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Game Livestreaming Explodes, But Women Are Less Likely To Be Paid Than Men (venturebeat.com)
A new study by game research firm SuperData Research and payment company PayPal found that eSports and game videos are driving explosive growth in livestreams. But PayPal also found a gender imbalance in pay. Women are less likely to be paid for their streams than men. VentureBeat reports: PayPal said that 34 percent of livestream viewers in the U.S. have spent more than $50 on livestream content in the past few months. But despite the growth in spending, almost half of women content creators (43 percent globally, 47 percent in the U.S.) don't get paid for what they create. The U.S. had the largest gender pay gap of the countries surveyed: Almost half as many men (24 percent) do not get paid for content they create. Globally, active paying gamers polled shop across 14 different gaming platforms and nearly 30 different storefronts over the last three months, an incredible variety.
In the U.S., respondents surveyed purchased from 26 different gaming storefronts -- the third most in the world, behind Russia (27), and Australia and Canada (28 each). While Steam is highly popular among millennials globally (31 percent buy from Steam), GameStop was resoundingly popular, with 45 percent of U.S. millennial respondents reporting shopping there for gaming content. In most countries, in-game spending is within a few dollars of average spend on full games. Surprisingly, in-game spending is skewing higher among older U.S. players: those aged 35-and-over have spent $50 on average, compared to $40 for those aged 18 to 34. Meanwhile, younger gamers are spending more in full-game downloads: $63, versus $48 for gamers 35-and-over.
In the U.S., respondents surveyed purchased from 26 different gaming storefronts -- the third most in the world, behind Russia (27), and Australia and Canada (28 each). While Steam is highly popular among millennials globally (31 percent buy from Steam), GameStop was resoundingly popular, with 45 percent of U.S. millennial respondents reporting shopping there for gaming content. In most countries, in-game spending is within a few dollars of average spend on full games. Surprisingly, in-game spending is skewing higher among older U.S. players: those aged 35-and-over have spent $50 on average, compared to $40 for those aged 18 to 34. Meanwhile, younger gamers are spending more in full-game downloads: $63, versus $48 for gamers 35-and-over.
A female streamer has 100x easier time growing a viewer base then any male streamer has and its pretty much a fact. So chances are they will likely get more in donations of subs then male will get.
Who wants to watch a stream of Farmville, the Sims, or Bejewelled? (I kid, I kid!)
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
We JUST had this posted less than 24 hours ago?
https://news.slashdot.org/stor...
You're still posting politics / identity politics warfare here?
When will you people get that the *vast majority* of what few remaining members you have on this site aren't interested in this. It's not relevant to this website or fitting to what people STILL COME HERE FOR.
I'm not trying to oppress women, join an MRA group or any other such ridiculous thing, I just want to come here for absolute tech news and articles of interest, ideally which are logical, scientific and consistent, not stuff which is a matter of varying opinions on if they are true, or politically based.
I'll take the bait though, I'll take it.
Are you guys genuinely claiming that you think women streamers make less than men or are paid less?
There could be dozens of reasons, let me list some.
Women may be less likely to try streaming due to whining / abuse / harassment from some kiddies.
Despite the pushy lying articles about video games, women are by far NOT 50% or over 50% of the market.
Seeing as most people watching streamers are men, they may prefer to watch men, depending on type of humour, type of game played, perhaps itâ(TM)s just the dedication, men can be quite obsessive about things.
Then weâ(TM)ve got my main point, the âboob factorâ(TM) thereâ(TM)s without a doubt a large consistency of very dull, very simple streamers who wear revealing clothing, play games, poorly, squeal now and then, âaccidentallyâ(TM) bend over in revealing clothing and they really are offering a lower quality product than many dedicated male streamers. HOWEVER they clean up, for obvious reasons (Sex sells)
This is also bad for other women streamers who just want to play legitimately without using their bodies to get viewers, they get hassled by kids who think all women streamers are boobs out.
To imply that this is as simple as just a plain sexism thing of man vs woman thing, is insane, the differences vary far more than just the bloody gender of the streamer.
This political stuff needs to stop being posted here, itâ(TM)s ramped up IMMENSELY in the last 18 months and Iâ(TM)m seeing more and more pissed off Slashdot posters due to it.
Isn't livestream an example of free selection rather than some evil cadre of boys trying to keep women in their place?
I couldn't care less about live-streaming of anything at all, but I've noticed definite differences between how men and women view, play and relate to video games. It's not surprising to me that women are less popular to watch amongst my peer group, I can't stand listening to most of them. First of all because most women live-streamers are half my age, creating at the very least a generation divide, second because how they interact with games does not at all resemble how I want to interact with them. If I watch a livestream, which is very rare, I'm looking for someone who is taking apart the mechanics and min-maxing. That is not very common amongst most female livestreamers that I've seen, who either because of age or gender are usually more interested in the cosmetics. They're out there, but it seems like about 1/20 of the male population based on a sample size of about 200.
The article also left out statistics about game purchases by gender, focusing instead on age. Female streamers would likely be more popular and relatable to female gamers. I still do not see anything even remotely like a representative gender representation in gaming. Certainly not in my peer group, but I've noticed even with my kids the girls just aren't playing as much. It's *better* than when I was a kid, but it's still vastly skewed towards boys.
So no, I don't see any real problem here, except that female representation in video games continues to be low, but in an environment where the females can exert their own free will. No one is forcing them to play or not play, no one is selecting them unfairly. They're simply choosing not to. That's not a problem, except to marketing who would like their bucks. And marketing is clearly failing to earn them.