WEBVTT - Why Is There Hardly Any Chick Games? 🎮 👾

0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:03.320
<v Speaker 1>Flex and Frooms Flex and Fromes.

0:00:03.560 --> 0:00:05.880
<v Speaker 2>This is the Flex and Frooms catch up podcast.

0:00:09.440 --> 0:00:11.720
<v Speaker 1>It's Flex and Frooms on Kada. I have a confession

0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:14.000
<v Speaker 1>to make, one that I'm not sure that people want

0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:16.040
<v Speaker 1>to hear, but I think it's important that I present

0:00:16.079 --> 0:00:18.680
<v Speaker 1>a very clear image of who I am as a person.

0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:23.759
<v Speaker 1>I flex mummy, government name, am a gamer, and you

0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:26.320
<v Speaker 1>know what, I feel like, I really didn't want to

0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:29.639
<v Speaker 1>claim the title because I just don't like the connotation

0:00:29.800 --> 0:00:30.560
<v Speaker 1>of being a gamer.

0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:38.200
<v Speaker 2>It's giving mountain doo, sloth, mummies, basement luton, doritos.

0:00:37.760 --> 0:00:43.080
<v Speaker 1>Dorito dust, cheesy fingers, directionless, Yes, all of the above,

0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:45.600
<v Speaker 1>which is not the case at all. Like with most

0:00:45.720 --> 0:00:48.239
<v Speaker 1>things that require skill and you haven't done them, you

0:00:48.280 --> 0:00:50.599
<v Speaker 1>think that it's easy, like going to the gym. I

0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:53.080
<v Speaker 1>was like, the gym is very simple. No, it's all

0:00:53.120 --> 0:00:56.480
<v Speaker 1>maths and brain work and lifting. It's very difficult. However,

0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:00.800
<v Speaker 1>last year you might recall that I spent I don't know,

0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:04.280
<v Speaker 1>six weeks sourcing a PS five. It was when I

0:01:04.280 --> 0:01:06.520
<v Speaker 1>say sourcing, it was that it was kind of like

0:01:06.680 --> 0:01:08.440
<v Speaker 1>arc curation. I was like, Okay, we gotta go here,

0:01:08.640 --> 0:01:10.839
<v Speaker 1>we have timers on I was intended with my best friend.

0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:13.480
<v Speaker 1>We both needed one, like, oh, this one's a physical concept,

0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:16.160
<v Speaker 1>we need a digital one. The whole thing finally got

0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:19.760
<v Speaker 1>the PS five, and much to my surprise, I could

0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:21.919
<v Speaker 1>not play it because there was nothing for me to play.

0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:24.479
<v Speaker 1>And by nothing I meant that of all the games

0:01:24.520 --> 0:01:28.360
<v Speaker 1>in the catalog, maybe there's like a thousand every single No,

0:01:28.440 --> 0:01:30.759
<v Speaker 1>not every single game. I'm sorry, I'm a liar. Too.

0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:37.880
<v Speaker 1>Many of the games extreme violence, extreme violence, and gore shooting, shooting, shooting, murder, murder, killing,

0:01:37.959 --> 0:01:40.200
<v Speaker 1>killing just not chill thing. I don't want to do

0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:41.560
<v Speaker 1>that in my spare time. I don't want to be

0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:44.800
<v Speaker 1>high strung and anxious, and so initially I was like, okay,

0:01:44.840 --> 0:01:47.840
<v Speaker 1>let me just let me just suppress my bodily needs

0:01:47.880 --> 0:01:50.280
<v Speaker 1>and just play these games. And what happened. I got anxious.

0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:54.680
<v Speaker 1>Mmmmm corso, I got anxious, couldn't sleep well, found myself

0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:58.400
<v Speaker 1>being really jumpy. Didn't take it seriously. So about a

0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:01.480
<v Speaker 1>year has gone by, I have managed to find more

0:02:01.520 --> 0:02:05.040
<v Speaker 1>games to play that do contain violence. It has happened,

0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:09.359
<v Speaker 1>but in protests, I made a little Instagram post, as

0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:13.360
<v Speaker 1>one does, don't go straight to the source, don't go

0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:20.839
<v Speaker 1>to mister peers five or miss them. So I said,

0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:24.280
<v Speaker 1>petition for the gaming overlords to make some non violent

0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:29.480
<v Speaker 1>adventure games that are chill and involve activities, quests, character evolution,

0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:34.840
<v Speaker 1>realistic avatars, and pretty outfits. Oh that feels so simple

0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:38.160
<v Speaker 1>what I was really saying. If I want to be chill, chill,

0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:41.760
<v Speaker 1>she makes some games for adult chicks. It's not every

0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:44.520
<v Speaker 1>day toddlers who want to play Mario car It's not

0:02:44.639 --> 0:02:48.880
<v Speaker 1>everyday cod Killing three. Sometimes adult women want to play

0:02:48.960 --> 0:02:50.240
<v Speaker 1>games that involve.

0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:52.400
<v Speaker 2>Not baking and.

0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:55.440
<v Speaker 1>Not much every day baking and fish.

0:02:55.840 --> 0:02:58.560
<v Speaker 2>You know what I would love? What I would love

0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:01.200
<v Speaker 2>a sex in the city game. This is this is

0:03:01.400 --> 0:03:04.800
<v Speaker 2>why you pick her out, like you go to Manalo blanks,

0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:06.240
<v Speaker 2>Like are you.

0:03:06.280 --> 0:03:09.280
<v Speaker 1>For your game? Come on? This is what I'm talking about.

0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:12.320
<v Speaker 1>And so I post the question why aren't there more

0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:16.359
<v Speaker 1>video games catered to women? I'm saying what I'm saying,

0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:18.560
<v Speaker 1>And we've got an expert on the line. Yes we do.

0:03:19.160 --> 0:03:23.359
<v Speaker 1>We've got doctor Chess in the building. Government name literally,

0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:27.240
<v Speaker 1>not an alias. Doctor Chess is an Associate professor of

0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:30.320
<v Speaker 1>Entertainment and Media Studies at the University of Georgia. Her

0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:32.600
<v Speaker 1>emphasis is on gender and gaming. She knows what she's

0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:34.640
<v Speaker 1>talking about. She's also an author. She got a book

0:03:34.639 --> 0:03:36.640
<v Speaker 1>called Play Like a Feminist. Sounds a bit of me.

0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:39.560
<v Speaker 1>It's all about why video games need feminism and why

0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:41.000
<v Speaker 1>all of us should make space and we'll play in

0:03:41.040 --> 0:03:44.560
<v Speaker 1>our lives. Get doctor Chess on the line, please produce

0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:49.480
<v Speaker 1>a Brookie. Hi Ah, it's flex and rooms. Thanks for

0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:53.240
<v Speaker 1>picking up. How are you fantastic? But we want to

0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:56.440
<v Speaker 1>get to the bottom of an issue in the gaming industry.

0:03:56.720 --> 0:03:59.440
<v Speaker 1>As an avid gamer myself, I like to get involved,

0:03:59.440 --> 0:04:03.680
<v Speaker 1>but unfortunately there's too much violence and I can't seem

0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:07.720
<v Speaker 1>to find a game that I will enjoy that's not

0:04:07.840 --> 0:04:11.560
<v Speaker 1>just about baking and cooking or isn't extremely violent. So

0:04:11.840 --> 0:04:15.120
<v Speaker 1>ofs the jump it. Why do you think there seems

0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:18.359
<v Speaker 1>to be more video games targeted towards men than women,

0:04:18.760 --> 0:04:20.280
<v Speaker 1>and why are so many of them violent?

0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:23.039
<v Speaker 3>I don't actually think that there are more video games

0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:26.720
<v Speaker 3>targeted to men that are violent. I think those are

0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:30.200
<v Speaker 3>the ones that get more attention. There are absolutely a

0:04:30.240 --> 0:04:32.840
<v Speaker 3>lot of games out there that aren't violent or about cooking,

0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:35.239
<v Speaker 3>and I can list off a bunch for you and

0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:39.279
<v Speaker 3>for your listeners. For sure. First of all, about half

0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:42.960
<v Speaker 3>of all people playing video games identify as women, but

0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:48.120
<v Speaker 3>only a smaller fraction of the video game industry is actually,

0:04:48.360 --> 0:04:52.200
<v Speaker 3>you know, I actually identifies as women. So there's sort

0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:55.440
<v Speaker 3>of this disconnect where a lot of time it's primarily

0:04:55.480 --> 0:04:59.680
<v Speaker 3>men making games for women, which builds a lot of

0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:04.000
<v Speaker 3>the sum in about what women might want. But also

0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:06.120
<v Speaker 3>at the same time, there are there's a lot of

0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:10.360
<v Speaker 3>innovation in games in the last few decades and certainly

0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:13.680
<v Speaker 3>in the last decade. So for example, at Purna Games

0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:17.680
<v Speaker 3>makes a lot of artful, kind of literary type games

0:05:18.400 --> 0:05:20.320
<v Speaker 3>that are not at all shooty and that are not

0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:25.360
<v Speaker 3>at all violent, and that aren't really gender exclusive either.

0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:27.760
<v Speaker 3>They're not like four Women, They're not sort of these

0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:32.000
<v Speaker 3>patronizing games that are meant for women. They're games that

0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:34.640
<v Speaker 3>are just meant for humans that want to play interesting games.

0:05:34.760 --> 0:05:36.240
<v Speaker 2>Can you give me an example of one of those

0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:38.719
<v Speaker 2>games that is gender neutral and what happens in it?

0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:43.240
<v Speaker 3>So, Janet County is a gleadful game, and it's a

0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:46.679
<v Speaker 3>game where you play as a hole in the ground

0:05:47.279 --> 0:05:51.919
<v Speaker 3>and you're the thing that you are doing is sucking

0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:56.440
<v Speaker 3>up everything around you and sort of having it all

0:05:56.480 --> 0:05:59.440
<v Speaker 3>fall into the hole. And there's a storyline that goes

0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:01.680
<v Speaker 3>with it. I'm not going to spoil the storyline, but

0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:03.919
<v Speaker 3>it makes sense within the context of the story. And

0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:06.440
<v Speaker 3>it's a really like fun and engaging game. You can

0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:09.120
<v Speaker 3>play it on mobile devices and you can play it

0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:12.200
<v Speaker 3>on a lot of consoles as well. It has cute,

0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:16.000
<v Speaker 3>funny characters, cute fun dialogue, and it's in no way

0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:20.239
<v Speaker 3>meant for men or women. It's just meant for humans.

0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:21.000
<v Speaker 2>It's meant for holes.

0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:26.679
<v Speaker 3>Shut up playing holes, which is, by the way, throughout

0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:29.479
<v Speaker 3>our whole point. From my understanding of it, you are

0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:30.040
<v Speaker 3>a whole.

0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:35.960
<v Speaker 1>This is incredible. I'm finding that the current games I'm

0:06:36.000 --> 0:06:41.440
<v Speaker 1>playing Cyberpunk and Horizon Forbidden West, which are like GTA

0:06:41.640 --> 0:06:43.880
<v Speaker 1>but with like a few more robots, Grand Theft Order,

0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:45.760
<v Speaker 1>and then I'm playing things like The SIMS, which I've

0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:48.680
<v Speaker 1>played since I was a young a young Gremlin, and

0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:51.119
<v Speaker 1>I really really do enjoy those games. But it feels

0:06:51.120 --> 0:06:54.760
<v Speaker 1>like it's the only one. And for a concept that

0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:58.280
<v Speaker 1>is so popular, why aren't we seeing more similar simulation

0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:00.560
<v Speaker 1>games like Frem's made a good point, She'd love to

0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:03.159
<v Speaker 1>see a simulation Sex and the City game. You wake

0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:06.640
<v Speaker 1>up put on an outfit, buy some Minolo's. You know,

0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:08.160
<v Speaker 1>you gotta pick which boy you want to be with

0:07:08.600 --> 0:07:11.920
<v Speaker 1>that'll direct with your friends. Soul's mystery, you know what?

0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:14.800
<v Speaker 1>Where was that? And is the problem always going back

0:07:14.840 --> 0:07:15.080
<v Speaker 1>to this.

0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:19.440
<v Speaker 3>Future and describes Kim Kardashi in Hollywood. Oh, there are

0:07:19.480 --> 0:07:23.160
<v Speaker 3>definitely games like the SIMS, but I think also the

0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:25.880
<v Speaker 3>SIMS sort of has the market on that. I will

0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:30.240
<v Speaker 3>say that Sturdy Valley has taken a lot of sort

0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:33.400
<v Speaker 3>of that kind of Simms love. So Stardy Valley is

0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:36.600
<v Speaker 3>a game where it is agrarian. You are you're farming

0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:37.920
<v Speaker 3>for a lot of the game, but you're doing a

0:07:37.960 --> 0:07:39.920
<v Speaker 3>lot of other things that it has sort of like

0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:43.160
<v Speaker 3>all of these different storylines of different characters in the game.

0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:46.200
<v Speaker 3>You can marry different characters and different outcomes will happen

0:07:46.600 --> 0:07:49.080
<v Speaker 3>depending on which characters you marry. But there are all

0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:51.120
<v Speaker 3>kinds of games that they're The problem is is that

0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:54.480
<v Speaker 3>in general, when we talk about video games, people automatically

0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:56.840
<v Speaker 3>jump to violent games. And so when people say, you know,

0:07:56.880 --> 0:07:59.120
<v Speaker 3>I don't play video games, they're too violent. My first

0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:02.080
<v Speaker 3>question is always with games, which games are you talking about?

0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:04.040
<v Speaker 2>Can you tell us you've written a book called play

0:08:04.120 --> 0:08:07.360
<v Speaker 2>Like a Feminist that focuses on why video games need feminism.

0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:09.960
<v Speaker 2>I think you touched on that before. How you say

0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:11.600
<v Speaker 2>that a lot of the people that make the games

0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:12.200
<v Speaker 2>are men.

0:08:12.480 --> 0:08:13.360
<v Speaker 1>What is the book about?

0:08:13.440 --> 0:08:15.640
<v Speaker 3>So Play Like a Feminist was It was a follow

0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:17.960
<v Speaker 3>up to my previous book, which was Ready Player Too.

0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:20.600
<v Speaker 3>And part of why I wrote Play Like a Feminist

0:08:20.640 --> 0:08:24.280
<v Speaker 3>was that after I wrote Ready Player Too, a lot

0:08:24.360 --> 0:08:26.840
<v Speaker 3>of I went in that I knew that I encountered

0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:28.760
<v Speaker 3>out in the wild, or that that you know, we're

0:08:28.800 --> 0:08:32.440
<v Speaker 3>friends or friends of friends. I would recommend games to

0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:34.200
<v Speaker 3>them and they would come back to me and they

0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:36.320
<v Speaker 3>would say things like I didn't know the games like

0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:41.560
<v Speaker 3>that existed, And I was like, huh, well, that's interesting

0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:43.280
<v Speaker 3>because a lot of these games that I've listened off

0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:46.480
<v Speaker 3>to you kind of have like this insider baseball to them, right, Like,

0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:49.240
<v Speaker 3>people in the industry know that there are these games

0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:53.439
<v Speaker 3>out there, but there isn't sort of this common understanding

0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:56.160
<v Speaker 3>that games are more than just like the violent games

0:08:56.160 --> 0:08:58.160
<v Speaker 3>that are out there, that there are all of these artful,

0:08:58.280 --> 0:09:03.480
<v Speaker 3>literary games that people can can really get amazing experiences

0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:07.520
<v Speaker 3>out of. And so I wrote the book in largely

0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:10.920
<v Speaker 3>to sort of broach the topic because I thought that

0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:15.040
<v Speaker 3>it was important that if we want to change the

0:09:15.120 --> 0:09:17.600
<v Speaker 3>video game industry, we need to be buying in. We

0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:19.600
<v Speaker 3>need to be playing more games. Nobody's going to make

0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:22.160
<v Speaker 3>games for us if we're not playing already. So the

0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:23.920
<v Speaker 3>only way to buy in is to be playing.

0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:27.160
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, one final little question, did you go into your

0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:28.800
<v Speaker 2>career because your last name is Chess? Like?

0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:33.679
<v Speaker 3>Was that that was an odd coincidence?

0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:37.600
<v Speaker 2>Okay, because I'm thinking of changing my last name to

0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:40.360
<v Speaker 2>rich and place is going to be doctor cash. But

0:09:40.720 --> 0:09:42.720
<v Speaker 2>thank you so much for your time. So I guess

0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:45.560
<v Speaker 2>our listeners can find play like a feminist.

0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:46.640
<v Speaker 1>And what was your first book.

0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:49.360
<v Speaker 2>Called Ready Player Too, Amazed, Ready Player Too?

0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:51.360
<v Speaker 3>Or sometimes someone by Ernest Klent.

0:09:51.720 --> 0:09:54.960
<v Speaker 2>Okay, doctor Chess, thanks so much for your time.

0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:57.280
<v Speaker 3>Thank you so much to take care. You've been listening

0:09:57.280 --> 0:09:59.160
<v Speaker 3>to the Flex and Firms Daily podcast.

0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:03.000
<v Speaker 2>For more, Tune Indicator on DAB or stream it on iHeartRadio.