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."

Comments

Re:That poll is including MIND games.

[gazuga]

Reminds me of a bumper sticker I once saw: "If you want me to quit thinking with my dick, then quit fucking with my head!"

Can you say *stereotype*?

[The Revolutionary]

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.