As a part of the videogame industry, the Frag Dolls have been polarising opinions ever since Ubisoft lifted the veil on their marketing creation a few years ago. Perception of the group swings from outright dismissal through to being considered solid ambassadors for an often unrepresented minority in gaming; with the marketing imagery becoming a particular bone of contention. With that in mind, UK Frag Doll Kitt has agreed to field a few questions for us, and hopefully lay a few ghosts to rest:
Hello there. Just to kick us off, could you give us a little bit of background about yourself, and how you came to be involved with the Frag Dolls?
Well I started off my career in Radio and then TV for the BBC. I was at the beeb for 5 years and was a Television Producer when I left. Having failed to get any games TV shows commissioned I decided to use my journalism skills with my greatest passion in life and become a Games Journalist for the written press. My first job was as a columnist for Official Playstation 2 Magazine and after getting debug machines and screen capturing equipment I moved into reviewing and feature writing.
I’ve always been a big gamer, pretty much playing every night. I’m a big JRPG fan which helped in my career as they are hard to review due to time limitations. That said there’s no genre I won’t turn my hand to and after 4 years of reviewing there are few undiscovered gaming pleasures for me.
I seen Frag Dolls UK advertised on the net and was immediately interested. Having generally played down being female as a journalist I liked the idea of helping to change peoples perceptions about who plays games. As a journalist I had been shocked by how male dominated the industry was and how this was reflected in the games media.
The ideology behind the Frag Dolls seems to be one of female empowerment in a largely male-dominated industry, however the marketing imagery used for the group very much plays into the hands of a typical male-fantasy stereotype of a female gamer. Do you find it difficult to stay ‘on message’ when the lines between both roles are blurred in this fashion?
I’m not sure I agree with you that, that is in fact the case. We are all presentable but not remotely glossy or in any way model-like. It’s funny because when we started a lot of the hardcore gamers on forums said ” I don’t get it, they aren’t all that hot!” and in the next breath “They’re just there to look sexy and don’t know anything about games.” Sometimes people get confused by things that aren’t marketed a them. Just as many grown up hardcore gaming girls were offended by the release of a pink PS2. They couldn’t seem to get there head round the idea that it wasn’t aimed at them, rather it was marketed to 10 year old girls for whom the whole world is pink.
The imagery such as the cartoons are allusions to the idea of having an avatar and gaming persona and to me they are closer to Bratz cartoons than anything else. If they are seen as fantasy-like then that’s fair enough I suppose. We did have a lot of say in how they turned out. We were very specific as to how we were posed, our expressions and our clothes. Sarin says in my cartoon I look like I’m thinking “Hey, lets have a lovely picnic!”
Photograph-wise we have done two shoots and have a lot of photos taken at events. Our last shoot we did a few photos in black dresses mirroring a famous Sex in the City photo. We liked the idea of trying to appeal to the grown up female who’s financially independent and will buy Brain Training for their shiny white DS Lite as well as the latest Desperate Housewives DVD. Recently we were playing Surfs Up with the kids at the Hyde Park Calling Festival and taking photos there. Generally we wear black t-shirts and jeans and our website logo is all curly and has stars and flowers on it. I’m not sure that’s exactly blurring our roles. People will see what they want to see but the gamers who come to our site and watch our interviews, listen to our podcast and hang out on our forum find us to be very much all about gaming and the community and in no way are we trying to be anyone’s fantasy stereotype.
In that respect it seems that the videogame industry is still light years behind the other visual arts in terms of catering to a broad audience. Are there any particular developers or games that you feel have been particularly strong in terms of attracting the ‘Sex and the City’ crowd into gaming thus far? If not, judging from your experience as a journalist and as a part of the Frag Dolls, can you suggest any ideas for the aspiring developers out there?
I remember hearing that grown business women had been seen on the trains in Japan playing their DS Lites and I thought that’s great but it’ll never happen here but it did! It’s actually working. Mum’s and aunties and friends are asking me how they can get hold of one of those ‘new brain game thingies’ Families are playing their gamer son’s Wii at Christmas when the family is round and before you know it the console’s been moved in to the living room on a permanent basis. Nintendo have done a sterling job. But of the old soldiers that have been playing for years question it’s staying power. It needs building on. A woman, or girl or old man should be able to go on the net, or into a game on Live or on Playstation Online or look up some people to share friend codes for Animal Crossing and actually find friendly helpful people. Frag Dolls UK aren’t out to p’wn anyone or make people feel small. We all need to remember that no one was born with a controller in their hand.
As for developers – the great thing is that they are now crying out for ideas to open out the market. They aren’t closed off to it any more. It’s about trying the new and that’s something that’s always scared the games industry. In the end though the real big money comes with really big risks. If the games industry can learn that they’ll be smarter that any other entertainment industry out there.
Following on, would you agree that a significant part of the inability of the videogame industry to attract a female audience comes down to a social stigma rather than any particular misgivings about game content? After all, games are now routinely covered by the specialist outlets, mens magazines, youth magazines and the mainstream press, but are seemingly ignored by any publication aimed at women with disposable income.
I do think it’s at the very least equal parts content and press. Within the development industry there’s great moves to developing for a female audience or at least less specific focus on the male audience. The press is another thing. It’s been frighteningly hard to break the female mainstream press. Frag Dolls have worked with TV Hits and had a lot of articles in mainstream papers like The London Paper but getting regular games revie
ws in women’s magazines is proving a hard nut to crack. Frankly though they seem more open that the specialist games press! While there’s at least a dozen train spotting magazines running in Britain today there isn’t a single games magazine whose primary demographic isn’t males aged 14 to 26.
As that’s the case, have you ever been tempted to utilise your journalistic skills in setting up something to cater to that missed print market? Or do you feel that the successful female-oriented sites such as GameGirlAdvance, GamingAngels and your own site cover the community well enough?
I have talked to the odd head honcho at big games magazine publishers about it but it never seems to go anywhere much like trying to get gaming programmes off the ground back when I worked at the BBC. I think gamers outside the most recognised demographics need a higher profile before we’ll make much headway. Groups like Frag Dolls are one way to slowly change how gamers are perceived.
Given the perception of the Frag Dolls stated in the opening question, you must have some horror stories to tell about reaction to members of your group from within the industry? No need to name names, but I’m guessing attending trade shows must have been a nightmare scenario at times in the past?
I think as soon as either members of the gaming public or press meet us and see what we actually do they change their mind. Having gone to all kinds of shows, festivals, press launches and conferences we’ve met with every type of view. People are generally very friendly and nice to us though. We get on really very well with developers. They see what we are trying to do and are extremely supportive. Their always happy to do interviews with us.
As a final thought, and on a personal note, what developments would you hope to see from the industry and the gaming communities in the near future
I’ve been so impressed by the efforts made by Nintendo and the risks they’ve taken to bring in new blood to the industry. It would be great to see the other big console manufacturers make as big an effort. Various publishers are currently gearing up to really focus on the new emerging markets like Ubisoft with their upcoming Casual Gaming titles and it’s great to be able to work on these drives.
On a more personal level I’ve always been about playing together and playing for fun. I’m a pretty competent gamer but I’m not really that interested in handing peoples bottoms to them. The elitism of e-sports and the extreme competitive nature of a lot of gamers to me seems to keep gaming in the niche hobby category. We do seem to be moving away from that especially in Britain towards a more open minded and welcoming community. I’d like to see more community based websites like Frag Dolls cropping up around the internet.
Professional enthusiast, videogame "journalist" and all-round spectacular sofa dweller. "
