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What Games Do Women Play?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the if-you-have-two-x's-please-speak-up dept.

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."

32 of 193 comments (clear)

  1. easy! by sinner0423 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What Games Do Women Play?

    Mind.

    1. Re:easy! by rylin · · Score: 4, Funny

      Just because it's sexist doesn't mean it isn't true!

    2. Re:easy! by Seumas · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Can we please have a "women gamers" section so that those of us who simply don't care can filter them out in our preferences? I don't need three stories about how neglected female gamers are or female IT workers or female students or female college students or fema

      If women want to work with computers, they'll pursue a computer field. If they want to play videogames, they'll play videogames. The games they pick will be whatever interests them. I just don't give a fuck.

      Please, please, PLEASE -- you're ramming this shit down our throats daily like Jon Katz on a "GEEKS ARE BEING PERSECUTED!" hellmouth frenzy where everything is a catastrophe, a conspiracy and a shame.

  2. Women? by turtled · · Score: 2, Funny

    I don't know about most women, but mine likes role-playing... Playing the role of master bitch: Clean up, there are mountain dew cans all over, when are your friends leaving, they have been here 8 hours. What's so fun about Halo anyways. Don't they have homes to go home to? Why are you so loud. Why don't you do something constructive... etc etc etc

    Good thing she doesn't read Slashdot ;)

    --
    "I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection." -- Sigmund Freud
    1. Re:Women? by turtled · · Score: 4, Funny

      (Score:-1, No Sex for a year)

      --
      "I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection." -- Sigmund Freud
    2. Re:Women? by Blackknight · · Score: 4, Funny

      Move out of your Mom's basement and you might not have a problem.

  3. On the PS2 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    That would be Rez.

    Well, maybe not so much playing, but she likes participating.

  4. RPG? Puzzles? Tetris? The Sims? by YowzaTheYuzzum · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ... Crap, I'm a woman!

  5. REZ! by kryogen1x · · Score: 5, Funny

    'Nuff Said.

  6. Not another... by Exitar · · Score: 4, Informative

    article about women and games...

    http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/01/ 1826251&tid=10
    http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/30/ 1339248&tid=10
    http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/08/ 210208&tid=10
    http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/28/ 1458224&tid=10
    http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/02/23/ 1650258&tid=10

    1. Re:Not another... by maskedbishounen · · Score: 4, Informative

      It should be pointed out that this article is a dupe of the latest article in that list. Both posted by Zonk, only three days apart.

      Keep up the good work, editors. ;)

      --
      "An infinite number of monkeys typing into GNU emacs would never make a good program."
  7. My girlfriend likes to play... by afd8856 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Diablo, Heroes of Might and Magic 3 (doesn't like 4), city-building games like Pharaoh, Empire - Rise of the Middle Kingdom, Quake 1 and Heretic (some years ago), Abe's Oddysee.

    --
    I'll do the stupid thing first and then you shy people follow...
  8. Shit, that's simple... by RazorJ_2000 · · Score: 2, Funny

    "headgames". 'Nuff said.

    --
    pi=sigma{n:0-infinity}[(1/16)^n][(4/(8n+1))-(2/(8n +4))-(1/ (8n+5))-(1/(8n+6))]
  9. Ahh yes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I suppose that the Slashdot crowd knows much more about this topic than Elspa

    Of course. When you need information about women, the first place you should turn is the experts on Slashdot :)

  10. They play games like... by PhotoBoy · · Score: 2, Insightful
    • You've not noticed my new haircut so I'm going to sulk.
    • It was some obscure anniversary like when we first met today and you forgot so I'm not going to talk to you.
    • Why did you hesitate when I asked if I look fat?
    • It's that time of the month and I'm not in the mood for games
    • Which dress should I wear for the party? (And make sure you pick the one I want to wear)
    • I have a headache, you can't have a blow job
    1. Re:They play games like... by frankmu · · Score: 4, Funny

      the first one is a life saver. for you slashdotters, comment on a womans hair. just notice it, and it will get you points forever. really, that's all you have to do. aquaintance, girlfriend, wife... doesn't matter. make it a reflex. you could be scratching your butt, thinking about the latest baseball score, but say something nice about the hair, and it will make her day.

      a happy female will reduce your blood pressure in many ways. trust me ;)

      --
      Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
  11. Evolved preferences by gregor-e · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Guys evolved bigger, fast-twitch muscles and the brain wiring for hunting and defense. They have pre-wired pathways to enjoy adrenaline, fight-or-flight games.

    Gals evolved better socializing, nurturing and gathering skills. They have pre-wired pathways to enjoy social or not-so-violent questing games.

    The biological reward pathway for guys is instantaneous, owing to the immediate success/failure of a fight-or-flight situation.

    The biological reward pathway for gals is more gradual, accumulating more for repeatedly successful socializing, nurturing or gathering.

    Guys will get an immediate payoff for playing games they're pre-wired for. Gals will need to play for some time to accumulate reward. So for guys, games are more addictive in the same way that injected drugs are more addictive than the same drugs swallowed - there is a much sharper "spike" in their reward system. For this simple, evolved biological reason, games will continue to be more attractive to guys, and guys will therefore continue to define the games market.

    It is also a greater challenge to create a game that addresses the socializing, nurturing and gathering reward system of women, since fight-or-flight situations require only an immediate danger to be overcome, while creating a social environment with embedded, accumulating rewards for interaction, nurturing and gathering is a much more complicated proposition.

    1. Re:Evolved preferences by gregor-e · · Score: 4, Interesting
      It's not a matter of tradition. It's a matter of survival having evolved these differences. The selective pressures of early hominid life made every tiny advantage into a life-or-death difference. If a particular male happened to have a .5 millisecond advantage in reaction time, he would most likely be able to put his club through the skull of his opponent, thus taking his opponent's assets and assuring the passage of his ever-so-slightly better genetics.

      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.

    2. Re:Evolved preferences by krystrandya · · Score: 5, Insightful
      I agree with Lenny; to quote one of the masterful arguments commonly made on the internet "nuh-uh." I would also like to point out the insightful comment about asking slashdotters to describe womens preferences and how it degraded into a frustrated conversation about head games and blow jobs being modded as the top ranked assessments on females in the categories of "insightful" and "funny".

      Part of the root question was what turns girls off gaming and specific chat groups. I think all you have to do is read the above mentioned modded comments to understand.

      As for the biology of gaming. Gaming I highly doubt has even increased the capability of gentelment to breed or decreased the breeding capability of females. Therefore there would be no shift according to gaming in the near future. For fast motor or social skills - depending on the roles within society... everyone could really benift (breeding wise) from all of the skills you named and not just the males or the females. There have been articles on /. refuting your arguement with facts, which I noticed the root arguement lacked alot of.

      There are men who breed with force and men who breed with wit/intelligence or pretty words.

      Success of young by the ability of one of the parents to provide food doesn't eliminate the female in the provider role. I'm not sure what happened in the cave man days, but I doubt it was the female just swept the cave. There wasn't alot of housework back then :P Most of it was food, shelter etc. related. Either or both parents. Whatever. Trying to undo the sex roles that were established for the caveman days by men in the days were declaired when the female orgasm was unknown and women were thought not to have enough of a brain to participate in business or government is irrelevant.

      Today we see inheritance patterns. We notice that speed and strength are not only passed from the father, but from the mother as well. This inheritance isn't direct with the X or Y, but mixed. Because my mother is a 98 pound 5'2" weaker female and my father is 5'10" and very muscular doesn't mean my twin brother is strong and I am weak. Such is the same with speed and olympic runners. Yes body type does seem to play a role, but until you study finger speed on the keyboard or mouse clicking ability (which so far say that women are better in those categories), you are using bad information. Just saying biology a few times in your argument and using a formal presentation style doens't make you an expert. It just makes you and uneducated, opinionated, sad, little person.

      Lastly, I was doing a purely sex realted argument. Women are quite different from eachother and those willing to take a survey about games may slant your data. :( It would be nice to think that many girls like RPGs, but I haven't found that yet. I could discuss what I like and what trends I've noticed, but I'd really only written to smack this bad argument down and cool my head about how caddy and unfriendly an atmosphere slashdot becomes when people bring up women.

      --
      I'd thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. That way I wouldn't have to have any goddarn st
  12. Adventure games by psavo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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
  13. Diner Dash by Stoutlimb · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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?

  14. Hmm... seems pretty accurate by May+Kasahara · · Score: 4, Informative

    I like to play RPGs (Final Fantasy games, Skies of Arcadia, Dark Cloud 2, etc.), puzzle games (Puyo Puyo, Tetris, Tetris Attack, Katamari Damacy), and at least one adventure game (ICO) and one life sim (Harvest Moon). However, I also like time-draining SRPGs (Final Fantasy Tactics, Nippon Ichi games, Front Mission 4), platformers (Mario series, Sonic series, Jak & Daxter, etc.), rhythm titles (Bust A Move/Groove series, Samba de Amigo) and the occasional fighting game (Mortal Kombat series) and FPS (Unreal Tournament series). I've played UT online and in LAN parties quite a bit, mostly with guys, and it's been cool-- I find myself being just as fiercly competitive as they, but also find I prefer team-based play modes like CTF, Onslaught, and the Carball mod.

  15. MUDs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:MUDs by tmtresh · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Ok, I know I'm going against your "typical" female stereotype, but I HATE meeting people, creating friendships, and chatting within a game. I want to play.

      As for the type of games I like- Unreal Tournament, Starcraft, puzzle games (minesweeper, Dr. Mario, etc.(though I don't like tetris)), building games (sims, civ, etc.(though most of these simply take too long to play). In general, the best games for me are ones that don't take too long to learn and have short scenarios (or can be saved and are quick to get back to and don't take a "remembering what you were doing" phase). I also hate complicated keyboard (or mouse, joystick, whatever)strokes. I want to be able to sit down when I have a few minutes to burn and play. I can be addicted, so I studiously avoid games I'm addicted to because I don't want to waste my whole day playing a game. I played Civ III for only a few days, but it took so long to get anywhere in the game, and I was wasting too much time doing it, that I gave up. It would have been funner if it could go a lot faster like the old sim city game did. So, if there were more games a person could sit down and play, then get up when they wanted, I would buy more games and play a wider variety.

  16. 1 woman's perspective by SiveAmbrai · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm kinda disappointed with the responses so far.

    I personally enjoy MMO's( Currently owned by WoW) FPS's like Doom, Halo, UT etc. Platformers cause they're just awesome :) DDR. Fighting games like Mortal Kombat and Super Smash Brothers.

    Overall its not the genere as much as the quality of the gaming experience that matters to me.

  17. My ladies by Midnight+Warrior · · Score: 2, Insightful

    PowerManga, TuxRacer, Frozen Bubbles, SuperTux. Violence (other than squishing the bad guys) is out. Put blood/dismemberment in, and the girls leave. Require large portions of their time, and they'll spend it caring for the family, watching TV/Movies, or playing with real, physical toys (Tinker Toys).

  18. Well, here is my list. by Zangief · · Score: 3, Informative

    -My girlfriend: She plays the Sims and Need for Speed Underground 1 and Minesweeper, along with some other things. Also, she plays Burnout, Mario Kart and Super Monkey Ball 2 along with me.

    -My sister: Plays The Sims and Animal Crossing a lot. Also, played the heck out of Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine, and is a fan of Wario Ware.

    -My mother: She is not into videogames, with the exception of Tetris and Solitaire.

  19. What women like and don't like by Dragoness+Eclectic · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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
  20. I hate the Sims by Availle · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  21. World of Warcraft by Rayonic · · Score: 2, Insightful

    My wife is hooked on World of Warcraft, and I'm sure she's not alone. Stories of couples playing the game together abound on the official message boards. I have no real numbers, but I'm not surprised WoW would attract a significant female audience.

    A) It's a role-playing game, and there is significant investment in the advancement of your character. (Chicks dig that. :-)

    B) Although it is pretty action-ey, it's not such a twitch game that those without years of video game conditioning are put off.

    C) There is the social element inherent in most MMORPGs.

    D) Fantastic, easy learning curve, and you start playing almost immediately.

    E) It's just a really well built game. You don't have to put with a lot of bullshiat to enjoy the game underneath.

    F) And, of course, it really does look quite graphically nice.

    --
    [PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
  22. One word....Mario by shockingbluerose · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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 :)
  23. Good features in a game by HexDoll · · Score: 2, Informative

    Frequent save points but also some plot for when you want to play the game for longer periods of time (the newer Grand Theft Autos are good at this).

    Goals that don't just involve blasting everything in sight (like Metal Gear Solid). I get bored easily with first-person shooters.

    Goals that involve skill and thought rather than just reaction speed. Battles that require tactical decisions.