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[berzeli]

I'm not. He has issues with the sexualized clothing and says the opposite would be dignified clothing. So sex is the origin from which he arrives at dignity.

I applied the Wikipedia definition (quoted by you) to show that he is in fact slut shaming.


If MK tells women to dress like that it tells people to kill each other. BTW, he only dislikes the sexualized clothes, not the violence.

I think he has a problem linking MK with reality. I hope he understands he shouldn't maim people. So why does he expect women to dress like that because of a game?


You make a claim, you're the one who has to prove it.

This is starting to make my head hurt;
You say that he has a problem with "sexualized clothing", "sex is the origin from which he arrives at dignity" which is weird since he never once utters the word sex or sexualised. He doesn't talk about sex at all really, he talks about objectification which is often a closely related but totally separate concept, you are the one who is conflating his comments with sex. Furthermore the context of dignity is with regards to armour and fighting he seems to consider armour an essential part of being a fighter so dignity in this context as much, if not more, about dignity in being a fighter as to in dignity in being a person. You are making a lot of assertions based on your interpretations and for someone who seems obsessed about proving a claim you sure haven't done a good job of proving you initial statement.

Theo seems more than capable of being able to separate reality from fiction so I have no idea why you are accusing him of not being able to do so. He is talking about objectification which is a pretty darn accepted thing (here is a sort of primer by The American Psychological Association, more specifically counseling psychology), it isn't that it just is Mortal Kombat, it is that there is a multitude of media telling women to behave and appear in a very specific manner.

You're obviously free to disagree with the comments put forward by an twelve year old made with the level of eloquence which that age entails. But to take his words out of context, twist them using nothing more than your own sense of logic and then use those interpretations to make some vile accusations is utterly abhorrent.

 

[Palculator]

Probably not but I will discuss it if you give a concrete example. Why should criticizing someone for their sexuality ever be okay?

It never really is okay to criticize someone for their sexuality. But we're still talking about a work of art so a character's sexuality can be discussed thematically and how appropriate it is for the work itself -- purely on an artistic level without necessarily going into the social impact the work might have. Take for example the alternative outfits in Fatal Frame:

People can rightfully point out that sexualization like this doesn't really fit into a horror game, or at least not the kind of horror FF is going for, and that titilation to this degree undermines the atmosphere the series is going for. By saying this, I wouldn't think they were criticizing the character (or people in real life) for wearing these things, but rather the authors for poor composition since they feel the skimpy costumes clash with the overall tone of the game, and not that these outfits clash with what's "expected from females in the real world."

 

[Figboy79]

This was great. It is so spot on. It's all anecdotal, but every female friend I have is a gamer, and they play all sorts of games from all different genres. They grew up playing games in the 80's just like me, so studies like this never surprised me. I never grew up thinking that girls didn't like video games, because every girl I knew gamed.

Publishers need to get their heads out of their asses, and realize that gaming has NEVER been just for teenage boys. They've only been seeing what they want to see, because they've been perpetuating a self fulfilling prophecy for them. They turn away many female gamers with their pandering to boys, so they use that as an excuse to not be more inclusive.

Many women that love gaming will grin and bear it, and just play the pandering to bits games because what other choice do they have if they love gaming?

My wife gravitates towards games that have character creation. She loves Skyrim, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Fallout, Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Bloodborne, etc, because they give her the option to create a character. She creates both male and female characters, and often plays as every class. She'd love to see more female protagonists get the Nathan Drake treatment though. Fun, fleshed out characters with personality. Create a character isn't a solution.

I'd personally love to see more female protagonists like Nilin from Remember Me. Interesting, intelligent, resourceful, and not overly sexualized. I often play as female characters in create a character games. My Bloodborne Hunter is female. It's just nice to see more diversity, I just think it shouldn't be solely due to character creation.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

Not surprised by the results of the poll or the results of the results of the poll.

 

[PflargBlarg]

You mean what he says only applies to fictional women and he wouldn't have the same opinion about real women, even though he connects both and discusses fictional women as role models?

I think he's 12 years old and parroting a slightly immature view of the matter. The problem with the costumes is not that they're sexy, it's that they're sexy in a totally bizarre context. The Fatal Frame example there is perfect. The authors have decided to put sexy costumes on their characters in a context that makes no sense.

And no I don't think this view of his would crossover to real women. How often is he going to run across women fighting each other in sexy costumes? The sexy costumes in MK are as bizarre as if a person were to participate in a professional political debate in a sexy costume.

His reference to real women wearing these clothes in real life is unfortunate as there really shouldn't be a problem with most of the costumes in the proper context. I think that bit is just him repeating something he's heard and hasn't properly thought about it and I doubt he would really disrespect a woman in real life for those reasons.

I mean, if you're really saying that someone should be able to wear literally anything in any context without fear of criticism I guess there's nowhere to take this conversation as that's a rather extreme position. And then we have to start talking about social contracts and I think that would be pretty out of scope.

 

[Messofanego]

It never really is okay to criticize someone for their sexuality. But we're still talking about a work of art so a character's sexuality can be discussed thematically and how appropriate it is for the work itself -- purely on an artistic level without necessarily going into the social impact the work might have. Take for example the alternative outfits in Fatal Frame:

People can rightfully point out that sexualization like this doesn't really fit into a horror game, or at least not the kind of horror FF is going for, and that titilation to this degree undermines the atmosphere the series is going for. By saying this, I wouldn't think they were criticizing the character (or people in real life) for wearing these things, but rather the authors for poor composition since they feel the skimpy costumes clash with the overall tone of the game, and not that these outfits clash with what's "expected from females in the real world."

What the heck happened to Fatal Frame? Didn't realise critically acclaimed horror games were now fanservice bait, but then the schoolgirl outfits should have been a sign from the first few games...

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=900812

Summary of abilities:

4) Wetness - From getting wet; displayed in the wetness meter on the bottom right. Wetness increases damage, but also encounter rate.

Kikuchi says the ideas they came up with were: a horror with lots of kinds of fear; places where you could experience realistic ghost spots; lots of beautiful girls; and the charm of the expression of being wet. The most important thing at its core was the story.

The interviewer brings up how the clothes go seethrough when they get wet. Shibata laughs, because it's something he wanted to do. Kikuchi says their clothes were designed to make them look sexy when wet.

wut

 

[Palculator]

What the heck happened to Fatal Frame? Didn't realise critically acclaimed horror games were now fanservice bait, but then the schoolgirl outfits should have been a sign from the first few games...

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=900812

wut

I think that's been in the series since forever. The outfits, I mean, not the wetness. Although the wetness business would slightly justify them wearing skimpy swimsuits, I guess

I'm not even that bothered by it, to be honest. I've just seen people being upset about and can fully understand their argument. I wouldn't play with them either for the same reasons mentioned earlier (they're fully optional, after all.) But they can exist as much as they want if the authors are that keen on them. It's an extremely niche series and the outfits are tucked away behind contrived unlock requirements for repeated playthroughs so I wouldn't say FF is the series to get upset about regarding the issue of representation. After all, the authors removed some of the questionable outfits during localization of other games and that didn't change much about the trend because it's still a series few people are even aware of.

 

[nel e nel]

This is correct. Girls play whatever games their dads/brothers are playing. I'm also a teacher, I chat with kids about games. This is also my observation.

What this survey really misses is a connection to buying decisions.
How many AAA-titles do these girls pre-order and how many do they play when they get them after their brothers or dads have finished them.
Without those numbers the survey will have zero impact on the industry.

Because boys are autonomous masters of their own destiny who don't play the games that their dads/brothers are playing; they make their own informed choices.

 

[SolidSnakex]

What the heck happened to Fatal Frame? Didn't realise critically acclaimed horror games were now fanservice bait, but then the schoolgirl outfits should have been a sign from the first few games...

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=900812

Alts like that have always been in the series. Well, at least since the Xbox version of 2.

 

[Messofanego]

I think that's been in the series since forever. The outfits, I mean, not the wetness. Although the wetness business would slightly justify them wearing skimpy swimsuits, I guess

I'm not even that bothered by it, to be honest. I've just seen people being upset about and can fully understand their argument. I wouldn't play with them either for the same reasons mentioned earlier (they're fully optional, after all.) But they can exist as much as they want if the authors are that keen on them. It's an extremely niche series and the outfits are tucked away behind contrived unlock requirements for repeated playthroughs so I wouldn't say FF is the series to get upset about regarding the issue of representation. After all, the authors removed some of the questionable outfits during localization of other games and that didn't change much about the trend because it's still a series few people are even aware of.

Unlockable or main, tradition or not, still just really pointless. As was RE 5 and 6's alt outfits.

 

[Hubb]

Unlockable or main, tradition or not, still just really pointless. As was RE 5 and 6's alt outfits.

Aren't all alt outfits pointless? Whether it is the sexy kind or bringing back an old outfit from a past game. Pointless and only gives people different options.

 

[Palculator]

Unlockable or main, tradition or not, still just really pointless. As was RE 5 and 6's alt outfits.

Sure. But people in the FF localization thread have outright asked for them to be censored, a position I'd like to distance myself from.

Regardless; didn't mean to turn this into an FF thread so I'll return to topic by saying I'm pleasantly suprised by how evenly genre preferences are distributed. Especially regarding fighting games, since the FGC doesn't exactly give me that impression. I guess that's due to some of the stuff Lime mentioned regarding LoL.

 

[The Technomancer]

Sure. But people in the FF localization thread have outright asked for them to be censored, a position I'd like to distance myself from.

Regardless; didn't mean to turn this into an FF thread so I'll return to topic by saying I'm pleasantly suprised by how evenly genre preferences are distributed. Especially regarding fighting games, since the FGC doesn't exactly give me that impression. I guess that's due to some of the stuff Lime mentioned regarding LoL.

Fighting games are actually one of the more popular-ish genres among women my age, I think. But you're absolutely right that they don't really show their faces in the actual community, for much the same reason that Magic: the Gathering has like a 40% female playerbase but there are no women showing up to really any tournament or event

 

[Alebrije]

It never really is okay to criticize someone for their sexuality. But we're still talking about a work of art so a character's sexuality can be discussed thematically and how appropriate it is for the work itself -- purely on an artistic level without necessarily going into the social impact the work might have. Take for example the alternative outfits in Fatal Frame:

People can rightfully point out that sexualization like this doesn't really fit into a horror game, or at least not the kind of horror FF is going for, and that titilation to this degree undermines the atmosphere the series is going for. By saying this, I wouldn't think they were criticizing the character (or people in real life) for wearing these things, but rather the authors for poor composition since they feel the skimpy costumes clash with the overall tone of the game, and not that these outfits clash with what's "expected from females in the real world."

soon on WiiU.

 

[orthodoxy1095]

Aren't all alt outfits pointless? Whether it is the sexy kind or bringing back an old outfit from a past game. Pointless and only gives people different options.

It's not the ultimate solution to the problem with portrayal of female characters, but having the "sexy costumes" be alts instead of the default costume is at least something. Thank God that I can completely ignore those costumes and play with something else.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

So we need Barbie and Monster High RPG's.

...

 

[Raggie]

Every single time a study like this pops up, there's going to be guys who refuse to accept it, because apparently their anecdotal evidence is more reliable than a study.

I see no reason to believe the responses were not honest. The study was made as a survey, and I assume anonymously. There's no pressure to fix your responses to 'look better' on a survey.

I wonder if Theo is speaking from the heart here, or if he is just saying what he thinks is expected of him.

From my experience, boys of that age are all to happy to voice opinions that annoy adults around them.

 

[hurricanes]

...

I think he is joking...

 

[orthodoxy1095]

Every single time a study like this pops up, there's going to be guys who refuse to accept it, because apparently their anecdotal evidence is more reliable than a study.

I see no reason to believe the responses were not honest. The study was made as a survey, and I assume anonymously. There's no pressure to fix your responses to 'look better' on a survey.

Going slightly off topic responding to this: There is a lot of interesting and solid data here, but the bolded isn't completely true. It's obviously an issue with surveys that are not confidential, but "social desirability" can bias even anonymous survey results in some circumstances. I don't see a reason to really suspect it happened here (haven't actually had time to read fully any summary of the survey procedure), but it can happen in a survey, so it's not really right to say that. They probably wouldn't have had time to do this, but this would have been a really neat study to give with a "social desirability scale" to see if there are any effects.

Anyways. Just being pedantic I guess. I love research methods, so I jump on chances to blab.

 

[Messofanego]

I'm pleasantly suprised by how evenly genre preferences are distributed. Especially regarding fighting games, since the FGC doesn't exactly give me that impression. I guess that's due to some of the stuff Lime mentioned regarding LoL.

My sister loves the shit out of Dead or Alive, since 3 on the Xbox. I didn't buy DoA after that but she's always asking if a new one is out. When we went to a comic book convention recently in London, she jumped at the chance to play DoA 5 with other players competitively. The sexualisation doesn't bother her at all, I think cause she focuses on how pretty the girls are and it's just chock full of them. Probably got her into fighting games since we really got into Mortal Kombat 3 as kids. Racing games and fighting games are her jam. As is Ninja Gaiden and Bayonetta. She may not play that many games, but what she plays is pretty hardcore stuff.

 

[The Technomancer]

Every single time a study like this pops up, there's going to be guys who refuse to accept it, because apparently their anecdotal evidence is more reliable than a study.

I see no reason to believe the responses were not honest. The study was made as a survey, and I assume anonymously. There's no pressure to fix your responses to 'look better' on a survey.

Well there might be, but the question itself feels somewhat leading regardless

 

[deadlast]

This GDC talk is amazing. Thanks for posting it OP.

 

[serversurfer]

Platform, not gender, drives gamer differences - EEDAR

I don't really follow the conclusions drawn by that article. The claim is that gaming choices are driving by platform rather than gender, but I think they may be confusing cause and effect. It seems to me that gender drives gaming choices, which in turn drive platform choices. This slide does seem to indicate girls have a strong preference for puzzle games, so it comes to me as no surprise to me that they do most of their gaming on mobile, where all of the puzzle games are. Similarly, if girls are gaming on a console, I'm not surprised they're playing RPG, Action, and Shooters there, because if they weren't interested in that stuff, they'd be playing Candy Crush or Trivia Crack on their phones instead. Yet, girls don't game on console as much as boys do, presumably because those aren't the types of games which typically appeal to them. Similarly, boys don't game on their phones as much as girls do, likely because they're too busy playing AssCreed and CoD on their consoles. Out of curiosity, is there a corresponding slide for the boys and what they tend to play? The conclusion would seem to indicate that the boys made the same gaming choices overall, but is that actually the case?

"The majority of boys surveyed said that women in games were too often treated as sex objects. In fact, only 19% of the boys said they'd be happy if more women-as-sex-objects made their way into games."

Umm, that's not what those boys said at all. They said they didn't think women were overly sexualized in games. The author seems to be assuming that women are overly sexualized in games, and anyone who tries to deny this "fact" just wants to see even more of it.

I get the kids point about the armor or whatever in Mk but the particular argument itself doesn't make any sense

I mean you have a game where a good number of the male characters fight topless as well

Johnny Cage, Jax, Lui Kang etc. So you can't really question it one way without drawing attention to the same thing happening with the male characters on the other side of the spectrum.

Also surprised no one asked him why he was playing that with how sensitive people are in relation to that stuff nowadays lol.

I think this is a fair point as well. Nobody seems to be concerned that People's Sexiest Man Alive and similar focus on "hot guys" in society is giving me unrealistic body images or anything like that.

 

[Crimsonsky]

The over-sexualized female portrayal is one of the strangest things to me. I feel like it will never change no matter what.

No, i'm not saying there is no place for a scantily clad woman in a game. For some situations, it may fit the character perfectly. But there IS such thing as overdoing it and having it detract from the character's personality. If you have a female character who uses her sexuality to her advantage, then yes, having her scantily clad makes sense. If you have a character with a personality like... say... Hinata from Naruto, having her fight in a 2 piece bathing suit would make 0 sense whatsoever.

This. It's all about what personality you ascribe to the female in your game. I have no problem with an artist or team making her however they want, but make her believable. It's much more plausible for a seductive character to use their looks than it is for someone like Hinata, to continue the example.

Also I'm proud of the fact that most boys or men don't care what the gender of their protagonist is. I've always suspected since I nor any of my friends ever cared in the slightest.

While I'm sure all of the data supports their position, and I'm not arguing against it, on the number of gaming girls and what they play I just haven't seen that in my years as a gamer. That just as many females play mmo's and shooters as males, or anywhere close to the same percentage just can't be true. I have tens of thousands of hours, thousands of days of experience and I have never seen that to be the case. I know I'm only one man, but you would think, that if that were true, in thirty-three years of gaming I would've seen at least one instance of it and yet I have not.

I'm not a betting man, but I would make an exception in this case. Poll any guild or all guilds in WoW, FFXIV, or whatever MMO you choose what the percentage of females is in their guilds and it's low, like sub 20%. Even when we raided 40 man dungeons in WoW we had four women and that was the largest percentage in any raiding guild on our server.

I can put forth similar evidence for shooters and even RPG's. I know it's anecdotal and personal experience, and probably all irrelevant. I welcome everyone to play whatever they wish, and while I personally hope they are correct and that the tide has shifted. I haven't seen what their study shows. Now that I'm thinking about it I'd be interested to see what percentage of forum goer's or users on say Neogaf or another forum are female. Not sure if that information is available, or what it might say, but all information has to eventually point to something.

 

[Messofanego]

This. It's all about what personality you ascribe to the female in your game. I have no problem with an artist or team making her however they want, but make her believable. It's much more plausible for a seductive character to use their looks than it is for someone like Hinata, to continue the example.

Also I'm proud of the fact that most boys or men don't care what the gender of their protagonist is. I've always suspected since I nor any of my friends ever cared in the slightest.

While I'm sure all of the data supports their position, and I'm not arguing against it, on the number of gaming girls and what they play I just haven't seen that in my years as a gamer. That just as many females play mmo's and shooters as males, or anywhere close to the same percentage just can't be true. I have tens of thousands of hours, thousands of days of experience and I have never seen that to be the case. I know I'm only one man, but you would think, that if that were true, in thirty-three years of gaming I would've seen at least one instance of it and yet I have not.

I'm not a betting man, but I would make an exception in this case. Poll any guild or all guilds in WoW, FFXIV, or whatever MMO you choose what the percentage of females is in their guilds and it's low, like sub 20%. Even when we raided 40 man dungeons in WoW we had four women and that was the largest percentage in any raiding guild on our server.

I can put forth similar evidence for shooters and even RPG's. I know it's anecdotal and personal experience, and probably all irrelevant. I welcome everyone to play whatever they wish, and while I personally hope they are correct and that the tide has shifted. I haven't seen what their study shows. Now that I'm thinking about it I'd be interested to see what percentage of forum goer's or users on say Neogaf or another forum are female. Not sure if that information is available, or what it might say, but all information has to eventually point to something.

You're right, it was 15% for females in MMOs according to a study done in 2008 by Nick Yee.

I think you're forgetting how many would rather not blurt out they're female in online games cause of sexism and harassment. Girls/women who make their gender known are most of the time harassed into then being quiet and going back into hiding as anonymous players.

Also, these are just teenagers. And most of them, you might not interact with. They might not make the majority of the audience since the average age of the videogame player is 35.

 

[charlequin]

I don't really follow the conclusions drawn by that article. The claim is that gaming choices are driving by platform rather than gender, but I think they may be confusing cause and effect. It seems to me that gender drives gaming choices, which in turn drive platform choices.

The only way to get to this is to back into a predetermined conclusion. You wouldn't see the same level of parity between men and women in each subcategory if gender-based genre preferences were the primary drivers here -- instead, everyone gravitates to the titles that are best suited to the platform.

 

[Shmuely Bully]

There's clearly a market there, but I find their argument that girls play mostly the same kind of games interesting given how strongly over-represented puzzle/adventure games are compared to other genres. Do they provide a similar genre breakdown for boys? Other percentage breakdowns that I've seen for boys show a stronger preference for FPS games in particular IIRC.

Grouping puzzle and adventure games together also seems counter-intuitive to me, although it makes sense that puzzle games in particular are popular on mobile given the relatively simple controls and small time investment required. The fact that they're cheap to produce probably has a lot to do with it too.

 

[sniperpon]

Skimmed the original post, but I don't get the point; why should I care that girls are playing video games?

 

[Messofanego]

There's clearly a market there, but I find their argument that girls play mostly the same kind of games interesting given how strongly over-represented puzzle/adventure games are compared to other genres. Do they provide a similar genre breakdown for boys? Other percentage breakdowns that I've seen for boys show a stronger preference for FPS games in particular IIRC.

Grouping puzzle and adventure games together also seems counter-intuitive to me, although it makes sense that puzzle games in particular are popular on mobile given the relatively simple controls and small time investment required. The fact that they're cheap to produce probably has a lot to do with it too.

Puzzle/adventure games are popular with girls because they're more accessible on controls. They're not twitch reflex games, they're more about problem solving and have a more relaxed pace. Probably why they're lumped together.

They didn't cover the exact stats of the genre breakdown for boys, more just their expectations of genres that girls would play and they only said that they have similar genre interest. They could have showed it, an oversight on their part.

From the ESA latest stats, here is genre breakdown on best selling (not most played, but we can extrapolate a bit) genres:

28.2% Action (PC: 37.7% Strategy)
21.7% Shooters (PC: 24.8% Casual)
13.3% Sports (PC: 20.2% RPGs)
9.5% RPGs (PC: 6.4% Shooters)

 

[serversurfer]

The only way to get to this is to back into a predetermined conclusion. You wouldn't see the same level of parity between men and women in each subcategory if gender-based genre preferences were the primary drivers here -- instead, everyone gravitates to the titles that are best suited to the platform.

See, that makes no sense, because it presupposes these kids have no say whatsoever in the hardware they own and instead play whatever's good on whatever hardware they happen to be stuck with. Since these kids are Americans, I'm pretty sure they have a lot of say in what their parents buy for them, and therefore it makes more sense that they tell their parents what hardware to buy for them based on what games they want to play. Or to put it another way, everyone gravitates to the platforms best suited to the titles. If anyone is working from a predetermined conclusion here, it would seem it's the authors of the study; girls and boys are the same as each other. To prove their supposition, they focus on the genre choices within a given platform, and completely ignore the (fairly significant) gender differences among the platforms themselves.

In my other post, I referenced the "Girls, What Games do You Play?" slide posted in the OP and asked if there was an equivalent slide for the boys so I could compare their answers to the girls'. I checked the source video, and discovered there was no such slide in the presentation. So I listened to the audio to see if they even mentioned what the boys picked, but to my amazement, they seemed to be unable to read their own chart. >< Rosalind says that 26% of girls play FPS, which is accurate, but then she goes on to say that "the most, at 36%" are playing RPG. Except, that's not "the most," because 47% said they play Puzzle, and ironically, Rosalind actually goes on to say we don't think about girls playing RPG, and instead, "We think about them playing puzzle games." Umm, say what? =/

 

[ZdkDzk]

This. It's all about what personality you ascribe to the female in your game. I have no problem with an artist or team making her however they want, but make her believable. It's much more plausible for a seductive character to use their looks than it is for someone like Hinata, to continue the example.

Also I'm proud of the fact that most boys or men don't care what the gender of their protagonist is. I've always suspected since I nor any of my friends ever cared in the slightest.

While I'm sure all of the data supports their position, and I'm not arguing against it, on the number of gaming girls and what they play I just haven't seen that in my years as a gamer. That just as many females play mmo's and shooters as males, or anywhere close to the same percentage just can't be true. I have tens of thousands of hours, thousands of days of experience and I have never seen that to be the case. I know I'm only one man, but you would think, that if that were true, in thirty-three years of gaming I would've seen at least one instance of it and yet I have not.

I'm not a betting man, but I would make an exception in this case. Poll any guild or all guilds in WoW, FFXIV, or whatever MMO you choose what the percentage of females is in their guilds and it's low, like sub 20%. Even when we raided 40 man dungeons in WoW we had four women and that was the largest percentage in any raiding guild on our server.

I can put forth similar evidence for shooters and even RPG's. I know it's anecdotal and personal experience, and probably all irrelevant. I welcome everyone to play whatever they wish, and while I personally hope they are correct and that the tide has shifted. I haven't seen what their study shows. Now that I'm thinking about it I'd be interested to see what percentage of forum goer's or users on say Neogaf or another forum are female. Not sure if that information is available, or what it might say, but all information has to eventually point to something.

So this is completely annectdotal (and a few years out of date), but of the people I knew in high school who played video games, the majority of the ones who played FPS's were the girls. Of course, a lot of guys my age played them, but in terms of people who actively played video games of more than 1 genre or series, girls blew us out of the water with FPSs.

 

[charlequin]

See, that makes no sense, because it presupposes these kids have no say whatsoever in the hardware they own and instead play whatever's good on whatever hardware they happen to be stuck with.

Platform choice is partially driven by practicality (if you have a smartphone, you can game on it without additional investment; if your parents own a PS3 to watch Netflix on, you can play games on it) and partially by preference (getting a system with an exclusive you want.) You end up with a feedback loop (people get certain systems for certain types of games; people who have those systems find that those types of games are the best thing there; repeat.)

What this data shows us is that there aren't independent loops by gender; the cohort of women who play console games is broadly similar to the cohort of men who play console games, and both gravitate towards what's popular on consoles.

I guess you could argue that underlying gender preferences are what dictate the demographic splits per platform (though I don't think you can be conclusive without more info) but that's kind of aside from the article's ultimate point. Under the old model, publishers would target a stereotypical male gamer and ignore things that might drive away women altogether since it was assumed they weren't part of the audience for the game anyway. With this data, it can instead be assumed that the audience for any given type of game has significant populations of both genders and that they both respond relatively similarly in the marketplace. That would mean it's actually better business to avoid including content that actively turns women off, since games that aren't actively exclusionary will hit a larger total audience.

 

[Timedog]

These stats are big fat lies cooked up by feminists who are against ethics in games journalism with the endgoal of getting laws passed to censor cleavage in video games.

Just my opinion.

 

[serversurfer]

Platform choice is partially driven by practicality (if you have a smartphone, you can game on it without additional investment; if your parents own a PS3 to watch Netflix on, you can play games on it) and partially by preference (getting a system with an exclusive you want.) You end up with a feedback loop (people get certain systems for certain types of games; people who have those systems find that those types of games are the best thing there; repeat.)

I see what you're saying, but I don't really see how practicality would be dictating the platform splits. Why would it be any more practical for girls to game on their phones than it is for boys? Yet 22% more girls game on their phones than boys. I don't see why boys would have more access to consoles than do girls, but there's 50% more of them gaming on consoles. It seems to me this is more about preference than accessibility.

What this data shows us is that there aren't independent loops by gender; the cohort of women who play console games is broadly similar to the cohort of men who play console games, and both gravitate towards what's popular on consoles.

Or are they gravitating to the console because of the games it offers?

I guess you could argue that underlying gender preferences are what dictate the demographic splits per platform (though I don't think you can be conclusive without more info) but that's kind of aside from the article's ultimate point. Under the old model, publishers would target a stereotypical male gamer and ignore things that might drive away women altogether since it was assumed they weren't part of the audience for the game anyway. With this data, it can instead be assumed that the audience for any given type of game has significant populations of both genders and that they both respond relatively similarly in the marketplace. That would mean it's actually better business to avoid including content that actively turns women off, since games that aren't actively exclusionary will hit a larger total audience.

That's why I wanted to see the What Boys Play slide. lol And I agree that you need to know your audience, but then I'm even more confused about why we're not looking at what the boys play. Sure, 25% of girls play FPS, but if 75% of boys are playing them, then that means your male audience is three times the size of your female audience. No, you don't want to actively alienate 25% of your potential user base, but at the same time, if you're going to be doing any pandering, it seems logical to pander to the 75%.

Now, that's not to say that all games should pander to boys; we should have games which pander to both genders. I just think that it's generally going to be difficult to pander to both genders in a single game, because while girls are certainly just as good as boys, I don't really see that they're the same as boys, but that's the narrative I see being pushed here. For example, in the video I linked, Rosalind said that she showed a CoD screen shot to 700 girls and they "all" started cheering and high-fiving each other, but according to her own research, only 26% of girls actually play that stuff, so what were the other 518 girls in the room who don't play FPS games so excited about? Anyway, that's one of the feminist factions I've never really understood; those who feel girls should be thought of as not merely equal to boys, but equivalent to them. =/

 

[Messofanego]

That's why I wanted to see the What Boys Play slide. lol And I agree that you need to know your audience, but then I'm even more confused about why we're not looking at what the boys play. Sure, 25% of girls play FPS, but if 75% of boys are playing them, then that means your male audience is three times the size of your female audience. No, you don't want to actively alienate 25% of your potential user base, but at the same time, if you're going to be doing any pandering, it seems logical to pander to the 75%.

Now, that's not to say that all games should pander to boys; we should have games which pander to both genders. I just think that it's generally going to be difficult to pander to both genders in a single game, because while girls are certainly just as good as boys, I don't really see that they're the same as boys, but that's the narrative I see being pushed here. For example, in the video I linked, Rosalind said that she showed a CoD screen shot to 700 girls and they "all" started cheering and high-fiving each other, but according to her own research, only 26% of girls actually play that stuff, so what were the other 518 girls in the room who don't play FPS games so excited about? Anyway, that's one of the feminist factions I've never really understood; those who feel girls should be thought of as not merely equal to boys, but equivalent to them. =/

Don't know what this has to do with feminist factions, other than your projecting.

She's not arguing that girls are exactly the same as boys, it's not that absolute. They just seem to have overlapping interests (puzzle/adventure games still dominate) when previously the assumption was that girls were just into mobile/casual/social games. Watching the talk makes that clear that they're more surprised that it's not quite that assumption and is becoming more of a myth that you'll see regurgitated by many here in GAF threads about female players about dismissing the 44% of audience stat with "they're not playing the core games tho".

 

[shandy706]

FPS, RPGs, and Puzzle Adventure games are dead on accurate for what my wife loves to play.

There are mainly only 2 shooter series that she loves. That's Bioshock and Halo. She's more of a JRPG fan than WRPG fan...but loves Fallout. She loves any kind of puzzle/adventure style game.


Heheh, slightly OT, but the first thing I noticed was the look on this lady's face. Gave me a small laugh as it looks like she just realized she forgot something or had some revelation.

 

[PtM]

Why do kids

Spoiler

these days

even high-five each other when they get to see a vg screenshot?

 

[Tye The Czar]

Body shaming.

I doubt Kate Upton decided on the wardrobe. Or the bath scene. Or the entire directing of the commercial. She just starred in that commercial for money.

We shouldn't be attacking the women in the sexy outfits.

 

[Beloved]

This was an excellent read, but a lot of the points they are making should've been obvious to begin with.

There is a bit of a generational issue coming into play with this though, female gamers over the age of say....30 are much more uncommon than female gamers that are 18. Most of the men that make up the current gaming industry probably do have a skewed view of their target audience because for a long time the consumers were mostly male. But as we know, this has changed drastically in the last 15+ years.

As more females actually get jobs working in the gaming industry, a lot of the problems will begin to resolve themselves because more female input will make it into popular games. There will be a ripple effect. The lack of representation has given many women a passion for seeing positive changes in the gaming industry as a whole.

And I think it's important, because girls need the chance to grow up playing games with female characters that are awesome and varied, and not there just to be saved by a man, or to be a sexual object to spice up the atmosphere.

 

[serversurfer]

Don't know what this has to do with feminist factions, other than your projecting.

Projecting? Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean. Surely you're not suggesting all feminists are the same? =/

She's not arguing that girls are exactly the same as boys, it's not that absolute. They just seem to have overlapping interests (puzzle/adventure games still dominate) when previously the assumption was that girls were just into mobile/casual/social games. Watching the talk makes that clear that they're more surprised that it's not quite that assumption and is becoming more of a myth that you'll see regurgitated by many here in GAF threads about female players about dismissing the 44% of audience stat with "they're not playing the core games tho".

Well, according to that slide, by and large, they're not playing core games. Sure, 26% of girls play FPS, but that means that 74% of them — the vast majority — don't. More than 80% don't play platformers, or sports games, or MMO, or RTS, or MOBA. The message is they're playing the same games as the boys, but they don't present the boys' choices to actually demonstrate that. This other study says (in the comments) that boys were more likely to choose every genre when asked what they play, so one would assume they'd have much higher genre representation than the girls, but Rosalind doesn't give us that data. In fact, in her effort to dispel the myths about what girls "really" play, she actually contradicts her own data by claiming that rather than mostly playing puzzle games as the stereotype dictates, they're mostly playing RPG. But according to the girls they surveyed, they are mostly playing puzzle games, and far more than they play RPG, which is what they play second-most.

 

[Messofanego]

Surprisingly, females over the age of 30 are the most frequent game players, at 43 years old.

Women 18 or above represent a greater part of the game-playing population than boys age 18 or younger. That probably ties into the fact that the most frequently played games are social (30%). Probably core gamers too busy talking about games than playing them for hundreds of hours

http://www.theesa.com/about-esa/industry-facts/

 

[4Tran]

These figures fall in line with my expectations. Girls play pretty much the same games as boys, albeit with slightly different biases and in different porportions. Game designers should be aware that there are going to be girls and women playing their games and that these gamers should be accomodated. It's still nice to see this data collated though - we need more research like this.

Grouping puzzle and adventure games together also seems counter-intuitive to me, although it makes sense that puzzle games in particular are popular on mobile given the relatively simple controls and small time investment required. The fact that they're cheap to produce probably has a lot to do with it too.

Adventure games usually use puzzles as their primary form of gameplay. Would you classify a game like the 7th Guest as a puzzle game or adventure?

So this is completely annectdotal (and a few years out of date), but of the people I knew in high school who played video games, the majority of the ones who played FPS's were the girls. Of course, a lot of guys my age played them, but in terms of people who actively played video games of more than 1 genre or series, girls blew us out of the water with FPSs.

That goes a long way in showing how anecdotal evidence is statistically insignificant.

Well, according to that slide, by and large, they're not playing core games. Sure, 26% of girls play FPS, but that means that 74% of them — the vast majority — don't. More than 80% don't play platformers, or sports games, or MMO, or RTS, or MOBA. The message is they're playing the same games as the boys, but they don't present the boys' choices to actually demonstrate that.

The fact that the figures are that high among all the girls polled already proes that they're playing the same games as boys. Even if girls prefer to play other genres, there are still significant numbers playing just about any genre out there.

 

[serversurfer]

Women 18 or above represent a greater part of the game-playing population than boys age 18 or younger.

I compared those charts to US Census data, and found some interesting stuff.

While women 18 or older make up 33% of the overall gaming population, women 20 or older actually make up nearly 38% of the population, which would mean that women of that age are underrepresented in gaming. Meanwhile, boys 18 and younger make up 15% of gamers, yet boys 19 and under make up less than 14% of the population. Unfortunately, the Census demographics don't align precisely with the survey demos, but I chose breakpoints which should cause women to be overrepresented and men underrepresented, but we still see the opposite overall. That fits with the survey's indication that males make up 56% of the total gaming population, despite being only 49% of the overall US population, and while females are 51% of the overall population, only 44% of gamers are women. That would seem to indicate that males are "overly" inclined to game, and females, not so much.

The fact that the figures are that high among all the girls polled already proes that they're playing the same games as boys. Even if girls prefer to play other genres, there are still significant numbers playing just about any genre out there.

Well, no, because as I already pointed out, we never saw the data for the boys, so we can't make any comparisons at all, much less declare them to be "the same." If ~25% of boys are playing FPS, then yes, we can say they appeal equally to both genders, but if ~75% of boys play them, then we can conclude the number of male players far outweighs the number of female players. Conversely, if ~10% of boys say they play FPS, that would indicate the female audience is the largest by far.

But again, without the boys' responses, we can't make those comparisons. All we can do is look at the girls' answers, and say, "Sure enough, they're mostly playing puzzle games."

 

[Nirolak]

Well, no, because as I already pointed out, we never saw the data for the boys, so we can't make any comparisons at all, much less declare them to be "the same." If ~25% of boys are playing FPS, then yes, we can say they appeal equally to both genders, but if ~75% of boys play them, then we can conclude the number of male players far outweighs the number of female players. Conversely, if ~10% of boys say they play FPS, that would indicate the female audience is the largest by far.

But again, without the boys' responses, we can't make those comparisons. All we can do is look at the girls' answers, and say, "Sure enough, they're mostly playing puzzle games."

Here we go: http://www.engadget.com/2014/10/27/report-men-play-more-mmos-fpses-women-rule-mobile-rpg/

Despite very little effort, women in the US make up 1/3rd of the FPS market. I would propose this is part of why we see a lot of FPS characters dressing way more practically these days and a larger effort on making playable female characters.

I made a thread about female character design in Fall 2014's big Western games and I'd argue it's very different than it was 10 years ago: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=912581

Going further, RPGs are actually skewed more toward women than men, and I'd like to note that's a genre where you usually have character customization and gender choice.

 

[PtM]

That would seem to indicate that males are "overly" inclined to game, and females, not so much.

Yes, but this could as well be just because of prejudice, culture, marketing and the like.

 

[charlequin]

Well, no, because as I already pointed out, we never saw the data for the boys, so we can't make any comparisons at all, much less declare them to be "the same."

Which is the whole reason the EEDAR data is linked in the first place -- we can't get the direct comparison numbers from the presentation in the OP, but we can get independent numbers that show preferences being very similar within each platform cohort. There's clearly a tilt overall, but it's small enough that it doesn't make sense to exclude women as part of the target audience.

 

[serversurfer]

Despite very little effort, women in the US make up 1/3rd of the FPS market.

Thanks. I was hoping for more of an apple-to-apples with Rosalind and Ashley's data, but this is still helpful. So male FPS players outnumber females 2:1. So how do we go from that to "Girls plays them just as much as boys"?

I would propose this is part of why we see a lot of FPS characters dressing way more practically these days and a larger effort on making playable female characters.

You mean an increase in female players means more pandering to women? Sure, that would make sense. Do we have any indication of how effective these efforts are? Did any franchises experience a significant sales bump after adding the ability to play as a female? Any studies showing large numbers of girls saying, "Well, I would play ____, if only I could play as a girl," or anything like that?

Going further, RPGs are actually skewed more toward women than men, and I'd like to note that's a genre where you usually have character customization and gender choice.

Yeah, that surprised me even in the R&A data. I don't really know many girls who are in to RPG. I'd have guessed platformers would be their second choice after puzzle games, but only like 1 in 6 play platformers. /shrug

Here's an amusing anecdote about gender stereotypes and RPGs. I used to play a lot of FFXI. When I found out my girlfriend played a lot of WoW, I asked her if she had a lot of friends on there. She said, "No, I never talk to anyone at all. I just run around and do quests." My response was, "Really? I mostly look at FFXI as a chat room with stuff to do if you get bored… =/" lol

Yes, but this could as well be just because of prejudice, culture, marketing and the like.

Could be, yes. The reasons for the differences are another discussion entirely though. What I'm questioning here is the assertion that there effectively is no difference, because none of the studies presented actually seem to show that.

Which is the whole reason the EEDAR data is linked in the first place -- we can't get the direct comparison numbers from the presentation in the OP, but we can get independent numbers that show preferences being very similar within each platform cohort. There's clearly a tilt overall, but it's small enough that it doesn't make sense to exclude women as part of the target audience.

Well, yeah, but like I said before, that doesn't really tell us anything useful at all. The study says people gaming on their phones play phone games, and people gaming on their consoles play console games. Well, no shit. Thanks, EEDAR, but I really didn't need a survey to tell me that.

The study also tells us that girls aren't particularly inclined to game on consoles in general, which would make sense if console games don't really appeal to them for the most part, and the R&A data would seem to indicate this is indeed the case. Yet the author ignores the gender differences among platforms, fixates on the games being played on a given platform, and then concludes that your gender has no bearing on what games you play. =/

 

[charlequin]

The study also tells us that girls aren't particularly inclined to game on consoles in general,

40% is hardly "not particularly inclined."

Yet the author ignores the gender differences among platforms, fixates on the games being played on a given platform, and then concludes that your gender has no bearing on what games you play. =/

If you don't approach the data hellbent on finding any way to twist it around in support of excluding female gamers then the author's approach is pretty much the most logical one. The conclusion "there's some statistically significant gender variance between platforms, but within a platform gender differences are insignificant" is the straightforward conclusion from the data in question.

 

[PtM]

If you don't approach the data hellbent on finding any way to twist it around in support of excluding female gamers

That's harsh.

 

[truly101]

Interesting stuff. I can see some of this stuff already manifest in my 7 year old daughter. She isn't quite aware of sexism in games so when she sees the girls in dynasty warriors, to her, they are just pretty (and to be fair there are a number of armor wearing girls in those games). She is interested in anything I play, and I think that will translate to what she plays when she gets a bit older.