ok fever here are the articles is promised

https://archive.today/WPPon
https://medium.com/@adrianchm/women-and-video-games-f0eb7a7d75fa

but i feel everyone can have their own opinions. I know quite a number of girls that really like those ultra cheesy romance movies, while for me they nearly make my stomach turn. But i'm not going to protest against these movies existence. i'm just going to change the channel or go shitpost on the internet.

(btw i like this idea for forth wave feminism: we just eat mac&cheese and shitpost on the internet)

Such ''arty'' games are barely even games. When you release a game; there is always a very big part of the core gaming audience which will want to play for its good mechanics. When the developers of such games put in their ''message'' instead of good mechanics and make the damn thing a stupid interactive movie; then sleep with their ''journalist''/critic ''friends'' for high review scores; it is not a good game! So stop thinking they are. At most a game can have good writing that can portray its message effectively. Most of your progressive shit games lack even that. Then you can't go on crying about people not liking your game when the thing you produced was barely game.

And can we please stop with the downrepping?

"To the Moon" and "Dear Esther"
are great pieces of software that use game mechanics to tell a story in everyone's own pace.
I don't know if that is what is called "arty" and "for women" here, but I really like this, those are just not games.

That's as maybe but let me direct you to this Zzap64 Little Computer People review from 1985:
http://www.zzap64.co.uk/cgi-bin/displaypage.pl?issue=007&page=008&magazine=zzap
Again, beyond glowing, 'Gold Medal' 97%, 3 page review with special 'diary' format for a game that's essentially a Tamagotchi (before there WAS a Tamagotchi, admittedly) with 0% chop, chop, pew, pew - reviewers have been eating up arty, experimental games since the 80's this is NOT a new thing, it's just that arty games went away for a while as production and publishing costs increased, their return is a natural consequence of DD sites making the indie sk33n possible, it is NOT part of some feminist / SJW conspiracy and, back in the 80's no one particularly thought that Little Computer People was a game 'for girls' either, whether it's content was 'manly' or not

WHY reviews eat this shit up is another question - Maybe they're trying to mirror film critics with AAA being analogous to the summer blockbuster and reviews wish to cultivate, and feel that they should faun over, categories analogous to 'Art House' and 'Big Studio Oscar Bait' in the same way that film critics do
Please note though, that the existence of Art House and The Oscars does NOT make your summer blockbuster any less of a Michael Bay-er-ific 'splosion-fest - sometimes I think that the computer gaming market is so homogenised that people can't stand for a bit of diversity without running around screaming that the sky is falling!

Or maybe they're just jaded by all of the chop, chop, pew, pew that they have to munch through - it's like they're being force fed Ben and Jerry's Cookie Dough ice cream and suddenly a tub of rum and raisin comes along and they're like 'Thank GOD something different, FINALLY' but the audience is all 'Rum and Raisin? Who the hell likes Rum and Raisin? This isn't a manly flavour, this is a girly flavour for girls - WTF guys? We only like Cookie Dough!"

Whatever, I just don't buy into the theory that arty games are made by and for feminists, 'fake nerd girls' and SJWs - they're just back out of hibernation and adored by the press, same as they were in the 80's

(BTW - thanks to EMob for the whole 'Manly' thing, it was both hilarious to read and useful to throw back at yous and yes I AM being unusually vocal for someone who was supposed to be sitting out, munching popcorn, what can I say - I got salted instead of buttered by accident!)

*after a short pause for breath*
Look at it this way - compare your all time top 10 film list to your average (or maybe, for this exercise 'stereotypical') film critic's
Sure there's going to be SOME overlap around the Spielberg / Scorsese / Lucas / Tarantino area but look at your list - is there ANYTHING by Igmar Bergman? Where's Battleship Potemkin? At the top of your list, pride of place, as best film EVA do you have Citizen Kane? I think not, sir, I think not! *raises eyebrow* (I wouldn't have them on MY list either BTW - plenty of Terry Gilliam though!)

So why do you expect game citrics to be any different to film critics? Why? Why IS that? Hmm?

I liked "To the moon" as well, personally I'd say Myst would be more of an Art style game than TTM though.

For me "Arty" games aren't exclusive to the fem gender/SJW agenda crowd but the games from them do seem to be pretty much all arty (as far as I can tell)

You're kidding...................right? Did you read my post? Just because a game has good artstyle and good writing doesn't make it an enjoyable or complex game. Here; emphasis is on mechanical complexity. If someone chooses to make a game with a message but just puts the message in like something separate from the game; it will seem to normal non-gamer people that its completely about the message and it will seem to gamers as a game with a message and nothing more. Games offer that extra depth that media and books don't. That is mechanics. When your shithead social justice juice high devs make a game; they're just making a piece of code that is interactive and reveals their stupid message after a level is finished. THERE IS NO TIE-IN BETWEEN THE ''MESSAGE'' AND THE MECHANICS. BECAUSE THERE AREN'T ANY MECHANICS. So they're weakening the message without proper message-gameplay integration and since the mechanics weren't gonna do jack shit INTFP; their game OBJECTIVELY SUCKS as a game. As a piece of code for inspiring hipsters; not so much.

It bothers me that terms like ‘interactive movie’ are used in an insulting manner rather than a straight term of classification. We all have preferences, but to treat games as inherently sacred next to other mediums and certain genres to be inherently superior...

We call 'em antigames for now; which really doesn't help us identify nicely or falls below the berserker rage level of most SJWs. I agree it needs changing. But we can agree that games have that extra depth that can enable higher levels of immersion; and if done right; can immerse a person better than any other medium.

Did you ever see the movie Brainscan?

You still ignore the point. The point was, you cannot and should not force change on games just based of demographics. Its silly to select games for censorship and change just because men tend to play them in a much higher percentage than women. Taken to its logical conclusion, then games played mostly by women should be censored or changed too, for whatever contrived reason men seem not to play those. The end result becoming very unoffensive, plain boring games being the only ones allowed.

You say games don't get made just for their groups, but this isn't true. Take Brianna Wu's Revolution 40 with all female voice actors and all female cast. Take a number of other games marketed specifically to the SJW crowd. And frankly, there is nothing wrong with that. But its does happen, fairly often now.

Onto your argument about film critics, I do not agree. While yes, my top 10 might differ greatly, most film critics Top Ten lists will have great movies. Citizen Kane is a great movie; Ingmar Bergman has made a number of wonderful films. What you don't see on these film critics lists are 15 minute short films done by their roommate along side the traditional classics.

When I read a 5 star or 10 out of 10 review, I expect the game to have a certain level of quality to it. While I may not consider it to be a 10, I should see at least a 7 and understand why some people might see it as a 10.

It shouldn't be "The game is trying to help people with depression. What a great cause. Millions suffer from it. 10 out of 10" and then you find the "game" is about reading walls of text between a handful of ABCD decisions that make almost no difference for a total of 5-10 minutes. It's a fair criticism that someone could program that game over a weekend.

I found Gone Home better than that but its far from perfect. There certainly was a great mysterious mood to the game which one finds completely irrelevant and misleading. There are features such as viewing objects in 360 degrees which is interesting and different, but again completely meaningless as it plays no real role in the game. And the mostly nonexistent ending which arrives as mostly a sudden "The End". I mean, that was it? Did you run out of budget?

It deserves brownie points for nostalgia purposes, and it definitely shows a bit of innovation (just not used for anything). It's again, not a 10 out of 10, yet it shows up on so many top ten lists from certain people with an agenda. And frankly it appears it only gets this because it threw lesbianism into a very generic coming of age story. For those who have played it, if it were a boy and a girl, the story doesn't have to change at all. The parents still can dislike the relationship (don't they always at that age). It had potential but needed more game to it. Seriously, how hard would it have been to put at least a little puzzle to it? I click on a piece of paper, oh, now I know about secret doors that are now open and could never have been found until I clicked on a particular piece of paper. WTF?

Don't know if I'd put it that way, but they can certainly immerse somebody in a powerful and unique way. I would agree that too many artsy Indi developers aren't taking full advantage of the tools at their disposal and may even be coasting on the lower standards of a young medium. Imagine if someone tried to make Citizen Kane with zero understanding of cinematography, just shot reverse shot soap opera angles.

A game is a game, true some people push their agenda whether its for political, religious, misogynistic, alternate lifestyle or whatever reason through any type of media including games. While it may raise some eyebrows, it's not going to tilt the world on its axis.

Play a game for the fun, the new experience the way to see things from a different point of view as well as enjoy artwork and music from people who worked hard to create it. Enough said.

That's kinda paradox. I mean, the reason they "aren't games" is their lack of game mechanics. Especially Dear Esther "plays" like the FPS camera in Blender.