I dont know a single girl that actively plays video games, but most love playing the Wii when they are over. As for why, who knows, girls are different. If anyone here trys to figure out girls they will go mad as I have. As for why guys like them.....they just rule. They are more interactive than TV or books or pretty much anything else than real life.

At this point and time my philosophy with girls (I think few of the females I hang out with are women/mature) is:

Girls dont make a lick of sense. Enjoy them while they are around but dont be upset when they are gone cause they are not in short supply.

Developers need to create female characters with a bit more integrity...Something female gamers can maybe relate to, not just what they think is some pre pubescent boy's fantasy...
The Wii will absolutely turn a huge number of females onto games..should make for interesting developments...

All the girls i know love video games, GTA and def jam fight for New York and Mortal Kombat are the ones they play the most. It was also a very hard time for me to lose to one of them in Def jam for the first time, they got really good really fast, as i could go 1v3 on the hardest difficulty in the game and waste the computer.

1)  Girls do like video games... as well as being social.  Both can take up a lot of time and it can be hard to stay on par with guys who typically spend more time playing... which makes it less appealing.

2)  For the same reason that every guy is shocked when they find out a girl likes video games, it's self perpetuating.  Plus it's awkward being the only girl around a bunch of guys.

My sister likes video games and a lot of girls at my school do so its not only a guy thing to like video games.

I dont think it's that females don't like video games, I think it's more there's not enough games that appeal to them. But there are some and I think they are becoming more and more common now days. My sister likes video games such as Final Fantasy, Halo, Bioshock, Tekken and games like that, and I have a friend who plays Halo, but I know not everyone is into those kind of games. The Sims is very popular with females, I know a lot of girls who like that game. My cousin and her mother both like playing Mario Kart games. So I think females are less inclined to play violent games, and more inclined to play less serious, fun games.

I think games appeal to anyone. They've just gotto find the right kind of game. I'm not so much talking about just females here, but for instance, not everyone of my friends is into gaming all that much (alot of them are though) but nearly everyone of them owns a DS and will join in for a game of Mario Kart.

Games that I think will appeal to females are games such as or similar to:

-Pokemon

-The Sims, Harvest Moon

-WoW, Guild Wars, and other MMOs

-Party Games such as: Buzz, Singstar, Guitar Hero and Rayman Raving Rabbids. I know a woman who's in her late 20s plays RRR with her Husband. She seemed real excited about the release of RRR2.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on females and video games.

The types of video games that ladies like to play are
Virtual Pet Games
and what i just learnt a few days ago: Mario Kart DD

Wow i totally agree with you

basically they like virtual games

and role playing games  

video games are stereotypically viewed as violent, shooters = not the taste of girls

There are exceptions.  The problem with FPS games is that the point is almost always to beat the other player and guys seem to be a lot more competitive about that stuff.