Adult females overthrown teen males as largest gaming demographic

[Nepenthe]

Off the top of my head, I can name one female gamer, in the sense of the word I would use, which doesn't include people who play candy crush saga exclusively.

 

I wonder how much age is a factor here (looking above, not necessarily much, but...) I mean, back when I was in high school in late 90s, just the fact that I knew how to use a computer labeled me a "nerd" and thus an undesirable male companion. Now that I chat with ladies born, say, 10 years after me, they already have completely different attitudes towards this sort of stuff.

[IndiraLightfoot]

 

Most are just not seeing this is heralding a new age of social justice aware games with female protagonists that check all the boxes to not be sexist, etc.  I suppose if the majority of developers were women this might be a consideration, but consumers, eh..

 

I'm just curious. Where on earth did TrueNeutral say any of that?

Is that some Anti-SJW knee-jerk reaction you just added to vent? Or did I miss a really interesting discussion by not reading this entire thread?

[Nonek]

Well i'm not a teenager, but I can state that I don't get overthrown nearly enough!

[Blarghagh]

I didn't say anything about my evidence trumping theirs at all, I'm just confused as to the huge gap between my and their experiences.

 

I, personally, cannot imagine my life without women gamers - I was raised by one, I am dating one, I work with several and I'm friends with more. I literally know more woman gamers than I know men gamers at this point. I don't understand how that is possible when I live in a tiny city in the north of the Netherlands surrounded on all sides by farmland, yet others here make posts like this:

 

In my experience, chicks have usually got better things to do.

 

 

I meet a lot of woman in my life and only one of them played from time to time a little bit... where do these phenomenons live ?

 

 

 women would actually need to buy the hardware to effect the market and they're generally not interested in playing complex or fast paced, involving games. Time wasters on mobile devices are not in the same sphere of games such as RPG or FPS.

 

Is it the age difference? I'm 26, am I just in a different generation than people who post this? How old are you guys, if you don't mind me asking?

 

 

I'm somewhat concerned about all the posts going "women don't play games".

 

To be honest, I haven't seen a post saying 'women don't play games'.

 

Most posts have been about how mobile and facebook games may skew the statistics towards adult females being the majority demographic. Lot's of women play video games, I just don't think they are the majority when talking about console and gaming PC's..... Yet. 

 

 

You're right, you're right. There weren't as many as I thought there were when I skimmed this thread. I interpreted the myriad of posts coming down to "women only play casual stuff, not real games" as "women don't play games" as well, which skewed my argument. My bad.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Old enough to be your father, TrueNeutral!

 

And I supoose that you're right about age being one factor, to a point - also, it depends how deep your nerdy roots go. If you played lots and lots of PnP RPGs, like me, chances are much higher that you also will know more female PC gamers, etc.

[Malcador]

 

 

Most are just not seeing this is heralding a new age of social justice aware games with female protagonists that check all the boxes to not be sexist, etc.  I suppose if the majority of developers were women this might be a consideration, but consumers, eh..

 

I'm just curious. Where on earth did TrueNeutral say any of that?

Is that some Anti-SJW knee-jerk reaction you just added to vent? Or did I miss a really interesting discussion by not reading this entire thread?

 

 

I never wrote he said that, though, hope that satisfies your 'curiosity'.  Plenty of places I've read commenting on this article have been pretty deluded enough to assume what I wrote above though, strange people these days.  But was just a general sense of everyone else shrugging at this.  Not seeing why he would be 'concerned' about something as trivial as women playing games, though.  

 

Game market is way larger than when I was younger and more accessible, heh, so follows there'll be a lot of women playing these days than before, at least in PC anyway - I imagine were more console ones back then and now.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Malc: kk. I was a pulling your leg a bit there, and I am glad we see eye to eye on the fact that women playing more games now should be what it is: basic, trivial and shrug-stuff.

[Blarghagh]

Maybe concerned was the wrong word, confused is probably more accurate. I guess I'm just going to have to assume people who don't know gamer women are just not hanging out in the right places and I'm just lucky.

[Amentep]

 

I'm so sorry I've got a **** Bruce. It wasn't my fault, it was a cruel twist of fate.

No need to apologize for something you can't help Monte. But that doesn't change the fact we should still be asking " why is there such a lack female participation on these forums and how can we change this" ?

 

I can't be the only one who has noticed the gender disparity on these forums?

 

In my experience, chicks have usually got better things to do.

 

In my experience most everyone has better things to do than post on message boards.

 

Posting here says more about us than it does the people who don't post here, I think.

 

Off the top of my head, I can name one female gamer, in the sense of the word I would use, which doesn't include people who play candy crush saga exclusively.

Not sure why playing a specific game or type of game makes someone a non-gamer.

[Malcador]

Well, it's like being a sports fan that watches a match occasionally or one that knows every player in the squad and watches every match.  Rather meaningless distinction, for sure, but it is what it is - a level of involvement. 

[AwesomeOcelot]

Yes but the point is if there is a certain growing demographic, like adult female gamers, and they move to start playing  games like RPG then there will be more emphasize on what they expect from games. So logically we should start seeing changes in game design if we haven't already, and this is a good thing

Logically, anything can be predicted if you use the right premises. This premise is not true. My point is, as was the case with solitaire and bejeweled, adult female gamers aren't going to switch to playing Dark Souls or Pillars of Eternity.

 

I'm somewhat concerned about all the posts going "women don't play games". Pretty much every woman I know is a gamer, up to and including my mother who has a load of Paragon levels in Diablo 3. In fact, the only non-gamer women I know are the inlaws, which is 3 women, out of a good three dozen I know on a personal level. 2 of them are hardcore streamers with their own gaming youtube channels and another one used to make money playing WarCraft 3 tournaments. Two of them are game devs. I find it hard to believe that I am the exception to the rule in such a large degree, especially since I am from a rural area.

Knowing two game devs, two streamers, and a WC3 tournament winner personally, male or female is not the norm, and if they're in the same social circle as the other women you're referring to then that goes a long way to explaining it.

[Blarghagh]

Some of them are not, and the ones that are were not before I introduced them.

[AwesomeOcelot]

Out of the three dozen minus three that you know? Is it possible that you're seeking out women gamers?

[Blarghagh]

Possibly more the other way around. There is an environment bias as I met some of them in animation classes, and I met others while I was interning or working for game developers, so obviously I would meet more gamer women than others - that accounts for half or less and I knew many of them before I picked that career. I met my girlfriend through neither, and obviously my mother through neither. I met some through facebook groups, message boards, at least two at LAN parties (including the competitive WarCraft3 player who is now my brother's fiancé), and some I've known since childhood and I do not recall them ever being different. Most of them live within a 50 km radius of me, two are about an hours' drive away, one has recently moved to Germany but used to live within that same radius.

 

Perhaps there's just something "come hither" about me, haha. I have never really sought them out consciously, hence the confusion.

[AwesomeOcelot]

If you'd have lead with "out of the women I've met from my animation classes, LAN parties, and working as an intern for a game developer" then it does sound less extraordinary.

[Nepenthe]

Yeah, I think that there isno reason to suddenly pretend that there is no difference between casual and non-casual gamers just because there's womyn involved...

[Blarghagh]

If you'd have lead with "out of the women I've met from my animation classes, LAN parties, and working as an intern for a game developer" then it does sound less extraordinary.

 

I'm not sure where else I should have met them? I'm sure someone who has sailing as a hobby can tell me they have plenty of female sailing friends, yet I have none of those. I know "of" them, but I don't know any on a personal level. It's not meant to sound extraordinary, the whole point is that it's not extraordinary in the first place. There are plenty of woman gamers out there. You meet people with similar interests through shared hobbies and activities. That's how it works. That's why I don't understand why so few people here have that experience. It is not difficult to meet gamer women, no more difficult than it is to meet gamers in general.

 

I'm sure some of you guys have been to LAN parties (at least, before they seemingly disappeared without a trace from the earth)? Gaming days at your local comic book store? Maybe local gaming or anime cons? Yarr, them be wimmin thar. It's not out of the ordinary. I met my girlfriend through a gaming message board and she just happened to live close to me so we met up. I run into them because I have shared interests. The same way I get to know my male friends. I mean, how else do you meet other people? It's not like I stand around wearing a sign saying "to me, gamer girls, to me!" or something.

[BruceVC]

 

If you'd have lead with "out of the women I've met from my animation classes, LAN parties, and working as an intern for a game developer" then it does sound less extraordinary.

 

I'm not sure where else I should have met them? I'm sure someone who has sailing as a hobby can tell me they have plenty of female sailing friends, yet I have none of those. I know "of" them, but I don't know any on a personal level. It's not meant to sound extraordinary, the whole point is that it's not extraordinary in the first place. There are plenty of woman gamers out there. You meet people with similar interests through shared hobbies and activities. That's how it works. That's why I don't understand why so few people here have that experience. It is not difficult to meet gamer women, no more difficult than it is to meet gamers in general.

 

I'm sure some of you guys have been to LAN parties (at least, before they seemingly disappeared without a trace from the earth)? Gaming days at your local comic book store? Maybe local gaming or anime cons? Yarr, them be wimmin thar. It's not out of the ordinary. I met my girlfriend through a gaming message board and she just happened to live close to me so we met up. I run into them because I have shared interests. The same way I get to know my male friends. I mean, how else do you meet other people? It's not like I stand around wearing a sign saying "to me, gamer girls, to me!" or something.

 

 

This is an excellent and informed post and its almost impossible to disagree with, nice one

[Blarghagh]

Oh no, Bruce approves of my post, here comes the backlash.

[Malcador]

I'm not sure where else I should have met them? I'm sure someone who has sailing as a hobby can tell me they have plenty of female sailing friends, yet I have none of those. I know "of" them, but I don't know any on a personal level. It's not meant to sound extraordinary, the whole point is that it's not extraordinary in the first place. There are plenty of woman gamers out there. You meet people with similar interests through shared hobbies and activities. That's how it works. That's why I don't understand why so few people here have that experience. It is not difficult to meet gamer women, no more difficult than it is to meet gamers in general.

 

I'm sure some of you guys have been to LAN parties (at least, before they seemingly disappeared without a trace from the earth)? Gaming days at your local comic book store? Maybe local gaming or anime cons? Yarr, them be wimmin thar. It's not out of the ordinary. I met my girlfriend through a gaming message board and she just happened to live close to me so we met up. I run into them because I have shared interests. The same way I get to know my male friends. I mean, how else do you meet other people? It's not like I stand around wearing a sign saying "to me, gamer girls, to me!" or something.

What's hard to understand that people here might do differently to you and not rack up a lot of gamer female acquaintances ? It is rather unremarkable though, as the quote indicated, to meet people in an environment where you'd expect them to show as opposed to surveying a subway car.

[BruceVC]

Oh no, Bruce approves of my post, here comes the backlash.

 

 

[HoonDing]

I know many girls who practice shot put.

[Oerwinde]

I'm 32 and the only female gamer I know is my ex. My daughter will be due to my influence, but at least half the men I know are gamers, and almost none of the women

 

Take mobile gaming into account though, and nearly 3/4 of the women I know are gamers.

Edited August 25, 2014 by Oerwinde

[Mamoulian War]

I am 36 and there are only 2 gamer girls around me, one of them is my sister which were influenced by me when we were teenagers, the second one is 12 years younger and goth model.

Edited August 25, 2014 by Mamoulian War

[Amentep]

Well, it's like being a sports fan that watches a match occasionally or one that knows every player in the squad and watches every match. Rather meaningless distinction, for sure, but it is what it is - a level of involvement.

I'm still not sure what the distinction is here between being a sports fan. The criteria you're using sounds like the kind of thing the one with more involvement will use to disparage the one with less involvement to hide the fact that you can still be sports fan and be overly involved.

 

To be sure, I find the same thing true of the PC/anti-Console and Console/Anti-other-Console crowds. Its like someone decided that unless someone has a special badge and knows the secret handshake then they're in the club and everyone else doesn't count.