Last week, alongside announcing the new Nitro Blaze 7, and a slew of gaming laptops, Acer's Valerie Piau soured the announcement by linking the aesthetic of its new Nitro V 14 gaming laptop with the rise of "women and casual gamers" in the gaming space.
You can listen to that clip from the conference here. In it, Piau says "Within gamers and gaming, almost half are female, so women and casual gamers are on the rise, and so is the search for a gaming laptop that is not just powerful but also beautiful."
In this IFA conference intro for the laptop, the implied rationale for explaining why this laptop is good for women and casual gamers is because its white colour is very pretty, and it's more beautiful as it drops the gamer aesthetic. And this clumsy framing has not gone down well.
Implying that something is inherently for women based on it looking pretty is not only a tired and misogynistic trope—one we've seen since the invention of marketing—but lumping women with casual gamers implies that hardcore gaming is a man's pursuit. There's not really any argument put forth as to why casual gamers and women are linked together there, other than that they both seem to enjoy aesthetics. This seems like an especially strange comment to make, given how RGB-laden PC gaming has been for the last few decades—a hobby stereotypically associated with, and marketed to, men.
Laptop Mag had a chance to talk with Eric Ackerson, the Associate Director of Product Marketing at Acer America, who seemed to condemn the implication of this line, but without condemning the line itself. He says: "I think it's absolutely horrible to try and say it's a gender-related colour."
This is all before talking about the "pink tax" that can come as a result of any kind of gender-related marketing along these lines. Due to the restrictions of their chassis and weight, small machines often end up being more of a premium device, despite being relatively underpowered when compared to their larger brethren, without the price following suit. This is to say you pay for that size. This, of course, isn't inherently a problem as they require different engineering and industrial design, and often specialist parts to create a small form factor chassis that can cope with the thermal demands of modern hardware.
However, labelling one as the woman's laptop, and marketing one specifically towards women, can be a problem when you pay for the aesthetic in smaller machines. And Acer needs to be careful not to go down this dangerous route.
This isn't to say women won't make their own choices in regards to the tech they buy, but cementing marketing and societal norms to sell a laptop feels cynical at best, and prejudicial at worst. Gendered marketing can exert unjust consumer pressure, potentially forcing customers to pay a premium they don't need to.
I'm typing this as someone whose headphones of choice right now are the Razer Kitty Kraken V2, a pair of headphones that, while very cute and pink, was never sold as "for the girls".
Strangely, none of this is too far off a point that could otherwise go down well. The traditionally aggressive gamer aesthetic is one that is not only a bit gauche but rather alienating, and something we've been railing against for years. So, putting out a wide variety of laptops with different aesthetics, with the consideration that you're not just trying to appeal to teenage boys, is likely better for wider adoption among a broad demographic. Talking in those terms, rather than clumsily pairing up women and casual gamers, and then almost suggesting that's the only reason to think about aesthetics, would have gone down far better.
We're not at all saying Acer's design or marketing choices are driven by sexism, but the choice to not hold its hands up to criticism of its own wording seems rather strange. There's a tension in being able to watch the conference and see someone imply its aesthetics are for women and casual gamers, then see someone else from that company say that certain colours aren't just for women. I reached out to Acer myself for clarification, and was left with much the same impression.
A representative from Acer told me: "Acer makes no difference in gender, our objective is to make technology available to everybody, and offering consumers a choice." Though this is a nice sentiment, I don't quite think the two statements track. I would argue they are almost antithetical points and, when pushed to respond specifically to the argument that those comments are misogynistic, I was told this is the only quote Acer has for me right now.
It's a shame as the Nitro V 14 actually is a very nice looking laptop, one that I'm quite looking forward to seeing in person. I also think it's a much nicer laptop to bring into the office over anything with "Acer Predator" written on it.
