You want to go ahead and ask Nintendo how that worked out for them? It wasn't a gateway to gaming at all, they bought the Wii, and then never bought another console after that.

I would be willing to bet that the stats on people moving from mobile gaming, to "hardcore" gaming would show very little movement at all.

I think I know why you're having such a hard time finding "girl gamers"...because you have weirdly strict qualifiers. Why does she need to be good? I know several girls who play console/pc games regularly.

Even if the average is lower than in my personal experience, I bet between 10-15% of "gamers" are girls.

Yeah, I'm not sure why it's that difficult either, it may just be the types of games he plays, or that his circles of friends just aren't that indicative of the wider audience.  My GM in WoW (Arwan), is a female, who's been GM for years, of a guild of over 600 characters (over 100 unique accounts, not sure the true split though).  There are quite a few women in the guild, and we all get along quite well.  We also make the Vent server pretty open though, so, yeah, I don't know, can't really say I share his experience.

The idea that people would stop doing a non-physical hobby they like just because they grow up is kind of not thinking about it deeply. I mean people give up things like extreme sports, and team sports, but that is avery different thing than pushing buttons, and pounding the keyboard. A pretty easy task once learned.

Yes, Tinkerbell logic does not apply lol. If you don't believe in them...

It is a survey. In college statistics, you learn surveys are very inconsistant for a shit ton of reasons.

I actually know a few female gamers, but they're not very open about it since it is considered immature and less than feminine to play games. Same goes for many of my male friends; some of the most popular "studs" I know play a lot of video games, like RPG's and other fare besides the mainstream Call of Duty's that everyone knows and accepts, but they don't really talk about it, post on social networks about it, etc. It's more like a guilty pleasure to them, and it seems that girls are adhering even more strictly to these "rules". That's my two cents anyway.

Too busy playing Bloodborne to take surveys. ;)

Honestly though, if you are a woman that games regularly tend to find yourself bit lonely around majority of women.  It is really only around male friends can I discuss gaming without feeling odd about it.  My female friends don't mock it, but it is equivalent to discussing interior design with most guys, they just sort of glaze over.

I don't know, my sister is the biggest GTA fan I know, I have a close friend who plays a ton of WOW, and I have several other friends/co workers who play console/PC games...it's just not that alien to me.

Are they going by a survey or by sales records? Because there are plenty of moms that buy games for their kids if thats what they're going by