Almost half of the team working on Animal Crossing: New Leaf for the 3DS were women: that shouldn’t be newsworthy and, in a sense, it’s sort of tragic that it is, but what this great article by Wired demonstrates should be elementary: if you want to attract a female audience, you might want to have female developers creating video games.
Aya Kyogoku is the first female Director at Nintendo’s Entertainment Analysis and Development group and, in this feature she goes into great detail regarding what a revelation it was to be working in a team with so many other women.
The end result? A video game that men and women love but, proportionally speaking, compared to other Nintendo games, more women are playing Animal Crossing: New Leaf than Nintendo expected.
It’s a fascinating article and well worth reading.
Comments
14 responses to “Almost Half Of The Animal Crossing: New Leaf Team Was Female”
Haha… proportionally speaking, I put more hours into this game than any other game ever
Fossil buddies!
Fossils? I spent most of my time fishing for sharks. MUST MAKE MONEYZZZ!
That’s because it fucking owns. Like… really, really owns.
I’m waiting for 10 o’clock EST so the stores can open up in my town. I love it, love it, love it.
I don’t really see how this was news worthy, I mean if you are ever providing goods or services it is always a good idea to have the people developing/providing it be a part of the demographic they are providing for. I am not meaning to sound like a dick, but doesn’t this just perpetuate the whole war of feminism. I mean it is like racism, it we don’t just get on with life you make it a barrier when it shouldn’t be a thing to start off with.
While you may not see the need for feminism, for the games industry getting on with life possibly means continuing to see females as a non-existent demographic, which just isn’t the case. I think its a great thing to shed light on. There is no ‘war’, I find this article encouraging 🙂
Not really what I am saying, what I am saying is you got the correct people for the right demographic. This hardly seems news worth, its like the parent that posts on all their friends news feeds the second their child realises their their child understands shape puzzles. Shouldn’t need that pat on the back, it should be business as usual.
The fact that it is newsworthy should be telling you a lot about the state of the industry.
This is what I mean, given that this is unusual makes it newsworthy. It’s just sad that it is, IMO.
Like racism, it is already a barrier. The barrier (that currently exists) needs to be addressed because when barriers are not addressed they do not dissipate.
Well, the author does say it shouldn’t be newsworthy but let’s be real, isn’t it something like 5-10% of this industry are women? On that basis, surely it’s notable when one company with a fairly successful game ends up with a 50/50 ratio of men and women.
Edit: Reply meant @vaegrand
Nice one Nintendo. I also like that today it’s Mark Serrels going in to bat for equality, and Patricia Hernandez who did the “this is an amazing heist in GTA” post.
But, but, Feminist Frequency told me that Nintendo were horrid, horrid sexists.
What to believe????