Slashdot Mirror
What Games Do Women Play?
wikinerd writes "BBC recently published the results of an Elspa white paper on women in gaming, revealing that women prefer RPG, adventures, easy driving sims, puzzles, Tetris, and life simulations like The Sims. I suppose that the Slashdot crowd knows much more about this topic than Elspa, so I ask you: What games do women like most and are they experienced players? What would be the difference if your opponent in a game is male or female? How does the gender of other gamers or chatters affect your on-line behavior, especially when the physical distance means you may never really meet face-to-face."
That would be Rez.
Well, maybe not so much playing, but she likes participating.
... Crap, I'm a woman!
FWIW, my wife only ever wished to play Lucas Arts -styled adventure games. ie. Atlantis, Monkey Island I&II, DOTT, Sam'n'Max. She is willing to look while other play some platform games, but not 3D-shooters. AFAIK she doesn't look much when I play NWN either, though FF5/FF9 seemed to interest her from looking-me-play point of view.
My mother liked to play MarioBros 1 and 3 on NES. She hadn't had console for a long time, but I suspect she'd still like them. Oh yes, she liked Vexed and Bejeweled very much when she had Palm. I think she'd like adventure games too, but her english isn't good enough to play comfortably.
fucktard is a tenderhearted description
Mine plays Diner Dash , which was recently showcased on Slashdot. She seems to be quite into casual games. I don't really see what the attraction is of playing a stressed-out waitress in a game, but who am I to argue.
Does anyone here actually enjoy that game?
A lot of women like to play MUDs, MUSHes, etc. like Medievia.com. A lot of women like to play such text games because there is a high level of anonymity and they can be whoever they want to be. In addition, they are not forced to play a graphic artist's rendition of a woman character, which is typically scantilly clad and big-busted :P
In addition, MUDs lend themselves to a high level of chat and relationship-building. Women like to meet people and create friendships, and MUDs provide that atmosphere to them.
I'm kinda disappointed with the responses so far.
:) DDR. Fighting games like Mortal Kombat and Super Smash Brothers.
I personally enjoy MMO's( Currently owned by WoW) FPS's like Doom, Halo, UT etc. Platformers cause they're just awesome
Overall its not the genere as much as the quality of the gaming experience that matters to me.
Same goes for women - in a world where starvation comes once a year, women who are more willing to sacrifice to nurture their brood are more likely to pass on this ability, since their brood is more likely to survive.
It's not a matter of "tradition" or "assumed roles". It's biology. The same survival pressures that selected musculature in men and enlarged mammaries and wide hips in women gave rise to many brain and behaviorial differences.
I also apologise to the men and women who read /., for the obsequious, fawning PC BS that attempts to hide the differences between the sexes, as if such differences are somehow ugly.
I see we're busy trotting out the same old stereotypes...
Extrapolating from my own experience: I like puzzles (Myst, Lara Croft, etc), economic/strategy games (Civilization I,II,II, Pharaoh/Cleopatra/Caesar III/etc), RPGs (Baldur's Gate, NWN), MUDs, MMORPGS (EQ,DAOC).
Why? Single-player games: I like to take things at my own pace, not be driven by the pace of incoming baddies. I don't like "twitch" games... though I do play Tetris
Multi-player games: Look, Ma, no FPS! Also, in MMORPGS, I, and many female games I know, prefer the so-called "roleplaying servers".
Why no FPS and why choose RP servers?
Fewer hormone-driven male teenage jerks. Nothing like a trash-talking, lecherous, rude 13-16 year-old to turn me off from the "game community". (Or worse, so-called "adults" who behave like immature teenagers! At least the teenagers have the excuse of youth...)
---dragoness
I once tried to play the Sims and I've seldom found any game that's more boring than that one. Yes, I'm a girl, and my list of games is larger than I'd like to imagine...all of the LucasArts adventures, RPGs(Morrowind, Gothic II, Vampire:The Masquerade), all of the Myst games, all of the GTA games, some of the NFS series, some FPS(Max Payne, Unreal Tournament, the Jedi Knights, Far Cry, Enter the Matrix)...all in all a happy little mix. By the way, none of my friends who actually do play computer games likes the Sims.
Being female I find myself an expert on the subject at hand. Mario has always been one of my favorite games. For the past 17 years I have played it....from Nintendo to Nintendo 64. I do not care for later versions. I also enjoy racing games, but not the violent ones like GTA. I prfer simple ones like Crusin USA, Mario Kart, and the greatest of all time RC Pro Am. I think at a younger age (say before 13 or 14) girls like games almost as much as guys do. But as they get older, they find other things to occupy their time. Some women still play seriously but there are so few of us b/c there just aren't that many games that appeal to the majority of us. I think Neopets may have been one of the best games for most of us. But every woman is different....
My name is a variety of floral rose, and no, it's not blue
I hate to post this as an AC, but I'm @work and don't remember my password right this moment.
Its been my observation that while men have an initial edge in many games, particularly first person shooters, women that continue to play will eventually overtake the men, since they have an easier time remaining calm under presure (courtesy of estrogen) and their less specialized but very adaptive brains tend to adapt strategy to make up for the couple tenths of a millisecond they may lack in reflexes.
Unfortunately, not that many women take serious interest in those sort of games, and of those that do, its rare that they are taken seriously.
End result, very very few successful women gamers at least in the FPS area, and since women often do take longer to develop FPS skills, most of them get disgusted and quit before they ever get good enough to attract any attention, even though they ultimately have as much or more potential to dominate.