What Lor wanted most for Christmas last year was Style Savvy, which was surprising since it was, well, not a Pokemon title. It looked like a kindred spirit to Roiworld‘s Fashion Fix on the iPhone/iPod Touch, which Lor adored despite being fairly terrible at it. I knew I was going to like it, but I held off until I could see how accessible it was, and after watching her play through the tutorial on Christmas night, I was hooked. Against our better judgement, we ventured out into the post-holiday chaos in search of a second copy.
As we were in the car, Nick marveled at how utterly obsessed with the game I was, but wasn’t really surprised. “I’ve read some of the reviews,” he said, “and they’ve all said that even though they expected it to be terrible, they’re surprised that it’s a great game.” At first, I just went on gushing about how well the game is structured and the micromanaging of your store and everything, but after a moment, I began to wonder — why would one assume it’d be terrible?
I thought about it for a moment, and you know, it really did make perfect sense, considering the shift in marketplace perceptions. Nowadays, games created and/or marketed toward a female audience are the new licensed games, as far as their perception as shovelware is concerned. (more…)
