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Videogames Attract More Women Than Boys?
Thanks to Yahoo!/Reuters for their story about a new Entertainment Software Association poll showing the demographics of gaming. According to the poll, "...26 percent of game players are women 18 or older, while 21 percent are boys 6 to 17", and the survey also revealed that "...the average gamer spends 6.5 hours a week playing games... while boys 6 to 17 average 7.3 hours per week of game time." Explicit games are also on the increase, as "13.2 percent carried a "Mature" or "M" rating, up from 9.9 percent in 2001 and under 8 percent in 2000."
We are mainly a Microsoft shop, so most of the folks I work with are heterosexual.
The rest are slashdotters.
Except me, of course.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
I mean, that is the only game I have ever seen an adult woman play...
I don't read or respond to AC posts
Slashdotters with girlfriends? My world is crumbling! Ahhhhhh!
I would've never believed that girls could play more video games then guys until I got my sister and girlfriend into playing Age of Mythology. Now everytime I see either one of them, they are CONSTANTLY playing that game non-stop. It's almost like a crack addiction...
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www.samuraifiles.com - Get Some Videos Here
aren't we all just playing games with each other?
All it takes to fly is to hurl yourself at the ground... and miss. -Douglas Adams
Laura Croft was the only girlfriend i ever had.
I wonder what the percentage is for first person shooters? Maybe what is really happening is that game makers are shifting to accomodate a new audience.
there has to be some underlying fact here, (camps of korean chicks forced to play videogames to skew poll results)
My girlfriend's Sims get more action than we do.
AND they own all this cool stuff in their house.
On the bright side, those bastards can't own cars, so I guess it evens out. Plus, my girlfriend can't turn off my Free Will. (usually)
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
Men on the other hand like violent games like Quake. Not that women do not play these kinds of games but being masculine and outdoing each other does not appeal to them as much.
http://saveie6.com/
It's a joystick envy thing.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
If you are going to lump all women over the age of 18 together and compare that to middle school and high school boys, I guess you could say that the numbers add up in favor of the disproportionately large population.
More apples than oranges you say? Stop the presses!
No wonder I can't find a date - everyone compatible with me is inside playing violent video games! I'd network with them, but they'd laugh at the speed of my dial-up modem...
Matt Fahrenbacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
Could this mean the PMS avenger is coming to consoles soon?
I wonder what percentage of games are rated mature now opposed to in the past? Perhaps the rating system is becoming increasingly strict and thereby artifically raising the number of mature games used by gamers.
Nintendo has been doing very badly lately and perhaps it's because of their unwillingness to allow any games to be published which aren't for a general audience.
That's one of the reasons that the playstation and xbox have taken off. they're catering to what the FANS want rather than what THEY want.
maybe now nintendo will start taking notice. a bit late for the gamecube tho. I sold mine because all the games were too childish.
The reason girls and Windows users don't understand UNIX is because all the documentation is in Man files.
is it possible that older females (18+) can afford more games/machines than those poor boys? imagine how hard a 6-year-old boy has to beg to get a game?
additionally, i would imagine younger children won't be too excited about reporting their game-playing activities since most of them are more or less restricted by their parents.
The study found that 26 percent of game players are women 18 or older, while at 38 percent are men 18 and up.
Who writes this stuff?
Do people read more than just the headlines anymore?
I really don't think these statistics really indicate the truth.
First off, video games are frequently directed toward males. How often do video game heroines become sex objects? Lara Croft is the easy example, but there are dozens of others in RPGs, fighting games, adventure, horror, and practically every genre.
Perhaps the grain of truth in this is that women may be becoming more technically inclined than they were in the past. Certainly as a university student, the number of women in engineering is on the rise. Also, perhaps they see the presence of video game heroines as a show of the power of femininity in these games. Even while Eidos was building Tomb Raider, they were particularly cautious and uncertain about making their main character a woman.
Regardless, is the show of women a good sign? If it helps create diversity in video games and help manufacturers build more innovative games than "Adventures of Barbie," then this can only help the industry.
BTW, this game is really good. Not your average rts/fps clone, but for those who like different games, worth a try .
If they're including on-line play of board games, bingo, and the like, then I'm not at all surprised. Old folks playing scrabble and bingo on the net vastly outweigh us young'ns.
Actually, I was trying to be Insightful, not Funny.
It's probably because of over protective parents. It's amazing how obsessive some of them can get. Expecially the one that sued this dude.
Bugs are just features that have been fixed.
Does this mean that 21% are actually female, or that 21% identify themselves as female when playing online games? I suspect the latter. Polls based on a self-selecting group of individuals are never valid.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Are video games and depression linked in any way? I think there may be some link between people who are more likely to litter and depression too. This is not as bad as my other theory, girls who jay walk are more likely to welcome sexual advances.
How does this mean there are more boys playing games than girls? The post is comparing two different age brackets.
more women over 18 than young boys are playing games
This means there is a higher % of women from 18 to ~80 playing games than boys 6 to 17. Well duh... there is a hell of a lot more people in the latter age bracket. Completely stupid stats.
I.O.U One Sig.
Who writes this stuff? Do people read more than just the headlines anymore?
I believe the headline compares "women" and "boys." Not "women" and "men." It is a long believed notion that videogame players are "little boys playing mario in the basement." The point is that times have changed. No longer are girls given "Barbie sidescroller junk" games. The sims and more are starting to appeal to them.
In addition, the main group of gamers is getting older. People who were teens or so when Nintendo, Atari, Commodore came out are grown up now. And you can look at the way game focuses have changed as a result (the successful platforms (PS2 and XBox) are the ones catering to older guys: more violence, mayhem, etc). On the other hand, consoles like Nintendo are pointed towards the same audience (and this is probably where women are playing most). I guess I've gone off on a tangent though, so I'll stop now. My point is that, to answer your question, yes, people read the headlines.
"...26 percent of game players are women 18 or older, while 21 percent are boys 6 to 17"
The largest group of gamers, at 38 percent, is men 18 and up, while girls 6 to 17 account for 12 percent of game players, the poll found. How does this suggest video games attract more women than men? Merely suggests that women have been getting increasing involved.
A blog like any other.
And what proportion of those included the occasional(OK, seven and a half hours during the week) game of solitaire, tetris, and spider?
I wonder if the stipulation of FPS, RPG or RTS playing were made, would the figure be quite so high, it would be nice to see the types of games each demography were playing.
Indeed how was the poll conducted, whether it was taken at game shops, or merely random questioning?
Why is this so suprising? Who has more disposible income? A 12 year old boy, or a 21 year old girl? While it's not the stereotype, I think it makes plenty of sense if you think about it.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
The number of 18+ women is growing and is more than at least 59% of the market. Ok so "women" outnumber "boys". But boys still play longer than the average gamer and they don't go into it, but I suspect they probably buy more games per capita.
I also wonder how skewed their info on Mature games is since probably a significant part of those sales are those Vice City. Actually, are they just going by who hands (a father buying a game for his daughter) over the money or who the game is for (the daughter)?
What is music when you despise all sound?
I have a hard time looking at anything like this without the cynical 'So?'.
.
Especially the bit about the Mature rating . . . If farmers start spraying big X's on their cattle, next year some person who didn't know what to do with their BS in mathematics is going to point out the stunning correlation between beef eaten that year from Cows that were X'd and how that number grew over the next year (because deranged farmer X kept spraying X on his cattle maybe). .
Anyone want to wager whether there was more games with M ratings on them (ie, I don't want to monitor what my child does on the computer, I'll just assume these people using this rating know whats good for my kids *troll troll troll*).
93% of all statistics are grossly wrong (tongue in cheek) and it takes all kindsa critters to make farmer vincents fritters.
...female gamer.
gamegirladvance.com
... What the pollsters count as a game?
Have you seen some of the junk out there lately?
I'd say that the 9.9 percent of games that were rated 'M' back in 2001 were tied, percentage-wise, with the amount of games that anyone played at all!
And yes, 'The Sims' is the only game I've ever seen an adult woman play... And I do get out!
Considering there are lot more "women over 18" than there are "boys aged 6 to 17", this doesn't seem too surprising. While women don't seem to have as big a presence in FPS and RTS games, most women I know who frequently use computers like spending lots of time with things like Snood or Tetris. And my mom spends most of her free time (i.e. pretty much all day) playing Poker on-line.
Regarding average playing time per week--am I the only one who cringes every time I see "How many hours per week do you play video games?" on a survey? I usually end up pulling some kind of average out of my ass, because a) I don't exactly keep logs of game-playing time, and b) how much time I spend playing games per week varies widely, depending on how much free time I have and whether or not I have a game I'm currently hooked on. I don't think I'm all that unique regarding either of those points, so I'm always a bit skeptical of "People spend x hours per week playing video games" statements.
I love your sig =)
My girlfriend's Sims get more action than we do.
Plus, my girlfriend can't turn off my Free Will.
Correlation, meet causation.
No wonder it makes no fucking sense. Here it is revised:
The number of 18+ women is growing and is more than 18- boys (21%) but the largest demographic is still 18+ men (38%). So that means males represent at least 59% of the market. Ok so "women" outnumber "boys". But boys still play longer than the average gamer and they don't go into it, but I suspect they probably buy more games per capita.
I also wonder how skewed their info on Mature games is since probably a significant part of those sales are those 18- year old boys getting their older brothers/parents to buy them Vice City. Actually, are they just going by who hands (a father buying a game for his daughter) over the money or who the game is for (the daughter)?
What is music when you despise all sound?
I was at an IGDA meet a few weeks ago, and the discussion was on Women in Gaming (which the IGDA have a forum on).
;-)
The idea of "female games" and "male games" was not taken very well. Most women gamers actually play action games, while it is the men (males 18+) who play the "female games" (The Sims[1], EyeToy, Pokemon etc). While the games played by kids did was the same regardless of gender.
[1] I'd argue that this has more to do with the Naked Patch than anything else
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
Are you kidding me? I know some women in their 20s and 30s who I've worked with (I'm a programmer) whose whole life revolves around video games.
Try going to the mall, go to the games stores and talk to a few female clerks. You'll find the type I mean without that much trouble. (Might take more than one visit, but you'll meet one.)
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
The real question is why does the ratio between males and females close as women get older? I would say there are two reasons:
--
Luck is just skill you didn't know you had.
So when you look at it the 'effective' age range for boys is probably 12-18 compared to a 40 year age range for women.
What probably is better to look at is just that 38% of the gamers are women. Surprisingly high to me, but good for them!
To sum up the numbers:
6-17.......21....
18+........38.........26......64
The remaining 3% have morphed into an unidentifiable classification.
Hunger is the best sauce.
Man, what ever happened to the computer game porn revolution?
Serious question here! When you consider the amount of porn sold annually (billions of dollars, even if it almost universally sucks), there MUST be a market for a game that addresses sex in a deeper way than Duke Nukem.
As for maturity, I'd love to see an adult game with a hint of maturity, but that's never gonna happen. Sadly.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
My wife plays minesweeper all the time and denies it. I keep offering to put something on her computer that she might like, like SimCity but she refuses.
THe headline is a twist. The headline implies a female/mail ratio, the actuality is 59% of gamers are male. Not that I am saying that it is a good thing that I sit here slaughtering demons instead of... say... having a life...
-Coach
"Never upset a goalie, getting hit with a blocker is an unpleasent experience - facemask or not." -Me
26 percent of game players are women 18 or older
Pretend we have a circle. Now we label this circle "ALL GAMERS" (this is important). Now make a "pie slice" that consists of about 26% of the total circle. Label this pie slice "ALL WOMEN OVER 18" (this is important). Now make another slice that is 21% of the total circle and label it "BOYS BETWEEN THE AGES OF 6 AND 17".
Note that out of ALL GAMERS, the comparatively large population of ALL WOMEN OVER 18 takes up a slightly larger portion of the pie than the comparatively much smaller population of BOYS BETWEEN THE AGES OF 6 AND 17.
To recap:
The group of ALL WOMEN OVER 18 is larger than the group of BOYS BETWEEN THE AGES OF 6 AND 17. It makes sense that the much larger population would have a larger slice of the ALL GAMERS pie.
Try going to the mall, go to the games stores and talk to a few female clerks. You'll find the type I mean without that much trouble.
/. pickup strategy. Any female into computer games is halfway home to stealing the average geek's heart!
Hmmm. I'm seeing a new
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
so if I marry my GF now she will start to like games when she gets older?
This is based on survey responses. From
young boys. Exactly how many of them
wrote down "I'm a hot 19-year old college
freshman who loves Diablo II."
What steps were taken to validate this
information? Often surveys will ask the
same question again (with slightly different
wording) to find those who make up
answers or randomly answer items.
I think they have it wrong. Playing mind games is not a subset of playing video games. This planet would be a great place to be if women in those numbers played games. The HIP culture would move from racy two-door booming modded cars to the best counterstrike and warcraft players.
Even including games like Sim Online and cell phone games doesnt give you stats like those. Remember EVERY kid under 16 in the western hemisphere plays video games.
But then, if you consider playing mind games in relationships, that about includes all women in the western hemisphere above 16. Hmm.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
Someone needs to inform THESE guys of those statistics...
I like big butts and I cannot lie.
What have I been doing with my life! I can't believe that! Do you know what this means?!?!?!? My chances of picking up a gamer chick have just gone WAAAAAY up! All I have to do is figure out what game...God I hope it isn't the sims....
"On the Moon, we have advanced far beyond rules, and manners..."
Why can't all fpga/microcontroller manufacturers just release free optimizing compilers???
If I was a woman, I'm sure I'd be more attracted to a game than I would be to a young boy.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
72 percent of all statistics are made up.
I would take a look at what games the girls in the dorms are playing. We're talking things like Snood/Bubble Puzzle and the Sims. I highly doubt you'll see many women playing anything involving the word "deathmatch".
I don't think its that women are getting into engineering, simply that more women have computers. Ten years ago that would be unheard of but now a computer is a necessity. Might as well put something fun on it other than AIM.
- gtaluvit (prnc. GOT-tuh-LUV-it)
Was the survey skewed to represent society as a whole? Consider that mortality rates for women between the ages between 18 and 29 -- not dramatically more than that for boys between 6 and 17. Even assuming that those samples are the same size (11 years), there still remains a very large group of women to add weight to the 18+ category (30+ year olds). I wonder if the 30+ year olds make up much of the difference?
I guess that 52% of sports fans are female also? So if the males in attendance bring their girlfriends to the Stanley Cup Finals that makes the female a sports fan? Just more lefties blinded by equality instead of facts. Sigh.... such ignorant children.
And similar games seem to get fairly mixed play at our local arcade, but I'd guess it is still about 2 guys to 1 girl I see playing. Girls are coming into the arcade more, and not just to find their boy friends. Driving games and (to a lesser extent) Soul Calibur II seem popular with the girls.
If it were joystick envy they would all be stuck back in time playing The Games: Summer Edition.
I know for sure that game prepared me for my current sex life!
"The largest group of gamers, at 38 percent, is men 18 and up, while girls 6 to 17 account for 12 percent of game players, the poll found"
In other words, more men play than women, more boys than girls. I hate it when pollsters do this. Why compare two unrelated groups?
Do they include online games like pogo.com? I don't care what you say, something bejeweled and bingo are not true "games". They are, but good luck selling something like bejeweled for 40 bucks a pop. And I doubt they spend .00001 of a percent as much as valve on HL2 or something.
Also, I know from personal experince that the only people who answer surveys are stay at home types and female. When I worked for a survey place it was easily 25 women respondants for every 1 male respondants. And we didn't exclusivly call from 9a to 5p either. We worked till 10p.
The average women has slept with 5 men.
The average non-programmer man has slept with 20 women.
Given that there has to be an opposite sex counterparty in each case, one side obviously is understating their actual logged 'events'. How do we know they aren't lying in this poll too?!?!!
Hunger is the best sauce.
... melons to melons?
(I'm sorry. I've been drinking.)
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
Maybe the guys my age (17) are too busy being addicted to the game to fill out these sort of surveys? Or maybe they have their mom buy them if the survey is counted by who buys the games...
My wife plays computer games.
Diablo, gauntlet, warcraft type games, on PS2 and PC
My favourite was her playing the Sims
"this game sucks, it's a stupid game, it sux", and then she'd play for another 6 hours... strange
Have you met girls in university? They waste as much or more time playing stupid flash and java games than boys, in my experience. Some of them had to delete their IM clients to avoid failing out.
In addition, the main group of gamers is getting older.... And you can look at the way game focuses have changed as a result....
I wonder if in 25 years we will have a game called "Denture Daddy", where you have to eat corn on the cob, place the dentures to clean, and be in bed by 7:30.
I would see my wife playing video games. A few months ago I bought a GBA SP cause it looked cool and I kept hearing great things about Advance Wars. Little did I know that 75% of it's use is by my wife who never touched my PS2. The 3D games "make her dizzy" she says. Seems she real likes the old school platformers like Yoshi's Island. She said she used to play it as a kid(much to my surprise). My daughter is almost as bad with the GBA, except I am ALLOWED to restrict her video game time. Probably going to need to get another SP within a few months if I ever want to finish Advance Wars. *sigh*
No Sig For You
My coworker's daughter asked her mother to ask us if we have a copy of Counter Strike. We told the mother "Are you sure?!?!? That's a boy's game!" (not to be sexist or anything, but the mother didn't quite remember correctly and blabbed "Counter Blast" before.) It turns out that there was a sudden increase in CS players in her school.
"You can make up a statistic to prove anything. 14% of all people know that."
--Homer Simpson
Especially since...
;P
- MUDs have always been chock full of female players
- Nine out of ten female guildmembers of mine in games like Everquest and Dark Age of Camelot had the accompanying plumbing in real life
- The Sims
- I've known more than a few chicks who can't get enough Age of Empires/Mythology/Whatnot
Let's not even go into online cardgames and whatnot.
Hello? Clueless?
Women are of the same species as men, a species which likes its leisurely entertainment. (Or: Women are people, too.)
Sheesh, who gets paid for these great scientamific discovereries? A bunch of dorks living in a basement?
What's next, a study on how many women expel noxious gases from their rectum on occasion? Here's a newsflash - women fart, too.
Jennifer: Of course you are!
Johnny (reading the book): Wow, look what I'm doing with teenaged boys!
Only joystick my gf can touch is mine.
but women attract more boys than video games :)
You seem to have missed a key piece of information from the article:
The largest group of gamers, at 38 percent, is men 18 and up, while girls 6 to 17 account for 12 percent of game players, the poll found.
18 and over : boys 38% > girls 26%
under 18-21 : boys 21% > girls 12%
I don't see any indication from these figures that girls are in fact the larger percentage.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
Nuff said
Help fight continental drift.
They are incidentally the female analogue of male slashdot posters. They aren't getting laid either.
"You know why you do not see me styling wit my homies? Because I have no homies!!" -Mojo Jojo
But I remember on the all-PvP world in Asheron's call (no safe zone's, no safe anything, very very harsh if you're used to EQ or whatever), there were probably 10,000+ people who progressed beyond level 25 in the first 2 years. A grant total of 5 were female, and just about everyone at least knew the names of those 5.
Or 5 years and below
Help fight continental drift.
"13.2 percent carried a "Mature" or "M" rating, up from 9.9..." The extra 3.3 percent is SOLELY from Dead or Alive: Extreme Beach Volleyball...
They're lesbians. So close yet so far.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
Unemployed System Administrators spend an average 50.3 hours per week of game time.
Now if more women were attracted to video games than men, that would be a problem.
Ya well according to this source, its really 74 percent of statistics that are made up.
;-)
Gotcha!
At least I hope so.
The hot broad that sleeps in my bed plays games as much as me, so long as they aren't first-person or third-person shooters. She did love watching me play Max Payne, however.
I can't beleive no one has posted the link yet, but the actual report (in pdf form) is available on the ESA site.
One thing of personal interest to me, as someone who studies videogame players, is that once again, there is not one word on the race of the people who play videogames. There has been a lot of work on gender and gamers but very very little on race.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
- Chat to the NPC to find out if s/he has anything you need to know.
- Wait for NPC to get distracted
- Beat seven shades of shit out of NPC
- Empathise with NPC as you loot the body
It's kinda like being married except it's easier to do it repeatedly.Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
The statistics about mature ratings suggest that there an increasing number of them are played.... or does it mean that it just gets easier and easier to get classified as mature?
I immensely enjoy games where communication and imagination are the focus. I despise "shooters". I have never played a game of "Counter-Strike" in my life; I have never seen a game of it played. I do not play games or watch movies which glorify violence for its own sake or endorse abusive attitudes toward women. I do not like to compete. I like to cooperate to better myself and my companions. Are you really so different?
I do so not so much for fear that I will be negatively effected by them (I am now stronger and more mature than that), but because I will not financially support or publically endorse such games and movies.
Do you like nothing more than to blast "L33tMuthA" against the wall and watch his blood splatter, knowing that, somewhere, somehow, you have just put a 13 year-old in his or her "place"?
I think that is sick.
I find your statements to be deeply insulting. As such, I will devote the remainder of this post to describing why this is so.
"It seems they like role playing adventure games with lots of social interaction. Women by nature have better communication skills."
My God, man, if you are going to make sweeping generalizations at least be so kind as to prefix your statements, "I believe it to be the case that". "By nature"? No, in all significant respects, "by social norm".
"Men on the other hand like violent games like Quake. Not that women do not play these kinds of games but being masculine and outdoing each other does not appeal to them as much."
Really, all men, simple as that? Wonderful, just wonderful. And all Jews are bankers, right?
Plenty of women love to play sports and love to compete. Differences across genders are probably more readily ascribed to social norms and presures to maintain the status quo than to anything "by nature".
Tell me, how many years again has society systematically oppressed women, telling them what is and is not the "feminine" thing to do? How many years has the dominant male beating the fuck out of his wife been looked upon as, if not acceptable, at least "normal" or "natural"? And you are prepared to mark the causes of differences you observe up to "nature" without a second thought? How dare you.
Socially imposed gender roles are increasingly a thing of the past. Increasingly it is society, not biology or evolution that drive the development and direction of the modern mind , the modern person . May each one of us do his and her all to further distance ourselves from our primitive and brutal past.
The sooner a woman can walk down the street without having to wonder how many hairy middle-aged men or twenty-somethings would really, truly, in their heart of hearts, just like to tackle her and pump her full of reproductive fluids, the better. It makes a person want to just give up, to say that this world is doomed, that this world is not worth trying to save, and to go find a cave to die in.
Yes, evolution, wonderful! How much longer will it be before we get over the novelty of "apes out of Africa"?
That's where we have been. Let's talk about where we are going.
.sig Realistic fines for copyright in
...
My best friend was harrassed by geeks looking for a date for months because she worked at Electronics Boutique. She hated them. Looking for love at the videogame store isn't going to get you anywhere, unless you're looking for the latest Tomb Raider expansion.
Be nice. They're just trying to do their job.
Well, if you read about what happened, you will find that the main problem was not the statistics, but that the polls were simply out of date and did not reflect the current public opinion.
There were also some statistical errors due to biased sampling, but pollsters have been using random sampling since not long after that election.
In other words, the Dewey/Truman debacle has no bearing on the reliability of modern statistical methodology.
Perhaps your point was that "pollsters can be wrong". Well, so what? Anyone can always be wrong. The question is which is more trustworthy, and I'd take the poll over the opinion of J. Random Slashdotter.
I realize from my female and male young cousins ranging from age 10 to 16... they play anything and everything equally. It's bizarre seeing them fight over who gets to frag more in delta force?!
Things are changing, though I hope there is a free sims online... not this subscription based garbage. Cause alot of guys and gals are not going to pay to try. The online gaming audience is skewed to those with $$$ or fast connections typically.
er, wait, did you say _more_women_ than _boys_? Are you sure?
Um, so, in other news, water is apparently dry, dogs and cats are living together, mass hysteria!
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
With games like this why wouldn't women play?!
I would attribute this fact to the integration of vibration functions into sony's Dual Shock controller. Prior to this one had to pay extra for vibration function. I think if you could go back and chart this trend retroactively, or maybe there is enough collected data, you could find evidence to support this assertion.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Please mod this up. When discussing statistics, it's important to take the context into account. The parent poster is completely right in claiming that this statistics is interesting by itself.
Here's a quote
Of course, given the (slashdot) article seems to be comparing apples and oranges (boys with women) perhaps these two don't disagree.
GENERAL PUBLIC SIGNATURE (GPS) Any replies (derivatives) of this post must also use the GPS
I presume the remainder of the group not playing video games are playing the boys.
The little guy just ain't getting it, is he?
yeah why would a girl want to date a guy who's into computers and comes into the store and talks to her once in while?
better to just hitch a ride with some guys in a slammed honda some saturday night and get raped or something.
This is new? :)
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
...26 percent of game players are women 18 or older, while 21 percent are boys 6 to 17"
I didn't notice the beginning quote on first reading (browser broke the lines up), so I thought I read 21% are boys 6 to 17 inches.
I don't know if I should be scared that they're measuring boys' things (They're that big nowadays? WTF?), or that they're measuring boys' heights (They're that small nowadays? WTF?).
Pet peeve: Profane people propagating perfunctory pedantry.
It seems to me that the types of games women play usually fall into a few categories:- I went to my sister to find games she likes:- The Sims Lemmings Theme park What I find intereting here is that all three games revolve around being God and dealing with a flock of people on screen who don't know what they are supposed to be doing!
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
I hate to stereo type, but last night it was my mates and I playing 4 player deathmatch DieHard, while she was busy with world domination in Civ3.
Men=Destroy
Women=Create
Awfully simplistic (setting up the troll nets now) I know, but it is one of those stereotypes with a basis in reality. I am not alledging any causality here, only correlation.
To eventually finish my point: There are a larger number of games available that are not purely based around the see-something, shoot-it principle that has worked so admirably in the past. Perhaps it is this that is generating enough interest among the female gamers?
Q.
Insert Signature Here
So let's say that the average female lifespan is about 78. And women make up about 51% of the population, now, when comparing a group from 6-17 (11 years) with a group that ranges over about 60 years, doesn't really seem like the basis of any fair extrapolation. In all reality this is really a construction by someone to get across an idea that they have and make it appear to be an objective fact.
In addition, I really can't recall how often 6-10 year olds play video games, it may just be that I really don't know any, but I don't think it can be that many, you're primary market (especially the ones your pumping the M rated games to) would be about 12-17 or so.
Actually reading the article reveals that the answer to the title question would be a negative, as when you compare similar age groupings, boys still dominate the consumption and play areas. In the 6-17 range boys are doing 9% more gaming than girls and in the 18+ range, boys are doing 12% more gaming than women.
The lead of the article is Challenging the stereotype that video gaming is the domain of teenage boys, an industry group on Tuesday reported that more women over 18 than young boys are playing games and the average age of players has risen to 29. Now, let's make a logical conclusion, the United States of America has a population of 18+ that far exceeds the 6-17 range, thanks in part to the baby boom and the fact that the secondary boom (which was more in spending than in population) is now moving into the 18+ range.
The survey was compiled from gamer data, not from the general population of the United States. You are taking a section of the population (gamers) and seperating them into four units (women and men, over and under 18) and then comparing two dissimilar segments (in relation to size) and trying to draw a conclusion.
All right, let me be coherent for a second. Essentially what I'm trying to say is that the article is stating the obvious that out of the whole, a larger group will make up a greater percentage. What they needed to do was say, We poled 242 kids under 18, now 220 of those are boys, that's right 91% of gamers under 18 are boys. Now, we polled 806 adults, 3 times the number of kids that we polled. Now, the poll seems to have some mathematical problems based on it's 3% error (because 21+26+38+12 equals 97) and when we factor in the percentages for adults we get that out of the total there were 273 women (rounded up) and 377 men (rounded down), added together this is 650. In this group, 58% of gamers are men and 42% are women, almost a 20 point disparity. Overall men make up 66% of the gaming population.
Now, throw this all out because this survey is trash in regards to following an actual trend as to what gender is growing in game consumption. A real survey would need to be truly blind and poll even non-games to get a good sense of what is going on and see the actual percentages of the entire population which has a larger game following per capita. It's far too late to makes sense.
The average game tester spends 50 hours a week playing video games. Except it's the same one for all 50 hours.
She has been on a 2 hour Super Monkey Ball kick...
"Honey can I play yet???"
(sound of crickets)
*sigh*
At midnight that's the most indepth into the workings of this survey that we'll get. I would have to say that as far as measuring the appeal of games to women, it needs to be compared to actual population statistics in order to have any relevance.
I know every employee at both my local EBGames in my town. The last female employee they had was fired about 6 months back for cheating on her hours with her boyfriends (who was her boss.) Since then, both stores have been 100% male dominated.
Yeah that would be http://www.theesa.com/EF2003.pdf
I agree totally.
The article mentions that one woman, a teacher of art for game design, and her friends prefers war games. Of course she did not get into that field because she already liked games back when almost no other women cared about them, right?
My guess is that 99% of the 26% of gamers that are women over 17 are playing "The Sims". It is the only game played by women I know today. It is the best-selling game for the last few years, and no man I know will admit to enjoying it, so those record-breaking sales figures must be from sales to women.
I did get a few ex-girlfriends addicted to Civ and AlphaCenturi, but I think they just wanted to spend time with me. And they were techies anyway.
I spend my life entertaining my brain.
And I hope the game makers pay attention and go back to making decent graphical adventure and strategy games instead of all the first person shooting multi-million player online role playing stuff that is hogging the shelves nowadays that only reenforces the stereotypes that boys just want to go around shooting their wads at anything that moves.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
That's why we're seeing so many women take up gaming.
I should get mod points for being well hung.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
I'm female and over 18 so I fit in that 26% statistic. I tried the Sims and The Sims Online so can fit that stereotype, but I didn't last very long with either one. I also enjoyed Tomb Raider. However; I've played Castle Wolfenstein and Action Quake. I gave Halflife a go too but got motion sickness on that darn ladder (of all things)!
I know many other women who are playing other FPS games. There are message boards devoted to just such gamers. As well as more devoted to all female clans.
If you want to see alot of women playing games look to the MMORPGs. Tons of women there. Myself, I've been playing them for awhile and have beta tested many of them, including Planetside, which is arguably more of a "male" game. Another tidbit that might surprise some is that one of the things that kept me playing MMORPGs was the PvP aspect of it. I enjoyed the competition even when most of my victims assumed I was male.
Bottom line: don't be so surprised at the statistics nor assume that these 18+ yr old females are only playing one type of game.
~Fricka
OffLineTshirts.com
And guess what? There's a reason for it, on both sides.
I know no one will read this, but I thought I'd share it really quick.
There are tons of people out there. If you don't have any prospects for a SO, it's because you're not mature enough. Relationships are for adults.
In biology you can predict a lot of things based on evolutionary timescales (asteroid bombardment, etc). In fashion a lot of things boil down to the California lifestyle (flip-flops, chaotic "beach" hair). In dating, anything that makes you seem more mature is usually attractive to a MOTOS.
For example, people without acne either know how to take care of their body, or are bodily mature enough that it's no longer there.
So, here's the advice: forget about girls/boys for awhile. Focus on your goals and aspirations, taking care of yourself, developing social skills. It's been said that MOTOS can tell a desperate person at first glance. Don't be desperate. If you're desperate, you're incapable (ie, too immature) of taking care of your current problems. You'll eventually find a mate. Why? Because there will always be MOTOS out there that are looking for a mature person to raise offspring with. Evolution, eh?
Sorry for the rant. It was a recent revelation.
...considering that Carmageddon is her favorite game. Not much creation there, unless you count painting the sidewalk with pedestrians... though in a way playing it is a sort of performance art.
Tell her that at least a few other people like Carmageddon as much. I still get together with a few friends every now and then for a rousing game of Fox N Hounds. In my mind very few car games have ever been as fun, though the Playstation "Italian Job" comes close near the end - no surprise considering the same people seem to have made it!! (from what I can tell of the credits). it works fine on the Playstation 2, you might want to get her a copy.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Awesum post, dude. Mod parent up.
Who said anything about relationships? He said "getting laid."
(not even your mum!)
Actually, someone with some serious control over purse-strings has been bidding up copies of M.U.L.E. on eBay. One copy sold for $158, another just sold for $90. Just played it again tonight on my c64 emulator, fab game.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
- Soul Caliber 2
- Neverwinter Nights
- Resident Evil
- Final Fantasy
- Mario Sunshine
- Tony Hawk 4
- Dragon Quest
- Breath of Fire
I tend to prefer games with a storyline, though I still enjoy thumb-twitching games like mario and tony hawk. The resident evil series is one of my favorite game series, and my frends and I like to get together and play it at night. The idea of a games main character being either a "sex object" or a strong femail role modle never has really entered my head, nor have I heard any of my friends mention it.if you're wondering why Tomb Raider isn't on my list, it's simply because I found the game play to be rather bland and unable to compete with any of the Mario games
You'll also possibly notice my sig is from one of my favorite games of all times, Blood Omen: Legacy Of Kain, which had a male protagonist and was quite gory, but had an engaging story line and wonderful voice acting.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
In case you ever want to be PC, it's MOTAS (members of the appropriate sex). Not that I care personally, every thread in this article is nonsense.
This is just the simple courtesy of not hitting on people when they're working. Doesn't matter the respective genders, or whether it's a video game store or a restaurant.
This is something that seems liek a total shock to the videogame community and totally obvious to teh rest of us: Adults have more money than kids. I mean look at the PSX. It really supprised the shit out of Nintendo and Sega with its success. Well why did it succeed? Some people claim it was purely based on graphics but that has NEVER been enough to win a console war. Look at the Gameboy and its pathetic graphics. Other features (longer batteries, better games) kept it as king.
What Sony really did was go after adults. They still had kids games but I saw far more games targeted at adults on the PSX then I'd ever seen on any other console. Well, of course, adults are the ones making the money and are generally willing to buy more expensive toys for themselves than their kids. Add to that the large number of young adults with income but no children and you have a really large market.
These days I spend a whole lot on gaming. I probably get at least 3-6 games a year, not to mention playing a game that requires a subscription. This plus all the hardware I buy (I'm a computer gamer). Well when I was a kid I was lucky to get a new SNES game twice a year, my folks just wouldn't buy me that many, I had to rent them or trade friends.
So that is it for the males. But then it turns out that women AREN'T just spending time in the kitchen and making babies. Turns out they have jobs, social lives and oh yes, they like to have fun. So gee, big supprise, they ALSO like to (and are able to) buy games, more than kids can.
It really amazes me how industires can get so supprised by the blinding obvious sometimes. "Women have money and want to spend it on fun stuff? Holy shit! Why didn't someone tell me??" DUH.
http://www.gamegirladvance.com/archives/2002/10/26 /sex_in_games_rezvibrator.html
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
How the hell are simple games not "true" games? Give me a break. One of the simplest games in the world, Tetris, is also one of the best and most respected. 5 minutes to learn, a lifetime to master the saying goes. Complexity does not make a game. Hell, I've seen plenty of simple games that are as good or better than commercial games of my childhood (which was not long ago). Ever play Puzzle Bobble in the arcade? That game was the shit, and ran on powerful hardware (Neo Geo) at the time.
There are plenty of reasons to like games of all types. I've played FPS games to a hardcore level, joining a world class clan, I've played week long games of Civ and MOO, but sometimes I also just like to play something simple like Tetris. Interestingly enough, my best friend's mom is, and always has been, way better at Tetris than me. All she plays but despit playing only a "simple" game to all my complex ones, she's good at what she does.
(as a slashdotter who has a girlfriend)
If you're desperate, you're incapable (ie, too immature) of taking care of your current problems.I'd allways thought that was just basic psychology, "if other people like it, it must be good." If you show a photo of a guy ( and it works for girls too) to a hundred girls, and tell half of them that hes married they will on average rate him as much more handsom than the other fifty.
This sig wasn't worth reading, was it.
> while 21 percent are boys 6 to 17"
Telling us you're 17 inches is TMI!
Solomon
"Twice half-assed makes an ass whole." --Solomon K. Chang
Although peer pressure and prejudice probably do play a role in determining the gaming habits (or lack of them) of pre-pubescent girls, I think there's probably a little more to it than that: when you're a 6-year-old girl Barbie rocks. Barbie gets to change her clothes every 5 minutes and she gets to wear ball-gowns and wedding dresses. And she gets married. Often. (And without any pesky divorce proceedings in between, which just goes to prove what a wonderwoman Barbie really is.) Have you ever seen anyone get married in Quake? I don't think so. And no, changing guns every 5 minutes is just not the same as changing Barbie's clothes: it lacks that certain je ne sais quoi. Trust me.
In other words, I would say that the pre-pubescent gender gap regarding games is to a large extent due to the content (or lack of pertinent content maybe) of the games themselves.
Now, if we posit that the pre-pubescent gender gap is due to lack of Barbie in the games rather than some intrinsic value in gaming itself, and if we also posit a diminishing interest in Barbies as girls grow a little bit older, and if we further posit an increasing interest in boys (and as a corollary, in the interests of boys
The liver is evil and must be punished.
I -like- those odds!
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
"I despise "shooters". I have never played a game of "Counter-Strike" in my life; I have never seen a game of it played. I do not play games or watch movies which glorify violence for its own sake or endorse abusive attitudes toward women. I do not like to compete. I like to cooperate to better myself and my companions. Are you really so different?...Do you like nothing more than to blast "L33tMuthA" against the wall and watch his blood splatter, knowing that, somewhere, somehow, you have just put a 13 year-old in his or her "place"?
I think that is sick."
Out of admitted ignorance, yer pickin' on one of the world's favorite games and I am compelled to try an educate you. You have implied that Counter-Strike glorifies violence. No, it doesn't. It glorifies fake violence against avatars. I would suggest to you that Counter-Strike is less violent than football or soccer, or any other contact sport. It is pretty much as violent as chess.
I think one of the reasons that Counter-Strike has been so popular for so long is that it is quite a bit like a sport, and it is very intense competition. Raw agression. I am going to try and rescue the hostages and you try to stop me, for example. I stopped playing it when the cheating got so bad that you couldn't do well without people slandering you, but we recently started playing once a week during lunch at work and the game has instantly hooked several people who never played before, including one woman. That elemental competition taps into something in many people that they really enjoy.
Now you say you don't like competition, and I'm sure you are not the only one. I think that you are missing the virtues of competition though. Competition pushes all the parties to excel. Now there may not be any real value to accomplishing the goal, scoring a touchdown, making a basket, rescuing the hostages, but there is value in doing something well. It raises the human spirit to excel, if you win or not, and that feeling is something that everyone can enjoy, young or old, male or female. You prefer to excel in cooperation rather than competition, and that is fine, but I think it is narrow-minded and judgemental for you to call people like me sick for enjoying beating our opponent.
You need to understand that while on the monitor it looks like I just took out the entire opposing team by myself with an AK-47, including blood-splattering headshots, and punctated it by taunting an opponent by spraying a chaulk outline around his virtual body, while one of them congratulated me with "you da man!" There wan't any violence, nobody got hurt, not even their feelings. Its just a game, and all kinds of people like games. Yer damn right I enjoyed it though, because it feels good to excel, and to accomplish something difficult.
What may not be obvious to you though is that even extremely aggressive competition does not preclude me from connecting with the other competitors and caring about their feelings while I frag them, and I go so far as to quietly handicap myself with less effective weapons or try and balance the teams because I want to make sure everyone is having fun.
But, yeah, stereotypes are bad, and women like all kinds of games.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
I looked through the article, but I didn't see the question they asked respondents. Consider the difference between "Have you purchased a video game in the past 12 months?", "Have you played a video game in the past 12 months?", and "Have you played a video game more than 10 times in the past 12 months?"
The first question would garner affirmative responses from parents, spouses, boy/girlfriends, grandparents and aunts/uncles. If we consider that women make most "gift" purchases, then women should show a history of purchasing video games even if they don't play games.
The second question would get hits from women whose partners pester them to play the occasional game, as well as those with idle interest in playing the occasional game.
Only the third question would really reveal whether we are talking about gamers.
That being said, I'm a married woman who loves games. And I don't work in R&D -- I'm a marketer. My husband? A software architect who finds games geeky.
Andrea
-- SYS 64738 --
Damn, it is so obvious with this headline!
As a 30 yr old guy who's been spending some time with a 19 yr old girl (for reasons best not gone into here) I can tell you she's really into the PS2.
She cheats in ways that if she was a guy there'd be punches thrown, but she plays and plays to win.
very strange, i've never met a chick my age interested in the slightest.
'There is a Light that never goes out.'
Asia Carrerra gave an interview about her love of Unreal Tournament www.lanparty.com/articles/asiacarrera/asiac.shtml
Hello. I am female. I play video games. Both of my sisters play video games. One of them is entrenched in Vice City; the other is replaying Final Fantasy X yet again, mixing it up with some Dark Cloud 2 and Kingdom Hearts. They also share a Civ III addiction that won't be denied. My roommate not only plays video games, she used to work for a video game company. (Monolith Games, makes of 'Shogo', 'Get Medieval', and 'No One Lives Forever') Most of my female friends play or have played a video game, whether it be The Sims or Dance Dance Revolution, Quake or Everquest. So for god's sake, please. Get rid of this idea that only creatures with penises play video games. Thank you.
I'm amazed that people would give any credibility to these statistics given how stats have been used relative to this circumstance.
....
Video game manufactures are just going to alienaite a segment of it customers. If the trend holds true, an industry following such advice will experience a short term gain with long term destabilization and an inability to derive and real solution other then blame. The
Heh, why bother.
IMO, the world need more...
To win an argument or just some great one liners see Arthur Schopenhauer, a writer from the mid 17th century. He writes about how creativity (beyond a crumpled up paper ball called art) amount women is non-existent and pretty much imposible, and how those short, squat, bowl-legged creatures are the accumilative imitated persona of a man and gives the reasons why. All in all a good read if you can find a direct translation.
From the entertainment industry to P&G
Just The Sims? Come on. What about Tomb Raider, featuring that icon and definitely not just a male fantasy object. What women in her right mind wouldn't want to play an explorer with phenomenally huge breasts with a penchant for shooting endangered animals and jumping and vaulting around without somehow suffocating in her own cleavage?
Looks like she's got some M1 SS. :)
You can slant a poll anyway you want it by doing it in certain locations, with certain demographs or just wording the results in a way to sensationalize or make some desired point.
The conversation got started and that got left behind. Good point.
Someone can advice PS2 games suitable for playing togheter ?
I tried Colin McRae 3, but she doesn't like it. She loves Kingdom Hearts and she almost finished it.
Something cooperative would be better. Any advice ?
Hey guys, check out Zockerweibchen (German site) for surprisingly good-looking female counterstrike players.
Look at todays boys! I would feel more attracted to videogames either.
"...only game I have ever seen an adult woman play..."
Never been divorced, eh...
...I learned that one the hard way
my, so far one and only (ex) girlfriend is in to games, when we met she was as avid diablo II player, i got her into The Sims and UT and she hasn't looked bak yet, even though we broke up several months back. Too high maintenance (read: nuts, crazy, unstable, etc.)
now at the local game stores, half the clerks are female and are quite knowledgable about games, most of whom have admitted to being adicts themselves.
Logistical Chaos Officer http://www.slagg.org - LAN Gaming in Sarasota FL,USA
The Geek Dating Show!
...and on the right we have the Girl-Geeks...
...that would be the people on the other side of the studio... ...oh, come on people it's not that hard... ...look they're over there. No, not the floor, the other side of the studio. For goodness sake! They won't bite! Just look them in the eyes! Ahem. The EYES are a bit further up. Dammit! Go to commercial...
Hi, and welcome to The Show! Whether its hardware or software you're after THIS is the show for YOU! Hah ha!
So, without further ado, lets get on with the show!
On the left hand side of the studio we have the Guy-Geeks...
(cut to scene of large mass of desperate-looking guys)*applause*
(cut to scene of smaller group of desperate looking girls)*applause*
Some of these lucky geeks will leave together for a night of gaming, while the others will leave... alone.
Now to the first round - the personality check: If all the geeks would start by making eye contact with members of the opposite sex...
Hmmn. Maybe it wouldn't work after all...
If you can't think of something nice to say then don't say anything at all. No, REALLY.
...compared with the 3% of all game titles capable to gain women's attention.....
PS: Games using the magic word(sims) does no count.
1. No sig. 2. ???? 3. Profit!!!
One thing affecting how money women take up gaming may be 'adult' or 'mature' games. Or rather games that are labelled 'adult' but are in fact as adult as stitting on a wall drinking panda pops and swearing. Maybe more games with genuinely mature themes as opposed to just wholesale gore would attract more female gamers (and no, that doesn't mean shopping games)
Does this mean that we have a brutal past? Well yes, but sorry we have been more brutal in the last hundred years than we ever were in the preceding times and certainly much more so than our related species.
Lastly, men and women definitely seem to represent differemt markets for games for whatever the reason but with some cross over and some games that seem to be enjoyed by both sexes for different reasons.
See my journal, I write things there
I've been playing that game with my wife for years... we're just starting Throne Of Bhaal now. I'll be honestly depressed when we finish after having our party for so long...
Personally, I think the thing that makes Baldurs Gate shine is that any player can pause the game at any time and give commands to their characters. The need for reflexes is zero. This makes it accessable to ppl who don't have or want to develop the clicking speed and hotkey prowess that other 2.5D games require.
Hell, my mom could play this game without getting her butt kicked...
(And yes, I'll kick your ass at Quake too)
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Hey, are you sure it's not some guy pretending to be a woman? You never know...
Obama = Socialism.
People who follow hardware fanboy sites, buy $400 video cards, love throwaway games that you "win" once then never want to play again yet still complain that the games were too short, only play games fitting a narrow genre of 3D polygonal action...these are the hardcore game players. Hardcore games can be big, as witnessed by GTA3 and GTA:VC (over 5 million copies sold of each), but those are the exception. When you realize that the endlessly hyped Quake 3 only sold ~160,000 copies, then you realize what a slim and fickle market this is.
Yes, the actual question is key!
So's the method. I love it how the media expects the public to swallow data as fact without even pretending to tell us where it came from. The poll was taken by the Entertainment Software Association using an unnamed method. I have to wonder if it was taken over the Web.
It'd sure be to the pollsters' advantage to have a data set showing that lots of women play computer games. That's been one of their most challenging markets to penetrate. They may be using the 'social proof' method of persuasion here. The more your target audience believes that they'd be part of a trend by doing something, the more they're likely to try it. Sure, I can see them picking an unreliable polling method and hoping for lots of guys to say they're women just for fun.
Disclaimer: I'm a 44 year old woman who played a lot of Morrowind this spring...
This is where the missing three percent of the game players comes from: People who aren't sure that they are playing a video game.
I bought my daughter a Playstation II last year. My wife acquired it, and plays it almost every day.
Most of what she plays is either quest type games with swords and sorcery, or scary games with vampires, monsters and ghosts.
I used to spend alot of time playing military FPS games, but since wiping Windoze and loading Linux have been too busy writing, building applications, and poking around the OS to play any online games. She has me beat at overall game-time now. But I am actually getting things done that I have always wanted to do, so I think its a good tradeoff.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
And hated Icewind Dale. IWD just didn't have the party interaction I loved so much in BG. The characters were not as endearing and there was too much killing. It's like...yea, killed a troll, yea, killed an orc, yea, killed a ...whatever. I also loved Planescape: Torment. And yes, I'm female.
The poll found little difference in the relationship between game play and income, with 39 percent of gamers reporting total household income of less than $50,000 a year and 41 percent reporting an income of more than $50,000.
;)
Will the remaining 20% were losers spending all day at home with no income??
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
No custody,
No money.
No consent,
No abortion.
50/50.
Custody means 24/7.
34% of all people know that.
Well, i've worked at retail game stores in malls and otherplaces for like three years now through college and i've seen MAYBE two female gamers. Yeah sure your girlfriend plays solitare and Bejeweled but im talking about people who come in and buy the latest PS2 game and know what RPG stands for. Trust me, any time a beautifull baby comes into the store we interrigate to see if she is just getting a gift for someone or not!
I for one liked the talkie-feelie "Longest Journey" and its attractive heroine.
skye, who, despite his name, is a gamer guy.
the article really reads:
6-17: men 21%; women 12%
>18: men 38%; women 26%
It's not statistically sound to compare two different demographics like that; if you compare male and females >18 with all factors the same except sex, that means something.
== chicks are for fags ==
Banky: Alright, now see this? This is a four-way road, OK? And dead in the center is a crisp, new, hundred dollar bill. Now, at the end of each of these streets are four people, OK? Are you following?
/.er & I think you have an analagy.
Holden: Yeah.
Banky: Good. Over here, we have a male-affectionate, easy to get along with, non-political agenda lesbian. Down here, we have a man-hating, angry as fuck, agenda of rage, bitter dyke. Over here, we got Santa Claus, and up here the Easter Bunny. Which one is going to get to the hundred dollar bill first?
Holden: What is this supposed to prove?
Banky: No, I'm serious. This is a serious exercise. It's like an SAT question. Which one is going to get to the hundred dollar bill first? The male-friendly lesbian, the man-hating dyke, Santa Claus, or the Easter bunny?
Holden: The man-hating dyke.
Banky: Good. Why?
Holden: I don't know.
Banky: Because the other three are figments of your fucking imagination!
Substitute the man friendly lesbian for Women reading
DP
"(I) have this unfortunate condition that causes me not to believe a single thing any politician says when a mic's on.
So, all these women are really men pretending to be women... :)
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
Often it seems what she's gone through makes her more sympathetic with her victims. She's ostracized by her own community and the media alike. Guys; any one she might be interested in step over her like a homeless corpse. She's just below the male-loser in high school. She's also more likely going to be a shut-in, more likely going to be well read if she has the internet and more likely going to be here at slashdot.
For the analysis of the numbers, see my post above.
While I on the other hand am usually found programming (games often, hah) or raping the net for research purposes. So they play more than I do.
I agree. Method is also important. However, during one of my MBA courses last year, I had to study the launch of GameBoy Colour. I easily found that the female market had been overlooked. In fact, looking back, Pokemon is what made GameBoy Colour a success, and it was because the game appealed to both girls and boys. (Girls also often buy accessories to add personality or communication capacity to things like GameBoy.) The Sims is further proof of the potential for the market. Still, I am intrigued by the social proof concept. It seems to pick up on the idea of a "change agent", a key influencer who leads others to adopt a product. Geoffrey Moore of the Chasm Group has gained fame for his theories on change agents and technology adoption, but he actually picked up the concept from Everett Rogers' "Diffusion of Innovations" theory. Rogers based his findings on earlier studies of which farmers would use hybrid corn to seed their fields, and which Soweto women used solar ovens! At any rate, perhaps game companies need to start associating their products with women who form the target for 13-year-old girl's social aspirations. BTW, does your response mean there are actually 2 women reading Slashdot? :)
-- SYS 64738 --
Heh. Reminds me of an incredibly blunt statement I heard in college from a college friend:
"When women smell pussy, they come running."
iow, if you're male and have a date, you suddenly deserve a second look. "Why him?"
Maybe it has something to do with temptation too. I'm a really quiet (not shy though, just keep to myself) person. Junior year in college, the first quarter, I didn't have a girlfriend. Got a girlfriend midway through second quarter, suddenly women in the dorm that barely even said hi were inquiring about everything, and it sure just wasn't about the relationship I was in.
While I wouldn't have worded it so bluntly and explitively as my then friend, but still as a male, it's an odd phenomenon. Walk down the street alone, women don't notice me. No biggee. Walk with a girlfriend, and for some reason, you become an object of interest.
The grass is always greener...who knows.
welcome our new alien female overlords.
Makes me moist just thinking about it