Video Game Awareness!

Gamers, feminists, or people who just want to help, should help the gamers who want the video game industry and community to be more inclusive and appealing to everyone.

Throughout my whole life, I’ve noticed how video games were seen as an activity that boys were more likely to do than girls. I think a huge part of why video games are thought of this way is because of how they are marketed. Many commercials and other advertisements make it clear of who they’re trying to sell their product to, and it seems like video game marketers are aiming mainly towards males. Video game marketers should include their female consumers into their advertisements to make everyone feel included.

So why are video games mainly targeted to males? In the article “No Girls Allowed,” Tracey Lien explains how males are more heavily targeted than females. When video games were coming out, there wasn’t a specific gender that they were targeting. Although, like the present, the industry and gamers were male dominated. The video game market crashed but made a come back in the 90s, and that’s when they decided to focus on males. When marketing a product, it makes more sense to focus on a certain population because it is safe. Since more males played video games, that was their reliable target.

Focusing on a certain population, gender, or age seems to work because the video game industry made it’s comeback and is still growing. This method is very obvious and effective, but it leads to stereotypes that we are dealing with at the moment.