Gamegal.com bills itself as, "one of the first game websites to cater to female gamers." More importantly (and importance is the only thing the text tries to establish), "GameGal is aimed at a general interest audience, applying mainstream consumer magazine production values to America's fastest-growing entertainment medium." Maybe someone should explain to them that mainstream cosumer magazine production values are pretty low - glossy photo, shameless plug, viagra ad, glossy photo. I can't really deny that they live up to this ambition, as the above demonstrates they have the shameless plug down pat. America's fastest growing entertainment medium, video games for those of you that don't speak California Production Method, needs a womyn's voice, as the demographics section of their downloadable press kit(yes, its just a pdf) tells us, "News outlets from the New York Times to CNN to Entertainment Weekly have all written about the growing numbers of upscale, educated women who are joining the army of casual gamers (and many of these news articles have quoted GameGal editor Libe Goad[see how important she is])." If she supports her own argument, then it must be true that upscale, educated women (as opposed to us classless idiot males)are responsible for the likes of EA becoming a dominant force in the industry. Does anyone that genuinely enjoys video games want to be counted in the ilk of the casual gamer, the breed responsible for such phenomena as Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith being the topselling game the week it launches when it is so painfully obvious that it's just more of the same tired crap? Basically if you enjoyed Star Wars, this page is for you.

More specifically, what kind of insight into the large female market sector does gamegal offer? Under Key Titles/Genres for Girl Gamers, we learn that, "Game developers and pulishers now see the value in creating content geared towards the female gaming market...Mobile gaming, either through cell phones or handheld gaming consoles (Nintendo DS, Sony PSP) looks to be a potential growth area for female gamers in 2005." I was wondering why Sony and Nintendo decided to sink more money into handhelds, what with the 20 million Gameboy Advance SP's already sold. Thank goodnes casual women gamers jumped into the market, or we would have never seen these fantastic consoles. Upscale, educated casual woman gamer, I salute you.

So what makes a video game successful with women you ask?
"Key things that appeal to female gamers are community, interactivity, storyelling and creativity. They are also interested in games with high production values that create a cinema-like experience. Games from traditionally male-oriented genres like fighting games and shooters can appeal to girl gamers[and theoretically upscale educated women] if they offer the right mix of compelling characters, well-written stories and accessible gameplay." While the writing parodies itself, this "analysis" is insulting to both genders, as ultimately we learn that female gamers like games with high quality (the distinction implying the opposite of males, who are only interested in graphics and licenses), even in genres they aren't supposed to play (according to marketing information?) as long as their accessible enough[read: easy].

At least there's finally a site known for its annual Holiday Gift guide, "helping [upscale, educated]women gamer's track down the perfect games for their tastes."

Leaving the Press Kit behind, what kind of content does the site offer? Well, on my first visit the top news story is "Sweet Online Love", a mainstream consumer magazine level article/plug about how many sites have linked to their other best known special feature, the annual E3 Hall of Shame:
"Every year, The Gal gets some nice plugs for our tongue-in-cheek E3 Hall of Shame gallery. This time around, even we were surprised by the cool links we saw around cyberspace, and the amusing debates that broke out in the comments section on various game blogs.

Returning the favor, here’s some of the sites that linked to the 2005 Hall of Shame. Hit us up if we’ve missed any."

You return the favor of being linked by compiling an index of those links? And I thought this was just a way of pointing out how important you were. The tongue-in-cheek (not any more) gallery "exposes some of the out of control examples of "Booth Babe" excess seen every year at the show" ends with this photo:

captioned "Finally a little something for the ladies. Hey, we'll take what we can get." Gamegal.com shows pics of scantily clad women because its funny, and men as corrective affirmative action.

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Random review: Brothers In Arms

"Being a WWII game, this is not a game filled with fearless fighting female characters. But in taking a more thinking-person’s approach to the genre, it may appeal to women gamers more than a straight shooter would." More about men not thinking.