Girl Meets Geekdom

Since it seems that people are still complaining about the Wii, I figured I’d throw in my two cents as well.

For those of you who don’t follow the game industry, Nintendo announced late last week that their new console, the Nintendo Revolution, with its uniquely designed controller that will revolutionize gaming, will now be called the Wii. (Pronounced “wee”)

Immediately after the announcement, the internet universe exploded with complaints, heated debates, and even hints of a conspiracy theory.

What I want to know is, how did something as cool as the “Nintendo Revolution” become the “Wii?” Here’s what the official Nintendo Revolution/Wii website had to say:

Introducing Wii.

As in “we.”
While the code-name “Revolution” expressed our direction, Wii represents the answer.
Wii will break down that wall that separates video game players from everybody else.
Wii will put people more in touch with their games … and each other. But you’re probably asking: What does the name mean?
Wii sounds like “we,” which emphasizes this console is for everyone.
Wii can easily be remembered by people around the world, no matter what language they speak. No confusion. No need to abbreviate. Just Wii.
Wii has a distinctive “ii” spelling that symbolizes both the unique controllers and the image of people gathering to play.
And Wii, as a name and a console, brings something revolutionary to the world of video games that sets it apart from the crowd.

So that’s Wii. But now Nintendo needs you.

Because, it’s really not about you or me.

It’s about Wii.

And together, Wii will change everything.

“Wii can easily be remembered by people around the world, no matter what language they speak???” Yeah…needless to say people of English speaking countries will remember it as slang for “urinate.” In fact, when you first look at the word, it’s not even clear how it’s pronounced. I personally thought it was the “why.” And correct me if I’m wrong, but “wii” doesn’t even have a character in the Japanese writing system. In fact, it’s not even a sound in Chinese, and you have four tones per phoneme to choose from!

And then there is the issue of coolness. I mean, let’s face it, video games are already associated with a sort of geekhood that isn’t exactly the epitome of “cool.” At least the PS2 and Xbox tried to fit into that culture. Being a huge Wii fan almost feels like your asking to be teased. Now just sit back for a moment and pretend you’re back in grade school. Now think about all the jokes you can make about the nerdy kid who plays too much Wii. I rest my case.

…And we won 1st place!!! (Despite the fact that at least one of the three judges thought it was a single player game…)

I’m not suppose to make a big deal about it yet, since the official website is not yet up…but I figured it’s not like I get a LOT of traffic at this website anyway. However, just to respect that not making a big deal part, I’ll save my comments for another post, especially after the games become available for download.

I really wished I knew about all these competitions when I was younger. It’s so sad that this will be my last chance to participate in student competitions.

Last Friday the Game Initiative at Cornell hosted a lab session for a group of pre-freshman women in engineering, where they had a chance to play the student games that have been made at Cornell. Unsurprisingly, none of the women considered themselves “core gamers” but it seemed that most of these women hadn’t played a game at all in the recent past, Solitare included. Even more surprising was the fact that Penguin Adventure, the game I expected to be most popular with this particular group, proved to be rather problematic with many of the girls.

Sure, Penguin Adventure is not exactly an easy game, but when it comes down to dealing with the core mechanics, some women just can’t jump. And when I say can’t jump, I mean they REALLY can’t jump in any of the games that required jumping. Watching some of these women was like watching a first-time pianist attempt Moonlight Sonata. These people had difficulties timing their jumps. When they got stuck, they would carefully position themselves for a jump, then press the arrow and spacebar at the same time, thus missing their mark. At one point, one group of girls gave up and requested to try out a game without jumps.

In a recent lecture at Cornell (that I missed), one researcher in cognitive studies noted gender differences in perception as a way of explaining the gender gap in video game audiences. Women, for example, tend to face more difficulty perceiving 3D rotations, and therefore tend not to play first-person shooters. Is the difference in cognitive skill the reason why a game as simple as Penguin Adventure can cause so much trouble for some women?

I had always considered platformers to be a gender-neutral genre. For that reason, the game we submitted for the Games 4 Girls competition was a platformer. Now, all of a sudden I’m wondering how girl-oriented our games is. Was this not able to jump phenomenon specific to this group of girls because of their inexperience with gaming? Or is there some gender difference in terms of cognitive skill that effect these women’s ability to time the jumps? Are platformers really as gender neutral as one would expect?