What does it matter if you've met us or not? Aside from the fact that you are talking to a bunch of female gamers at this very minute in this thread, do you just not believe these numbers or what?
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ESA: 37% of the most frequent US game buyers are female, gaming age breakdown
- Thread starter Nirolak
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What does it matter if you've met us or not? Aside from the fact that you are talking to a bunch of female gamers at this very minute in this thread, do you just not believe these numbers or what?
The stat says 95% but uh, this is a really weird thing to fixate on. Uh, neat findings!
Well, since I didn't see the actual survey I can't say what the questions were other than, they are about game purchasing. You can buy Scrabble on Steam, PS4, Xbox, and a ton of other things. That would be purchasing a game so I would have to say, without any new specifics of the actual questions asked, yes.
In regards to the quote you pulled out of context, I took issue with the last statement of the poster i quoted. It that bothers you, I apologize.
If they're the video game version then sure. Uno on XBL was a blast and I had a couple casino games on the snes and ps1.
Bubba_Sparks
Member
I never said I didn't believe the numbers. I just expressed the fact that I haven't encountered many female gamers in my life and attributed it to being part of a different generation. Right or wrong, that was what my life experiences had led me to believe!
Who are the people in this thread to tell me what I have experienced in useless? Why should I have approached the topic differently if it fell outside of what I had experienced?
FingerBang
Member
Those are good numbers. I'm sure that the percentage of female gamers is only going to grow.
Razzorn34
Member
I don't believe most people are saying these things under the guise of malice. My first thought when I see these statistics is, where are they? I mean, yes, I believe these stats to a point... But, unless I'm at an anime convention, I never see women openly playing games, talking about games, reading about games, etc. On the flip side... Men generally don't have issues talking openly about the latest game, wearing gaming shirts, reading magazines, or pulling out a 3DS on the bus. So, I can understand when people are seemingly bewildered by data like this.
Don't get me wrong, I definitely want to see more females entrenched in gaming. But, it almost seems like they don't want to be found. Yet, they do exist. This is why males still think of them as magical unicorns.
Reptars Revenge
Member
I don't know it's in the second picture by Op. 94% pay attention to the video games played by their child. That one.
Jest Chillin
Member
The people in this thread are pointing out that your experience is not an absolute or even accurate representation of reality because perspective is subjective, not objective. They're doing so because making a statement that your experience or opinion is contrary to the one expressed by the data inherently insinuates that the data is wrong, whether that's your intent or not.
If your intent in expressing your personal experience was not to argue against the data, then you should approach the topic from an open minded stance. Be willing to accept that your experience isn't absolute. Defending your statement and placing personal qualifiers on what "technically" counts isn't taking an open minded stance. It's the complete opposite.
A lot of the time women don't want to be found because 1. Why should they *need* to be found? I.e. Their hobbies shouldn't matter outside of the context of the hobby itself. 2. When they are found, there's a high likelihood of being harassed.
Some people don't feel the need to advertise their interests. Still others don't want to be defined by their interests. And generally, no one likes to be harassed.
One thing I've historically noticed is that the women who play core console games en mass tend to actually be on the younger side relative to GAF, due to when playing console games became perceived as something everyone did versus being perceived as something nerdy white social outcast men did.
Toward this end, you tend to find the most female gamers on social networks for young women.
We can even take something like Destiny official twitter tweets and see who is replying to see this in action.
https://mobile.twitter.com/DestinyTheGame/status/847493511800803331
Or Mass Effect.
https://mobile.twitter.com/masseffect/status/844941969377955844
Or Overwatch.
https://mobile.twitter.com/PlayOverwatch/status/851859905292058625
This is before we even get to platforms like Tumblr or Pinterest.
Nostremitus
Member
I'd think it's safe to say that most parents who game would want to play with our kids. I mean... It's fun.
Or do you assume that most parents who game don't include their kids in their hobby?
It's actually very easy to find us online in the games we play, at least in my experience. The problem being, naturally, that a lot of these games are games that aren't particularly popular on console-centric sites like Neogaf - MMORPGs in particular being chief among them (and where I've spent most of my gaming time in recent years). Well, that, and text chat is not forthcoming about who's behind the keyboard.
Jump into the discord of any decently large guild in a popular MMORPG (especially FFXIV) and you'll find a LOT of feminine voices all over. In fact, my experience has been that it is quite rare to run into an MMORPG guild that's a pure sausage fest. Might also just be the games I play, which would make sense, since my tastes will naturally run in that direction.
But in public there is simply no reason to advertise our interests, especially if we do play stuff like MMORPGs and the like (which the generic male gamer in public has a remarkably low chance of also being into - much more likely to run into guys who play sports games, action games, first person shooters, MOBAs, and so on and so forth). It's just unnecessary. Not like we have any shortage of male attention even without that knowledge being advertised everywhere. If I want to try to keep my head down and avoid being harassed in public then advertising how much of a (closet) geek I am is very much the opposite of what I want to do.
It's funny, too, how much flak I tend to get just for making my preferences known even on a board like this - there are tons of guys who like to downplay the opinions of folks who are unlike themselves making any attempt at making my voice heard extremely arduous. And you guys wonder why we're not all loud and proud like you folks tend to be. I mean, shit, just look at the typical reaction to the notion of a gender option in a Zelda game - I just want one lousy male-female gender option (an option, mind you, that would hardly change anything at all) and folks just come out of the bloody woodworks to cry out at how much it matters that Link has to be male and shit like that. That is not how you encourage me to publically acknowledge my interests!
So, basically, just pay attention. Pay attention to the general climate around gaming. Pay attention to how much shit women get just for making it known that we exist and happen to play some of the games that you guys do (and a lot of the ones you don't). Shit, pay attention to how much crap we get just for admitting that we're female in the first place! This really shouldn't be news to you guys. Honestly.
CannonFodder52
Member
I gotta share some of this with a couple a couple of my friends. At least one guy was trying to tell me that if you take out mobile games, women make up 1%...
AtomskEater
Member
Lol, ask him for receipts on that figure. His ass is not a valid source of statistics.
Sword Of Doom
Member
I added this to the OP since people were talking about older gamers.
67% of parents play games with their children at least once a week.
Majority of parents playing games with their kids and thinking it's a positive influence on them are good to see
CannonFodder52
Member
Haha, yea I was aware it was bs. I just didn't feel like arguing nor did I have any infographs at the time.
Unfortunately, he likely believes that number he gave me.
Those parent numbers seem really strange. Maybe it's different now than when I was a child in the 90s since many parents with currently young kids grew up with video games. Not that it's a bad thing, just surprising to see some of those numbers so high. I figured most kids now just play LoL and Minecraft online with friends.
AtomskEater
Member
Sorry, didn't mean to imply you believed that! It's just super funny when people say stuff like that with complete certainty, like bro where did you learn these things?
Nostremitus
Member
Anecdote time.
I was born in the early-mid 80s. I played NES with my mom, mostly Mario games. My grandmother had a Super Nintendo before I did. (Mainly because she bought herself one when she bought one as a Christmas gift for me and my brother.) My grandmother was a big Pacman fan who skipped NES but jumped on the SNES and discovered Zelda LttP, Puzzle Bobble and Mario All Stars. She then bought a Super Gameboy for Link's Awakening.
Every girlfriend I had played games.
My wife has a gaming rig.
I play couch co-op Musou games with my son and Mario Kart with the family.
I realize my anecdote doesn't outweigh anyone else's, but the data seems to suggest more people have my experience than not.
The first part seems totally out of the ordinary for myself and anybody I grew up with. Can't remember ever seeing a parent playing games with us or even showing any interest in what we were playing as long as it wasn't vulgur.. As far as purchasing games we usually were just given money and dropped off lol. Even then a lot of "acquiring" games was us trading between each other. Nowhere close to 71% would say gaming had a positive impact. Their childhoods were pretty much totally spent outside so they'd get visibly annoyed if we spent a summer afternoon inside playing N64. Good that you had that experience but I can't imagine that's the norm for us born in the 80s. I can see it being a lot different now though as a lot of parents were in high school or college during the late 90s goldeneye type explosion.
I also grew up in a pretty redneck area so much of the bonding was hunting, fishing, or watching sports.
Jest Chillin
Member
Born in the early-mid 80's. Dad played Tecmo Bowl with me on the NES. Later played the PC version of Risk with me as well.
Well its not like games demos/trials very often.
I can tell you my experience, my sister myself and my brother were born through the late 70 and very early 80s, we grew up in rural oregon.
My parents loved games and would play with us often. My parents had a save file in Zelda on the NES and infuriated us because they got a lot further then we did faster. My mother played tetris constantly and kept her high scores on the fridge, and we would have family Dr. Mario competitions. When we refused to play with her, she would buy candy that we could earn by beating her. She is really good at that game.
Throughout the years my dad would play fighting games with us, street fighter, mortal kombat, virtua fighter.
Even now that we are all grown up and moved out, my parents have wii's for themselves.
I have no notion of what the correct percentage is, I inherently mistrust their result simply because I mistrust the method which produced it.
Obliterator
Member
There's already been several good posts in the thread addressing this but I'll add 2 more observations that I've seen on my end over the years in terms of helping female gamers at retail.
A) A lot of women who game due so somewhat incognito or on the down low due to poor experiences when putting it out there. I'm sure many female gamers even on GAF who can attest to poor experiences online when it becomes known they are women in games that may traditionally skew heavily male. If for example my wife goes into regular chat on Gears of War (she's a massive fan of the franchise) she will no joke get multiple messages / friend requests a night from randos trying to bother her.
B) Also women who game don't necessarily play the exact same core games or visit the exact same places that male gamers do. As I noted earlier the retailer I work for currently skews female over male in its clientele and it's been absolutely eye opening how many women are buying games for themselves there in stark comparison to the last retailer I worked for. From what I've seen its because they feel comfortable there and not like they are out of place or being "judged" like they would at a location that may specifically cater to the hardcore gamer.
At the end of the day I'm a man so I'm not going to speak for all ladies out there. I'm sure they can attest for themselves on how they feel about things. This is just my perspective from years of dealing with consumers as well as antecedents from having a wife who plays some pretty hardcore games.
The other reason why the stat is hard to believe is because the AAA gaming industry hasn't done a lot to appeal to women. I don't mean making girly games. I mean that a lot of games embrace an attitude that is clearly targeting men. I guess it has gotten better these past few years, but it still seems pretty skewed.
charlequin
Banned
Well, typically in this type of scenario, the rational and productive response would be to look at the survey data, compare it to your own anecdotal experience, and immediately draw the conclusion that something about the latter is unrepresentative or artificially narrow and therefore there's a whole segment of gaming that you've managed to miss by virtue of historical accident or playing in a sheltered environment.
This particular question is going to have a very different answer for people with 5 year olds today as opposed to when those same people were 5, just because now all those parents grew up with games from day one.
I mean, except for diversifying into genre models that are historically more popular with women, adding female character options to games, reducing gratuitous sexism and misogyny in advertising and storytelling, modifying standard male body types in games to include more aimed at the female gaze, providing mechanisms to disguise your gender or avoid unwanted contact when playing online.....
I just think it would be more meaningful. Id love to see statistics of the growing number female gamers. I assume companies would too then we would see more variety in games.
Including Uno sales wont help Ubi or whoever make that decision though. Then again these companies probably have their own statistics to go by.
We are mostly hiding. Online is not the best place to make people know you are a women so most don't.
And while playing games and wearing t-shirts is getting pretty acceptable for men it is still considered a bit weirder for women. I know plenty of my friends who love games but wouldn't be caught dead in any merchandise
Nostremitus
Member
This is one of the reasons my wife is a MASSIVE Bioware fan. She started with Baldur's Gate on PC back in the day and now plays Dragon Age and Mass Effect. She has every game and every piece of DLC for them. She gets to play as a character she can identify with in their games.
But she never uses voice chat when playing anything online. Too many assholes who think that women shouldn't play online unless they want to be heckled or sexually harassed.
I buy online or at the toy store. My husband gets addressed in the local game store even though it is clear I'm the one buying the game. Or I get met with surprise when I say it is not a present.
I didn't even realise I did this until I read your comment but even though on paper I should like the game store more I have stopped going.
tearsintherain
Member
I wish there were more stats on people who buy games at launch for MSRP, to me thats the one key stat that would seem to interest publishers, similar to opening weekend box office numbers for movies or the 18-34 live TV show ratings for TV.
Sure, its great that I buy Fallout 4 two years after release for $10 but the pub is gonna make the bulk of its money from everyone who buys their game at release, and slicing and dicing that stat up by age, sex, location, education level, race, etc I would think is far more valuable than just anyone who happens to spend money on something video game related at any point.
Its also a little troublesome that the average age seems to be creeping up, you need new young kids buying stuff to keep the market healthy as older people cycle out.
Sure, its great that I buy Fallout 4 two years after release for $10 but the pub is gonna make the bulk of its money from everyone who buys their game at release, and slicing and dicing that stat up by age, sex, location, education level, race, etc I would think is far more valuable than just anyone who happens to spend money on something video game related at any point.
Its also a little troublesome that the average age seems to be creeping up, you need new young kids buying stuff to keep the market healthy as older people cycle out.
Yoshi
Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
Not to say that one should not focus on various groups, but I can see a reason why one would target groups of "core gamers" over "casual gamers", even if the former market is not larger than the latter: It is easier. Make a good platformer and I will buy it. Make a good online competitive shooter and the shooter guys will buy it. This is predictable.
But take a look at the market that has been called "casual" since 2004. Make a great sim game (Nintendogs) or a brain testing game (Kawashima) or a movement based sports game (Wii Sports) that just happens to catch a broader audience and it will explode. But just a few yeas later, make a new brain testing game (Devilish Brain Training) and it is so niche that it takes years to even get released in Europe, the movement-based sports games also completely faltered after Wii Sports Resort, with Wii Sports U and Kinect Sports Rivals absolutely crashing. To catch audiences that are not super enarmoured about games, you need to catch their attention with something special if you want them to invest huge sums at once. For phone games, the barrier of entrance is lower, which in principle is helping with such audiences, but even in that space it is not easy to predict a solid grossing game in advance. So, if a company is risk averse and has the pipeline for "AAA" products, it is safe for them to invest most of their money into these tried and tested formulas over targeting more difficult audiences primarily. For this purpose, it is of course helpful to identify "enthusiast gamers" and their "needs", to safely target them.
Note, that this does not benefit me much, I hate shooters, sports games, and realistic racing games, also I don't like most open world games, so the current landscape of AAA games is not making me happy, if developers were to attempt more arcade-style and puzzle-style games on a big enough scale to warrant retail releases, it would definitely benefit me over the narrowing AAA focus. But I can see why one would do that.
EDIT: Also from a fan's perspective it may be more valuable to know how the market for what you are interested in develops. E.g. the games market has grown a lot since the late ninties, but as a platformer fan, from my perspective, the "relevant to me" market has actually shrunken, wheres a segment that does not propel what I enjoy, the GTA- and CoD-crowd, has grown. Conflating both groups (which definitely has a purpose as well) does not tell me personally much about how the market segment I personally deem important (for my interests) develops.
Rapscallion
Member
The ESA reports are always great.
In regards to the 37% of female gamers- I actually wonder if that percentage might be underrepresenting female gamers because it only looks at purchases. I don't believe it factors in free-to-play games, which tend to a popular genre amongst mobile gamers (which female gamers make up a higher proportion in comparison to console and PC gaming).
I could be wrong however and the statistic does include downloads and purchases.
In regards to the 37% of female gamers- I actually wonder if that percentage might be underrepresenting female gamers because it only looks at purchases. I don't believe it factors in free-to-play games, which tend to a popular genre amongst mobile gamers (which female gamers make up a higher proportion in comparison to console and PC gaming).
I could be wrong however and the statistic does include downloads and purchases.
Don't sweat it..most polls are not extensive and only involve a few hundred to 1000 people which in no way represents a proper concensus of the gaming community.
I see these polls as exaggerated approximations. Granted the ratios generated, its still a bad representation of our community - in all honesty a poll should involve thousands if not 10s of thousands of people, because let's face it these numbers do not represent us.
Polls should take years...
It's probably pretty different from country to country
I talked about this to a couple of friends who work at GS and they were pretty shocked at that 37% saying that they barely ever seen any female ever entering their shops outside of mothers + child...probably the "gamer" stigma wich is still definitely bigger here in Italy than the US i guess? I also think that physical shop are not the norm anymore so i'd expect most buyers to use something like Amazon anyway
It's still pretty awesome to see the average age being 33-37, was expecting much lower
@and i just realized that i didn't consider mobile gaming at all, welp
I talked about this to a couple of friends who work at GS and they were pretty shocked at that 37% saying that they barely ever seen any female ever entering their shops outside of mothers + child...probably the "gamer" stigma wich is still definitely bigger here in Italy than the US i guess? I also think that physical shop are not the norm anymore so i'd expect most buyers to use something like Amazon anyway
It's still pretty awesome to see the average age being 33-37, was expecting much lower
@and i just realized that i didn't consider mobile gaming at all, welp
Spacejaws
Member
I do actually wish that mobile could be removed from these things as I'd like the objective to introduce more women to gaming than skewing the results to make it seem like more people are avid gamers thsn it seems.
I've barely met another female gamer whereas the male portion of my workplace is largely gamers. It's a bit strange to see these statistics and not see the evidence to back it up other than, and I am deathly serious , candy crush.
Strangely enough my girlfriend used to play snes games but when I asked her why she stopped
She said it was because it was a kids thing. Hopefully the next generation of kids won't have these silly barriers.
I've barely met another female gamer whereas the male portion of my workplace is largely gamers. It's a bit strange to see these statistics and not see the evidence to back it up other than, and I am deathly serious , candy crush.
Strangely enough my girlfriend used to play snes games but when I asked her why she stopped
She said it was because it was a kids thing. Hopefully the next generation of kids won't have these silly barriers.
Necron
Member
I'll be honest here: my parents don't get why I enjoy my time with gaming and see it mostly as a waste of time (same as "watching TV") . I'm mostly even ashamed to admit it with work colleagues (never told anybody, except for my apprentice) or outside of a certain social circle. I would never put it on my CV (we generally include hobbies here on the CV in Switzerland, don't know how it is abroad) despite including other forms of media of a similar nature (e.g. Books, music, films). I wouldn't even include it as part of my list of interests/hobbies for a first date (unless prompted/under certain circumstances). Part of that feeling and behaviour is on me; another part of it is worrying about the perception of others and still fearing negativity on the matter. Some were even surprised once I do tell them, weirdly enough. This may warrant a thread on its own discussing this subject specifically but I think it's appropriate here as well. Maybe I'll ask my father to play some Uncharted 4 one day or The Last of Us. A lot has changed since he played Croc: Legend of the Ghobbos, that's for sure.
I have a lot of female friends that don't let on they play games especially at work.
People will often think they are weird or some of the fellow gamers come on a bit too strong.
I'm really open about it. I mean I'm in the train to work and wearing a horizon t-shirt. And in my experience plenty of women strike up a chat about gaming.
S
Steve.1981
Unconfirmed Member
Very cool to see these numbers. Hopefully the percentage will only go up with new blockbusters like Horizon, featuring great female leads like Aloy, promoting more diversity and representation in the stories that games tell. I've got no interest in gaming being some exclusive boys-only club. Everyone's welcome. It's the only way the medium will grow.
And it's very cool to see so many of my fellow gaming parents sitting down to play with their kids. My son and me are currently making our way through the Halo series, on Heroic. It's such a great bonding experience. Lately he keeps shouting me up to his room to show me all his cool new discoveries in Breath of The Wild, as well. We have a lot of fun together with gaming (more fun than I ever had with my father at any point in my life). We're closer through our shared love of gaming as a hobby.
And it's very cool to see so many of my fellow gaming parents sitting down to play with their kids. My son and me are currently making our way through the Halo series, on Heroic. It's such a great bonding experience. Lately he keeps shouting me up to his room to show me all his cool new discoveries in Breath of The Wild, as well. We have a lot of fun together with gaming (more fun than I ever had with my father at any point in my life). We're closer through our shared love of gaming as a hobby.
blankslatenator
Banned
ROFL.
The ESA numbers suggest a movement away from women frequently purchasing games
2014: 50%
2015: 41%
2016: 40%
2017: 37%
Though I wonder if the 50% number was under a different methodology or just a "rogue" result cause by sampling error, because a 9% shift in a year seems too big to believe. 2014 was also the year that showed the highest proportion of female gamers, at 48% compared to 41% this year.
2014: 50%
2015: 41%
2016: 40%
2017: 37%
Though I wonder if the 50% number was under a different methodology or just a "rogue" result cause by sampling error, because a 9% shift in a year seems too big to believe. 2014 was also the year that showed the highest proportion of female gamers, at 48% compared to 41% this year.
Arguments like this are just pointless, man. Especially when you suffix your post with this:
----
My parents and many friends felt the same until I managed to create a job for myself in gaming based on applying skills I've cultivated to the medium. Whenever I'm at a party with my parents now they're proudly like "All those years we thought he wasted playing games, they're earning him money now!"
I'm assuming you're female, yes? As a guy I do this same thing so it's not just you, but I could understand how it's more pronounced for women. I think it's pretty normal to not offer that up early in conversation - whether you're female or male - because of the bad connotation is has for some people. Here in the states I don't put that on my CV either for the same reason.
I hate that gaming is negatively perceived by some, and I should probably care less what people think about it, but don't feel like it's just you that does this! I know there are plenty of others that fall in this boat from past Neogaf threads.