From The Strong National Museum of Play they have pronounced themselves with their finalists to enter the exclusive Hall of Fame of the organization. A total of 12 candidates, which are the following: Age of Empires, Angry Birds, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Computer Space, FIFA International Soccer, GoldenEye 007, The Last of Us, NBA 2K, Quake, Wii Sports, Wizardry and… Barbie Fashion Designer. Indeed, the most popular doll of all time claims its place and the truth is that it makes all the sense in the world.
fashion sweeps
Surely many of us are caught off guard by this choice, but first we must be very clear about what work we are talking about. Mattel Media, the virtual entertainment division of the toy giant, published Barbie Fashion Designer back in 1996. The development was entrusted to Digital Domain, a studio that barely had Jetstrike -an airplane shooter- and MechWarrior 2: 31st Century Combat as its background in the industry.
Despite the fact that their jobs could not be further from the concepts that surround Barbie, the truth is that the workers hit the nail on the head. With an appearance for both Windows and Mac OS, the title got off to a flying start, sweeping past current titans. So that, sold more than 500,000 copies in its first two months of life and just over 600,000 units as soon as the year was over. During those initial eight weeks, not even Quake and DOOM could shade the blonde toy.
Anyone would say that we are facing an unusual event, but it is not inexplicable. the mechanics of Barbie Fashion Designer It consists of offering the user the opportunity to design clothes and outfits. We can choose between different themes, colors, clothes and combinations to place them on Barbie and see if we like the final result. So much so that a fashion show appears with Barbie parading the chosen look, but that’s not even the best.
a popular fantasy
The great asset with which the title was armed was the possibility of printing the clothes that we designed in the game. Through a special cloth that was included together with paper, markers and paint, we had the desired model in our own hands. From that moment on, all that remains is to cut out the clothes, fold them perfectly and put them on the real Barbie that we want. That is to say, what was so common to do playing Barbie trying out outfits, moved to a field as massive as that of video games. The institution itself The Strong National Museum of Play acknowledges that this fact “was innovative in bridging the gap between digital and physical“.
In total, the video game garnered the not inconsiderable figure of 14 million dollars in sales by the end of 1996. The public most attracted to Barbie Fashion Designer they were girls of the time, which was meant to help “open up an important and ongoing discussion about gender and stereotyping in games.” And it is that in reality the game was the first stone of what became known as Girls’ video games (Video games for girls), a genre that stood out especially in the 90s.
Mattel’s title showed companies that there was a vein to be exploited in videogames directed strongly towards the female sector. In this field, two companies such as Purple Moon and HeR Interactive stood out, which were positioned on opposite sides. There were two types of games in the genre, having the so-called “purple games” and the “pink games“. Purple took the first category, while HeR adopted the second and offered different visions in the same sector.
perspective war
“Barbie Fashion Designer perpetuated a version of femininity that was fundamentally pathetic.” These words were pronounced by Brenda Laurel, founder of Purple Moon at the end of 1996, which sought to approach the female audience between 8 and 14 years of age. After five years of research and conducting more than 1,000 interviews with girls, Laurel came to the conclusion that the preference among this public was games with complex social relationships, that they talk about their feelings and that there were characters with defined personalities.
Rockett’s New School and Secret Paths in the Forest They were the first two works that saw the light by Purple Moon in 1997. The first launched us into eighth grade controlling a 14-year-old girl who lived typical high school experiences. The second takes the characters from the previous one to place them in a context in which they come together in a tree house where they reveal their deepest fears and thoughts. For its part, HeR Interactive based all its success on the popular Nancy Drew, a literary character that showed an investigator solving different crimes and cases. A series created by Edward Stratemeyer in 1930 and which included 175 novels.
The result was mixed. HeR Interactive managed to sustain itself over time and, although its success is not massive, it continues to work on games based on Drew’s adventures. For its part, Purple Moon ended up being sold to Mattel in 1999 after receiving criticism about its proposals in video games.
“Rockett’s New School will likely make Purple Moon a lot of money, not because it suddenly sparked girls’ interest in computers, but because it capitalizes on girls’ fears about high school and adolescence.” GREAT: Gender Relations in Educational Applications of Technology
Years later, in 2009, Laurel noted that “I think Purple Moon improved girls’ comfort with PCs and attracted girls to the online gaming space“. Perhaps the importance of Barbie Fashion Designer may not seem so important in plain sight, but what cannot be denied is that it left a huge mark on the industry.
“In a way, the need for the kind of cultural intervention that we did with Purple Moon no longer exists, as girls and women are fully engaged in the world of computer interaction, but we still have problems getting designers to make their point known.” work. And there are many genres and areas of interest for girls and women that remain untouched. Heroes like Tracy Fullerton, Danah Boyd, Justine Cassell and Henry Jenkins keep the flame for women in gaming burning.” Brenda Laurel