More Women Than Men Play Games After 25

GameDailyBiz is running an article on a study recently conducted by the Consumer Electronics Association. They found that, in the demographic of people aged 25-34, more women than men play games. This is largely the result of the 'casual' games market. From the article: "The CEA study found that 65 percent of women in the 25-34 age bracket play videogames, while only 35 percent of men in that group said that they play videogames. Apparently, the key factor involved with these findings is the increasing popularity of casual games, especially among women. Women were found to be slightly less likely than men in the 25-34 bracket to play traditional console games on systems like the PlayStation 2 or Xbox, while they gravitated more heavily towards simple types of games like Tetris or other puzzle games and card games like solitaire."

Comments

Confessions of a (now post-30) woman gamer

[tokengeekgrrl]

The short version: Post-25 age women like playing games more than men? Duh.

Long version:
My love for gaming started with Loderunner and QBert on DOS in the early 1980s when my Dad first brought home a computer.

At my grade school there was one computer with an adventure-text game called something like "Go West" that everyone got to play once a week with a partner. I traded away parts of my lunch to bribe people to give me their slot so I could play more than once a week.

My family was too poor for Atari so I becames friends with girls whose families did have Atari expanding my repetoire to Missle Command, Pitfall, Centipede, Haunted House (anyone remember that one?), Space Invaders among many others.

The putt-putt (miniature) golf in town had an arcade I was not allowed to go very often but when I did I would watch the guys play Dragon Slayer (I think that's what it was called, they had competitions around playing it), play Donkey Kong and then found my true love, Tetris.

I had the high score on that Tetris arcade for months. If when I came someone had beaten it, I wouldn't leave until I had restored myself in the number 1 slot. Once school started I didn't have much time so this was only during the summer.

When the first gameboy came out I was in college. I saved my money and bought one with a Tetris gamecard. Tetris whenever I wanted! Pure bliss! My longterm, college boyfriend installed Super Tetris on his computer so that I would spend more time at his apartment (we both lived off campus at the time).

I didn't get into the console games when they came out because they were too expensive. I was working and going to school full-time while in college and didn't have much disposable income. But I could play games on the computers at the computer lab and the guy who ran the computer lab really liked me and I was one of the few females taking intro to computer programming so I always got a computer when I came in. Hello Zork and EverQuest.

When I actually had my own computer, a Mac, I downloaded and played free games and bought Myst.
Eventually, I bought a gaming PC I had custom ordered online and bought BladeRunner (RPG) and Doom.
I worked at a well-known gaming publishing and media company for a year and got to play all sorts of games at work, networked Quake was a blast, (4-dimensional Tetris on the Nintendo blew my mind).

Throughout the years, I've always also played chess. At one point I was very focused on it, playing it constantly on the computer and studying strategies, I still hope to get back to it.

Right now, definitely post-25, I love playing DOA and Burnout Revenge on the XBOX and this groovy little marble madness game my boyfriend downloaded for me because he thought I'd like it and he was so right. I also adore Kareoke Revolution on the PS2 in spite of my limited singing abilities, especially with a group of friends after a few cocktails. I also play a totally lame, text-only, web-based game called Legend of the Green Dragon which is only possible due to the kick-ass, gameplay automating, greasemonkey script my boyfriend wrote since I'm too lazy to do it myself.

Tetris is still my favorite and while it may be simple, it's far more complex then you can imagine once you get up to the levels where the pieces are flying at you faster then you can effectively pattern match. I just love that.

I think the real key is that once I hit my late 20s, I really didn't care what people thought of me, so playing games became more about having fun then proving to someone else that I'm better at it then they are.

Unless it's Tetris. ;)

Sorry for the long and rambling post. I kind of got carried away.

- tokengeekgrrl

Wtf with all the misogynists on slashdot?

[denjin]

Ok, obviously not everyone here is. But I see a number of scary replies on any women in gaming story (browse at -1 if you want to). Is there any reason for it? Granted, it really probably isn't any different than in the general population...

I'm in that age bracket and play games - I'm not a stay-at-home mother, either. However, while I like games like tetris, qbert and lemmings, RPGs (and Diablo-type games like Fate) are my favorite ones. :) I have no insight as to why so many women do in this age bracket. Hell, I don't even have any friends who are stay-at-home mothers. Personally I'm a professional and do ok for myself and have no intention of having children.

Enough for me, my post probably sounds rather pointless by now anyway. :)