that wish to expand the market for their products to include women probably won't have much to gain by reading this book. Since they already have the necessary motivation, they will acquire more relevant information from well-executed market research and focus group testing than from this book. The book may be an eye-opener for game designers who have never considered women as potential buyers, though.

Female gamer and designer here.......2006-08-16

I have spent quite some time in the industry, designing games - as well as playing them. During my time in the industry, most of the women I worked with were in HR; very few were in game development.

Which made arguing my point with the men I worked with rather challenging, since the ratio of men to women at work was so much greater, and I was frequently told, "women just don't play games." Which I knew to be patently false, as there were and still are several online forums and sites run by women gamers. There just weren't that MANY of them at the time, so no one was interested in giving a player a choice in gender.

Times have changed, and many games offer up male and female characters, so it's rather easy for a woman to play a decent, strong, female character. I believe that there are more female gamers today than there were, say, 10 years ago. Perhaps that is because the younger female generation is getting turned onto computers instead of make up, clothes and popularity contests like they were in my generation. Then again, perhaps I'm just reflecting upon my own personal experience here.

I'm not sure I believe the 70% ratio (women to men) where "causal online gamers" are concerned. I am still quite a gamer, and do not experience that ratio in any of the MMOGs that I play. I feel that the number is more like maybe 15% F/M, as that is what I've experienced over the years - I'm being generous here, too. (Does that percentage include Pop Cap games, perhaps? Online card games? If so, that's a completely different beast.)

All in all, I do feel it is important for there to be games that allow both genders to play strong characters of both sexes. There are girls out there who game, and they deserve to have games available that allow them to create and play what may very well become a strong role model for them - as for many of us, our characters are simply an extension of ourselves.

Brass Tacks.......2005-12-17

So many books on game design slide into relatively useless territory: They fail to give the reader concrete things they can do to make better games. Not so this book. It's got plenty of examples (backed up by research) that can be used when you sit down with your tools and try to make a new world. I think her viewpoint is quite refreshingly mercenary. There's no femenist rhetoric here. The author is trying to figure out a way for the game industry to reach beyond the traditional male market and thus make more money. Very pragmatic.

The scary thing is that most of the changes she's proposing to games are relatively non-intrusive and easy to make, as long as designers are involved in the games from the beginning. Good read. Opened my eyes a bit to some issues I never considered before. What if the player is female, indeed.

An insulting and poorly handled treatment of an important subject.......2005-07-11

It is ironic that a book on gender inclusion would be so insulting to the gender of its target demographic.

Several anecdotes throughout the book cast men as crude, immature, and violent neanderthals. At the same time, it portrays women as nurturing, mature, and sophisticated. If the target market were embittered women with a bone to pick with the opposite gender, the author's approach would be appropriate. Unfortunately, I find myself disgusted rather than convinced.

I admit that there is some interesting and eye-opening information in the book. However, this information is infested with insulting material and poorly handled and delivered scholarship. In reading the text it becomes obvious how unwieldly good information is when placed into the wrong hands.

The title may as well be: "Catching Flies with Vinegar: How Ugly, Brutish Men Can at Least Appear More Sympathetic to Women in the Sexist, Violent Games They Make."

The book states that women are more comfortable with indirect communication than direct confrontation. If we are to take that into account, what motivates a book that is titled "Gender Inclusive Game Design" and proceeds to insult the male gender again and again comes into direct focus.

A personal account revealing directly the motivations of the author's feelings and intentions would have been honest and understandable. I would have sympathized. What we get, however, smacks of vendetta while it pretends to objectivity.

Noticing this, indirection then becomes underdstood as a euphemism for lying to both oneself and others.

Game Audio Programming (Advances in Computer Graphics and Game Development Series)

Average customer rating:

A great resource
Good for learning about API, not audio prgramming
A book about API, not audio
Excellent !!! - Informative, Disciplined, and Practical...
Excellent !!! - Informative, Disciplined, and Practical...

Game Audio Programming (Advances in Computer Graphics and Game Development Series)
James Boer
Manufacturer: Charles River Media
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1584502452

Book Description

Game Audio Programming is a comprehensive guide to interactive audio programming for the Microsoft Windows ® platform. Written for C++ programmers implementing an audio system for an entertainment or multimedia title, this practical reference covers a wide range of topics relevant to today's audio programmers, including DirectX Audio, audio decompression libraries, hardware filters and effects, geometric representation of world data for effects, occlusion and obstruction, and more. In addition, a full-featured, documented, and internally commented game audio programming (GAP) library is referenced throughout the book to explain various concepts. The library is included on the companion CD-ROM and can be used as either a ready-to-use library for your own games or as reference code to help implement an audio system.

Customer Reviews:

A great resource.......2003-07-06

For anyone actually doing practical audio programming for a game, this book is a great resource. No, it doesn't dig into academic minutia such as implementing your own software mixer, or explaining FFTs or writing custom DSPs, as those topics fall outside the realm of game programming (yes, audio compression uses these items, but no one writes their own audio compression codecs anymore, especially with good open-source alternatives available). Modern audio programming is all about taking advantage of hardware acceleration, and that means using APIs such as DirectX that can do this. The book is quite specialized, but digs into the APIs and gives a lot of good advice on practical implementation that you won't find anywhere else.

It also contains a good deal of the meat and potatoes of game audio programming, such as developing and interactive music system, or creating compelling dynamic soundscapes. The APIs are a big part of that, but not the only part, as a good portion of the book is devoted to these higher-level programming concepts.

I'd highly recommend this book to any game developer who needs to implement (or improve) an audio engine for their Windows PC game. It will give you a big head start, with lots of working source code to play with.

Good for learning about API, not audio prgramming.......2003-05-01

I agree with a previous reviewer that this book is dedicated to developing a high to mid level audio engine based on DirectSound and DirectMusic. This book is not about audio programming from scratch. It doesn't give any algorithms for implementing your own 3D audio engine. It does give pretty good explanation of the I3DL2 spec (but this can be gleaned from the AISIG site. It also has a good explanation of Occlusion and Obstruction.

A book about API, not audio.......2003-01-04

This book was very disappointing. It is a book about programming audio APIs, not programming audio algorithms. The section on Advanced 3D Techniques is mostly a description of how to use EAX. There is little here that could not be gleaned from the documentation and examples that come with the APIs in question.

This has only the barest whisper of theory. Just enough for someone to understand what a certain function in the provided APIs might mean. DSP, FFT and DCT are not even mentioned in the index! In all, this book is pretty much useful only to someone who doesn't want to deal with the included SDK documentation with DirectX Audio. Anyone working upon a different platform, or wishing to go beyond the basics of merely playing back samples should look elsewhere. Do you really need a 640 page long book just to figure out how to play back a sample?

Excellent !!! - Informative, Disciplined, and Practical..........2002-12-05

I recently had the opportunity to be the sole programmer for a very cool project that was a combination of a music player and a comprehensive jukebox. Yet, this was my first experience with *serious* audio programming on the Windows platform.

While doing my research on how I would meet the requirements for this project (including playback, sound mixing, crossfading, and conversions between the various standard audio formats - WAV, WMA, MP3, OGG Vorbis), I was very fortunate to stumble on this book while in a bookstore in Manhattan. At first I was thrown off by the title and assumed that this book was intended solely for 'game developers.' However, after picking it up and scanning it, I quickly realized that that was not the case. This book is for *anyone* interested in audio programming on the Windows platform.

In my opinion, this book accomplishes several things VERY well:

1) Provides the reader with a very good understanding about how audio works in general and the key components of any wave that you must understand when tackling a project such as mine (eg. sampling rate, bit depth, etc.)

2) While geared towards using the DirectX Audio APIs, the author provides a sound explanation (no pun intended) of why this API should be seriously considered and how it compares to using other APIs (typically offered by a 3rd party)

3) Perhaps most important, the author takes a very disciplined approach to the design of an audio system. This is extrememly helpful since many readers, like myself, will purchase this book not only because they have an interest in audio, but also because they need/want to build their own set of audio engines that they can use/reuse in present and future projects. This feature alone seperates this book from most, if not all others (that are typically reference books to a technology such as DirectX). This also demonstrates that the author has a very solid meta-level understanding of what he is writing about, pulling from many recognized and practical real-world projects.

4) Serves as a very good reference to the DirectX Audio APIs (DirectSound and DirectMusic) and even the Windows Media Format SDK

5) Discusses the main file formats (Raw PCM, WAV, WMA, MP3, OGG Vorbis) and how you can employ various codecs to get wave data from a file to a DirectSound buffer or vice versa. This is very useful because, on the Windows platform, you dont get some of these formats for free. So, an understanding of how you can design a system to support virtually any audio codec is therefore invaluable - and something the author does very well. He even walks you through the integration of the MP3 and OGG Vorbis formats into your audio engine.

I really cant say enough about this book. In fact, even though I shop here ALL the time, this is the first book review I have ever written on Amazon's website. Anyone who is interested in audio programming, at ANY level, should purchase this book. You will NOT be disappointed.

Excellent !!! - Informative, Disciplined, and Practical..........2002-12-05

In my opinion, this book accomplishes several things VERY well:

4) Serves as a very good reference to the DirectX Audio APIs (DirectSound and DirectMusic) and even the Windows Media Format SDK

Book Description

Everyone has their own idea of what good game design is, and this unique collection of articles provides a variety of different perspectives and ideas to consider in your designs. The articles are written by a diverse group of designers with varying levels of experience. Most of the key areas of game design are covered, and practical techniques and tools are included throughout. Each section begins with a broad overview of the topic and then includes a collection of ideas from other designers on how they think about or approach the subject. If you are just beginning in game design, you'll find useful information throughout the book, and if you're an experienced designer, you'll find new ideas to complement and compare with your own designs. Producers and managers will also benefit from the user community and managing a game development business sections. If you're interested in learning how other designers think about game design, you'll find plenty of great, and sometimes controversial, ideas to consider here!

Customer Reviews:

Good content, slightly too specialized.......2002-09-03

This is a very good read, and offers a lot of good information for the budding game designer. There are lots of issues to ponder and the book certainly manages to raise some good ones. My only complaints about the book are the lack of strong examples for some key concepts (naming specific games, and perhaps detailing how said game illustrates the concept would be nice) and the fact that it is rather focused on the RPG and Adventure genres. For that reason I would highly recommend it to designers interested in those genres, but would caution those who are not interested in designing RPG/Adventure games.

A Great book on Design and Perspective.......2002-08-15

This is a nice book with some technical issues that could be better but still a nice book to have for any one interested or that has a career in game design. you should read this book and understand at least a nice outline of how to design a game. you should'nt buy this if you are just starting and have no clue how to design games it is a nice book to try for starters even though there is a chance they will not know what it is talking about.

Designing Winning Products (Advances in Business Marketing and Purchasing)

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Designing Winning Products (Advances in Business Marketing and Purchasing)

Manufacturer: JAI Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0762306823

Book Description

Written for marketing executives, new product/service managers, and marketing research professionals, Designing Winning Products ( DWP) focuses on design and market testing issues/solutions for new business-to-business products and services. The first three chapters synthesize the product innovation literature; the objective of these chapters is to increase marketing and product managers' technical skills for testing customer acceptance of alternative new product/service designs. Detailed examples of applying these skills are described in seven later chapters - these chapters describe how to apply conjoint analysis and choice experiments with B-to-B customers in specific European and North American markets. A chapter is devoted to describing how superior new products sometimes fail to attract known customers - the nitty-gritty nuances behind the innovator's dilemma.
More than 50 diagrams, tables and figures support the text; the chapter discussions and end-of-chapter references include more than 300 complete citations to additional sources.

University Entrepreneurship and Technology Transfer: Process, Design, and Intellectual Property (Advances in the Study of Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Economic Growth)

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University Entrepreneurship and Technology Transfer: Process, Design, and Intellectual Property (Advances in the Study of Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Economic Growth)

Manufacturer: JAI Press
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0762312300
Release Date: 2005-07-01

Book Description

This volume of 12 chapters contains some of the latest research on university-based technology transfer, intellectual property issues, and the entrepreneurship program/technology transfer interface. Eleven of the papers are from the Colloquium on Entrepreneurship Education and Technology Transfer held at the White Stallion Ranch, Tucson, Arizona, January 21-23, 2005, organized by the Karl Eller Center, University of Arizona, and funded by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City. Patterns of technology transfer are outlined in papers by Donald Siegel, Phillip Phan, David Mowery, and David Audretsch, Max Keilbach, and Erik Lehmann. They describe the determinants of technology transfer, its impact, and challenges within a university setting. The history of university licensing activity is provided. Intellectual property issues and questions of the relationship between traditional basic university research and applied, potentially commercial research are described in papers by Katherine Strandburg, David Adelman, and Brett Frischmann. The ineffectiveness of university blocking patents in certain areas of the biosciences is discussed, along with broader questions of licensing and ownership. Interdisciplinary university entrepreneurship programs are outlined in papers by Jerry Thursby, Marie Thursby, Thomas Byers and Andrew Nelson, and Arthur Boni and S. Thomas Emerson. The authors detail the approaches taken at four universities to link entrepreneurship programs to technology transfer and technology transfer offices. The insights for adoption elsewhere are valuable. The final chapter by Morton Kamien is an essay on the characteristics and importance of entrepreneurs in the growth of a society.

Advances in Economic Design (Studies in Economic Design)

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Advances in Economic Design (Studies in Economic Design)

Manufacturer: Springer
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Binding: Hardcover

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Book Description

This volume gathers some of the finest and most recent research in economic and political design. Among the authors are several most prominent academics as well as many new and promising researchers. They investigate social choice and electoral systems, auctions, matching, bargaining, coalitional stability and efficiency, regulation, the design of rights, mechanisms, games, hierarchies and information. The book is bound to become a standard reference as a collection displaying where we are and where we are going in a broad spectrum of areas in economic design.

Advances in Taxation, Volume 16 (Advances in Taxation)

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Advances in Taxation, Volume 16 (Advances in Taxation)

Manufacturer: JAI Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0762311347

Book Description

Advances in Taxation publishes articles dealing with all aspects of taxation. Articles can address tax policy issues at the federal, state, local, or international level. The series primarily publishes empirical studies that address compliance, computer usage, education, legal, planning, or policy issues. These studies generally involve interdisciplinary research that incorporates theories from accounting, economics, finance, psychology, and sociology.

Advances in the Economics of Environmental Resources: Marginal Cost Rate Design and Wholesale Water Markets, vol. 1.(Review) (book reviews): An article from: American Journal of Agricultural Economics

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Advances in the Economics of Environmental Resources: Marginal Cost Rate Design and Wholesale Water Markets, vol. 1.(Review) (book reviews): An article from: American Journal of Agricultural Economics
Gordon L. Carriker
Manufacturer: American Agricultural Economics Association
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B00098JPF4
Release Date: 2005-07-28

Book Description

This digital document is an article from American Journal of Agricultural Economics, published by American Agricultural Economics Association on November 1, 1998. The length of the article is 1088 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Advances in the Economics of Environmental Resources: Marginal Cost Rate Design and Wholesale Water Markets, vol. 1.(Review) (book reviews)
Author: Gordon L. Carriker
Publication: American Journal of Agricultural Economics (Refereed)
Date: November 1, 1998
Publisher: American Agricultural Economics Association
Volume: 80 Issue: 4 Page: 880(2)

Article Type: Book Review

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Better vehicles through steel: advances are being made in steel that can lead to better, safer, more fuel-efficient vehicles--without taking a huge economic ... article from: Automotive Design & Production

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Better vehicles through steel: advances are being made in steel that can lead to better, safer, more fuel-efficient vehicles--without taking a huge economic ... article from: Automotive Design & Production
Gary S. Vasilash
Manufacturer: Gardner Publications, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

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This digital document is an article from Automotive Design & Production, published by Gardner Publications, Inc. on April 1, 2003. The length of the article is 2183 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Better vehicles through steel: advances are being made in steel that can lead to better, safer, more fuel-efficient vehicles--without taking a huge economic hit. (Materials).
Author: Gary S. Vasilash
Publication: Automotive Design & Production (Magazine/Journal)
Date: April 1, 2003
Publisher: Gardner Publications, Inc.
Volume: 115 Issue: 4 Page: 40(4)

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Emerging Information Resources Management and Technologies (Advances in Information Resources Management)

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Emerging Information Resources Management and Technologies (Advances in Information Resources Management)

Manufacturer: IGI Global
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 159904286X
Release Date: 2006-12-11

Product Description

In the time of constant technological and managerial advancement, firms of the 21st century are faced with an ongoing quest for implementing more effective strategies and methodologies to remain at the apex of the information resources management industry. Researchers and pioneers of academia incessantly delve into potential solutions to increase efficacy within technological and information resources management, as well as identify the emerging technologies and trends. Emerging Information Resources Management and Technologies supplies the industry leaders, practicing managers, researchers, experts, and educators with the most current findings on undertaking the operation of the latest information technology reforms, developments, and changes. Emerging Information Resources Management and Technologies presents the issues facing modern organizations and provides the most recent strategies in overcoming the obstacles of the ever-evolving information management and utilization industry.

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