I saw a woman streaming this game. I knew there was a nice love to detail in it, when she started talking about “bias cutting” the fabric (apparently that’s what it’s called when you take the weave on diagonally), and it showed up in the game a few minutes later.
I also heard later that the developers added different colors of thread to the sewing machine, just to answer a player demand, even though the thread isn’t a criterion in scoring the dress anyway. Very nice move, to enable the more accurate role-play despite it being unnecessary for the gameplay mechanics.
I’m kind of a fan, despite not wanting to play it myself.
Only person I know who plays this game is a dude lol
I applaud that they’ve made a game many women (and, delightfully given it is a typically “girly” craft, men) are enjoying, and I am glad they chose to (mostly) respectfully portray a craft which has historically been almost exclusively practiced by women. I’d love if they’d change “journeyman” in the game to “journeywoman” since that is what they were called historically, and the term is absolutely gendered.
women are such an underserved market in video games
I don’t think this statement deserves all the critical comments. It may be a little simplistic but I do think values and characteristics traditionally associated with femininity are underrepresented in plenty of games markets, even when the protagonist is a woman. Dressmaker’s a breath of fresh air. I may not be a woman but it caters to me feminine side for sure.
There are plenty of video games which require exactly zero dick interactions to play. There are also plenty of games which target things like dress making and hair styling.
What they are getting at is traditional gender role-based play where women should only make dresses and cook and clean, and that thinking can get entirely in the bin.
My little girl loves playing Party Animals. It’s technically a fighting game where fuzzy animals bonk each other with stuff around them.
Little boy loves brushing unicorns hair. Go figure, such games actually already exist in huge abundance.
Also: would love to hear a take from Dodger, Felicia Day, WGG etc. to get their opinion on these games.
I remember teaching a young lady, many years ago(30?), to play Killer Instinct and Mortal Kombat, took her a week to beat everyone but me, took her a month to be a toss up who would win between us, no one would fight either of us at that point. Had another friend, woman my age, that loved Warcraft 2, Star Craft, and I think it was an isometric Fall out or some other tactical game from 30 years ago. Hell, my gf plays Minecraft and Elder Scrolls Online. She runs 3 or 4 ESO guilds that are mostly capped on players. To me, a “girls” game is any game “girls” enjoy playing period. Personally I enjoy zombie type and extraction/horror games
Less gender stereotypes, more women game directors
Man, fuck this.
“Targetting women from the get go” by doing what? Women hate patronising. Just make games not be sexist. Options to customise the character and treat each sex as equal.
I know plenty of women that love games like Witcher or elder scrolls. MMOs got huge population of women. Hell, even fallout is very popular.
Why? Because they weren’t trying to “target women” they just weren’t shitty about them.
Make good game, people will come, people, not men or women. This is bad message to send.
(And yeah, game is cool)
I think it’s fine to target primary women or primarily men, it’s tangential to being sexist or being shitty, you can do both, do neither, or do only one.
It’s just that a lot of niches targeting men are already occupied and enjoyed by the players (probably of all genders), because men tended to be considered the main audience, thus creating a self-fulfilling prophecy as women felt left-out and rightfully.
On the other hand, I’m not a woman and may be completely wrong in my opinion, and would be glad to hear from someone who knows how things are, not how they seem to be
I can only give examples i came across, but considering she’s my wife and we’ve been gaming for +20 years togeter, she loves games like CoD zombies or even recently gears of war. Famously “male targetted” but even MW2 (the og CoD mw2) had a lot of popularity with women.
Almost like target demographic has always been more of a suggestion.
Dont you think giving examples that are 10+ years old reinforces the point that not many games seem to appeal to women?
Most games that aren’t at least 10 years old are unappealing to anyone, not just women.
Most games at least 10 years old are appealing to at least someone
Most games are unappealing to almost all people
There are a lot of people and a lot of games
They were anecdotal examples, not an exhaustive list. We could add Baldur’s Gate 3, Hades II, Grounded 2, and Farming Simulator if you want more recent ones (again, anecdotal).
I have been hearing about this game and I think it’s worth celebrating because:
A) It was made as a labor of love, spearheaded by a dev who wanted his wife with health issues to be able to make dresses again
B) it was made on a shoestring budget by a small team of devs (non-corpo)
C) It is staunchly anti-AI in its assets and code
D) Its assets are hand drawn with original music composed for the gameHonestly the fact that its geared towards women is one of the less interesting things about it. I’m so happy for them and wish them every success.
The problem has never been that women don’t like games, it is that men have made women feel unwelcome in many ways in gaming culture.
Yep, it fucking sucks playing shooters online as a woman, you get so much harassment, which sucks because me and my all female friend group really enjoyed valorant.
Like, I’m here for more femme games. And I do think that games need to not treat women as an afterthought, giving us good character options, styles, and romance options for example. But for that, a lot of the industry has accepted that. RPGs for example understand that their audience is largely to majority women. We’re past the era of “I suppose you can play as a woman in some games if you want…”
But ultimately what we still see is that “girly games” are much less respected and women are harassed in online and competitive games, as well as we’re less respected when we speak on topics of gaming than men. This is especially the case in “gamer” spheres which still maintain a pretty hard-core misogyny problem.
But ultimately what we still see is that “girly games” are much less respected and women are harassed in online and competitive games, as well as we’re less respected when we speak on topics of gaming than men. This is especially the case in “gamer” spheres which still maintain a pretty hard-core misogyny problem.
This exactly. As if clicking heads for 100 hours makes you more of a gamer than playing the Sims for 100 hours. As if having guns and gore effects makes a game a “real” game, and no other type of game “counts”.
No matter what people say about it too, “girly games” don’t get the same investment, creative vision and hype that “masculine games” do, even when the “girly games” sell a ton.
This is both a problem with sexism and our conception of what sells, people are constantly telling stories about what kind of games people actually want and it is almost never corresponds to the breadth and depth of reality and not just in smaller indie games.
We constantly repeat that mindless sex, violence and other types of cartoonishly masculine games are what people want to buy while ignoring the massive, astronomical success of games like Stardew Valley, Slay The Spire, Balatro, Terraria, Eurotruck Simulator 2, Factorio, Subnautica etc… I really hate this forced sense of cynicism about what we desire and why.
Which… I love FPS games, I like lots of “masculine” games but we have a very narrow vision culturally of why people play video games and it pisses me off.
I also to be honest as a man feel really lonely most of the time talking about my semi-competitive FPS hobbies to people in real life, a big reason for this is women are culturally assumed to not be included in the experience so most women don’t bother pushing through the toxicity to find out if they like that type of game (why would they?)… so naturally it isn’t an easy topic to connect with not men on… and then the men who don’t play these games tend to see that as an indicator that video games are childish. How is this good for anyone?
As a man I want to live in a universe where video games can be a more common topic because who plays them and why isn’t so narrowly defined. I just want it to be a normal conversation. I want to be able to casually have conversations with women about the video games they like, and to get wrecked by women in multiplayer FPS games on the regular. Things are just better when women are included, any time men get together and exclude women it gets disgusting, smelly, toxic and weird and this has held video gaming back for decades.
So true! The number of times Gamers™ act like apes when a woman is discovered to exist in a gaming environment… Sigh
As a guy, other guys acting misogynistic infuriates me. The label incel is also very cringe, almost as cringe as the incels themselves. It is alright to be single okay? Its actually fucking awesome sometimes. Furthermore, some people are not meant for relationships. And guys blaming all women for some unspecified grievance when they themselves won’t look three seconds at themselves and their behavior, or somehow deludes themselves into thinking “supermodels should be throwing themselves at me the second I climb out of my basement, and if they don’t, it’s obviously because of trans/LGBTQ/woke and I just need to double down on being s toxic piece of shit. That surely will make me attractive!”. /rant
Even 4chan liked Dressmaker. A good game’s a good game.
I do not usually ask basement dwelling neckbeards what their opinion is. It is not really important.
Same reason I didn’t ask you.
I would argue that all games are for whoever wants to play them. Shitty take from a dev trying to market their game.
The real lesson here is make a good game and people will play it.
“Target women” Most sexist shit someone can say. Reminds me dropdown with 2 options
- Human
- Woman
Women do love games. The market share before the toy stores made it a choice of who to cater to were about even. Women made some of the best games early on, and the female gamer demographic never went away, it just got shoved to the side for fanservice.
There are plenty of games for women, and im not saying this dismissively. It depends what these women like. They just aren’t hardcore soulslikes. Most women arent into that. They prefer casual or social games they can fit onto their existing life, like candy crush or farmville.
I’m a woman gamer, most of my ladyfriends are gamers. I definitely play a different subset of games than most of them, but there’s no real lack…
We even have big franchise games that are aimed toward women like horizon. I fucking loved those games, and we need more like that! They made me better at shooters in general, a genre I have never been good at or spent time with due in part to how male-focused it was.
They just aren’t hardcore soulslikes. Most women arent into that. They prefer casual or social games they can fit onto their existing life, like candy crush or farmville.
I think this is a symptom of how women are ostracised/marketed to in the gaming sphere rather than an actual predisposition. The split of women and men (and everyone in between) in my life who enjoy more action oriented games, vs cozy games, vs strategy games, vs etc, is pretty much even, but the women (and non women who were Arab) had a harder time getting to the point where they felt they were “allowed” to try the games that are typically heavily marketed toward men, and typically associated with men.
I can speak to it from the opposite side as well, having grown up assigned male, I spent a great deal of time feeling like I wasn’t allowed to play, or should feel shame for enjoying, cozy games, farming games, games with a more “typically feminine” aesthetic. And that shame came from other gamers, and from the wider conversation around games by media and marketing. But I do like cozy games and farming games! (And I’m a woman, but that discovery came later xP)
What I can agree with, which I think is slightly buried in the subtext of your comment, is that it’s far more socially accepted for a man to base his life around games. For (some) women who enjoy soulslikes, they might play for shorter times, or less frequently, as lapsing on other facets of life or responsibilities is more heavily frowned upon (by wider society) in women. But (many) men can happily spend 3, 4, 5, 8 hours a day playing video games without all that much judgement (which is fine! I don’t think people should be judged for doing what they enjoy as long as it doesn’t cause harm - the same “social leniency” is simply not offered to women).
They prefer casual or social games they can fit onto their existing life, like candy crush or farmville.
what even is this take
People gave up reading halfway through his comment…
I’m a woman gamer, most of my ladyfriends are gamers.
Obviously hehe
I know a lot of women who actually deeply appreciate soulsbornes and i dont like this “women arent hardcore” narrative.
Bloodborne, for easy example, has a deep maternal-horror throughline. Disconnecting the female experience from bloodborne leaves you with… British people?
My wife loved god of war 2016 (not a soulsborne, but you get it) and it helped her to fix a part of her relationship with her father. She also defeated the last valkyrie hitless on Give Me God of War.
Damsels in distress arent off the table, but dont be misogynistic about it. Fanservice can be done tastefully (and there are plenty of female gooners who appreciate the female form as well).
What women dont like, is being objectified or forced to look at their struggles as fetish content.
Male power fantasies are often hit or miss too. My wife loves doom but cant stand the call of duty campaigns.
Damsels in distress arent off the table, but dont be misogynistic about it.
Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom did this quite well - while one of your main objectives in both games is to find/save Zelda…
Spoiler
In one game she’s single-handedly holding back Ganon from destroying the world and in another she makes the ultimate sacrifice to become an eternal dragon whose power is essentially limitless.
British people?
Oh the horrors!
I guess a reference to celebrated tubby England striker Paul “Gazza” Gascoigne.
Sorry, but you cannot honestly think that most women are into soulslikes when not even most men are into them. Idk about the other references you are making because I’m one of the vast majority of women who have no interest in soulslike. (Actually that’s not structly true, I despeately want to like them, but don’t, but I still have no clue what you are on about)
I never said women aren’t hardcore, we give birth and raise kids. That’s hardcore. We do whatever the fuck we want against society, that’s hardcore. We can like anything across a broad range, but it would be silly to think that most women give a fuck about being represented in wwe, for example. This is similar.
What I’ve been saying is that women are more into social games, overall as a statistic, because that is factually correct.
I didn’t say most, i said “a lot”. I also covered much of the second paragraph here so im not sure what the argument is. I agree that ~50% of the population is also capable of greatness, mainly because i also belong to it :3
Theres definitely a stigma against women in gaming spaces, but believing thats the fault of the games’ content is 1/8th of the story; the majority of it is just regular ol’ misogyny and systematically-instilled self-doubt.
Im not mad at you or trying to downplay your opinion, i just disagree with the notion that women are for some reason repelled from “difficult” games by the content itself, primarily soulsborne games, because they have intricate feminist views on occasion. I think its far more likely they are drawn to unpopular games because male audiences are absent, allowing a female space to flourish.
just disagree with the notion that women are for some reason repelled from “difficult” games by the content itself,
Which I never said and in fact have disgreed with, so that’s probably why.
If you don’t make up my position, you might get it :)
Sorry, but you cannot honestly think that most women are into soulslikes when not even most men are into them.
What you just said amounts to ‘nobody likes soulslikes’ which is just fucking insane, soulslikes are obviously popular.
What they said is literally ‘less than 50% men like soulslikes, and less than 50% women like soulslikes’ which would be a statistical miracle to be an incorrect statement because it’s hard to make something to appeal to majority including those that never come close to PC or a console. Even if you only count gamers that would probably be hard to achieve, as that is not the same as positive reviews because reviewers are a subset of population that is already not against the genre
What they said is true, its not a jab at the genre.
Well said! I think it’s a matter of identity too. My mom plays bejeweled and Farmville, and used to play SNES. She didn’t like 64, but played Myst and Riven and lots of PC games.
But if you ask her if she’s a gamer she’ll say no without hesitation.
I think “gamer” has been pretty tainted and is mostly used pejoratively nowadays. I play a lot of games but do not want to be associated with capital G Gamers and all the toxicity
A woman I work with only plays one game: Call of Duty.
Cool, I’m glad she’s into it.
Why is this being treated a a refutation to my personal opinion?
It isn’t.
Then why does it matter?
It was another example about the variety of games that women play, intended to be positive but you seem to think it was somehow negative.
Sorry for agreeing with your point that women have made and played a wide variety of games.
My wife becoming a Type A chatter watching Northerlion playing Dressmaker.
I’ve been a type A (internally - never actually back seated, just felt pain within) for NL for years. Watching him play dressmaker was deeply healing (bald Gamer™ man playing the pretty dress game and loving it, is basically whatever the opposite of toxic masculinity is) but also probably the most my type A has ever come out. I was writhing in my seat. Also watching the chat give him the worst advice ever killed me. THOSE FABRICS DO NOT GO TOGETHER STOOOOP
Translation for old people?
Their wife watches a streamer play the game in the post, which is one where the player gets to design dresses. The streamer she watches is bad at designing dresses, so their wife sends chat messages to the streamer that tell him how to do better.
Northernlion: Streamer Type A Chatter: Someone who cares about the game and tends to backseat game.
She might enjoy a streamer called lilsimsie. Lilsimsie does a lot of cozy games and has done a lot of cute stuff in dressmaker.
my wife loves her stream
that lady can talk forever
does damn good designs
Oof, so close to being a haiku. Just one syllable too many.
Can remove ‘that’ and it would do, I think
She cant stand his every choice
Smant’s chat: “99% quality? Might as well wrap her in a garbage bag lol”
I’m so happy the game is doing well. It’s been delightful but I am the absolute core audience for it. Felt very good! I wish there were a few more pigeon commissions though.
