September 19, 2005

Newsweek Int’l on the Future of Entertainment

by Andrew Stern · , 4:21 pm

Speaking of women and games — we can’t get a hold of it here in the US, but Newsweek International (Europe, Asia, the Middle East) has a new issue on the Future of Entertainment. The issue includes an article called “Videogames for Girls” that may discuss Façade, we’re not sure.

If any non-Americans out there have a copy, please let us know what the article says, thanks! We’ll try to get a hold of a couple of copies this week somehow.

Hopefully this means they’re going crazy over Façade is Riyadh right now.

Update: Ah, I found it online — the article is called “A Female Sensibility“. The print edition is the October 3, 2005 international issue.

13 Responses to “Newsweek Int’l on the Future of Entertainment”


  1. andrew Says:

    The article reports I said “at least half the downloads are by women, perhaps more”. I don’t recall saying that, since we don’t know who has actually downloaded Façade, we only know the amounts downloaded. Anecdotally, we know there are a number of women players, of course, but we don’t know the male/female breakdown.

  2. Ian Bogost Says:

    Now you do! Half women! I saw it on the Internet!

  3. Jill Says:

    Ah. I was just going to ask how you knew that half the downloads are by women…

  4. michael Says:

    Sigh. Yes, when you talk to the press, you have no control over what actually gets written. The author never actually played Facade himself. Also, he talked to both Andrew and I, yet chose to include quotes only from Andrew.

  5. andrew Says:

    Actually I think the article’s co-writer, Nick Summers, did play Facade — hence the remark in the article that they stood silent for 10 minutes while Trip and Grace ranted to each other. Btw, that’s only possible in the second half of the drama; any player would have to have said several things to Grace and Trip during the first half of the drama, to avoid being booted out of the apartment for being overly silent, in order to make it to the second half.

  6. Lisa Galarneau Says:

    I bought a copy of this Newsweek in Tokyo and downloaded Facade as a result of the mention! I have, in fact, been playing most of the afternoon. Trip didn’t take kindly to me hitting on Grace, though, so I’ve had to start over. ;-)

  7. andrew Says:

    Cool, Lisa, thanks for the info about the article available in Tokyo!

  8. Mark M. Says:

    Update: I just read “A Female Sensibility” in my US home print subscription to Newsweek.
    It appears to be the same article.

    October 17th issue
    P. E20
    (As part of the Enterprise insert section)
    Way to go, team Facade!

  9. andrew Says:

    Wow!

    Thanks for letting us know, Mark — I’ll run out and get a copy or three.

    Here it is online; looks like they rearranged and rewrote the article a bit — and put Facade in paragraph one!

    Readership-wise this is by far the biggest press Facade has gotten. Although Nick’s review in SPAG is way up there.

  10. michael Says:

    Very cool! I’ll run out and buy a copy.

  11. andrew Says:

    Not so fast! It seems that the Enterprise section, which is published 12 times a year (according to the Newsweek website), is not in the newsstand edition. At least not in the copies at the newsstand I just went to…

    I’m assuming it’s an insert in home subscriptions only — but that’s okay, since home subscriptions comprise 95% of the 3 million copies sold per week, supposedly translating to 7 million readers.

    (Second Life has a big ol’ page with multiple screenshots in the main section of the newsstand edition though.)

  12. andrew Says:

    This has been an interesting learning lesson on the distribution of magazines. Reading the website more carefully, the Enterprise edition is part of Newsweek “Business Plus”, a circulation of 1.2M, which supposedly translates to 7.7M readers.

    “Newsweek Business Plus provides advertisers with a uniquely targeted edition specially designed to reach key decision-makers. Newsweek Business Plus includes high-income professional and managerial subscribers who are questionnaire-qualified based on job title and income; or unduplicated subscribers in the top ranking zip codes, with a high incidence of professionals/managers and upper-income households.
    * Circulation and readership – 1,200,000 / 7,739,000
    * Distribution – Business readers and high income subscribers

    So this article is mostly going out to Grace and Trip -types. :-)

  13. Grand Text Auto » Game AI in The Economist Says:

    […] 17;t increased at all since the issue came out, just as it didn’t when we got in the business section of Newsweek; but it’s good PR tha […]

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