Nintendo is running a new ad campaign called I Play For Me, showing America Ferrera, Liv Tyler, and Carrie Underwood playing their favorite games on the Nintendo DS. Personally I think it’s a great idea. I admire these three women and think it will be a great way to get girls interested in the DS. I’m sure many young girls idolize these women, and seeing them playing a DS will inspire them to pick one up.
However! I really quite loathe the execution. Maybe I’m just abnormal – I was raised around guys, my best friends are guys, and I’ve always been a huge tomboy – but how many of you play games like that? Liv Tyler’s long and girly sigh, Carrie’s cooing. Perhaps that’s a good image for younger girls to respond to – something very feminine. But for those of us who know that girls do play games, it doesn’t do much to dispel the myth that girls only play casual games, and in a very… girly way.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. I applaud Nintendo’s strides, but I would have loved to have seen some different direction on these commercials.

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14 June 2008 at 9:51 pm
Heather
Hi,
I subscribed to your blog recently after I read about you on GameCareerGuide and Westwood college. I don’t own a DS (I’m a PSP girl), but…yeah, I agree.
My friends that do own a DS don’t exactly play those games either. What about Final Fantasy Tactics or even Pokemon? One of my friends loves Maple Story and I bet she can’t wait to get Maple Story for DS.
This sort of reminds me of when I was little and I would rent one of those Barbie games for SNES out of curiosity, and it would be, hands down, the wost game I ever played in my life. And it made me very mad at the time because it felt like all of the games were being made for boys and if you were a girl then any games made for you would be pointless.
Even my younger cousin thought the same. My cousin is 10 years old, she also owns a DS (I didn’t get to see how many games she has, but when I was there she was very into a Kim Possible game). I had an SNES emulator on my computer and showed her the Barbie game one day…I remember her saying, “So…what’s the point of this?”
However…a little part of me on the inside was glad to see girls on tv playing video games.