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I suppose I shouldn't have been so surprised; this is, after all,Brandii Grace we're talking about. If you don't know her, Brandiiis about the size of a firecracker and possesses a similar energydensity. She has been in the game industry for close to 10 years,starting as an IGDA Student Scholar and working her way up as adesigner, writer, producer, programmer and eventually teacher. She's still a big deal in the IGDA, too, having won their MVP awardthis year for setting up their events volunteers program. And ifall that weren't enough, Brandii also fought and won a NationalLabor Relations Board case against an employer who treated her andher co-workers unfairly, spending six hours on the witness standand never losing her cool under relentless cross-examination. Still, you can't persuade women to buy triple-A games withcomposure alone. Her new company is called Transform Entertainment -- at least for the moment -- and I decided to play devil'sadvocate and ask her what makes her think she can do it. At the Game Developers' Conference, you told me you were setting upa company to, in your words, "make triple-A games for women."What's wrong with the triple-A games we already have? Brandii Grace: I wouldn't say there's something "wrong" with thetriple-A games on the market today. Rather, I'd say they are like aman's best, custom-tailored suit -- a perfect fit for the intendedaudience and a poor fit for most women. Interesting analogy, but games don't wrap themselves around a humanbody. What does a poor fit mean in this context? BG: It means that most triple-A games don't properly target mostwomen. I'm not just talking about the themes of these games; theirexecution doesn't support the needs or attitudes of this audience.Compare how Twilight and Underworld both approach the theme ofvampires versus werewolves. Underworld attracts more men by focusing on the action of agun-toting, catsuit-wearing hottie kicking ass. Twilight attractsmore women by focusing on the drama of internal and interpersonalconflicts between desire and the emotional bonds of love, family,and friendship. Yet, too many people in our industry think they'dattract the Twilight audience simply by making the Underworldvampires sparkly! Are you seriously going to put the conflict between desire and theemotional bonds of love, family, and friendship in a video game?The only things we're really good at simulating are physics andeconomics. BG: I disagree! For starters, deception and alliance manipulationare mechanics successfully implemented in plenty of games likeMafia and Werewolf. Social networking technology has maturedconsiderably and alliance manipulation is an area social games arewell-positioned to explore. Moreover, The Sims -- the triple-A franchise most successful at attracting largeaudiences of women -- created interpersonal conflicts between itsAI characters. They successfully implemented gameplay I refer to as"empathy play". Players are given a voyeuristic view of all thedrama and the ability to influence its outcome; but players neverbecome a direct or indirect target of the emotional conflict.(Watching a screaming match may be fun; being in one is not.) Prom Week Fair enough, although in The Sims you can't actually tell what the conflict is about. You've raisedtwo issues: social networking and omnipresent (non-role-playing,avatar-less) voyeurism. What do you think about Prom Week , the AI-driven Facebook game? BG: Actually, I'd say The Sims ' emotional reactions and icon thought bubbles explain conflictsfar better than Prom Week 's unnatural and unhelpful dialogue. Prom Week 's gameplay communication is in its menus instead of its dialogue-- which is like reading a book where the entire story is in thenarrator's exposition. More importantly, you made an interesting assumption that I wastalking about avatar-less omnipresence. There are plenty of realpeople involved in conflicts without being targeted by them --divorce lawyers, for example. But we don't often make gamesfeaturing such "tangential" interactions. That's because we assumefun emerges directly from the challenge of conquering a conflict.This makes sense, as most men are driven by overcoming challengesin games. However, only about 10 percent of women play games forthe challenge. In many cases, challenge can actually deter womenbecause they are so averse to the risk of failure. We are high quality suppliers, our products such as Mini Roll Cage , China Roll Cage Containers for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits Steel Roll Cage.
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