More older women are gamers than young men

My mom does play games more than I do. Not the case ten years ago but Facebook bridged the gap.

Hello! Gaming scholar here. (Puts on fancy hat.) I've been following this, but I'm not sure. The gaming industry is still pretty narrow-minded. There are so many moving parts to this. Marketing, for one.

The thing is, these numbers do not surprise me at all. I kind of felt this way 10 years ago--that an assload of women played games. Not just cell phone vajazzy games or Kim Kardashian crap.

I'm still chewing on it. It's bound to come up a lot this semester for me (taking a digital methods course). I dunno. We'll see how it plays out.

I come from a long line of female gamers. The year Atari came out, bedtime moved to an hour earlier and we could hear her playing Pacman. When my brother got a Game Boy for xmas, we didn't see it for days. She had it. Now, I source games for my kid and play them more than he does.

A big component to gaming is problem solving and puzzle piecing, and for some reason people still don't really seem to believe that women like that stuff. Or that it has to be framed in something shiney and jewelry-like or fashion-oriented in order for us to see appeal.

Given that games challenge our brains, and that some even make it look like we're in life-or-death situations, I can't help but think that the reason they appeal to some people is that they offer that missing rush that our safe, secure, food-at-the-Walmart lives don't have. We need a certain amount of uncertainty, risk, and danger for our brains to function properly and to maintain mental health. Games offer that to some extent.

I had an Atari, too as a kid. And Nintendo and Sega and on and on. My mom was amazing at Tetris. I met a lot "In-Real-Life" gal pals through MMOs.

And I feel like information design focuses so hardcore on males.

http://www.genderads.com/page10/slideshow-77/

I play games. at 38, am I an "older" gamer?

I'm not surprised at all. I've always been a gamer, although I try to restrict my time played these days!

The official statistic makes it all the more shocking that the latest version of Assassin's Creed had no female avatars. Allegedly because it would have taken too much time to animate them. (WTF) Apparently the company has realised its mistake and will be featuring many female characters in the upcoming version.

oceansoul said:

Allegedly because it would have taken too much time to animate them. (WTF)

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It's a lot of work to make giant floating boobs bounce independently.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-eo54_Sh2o

I almost wanted to say... "Facebook games don't count", but eh. XD

Strange, I'm 26, and for some reason, I have a hard time meeting many girls around my age that play games like I do. Yet you all seem to have met plenty. I must be doing something wrong.

Xelebes said:

My mom does play games more than I do. Not the case ten years ago but Facebook bridged the gap.

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My mom plays Candy Crush. The only game she's ever played.

I play very few, and under my son's sagacious tutelage.

Well, I do not know if this count but I play Second Life and IMVU quite often. Many people in my age group play it

I do wonder what this particular statistic is counting as a game. Do Facebook games count? Smart phone games? (I feel like they should count for something; I do know at least one person who went from playing Bejeweled to owning a whole variety of games for the DS.)

Also...
So, Ubisoft, now that you've noticed girls like games too (and might like games featuring female protags), can we please have Beyond Good and Evil 2? Please?

Katrina S. Forest said:

So, Ubisoft, now that you've noticed girls like games too (and might like games featuring female protags), can we please have Beyond Good and Evil 2? Please?

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Yes! Yes yes yes yes yes.

Subtle changes are happening, that's for sure. Like 9/10s of Biowares demos and trailers and gameplay footage feature female Inquistors (and an instance of female Hawke!) in their con appearances for Dragon Age: Inquisition. Devs and publishers are noticing us and selling to us when, even a few years ago, they wouldn't have bothered at all.

On topic: I kind of resent be called "older" . I'm one of those female gamers that's been around since birth (because of my mother's obsession with Frogger - but she fell off once controls added a billion buttons and eventually came back to things like Candy Crush). Don't call me old because I'm over 18.

oceansoul said:

I'm not surprised at all. I've always been a gamer, although I try to restrict my time played these days!

The official statistic makes it all the more shocking that the latest version of Assassin's Creed had no female avatars. Allegedly because it would have taken too much time to animate them. (WTF) Apparently the company has realised its mistake and will be featuring many female characters in the upcoming version.

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Which is doubly stupid because my husband usually plays a female character when one is available.

CrastersBabies said:

The thing is, these numbers do not surprise me at all. I kind of felt this way 10 years ago--that an assload of women played games. Not just cell phone vajazzy games or Kim Kardashian crap.

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I had to laugh at the "older women gamers" being any women over 18, though. Ah, I'd love to be an "old" 21 year old again.

I still remember trying to convince a guy in WoW (it's been about ten years now) that I was indeed female in real life, and he wouldn't believe me, because "girls don't game."

My reaction was, "Well, I'm not a girl," which really confused him (even ten years ago, I was emphatically mature enough to qualify as "not a girl").

He probably thought "old" people (as in anyone over 20) didn't game either.

I think the whole thing with AC: Unity is a dumb complaint (in context of the facts) based on a misunderstanding but, given how horribly Ubisoft responded to it, it's their own fault that it continues.

The complaint was that there are no female avatars in the multiplayer. Ubisoft gave some stupid shit answer about how difficult it'd be to make one, blah blah blah.

The actual reason is that, in the multiplayer, you're still playing as the main character, Arno. Arno is male. Having a female avatar for a male character would make no sense.

Now, there's no reason why the game should be designed that you should have to only play as Arno in the MP, and Ubisoft should've anticipated gamers wanting female options, but not just coming out and saying why the MP character is only male (because it's the same main character from the game) was a really stupid misstep.

That doesn't make sense to me. Tomb Raider only has a female option, so really, what's wrong with having only a male option in a game. It's not like most games only have male options. If that was the case it would be different. Hubby plays a lot of RPGs ( I do a little but they're so time consuming) and he usually plays a female and I play a male but I didn't even think about AC when he played it or think it was wrong. And there is a AC game with a woman as the main character hubby has been playing a lot lately.

My thoughts on it are basically the same as Opty's. I can understand Ubisoft setting up a system where you're always the main character (I don't think it's a good idea but fine, I'll play along), but their explanation stunk. They basically said it'd be too hard to add a female character to the multiplayer, which is a bs statement that left them wide open for jokes.

This surprises me a little. But I wonder how many play games on a console or PC rather than on Facebook or the iPad. Guess we have some fans of The Last Of Us then? Rumour has it that Masie Williams will play Ellie in the upcoming film adaption. Fingers crossed!

Matt Walker said:

This surprises me a little. But I wonder how many play games on a console or PC rather than on Facebook or the iPad.

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As a female, PC/Console gamer, I'm weary of the qualifiers I've seen some people put on the results of this study. It's fine to be surprised by it, but the "How many of them are just playing Candy Crush?" is wearing a little thin for me—mostly because no one's providing any data for those statements, so it just looks like typical sexist assumption. It reminds me of all the other "but" statements when there's evidence women do things.

I'm not surprised by the numbers, given my personal experiences, but I'm not sure what to expect from the content producers. What I'd like is for producers to look at this market and address it by making games less misogynistic, making more main characters empowered women, and making their advertising more inclusive of women.

What I'm worried will happen is that "boy" games will become even more so and that new "girl" games will be developed and given the pink treatment.


I have hope, but then things happen that show how this culture is being indoctrinated in young, male gamers (i.e., my nephew).

He's under ten, and he and his parents were over. I'd been playing Skyrim with a character equipped with Dark Brotherhood (assassin) gear. He saw it and asked if my husband was home.

Me: "No, he's out of town this weekend."
Him: "But there's a video game on upstairs."
Me: "Yeah, I was playing a video game before you got here."
Him: ".... Are you sure? The character looks like a ninja."
Me: "Yeah, my character is an assassin. Her gear sort of looks like a ninja."
Him: (skeptical look) "... So he's really not home?"
Me: "No. That's my PS3."
Him: "At daycare, boys play PS4."

And this from a kid who used to play video games with me, a kid I gave my old Xbox to when I got the 360. At one point, he knew and accepted I played video games as a thing that just was... now, something's taught him that I don't because I'm a girl.