Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Imagine all the babies

I can't tell if it's me who really doesn't understand, or Ubisoft. To me, this range of games is borderline insulting. But then maybe young girls don't care that they have stereotypical 'girl' interests, and which game publisher wouldn't happily shit out "Imagine Washing Up and Doing My Laundry, and Get Me a Beer While You're in the Kitchen?" if they thought they'd make money out of it?

The advertising blurb says that they are

A range of games specifically created to match the interests and ambitions of today's young girls. Aspirational.
Is "having babies" really something to aspire to? When asked in school what they want to be when they grow up, how many young girls respond "my ambition is to be happy while cooking"? I could get along with the quote slightly better if they'd picked careers to make games from, but half of these aren't jobs, and sound to me suspiciously like indoctrinating young girls into a lifetime of domestic servitude*.

I don't know, maybe I'm just really upset that no-one will ever make "Imagine Being a Slightly Fed Up Games Designer".

* And I understand that being a housewife is a tough and demanding role - I certainly couldn't do it. But these titles are each pinpointing one specific part, as if being a housewife is clearly too much unless handled piecemeal.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It's not just you. I've heard that there were several parodies ("Imagine a Glass Ceiling," etc.) going around internally within parts of Ubisoft.