GameStop Training Video: How to Talk to Women

[IMPress Polly]

Well this masterpiece training video from several years back has made it to the Internet and re-entered wide circulation of late for its...oh well, you'll figure it out. :laugh:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BqkPm0owi4

Yeah so okay, being a woman between the ages of 25 and 54, I'm the target demographic of this old promotion the video trains GameStop employees on, so maybe I ought to deprogram the viewer with a brief explanation of what's wrong here:

First of all folks, I'm not an alien species, and maybe GameStop would know that if they hired women. (Notice how all actual in-store employees in this video are male.) Secondly, this is NOT how I want to be treated when I walk into a store looking for a video game! Just because I'm a woman between the ages of 25 and 54 doesn't mean it's safe to presume that I know nothing about video games, am looking for a casual, family title, and would be more interested in fashion, diet, and housekeeping magazines. Here again, maybe GameStop would know something about my demographic if they actually hired people therefrom. But oh well, I wouldn't be a candidate. They probably couldn't identify me as a woman since I don't carry a purse. :wink:

Yeah folks, this stuff really happens. It's happened to me. You walk in and are talked to like a baby and immediately directed to where the casual and simulation games are just for being female. Uuuuuugh! Annoying. THAT's how you know what the company's hiring policy is. Some stores go even further and have formal sections for "video games" and "girl games", color-coded in blue and pink respectively of course, just like the toy section of your local supermarket. That way I know what I'm supposed to buy. :laugh:

[Common]

What year was that video polly

[Crepitus]

Well this masterpiece training video from several years back has made it to the Internet and re-entered wide circulation of late for its...oh well, you'll figure it out. :laugh:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BqkPm0owi4

Yeah so okay, being a woman between the ages of 25 and 54, I'm the target demographic of this old promotion the video trains GameStop employees on, so maybe I ought to deprogram the viewer with a brief explanation of what's wrong here:

First of all folks, I'm not an alien species, and maybe GameStop would know that if they hired women. (Notice how all actual in-store employees in this video are male.) Secondly, this is NOT how I want to be treated when I walk into a store looking for a video game! Just because I'm a woman between the ages of 25 and 54 doesn't mean it's safe to presume that I know nothing about video games, am looking for a casual, family title, and would be more interested in fashion, diet, and housekeeping magazines. Here again, maybe GameStop would know something about my demographic if they actually hired people therefrom. But oh well, I wouldn't be a candidate. They probably couldn't identify me as a woman since I don't carry a purse. :wink:

Yeah folks, this stuff really happens. It's happened to me. You walk in and are talked to like a baby and immediately directed to where the casual and simulation games are just for being female. Uuuuuugh! Annoying. THAT's how you know what the company's hiring policy is. Some stores go even further and have formal sections for "video games" and "girl games", color-coded in blue and pink respectively of course, just like the toy section of your local supermarket. That way I know what I'm supposed to buy. :laugh:
That was actually painful to watch. Dude.

[IMPress Polly]

Common wrote:
What year was that video polly

I'm pretty sure it was from 2008-9ish to judge both by the upload date and by the fact that there's a gigantic Mirror's Edge display in the video. I just posted it because it's re-entered wide circulation of late and because it concentrates a lot of the annoying company practices I've experienced before.

[Peter1469]

Polly's gaming life is so hard. :smiley:

[IMPress Polly]

Yes. Yes it is. :grin:

Help! I'm so confused by all the options! :wink:

[Peter1469]

Yes. Yes it is. :grin:

Help! I'm so confused by all the options! :wink:

If a non-gamer was working the stores you would probably have a better experience. I mean dude. Just say'in.

[IMPress Polly]

It probably would be considering that the average non-gamer guy probably has more experience with womenz. (Did I just say that out loud?)

[Peter1469]

It probably would be considering that the average non-gamer guy probably has more experience with womenz. (Did I just say that out loud?)

I didn't hear anything.

[Candace Camp]

Who cares about a dumb video? Just play whatever game you like.

[Blackrook]

Polly, my wife and daughters like The Sims and that's the only game they play. In this game, you might be familiar with it, my wife and daughters can dress up little doll people in different clothes and watch them cook, clean and decorate their home.

Maybe you like to run around the battlefield and slit people's throats, but most women just aren't interested in that.

[PolWatch]

I have numerous nieces & nephews...they all like to play the battle type video games. Just because your immediate family likes one type of game, doesn't mean they represent the majority of game players.

[Blackrook]

Well, I think Polly is getting herself up in a dander, and that's not good for her blood pressure.

[PolWatch]

I suspect Polly is more concerned about the female stereotyping than choice of video games....just as Blackrook stereotyped by assuming that all females prefer the games that his family does.

[Common]

Polly, my wife and daughters like The Sims and that's the only game they play. In this game, you might be familiar with it, my wife and daughters can dress up little doll people in different clothes and watch them cook, clean and decorate their home.

Maybe you like to run around the battlefield and slit people's throats, but most women just aren't interested in that.

How do you know that, you dress up and do research

[Common]

I suspect Polly is more concerned about the female stereotyping than choice of video games....just as Blackrook stereotyped by assuming that all females prefer the games that his family does.

He cant process that.

[Peter1469]

So Polly- Hunter, right?

[kilgram]

Polly, my wife and daughters like The Sims and that's the only game they play. In this game, you might be familiar with it, my wife and daughters can dress up little doll people in different clothes and watch them cook, clean and decorate their home.

Maybe you like to run around the battlefield and slit people's throats, but most women just aren't interested in that.
Maybe they like to play Sims because they can create lesbian relationships. Do you know if they don't have installed the sex mods to make the game more explicit and more interesting ;)

[IMPress Polly]

Peter wrote:
So Polly- Hunter, right?

Yep! I hate shopping and do my research online, so by the time I get to the store I know exactly what I want. And I don't think offering me a subscription to Marie Claire or Good Housekeeping will be tempting enough to convert me into a "gatherer". :wink:


PolWatch wrote:
I have numerous nieces & nephews...they all like to play the battle type video games. Just because your immediate family likes one type of game, doesn't mean they represent the majority of game players.

Technically speaking, the overall majority of female gamers as yet do, in fact, tend to prefer simulations and casual games if you look at the top 10 charts of games most popular with girls and women. This article, at its conclusion, includes a game sales chart for Western countries conducted from December 2013 to May 2014 broken down by gender that illustrates this point (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/11/arts/international/women-get-in-on-the-action-in-video-games.html?_r=0).

My point here actually is that:

1) there are reasons for that (like the way you're marketed to just for being female, as highlighted in the OP), AND...

2) that many of us don't fit the stereotypes anyway, myself included.

I mean as for me, my favorite games don't even appear on that chart. I'm part of the "core" gaming crowd and I like to play all kinds of games. Over the decades, I've amassed a considerable library of titles from every genre, including yes a fair number of simulations and casual games, but also a much larger library of RPGs, adventure games, and even shooting games. When it comes to simulations, my preferences are for socially and personally pertinent titles like Depression Quest (an educational game that simulates what it's like to have depression), Papers, Please (an art/educational game that simulates the life of an immigration officer in a fictional, cyberpunk/sci-fi type setting), and Peace Maker (wherein, playing as either the Palestinian president or the Israeli prime minister, you seek to find a way to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict). That's quite a bit different from The Sims. :laugh: I also like puzzle games. I have Candy Crush myself, but definitely prefer puzzle games with storylines like World of Goo and the Professor Layton games, for example, and adventure and platforming games with puzzle elements, like Folkore, A Boy and His Blob, the Legend of Zelda games, Lost in Shadow, Where Is My Heart?, etc. More broadly though, I mainly play video games for story and immersion in general. My favorite games right now are Never Alone, which is an educational, atmosphere-driven puzzle-platforming cooperative-play game about a young (prepubescent), tribal-Alaskan girl and her arctic fox companion who navigate eight real tales from Inupiaq lore to bring balance back to nature, and the interactive drama game Beyond: Two Souls, wherein you play as a woman who gets infused with psychic abilities that others seek to exploit to merge the worlds of the living and the dead. Neither of these is what one might consider a casual game. Neither the stereotypes about what sorts of games men prefer nor those about what sorts of games women prefer particularly applies to me, so I'd prefer not to be treated as if I automatically belonged to this or that category simply for being a woman.

At present, fully the majority of gamers are female. 52% according to a recent study. (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/18/52-percent-people-playing-games-women-industry-doesnt-know) You probably couldn't tell though because the industry largely ignores us since most of their MONEY comes from men, who tend to buy the more expensive retail games. This is in turn used by the industry to excuse the fact that only 15% of playable characters in today's top-selling video games are female. But take a look at the chart linked to above because, in that connection, you'll notice that the games that do the best with women have not only genre trends in common, but also a cast of either mostly female avatars to choose from or build or no characters at all. Think about that in terms of self-fulfilling prejudice for a minute. If more "core" games offered equal representation to women, maybe more women would buy "core" games and then the industry would wind up marketing a more equal share of "core" games to both men and women instead of only showing men in their commercials and on their box covers. Just a thought.

[Candace Camp]

I have a game where I shoot zombies.

[IMPress Polly]

What's it called? :cool2: There are about 50,000 games where you shoot zombies, ranging from the old Resident Evil games to The Last of Us.

[Candace Camp]

What's it called? :cool2: There are about 50,000 games where you shoot zombies, ranging from the old Resident Evil games to The Last of Us.

It's just a simple phone game. Zombie roadkill

[CreepyOldDude]

It's just a simple phone game. Zombie roadkill

I've played that, I think. A fun little game, as I remember.

[Hal Jordan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gOWt754qSE