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May 02, 2005
Plenty of women gamers
A report from Nielson Entertainment today offers fresh evidence that the games industry is missing a trick by focusing so heavily on the young male gamer. The benchmark study on interactive entertainment found that 39% of gamers are female and that nearly 24% of all gamers are over the age of 40. (Nearly one-quarter of female gamers are aged 13-17, with almost 20 percent aged 25-34 and an additional 19 percent ranging from 35-44.)
The report also confirms that women are more social players:
Overall, active gamers typically spend approximately 5.2 hours playing by themselves with a large proportion also being spent playing socially (3.07 hours per week with friends and family or online). Among females, the split between solo and social game play is even more equitable with younger females 13-17 tending to play more with friends or family (54% of the time) and women 25-34 playing almost as much socially as alone. Males and females 45 and older are markedly different, spending almost all their time (79%) playing alone.
Via IGDA's Women in Games Development list.
Posted by Foe at 11:59 AM in Gaming | Permalink
Comments
They know this, we know this so why the hell aren't the developers making more
women-positive games? I mean, I love Tombraider (I actually do love it) but I
can do without the double-bubble bod or the skintight outfits. The old argument that
dictated (pun intended) the childish and sexist representations of women was
generally supported by the assumption that they were selling games to a largely
teenaged male heterosexual audience. Things have changed.
I hate to sound like a boring old fuddy but I also don't like the violence (actually
my favourite aspect of Tombraider is the environments, the exploring and the puzzles.
I do the killing and blowing shit up because it's part and parcel but could do without_.
There are a lot of highly intelligent women and men playing games. There are certainly
some intelligent people designing games. So what's the problem? Why don't the gaming
giants have a meeting and make some smarter, more interesting, less violent games for
all the interesting and intelligent people out there (like myself) who would gladly
buy them? What's the problem? What are they waiting for?
Posted by: Melanie McBride at May 4, 2005 6:05:28 PM
Hi.
I’m actually an independent game developer and approximately 70% of our players are female. The game’s called Gumshoe Online and it’s a detective/mystery game played online through a web browser.
The game wasn’t designed with women in mind, in fact there isn’t a female player character and most of the NPC’s are male. Gumshoe was intended to appeal to fans of the crime and mystery genre, so perhaps it’s the slow paced, deductive, puzzle based gameplay that appeals to women rather than the usual frag-fest that appears is most games.
Another possible reason for the game’s popularity with women is that players don’t compete against each other, instead they compete to post the highest score. This could explain why our game forum is so friendly.
If anyone is undertaking a study of “female gamers” we’d be really happy to hear from you. There’s also a free tutorial mystery for anyone interested in trying his or her hand at being an online detective.
Cheers Iwan.
Posted by: Iwan at Jul 8, 2005 2:07:02 PM
I’m a keen female gamer (Quake/B1942/Counter Strike) and I don’t mind the violence in games, but I do wish there were more female game characters even Sonic is a man.
Posted by: Grace at Jul 14, 2005 10:14:10 AM
I recently read that 86% of gamers are male.
Posted by: Elf at Nov 15, 2005 10:29:45 AM
