CNN published an article today, "Developer explores the softer side of gaming", which basically reinforces the idea that (a) games are generally perceived as hyper-masculine or hyper-feminine and (b) that news sources really are out of touch with the video game industry. But let's start from the beginning.

The article highlights Kellee Santiago, a woman with pink hair who went to NYU Tisch, who founded thatgamecompany, a game development company that has created the games "Flower", "Flow", and "Cloud", all of which were very popular and are deemed "a gentler side of gaming" by the reporter.

The article goes on to describe Flower - "In "Flower," the player journeys through an imaginary landscape where they can blow breezes, collect flower petals and enjoy the colorful landscape of what Santiago says is a "video game version of a poem"".

Not that I'm saying I have a problem with these ideas - they are all visually very pretty games and obviously popular - upon Flower's release gaming sites like IGN gave it a 9/10 and Flow, as freeware, attracted 350,000 downloads within the first 2 weeks of its download. Not bad for a game that "involves the player guiding an aquatic microorganism through various depths of the ocean to consume other organisms and to evolve their organism as the player advances".

My issue with this article is that it suggests these types of games are a new wave - a movement away from what the article unfortunately describes as "slay and spray" games. Now I'm not a huge 1st person shooter player but at the same time there are games in between gore-fests and collecting flower petals. What about classic games like Mario, Zelda, RPGs, puzzle games, casual games, social games? Why is this woman being written about when honestly there have been plenty of developers with ideas like hers (Will Wright of The Sims and of sim games???)? Is CNN just interested in this woman's story because its so extreme? "A video game version of a poem? Come on. Gross.

The point is, while those 3 games are definitely worth checking out, we as consumers of media and video game players alike need to continue supporting a wide range of games and need to help push general media to understand that gamers aren't cut out of just two cloths - hyper-masculine "slay and spray" or hyper-feminine "video game versions of poems".