Jezebel: Kotaku

The Shifting Shape Of Chun-Li

kotaku — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 21:25:23 EDT

Last week, in Miami, Yoshinori Ono, the cheerful, jokey lead producer of the Street Fighter series had just shown off his team's new game, Street Fighter X Tekken. He and I were just about done talking about it. [Kotaku] More »

Taking a Punch Like a Man — Just Not From One

Owen Good — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 16:00:00 EDT

Felice Herrig has taken a punch from a man before. Many. She's also hit back. Hard. She's a mixed martial arts fighter, in a comparatively small population of women professionals, and, like it or not, in many gyms her only… [Kotaku] More »

I’m An Anonymous Woman Gamer

Arianna Reiche — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 13:51:00 EDT

"…we shouldn't be having to hide online, and this is unfair. I should be able to tell people I'm female and not expect crazy to come out of it." [Kotaku] More »

The 10 Real Life Lessons Of Fruit Ninja

Dodai Stewart — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 14:00:00 EST

Fruit Ninja is not just a video game. It is an educational experience, full of zen wisdom. More »

Baby Dies While Mom Plays Facebook Games

Irin Carmon — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 11:35:54 EST

A parent recklessly endangering an infant by leaving him unattended, this time in the bath? Tragically typical. But wait, she was playing Facebook games. This, folks, is a crime of our times. More »

Superheroines Always Get Superboobs

Iris Ophelia — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 16:10:51 EST

Although DC Universe Online is still in beta, there's plenty to be said about its avatar fashions. And while DCUO has many strengths in that area, it also has a glaring weakness: the exaggeratedly buxom shapes forced on female avatars. More »

What Fast Food Really Looks Like

Dodai Stewart — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 14:04:00 EST

A side-by-side comparison of fast food as it's pictured in advertising versus the food you actually purchase is even more of a fail than you'd think. More »

Call Of Duty Acknowledges Existence Of Female Gamers

Margaret Hartmann — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 15:46:00 EST

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The new commercial for Call of Duty: Black Ops is very unusual for a video game; It features several female gamers, and not just token Lara Croft look-alikes. So why has it been dubbed the most "disappointing game-related ad"? More »

Jewelry For Nintendo Addicts

Dodai Stewart — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 15:34:00 EST

This cool bracelet features shapes of famous video game controllers. (Not represented: The oh-so-crappy Intellivision we had when we were kids.) More »

Italian Police Reduced To Investigating Woman's Facebook Burglary

Margaret Hartmann — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 11:47:00 EDT

An Italian woman claims $140 worth of furniture, paintings, and pet outfits were stolen from her home in the Facebook game Pet Society. The thief could serve one to five years for "illegal and aggravated entry" into her email. More »

The Naomi Campbell Blood Diamond Video Game Is Lame

Dodai Stewart — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 14:54:00 EDT

The 24-Carat Campbell video game — in which you throw pebbles and diamonds at a cartoon version of Naomi — is not especially fun to play, but that's not the point. More »

Sorority Life: Playing Facebook's Mean-Girl Game

Jessica Coen — Tue, 25 May 2010 13:00:51 EDT

The objective of Sorority Life is simple: to be the hottest sister on campus. As you might imagine, the game is both hugely popular and totally demented. And the players aren't who you would expect. More »

Tits Or GTFO: The Sexualization Of Women In Gaming Spaces

LatoyaPeterson — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 14:40:00 EDT

Paying $8.25 to talk to a live (perhaps semi-nude) girl over the internet seems like a porn site pop-up ad, but it's actually the business plan for GameCrush - a company aiming to link male gamers and willing PlayDates. More »

Our Avatars, Our Projected Selves

LatoyaPeterson — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:00:00 EST

Does a "sexualized" avatar invite disrespectful behavior online? While conducting an experiment to measure human empathy toward human actors compared with digital representations, researchers discovered a strange quirk: men judged the avatar pleading for sympathy more harshly than the actress. More »

Tales From The Maid Cafe

LatoyaPeterson — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:20:00 EST

The Maid Cafe returned to Katsucon (a local anime convention) over the weekend. Ever wonder what would make grown women dress up in cat ears and ruffles, and wait tables while taking breaks to play games like Operation? Read on. More »

That Time Of The Month: The Best Period-Related iPad Jokes

LatoyaPeterson — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 15:20:00 EST

Apple's iPad announcement earlier this afternoon prompted a score of WTFing across the internet, prompting many to ask, "Are there any women on Apple's marketing team?" Answer: Apparently not. (Period.) More »

Video Game Producer Jade Raymond Featured in Lucky

LatoyaPeterson — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 13:00:00 EST

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The January 2010 issue of Lucky held an interesting "How I'm Wired" section. The gadgets column normally features the tech habits of cool professional women, but this one was like an Easter Egg, since the person profiled was Jade Raymond. More »

Star Trek & Girl Gamers: Exploring The Gender Gap In Computer Science

LatoyaPeterson — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 17:20:00 EST

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Is the "geeky" image of computer science turning women off to the field? A new scientific study thinks so - but are the forces creating the gender gap in technology really just the perception of comic books and video games? More »

Virtual/Reality: Violent Videogames And Issues Of 'Art'

LatoyaPeterson — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:00:00 EST

"These videogames are not art. They are extreme pornography," boldly states the headline to Jacqueline Hunt's opinion piece in the Guardian. But why are all videogames - and by extension, players - being judged by one admittedly perverted standard? More »

Samurai Fantasies Helping Japanese Women Escape Dating Reality

LatoyaPeterson — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:40:00 EST

In Japan, women are going crazy over "Sengoku Basara, (Devil Kings)" a historical video game featuring sexy samurai warriors. Hiroyuki Kobayashi, creator of the game, wonders if women are reacting to societal shifts surrounding the role of men. More »

Why Is Marketing To Female Gamers Considered Challenging?

LatoyaPeterson — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:00:00 EDT

The Wall Street Journal just published a re-hash of the same article I've been reading for the last few years: Gaming marketers still don't know how to appeal to women. Here's a thought: segment the fucking market! More »

Amazon Drops Rape Simulation Video Game

Margaret Hartmann — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:30:00 EST

Reports across the pond claim that Amazon.com has stopped selling the game Rapelay, a Japanese video game that involves the player stalking victims and then raping them. More »

Open Source Boob Project: The True Story Of One Epic Day Nerds Groped Free

Moe — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 16:40:00 EDT

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When people first started imploring us to weigh in on the Open Source Boob Project we had this scary image of a website featuring a picture of a pair of fake tits that registered computer programmers could modify and reshape and manipulate with nanotechnology or whatever else until the resultant pair of tits reflected the internet's consensus of the ideal pair of boobs. (The consensus would, of course, change and grow over time, reflecting an anthropological study in the ever-changing depiction of breasts in the media, anime and videogames; that's how the project would get academic funding.) Anyway: why did I give the geeks so much credit? The Open Source Boob Project was actually just a consensual gropeathon that went down at PenguiCon, which is, naturally, a science fiction convention, though its genesis happened at ConFusion, another science fiction convention, when one geek, probably inspired by a booth babe, said to another geek: More »

Iz Tecknology Ruining Yr Relationships? Expert Sez Yes

Jessica G. — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 14:30:00 EST

Would you rather text someone than talk to them face to face? Then you might have technology overload, which means you engage in addictive behavior towards technological devices According to John O'Neill, the director of addictions services at the Menninger Clinic, "I think [technology overload] shares some of the same components as people who become addicted to alcohol and drugs in that we start to see that someone cannot really put it down and cannot stop the use of it even when there are some consequences." So what are the symptoms of this life-ruining addiction? O'Neill tells Reuters: "Using text messages, email and voice mail when face-to-face interaction would be more appropriate, or limiting time with friends and family to tend to your email, return phone calls or to surf the Internet." Hmm, by those rubrics, 90% of our friends are incurably-addicted to their sweet, sweet tech. More »

Elegy For A "Booth Babe"

Moe — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 16:30:24 EST

"What are 'booth babes'?" asked Anna when I announced to her I planned to do a post on the slow decline of the employment sector of ladies who make a living standing around for long periods of time in large convention centers wearing very little clothing and smiling at the old dudes gawking at them. If you don't go to trade shows or have Kardashianesque measurements, you might not be aware of this fact, but there is a whole industry of being paid to look conventionally pretty and talk vapidly, and I'm not talking about interning at Teen Vogue. No, the booth babe's natural habitat is not New York but Las Vegas and Orlando, though she'll really go anywhere you'll find a male-dominated industry holding a semi-annual trade show. And for many years the booth babe business seemed to know only boom. More »

A mobile program created by a Japanese video-game...

Jennifer — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 11:45:00 EDT

A mobile program created by a Japanese video-game developer that allows women to ward off gropers has just become the seventh-most downloaded cellphone application. By pressing on an "anger icon" on the cellphone screen, women can flash the following messages at guys getting a little too close for comfort around: "Excuse me, did you just grope me?," "Groping is a crime," and "Shall we head to the police?". An alarm goes off at increasing levels of volume with each succeeding message as well. Though the program was created to help subway-riding women specifically — the developer says the program is a must-have "for women who want to scare away perverts with minimum hassle and without attracting attention" — we think it would be particularly helpful at frat parties. And yoga class! [ABC News] More »

Judge Judy Says "Say Wha?" To Deadbeat, 'World Of Warcraft'-Obsessed Ex-Boyfriend

Tracie Egan Morrissey — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 19:00:00 EDT

What Nintendo's Rise Means For Those Of Us With Tits

Moe — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 15:00:59 EDT

Nintendo is now Japan's second-largest company after Toyota. At first when we heard this, we were like, "whatever, Softbank used to be Japan's second-largest company after Toyota," but this time it isn't the fault of a stock market on rave drugs, it's about women, and not because we have to make it about women in order to appease Anna, but because Nintendo spiritual leader Shigeru Miyamoto actually designed the ubiquitous bestselling Wii thinking of his wife, as he pointed out a few months back on CNN:

My wife does not play any kind of games. I have tried to make her interested with various games like Tetris, but she has never showed interest, until recently. But we're beginning to tear down the walls... Hopefully women will begin to enjoy games more. I think our target will be mothers.

Aw. We've never been so charmed by an executive talking about his attempt to get women to buy more shit we don't need! More »

Yup, It's True: Girls Play Games

Dodai Stewart — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 14:00:00 EDT

Online Media Daily says that in a Denizens of Digitivity survey, 44% of women said that they owned a gaming console, compared to 39% of men. The stereotype of the American gamer — 18-34, male, single and white — is not necessarily on target, claims the report. Between the Wii, Xbox, Playstation and Nintendo DS, there's a a rise in the female gamer. "The Wii has really caused a democratization of gaming, because that has opened it up to all generations and both genders," said Ann Mack, director of trendspotting for JWT. More »

Okay, That's It Ladies: Time To Buy A Playstation 3

Moe — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 18:00:01 EDT

Men have some biological advantages over us: no periods, fewer reasons for needing toilet paper, the fact that baldness is so widespread that it has just become evolutionarily imperative that they develop identities apart from their looks... BUT. The idea that guys are just inherently better at processing certain sorts of information? (Ahem: how cars work?) It's all just shit they picked up playing videogames, according to a new study written up in the Economist. In the study, psychologists gave a series of aptitude tests to men and women, and the women performed particularly shitty at a game called "Odd Man Out," in which they were supposed to locate the thing that didn't belong in a particular situation. But then! The psychologists forced the women to play ten hours of Medal Of Honor: Pacific Assault. More »