Researchers find that female PC gamers outnumber males

Researchers find that female PC gamers outnumber males

Surveys conducted by analyst firm Superdata Research have found that in the US, women play more PC games overall than men. They also play more RPGs on PC than men, while men outnumber women in the FPS and MMO genres.

http://www.pcgamer.com/researchers-find-that-female-pc-gamers-outnumber-males/


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_and_video_games

 

When replying, please remember: 1) This topic is controversial and 2) Focus on Game Design.

Care is advised,
Gigi

 

The large text is a little unnecessary no?
Anyhow, I think it's poor form to design a game for female players just as it is poor form to design a game for male players.
Gender of the player shouldn't affect anything in a games design in my opinion, and I can't see how it could either, other than picking an avatar, which isn't even totally related to player gender.

I'm not female though, so can't comment on that perspective.

If the question were to revolve around how your female character is designed for in the game, I can see a more constructive conversation, otherwise, this seems like it can only lead to the pointless chatter the gaming media spread day in day out.

 

No, I haven't. Most female gamers I know don't seem to care, but then I don't typically play something aimed at a specific gender.

 

While it's easy to say, "I've considered [insert gender here] in my game's design", that's true mostly by having a design in the first place. Men, women, and all variations thereof share one important trait: they're people! People like good games. If people can be stimulated in ways they consider to be positive with the contents of your game, you've succeeded.

I suggest not focusing on gender, but instead in designing good mechanics and writing a generally good story with memorable characters, if your game requires that. It's not worth rending your hair over.

 

I disagree. You are not taking into account that women players are attracted to features like building and customization of character.
One of the reasons for this new statistic is the large number of games being developed with player housing and increased character customization.

 

With the games I play, so are the men. For those who are curious, I play Dungeons and Dragons Online along with some roguelikes occasionally. Though I occasionally will play Civilization games with friends (typically when a female gamer friend of mine wants to play it - I hate single-player).

 

Generally when I'm working on the design I try to think of Women as humans, and go from there.

 

Then I think you misinterpret my post.
The character and the player are completely separate entities.

From a design perspective you should only consider the character, not the player.
After all, what's to stop a male player picking a female character. I've done it before.

Building and Character Customisation aren't female-specific features, so why does the population of female gamers matter at all?

 

Yep. I've known female gamers who pick male characters as well.

 

What you guys are saying is true but only to a point.

For instance when considering features over the past 20 years companies have included features that attract teen boys. The FPS popularity stems from this research. To not consider demographics of players in your genre is I think a mistake.

This is not a thread to argue the point of gender. It's about considering the demographic of the games we make.
Look at the numerous articles unpacking the success of Candy Crush and tell me this does not matter at all.

 

I think I'll stay out of this one for now, since I'm going to bring up gender differences. You guys are getting some good points in this should be fun!

 

Then you should make a topic about demographics, and not simply ambiguously link to an article about female gamers.

 

Since I can't see the data that's behind a paywall, I'm just going to assume all the conclusions are gross extrapolations that are inaccurate representations of the industry. In order to make the numbers work, you have to include any woman who's played minesweeper and any casual facebook game sometime in the last six months. Hell, I remember a decade ago always hearing that the majority of game buyers are women, which I'm sure was true, but they weren't the ones playing them.

In any breakdown of dollar spent to hours played will always show more men playing games for longer. Bare in mind, these are the people actually fueling the industry. It's not my mom on facebook (who uses adblock anyway), it's me on steam who is actually contributing substantially to the industry. It's core gamers that are the ones playing games and spending money, and core gamers are still unilaterally male.

 

Regardless if any of this is true (OP included), this is not related to Game Design.

 

How is this not related to game design?
Considering who is playing your game is a huge part of game design. The point is I have herd over and over by indie developers just make a great game but great game to who? If you are the only one playing your game and you think it's great more power to you. But if you are making a game for others to play then when you design it you better consider who is playing your genre the most.

 

What elements of design would you like to discuss? So far, the only discussion is whether or not the thread itself is relevant to game design. Which, by definition, means the discussion is not about game design, and therefore belongs in gossip.

PS - The extra large font is characteristic of trolls.

Gigi

 

Yep, I think this does matter to game design. Sure, the larger topic is demographics: not just what gender your target market is, but also how old they are, what cultural background they come from, what expectations they have, where they tend to play, whom they play with, how long they play in one sitting, etc. But gender is certainly a key component of that, and one that is shifting and (probably as a result) still often misunderstood.

Those who still think that players who spend money are overwhelmingly male are missing a huge potential market, and overlooking the success of games like The Sims (which, IIRC, was the most successful game ever at the time, in terms of revenue). (And Rockodyne, I'd wager my retired mother-in-law spends more time and money on WoW than you spend on Steam.)

Demographics matters to game design because it's very hard (impossible?) to make a game that appeals well to everybody. Through your design — everything from core mechanics to visual style — you can choose to entice some segments of the market, at the expense of others. If you do this with blinders on because you're imagining that half the population doesn't matter, then you're starting at a disadvantage right from the get-go.

Moreover, there are differences between men and women that appear at a very young age (just ask any parent). If you deny these differences, or lump everybody into either "people who think like me" and "people who don't matter," then again you're setting yourself up for failure — or at least, not as much success as you could have. If instead you try to understand where people different from you are coming from, you'll do better; and if you can put together a design staff with some diversity to it, then you're way ahead. I like to imagine I can design games that appeal to women as well as men, but I bet I'm still missing things that Teila or Ryiah would not miss.

Yes, stereotyping is bad, and you don't want to overgeneralize... but undergeneralizing isn't much better. Marketers know whom they're marketing to and how to reach them. They make much finer distinctions than gender, and so should we, but gender is certainly one dimension to consider when segmenting your market.

Hmm. So, how can we make this into a more productive design discussion? ...How about this: what design features of a game make it more or less appealing to women? (And then, perhaps in a separate thread, we could have a similar discussion about other market segments, broken down by age, economic status, career, or whatever.)

 

Too bad. This could be a good topic, if we approach it right.

 

@gigi Yes you are right about the font. I will see about changing that. I cut and paist it since it has been a topic that has come up often in many of my larger gaming guilds by women players.

The features they have bought up most if player housing and how instansing has taken away from thier need to show thier deigns and more character vanity items. But thier main issue is about indie games never considering thier needs in games.

 

Can you elaborate on these? Or, here, I'll take a stab at it and folks can jump in where I'm way off base:

• player housing: we're talking about things like buying a house/apartment/etc. in a MMORPG? A little corner of the world to call your own?
• instansing: ...er... no idea here... somebody please #create clue; give clue to joe.
  
• character vanity items: these are items you can build, buy, or acquire (through quests?) in a game that don't really improve your stats, but look cool and/or show off your status?

 

When I first read the title of this thread I thought "shouldn't this be in Gossip?" I think the OP definitely fit into that forum and not here. The discussion has tried to twist it into a game design focus from then on and maybe if framed in a different way could produce some valuable content. Questions such as "Are there differences in expectations and preferences of male and female gamers?" "Why do female gamers [apparently] prefer RPGs more than men?" I say apparently because I have doubts about that.

 

Sorry Joe and others I was typing my post while you were finishing yours I think. So kind of redundant on my end.

 

I just took a quick poll of friends male and female... and there may be some truth to it.

Male friends listed these reasons (summarized) for playing RPGs... become more powerful and crush as many monsters as possible. Females... it's a great way to meet new people, they're like FB games because I can chat with people while playing. Those other games (shoot and kill, hopping around the screen) don't have chat.

So... hearing those responses and thinking about it... maybe there is something to it. But still they are talking about MMORPGs if chatting is such a big appeal.

 

That's an interesting observation, and it spurs some ideas in me... one idea I've always wanted to pursue was a big malleable world (like my sadly abandoned Blockhaven, or some other blocky game you may have actually heard of), but MMO, and with a decent property system. So you'd be able to buy a hunk of land for your very own, or go in with some friends & family and get a big hunk of land and build an entire town.

When I pitch this to my (mostly male) friends who are what I would consider hard-core gamers, they're like, "...That's it? What about monsters? What about leveling up? Where's the challenge?"

But perhaps there is a segment of the market that doesn't care so much about that. Heck, those gamers probably had the same sorts of objections to The Sims, too, which I thought was brilliant. (On the other hand, The Sims Online was a failure. At some point we should probably dig into what went wrong there, but I don't want to hijack this thread for that.)

Do these observations (anecdotal or statistical) generate any ideas in anybody else?

 

I wouldn't call a survey done on few hundred gamers that results into almost 50/50 split, "Females outnumber Males" but "Females equal Males". Another example of media stirring up S*** for hits.

 

Bare in mind that if they have put in more than five hours a week into a game and regularly spend money on games over the course of a few months, they belong to a significantly smaller demo than what this is talking about.

What I am trying to point out is that this is a pile of mangled statistics wrapped in shock journalism. In no way, shape, or form should this actually be misconstrued as "market research," and there is no data here that is actually useful.

 

OK, fine, let's get past this particular piece of journalism, and back to the interesting design questions it raises. This is the design forum after all...

So, let's just assume for the moment that female gamers are a demographic of interest. What design features make a game more interesting (in general) to that market segment? Why have some games done better than others with women gamers?

 

This is one of the things that I wanted to bring up. Games like Ultima online and now the Shroud of the avitar have open world housing system. Having your customisable living space being in an instance has turned many women away from games. They value the affirmation of others walking by and seeing thier hard work and artistic talent.

I have more active women players in my gaming guild. The nights I spend with men in these games are all about getting items and finishing raids ect..

But with the women playing more I have spent more time looking at thier new designs than I ever have. Yes there is a large part of the market (me included) who do not care about what our player housing look like. But the part that does is growing.

The same can be said about items that are for looks only. Take Everquest 2. The changed the focus of EQ from being all about questing to including deco items as loot.
This is a huge change and did cause the company to make a larger investment paying artist to design and make these items for the game.

 

In regards to RPG games,

A broad range of compelling characters. This doesn't have to do with the fact that you are designing directly for women, but that you are designing not exclusively towards the white, young male. Having a character that the player can relate too goes a long way, IMO.

This doesn't mean that you can't include the girly girl, or the hot temptress. But keep in mind that a female character can be multi-dimensional, as well.

 

But I thought women are from Venus. Waste of my money buying that book years ago...

 

Sorry, can you (or somebody) please explain to me what this means? I haven't played Ultima Online in years, and haven't heard of Shroud of the Avatar, and I just don't know what "being in an instance" means. Are you talking about sharding of the world onto different servers? Or is your customizable living space only on your own local computer, not on the server at all? Or something else entirely?

Thanks,
- Joe

 

An instance in a game is the same area that is generated for a player or players only. I.E. many groups can play in a dungeon with only thier group in an instance of the dungeon at the same time.

 

Thing is, that's what good market research does. If we actually had decent data, we could pull out exactly what games women played and come to some understanding of what makes women tick... scratch that. I realized it's pointless. Just throw in a sparkling vampire.

 

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?page_id=35139

Take a look at the top pledges. $12,000 pledge and 4 out of 9 are women. Being at the developer level of pledging with them I noticed that they post and ask questions the most about housing deco and outfits.

Many games are going with the fully custom building system as a feature. But this is one feature. We as developers eventhough we are indie should consider such trends and unpack them in our development process.

 

Women are predominately social creatures, whereas men are driven almost entirely by ego.

Women want to be part of the group.
Men want to be ahead of the group.

Female targeted games are ones that allow community and personalization.

Male targeted games allow competition and status.

*vanishes into the shadows*

 

I think you make some good points. A couple gals also told me they like decking out their characters with different outfits. My girlfriend plays DC Universe Online and her and the other gals seem to enjoy decorating their base or whatever it is called. They actually ground through loads of quests to get enough in-game money or whatever to purchase certain items... statues or something I dunno... they could position around the base. My first thought was "can you destroy them?" Second thought "if so... what does that look like?'

 

A common pet name for Dark Souls is 'fashion souls.' Admittedly it's because most of the armor is useless, so what armor to use is just a matter of taste. Wasn't much of a selection of female mage gear sadly... Don't judge me.

 

Yep. My wife will play long, long hours of grueling quests and won't even bother with high level raiding in her game. She does, however, get upset when her character's current level clothing is 'ugly' even if it's the best armor she has. She also would log in to the game after long spans just to pay her rent, and keep her elven house.

 

I've seen guys whining about how uncool their char looks on D3 after upgrading to better gear. I always thought sure it is a nice bonus if the char looks badass but I don't care if he looks like a court jester if he IS a badass. I never considered some of those monks and barbarians could be girl players.

 

GarBenjamin, I wouldn't necessarily assume they're female just because they want to look cool. But they might be, and if nothing else, this discussion may help us to remember that possibility, eh?

@dreamlarp, thanks for explaining about instances. I agree that having your own build space in an instance is super lame. Having a cool crib is nice, but sharing your cool crib with your friends is way better!

 

Guys will wear the ugliest outfit in the game if it will make them the most powerful player to ever live.

Girls will wear the most useless piece of gear in the game if it will make their character look faaaabulouuus. *snap snap*

There's infinite variations of people, but these are the absolute most vanilla, common types you'll find.

 

Now this is what developers should be discussing. As an indie its hard plan on having your texture artist make tons of vanity textures instead of working on more variations of things that will be base items. It's also more time and work that would go into having both instance and open world housing.

I considered these thing in my deign from the start. There are many features that will add to the whole game and enhance the experience for all players. Just these two that I bought up has great appeal to female and some appeal to male players. To me it is worth including in our design.

BTW I play in one game with three generations, all female. A grandmother, mother and grand daughter. They each pay for more than 4 accounts just to get more houses to deco.

 

First, I do not think these numbers tell the who story, what is the criteria to consider a person a "gamer"? Is it installing angry birds in your phone? played a game in facebook once? I think spending X amount of time on gaming on a week would be more accurate.

 

This is not a sound argument. Who sets the standards on what makes you a gamer. What you are saying is the same thing you are accusing the writers of the article. Gamers play games period.

Just like developers make games. Who can say the way that they play a game or what kind of games they play makes them more of a gamer than anyone else? The numbers we need to pay attention to are the numbers that pertain to the type of game we are making. This is the whole point of researching players at all in the first place.

 

Okay. If it isn't a sound argument, where is the actual data? I finally decided to visit PCGamer and the marketing company's website. There are no links regarding the actual data. I find this entire thing dubious without them.

 

Without really knowing what type of games they are playing -- is it socical facebook games, or hidden object type games or are they playing hardcore games. I guess an easy one would be you could unlock better looking outfits as you progress through the game.

 

Here's a source of some data: http://consumerist.com/2014/06/09/i...-industry-like-the-21-billion-business-it-is/

• 59% of Americans play video games
• 51% of all American households have a dedicated video game console
• 58% of all American adults have a smartphone
• 71% of players are over age 18
• 81% of young adults ages 18-29 play games
• 23% of seniors over age 65 play games
• 48% of players are girls or women
• 36% of players are women over age 18
• 17% of players are boys under age 18

 

And yes, women spend 31% more money, 35% more time, and have a 42% higher retention than men, on mobile games. Source. To see how this impacts design, allow me to share a story.

Most of Gigi's products have been self-help and yet, after leaving EA, I wanted to prove I could build an Indie game. So, I invented Tap Happy, which is halfway between Cookie Clicker and Dr Phil. I designed the game, and then worked closely with my wife over 13 weeks to evolve it into a concept that fit our 60/40 female customer base. Started with Happiness as our theme, here's some of the gender-based design considerations:

• Replaced the 'infinite upgrades' mechanic of clickers, with one-time purchases (shown in image below). My wife thought it weird to purchase 99X 'Circle of Friends' and 37x 'Movie Night', so each purchase evolved into a single, meaningful upgrade.
• Built an 'end' into the game, at level 60, giving the game a sense of closure and accomplishment - practically sacrilegious to clicker-fans.
• Minimized the amount of in-your-head math calculations required to play.
• Layered the upgrades behind a smooth leveling process.
• Wrote 372 stories (2600 lines of text) about marriage, kids, dogs, and relationships.
• Used a bright color palette for UI and icons.

Our design considerations for a female audience impacted the mechanics, the UI, and the theme. It was a huge design risk - innovating a male-dominated genre (i.e. clickers) toward a female audience. And, I can't say if it was ill-advised, or wise. I can say that it massively impacted the design and also that my wife and I had a blast building something truly unique .



Gigi

 

Nice.