Female Gamers. Is this really news?

@Brodehouse said:

@Branthog

@Brodehouse said:

It makes sense because women represent about 80% of the consumer marketplace, and childless women statistically have more money and time to spend on leisure products. For about a decade now women have made up the majority of university graduates and dominate the middle and upper classes. The only consumer bloc that is bigger than women in North America is whites, no wonder you're going to see a lot of stuff geared towards their interests. I always found it weird that when women were a vast minority within games it was characterized as a shame that needs to be corrected, rather than the natural result of people choosing what they want to do with their time. That nasty free will, always ruining everything! I don't look at media dominated by women (romantic novels and fan-fiction, my God) and go "it's such a shame that its like this, make something for the boys to enjoy!" There are people who are like that, they're the ones going "how DARE you read 50 Shades of Grey, you are A BAD PERSON!" Just the male version of those puritanical anti-sex prudes who want to get thinks pornography is abusive. .... I don't even know what I'm bitching about anymore. Continue on!

Women also make up 54% of the population.

If they ever get motivated and organized, we are FUCKED.

I think you're confused. They are organized. They register and vote in higher numbers and in higher proportions. They are 57% of the American electorate. There are 10 million more female voters than men. The only bloc bigger than women is, once again, whites (at 72% IIRC). Women make up I believe 16% of the elected officials; but I believe their candidacy rate is equal to that.

Correct, but they obviously aren't organized enough or with the majority numbers (in population, voting, etc) -- then there would be no more concerns for women's rights and various women's issues, because they would have the motivation and sheer numbers to resolve all their complaints.

@BearSpark: Ha it is to me. Every girl I have dated hated video games with a passion. They seriously would treat games like I am cheating on them with someone else. My current girlfriend isn't bad about it though. She more just tolerates them. A male friend of hers who lives in Florida is getting married to a Brazilian chick who loves video games. She is a big Call of Duty player and has beaten the majority of the games that came out at the end of the year. I find this to be bullshit....sorry I just had to get that off my chest.

@MikkaQ said:

Well I'm curious how many people dismissing casual or phone games started playing games with simple fare like Super Mario Bros, Pitfall. Sonic the Hedgehog or Tetris? None of which are really all that more complex than the phone games they dismiss so readily. No one just starts playing Skyrim and is instantly into those kinds of games.

Saying that my mom is a gamer, because she plays Zuma endlessly (and only Zuma) is like saying that I'm an Olympic runner. Sure, I'm not doing it now, but I have the whole bi-pedal locomotion thing down, which is a pre-requisite for becoming an Olympic runner.

I think it's fair to draw distinctions between the spirit of the word "gamer" and people who just play advercrap on social networks and little time-wasters on their phone. They are both playing games, of some form, but one is a group of "gamers" and the other is a group that is playing a game or two. I suppose it's the difference between an audiophile and someone who enjoys music. They both consume and enjoy music, but one has a much more casual relationship to it. Sometimes that casual relationship evolves.

@feliciano182 said:

There's an obvious problem with the news when they think someone that plays Farmville is a "gamer".

Do you expect anything more from the segment of society who also thinks that Star Craft II turns you into a mass-murderer?

Now, what I don't get is why are some videogamers here are thinking that Farmville isn't a game, sure, it may be a crappy game, but it's still a game.

Presumably, for the same reason it is asserted that people who only play Farmville are not "gamers". It's the spirit of the thing. Farmville isn't a game. It's a multi-level marketing scheme with only the most rudimentary components of what one could argue "gaming". It's all about dragging more people in, gathering more data about users, and selling them stupid crap. If anything, it's merely a social-networking affliction than a game of any sort.

Farmville, however, is part of a class of "games" unto themselves. I don't think it's fair to lump casual gaming in with social-networking garbage like Farmville and Mafia Wars and all of that other crap.

Who? What? Where? Those are the question when you talk about statistical numbers. There have been more women than men gamers for years, if you look at some stats. What is occurring now is, that no matter how you arrange the numbers or what sub categories you look at more women and girls are gaming.

Most of the women I know are better more & skilled than the men I know. On You Tube you find more 'skilled' women gamers than men. A gamer channel for a male is typically a 'griefing' vlog, where as for women you find far more skilled gaming.

It just shows how stereotypes regarding video games are still as strong as ever.

@Brodehouse said:

@Branthog

@Brodehouse said:

It makes sense because women represent about 80% of the consumer marketplace, and childless women statistically have more money and time to spend on leisure products. For about a decade now women have made up the majority of university graduates and dominate the middle and upper classes. The only consumer bloc that is bigger than women in North America is whites, no wonder you're going to see a lot of stuff geared towards their interests. I always found it weird that when women were a vast minority within games it was characterized as a shame that needs to be corrected, rather than the natural result of people choosing what they want to do with their time. That nasty free will, always ruining everything! I don't look at media dominated by women (romantic novels and fan-fiction, my God) and go "it's such a shame that its like this, make something for the boys to enjoy!" There are people who are like that, they're the ones going "how DARE you read 50 Shades of Grey, you are A BAD PERSON!" Just the male version of those puritanical anti-sex prudes who want to get thinks pornography is abusive. .... I don't even know what I'm bitching about anymore. Continue on!

Women also make up 54% of the population.

If they ever get motivated and organized, we are FUCKED.

I think you're confused. They are organized. They register and vote in higher numbers and in higher proportions. They are 57% of the American electorate. There are 10 million more female voters than men. The only bloc bigger than women is, once again, whites (at 72% IIRC). Women make up I believe 16% of the elected officials; but I believe their candidacy rate is equal to that.

Correct, but they obviously aren't organized enough or with the majority numbers (in population, voting, etc) -- then there would be no more concerns for women's rights and various women's issues, because they would have the motivation and sheer numbers to resolve all their complaints.

@Bane122 said:

Because the gaming audience is percieved far and wide as male-dominated.

I'm curious as to how they define gamer. Are they including people playing stuff like Farmville? A friend has a wife that plays just that. Is she considered a gamer now?

I hope and pray that people who play Facebook games are not considered gamer.....

@living4theday258 said:

I hope and pray that people who play Facebook games are not considered gamer.....

Why?

I don't think this is all that big a deal. I'm pretty certain it's been almost 50/50 for some time. But the term game doesn't just mean one type of game on one type of platform. There are developers dedicated to making games solely for girls, so of course there is an audience. Not only that, hasn't anyone looked in the Wii or DS section of their local game store lately? All those horse games and Bratz games and whatever else are all counted in these studies. It's basically something unimportant being used as news because of what image comes to mind what people say 'gamer'.

@StarvingGamer said:

Because the forward facing games, ie blockbusters like Call of Duty, are clearly targeted towards 15-35 males. When you say "video games" people don't think of Angry Birds or FarmVille. So there's a cognitive disconnect that makes the notion of women playing games seem strange or interesting. More importantly, it foreshadows potentially shifting trends in the development world as gents like you and me may no longer be the core target audience.

Hell, take it a step further: the only metric advertisers, marketers and sales people have ever traditionally cared about is the straight 18-35 male. All you have to do is read anything about television and advertising metrics to see this is the case.

It's part of what made all those fucking clowns in the comments about that sexist Dead Island thing going on about how it wouldn't be an issue if it was a man's torso so dense - the entire point is that they would never do that because of the continued casual sexism that straight young men is the market you always want and always need to go after, and anything that goes against selling to that market is a bad idea. Anything that helps break down that fucking bullshit is for the best.

So yeah OP, it actually is news.

Not sure if anyone's posted this yet, but here's the link to the broadcast:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21039062

I hope this works for international duders. BBC don't usually block that kind of thing.

I think it's news for anyone who lives under a rock. Other than that, DEAR LORD! WOMEN PLAY VIDEO GAMES?!?!

@BearSpark said:

Watching TV this morning, one of the top new items was that 2013 would be the year that the percentage of female gamers would overtake that of male gamers. Is this really news? Games appeal to all walks of life and I know loads of females who play games. Why is society so surprised that females might actually be interested in playing games on whatever medium is out there.

Is it news? Not really. But it's something that needs to be stated to put things into prospective.

The problem after that then is you then have to take that idea of "gamers" and split it up. According to these studies, if you have angry birds on your phone, you're a gamer. You have to divide things up to "people who are buying retail games for personal use" to get the numbers that we, the members of this community, would care about.

@Brodehouse said:

And lastly, "casual sexism of selling X to men". No. No, no, no. Targeted your primary demographic in your marketing is not sexism, it's _business_. That's how everything works. That's why when you create a product in which the primarily demographic is black men, you fill the marketing with things black men love. When you create a product to sell to seniors, you don't fill the marketing with Justin Bieber. Targeting a product towards seniors is not ageism, targeting a product towards latinos is not racism, targeting a product's marketing to women is not sexism. Why do you think yogurt commercials always feature a women in her 30s and her idiot husband who can't understand what yogurt is? Because that commercial appeals to the primary demographic of yogurt; 30 year old women!

What you're describing is profiling, which, conceptually, is still "wrong". I work in advertising and one of the most interesting comparisons I get to do are the Dr. Pepper, "It's not for women". Those ads do well in female demographics because they remember that a brand is essentially insulting them. It's using the concept of sexism to drive the idea of Dr. Pepper into their brains, and it doesn't matter if it's in a positive or negative, so long as they remember the ideal of Dr. Pepper. It's hard to say if something like that, or if something like Bill O'Reily spouting blatent lies on the air when his show is billed as a news program is "okay".

But that's a different discussion.

Should I care?
-----------------
Yes / No?
--> No.

@Brodehouse said:

@iAmJohn are we talking about games? In which case, yes, 18-35 is the money market. Of course that only started around the turn of the millennium, before then it was boys below the age of majority you advertised to. All those boys grew up into men, now they market to men.

I meant in general, though it's pretty clear that while the market for video games is still predominantly that straight while male market they go for, it extends far beyond that and has for years, and that most marketers don't give a shit about selling to anyone outside out it. That was my point.

Of the greater culture you'd be wrong. The most sought after market, the one that is largest, has the most disposable income, is the most susceptible to marketing and the most brand conscious is teen and tween girls. Undeniably. That's where the money is. Second is 18-35 year old women, third is teen boys, fourth is 18-35 year old men, and last is anyone older than that.

What in the hell are you talking about? Teen girls don't have disposable income - they're teenagers! That's why they've never been and never will be the most sought after market. That's not to say that you can't succeed by selling primarily to them--lord knows, that's how the CW has been able to last for as long as it has--but you have to completely ignore the world around you to think that tween girls, most of whom only have whatever income they get from their parents and are therefore limited by what they can and will realistically spend on themselves, is somehow the most desirable market. Why do you think the other big metric Nielsen ratings publishes for a show aside from its ratings is its share, a metric meant to indicate how many 18-49 year old males watched something? Why do you think all the major networks, the CW especially, made great efforts to talk about the efforts they were taking to get that younger male market watching their television shows during last week's TCA talks? That is the market they want. It always has been, because of the traditional mindset (whether or not it's right, and I frankly don't think it is) that straight young men are the breadwinners with disposable income.

And lastly, "casual sexism of selling X to men". No. No, no, no. Targeted your primary demographic in your marketing is not sexism, it's _business_. That's how everything works. That's why when you create a product in which the primarily demographic is black men, you fill the marketing with things black men love. When you create a product to sell to seniors, you don't fill the marketing with Justin Bieber. Targeting a product towards seniors is not ageism, targeting a product towards latinos is not racism, targeting a product's marketing to women is not sexism. Why do you think yogurt commercials always feature a women in her 30s and her idiot husband who can't understand what yogurt is? Because that commercial appeals to the primary demographic of yogurt; 30 year old women!

And again, it's sexist when the primary market for most things is that demographic and everyone is about grabbing that demographic in any way they can. Yes you can sell to other demographics; you'll probably even be successful by doing it. But it's not where the money is. Try watching any television station whose primary market is seniors, and I promise you you'll see the same three or four damn advertisements - AARP shit; hoverround scooters; personal injury lawsuits. That's not good money and that's not the money these people want because that "common knowledge" dictates that those people aren't as willing to spend money on things.

One begets the other, dude. No one wants to sell to a small, niche market; they want the entire pie. That's why you see everyone going for that straight young male crowd. The fact that they can and do sell to other markets is apropos of the fact that there's one specific market they all want and keep doing the same fucking tired (and yes, oftentimes sexist) bullshit to sell to them.

There is no way they will ever overtake the male audience. I don't mean that in a rude way, of course, but there are too many games targeted at JUST male gamers for female gamers to even feel comfortable as the face of gaming. The best selling game franchise ever (CoD) is targeted towards males, after all.

I have never met anyway over the age of 14 who seriously had a problem with female gamers, so It's not like they aren't welcome or anything, but to say their will be more female gamers than males, especially in the near future, is absurd.

EDIT: Judging by other responses on here, we *are* talking about women OVERTAKING males, right? Why is everyone acting as if that statement isn't crazy.

Double Edit: Huh, I just searched and apparently 40% of gamers are female. I find this really hard to believe. How many polls have been taken on this subject.

Triple Edit (lol): Now it seems it is closer to about 25%, according to Wikipedia.

@mandude said:

@D_W said:

@mandude said:

@D_W said:

No it's not news, and no there isn't a difference between a mobile game and a big budget AAA title just like there's no difference between a novella and novel. Both can be equally shallow and both can be equally amazing. Disregarding someone because they only play on a certain platform or don't play a certain type of game is disregarding someone because they've never been exposed to a band you like.

They generally go for entirely different things, though. Those kinds of games aim purely to amuse and rarely (never?) anything else, whereas gaming as we know it has long since evolved beyond that.

It makes as much sense as comparing a cinema movie to a YouTube video of someone falling and hurting their groin. Sure, they were both captured on camera, but there is a vast sea of disconnect when it comes to what they actually are at their core.

I don't about that. A big budget Hollywood comedy would have someone getting kicked in the balls and it would be the same quality of humor as home movie of someone getting kicked in the balls. When it comes to Youtube, it an interesting example because of the wide variety and quality of stuff on there. There are people making their living off their videos, there are people that use it to bootleg old TV shows, there are people that throw their home movies up there so they can share it with their family, and so many other uses.

Point is you can't qualify an experience based on the medium of delivery. Especially since experiences are entirely subjective and different for each person. There is no illegitimate experience. If someone really enjoy classic literature it doesn't make them a better fan of literature then someone who enjoys reading Doctor Who fan fiction. It's all just different tastes.

I'm not saying that any experience is illegitimate or that it may be lesser than another experience. My point is that you can't reconcile two experiences based on the fact that the medium is the same, much in the same way you wouldn't recommend fiction books to someone who has only ever read textbooks, simply because you know they read "books".

These are all technically "games" as it were, but it can't be denied that there is a vast difference. The people that play Facebook games are going to be generally different to the people that play console and PC games. The study is stupid, because it doesn't recognise this difference, and it identifies them as all the same. This makes it useless to people coming specifically from one group or another (most people).

So then, we agree that this is not news?

Well, games are very different now then they were even just a few years ago. Many girls (albeit the stupid ones) are like "I play Words with Friends / insert casual/ social game here, I am such a GAMER." So I think that there are quite a few girls out there like that. On the other hand I know a lot of girls that love games such as Zelda and Mario, so like I said games are really a widespread source of media at this point.

@D_W said:

So then, we agree that this is not news?

Most definitely.

Just once I want to see one of these news statistics actually provide the sources/study information for where they're getting their stats.

That said, I'm a girl and I play "real" video games, and I'm not some special unicorn, by far. I think a lot of us just tend to be more silent when it comes to gaming communities, because of the pervasive idea that it's some kind of "boy's club" by others. My mom looked at me like I had grown three more heads when she found out I played violent video games.

Also, people in gaming communities can be asses to girls. I remember one time my former boyfriend was preparing for a podcast for the game review website he and his friends where putting together, and I said something to him before they started recording and they overheard, resulting in a series of jeers and taunts--it was a pack mentality-boy's club-get out sort of thing--and these were people I knew. I know not all (or most) male gamers are like that, but incidents like that can make anyone wary of the gaming community at large (although apparently it didn't affect me too much since I'm here), which is why I think sometimes it seems like there are less girl gamers than there actually are.

I think what'll be more interesting is how developers continue to respond and what it means for the next generation of consoles. Since casual gaming is increasingly popular and there's an ongoing growth in more indie game development you have to wonder who, in the very long term, is going to want to focus on the kind of teenage gun fetish so many current games pander to.

I don't imagine we'll see much change in the next year or two and there's always going to be an audience for console titles but I can easily see major publishers being more interested in free to play and 'casual' gaming. It's the most popular, it's less challenging politically and the development costs are going to be significantly lower. Studies like this are bound to reinforce, some might say sound, decisions to refocus what publishers are interested in.

The definition of "gamer" is so nebulous that I hesitate to give credence to any study unless it defines that word clearly and has an understanding of the difference in which audiences play games.

I play WoW, Xbox 360 and PS3 games and easily 90% of the people I meet are male. There might be more girls playing Facebook games like Farmville or maybe iOS games or that kind of thing but certainly not hardcore games.

Unfortunately facts don't always change people's mindsets.

@LordXavierBritish said:

Angry Bird.

and WOW [/sexualist that is]

Personally, I think the whole thing is tied with "Nerd culture." The words gamer/nerd whatever is becoming so vague that its starting to become irrelevant.

People have become "nerds" nowadays because they peruse the internet or own an IPAD. <Shrug>

@ripelivejam said:

@LordXavierBritish said:

Angry Bird.

and WOW [/sexualist that is]

I don't know what the fuck this means but I'm going to assume you think my comment is sexist.

It isn't, Angry Birds is just the prime example that anyone with a phone is a gamer now. It's not a secret club anymore, and it's not just men. It's common and it's everywhere.

@LordXavierBritish said:

@ripelivejam said:

@LordXavierBritish said:

Angry Bird.

and WOW [/sexualist that is]

I don't know what the fuck this means but I'm going to assume you think my comment is sexist.

It isn't, Angry Birds is just the prime example that anyone with a phone is a gamer now. It's not a secret club anymore, and it's not just men. It's common and it's everywhere.

i know i was just being sarcastic/facetious. cool your jets.

Nope. There are more females than males right now so duh.

@ripelivejam said:

@LordXavierBritish said:

@ripelivejam said:

@LordXavierBritish said:

Angry Bird.

and WOW [/sexualist that is]

I don't know what the fuck this means but I'm going to assume you think my comment is sexist.

It isn't, Angry Birds is just the prime example that anyone with a phone is a gamer now. It's not a secret club anymore, and it's not just men. It's common and it's everywhere.

i know i was just being sarcastic/facetious. cool your jets.

LordXavierBritish is gonna -cut- you, bro! He doesn't mess around!

The problem I have with this is that the term "gamer" implies a sense of hobbyism. Most people have some game apps on their phone that they play as a past-time, but it's definitely not a HOBBY for them. They don't know or care about developers, publishers, genres, series, etc. Just like you wouldn't call the average movie-goer who watches about 4 blockbuster movies a year in theaters a "film buff", or the person who listens to their iPod at the bus stop an "audiophile", the people who download games from the app store because they're bored shouldn't be called "gamers."

Guess what? Games, like movies and music, are a form of media that is becoming ingrained in our culture. EVERYONE plays them sometimes. That's not a bad thing, but you really have to separate the people who only experience the art from the people who actually care about it.

The more people who play games the better.Male or Female,it doesn't matter.Games are meant to be enjoyed by everyone.Amazingly,the "Guy in basement" stereotype is somehow still prevalent in the mainstream.

Silly female rabbit, video games are for male kids.

(this was a stupid, really really dumb joke, I sincerely apologize)