The last blog post by our resident gamer girl sparked a lively conversation, so I thought this one might be of interest to the community as well. Why the female gamer market is worth paying attention for indie devs:
http://crowquillgames.com/?p=454
Take a read and sound off with your thoughts. Some of the posts last time were quite insightful.
That is what I was looking for. What a girl really sees and wants 
. I found a few new concepts that I could never do without reading this. Thanks a lot.
Wikipedia article on video games was talking about this but it did not lead me to the right spot.
I have a stealth game where the main character’s a woman. I didn’t plan it that way, but I liked it nonetheless. I’ll release it…when I get a chance… in the future… after some other titles get produced.
Out of curiosity Kinos, Why are you delaying the release of that particular title? Is it because it was just a test and not high on the production pipeline to get out, or are there other reasons as well? If you see my post in the other thread on a similar subject, I’m of the belief that making almost anything that appeals to female gamers at this point is much more likely to bring you money given how little competition there is.
I am doing it alone, and working a full time job, and also, I move on to other projects almost as fast as I start them. So, it’s mixture of ADD
and laziness. lol. 
Also, I want certain animations and using Blender and the like are a drag. It feels like I never have the animations I want for my game.
Aah, all the usual reasons an indie project might never get to market! 
Being a JRPG fan, I can’t help but bring up two related examples your resident gamer girl left out, that would advance the overall conversation…
Rydia (Final Fantasy IV) - Originally found as a little (powerful) child, and swallowed by The Lord of the Sea, Leviathan, she becomes the go-to girl for powerful summon spirits and black magic. Her only real drawback is her fakeout death (spoiler alert, by the way.) In every way, she’s a competent, powerful girl, then woman, who helps Cecil to save the world. It’s also cute the way Edge has a crush on her (subsequent spoiler alert. I’m on a roll tonight!) Her outfit is perfectly suited for the fact that the Feymarch is somewhat ‘underneath’ the underworld, which has lava currents (in this case, the stripperific outfit is ‘barely’ justified.)
Harley (Final Fantasy IV: The After Years): Harley is the Royal Secretary to King Edward (yes, his death is a fakeout too, spoiler spree!) who helps run the Kingdom of Damcyan in the years after Final Fantasy IV. In the final few tales, she winds up accompanying the party to the final dungeon. She’s somewhat the antithesis of Rydia, though - where Rydia is insanely powerful, while lovable, Harley is most useful for her Gil Toss command, which has potential to deal some crazy damage, at the cost of money. However, she gets a temporary Damsel state in Edward’s Tale (spoiler, yeah, yeah. Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection is a good game, go buy it so I can stop ruining plot lines!) Has a conservative outfit, and in Edward’s Tale you can find out that she went to school in Troia to study and become the powerful, intelligent, and crazy-skilled woman she is.
These are two powerful women who have things happen in the course of the games they take part in, yet aren’t marginalized; Rydia encourages and pushes the party forward both emotionally and literally with her overpowered Black Magic and Summoning kit, while overcoming having her village burned to the ground (and, traveling with the guys who did it), while Harley provides a well-fleshed-out supporting character whose usefulness trails off late game due to a significantly less than useful kit and item draw.
My challenge to The Gamer Girl: create a campaign for Harley that draws on her background and allows her to be a leading lady without marginalizing her. While she’s obviously intended as a support character, she could be more. In the context of the Final Fantasy IV systems, consider her item draw, combat abilities, and backstory.
I think this would help The Gamer Girl to further her research, and in the same fell swoop provide a source inspiration for a more ‘hands-on’ approach with leading female characters.
Hey Asvarduil,
You raise a couple of interesting examples, though they are still far from what could reasonably be called targeting a game at the female audience. Both suffer from what seems to be some of the most usual complaints, (the character is a bit character rather than a central one and the stripperific outfit justified with a handwave excuse as skimpy as the outfit itself.) Sadly, these are in fact some of the better examples of “girl appeal” out there. Clearly the bar to jump over to do a better job targeting this market is quite low.
As far as your challenge goes, do realize though we call her our resident gamer girl, she’s a grown woman working at a game development company. I don’t think she’ll be spending much time playing with another company’s Intellectual Property anytime soon. “Gamer girl” is a bit misleading I suppose, but “Gamer Chick” is downright pejorative considering the subject she blogs on, and “Gamer Woman” sounded either too forced or like some odd neo- super hero. Aaah the problems with labels.
Cheers!