Ubisoft 's double standard for awful game titles
by Alisha Karabinus 
{ Aug 8th 2007 at 3:00PM }
As troublingly insulting as the thinking behind the Imagine series is, the execution of the products is even more so. Take the UK Imagine Babies boxart seen here (and everywhere from Play.com to NeoGAF), complete with iStockphoto watermarks still in place. Could less money or effort have been put into this? Your commitment to young female gamers is apparent, Ubisoft. Also, isn't this one of those cases in which playing with dolls might be better accomplished with actual dolls? After all, we expect there's a reason Nintendo debuted Nintendogs and not Nintenkids, teenage pregnancy rates and the horror of starving babies aside.
Of course, in America, if Ubisoft had their way, that would be Nintenkidz. We assume, anyway, since Imagine Babies becomes Imagine Babyz when it immigrates to the 'States. At least children in the UK get their insulting games with correctly-spelled titles! Maybe we don't want Ubisoft teaching us words after all. We haven't yet seen the art for Imagine Babyz, but we do hope someone notices the watermarks before it hits. Of course, they're present in the other UK Imagine titles, Happy Cooking and Fashion Designer, so we may be expecting too much.
But don't worry! Girls can also be Animal Doctors! We can only guess real doctorin' is left to the menfolk. In the U.S., Happy Cooking becomes Master Chef (American girls can apparently aspire to greater heights, according to Ubisoft), Fashion Designer remains the same, and eventually, there'll be a Figure Skating game as well as part of the series. How did Ubisoft determine that these were the things that interest young girls? Science!Helene Juguet, senior director of marketing at Ubisoft, said, "Our consumer research revealed that the young girls' market has been relatively overlooked. We are happy to introduce a variety of titles relevant to what girls in this age group have indicated they are most interested in." We can only hope they spent more money on consumer research than they did on the box designs!
Now, don't think we find these titles entirely without merit. There's nothing wrong with teaching girls of any age to follow their dreams, and if those dreams are of fashion design or figure skating, that's great! It's important that they (and everyone else) learn that even the most fun jobs require hard work, dedication, and sacrifice. So the idea of a champion figure skater learning to balance school, friends, and training in order to achieve her dreams sounds good on paper. It's also important, however, that girls not feel either limited in scope, or ignored with this kind of cheap, slapdash marketing. It sets a very poor precedent, and one that does not bode well for female gamers of the future. If this continues, what comes next?
Oh.
Thanks, Ubisoft.
Thanks, Ubisoft.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
The Insomniac @ Aug 8th 2007 3:40PM
NO. WAY. Despite the obviously disturbing social overtones...Stock photo WATERMARKS?
Who is in charge of quality control over there? Does Nintendo not exercise certain standards with their name on every scrap of box art?
This is confusing. Kudos to you guys for not being afraid to get your bash on :-)
hvnlysoldr @ Aug 8th 2007 3:49PM
Could it also help Alisha wrote this and not one of the fanboys? Nah I'm kidding. I'm sorry but what's the double standard here?
limey @ Aug 8th 2007 3:52PM
Why is the horror of starving babies link to Trainspotting? Shouldn't it be related to starving babies?
Yes I realize that a baby died in that story but not because of starvation.
Pizza Pasta @ Aug 8th 2007 4:51PM
What's a Frag Doll?
Thomas @ Aug 8th 2007 5:05PM
Yes I realize that a baby died in that story but not because of starvation.
Um. Watch again. The baby in question (Dawn) dies due to the tragic neglect of a cadre of addicts too high and too obsessed with heroin to even notice. That neglect would include starvation, surely.
Alisha Karabinus @ Aug 8th 2007 5:08PM
I probably should have linked to the film for this -- there it seems much more like neglect, but in the book, I seem to recall them mentioning that it's crib death. However, I chose the reference because it's a particularly horrifying pop cultural example of neglected infants.
Also: Frag Dolls
http://www.fragdolls.com/us/
Alisha Karabinus @ Aug 8th 2007 5:12PM
@The Insomniac: I desperately hope that these are just box art mockups, but they seem to be everywhere, and they have ratings... for now, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that someone cleans them up, but I cannot say I have high hopes for this "series." It just looks like nothing but grubbing for a quick buck, and hey, it's okay because no one cares about girl gamers, right?
:(
limey @ Aug 8th 2007 5:55PM
I was referring to the book and the fact that it was SIDS which killed Lesley's baby.
So Um Thomas, read it
Though the film doesnt make it a true case of neglect either, it just leaves it open so if you'd read the book you'd be thinking SIDS.
Sorry, my bad, loved the book, film and the play
No matter because either way I wont be buying this game
Pizza Pasta @ Aug 8th 2007 9:19PM
Oh, I see. A Frag Doll is like a Bratz. No?
jadenguy @ Aug 8th 2007 11:54PM
Frag Dolls' are like whorz. Well, minus the sex, unless they audition for the part like most low budget models might. but mostly it's just modeling with controllers and passable game skills. something about female gamer advocacy...
anyhow, i don't see how this is hurtful any more than marketing dresses to women. isn't it more limiting NOT giving girls the choice to play these types of games? is the fear that maybe the parents would force these types of games to the exclusion of others on them? because that's a parenting/society issue that is hardly the fault of a vet sim. if i wanted to be, i could be upset that ubisoft didn't think that a BOY might want to cook or bandage kittens. and majesco (where's my cooking PAPA? trauma center wii and trauma center 2 have a female playable character).
strider_mt2k @ Aug 9th 2007 1:30AM
Shut that kid up and go make me a pie!
Jeff @ Aug 9th 2007 2:55AM
Guys play all types of video games, and so do girls. This means that there's no way to make games exclusively for guys, since girl gamers tend to grumble about the alpha male protagonists but enjoy the games anyway. However, it's pretty damn easy to make a game that would only cater to certain (read: non-gamer) girls. Add ponies and babies, and use lots of pink. These games aren't supposed to be for your average hardcore girl gamer (or even easycore girl gamer), they're for casual/non-gamers borrowing their brother's DS. Ubisoft (and, by extension, all other developers) can't possibly think that this is the only kind of game girls want to play, but they'd be stupid not to make this game for the girls that DO want to play it. That's the problem with this femigamer righteous indignation at things like this: You assume all girls want to play the exact same games that boys do, when really, some, believe it or not, don't. If the world really worked the way you saw it, Barbie dolls wouldn't sell because ALL girls would only want to play with GI Joe figures, and this obviously isn't the case. This game wasn't made for you or anyone else that would be reading this blog, it was made for my kid cousin who loves anything related to babies and would gladly play this game for a while, between feeding her dolls.
Alisha Karabinus @ Aug 9th 2007 4:20AM
So you want people to play games that publishers couldn't even bother to put together decent boxarts for?
Because that's the kind of stuff I tend to try to avoid, and would want my family members to avoid as well. While the whole marketed-to-girls thing is needless and certainly marginalizing, the much bigger issue is how little effort seems to be going into the creation of these products. Stock. Photo. Watermarks. That means they couldn't even be bothered to pay for the pictures. Does that mark any level of quality at all? No. I'd think we could expect better from Ubisoft.
slyecho @ Aug 9th 2007 5:30AM
It's just exploitation software. These games were made only with it being bought by girls in mind. Whoever was in charge of the box art probably didn't care about this game, and most likely the people who made the game didn't as well. And that being said, we shouldn't care about these as well.
Qwikstreet @ Aug 9th 2007 10:18AM
Watermarks? Really? Yeas cause it is so hard to go out and find real babies to take pictures of. Are they saying their programmers are too geek to land a girl to impregnate?
Ron @ Aug 9th 2007 5:26PM
Just by looking at that box, I don't want to touch that game. If you want to sell a crappy game, at least make the box good.
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http://www.webyaa.com/category/games
JC Fletcher @ Aug 9th 2007 9:07PM
Qwikstreet, would you want to put any baby you cared about on that box? Bizarf.
ALH @ Aug 12th 2007 5:30PM
delicious patronising games you must play them
if someone gave me these when i was a kid i'd have folded my arms in disgust and demanded i get some goddamn mario.
HatefluX @ Aug 16th 2007 2:24PM
Seriously, my 7 year old daughter wants to be a girl, in every since of the word. Pink, Barbie's, babies, princesses, the feminists have no idea what it means to be a girl growing to a woman, not a girl being remade into a man. Fuck them, my daughter will want this the minute she lays eyes on it.
Aberu @ Aug 19th 2007 7:32PM
Maybe, just maybe, most girls aren't as butch as the one who wrote this article. The fact you are insulted by a company trying to appeal to a market of young girls that are CASUAL gamers and might want to just play something that they are interested in. You remember those barbies? You remember those baby dolls? You of course remember the my little oven thing or whatever? This is the same thing but in video game form. Don't spite a company for trying to tap into an audience that has no voice amongst all the Ninja Gaidens and Dead or Alives.
Aberu @ Aug 19th 2007 7:43PM
And since when has Ubisoft been held to such a high standard. They are like the EA of Europe in my eyes from my memory. Let's look at some high-quality high-standard games you are asking for in their past.
Blazing Angels 1 and 2, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Driver Series (please don't say you like this, oh god), Surf's Up, Mind Quiz, Rayman Series (after the first one this series has been a big disappointment), Petz Vet, Catz PC, Dogz PC, Horsez PC, Safari Photo Africa, Open Season, Faces of War, Law and Order games (lawl and order more like it), Champion Dreams, Paradise, CSI 3, King Kong.
To me that looks like a list of a typical "publish any left over that just might have a market" company. What is this pedestal all the bloggers are holding them on. EA puts out a decent game every once in a while too, but everyone hates them. Ubisoft does the same thing and they are the blogging communities saints, who have now fallen from the tree apparently. Double standard my ass, they exist for profits, and by thinking those games shouldn't exist you are bad at approaching things with a business mindset.
mietha CAG @ Aug 20th 2007 1:23AM
Maybe the ESRB should leave Rockstar alone and stop trash like this from coming out. The Bible game isn't as insulting or disturbing as this crap. And yeah, I hate Nintendo, but I thought they used to at least have decent quality control. Um, nevermind. Forgot about their last three systems. Ok, when you get right down to it, all their systems that don't have SP in the title. Still, this is above and beyond.