I stopped in Game Crazy (owned by Hollywood Video) today as part of my fruitless quest for Hello Kitty Daily (the release date was pushed back to Nov. 14). I picked up a copy of a pretty pink handout that was put out with gamemaker Ubisoft. It reads, “Girls Love Games; Games Girls Love,” and then, “Yesterday It was Candyland … Today they still love playing games.” The flier goes on to show the covers of a couple of dozen DS and Wii games that are popular with pre-teen and teen girls.
There’s the Imagine series, where girls can play the role of a movie star, ballet star, interior designer and other jobs. the Petz games also also a hit with girls, and now there’s Catz Clan, Petz Monkeyz House
My point is, girls and women are an important part of the handheld gaming audience, and smart retailers won’t overlook this. It’s obvious from the “I Play for Me” Nintendo DS Lite campaign (featuring Liv Tyler, America Ferrera and Carrie Underwood) that women who would not normally consider themselves gamers are a great fit for the DS and its growing selection of titles.
There has been some interesting research into how games are marketed to women, including unfortunate stereotypes and the assumption that girls don’t like or aren’t good at the mainstream games. Gamer Alice Taylor has some keen insights on the topic.