How To Get Your Girl Into Gaming: Advice from a Gamer Wife

How To Get Your Girl Into Gaming


Advice from Mrs. Shipwreck, a gamer wife



Most girls who grew up with My Little Pony, Rainbow Brite, Care Bears, and Barbie have a very limited gaming past. I started gaming on the Nintendo Entertainment System. I don’t remember why my sister and I were so enthralled with getting a NES, but we knew everyone else wanted one, so we thought we should have one too. We played Super Mario Brothers. We played Super Mario Brothers 2. We played Super Mario Brothers 3. We played Mario Is Missing, which was boring…very boring. It wasn’t until we bought the Zelda guide that we realized where we could find the red lantern and then Zelda became fun too, which brings me to my first point.

Tip #1: Limit the frustration! Games are not fun if we can’t control them. Nor are they fun if we get stuck in the same place and keep dying. If your chosen female gaming partner isn’t really into gaming to begin with, she’s definitely not going to be dedicated enough to die repeatedly without making progress. This illustrates the reason why I never play games that involve flying airplanes. If you hand a woman a controller early in her gaming career, don’t expect her to master the whole “up is down” and “down is up” thing. Gaming should be fun, so explain the controls/rules/concept prior to hitting “Start” or she’ll be dead before she even knew what hit her. If she’s playing a single-player game that seems to be getting frustrating, buy the guide (or visit GameFAQs). It’ll save you BOTH a lot of frustration.

Tip #2: Try games that might seem more “girly” in nature, but don’t assume that’s all we will like. Sure, I love the cuteness of Harvest Moon, Animal Crossing, and Super Princess Peach, but I also enjoy the headshots of Goldeneye, GRAW, and Metal Gear Solid. I have even outlived my husband on occasion. While I may not be the most accurate shot, I can still have fun poppin’ caps.

Tip #3: The couple that plays together, stays together. To have a shot at getting your girl into gaming, she has to somewhat like you. If she likes you, she probably likes spending time with you. Find games you can play together in cooperative mode. A few good choices are Baldur’s Gate, Champions of Norath, Kameo, X-Men Legends, and Lego Star Wars. The bonus with these games is that you can select characters that are designed to each of your strengths. I am not an accurate marksman, so I tend to gravitate to the wizard/sorceress/mage type characters. I can still kill just as many enemies as Mr. Shipwreck and I tend to die less than if I were an elf-ish character. Help your woman choose the character that is best for her.

With some one-player games, you can have fun taking turns by passing the controller back and forth. This worked well with Paper Mario, Kingdom Hearts, Sphinx (a very underrated game), Futurama, and Psychonauts (why did no one buy this game?). The Mario Party games are fun, but a warning… you must be very comfortable in your new relationship as co-gamers before playing against each other. Many a Mario Party has ended with me being relatively angry with Mr. Shipwreck. Users beware.

Tip #4: Find a genre she likes and stick with it. Some games are appealing because they are nostalgic (Mario, Zelda, Tetris, PaperBoy). There are a million different puzzle games that we’ve played (Devil Dice, Bust-A-Move, Pokemon Puzzle Challenge). I play Zoo Tycoon and Harvest Moon because I like creating my own gameplay elements. If you get confident enough, bring your significant other to a video game store and figure out what interests her. If the game turns out to be crap (as so many of them do), don’t be afraid to turn it off before frustration ensues (see Tip #1).

The most important thing to remember to be successful at getting your girl into gaming is that it’s your job to make gaming fun for her. Girl gamers are increasingly common and while we don’t have games that directly appeal to our gender like Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball (with new multi-breast physics), we still have our niche in the market. Mr. Shipwreck bought me a teal DS because it matched my Kate Spade handbag.

Of course not all women are the same, so don’t assume that we’ll all like the same games. However, here are my top choices for games to get you started:

Games I Enjoyed Playing Alone:
Animal Crossing
Harvest Moon (coincidently, some of the games in this series I hated, others I loved: Musical Melodies, Back to Nature = good, A Wonderful Life = bad)
Kaya: The Dark Lineage
New Super Mario Brothers
Any non 3-D Zelda game
Broken Sword Shadow of the Templars & Smoking Mirror
Adventures of Lolo
Legend of Mana (this game would have gone over better if I had the guide – buy the guides!)
Zoo Tycoon – the PC Version
The Nancy Drew Series – these would also fall under the category of “games I’m most likely not to admit playing”
Games I Enjoyed Playing with Mr. Shipwreck:
Baldur’s Gate Dark Alliance 1&2
Champions of Norrath & Champions Return to Arms
GRAW
Goldeneye & 007: Agent Under Fire
Lego Star Wars
Star Wars Battlefront 1&2
Halo 2
Devil Dice
Mario Party (either I get mad because I lose or because I think he’s letting me win on purpose)
Kameo
Single-Player Games We Took Turns Playing:
Psychonauts
Futurama
Metal Gear Solid
Jak and Daxter
Sphinx
Paper Mario & Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door
Kingdom Hearts
Katamari Damacy
Medievil
Hot Shots Golf (Yes, it has multi-player, but we had more fun taking turns.)




I didn't have much game experience till i met my husband. I never had money growing up so it was hard to buy video game. Now though i can't get enough. And i like more genre's than i thought i would lol. i even enjoy the "guy" games. I like playing all kinds of games with my hubby.
 
Advice from Roufuss - The only thing you'll need to know:

Sims 2 + Expansions for the PC.

The End.

I have not had one girlfriend who did not play The Sims excessively when I showed it to them, whether they hated video games or loved them.
 
Well I think that if you want to introduce somebody to your hobby, wouldn't it make sense to find out what their interests are, and give those hobbies a chance as well?
 
Okay, reading through the first page was all I needed to know to comment on this thread.

1. This really was a well written article.

2. I AM NOT A GAMER! (and appreciate the truth to most of this article though we have very different tastes in our game choices).

But guess what, my boyfriend IS a gamer (and no I will not mention his name since he spends too much time on this site and too many of you may or may not bash him for this). I entered into our relationship knowing he was a gamer and I was not, but since showing interest in your partner's hobbies is a big part of making relationships work, I entered the gaming world.

So, I'm not a gamer, I have a social life, had Sunday night Sex & the City parties with all of the girls, had Barbies, My Little Pony, wore pink and spend almost no time online unless it's to buy yet another pair of shoes or browse gossip headlines, I did have an Atari, NES, and Super NES growing up but that was because I had three brothers. Later they got PS2 when it became trendy, but aside from Frogger, Mario, and a memory of what Final Fantasy IV looked like, I have no gaming experience with the exception of the last 2 years.

Fact: Girls will game if they are into you.

Fact: Girls will not game if they think it's not worth the effort which may or may not translate into - YOU'RE NOT WORTH THE EFFORT.

Note: It wouldn't kill you to get off of your A** and show some interest in her things as well, and yes, Mr. Mario Kart, that means you too.

So, here are some games that I've enjoyed that she may as well:
WarioWare - All titles (This is literally, what got me started again so BF, thank good o' Wario!)
Kirby - All Titles
Beyond Good & Evil
Jade Empire
Amped
Animal Crossing
Super Princess Peach
Super Mario Brothers (DS)
Guitar Hero
Phoenix Wright
Mario Kart DS
Pac Pix
Yoshi's Touch & Go

Yes, most of these games are on the DS because it really is cute and color coordinates well with a Kate Spade bag.

My point: Girls who have no desire to play games, can and will become interested if they think you're worth it, are initiated into that part of your world early on in the relationship, and if you are willing to show a little interest in their hobbies as well.
 
this is Mr. Hathaway's wife: I don't like any of those "girly" games. I want to kill something! Although I do like the puzzle games. I don't like any sport or driving games and we can't get the hang off 1st person games. I most like the co-op games so I can play with my hubby, although he does frequently accuse me of running off and leaving him off the screen to die (On purpose or accident?). I don't like Final Fantasy or anything with romance, that just ruins the game. I play a killing game to kill. It helps relieve some frustration due to my kids.
 
Nice article, but I have to say it doesn't exactly match my experience. Mrs. Joon2324 gets motion sickness fairly easily so FPS are out. I've spent a decent amount of effort to see which games she would and would not like. My best results have come with the katamari and ssx games. Games like Guitar Hero and DDR have also been reasonably successful, but the learning curves on those games can be steep depending on the player. My brother and I started Guitar Hero on expert so playing on easy or medium in 2-player can actually be more painful than fun.

For those who are just starting to convert their girl, I would recommend shorter lived, fast paced, cute games. Honestly, Katamari Damacy is perhaps the best game for this. It isn't too difficult to beat the stages, it's very cute, and the levels aren't too long.

One game that everyone has loved is Wario Ware. Even my mom has liked that one because it requires no mechanics and virtually no English.

One game that has failed miserably is Lego Star Wars. Mostly because she never really liked Star Wars. Make sure to think it through before you go buy a game specifically for the purpose of playing with your girl.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, sometimes you'll get lucky with a natural gamer, but lots of times you won't. It's been a few years for me and there has only been moderate success (even tho she went out and bought a PS2). I've grown to accept that she is never going to really be a gamer, but that doesn't mean there aren't some games we can enjoy together.

Good games:
Katamaris
SSX
Wario Ware
Guitar Hero
DDR
SimCity
MK DD
GT3

I plan to look at the import market because there are a lot more games that are directly geared towards females.

Also, she hates Halo 2. Mostly because I've spent so much time on it, but this also applies to games that are just mortal time sucks: wow, oblivion....Halo 3.

PS: Lego Star Wars was a really cute game, you can't die, and the plot really had no effect on that game. I might have to go back and give that one another shot.
 
Girls seem to love short pick up and play for a few minute games. My fiancee and most girls I know(and looking at this topic)love Wario Ware, Mario Party, Mario Kart, Katamari and other games that are short with high replay.

Once you have a girl somewhat intreasted in games I think THEN is the time to introduce longer games but you have to play them with her. If I handed my fiancee a game like Beyond Good and Evil she would be bored with it in 10 minutes. However, I started Psychonauts and she watched me play the first hour or so and was laughing at the game so I suggested we make it a game we play together. She loved the suggestion and came home from work almost every night asking if we could play it together. Even after I lost intreast in the game she still was playing without me.
 
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