i completly agre....AH IT'S A TRAP!!

Lots of girls and women love Oblivion, and games like Heroes of Mite and Magic, and World of warcraft and when I play Age of Empires II and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars online there's often several chicks in the games.

While there should there should be a place for niche and targeted audiences, I have to say I'm undeniably happy to see gaming open up a bit. As mike_intellivision said, a video-game's audience should not assumed to be primarily consisting of males 16-34, it should include both genders and every possible age, a sentiment I wholeheartedly agree with.

When I my parents or my girlfriend's parents (or those who are generally considered non-gamers or casual gamers) hear about Call of Duty, Halo, World of Warcraft and games of that ilk, their reaction is unfailingly a rolling of the eyes followed by a bewildered exclamation. One you mention Mario, Tetris or Pac-Man around them, however, you can see a glint in their eyes. Everyone wants to have fun, and video-games should be able to provide that to everyone. The majority of people would like a way to engaginly absorbs minutes or tens of minutes of their day rather than the hours that are seemingly required by "hardcore games". To me, allowing and enticing more people to play video-games is the way that gaming needs to go if it hopes to mature and truly become mainstream, rather than creating bloated, grandiose cinematic experinces that one can only enjoy if they memorize the dual uses of 18 buttons and three joysticks. If gaming is truly seeking to legitimize itself rather than bleed the existing market dry, then it needs to embrace its inner game-ness.

If the gamer population is actually approaching an equal division among genders, why are all the "AAA" experiences geared almost exclusively towards the male gamer? Does anyone else see that insular approach as destructive? The fact that one can sometimes find some women playing Quake and the like should not be taken so positively. Why is the gender split not closer to 50-50? Why are these major, apparently "defining" video game experiences so male-dominated?

Not in the case of WoW. A huge proportion of WoW players are female.

Yeah, the game is great... I did the same and remember Morrigan bluntly saying to Leilani "You know I have bedded him?"... I sat there and was like WTF?! The game is pretty open about sexual encounters though, I mean how many other games do you know of that have a bisexual elf?

What's funny though is that my girlfriend sometimes watches me play and has a go at me for doing stuff that's morally... questionable :P

In my experience, it's easy to get women into just about any game that doesn't require precise control or competition, and doesn't feature excessive violence. Slimebeast lists a lot of them. I'd add Diablo, Civilization, Harvest Moon, Zelda, any rhythm game.

Women like constructive elements in their games, such as leveling. And they like empathic characters, which are rare even among story-driven games. The final pillar would be social elements, which is why WoW is crack for so many of them.

I doubt BioWare games serve as good examples, they have very little (if any) appeal to female gamers. Forementioned sexual path, or rather sex scene is treated like a reward for accomplishment of side quest in Mass Effect. This's pretty much stereotypical male image of romantic relationship, not to mention overall lack of intrigue in dialogue threads with potential love interests (look at my avy for reference). I had a chance to experience more complex relationships in my personal life than these fantasies, and I'm not a space travelling hero or anything. Not a big loss, since romantic relationships aren't that important in this particular game, but BioWare could have done a better job.

I would sure hope that your personal life has had more complex relationships. To expect a game to deliver that experience at that level is kind of silly. Whether DA:O appeals to females or not is actually irrelevant. The point I was trying to make was that developers are not closed to the idea of females playing their games. That doesn't mean they market towards them, or design games towards them. Just because the 'sexual paths' in ME and DA:O aren't sophisticated doesn't mean it only appeals to males. I mean, these games aren't dating sims, but they through a little extra in, and that little extra is NOT just geared towards male gamers. That was what I was getting at.

Is the system shallow at this point? Sure, but it is an attempt, and making an attempt is important. Otherwise, why not just have male main characters only hook up with girls, and female main characters only hook up with girls. Most guys wouldn't care if they game was like that, but girls might be outraged at the discrimination. By making all options available, its a very male/female/heterosexual/homosexual friendly game.

Not all girls care about sophisticated dialogue mind you, and not all guys care about shallow sex either.

Something to add here too, its not even just the casual players. More than half of my own fairly hardcore guild (Pre-BC, we raided every night) was female. And, they all played more than I did, and I was on everyday back then.

Many of the ones I've spoked to about this said some of the same things about how/why they got into it. "Well my friend/boyfriend got me into it/gave me a trial, and once I started playing, I just wanted to keep going, and keep doing quests, and it's fun to talk to people while playing." There are hardcore and casual males and females. Casual gaming males "roll their eyes" (figuratively, most guys I've known don't roll their eyes) at the mention of more hardcore games as do females.

Oh, I totally agree that World of Warcraft is largely a success due to its immense female userbase, I was more arguing from a general public perspective, which is why I used my parents and my girlfriend's parents as the ones who were rolling their eyes. But yeah, that is definitely a game that has been able to cater to both genders without excluding one another, and not only is the game more successful for it but the overall experience is improved. I feel as though if more people were to get into gaming, if more people were able to appreciate the benefits and enjoyment that can be derived out of our beloved pass-time, that the overall experience of gaming would improve.

And as for the Bioware discussion, I'd have to say I agree with Mai. The able to play as a woman and pursue several avenues of sexual orientation is certainly an admirable feature, but the depiction of sex in those games is that it is a form of conquest or reward, a sentimentality that the majority of females aren't big on. It's less about the simulation of a romantic relationship than it is the accurate and healthy portrayal of one.