Girl Fight: The Battle for Tweens

Everyone wants to get their girl game on. Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo are all trying to appeal directly to females.


"What do girls play?" is a question that's plagued the games industry for years. It used to be that women couldn't walk through the E3 halls without being asked to define gaming for their entire gender. And while the game-playing stereotypes aren't necessarily true, the games industry has stumbled across a model that is capable of winning over the hearts and minds of 'tween girls: Fashion Games.

Blame Ubisoft. The company has been at the forefront of a lot of gaming trends--particularly the Wii and casual games. And as Ubisoft Senior VP of Marketing Tony Key boasted during the company's press conference, it's really goods at selling games to girls. Imagine, he says, is the best-selling third-party brand on the DS, and it sold 2.75 million copies last year. It's seemingly unstoppable.

To help bolster the company's position, Key announced new additions to the Ubisoft girl game library. The Style Lab Makeover allows girls to take photos of themselves with the DSi camera and then experiment with new hairstyles and make-up. Style Lab Jewelry lets players design and wear their own in-game jewelry--and then order its real-world counterpart.

But the madness doesn't stop there. Everyone wants a piece of Ubisoft's gaming empire. Electronic Arts decided to open its E3 press conference with the announcement of its own tween girls brand. Charm Girls Club--four games with subtitles like "Perfect Prom" and "My Fashion Show"--are offering girls a chance to do everything from choosing the perfect dress to running a fashion mall.

Rounding out E3's collection of girl games are Nintendo's own fashion boutique simulator Style Savvy, Sony's blazing pink PSP bundled with Hannah Montana, and Microsoft's Project Natal tech demo that showed off a virtual accessory closet.

You can't fault any of these companies for chasing after a lucrative market. And, it's nice to see someone going beyond the usual "dye-it-pink" strategy. That said, one would hope that we'd see a diversified line-up of games targeted at girls. Instead, E3 preaches that they only way into a tween girl gamers heart is to offer them fashion tips.

http://www.gamebizblog.com/gamebizbl...or-tweens.html

Almost completely off the subject here but I just have to say that I absolutely hate the term "tween" and believe that whomever coined it should have been drawn and quartered on live world-wide television.