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I got into game development in hopes of making friends and gaining some sense of self-worth.
Boy, that was the most foolish decision of my life.
I also do some written LPs of RMN games over in this topic. It's not as big as I like, but I'm busier than I like, too.
Boy, that was the most foolish decision of my life.
I also do some written LPs of RMN games over in this topic. It's not as big as I like, but I'm busier than I like, too.
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Review scoring: standardization, professionalism, etc.
I think at the end of the day, the current rating system itself is fine, and no matter what rules you lay down, people will try their hardest to do what they want, how they want, anyway. If you're looking for more reviews, I think it might be worth considering allowing for some kind of 'short' review, or even just simply the ability to rate it and do nothing else. Whether this is directly incorporated with the existing reviews, or as a separate but similar system, that's a bit open. And I must say, seeing games have 1000+ downloads and not even a dozen reviews is rather jarring to me, as I'm used to reviewing any game/demo you complete as being common courtesy.
From the reviews I've read, a lot of them have several 'me too' comments. Which by their own rights are fine, but they don't end up reviewing or ranking the game themselves. If there was a quicker, simpler alternative, I think pretty much all the people who just make those quick comments would put back a little more feedback into the game, even if it's a little minimalistic. It's at least some way to gauge how many people could at least be bothered to play it through. Of course, then there might be less incentive to do proper reviews. I don't see any reason not to hand out a couple of makerscore for reviews if it'll shore up interest.
EDIT: I think this is more or less what kentona just suggested. Only worded slightly differently. So, um, I guess I'm in favour of it.
As for the human aspect of reviewing, my current philosophy these days is to try and be nice. No matter how poorly it may have been, someone still poured hundreds or thousands of hours into making the game, and hearing it be called a failure isn't exactly heartwarming. Nobody wants to hear that all their effort was basically wasted (or worse), especially when it comes to a hobby-like thing like this, where they're giving up their own free time just to be ridiculed.
From the reviews I've read, a lot of them have several 'me too' comments. Which by their own rights are fine, but they don't end up reviewing or ranking the game themselves. If there was a quicker, simpler alternative, I think pretty much all the people who just make those quick comments would put back a little more feedback into the game, even if it's a little minimalistic. It's at least some way to gauge how many people could at least be bothered to play it through. Of course, then there might be less incentive to do proper reviews. I don't see any reason not to hand out a couple of makerscore for reviews if it'll shore up interest.
EDIT: I think this is more or less what kentona just suggested. Only worded slightly differently. So, um, I guess I'm in favour of it.
As for the human aspect of reviewing, my current philosophy these days is to try and be nice. No matter how poorly it may have been, someone still poured hundreds or thousands of hours into making the game, and hearing it be called a failure isn't exactly heartwarming. Nobody wants to hear that all their effort was basically wasted (or worse), especially when it comes to a hobby-like thing like this, where they're giving up their own free time just to be ridiculed.
Go Make me a Sandwich: Sexuality in Bayonetta (and other games)
author=Emanazi
I'm sure their a bunch of girly games out their with this whole dream-guy fantasy going on
Yes, there's markets aimed at women. Largely horribly, might I add (let's maek everything pink!!!1). And for every Alistar++ there is, there's at least twenty Witch Toucher games to counterbalance it. The thing is, apart from maybe gendered versions of things with dating elements like Harvest Moon (which should be ingrained within the thing anyway, not two separate versions), there shouldn't even BE a firm market divide. A good proxy as usual is movies. Barring a few exceptions, when was the last time an award-winning film was aimed solely at one very specific demographic?
author=Fallen-Griever
do you really think that characters like Bayonetta and Lara Croft being "sexy" is an attempt to put women down?
I again don't know anything about Bayonetta, so I still can't say anything about her. I also know very little about Lara Croft, so I might be skewing things a bit here, but I've at least read that she was originally intended to be taken seriously as essentially a female Indiana Jones. Nothing more, nothing less. What the media did to her (and in turn, her own later games) mostly just made her into a sex icon and little else. Something somewhat similar can be said for Samus' fate of Other M, I believe; taking all the powerful and capable aspects of them and perverting them into something far less. It's not just about sexuality; it's about making them lesser, weaker, unworthy characters. And really, this is my bigger beef here. I've more or less learned to tolerate the whole 'sex sells' thing about women. The thing is, they're still seldom taken seriously as actual humans with abilities, emotions, and goals. Looking good is the sole thing they're there for; little else.
author=Fallen-Griever
Players in games like WoW can often times be ignored...
Technically, it wasn't Warcraft I was talking about there; I suppose I was being vague with my wording. It's in literally everything. Take a game, any game. So long as it has any way to communicate, even vaguely, you can bloody well bet I've received a torrent of sexist remarks from it if there's even the slightest trace that I'm female. Now, I think it's an unwritten fact that the internet in general is a hive of scum and villainy, but by those standards, it's a bit more than should be expected.
I think the best anecdote is from Halo (which admittedly has an especially bad reputation for a poor playerbase, but still). It was some team match, and my allies were all like 'wow, this guy is really awesome' (and yes, they were talking about me, they used my number) and then I got killed within close proximity to them. (the grunts are slightly different for male and female). Literally based on that one grunt alone, they changed immediately to 'that guy was a chick? No wonder she's such a fucking piece of worthless trash'. Sure, I may have screwed up at a crucial moment, but the complete 180 combined with blaming it on gender is quite telltale of something more.
Hell, even in Spiral Knights (something I know you've played, so you know how gender neutral it is), one time I accidentally joined a random party, and quickly got called a 'stupid useless whore' and 'a waste of space' within half a minute, before I had time to do anything or say anything. Perhaps the Angelic armour (it has a long dress and armour everywhere else, but it's still the most feminine piece, barring the pigtail helms) has a particularly bad reputation or said person was particularly foul in general, but still. It's pretty rampant across the whole net. The signs that I'm female turns me from another human or ally into a rotting hunk of flesh that should stay in the kitchen. There's a link between the depiction of women in media and the treatment of women gamers, but, in spite of part of the topic's title, that's not really the main focus here.
The last thing I'll say on this is that I'm more or less totally used to this whole issue, and simply roll my eyes every new time this happens. Obviously, if it truly bugged me, I could just go and hide as a 'man' like the majority of women do and waive all that trouble. But that's never going to make the problem go away permanently. But to the tens of thousands of women who are looking to play real games instead of casual junk like Farmville or Bejeweled, it IS horribly off-putting. I recall some of the Extra Credits episodes relating in some way to women (they've done several) touch on some of these points, and no doubt do a better job than I can.
Let me just say this very clearly here one more time: I'm for attractive characters, female or male. But that shouldn't come at the price of their, well, humanity. Which, in many cases these days, it does.
Go Make me a Sandwich: Sexuality in Bayonetta (and other games)
I'm honestly positively disgusted at this topic so far. It feels like half of the responses are telling me to get back to the kitchen, implicitly or not. That we're irrelevant, not worth listening to, and don't deserve to be here.
I've never played Bayonetta, nor have I ever had any remote interest in it. Now, there's a time and place for everything, and Bayonetta probably gets a free pass because "that's its thing", like Duke Nukem's misogyny or the gore of Mortal Kombat, God of War, and the like. That stuff has its place, I'm fully willing to grant that, but the greater whole of it is hardly helping making gaming look appealing in any way to women.
The one thing I will say is that the obsessive objective of trying to use sex to sell a game is a huge repulsive force. The bottom line is that gameplay is and will always should be what matters most. But enough male pandering, and used in the wrong way, is still a strong enough force to make me look elsewhere. Let's say the next Dead or Alive (fighting) game blows its competition out of the water with gameplay. Even then, I'd still be unlikely to play it, simply due to its ridiculously skeezy reputation.
A lot earlier in that blog she talks about browser ads (Evony, etc). I don't think it's that much of a surprise how repulsive a game trying solely to force itself on you with boobs alone is. I can't even picture many men being interested in that crap, because of how crass and lowbrow it is. Not to mention how completely and utterly detached all the boobage is from the actual game (as I recall, most of those kind are sort of like Civilization or SimCity). The fact that anyone even tries using such an advertising method is absurd. Even moreso is that it has become so widespread.
And it really says something terrible when you know that about 70% of women (I honestly forget where exactly this number comes from. I THINK it's from World of Warcraft, but I'm far from certain) play as a male character instead of a woman. Why? Well, there's a plethora of reasons, but most notably so they don't have to run around in a magical thong and to help prevent them from being stalked/mocked/abused/whatever by other players. I've been down this road myself a number of times. It's a colossal pain to have to deal with. The fact that the issue is entrenched not only in the publishers minds, but also the common playerbase, speaks volumes of how deeply ingrained and problematic the whole issue is.
I've never played Bayonetta, nor have I ever had any remote interest in it. Now, there's a time and place for everything, and Bayonetta probably gets a free pass because "that's its thing", like Duke Nukem's misogyny or the gore of Mortal Kombat, God of War, and the like. That stuff has its place, I'm fully willing to grant that, but the greater whole of it is hardly helping making gaming look appealing in any way to women.
The one thing I will say is that the obsessive objective of trying to use sex to sell a game is a huge repulsive force. The bottom line is that gameplay is and will always should be what matters most. But enough male pandering, and used in the wrong way, is still a strong enough force to make me look elsewhere. Let's say the next Dead or Alive (fighting) game blows its competition out of the water with gameplay. Even then, I'd still be unlikely to play it, simply due to its ridiculously skeezy reputation.
A lot earlier in that blog she talks about browser ads (Evony, etc). I don't think it's that much of a surprise how repulsive a game trying solely to force itself on you with boobs alone is. I can't even picture many men being interested in that crap, because of how crass and lowbrow it is. Not to mention how completely and utterly detached all the boobage is from the actual game (as I recall, most of those kind are sort of like Civilization or SimCity). The fact that anyone even tries using such an advertising method is absurd. Even moreso is that it has become so widespread.
And it really says something terrible when you know that about 70% of women (I honestly forget where exactly this number comes from. I THINK it's from World of Warcraft, but I'm far from certain) play as a male character instead of a woman. Why? Well, there's a plethora of reasons, but most notably so they don't have to run around in a magical thong and to help prevent them from being stalked/mocked/abused/whatever by other players. I've been down this road myself a number of times. It's a colossal pain to have to deal with. The fact that the issue is entrenched not only in the publishers minds, but also the common playerbase, speaks volumes of how deeply ingrained and problematic the whole issue is.
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