Girl Gamers: Who are You?
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On my fiance's behalf I will answer some of these questions.
Canada
All sorts of different types of games. Sims 2, flash games (like Diner Dash or Cakemania), shooters, rpgs, racing (Nascar). Not to big into the platformers or sports. She loves Big Fish lately.
We got a good enough comp to play almost anything out right now.
She does play quite a bit but doesn't spend alot of time on forums discussing games so I guess she wouldn't be considered hardcore. Best definition would be average gamer I suppose.
Rock/Metal
Canada
All sorts of different types of games. Sims 2, flash games (like Diner Dash or Cakemania), shooters, rpgs, racing (Nascar). Not to big into the platformers or sports. She loves Big Fish lately.
We got a good enough comp to play almost anything out right now.
She does play quite a bit but doesn't spend alot of time on forums discussing games so I guess she wouldn't be considered hardcore. Best definition would be average gamer I suppose.
Rock/Metal
I completely disagree with you. I think it is possible to target girl gamers. Girls are different from guys, that is a scientific fact. Thus we enjoy different things, we think in different ways. As a girl I think having a gaming site targeting me would be a great thing. It probably wouldn't be the only gaming website I went to, but I would definitely visit it (if it was good at least). And while sterotypes are not always correct, they are always based in fact. There is a reason for them.Caym said:
Well, I'll be looking forward to see what ingenious brainwashing for luring in females you have in mind. I mean that unironically, I make it a point to try to resist advertising, and that battle becomes much more interesting knowing stuff is tailored to target me.
Now that I think about it maybe I should answer the questions posed for that particular reason. To wit:
I live in Sweden. I'm very old. Interests include hiking, writing, movies, comics and people. Haven't thought about it but I suppose I belong to an artist/philosopher subculture. Classic rock is my kind of music mostly, I'm married and we make less money than the least option available on any survey. As for formal education, let's say I'm college student equalient. I buy most of my games, which doesn't happen that often. I've gone from hardcore to casual gaming, my computer is aging fast and I'm online maybe 30-50% of the time. Favorite games include Eve Online, Warcraft 2, Commandos, Carmageddon, Quake 3, Planescape Torment, early Fallout, Final Fantasy 6, Twisted Metal 2, Super Mario 64, Devil May Cry, Ico, Super Metroid, Zombies Ate My Neighbors. I don't do genres.
As for what I want from a site, I have really no idea. Thinking about the numerous sites I do frequent, I do not care about these sites at all. The only thing that matters is the information that they give me in the case of informational sites, or the people that I associate with in the case of social sites. I think of the sites as windows through which I access the things that I'm there for. As long as windows are reasonably clean, you don't see the, you see through them. I suppose a perfect website would be invisible.
Oh, and if you do succeed in making an excellent site that attracts a million girls, you do know you're also going to get ten million guys who want to talk to girls, right? Not that that would be bad from a marketing standpoint.
Now that I think about it maybe I should answer the questions posed for that particular reason. To wit:
I live in Sweden. I'm very old. Interests include hiking, writing, movies, comics and people. Haven't thought about it but I suppose I belong to an artist/philosopher subculture. Classic rock is my kind of music mostly, I'm married and we make less money than the least option available on any survey. As for formal education, let's say I'm college student equalient. I buy most of my games, which doesn't happen that often. I've gone from hardcore to casual gaming, my computer is aging fast and I'm online maybe 30-50% of the time. Favorite games include Eve Online, Warcraft 2, Commandos, Carmageddon, Quake 3, Planescape Torment, early Fallout, Final Fantasy 6, Twisted Metal 2, Super Mario 64, Devil May Cry, Ico, Super Metroid, Zombies Ate My Neighbors. I don't do genres.
As for what I want from a site, I have really no idea. Thinking about the numerous sites I do frequent, I do not care about these sites at all. The only thing that matters is the information that they give me in the case of informational sites, or the people that I associate with in the case of social sites. I think of the sites as windows through which I access the things that I'm there for. As long as windows are reasonably clean, you don't see the, you see through them. I suppose a perfect website would be invisible.
Oh, and if you do succeed in making an excellent site that attracts a million girls, you do know you're also going to get ten million guys who want to talk to girls, right? Not that that would be bad from a marketing standpoint.
Christ... so many fights already...sevenrings said:
So I'll say; I'm 15, British, I like anime, music and art. I consider myself a Hardcore gamer since I love games and I will beat anyone to death who calls us - the gamers - stupid, violent monkeys. Or even a Retro gamer, since I haven't bought a new game since GTA 4... I'd say my favourite genre of game is action/adventure or Retro.
A female site? Less black and forum 'tards (COUGH Gamespot COUGH). I'm sick of unfriendly, male-oriented sites like Gamespot and Pwned. That's why I like it here so much, it's blue and... forum 'tard-less. And I want easy navigation, some sites seem to hate me they're so hard to navigate...
I hope that helps you a bit, I didn't see the point in saying much else.
What is wrong with you people...? Sure it came out as a bit creepy at first, but he has a good point. And he's trying to present it in a professional way. It's nice that you're trying to omit stereotypes from gaming, but the fact is, girls ARE different from guys. And chances are that as a majority, they may not like FPSs as much as guys do, or some other stereotyped analogy like that. So just chill. I don't see anything wrong with this thread.
Other then that, I'll PM my details later....like, 11 hours later, i'm going to sleep now.;
Other then that, I'll PM my details later....like, 11 hours later, i'm going to sleep now.;
All of those questions are actually rather personal and as posted girl gamers arnt exactly rare anymore.sevenrings said:
There are more:DraconianKing said:
FPS vs. RPG
Sonic vs. Mario
WoW vs. Warhammer Online
PC vs. console
MMORPG's vs. people that prefer to keep their souls intact
I don't see how the male/female dichotomy is any less significant than any of those other examples. After all, it's quite common knowledge that women experience things in a much different way than men.
So, I believe that if this isn't a really creepy baiting attempt, the demographic is rather meaningful. I do believe, however, that OP is asking the wrong questions. Questions like "what is gaming to you?" or "what do you love about gaming specifically" give a much more relevant picture of OP's demographic than age, location, hair color and cup size.
I'm a 16 year old Australian with a keen adoration for art, music, philosophy, psychology and politics. In terms of subcultures I go for the Metal and Goth scene (In my area they're more than a little related.) Music? Post rock and Metal, anything from Sigur Ros to Meshuggah. Single. I don't make much, but I live at home so I can buy games easily. Sorry, but I'm not about to tell you about my family's financial situation. I'm currently in high school. Because my computer is far from the best, I can buy most of my games second hand as they're older titles. I sometimes rent games, and occasionally borrow from friends.sevenrings said:
Honestly? I don't have a clue where in the "Spectrum" of gamers I come. I've played various FPS games religiously in the past, then not played anything for weeks at a time. Currently, Baldur's Gate II occupies the odd hour of my time which I suppose would make me a casual gamer at present. As said above my computer is a piece of shit. If I game online, it's at a net cafe. Mostly FPS (CSS, UT, TF, HL predominantly) and RPG (BG, BGII, NWN) with some survival horror (Silent Hill and Project Zero) thrown in. FPSRPGs are also a favourite, with Deus Ex being one of my all time loves. I prefer a combination of retro and cutting edge (I still have some DOS games on my computer).
Honestly? I don't believe you'd need to make it different from any other gamer site, aside from the general population being more female-dominated. It's a community thing, rather than a site design thing. The navigation should be easy to pick up on first encounter, but not condescending.
We female gamers aren't that different in our habits from the male gamers. Sure, you'll have the odd few women who gush at the chance to play more 'feminine' games, but they usually fine a groove to talk about them regardless of the set-up of a site. The same as you'll get male gamers who out-rightly refuse to touch anything without a testosterone-fuelled manly-man as their avatar (Hell, you get some female gamers who do that.)
In short, making it female-specific isn't going to work. You may well find yourself ostracising gamers as a whole. However, giving a more female-friendly feel would be possible but it is more a point of the feel than the specifics.
Hope this helped.
Thanks Labyrinth, SecretTacoNinja and squid I think I'll cut my losses and conclude my research on the Escapist. Thanks again to everyone who answered my questions, it's all invaluable authentic research to my topic. Hope to hear from all of you across the forums. As for the trolls and flamers.....eh, not so much but whatever.
I thank Ridergurl10 for the first actual replies, and wish I was a girl gamer myself so I could answer. Well, I sometimes wish I was a woman for many other reasons, but that's a different topic. sevenrings was NOT looking for a discussion about the difference or anything else, so please, stop turning this thread into something it was not intended to be. You make me ashamed. It's a survey. Good luck, sevenrings.
I like to think this site would be the absolutely best choice for serious response to this (and anything else). Thank you.
I like to think this site would be the absolutely best choice for serious response to this (and anything else). Thank you.
It'll be finished at the end of the semester -.-Spacelord said:
I will if it works that way though.
First, sorry, not female, though I may point my girlfriend here and see if she wants to answer for herself.
So, Who are you? Where do you live(country/state)? How old are you? What other interests do you have? Do you identify with any particular subcultures? What kind of music and styles are you int? Are you single, married or divorced? How much money do you make a year/ how much does your family make(if they buy your games)? Whats your educational background? Do you buy your games or does someone else. Do you borrow/rent/pirate the games you play?
This bit doesn't matter too much about your female audience, the socioeconomic data you can take from here is applicable far more to anyone in a similar socioeconomic situation with similar priorities than it is to crossing the male/female divide which exists less and less substantially as time goes on. The subculture identification I applaud as that will change both the games a person is seeking and the ideology behind why. Educational background may or not play a part, simply having a college education does not transcend the desire to play simple games like beat-em-ups. You appear to be attempting to qualitatively assess the entire gamut of regularly gathered social data and build a profile of a quintessential female gamer. I think this is a bad move. You're never going to be able to get all the information you need for a website based on this kind of information.
As has already been said, female gamers are people too and people like simple websites. Having watched my girlfriend design websites, keep things simple, clean and without too many clicks. This applies to everyone though, so it's not particularly useful. Possibly use a colour palette with colours which blend well together, if you're doing design you know what does and doesn't work with other colours on a colour wheel. Don't use an overly feminine layout or borders, but do use warm, comforting colours like pastels rather than solid, dark colours in places as this is associated as being more comforting to more feminine people. Which doesn't mean it's more comforting to many female gamers as they don't necessarily see themselves as feminine and this is where you hit the wall. The only real difference between male and female gamers I've seen is female gamers being more willing to cope with multiple viewpoints and discussion and generally liking the ability to not have to put up with a conversation that amounts to epeen measurement or degenerates into "ur a n00b for think this thing". You need to encourage discourse and the representations of more than simply post counts sites like the Escapist have are a good marker for things like that. Allow people to discuss the reviews and allow people the opportunity to discuss various issues as in any other forum.
Do you consider yourself a hardcore gamer, casual, or are you just beginning to nurture your budding interests in games. How good is your computer and how often do you go online? What genres of games do you like? What are some of your favorite games? Do you like retro games/ cutting edge games/ flash games/ simple ad games/ forum games?
Now this is good stuff, I can see the relevance here and this is really where you should have started. In here is the information you actually need to build the site and the design sensibilities should be as I've said above designed to be simple, welcoming and feature relatively high levels of moderation in discussions and the ability to report idiots.
If a site were to be made for you: the female gamer, how would you like it to look, what kinds of features would you like it to have, would you like complex navigation or would you like it simple and to the point?
I don't think anyone likes complex navigation. I know females are alleged to think on more complex levels, but in reality this often means they prefer more simplistic interfaces so they can continue to do more things at once.
If you don't feel confortable answering some questions posed that's perfectly fine, any information I can get would be helpful. I'm not interested in how males really feel about girl gamers so, guys, if you could keep that to a minimum. However if you have girlfriends/female friends that are into this stuff, I'd like to hear from them too.
While I know I ignored the actual comment here, I'm hopefully giving you some useful things to think about. I think I understand what you're trying to do with providing a website for something you see as expanding, but not being discussed well, but the honest answer is female gamers who identify as such and would do so to the degree they sign up to forums like this are just like the male gamers when it comes to site design, gamers first, everything else second. That means they appreciate simple design, good layout and the ability to do what they want to within the design philosophy of the site.
So, Who are you? Where do you live(country/state)? How old are you? What other interests do you have? Do you identify with any particular subcultures? What kind of music and styles are you int? Are you single, married or divorced? How much money do you make a year/ how much does your family make(if they buy your games)? Whats your educational background? Do you buy your games or does someone else. Do you borrow/rent/pirate the games you play?
This bit doesn't matter too much about your female audience, the socioeconomic data you can take from here is applicable far more to anyone in a similar socioeconomic situation with similar priorities than it is to crossing the male/female divide which exists less and less substantially as time goes on. The subculture identification I applaud as that will change both the games a person is seeking and the ideology behind why. Educational background may or not play a part, simply having a college education does not transcend the desire to play simple games like beat-em-ups. You appear to be attempting to qualitatively assess the entire gamut of regularly gathered social data and build a profile of a quintessential female gamer. I think this is a bad move. You're never going to be able to get all the information you need for a website based on this kind of information.
As has already been said, female gamers are people too and people like simple websites. Having watched my girlfriend design websites, keep things simple, clean and without too many clicks. This applies to everyone though, so it's not particularly useful. Possibly use a colour palette with colours which blend well together, if you're doing design you know what does and doesn't work with other colours on a colour wheel. Don't use an overly feminine layout or borders, but do use warm, comforting colours like pastels rather than solid, dark colours in places as this is associated as being more comforting to more feminine people. Which doesn't mean it's more comforting to many female gamers as they don't necessarily see themselves as feminine and this is where you hit the wall. The only real difference between male and female gamers I've seen is female gamers being more willing to cope with multiple viewpoints and discussion and generally liking the ability to not have to put up with a conversation that amounts to epeen measurement or degenerates into "ur a n00b for think this thing". You need to encourage discourse and the representations of more than simply post counts sites like the Escapist have are a good marker for things like that. Allow people to discuss the reviews and allow people the opportunity to discuss various issues as in any other forum.
Do you consider yourself a hardcore gamer, casual, or are you just beginning to nurture your budding interests in games. How good is your computer and how often do you go online? What genres of games do you like? What are some of your favorite games? Do you like retro games/ cutting edge games/ flash games/ simple ad games/ forum games?
Now this is good stuff, I can see the relevance here and this is really where you should have started. In here is the information you actually need to build the site and the design sensibilities should be as I've said above designed to be simple, welcoming and feature relatively high levels of moderation in discussions and the ability to report idiots.
If a site were to be made for you: the female gamer, how would you like it to look, what kinds of features would you like it to have, would you like complex navigation or would you like it simple and to the point?
I don't think anyone likes complex navigation. I know females are alleged to think on more complex levels, but in reality this often means they prefer more simplistic interfaces so they can continue to do more things at once.
If you don't feel confortable answering some questions posed that's perfectly fine, any information I can get would be helpful. I'm not interested in how males really feel about girl gamers so, guys, if you could keep that to a minimum. However if you have girlfriends/female friends that are into this stuff, I'd like to hear from them too.
While I know I ignored the actual comment here, I'm hopefully giving you some useful things to think about. I think I understand what you're trying to do with providing a website for something you see as expanding, but not being discussed well, but the honest answer is female gamers who identify as such and would do so to the degree they sign up to forums like this are just like the male gamers when it comes to site design, gamers first, everything else second. That means they appreciate simple design, good layout and the ability to do what they want to within the design philosophy of the site.