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Girl Gamers More Hardcore Than Guys
TheClockworkSoul writes "Scientific American reports on a study published this month in the Journal of Communication, which found that women who engage in a role-playing game online actually commit more time on average than the male players do. The authors surveyed 7,000 players logged in to EverQuest II (PDF), and found that the average age of the gamers surveyed was 31, and that playing time tended to increase with age. Interestingly, however, the female gamers not only tended to log more time online (29 hours per week versus 25 for the males), but were also more likely to lie about how much they really play."
Have you ever been in a store with a girl? It's like raiding, grinding and looting all at the same time. And some innocent low leveler always get killed.
And when the correct time comes, they stab your back and run away with your epic drop.
There is previous evidence of this..
To do list for Windows
They don't lie, they just doesn't count the time customizing the color and clothes of their characters which is probably 20 hours a week.*
Here goes my Karma, down the drain. Should have used the post cowardly !
* My girlfriend used to do that a lot in everquest and maple story... Actually.
Girl seeking WoW player
Anyone left in EQ is hard-core by definition. Why didn't they study WoW?
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
Oh, not that kind of hard core.
That's okay. Just call them hon, talk about how hard core they are, and hit on them. When they get mad, they get distracted, and when they're distracted they're sloppy. Then when they lose tell them they play like a girl. Recommend you wear a groin protector if you're going to try this in person.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Which really begs the question; is it better to date a gaming girl or a 'normal' girl?
Having dated and then married a gamer girl, I can say from experience that a non-gamer girl will never drag your ass out of bed at 6 am on a Saturday morning to work on leveling alts with her.
I suppose it's like any relationship, a mixed bag.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
And now we know why, they are all in the games.
And considering my own voice chat experience in MMO's, I am not all that surprised. Some seem to spend more time in game socializing.
But I have been told several times not to reveal their gender to others, or that they didn't want to use voice chat in PUG groups.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
There are girls who game, and who game quite extensively. I would call myself one of those girls, and I easily log 20+ hours a week playing. Granted, my friend set is probably a little skewed since we're all females in either engineering or CS, so I won't comment on the numbers of girls that exhibit these traits. That being said, maybe game marketers will wake up and realize that we do play, and that we do invest a lot of time into it and maybe they'll actually try to start marketing to more of us. We're just as happy to plunk down our cash for a game. And we're probably more likely to plunk down extra cash on "accessories" and other non functional goodies to make our characters look good...
Of course more girl gamers are going to be more "hardcore" than male gamers. Why? Because its not as socially acceptable to casually play hardcore games as a girl. For example, if a guy says "I play WoW" most people would shrug it off, whereas it could be a lot more damaging socially for a girl to say that they played WoW. Because of this only girls who really like WoW and similar games will really play them and for males most of the time they aren't as "hardcore" because there is a lot more males who play and some are casual and some are hardcore. Females would almost all be hardcore gamers.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Just because girls waste more time on MMOs on average than boys doesn't mean they're more 'hardcore' gamers.
I think it's because guys tend to drink more when they game. They pass out while the girl keeps gaming and eating chocolate.
Housewives.
Most female players I've known have been housewives, and were able to put so much time in compared to their spouses because their spouses were out working.
I used to be at home during the day because I worked at a newspaper where our hours were 8am to 8pm Mon, Tues, Fri, 8am to 6pm Weds and 8am to 12pm on Thurs so always had Thursday afternoons and Friday off as that's when the paper went to print. On those Thursday afternoons and Fridays I recall many times speaking to female guild mates who were in their mid to late twenties and early thirties playing because they'd done the house work and had nothing else to do. They'd play for hours in the day and continue to play with their partner when their partner got home.
MMORPGs are mainstream. Shmups are hardcore. Come and talk to me again when you find girls who can one-credit Ikaruga.
Circumcision is child abuse.
I see Scientific American has about as much to do with science as the History Channel does with History. "60 second news?" I see the author didn't spend more than 60 seconds reading the report.
Contrary to the article's implication, players in the sample were still overwhelmingly male, and while female players were more likely than male players to be "hardcore", numerically there were still more hardcore male players than hardcore female players.
There are a number of datapoints in the study that are interesting:
http://dmitriwilliams.com/LFGpaperfinal.pdf
- The sample was self-selecting. The survey was offered to all players logged in during the sampling window. .06% declined
- Self-reported gender: 80.22% male, 19.72% female,
- Self-reported as being employed: 66.29% of females, 79.84% of males
- Self-reported sexual orientation: Female: 14.15% Bisexual, 2.28% Homosexual, 6.4% Declined; Male: 3.64% Bisexual, 3.37% Homosexual, 3.6% Declined.
- Self-reported played with a romantic partner: 61.52% of females, but only 24.77% of males
What I found more interesting was that as many as 22% of female players were lesbian or bi-sexual, far more than in the general population. This was not mirrored in male players.
I'll speculate that females playing more hours than males is in some part accounted for by the 13% employment gap reported between males and females in the sample.
As to whether to believe the better than average self-reported BMI and exercise numbers from the women in the survey? What, women misrepresent their weight online? Unheard of!
Oblig. nitpick: if you dated and married a gamer girl, then you CANNOT say from experience what a non-gamer girl will or won't ever do. You'd have to have dated and married a non-gamer girl (actually, all of them) in order to make that blanket statement.
Nitpick denied. I can accurately make that statement without having married one or all girls who are not gamers.
As the act of compulsively leveling alts in a MMO is the act of one who belongs to the set of female persons that are labeled a 'Gamer Girls', there exists no such person who can engage in this activity without being a gamer girl. Hence, a girl who does that must be a gamer.
QED
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
This is true. The average player in this sample played 27 hours a week.
That's 3-4 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Hmm..
Since when did they start putting PC's in the kitchen?
or
They have to be hard core to be cooking and gaming at the same time!
or
They should be cooking up my dinner not characte..oh forget it
never mind :P
I have to return some videotapes...
If guys spent any more time playing games, they'd not have time left over for their wank sessions. There are only so many hours in the day. Priorities.
Camping on quad since 1996.
That's what I don't understand. I mean a large number of games aren't marketed to any major extent. They send out copies to be reviewed and maybe buy some banner ads, but they don't do TV spots or anything. Of those that are marketed in a larger fashion, most seem to be marketed as, well, games. There isn't a gender bias I can see. It is just "Here is a game where you can do X. Look at the pretty graphics. Buy it."
I guess I don't see what is needed here. Do women need things specifically targeted at them? Must the ad say "Hey ladies, this is a game for you,"? That doesn't seem to be useful because it only acts to segregate. It says "You girls aren't good enough for most games, here's a special one for you." To me it seems that the message needs to be that games are for everyone, all games. Your gender doesn't determine what you can do for fun.
I'm honestly interested in what you think they need to do to market to women. What about current game marketing fails? What sort of thing is needed to attract women?