Adult women are now the largest demographic in gaming--_-- Say Whaaa'h!

[DonFerrari]

spiffiness said:

Soundwave said:

spiffiness said:

I think this is maybe an inaccurate conclusion you made regarding women not liking character-driven games. I think women just tend not to enjoy the violence in core games as much, so they gravitate towards those other genres that don't involve shooting and killing things in bloody fashion. I do think women enjoy story-driven games, though. RPG's, I believe, have a higher percentage of women players compared to other core games, but I don't have the actual data to say for sure. It sure seems like it, though, from the number of players of Pokemon and Final Fantasy who are women, and I think there are a lot of female fans of BioWare games. Also, women like reading books which obviously is all about story. 

I think there's some truth to it. Because there are plenty of "non violent" games like Rayman and LittleBigPlanet and so on that have no where near the success of Candy Crush with women. 

I think men/boys just take to the idea of wanting to live as a vicarious character much more than women do even outside of video games. 

Men/boys are far more obsessed with professional sports (even make believe ones like wrestling) in part because they idolize the athletes therein. Women appreciate sports, but generally don't get as hung up on that aspect as men do. Guys want to BE Michael Jordan or Tom Brady or Hulk Hogan. 

The idea of becoming a galactic bounty hunter or US black ops marine or jedi knight or convicted felon just out of prison or even just a blue hedgehog who runs real fast ... men/boys gravitate to these types of scenarios more than women do. 

I think women prefer games where they are the invisible protagonist (ie: controling the blocks in Candy Crush) rather than the traditional "you are character X, clear this stage, now onto the next stage/world which is more challenging". 

It's hard to compare numbers for Rayman and LBP vs Candy Crush. How many women have phones vs. consoles? No one would buy a mobile phone just to play Candy Crush, but they already have it in their hands. They don't have to pass cultural barriers that have traditionally stated consoles are for boys just to browse the shelves to see if maybe Rayman might be an interesting game to play. Also there is the viral marketing factor. Friends are telling them to play Candy Crush, so hey, why not? It's a good time waster in between doing other things. Who is telling women to play Rayman or LBP or that they should own a console, that it's worth it for them to own a console even if they don't like violent games, that it's not just a boys' thing? None of this has anything to do with being a character and already the odds are stacked against women playing "core" games.

There is also the aspect of skill level. If you have never or rarely played action games when you were young, it is much harder to get into it later. Puzzle games don't require the same amount of eye-hand coordination as a platformer or most traditional core games. What would I be more likely to play? Something I know is easily accessible and I can progress in vs. a frustrating exercise in futility where I can't get past the first level because I didn't play those games when I was a kid? Again, nothing to do with characters. 

"I think men/boys just take to the idea of wanting to live as a vicarious character much more than women do even outside of video games." 

I don't think so. What do you think fiction books are if not living vicariously as someone else? And books are very popular with women.

I'm not really sure where you're going with the sports analogy. Girls have people they want to be or idolize, but maybe not necessarily in sports. 

"The idea of becoming a galactic bounty hunter or US black ops marine or jedi knight or convicted felon just out of prison or even just a blue hedgehog who runs real fast ... men/boys gravitate to these types of scenarios more than women do. "

You state this as fact, but I'm not convinced that it's true. Maybe part of it is because the violence issue comes into play or because these types of characters are all macho types (maybe with the exception of Sonic), typical of core games. This has more to do with targeting the male audience than because women don't want to play as a main character. Or again, it may be cultural conditioning that says it's not as acceptable for girls to play these games. From personal experience, none of my girl friends as a kid or I myself had any aversion to a character or story-based game because it was such or a special affinity for puzzle games. In fact, we played Sonic, Kirby, Donkey Kong Country, Warcraft, Starcraft, Perfect Dark, etc. etc. because it was fun, and in our circles, no one told us that girls shouldn't play these games (except maybe my mom). 

I'm not saying that you're absolutely wrong, I suppose it's possible that women do like puzzle games or "invisible protaganists" more, but I don't think there is sufficient evidence to say that socio-cultural pressure is not more responsible for pushing women towards casual games than some inherent, gender-based preference towards playing as an on-screen avatar.

I incentivate most of my female friends to play VG and try to show games they would like... but even with my wife I fail (even tough the VG being already hooked up and the game available on the shelf)... 

And women are usually completely "ignorant'' on sports, they idolize singers and models... and it's quite frigthening how much a girl can idolize those people. They want to be like the popstar women (almost never be like the sport girls) and marry and be pregnant of the famous good looking guys... we men just see the hot famous girls as women we would like to laid down, we don't idolize, we just objectify.