Thursday, April 10, 2008

Video Games

So my friend and I were talking about video games like NBA 2K8 and Marchmadness 2008 and he joked about there being a WNBA 2k8 coming out soon. I thought he was serious at first, but then realized it wasn't true. Then I realized there aren't any women sports video games. They have MLB games but no softball games. They have NBA games but no WNBA. They have men's college basketball, but no women college basketball. I was wondering if they dont do it because video games are more marketed to boys or do they think people would have no interest at all in them. I'm pretty sure they could make a women's volley ball games, it being college or beach volley ball. Softball could be college or olympic game. I thought this was interesting because i never realized that all sports games are just mens sports. What do you guys think? Would a women's sports game be marketable?

- RJ Velasco KIN 338IS. 7

3 comments:

Kerrie Kauer said...

Video games featuring women in sports are not produced for the mere fact that most females in this targeted audience (<18) have very little interest in video games. Trying to create an interest through producing female sport games would be suicide on the part of the video game producer, which is why this trend will remain until a drastic change of female perspective favoring video games.

Andy Jones, 338i

Kerrie Kauer said...

You bring up a very good point Andy. I looked into it a bit to see if there really aren’t any video games with women and the only women athletes I was able to find in a video game is a game called Top Spin. It is tennis video game by 2k Sports and can be found at this url http://2ksports.com/games/topspin/ . It features Anna Kournikova, what a surprise. I don’t recall seeing any women in sport games either other than maybe Tony Hawk's Skateboarding and not even sure if that was a true athlete or a fictional character.
Now I ask myself, would I play a WNBA video game or a women’s softball baseball? What about women’s soccer? The answer is probably no. Video game developers probably believe that there is not a market big enough out there to risk spending a lot of money to develop and women’s sport video game. They might have even done a market research to see if there is a fair amount of people that would be interested and until there is a high enough demand for it; we probably will not see WNBA video games or any women’s sport as for that.

Arthur Lusikyan(338i, S6)

Kerrie Kauer said...

Video games are geared toward males. There are more male gamers than female gamers. According to the Entertainment Software Association, 62% of gamers are male where 38% of gamers are female. If there is not a large enough market for games about women, they could incorporate women into male video games. Video game developers could add a female athlete into Tony Hawk's Skateboading game or a WNBA team to challenge NBA teams in NBA 2K8. Incorporating women into male video games could enhance the playing experience.
Erik Jones 338i