Women and this thing called casual gaming

I'm into this thing called casual gaming. It sounds like I'm just into Halo and WoW but not so much that my brain melts out my ears, but it's actually a different set of games. Websites like Big Fish Games provides fun little games that users can download for a much lower price than most video or computer games. The games are usually either fun little arcade games - Diner Dash is one that's really popular all over the place - or are hidden object games (HOGs!). If the game has a storyline that can end, which they usually do, it usually only lasts a few hours, which correlates to the lower price. Sometimes they're longer or take more work.

I like casual gaming because the games don't consume my life the way longer games can, and it doesn't take as much commitment to enjoy them or be good at them. I have a Big Fish Games subscription, so once a month I buy a game. I also get to download one-hour free trials of most games, which usually satisfies my desire to goof off for a little while.

A great many casual gamers are, like me, female. And that results in an interesting phenomenon of marketing games to women. I'm not entirely sure why it works out that more women do casual gaming and more men do other types of gaming (I suppose I'm making generalizations here). What I can say is that it is often bizarre and obvious how much casual games cater to what the designers think women want.

I say think because I'm not really sure it's what I want, or what other women want. I play mostly the hidden object games or similar puzzle-type story games.

Nearly all of the HOGs I've played have a female main character. Usually she's a plucky young woman who has to solve a mystery after a relative or trusted professor dies/is kidnapped/gets lost/meets disaster. Sometimes she has to rescue a family member, usually someone who is elderly or a child. What is always obvious is how much the quest revolves around a personal, emotional goal - she is rarely solving a mystery for her own personal edification without some friend or family connected to it. I'm generally ok with that type of game, because the woman can be pretty bad ass too - the games love to have female pilots, for example.

The female-centered design shows up in the images too. It's not the case with all of them, but I often see games that are just very pretty. This is good - I like good visuals - but I often find it overdone. The Dream Chronicles series, for example, is a series of very well done (if too short) games that always have a woman rescuing a family member or being helped by a family member, and it is positively dripping with feminine frills. Think the Rivendale of the LOTR movies but curlier. Again, the visuals are great and the games are good, but I personally don't need the scenery to all be elegant swoops and flowers and all the hidden objects to be gems and jewels. I have even tried games full of fairies or ballerinas that make me sick with the sweetness.

Alternatively, some games are actually a little creepy, and I think that relates to the storyline ideal - it's fun to have to work through a scary story to rescue someone. I tend to avoid the far end of these too, mostly because I don't really want to have to find blood spatters as part of my quest.

The casual games that really rile me up are less often the HOGs and more often time-management games, like Diner Dash, in which players have to serve customers in a diner to make a certain amount of money before time runs out. There are all sorts of versions of the idea - cake shops, beauty salons, ranches, restaurants. The main character is almost always female and almost always ridiculously cutesy. She's also full of cheer and pep and knows we can do it! And then she runs around serving people. I just did a trial for a version where the shop was a cake shop and the heroine is pregnant, having gotten married in a previous installation. The colors are bright (often pink) the cakes are super girly, and it's all incredibly stereotypical of a perfect little family with a perfect little business. Gag.

What I'm getting at is that these games are marketed to women, and portray women in a very interesting way. It's usually stereotypical, but it's often also as a very effective person - the woman is getting things done. I get sick of the girly colors and especially the "serving others" cliches, and wonder why these are the things that sell. I know there's something about the way that the games portray women that grates on me, and I think it's because the heroine is supposed to he an ideal, and I never want to be like her.

There are some games available on casual gaming sites that aren't like what I've described here. They're more often "large file games," which have been released previously for more money and are then released later on the gaming site. Syberia is one that stars a woman but isn't too stereotyped and cheesy and is also very interesting (although my version of the sequel has a glitch and I can't finish it).