324 réponses à ce sujet

[Seraphim24]

Women game because a lot of games are more fun than the dozens upon dozens of crappy TV shows and movies they've tolerated for so long. 

 

The reason they didn't before is that women (generally) are more conservative and video games were once this "ew what's that weird thing you are doing over there with that weird Japanese foreign thing etc. etc. etc." 

 

Meanwhile, I think a lot of the earlier male gamers were partly gamers but also just kind of doing whatever experimental thing was out there, whether it's D&D or games or political discourse or whatever. Many are like John Carmack or whoever that has made and enjoys games but also spends a lot of time on rocketry or just some experimental crazy fun thing. I don't see those guys getting crazy excited about Rune Factory or Animal Crossing, and a lot of them never really expand past PC gaming and building computers before just focusing on engineering or some other non-gaming thing entirely. 

 

Meanwhile the veil of skepticism around video games kept dissipating along with the increasing awareness of games like Animal Crossing or whatever that aren't about homicidal robots and as such are increasingly playing games. 

[LPPrince]

Might explain why I'm not a big fan of multiplayer games in general anymore. Not much fun when joining a server is basically like jumping into a big bag of dicks.

 

I've avoided this a lot by forming and becoming part of a big circle of trusted gamer-friends with positive attitudes, great demeanors, and wonderful senses of humor without taking themselves too seriously.

 

I have a friend from years ago I gamed with who never takes responsibility when he fails in a game. He's not DSP bad about that sort of thing but he's definitely a drain. Got used to it by playing with him a ton. Since then, much improvement in who I surround myself with.

 

Now? I've got a whole legion of friends who will laugh if they screw up, make jokes about failing, don't take shots at other players, don't troll, don't act out if things don't go their way, are constantly laughing, joking, talking about their lives, etc etc.

 

its all about going to the right places for it. Funny enough, some of those people I met here.

 

I know this;come time for The Master Chief Collection and even before that with Destiny I'll be gaming it up on the Xbox One with some of my lady friends and we will be having a BLAST.

 

I just have to hope that compared to the Destiny Beta, when the game launches I quote on quote, "git gud"

[Kaiser Arian XVII]

By playing Angry Birds and Kardashian video game!

[Kaiser Arian XVII]

My sister plays Hello Kitty World on her iphone, so she's now considered a gamer?

 

hahaha no, whatever. 

 

lol indeed

[someguy1231]

I"m aware that most of those women are playing casual games, like on Facebook or tablets. However, what really annoys me is when someone cites that statistic without context in order to argue that AAA games need to do more to cater to women. Just because a bunch of women are playing Farmville or Candy Crush doesn't mean games like CoD or GTA need to take notice of them. Has anyone ever heard a guy claim that, since men make up a similar percentage of book buyers, then romance novels like Twilight need to do more to cater to them?

 

It's also very telling that, of all the people I've seen cite the "40-45 percent of gamers are women!" statistic, I've never seen any of them call for more specific research into the gender demographics of specific AAA games, like the aforementioned CoD or GTA. I think we all know the reason for that: because they know that if they did, they'd end up with a percentage far lower than the 40-45 percent figure they constantly trumpet.

 

For example, let's take Bioware's own Mass Effect. It offers a fully-voiced female protagonist option, and is generally considered one of the most female-friendly AAA games. Clearly such a game must have a massive female playerbase, right? Riiiiight? Nope. According to Bioware's own statistics, in ME2 and ME3 about 80% of players who completed the game played as maleShep. And that's after Femshep got a marketing boost for ME3, which apparently didn't have any affect on Femshep's popularity. It's also worth noting that, since male gamers are much more likely to create a character of the opposite sex than female gamers, the game is likely even more male-skewed than those statistics would suggest.

[Il Divo]

1) Yes, but we're talking about gamers in general which is a relatively broad term that also includes casual gamers and not just "serious" gamers.
 

2) Who is to say they don't accept it?

Even if they don't but still play those games regularly, shouldn't they be considered gamers?

 

1) The broadness of the term is actually the problem. The demographics sought out are completely different. Many people enjoy games that are quick and action-based, like God of War. Other people enjoy RPG systems (such as Baldur's Gate) which could bury them in a rule book of game mechanics. Which are the gamers? Obvious answer is both, but their equal status as gamers doesn't mean they necessarily are equal value to developers. Sure, some people enjoy both genres, but others don't and their equality as gamers doesn't mean the same products will work on them.

 

Also keep in mind that the more accessible the game (and smart phones are insanely easy for pick up and play), the greater ease with which you will acquire a fan base. 

 

2) Not necessarily. Whether someone considers themselves a gamer culturally-speaking has a huge effect on their value to the industry. Someone who pays $2 to play a game on their smart phone during their lunch break at work or waiting on line in a store doesn't fall even remotely into the same demographic of people who spend hundreds of dollars on consoles researching release dates, gameplay videos, etc. 

 

It doesn't make them unimportant, but given that issues of female representation as gamers are most often brought up with regard to AAA releases (see Assassin's Creed and the lack of a female protagonist), pointing out that they have a larger tendency to download smart phone games tells us virtually nothing about their purchasing habits with regard to more stereotypical gaming. Many people I know (both men and women) who play smart phone games wouldn't even think about a console purchase due to time and money limitations. How can that be used as accurate data for industry?

[bmwcrazy]

1) The broadness of the term is actually the problem. The demographics sought out are completely different. Many people enjoy games that are quick and action-based, like God of War. Other people enjoy RPG systems (such as Baldur's Gate) which could bury them in a rule book of game mechanics. Which are the gamers? Obvious answer is both, but their equal status as gamers doesn't mean they necessarily are equal value to developers. Sure, some people enjoy both genres, but others don't and their equality as gamers doesn't mean the same products will work on them.
 
Also keep in mind that the more accessible the game (and smart phones are insanely easy for pick up and play), the greater ease with which you will acquire a fan base.

Of course the demographics are different, and it is all up to the game developers to decide which group will be their game's target demographic but that's not the point here.
 

2) Not necessarily. Whether someone considers themselves a gamer culturally-speaking has a huge effect on their value to the industry. Someone who pays $2 to play a game on their smart phone during their lunch break at work or waiting on line in a store doesn't fall even remotely into the same demographic of people who spend hundreds of dollars on consoles researching release dates, gameplay videos, etc. 
 
It doesn't make them unimportant, but given that issues of female representation as gamers are most often brought up with regard to AAA releases (see Assassin's Creed and the lack of a female protagonist), pointing out that they have a larger tendency to download smart phone games tells us virtually nothing about their purchasing habits with regard to more stereotypical gaming. Many people I know (both men and women) who play smart phone games wouldn't even think about a console purchase due to time and money limitations. How can that be used as accurate data for industry?

That's why I said it is not about whether or not they consider themselves as gamers, but rather how often they play and how they play.

AAA titles are becoming more and more expensive to make, and many developers are turning into making simple games for smartphones and tablets. Studies have shown that there are more than a billion of those active devices and nearly half of all time spent on them are game apps. iOS and Android are simply the fastest growing gaming platforms. It is already larger than both Xbox and Playstation combined (consoles are now only 40% of the industry), and developers like EA have taken notice of it.

The hard core gaming base might spend more money per game, but the mainstream or casual gamers make it up with their sheer number. (Surprise, those of you who consider yourselves to be "serious" or "real" gamers are only a minority in comparison.) So of course it can easily be used as accurate data for the industry. If you organize the data by age and gender, and separate them into different game genres, you can have a very clear idea of how different age and gender groups prefer certain types of games. With that information, a game developer can easily design their games to appeal the right target demographic.

It is very simple.

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

I'm a little sweaty reading this article. That's hawt news. 

 

It's always good to see females playing video games. 

[Johnnie Walker]

I'm a little sweaty reading this article. That's hawt news. 

 

It's always good to see females playing video games. 

See, we need guys like these. They're the ones that go completely out of their way to give those girl gamers health packs and ammo. Even if it causes their team to lose the game because of distraction reasons. But it's okay, because saving those girls is what really matters. Society just needs to accept the fact that gurls actually game.

[bmwcrazy]

See, we need guys like these. They're the ones that go completely out of their way to give those girl gamers health packs and ammo. Even if it causes their team to lose the game because of distraction reasons. But it's okay, because saving those girls is what really matters. Society just needs to accept the fact that gurls actually game.

Society has already accepted the fact that whether or not it can get them laid is the ONLY thing that matters.

My friend crafts TF2 items for his GF and in return she takes care of him.

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

See, we need guys like these. They're the ones that go completely out of their way to give those girl gamers health packs and ammo. Even if it causes their team to lose the game because of distraction reasons. But it's okay, because saving those girls is what really matters. Society just needs to accept the fact that gurls actually game.

 

Why do you keep following me around? Do you expect me to drool all over you and worship the ground you walk on? As far as I can tell on the forums, you are a guy. Just one of billions.

[Johnnie Walker]

Why do you keep following me around? Do you expect me to drool all over you and worship the ground you walk on? As far as I can tell on the forums, you are a guy. Just one of billions.

[TurianRebel212]

I dated a chick who tried out and nearly made the fragdolls. Apart from the time I got to scrimmage Taylor back in 06ish, she was the best HALO player I've ever seen. She was very attractive too. 

[Bison]

Society has already accepted the fact that whether or not it can get them laid is the ONLY thing that matters.

My friend crafts TF2 items for his GF and in return she takes care of him.

Cool story bruh. 

[Dermain]

I think it's good that there are more female gamers in general now (core gamers too), but I'm not taking a 'study' that considers Hello Kitty and Kim Karadshian a 'game' when that crap will never effect me. Now if somebody were to say there are more females than males playing the Tomb Raider reboot and they have the numbers to back it up then color me impressed.

 

It's a survey not a study!

 

They are different things.

 

Nitpicking at it's best... 

[Il Divo]

1) Of course the demographics are different, and it is all up to the game developers to decide which group will be their game's target demographic but that's not the point here.
 

2) The hard core gaming base might spend more money per game, but the mainstream or casual gamers make it up with their sheer number. (Surprise, those of you who consider yourselves to be "serious" or "real" gamers are only a minority in comparison.) So of course it can easily be used as accurate data for the industry. If you organize the data by age and gender, and separate them into different game genres, you can have a very clear idea of how different age and gender groups prefer certain types of games. With that information, a game developer can easily design their games to appeal the right target demographic.

It is very simple.

 

1) Really? Because I'd say that's a pretty critical point to the discussion, since the issue of female representation is most often associated with AAA games, which again is a dramatically different target than free/extremely cheap mobile app games. 

 

2) Again, this only works when you make the assumption that the markets converge. Sure, there's nothing stopping EA from targeting the mobile game market. It's probably extremely lucrative, judging by what we've already seen and if they can make money, they should go for it. But I wasn't under the impression that when the topic of female representation in gaming came up that the primary issue was the mobile market which women were concerned with. I was under the impression that they wanted to be better represented in more dedicated forms of gaming. As such, pointing to mobile devices is completely pointless because, once again, the mobile market is very different in focus to the console/PC market. It's designed fundamentally to be simple and straightforward (by comparison). 

[bmwcrazy]

1) Really? Because I'd say that's a pretty critical point to the discussion, since the issue of female representation is most often associated with AAA games, which again is a dramatically different target than free/extremely cheap mobile app games. 
 
2) Again, this only works when you make the assumption that the markets converge. Sure, there's nothing stopping EA from targeting the mobile game market. It's probably extremely lucrative, judging by what we've already seen and if they can make money, they should go for it. But I wasn't under the impression that when the topic of female representation in gaming came up that the primary issue was the mobile market which women were concerned with. I was under the impression that they wanted to be better represented in more dedicated forms of gaming. As such, pointing to mobile devices is completely pointless because, once again, the mobile market is very different in focus to the console/PC market. It's designed fundamentally to be simple and straightforward (by comparison).

 
However, we're not discussing about the female representation in only AAA games.
 
The article talks about the increase of women playing on both consoles and mobile devices as the study has shown.
 
Here's a quote from the article:
 

The spike in the number female gamers is likely tied to widespread smartphone adoption. In addition to traditional PCs and the Nintendo Wii game console, women were more likely to game on their mobile devices, and were just as likely as men to play on Apple’s iPhone and iPad platforms.

That is why I've brought up smart phones and tablets in this discussion.

Also when the study mentions "adult female gamers," they're specifically saying all female gamers at the age of 18 and above. It has nothing to do with whether they should or they shouldn't count those who only only play on mobile devices, you know, for the sake of "better representation" in female gamers. It is simply talking about "adult female gamers."

Other than that, you can consider my comments regarding the usefulness of the study as my input from a business point of view.

[Cassandra Saturn]

BMW's insight is quite useful ^^

[vortex216]

     I think "gamers" is a too broad term. Sports for example, most people don't say "I'm into sports", unless they are into many of them. If they like one or two specific kinds, they usually elaborate on which ones. FPSs and dating sims are very different things, as are rugby and golf.

[Melra]

Does this mean that the honor of crafting sammiches now falls to children?

[Dobbysaurus]

Does this mean that the honor of crafting sammiches now falls to children?

 

No, to Gremlins.