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Inworld Review: 17th March 13 (by Mal Burns)
SL9B at Burn2 Great stage. Philip just popped in for a birthday chat too.  |
MBTV @ SL9B Our front quadrant at the build., this time close up.  |
When I stumbled across a site called FEMICOM — “the feminine computer museum” — I knew I’d found something unique. At first glance, all I saw was a collection of twentieth century “games for girls,” an area that is virtually never talked about. It is also, admittedly, a subset of gaming that has always driven me right up the wall. Fashion and cooking games festooned in pink have never been part of my repertoire, and my cursory opinion of them was one of persistent stereotypes and lackluster design. But instead of passing the site by, my eyes lingered over that tagline: The feminine computer museum. “All right, FEMICOM,” I thought, clicking through the links. “Just how are you defining ‘feminine’? Feminine according to who?” As it turns out, this is exactly the question that FEMICOM wants you to be asking. Failing to explore this site would have been a big mistake on my part. Not only did it lead to one of the most thought-provoking conversations I’ve had about gender roles in games, but it made me put my own gaming preferences under the microscope. I’ve been chewing on the question of why I like the things I like for days now.
