Friday, September 5, 2014

Why game over screens ruin the dreams of female game devs



You're on the last battle of the game, you've spent countless hours perfecting your mastery of the controls and you are now ready to face the final boss. As you battle the boss you find yourself gaining the advantage when suddenly it pulls its ultimate attack and instantly kills you and you start all over; this is the reality that many women face not only in videogames but in real life too.

We live in a society that constantly tells women that they can't do anything but domestic chores and raise children and this mentality is just as damaging as a game over screen.  How many future female game developers do you think have had their dreams crushed at the hands of a male boss character? The trauma of a game over for a female gamer is profound,  one study shows that 100% of women who play games  have seen a game over screen and out of that 100%, 85% of them stopped playing altogether and pursued "things that they wanted to do".

There is a simple solution to the predicament and that is to get rid of game over screens altogether.  Why do we need women to be told that their efforts were in vain and start the at the beginning of a level? We should instead give them encouragement for trying to overcome an enemy that gets between them and their goal.
The new game over screen
This is just the first step too, game devs should remove failure completely for female gamers . There is a tech company in Japan called Xnis that is making technology that determines the gender of a person by reading their thoughts, if we apply that to games we can create a place where women won't have to worry about the consequences of making a mistake because they won't be able and that will encourage them to destroy the boys club of game development. You can help this dresm be a reality by donating to my Paetron..unless you like living in a world full of cis white male gamers.

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