Nice way to start 2007
When you’re coming back to work after a week off of travelling to see loved ones and stuffing your belly with turkey, it’s nice to start with some good news in your email.
So far, the Reach game has been doing very well online. It’s showed up on about 100 blogs and forums, and has received many favourable comments. This morning, I found that our beloved advergame also managed to make its way into 11 daily newspapers across the country today as part of a story on using games to reach a female market online.
A rough count shows that comes out to just over 1,000,000 media impressions based on circulation. That’s nothing to sneeze at.
You can read the article here. It’s a pretty well-though out piece. The reporter even spoke to a specialist on women in games, Shira Chess, who said:
But in general, it seems like yet another misunderstanding of what we need or want from games? They seem to believe that women, on top of being obsessed with romance and puzzles, are obsessed with cleaning things.
Interesting comment, though I think it misses the point a little. Advergames are not typically aimed at the mass market. They are often aimed almost surgically at small portions of markets united by interests. In this case, we were never assuming that all women would love a romantic story line or puzzle type game. Research indicated that puzzle-style games were more popular with women than with men in general, and we narrowed that market by focusing on women who would find a romantic storyline appealing. By and large, those women are the ones making the purchasing decisions for dental hygiene products within the household.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007 at 3:47 pm and is filed under Fuel Projects. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
January 3rd
2007 at 12:32 am
Congrads on landing the article Ryan. It’s going to be a good year.
January 13th
2007 at 9:57 pm
If you haven’t yet had a chance, and want to appeal to a larger female audience, I suggest reading Sheri Graner Ray’s “Gender Inclusive Game Design: Expanding the Market”. In fact there is a women in game development mailing list she frequents, which is a great resource for speaking to females who are in the industry, or want to be in the industry (like
myself).
http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/women_dev
There are quite a few men who participate as well, whether to pick our brains or let us know about cool opportunities. (I don’t think open job advertisements are allowed, but I’ve had a few people contact me directly when I was asking advice about getting started in the industry.
Anyway, sorry to be long winded. Just thought I’d point out a this resource for your future use.
By the way, you may have noticed I’ve been frequenting this blog a lot for the past few months. I’ve had an eye on your company for almost a year now and I hope to apply soon. I love the work you do.
January 15th
2007 at 11:08 am
Hey Stephanie - thanks for the tip. I’m going to try to check that out next time I’m at Chapters.
As for applying, we welcome any any all resumes from game developers. Check out the careers section, and follow the application process. We’re going to be moving to the new space soon, and I expect we will be hiring shortly after.