Appealing to women
I hesitate to include this link because it demonstrates, in a nutshell, everything that is wrong with how the gaming industry markets in order to garner larger audiences. By the way, the link is Not Safe For Work.
The irony is that it works. I just linked it, it’s #9 on the viral charts, and I am sure that it connects strongly with a certain demographic.
An immature demograhic, mind you.
Broken down, and without engaging in real hyperbole, let’s look at what this video says.
- Women are like cars.
- Publicly ripping the clothes off of a woman is cute and funny.
- Women are better with bigger breasts.
- Women are better with as little clothes as possible.
- Women are better with thongs.
- Women are helpless in the face of men’s power.
If you dig a little deeper, you can even see hints of “go after younger women” with the pigtails.
Of course, what it says about men is equally disturbing. In particular, the notion that men are completely driven by their sexual drives.
Is it a successful viral marketing campaign? Probably. But it’s also one that will only spread within one targeted demographic. The exact same whimsical campaign could have been done without all the sexism, been funnier, and managed to not turn off women.
Women like driving games.
Except, now, this one.
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Blogroll Joel on Software Raph Koster Sunny Walker Thoughts for Now Sex, Lies and Advertising
Bartle?s 5 most important folks in virtual worlds [IMG] Posted by Raph’s Website [HTML][XML][PERM] on Fri, 20 Jul 2007 03:12:38 +0000
Yeah… but what’s the GAME like? *snicker*
Anyway… we won’t be buying that one… =P
Funny how there’s billions of dollars readily available to publishers and developers, and they don’t want that money. Children, housewives, elderly, and disabled people arguably have more leisure time than high school and college boys.
At the end of the day a successful ad is one that gets to its -targeted- audience. I’d say they have it pegged. Sacrificing other markets to get to your target is part of the system. They apparently felt it was justified.
When I see game advertisements (& content) portray women (& men) in such a way, my reaction is not just that they are targetting a specific market segment but that they are intentionally excluding any appeal to the other viable segments. A justifiable sacrifice? Maybe to some. But were they completely without ideas that would attract their primary market segment without making the rest of us want to run screaming in the opposite direction?
My reaction on seeing this?
“Yet another demo reel for the Congressional hearings”
This ad was shown in Europe. Was it intended to be viral? In the US?
A lot of European advertisement is a lot more in-your-face like this and more directly caters to male sexuality. This varies a lot across European cultures of course, but this tends be accepted and not and not seen as directly antagonistic to women. It’s more just a matter of “men being men”. Or at least that’s my experience. And I would say that gender equality is fairly decent in the cultures I am talking about. Europeans are just a lot less politically correct. I’ve known several fiercly independent European women who scoffed at American political correctness and feminist thought. Or as an example, I used to work at an office in Austria, staffed with environtalist PhD students and professors, that had posters of nude women in the men’s bathroom (and posters of nude men in the women’s bathroom).
I’m not sure what I feel about such an advertisement myself. But I do think that it is important to put it into a cultural context. Yes, it is on the internet which in many ways transcends culture. But was it really intended to be seen by many American women? And how many actually frequent sites that feature that ad?
In general I think that controversy sells well in our industry. No matter we put the boundaries, there will be games that push them, just to get attention. And personally I am more concerned with games that let you beat up hookers and push drugs than games that advertise with what is actually a fairly normal male sex fantasy (given the nature of male sex fantasies).
Trivalizing rape is never justified regardless of how much money you might get if you ‘hit your target market’. If the game industry keeps it up, they will likely get exactly what they deserve.
Apparently I’m way late to the party — this ad dates from June.
This is an incorrect interpretation:
> Women are better with thongs.
The correct one is:
We don’t think we can get away with full frontal nudity in this market.
[…] *Edit- Apparently Raph has basically the same feelings. […]
My take
The ad is stupid – however I understand why it was made. I do not find it offensive, I do not think the idea of the ad was to say hey guys go rape some women – all that is overreaction and drama play at its best.
Lets take the Ad for what it is – an attempt to get a title no one has heard about really into the spotlight – which it seems to have done – I think the actual nudity is bad because it potentially misses part of the market (specifically in countries where that stuff just wont get run anywhere). The ad would have had the same effect if she covered herself and there was just titillation not actual nudity. The representation of the girl is first she’s posing (standing there for no reason) then as stuff starts happening to her she semi screams while bouncing around – at one point she smiles – she overreacts in a comical manner to her skirt coming off for added effect. At the end she isn’t even fighting the spinning around – she isn’t crying and it isn’t portrayed as anything but comical absurdity. The folks who made this probably were going now how unrealistic can we make this situation to over emphasize the gratuitous nudity we are about to display. Stupid yes – virtual rape or offensive no – although my parents would both say the makers of it will be going to hell – they also don’t play games.
Does the ad make me want to play the game – no it didn’t appeal to me before the ad it doesn’t after the ad – all the gameplay I saw was customizing a car and the graphics didn’t look all that appealing – so in that case it failed but then I’m not their market anyway.
Quote: “Trivializing rape is never justified regardless of how much money you might get if you ‘hit your target market’. If the game industry keeps it up, they will likely get exactly what they deserve.”
And what does the game industry deserve – the game would get an m rating if it had that content in it and less market share. The game industry wont get anything but attention for a day or two and some sound byte for a congressman/lawmaker thats borred. It was steroids in baseball and Janet Jackson and Howard Stern – far as I know baseball is fine Janet is well was she very popular before the Superbowl? Howard is moving to Sirius – a good move he will make more money and Sirius will probably gain market share over XM because Howard however vulgar and insane he is has a lot of appeal.
Will women play that game ? I dunno if they try it and find it fun probably – the ad is far less impactful on that than the gameplay – oh I am sure some will say OMG I am not playing that game after seeing that ad well how many of them were saying OMG I really want to play that juice it up game in the first place – you guessed it zero. I’ve spoken about this to several people – one of which is my wife who thought it was funny – she actually pointed out “I love how she was bouncing around in protest”.
People ought to get this offended by crummy games 🙂 I know I do – but I am a gamer not a salesman/media person.
– A
“I do not think the idea of the ad was to say hey guys go rape some women.”
I used to work in advertising. And yeah, that’s the general idea. You want to take sex, violence, and bodily functions at their most brutal forms (rape, child molestation — pigtails! — dismemberment, vomit, diarrhea, orgasms) and cloak them as much as possible. Put it to hip hop music, and you got something that will get peoples’ attention.
It’s about having some responsibility in advertising and taking better care to consider the possible audiences there may be outside the targeted audience.
I’m now somewhat frightened of you Slyfiend. I remember seeing you say you had been in advertising before. How goes the rehabilitation? ;p
Ugly Americans.
Not everyone has a puritanical view of sexuality. This video has nothing to do with rape or anything else like that. It’s time to stop being silly and get over yourselves.
Grow up and get over your prudishness.
Speaking for myself —
1) I grew up outside of the US
2) This isn’t about puritanical views of sexuality, it’s about imposed sexuality. Under no view of normal human sexuality is it “prudish” to dislike forcing sexual behavior on a random bystander who didn’t ask for it and doesn’t want it.
I would say it is “prudish” under the cultural mores of several Western European notions to take this advertisement as “forcing sexual behavior” as opposed to simply an expression of (by their view) normal adolescent sex fantasy.
I wouldn’t judge you for disliking this video, that too is a natural reaction. But I do think that it helps to understand this piece of marketing if you put it in its cultural context and understand that advertising of this nature isn’t nearly as controversial in Europe, nor is it taken in the same way.
FWIW, I showed it to my fiance, born and raised in the good ‘ol US. She thought it was silly and slightly absurd but not threatening to women or implying anything about sexuality/beauty norms. She commented that “at least it is honest” (in regard to what interests the target audience of young men).
Regarding a responsibility to censor advertising for non-target audiences, I have to wonder how far this should be taken. Should we censor TV programs in the US that is deemed to be too violent in Germany (we do censor our video games to remove swastikas but this tends to be due to the economics of localization rather than moral grounds). What about censoring our TV because it violates the beliefs of an obscure fundamentalist religious group in another country?
Hurm, the whole “at least it is honest” bugs me. For one, I am not sure it really is honest. For another, it’s something that we generally try to train obnoxious young lads OUT of. 🙂 Including in Europe, is my sense…
You’re taking your past paragraph in a different direction than I meant… I was saying that this ad effectively self-limits the potential audience, excluding a lot of folks who probably would have liked the game.
I almost forgot. My fiance also brought up the Pepsi commercial where a bunch of office women meet on their break to ogle a crowd of scantily clad construction workers drinking Pepsi’s.
By your logic, this ad implies:
— men are better with big muscles
— men are better when scantily clad
— men are better when sweating
— men are better when drinking Pepsi
However, in our culture, we tend to accept that yes, it is natural to like muscles and to fantasize about scantily clad, hard-working construction workers.
With regards to “training” young lads out of their sex fantasies I’m not sure about that.
Training implies that we must stamp a cultural norm on them and disconnect them from whatever other sexuality they might have expressed otherwise. That isn’t something I agree with and I suspect that a lot of Europeans would agree.
Arguably any sexually-themed advertisement automatically self-limits its audience. And I’m not sure that every game on the market has to target every gamer. With respect to the MMO market, I would like to see increased diversification, not designs targetted towards a lowest common denominator. That means niche products which inevitably means marketing towards very specific demographics. Also, it’s possible to market in different directions at the same time. The Pepsi commercial is targetted towards women. But it is only one of many different commercials and messages they are sending to the market.
Speaking of MMO’s, I find the female avatars of Lineage 2 to be more offensive than this commercial. At least the commercial is obvious fantasy and isn’t trying to create an entire world of sex object avatars.
Doesn’t this ad strike anyone else as creepy?
I mean, I’m far from a prude. It’s not the nudity. It’s the woman-as-puppet-of-two-leering-boys. The behavior is creepy, and watching it is creepy.
And yes, I would find it just as creepy if it were two women controlling a man.
The memories it twinges in my mind are, perhaps oddly and perhaps not, of the movie Schindler’s List. Making other human beings strip is one of those core dehumanizing mechanisms.
MadHatter: “I almost forgot. My fiance also brought up the Pepsi commercial where a bunch of office women meet on their break to ogle a crowd of scantily clad construction workers drinking Pepsi’s.”
Seems to me it’s targetting men. Drink Pepsi, and you will be muscular and women will want you. (If you want to target women, put the man in a tux.)
Sashant: “I’m now somewhat frightened of you Slyfiend. I remember seeing you say you had been in advertising before. How goes the rehabilitation? ;p”
Sad to say, I’ve learned skills that I will carry with me the rest of my life….
MadHatter (again): “I find the female avatars of Lineage 2 to be more offensive than this commercial. At least the commercial is obvious fantasy and isn’t trying to create an entire world of sex object avatars.”
I agree, and I think that’s part of the point of this rant. 🙂
MadHatter: I don’t at all see the Pepsi ad as comparable. The women are watching, not causing. In the Pepsi ad, the men are that way already. That’s fine by me.
Heck, I remember an ad where a guy got a remote control that changed his car, and then his best friend into a beautiful girl. That ad didn’t bug me very much either — it was clearly into the realm of complete fantasy, and was only marginally demeaning.
On Lineage… actually, that’s an interesting question, because while I dislike their portrayal of women, I don’t find it as offensive. I think it’s the direct action being taken in this Juiced video that bugs me.
Lastly, uh, we absolutely stamp cultural norms on youth. It’s called “raising children.” Norms on sexuality are one of the things we most commonly teach — such as having respect for the other gender, not forcing unwanted attentions on someone, and so on.
Where do you live, MadHatter? Just curious.
Also, put yourself on the map! 🙂
I’m by no means prudish or puritanical. I’ve read playboy on more than one occassion while growing up. I don’t see a problem with sex scenes in movies or nudity. I do find it creepy to have two guys controlling another person who is obviously unwilling. As I said in my post. I get the other side I do. I’m not asking for legislation to be done or censoring other than people thinking more outside the box. I’m also still offended at NOT being considered a part of the target audience. I LIKE racing games. Just not this one now. 😉
I always hear talk of the ‘ugly American’ and puritanical views. I think this isn’t the case to why people have concerns about this Ad. I don’t see anyone saying the internet should be censored and controlled by the government (heaven forbid). I think the main theme is responsibility to what they are selling vs trying to toss in a questionable fantasy involving dehumanizing another person for the pleasure of two males.
I don’t have a problem with the Pepsi commercial for the same reason Raph doesn’t. They guys ARE that way and you can’t tell me they wouldn’t appreciate being admired by good looking women. Just like most women don’t mind being admired by a good looking man, but there are lines you don’t cross including forcing sexual attention on someone when it’s unwanted.
I do understand from interacting with many Europeans that they don’t see it the way we do. I’ve always had good experiences and had my personal space respected by them. (Ok save for the French in vacation spots ;p) I think it’s an ‘ugly’ European thing to say to lable anyone that dislikes this Ad as being an ugly American and puritanical vs having valid concerns with the ‘creepy’ message this puts out. Respect for cultures goes both ways.
I so wish I could fix spelling errors. This is what I get for fending off a toddler while typing. ;/
Actually, that’s a fairly common position in European governmental circles, anyway. Europe values restricting hate speech, for example, above how it values freedom of speech. It’s a very good example of the culture gap across the Atlantic.
Ah yes, I forgot about that gem. I’ll clarify and say that the majority in the US still prefer freedom of speach even on the internet and are fighting restrictions thereof.
Quote: “I mean, I’m far from a prude. It’s not the nudity. It’s the woman-as-puppet-of-two-leering-boys. The behavior is creepy, and watching it is creepy.”
Sure that behavior is creepy – taken out of context of an ad for a game where you customize a car’s appearance. When you take one thing that is related to another and remove the item of reference from your analysis you are left with out of context. If the ad was two guys walking around town stripping girls I feel the above quote would be my response as well. It’s a fantasy that a lot of guys probably have playing a game like this that are immature – god I love customizing a car – god that’s hot – wouldn’t it be nice if….. This ad plays to that fantasy. The relationship between the two concepts is not a stretch here for a middle of the road common sense viewpoint. Is it ok for a guy to think of a girl as a car? As a fantasy I suppose – if he treats her like one in real life he will lose his ride pretty quick (no pun intended) I would guess. I see two young kids playing a game and noticing weird that girl over there is somehow being affected in a manner similar to the car. Oh look bigger hood scoop her chest gets bigger, remove the back ground effects there goes half her skirt. It’s stupid, childish, immature but not offensive – at least not to me. BTW the girl’s reaction is hardly what I would call the terror and fear that would happen if it was as some have called a virtual rape. She’s bouncing up and down and at one point smiling – I thought it was funny as did many others males and females alike.
Are they limiting their audience? Good question – depends how many young kids now buy the game vs. how many people are so offended as to not buy. Beyond the market research and target audience – as Raph indicates immature which I do agree with however if we were to somehow impose a maturity floor on video games especially online ones at something around moderately mature we would lose 20-50% of the audience. Now that might make the more mature online gamers sad and be somewhat of an impeachment of the industry but I would love to see someone tell me thats not the case. For that game obviously they feel the target audience is college kids and punks – at least in that particular ad.
It’s an interesting debate though 🙂
Well, I glad to see some debate followed. I wasn’t trying to express my own views so much as pointing out how it could be percieved.
It is rape because it is nonconsentual and sexual in nature. But the definitions are not as important as the perceptions.
Imagine playing this ad as a pre-movie ad in local threaters in all those Bush Red States and counties. What do you think the perception would be there?
The point is that the industry needs to show at least a little restraint or as Scott suggests, you will be seeing this ad or ones like it during congressional hearings. And then the debate won’t be about if it is rape or not but about who should be allowed to purchase the game that it is trying to sell.
We already have that in California. 🙁 Thank you Rockstar.
Rape can’t be “trivialized.” If you still think that such a thing can be done by something as trivial as an advertisement, then I guess I envy you.
This is a corny advertisement – nothing more, nothing less. It raises my eyebrow to see you decrying connecting games and sex in marketing when SWG was the first MMO to let you devote your skillpoints to becoming a better stripper.
3SM, you have it all wrong. AO beat SWG to that by quite a lot!
Seriously, though, you’re missing the point a couple of ways. For one, what SWG gave was a choice; this ad is not about choice. For another, it was dancing, not stripping. 😉
AO didn’t let you pick ‘Dancer’ as a class, but it probably had a better assortment of one-size-fits-all skimpy apparel.
“Is it a successful viral marketing campaign? Probably. But it’s also one that will only spread within one targeted demographic. The exact same whimsical campaign could have been done without all the sexism, been funnier, and managed to not turn off women.
Women like driving games.
Except, now, this one.”
So what? I could say that the SWG advertising material…
-States that war is a fun activity
-Violence has no consequences, and doesn’t result in unsettling gore
-People should emulate the characters in the Star Wars movies
-Killing animals is fun and profitable
The best way to manipulate humans is to promise them the things they crave, or to threaten them with what they fear. Is it really so shocking to find that men (on some level) want to see women subjugated, publically humiliated and stripped of all free agency? And that women themselves often have similar (although certainly not identical) fantasies about men?
Currently I live in LA, just to the north. Not my favorite place in the world, but good opportunities for gaming jobs. I have lived in a few different European countries (Germany, Austria, England) but I am an American citizen.
I would agree that you can argue that the Pepsi ad is targetted towards men. But my point remains that advertising frequently targets one or another group, and often divides on the lines of gender.
As far as shaping our children: we certainly can’t avoid shaping our children quite a bit by what we present to them. But “training” is not a word I would choose. My fiance and I do not have children as yet, but we do have a lot of experience with children (she is a social worker) and for both of us it is important to provide lots of honest, open information, support and love, and then trust our children to make the final choices on their own. Such an ad is just one of many messages they’ll receive and the culture it represents is valuable IMO in-so-much as it demonstrates that such intense, absurd, hormonally-motivated fantasies are natural and not to be ashamed of.
As far as European views on this issue, I find that Europe is extremely open to alternative modes of sexuality. Cologne, Germany is one of my favorite places in Europe. While there I noticed that across the square from the giant, ancient cathedral (the Dom) there is a very loud gay sex shop. My first time in Cologne I stayed at a hostel which had a pub on its first floor. And once a week at that pub (which was open to the public — I believe including anyone over 16) there was a Stammtisch (gathering at a pub) for an S&M group. They came dressed in all sorts of attire, brought props to show off to interested pub patrons, and otherwise just had a nice meeting with people who shared their interests. While in Prague for a business trip recently I noticed that my hotel’s TV regular channels (which showed everyday programming during the day) were deluged with full-nudity German infomercials for sex hotlines and SMS chats after 11pm or so at night.
Obviously these are not exactly things that you would see in your average “red” state in the US. But they aren’t terribly shocking throughout a lot of Europe. And I would suggest that this point of view needs to be taken into account before judging any marketing materials coming out of Europe.
Regarding Lineage, I just threw that out there but maybe I should explain my thoughts a little more. First of all, I’m not saying that the female avatars should be changed. Just that I don’t care for them. Secondly, I think that to really understand the images in the game, we have to understand the Korean culture behind Lineage 2. I actually know very little about that and so I don’t really feel like I can judge it. And finally, regarding why I personally consider Lineage 2 to be more offensive, it has to do with the narrative structure. Lineage 2 purports a world where all women are basically sex objects. In everyday contexts in that world, women are all to appear only as men wish them to. And players actually take on those avatars and play them. Those avatars represent real people in a deriviation of a real world. The advertisement purports only a fantasy, a fantasy which I think it is probably a rather common sort of fantasy among young males. This women isn’t supposed to represent anyone real. And the actions of the men aren’t supposed to represent anything other than natural male urges which we can even feel free to scoff and joke at. By and large, men do like big breasts, and women without clothing. The whole thing is portrayed in a silly, absurd, fantastical manner to make it clear that it just boys fantasizing as boys are wont to do and not an actual act of coersion against a real woman. As that is as likely canidate for male fantasy as many others I think it is “honest” to show it in commercials alongside with hunky construction workers and other natural fantasies.
It’s hard to say whether this ad actually works. Yes, it’s a triumph of viral marketing. It even made your site. However, even if it does hit the target market (males who are capable of getting horny), does it actually make you want to buy the game?
All I get from the commercial is that I want to watch the commercial, and have no idea about the game. Perhaps I’m just getting older, but I tend to assume that a game isn’t worth buying when it needs to use this sort of marketing to get to any sort of audience. Then again, I tend to go on word-of-mouth these days when I purchase a game, and completely ignore commercials.
“…Such intense, absurd, hormonally-motivated fantasies are natural and not to be ashamed of.”
I completely agree that this commercial does nothing more than depict a normal, perfectly natural male fantasy. I also don’t think that “natural” equates to “correct” all of the time, or even most of the time. For instance, the desire to rape a woman is quite natural to a man. Rejecting some of our “natural” instincts based on a higher standard is what makes us human.
I don’t actually associate this commercial with rape, and I think that doing so is fairly ridiculous – unless you completely alter the meaning of the word “rape” from its everday usage.