Games are actually for Boys 2 Men. If you aren't a member of Boys 2 Men you shouldn't be playing video games. Sorry, everyone who wasn't in Boys 2 Men!
Why do people think games for boys & men
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Found this interesting piece its a bit old but it does go to OPs question it looks at the gaming industry vs women gaming market
http://www.uwlax.edu/urc/jur-online/PDF/2006/herrling.pdf
http://www.uwlax.edu/urc/jur-online/PDF/2006/herrling.pdf
because some games are aimed at a male demographic, some are aimed at a broader demographic
also the non-casual gamer populatio consists largely of men
also the non-casual gamer populatio consists largely of men
I'm not sure where any of you were in the early '80s, but I don't agree with those of you saying that the arcades back then were male-dominated. My mom and I hung out in arcades starting in '82 at the latest (when I was 4 and then 5 years old) and I remember plenty of girls and women hanging out in them. I recall them shifting into a predominantly "male space" in the mid-to-late '80s. And before the '82 video game crash, all the cool kids had an Atari at home whether they were male or female.
Home video games were almost exclusively sold in toy stores, and not in the boys' aisle either. All of the stores I saw kept the games in a large case behind the cash registers or hanging from pegs in the wall, also behind the cash registers. That in and of itself gave the impression of games being gender-neutral since they were one of the few "toys" that weren't in gender-specific aisles.
Also, the reason you can't find any data to support what I wrote above is because data wasn't collected at that time. The entire industry was considered to be a "Wild West" atmosphere with developers making games they wanted to make, gamers playing those games, and advertising that was focused on everyone.
Nintendo was the company that changed the gender spectrum. They didn't want a repeat of the 1982 crash, and so they approved what video games wound up on their system (controlling the risk of shitty-game bloat that preceded the crash) and realized that they needed to target their advertising. It was them who chose to market games to boys around the age of 10. Shortly thereafter, the process of demographic data collection began and, Surprise Surprise (!!!), Nintendo's marketing strategy resulted in a preponderance of male gamers over female gamers.
(Yes, that's just one of the known factors, but it's one of the biggies.)
Now the PC market was different at first. Sierra's games of the late '80s and early '90s were mostly played by women in their thirties, so said company co-founder Roberta Williams. I personally played those games as a preteen and teenager, and even today I would defend their reputation as gender-neutral. Lucasarts (then Lucasfilm Games) was also making bank with funny, gender-neutral titles like Loom, Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island, Sam & Max, and Zak McKraken and the Alien Mindbenders (among others). The shift in demographics became noticeable with the rising popularity of FPS games such as Wolfenstein 3D (released in 1992) and Doom (from 1993). You wouldn't be wrong if you called them the spiritual successors of popular Nintendo games like Contra (and just look at the game's advertising). Even Lucasarts capitalized on the increasingly male demographic with X-Wing (1993) and its followup title, TIE Fighter (1994) - because let's face it: flight simulators and space battle don't have reputations as bastions of female gamers.
Consider this as well: Sierra stuck to their guns and didn't transition to the male audience, and they went under. Lucasarts thrived by moving away from adventure games (their last being 1998's Grim Fandago) and toward Star Wars fighters.
So is gaming male-dominated? Yeah, it still is after 25 years of male-focused advertising and the late-'90s shift to predominantly male protagonists. That people continue to think that games are for boys and men is simply a reflection of a truism that wasn't always so.
And sorry I didn't reference the hell out of this post, but it took me long enough to write and I'm tired of talking about it for now.
Home video games were almost exclusively sold in toy stores, and not in the boys' aisle either. All of the stores I saw kept the games in a large case behind the cash registers or hanging from pegs in the wall, also behind the cash registers. That in and of itself gave the impression of games being gender-neutral since they were one of the few "toys" that weren't in gender-specific aisles.
Also, the reason you can't find any data to support what I wrote above is because data wasn't collected at that time. The entire industry was considered to be a "Wild West" atmosphere with developers making games they wanted to make, gamers playing those games, and advertising that was focused on everyone.
Nintendo was the company that changed the gender spectrum. They didn't want a repeat of the 1982 crash, and so they approved what video games wound up on their system (controlling the risk of shitty-game bloat that preceded the crash) and realized that they needed to target their advertising. It was them who chose to market games to boys around the age of 10. Shortly thereafter, the process of demographic data collection began and, Surprise Surprise (!!!), Nintendo's marketing strategy resulted in a preponderance of male gamers over female gamers.
(Yes, that's just one of the known factors, but it's one of the biggies.)
Now the PC market was different at first. Sierra's games of the late '80s and early '90s were mostly played by women in their thirties, so said company co-founder Roberta Williams. I personally played those games as a preteen and teenager, and even today I would defend their reputation as gender-neutral. Lucasarts (then Lucasfilm Games) was also making bank with funny, gender-neutral titles like Loom, Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island, Sam & Max, and Zak McKraken and the Alien Mindbenders (among others). The shift in demographics became noticeable with the rising popularity of FPS games such as Wolfenstein 3D (released in 1992) and Doom (from 1993). You wouldn't be wrong if you called them the spiritual successors of popular Nintendo games like Contra (and just look at the game's advertising). Even Lucasarts capitalized on the increasingly male demographic with X-Wing (1993) and its followup title, TIE Fighter (1994) - because let's face it: flight simulators and space battle don't have reputations as bastions of female gamers.
Consider this as well: Sierra stuck to their guns and didn't transition to the male audience, and they went under. Lucasarts thrived by moving away from adventure games (their last being 1998's Grim Fandago) and toward Star Wars fighters.
So is gaming male-dominated? Yeah, it still is after 25 years of male-focused advertising and the late-'90s shift to predominantly male protagonists. That people continue to think that games are for boys and men is simply a reflection of a truism that wasn't always so.
And sorry I didn't reference the hell out of this post, but it took me long enough to write and I'm tired of talking about it for now.
Ohhh yes. I played Baldurs Gate 2 and the only romance option for female characters... Anomen... NO. NO!Doom972 said:
Also, this is a bit unrelated but I have a general question to all native english speakers in this thread... Is it really normal for English speakers to say "male" or "female" instead of "men" and "women"? Like: A male plays this and that... A female likes this... Because I see it so often!
I'm German and if we say the equivalent of "male" and "female" (which would be Männchen and Weibchen) it would be clear that we are talking about animals. You would never use it for humans, just "men" and "women" if you talk about humans.
Thanks for your input in advance!
^ No its not typical for Americans to say male or female for everyday language its just us using industry talk they always say female this and female that not woman or girl this man or boy that. In spoken dialogue its usually man, men, guy, he, dude, woman, women, girl, she and sometimes lady of course there is slang but really the only time you officially use male and female terms specifically would be forums like at the doctor or on an application. To say I'm a female or I'm a male X in real life conversations sounds weird outloud its just forum and paper things.
I can give you my own personal obs for this study. I know 27 people who have played JRPGs. 0 female and 27 male. Let me add that work in female dominated industry, and know magnitudes more female gamers than males. They just aren't interested in JRPGs. Driving Sims, FPSs, western RPG, RTSs, Tower Defense etc. But for some reason not JRPGs.Rozalia1 said:
OT: society tends to see men and boys as 'immature'. Games are 'immature' mainly based around the term game. No responsible female could possibly consider playing a 'game.' Plus alot of what others said.
What proof is there exactly that males fantasize about killing thousands of creatures if they had powerful weapons and supernatural powers? That's never been a fantasy of mine and I've only ever heard of this "power fantasy" in the context of the explanation that video game developers give for why they produce the content they do. There aren't countless books written with this "power fantasy", nor many television shows or movies around this "power fantasy".zen5887 said:
There's no basis in scientific fact - it's a myth whose purpose is to justify the content of AAA video games.
This doesn't mean there's nothing at all to it, just that it's not some kind of super-dominant power fantasy which justifies 61% of the mainstream market taken up with games featuring killing as a primary form of gameplay.
There are *some* movies which offer SPECIFIC power fantasies, but they also have a specific context - they aren't only about saving the world, one corpse at a time. So Death Wish for example is a power fantasy for white middle-class Americans who felt threatened by the rising crime rates in the 1970s. Pathetic, but logical. Invasion U.S.A. is a power fantasy for white middle-class Americans who felt threatened by the Soviet Union (as is Red Dawn).
Whatever one might think of these power fantasies, at least they serve their purpose and move on. Death Wish says what it needs to say. It's still a work of art, despite it's questionable premise and fascistic and classist ideology.
But games act as if they have no artistic content. Do the developers of Call of Duty think they are serving any purpose by creating their game, in the way that the creators of Death Wish think they are serving an artistic purpose?
When a work of art is created, the message is communicated, and there's no need to communicate it again. Sequels are fine, as long as they say something new.
Can you imagine even for a moment if an entire industry, let's say Hollywood, were to start justifying what they were producing by saying it's a "power fantasy"? Even those of us who don't think much of Hollywood would be outraged.
It's long past time that we stop letting game developers get away with this ridiculous myth. If a game developer has the artistic need to present gamers with some specific power fantasy in a specific context, fine. Do it once and move on.
Actually the difference between saying Male/Female would more adequately translate to Männlich/Weiblich in the sense ofclinicalPsychologist said:
"this game has male players as a target demographic", "dieses Spiel richtet sich an ein männliches Publikum" (sorry if the grammar is not 100%)
It just sounds more detached and thus it sounds more professional.
Because people don't actually know the demographics of gamers. Looking at the people who say gamers are all insular straight white men I'd ask them to take a gander over at the twitter hashtag #NotYourShield to see a ton of minority and female gamers (With photo proof because for some reason people have to prove they aren't sock puppets) who are quite happy with the current gaming scene despite the attempts of some people to paint it all as a pile of misogynist power fantasies.
So yeah, games are for everyone. Now if only devs like that Assasin's Creed: Unity devs would stop being lazy and more characters were good characters (regardless of gender, sexuality or race because an increase of good characters in general would help everyone).
So yeah, games are for everyone. Now if only devs like that Assasin's Creed: Unity devs would stop being lazy and more characters were good characters (regardless of gender, sexuality or race because an increase of good characters in general would help everyone).
I think an episode of Extra Credits had an epiphany in this regard. (can't find a link right now but it is out there) There is a huge market for female players that is currently being served. Hidden object games, puzzle games and candy crush type casual games are largely played by women and a significant number of developers for these type of games are female as well.
Actually the misconception comes up because there are a lot of people talking about women playing videogames that either do not know a lot about games or do not pay attention to this particular part of the market. The more flashy more graphically impressive games that are targeted to one very special demographic get all the attention but saying that games are targeted towards males only is akin to looking at the doll section of a toy store and claiming that regular toys are targeted only towards girls with very few exceptions of uni-sex dolls.
Asking how to get women more into gaming is asking how to get more boys involved in playing house with their barbie dolls. There is a reason GI Joes look as they do and there is a reason CoD looks as it does.
There is an argument to be made for story-driven prestige projects like "The Last of Us" targeting both males and females because some women also want graphically impressive action oriented games but for this demographic the market is also catered for with titles like "Beyond Good and Evil" "Silent Hill" (3 in particular) etc etc pp.
As I said, I think the misconception really stems from people not looking at the market holistically and just picking and choosing a specific type of games that get a lot of press because publishers have thrown a lot of money into making and marketing them.
Actually the misconception comes up because there are a lot of people talking about women playing videogames that either do not know a lot about games or do not pay attention to this particular part of the market. The more flashy more graphically impressive games that are targeted to one very special demographic get all the attention but saying that games are targeted towards males only is akin to looking at the doll section of a toy store and claiming that regular toys are targeted only towards girls with very few exceptions of uni-sex dolls.
Asking how to get women more into gaming is asking how to get more boys involved in playing house with their barbie dolls. There is a reason GI Joes look as they do and there is a reason CoD looks as it does.
There is an argument to be made for story-driven prestige projects like "The Last of Us" targeting both males and females because some women also want graphically impressive action oriented games but for this demographic the market is also catered for with titles like "Beyond Good and Evil" "Silent Hill" (3 in particular) etc etc pp.
As I said, I think the misconception really stems from people not looking at the market holistically and just picking and choosing a specific type of games that get a lot of press because publishers have thrown a lot of money into making and marketing them.
No, I don't mean the adjective use.F.Dubois said:
Of course in German you can say "male gamer" or something.
But I often hear "male" or "female" used as the noun here, and that is what would sound really off in German. That would be "Männchen/Weibchen".
So "männlicher Spieler" (male gamer) would be okay even though very formal. But "if a male plays this game" would be "wenn ein Männchen das Spiel spielt" and that would be really really awkward because it would imply animals.
I'm sorry for the confusion. I just read female and male used as nouns so often on this forum and other discussion sites.
okay, thanks for the clarificationRainbow_Dashtruction said:
Well I mean... from observing those PC RTS competitions...expos... E3... and general social elements, I don't see the numbers some may want to crank out concerning a female audience. I don't particularly see too many interested in sitting for a few hours in front of a PC/TV to crank out hours what ever game there is but I suppose that is just my little patch of the woods.
I also don't too much read about how some lady or young girl died in her chair from drinking too much energy drinks and playing WOW or Star Craft for 48HRS... there may have been but not as much as males between 18-25.
Arcades ( when there were arcades) Ditto.
The fact of the matter is, in my opinion, it just happens to be most males using/buying these products. It caters to that need to be isolated or by one's self just like the hobby of fishing or hunting in which, well aside from again, a special demography of women whom participate in such sports, its usually guys as the main consumer/hobbyist.
As much as modern ideology would like to think that there aren't any gender driven things, its just not so. Despite the exceptions of many things, I generally believe, particularly women, want their own things they do that are catered to them because their tired of men poking around in their business anyway.
Finally, ever notice you can't question if something is predominately female and complain about it but you can write 1,000 articles and dedicate entire talk shows over something that is deemed male? Just an observation of how the " equality" turns out to be anything but that.
I also don't too much read about how some lady or young girl died in her chair from drinking too much energy drinks and playing WOW or Star Craft for 48HRS... there may have been but not as much as males between 18-25.
Arcades ( when there were arcades) Ditto.
The fact of the matter is, in my opinion, it just happens to be most males using/buying these products. It caters to that need to be isolated or by one's self just like the hobby of fishing or hunting in which, well aside from again, a special demography of women whom participate in such sports, its usually guys as the main consumer/hobbyist.
As much as modern ideology would like to think that there aren't any gender driven things, its just not so. Despite the exceptions of many things, I generally believe, particularly women, want their own things they do that are catered to them because their tired of men poking around in their business anyway.
Finally, ever notice you can't question if something is predominately female and complain about it but you can write 1,000 articles and dedicate entire talk shows over something that is deemed male? Just an observation of how the " equality" turns out to be anything but that.
you're good at what you're good at. men are good are understanding how they think. they aren't so good at understanding how women think. that makes it a lot harder for a team of mostly men to make games that women will enjoy. their demographics are usually mainly male anyway so they make them with them in mind. This is the usual case, but not always.
sometimes games are made to be enjoyed by everyone, but even that is a challenge because everyone has different interests.... basically it comes down to this...
if women want games that they will enjoy they need to start becoming interested in making them. right now most game devs are male and that plays a big factor in games being made for men. if barely any women are interested in making games then its logical to assume they don't have as much interest in playing them as well.
of course, there's always a vocal minority that screams the loudest. the truth however, is simply the truth. it can be changed, but to ignore it is foolish.
sometimes games are made to be enjoyed by everyone, but even that is a challenge because everyone has different interests.... basically it comes down to this...
if women want games that they will enjoy they need to start becoming interested in making them. right now most game devs are male and that plays a big factor in games being made for men. if barely any women are interested in making games then its logical to assume they don't have as much interest in playing them as well.
of course, there's always a vocal minority that screams the loudest. the truth however, is simply the truth. it can be changed, but to ignore it is foolish.
I agree. Very balanced answer.
Obviously one shouldn't ignore lady gammers for sure but again, most Dev and Dev teams are made up of males and yes --- if there is a strong means of which women want games that cater to them, it would have probably been so a very long time ago.
I just don't think they are into this type of media to the level where you would see such changes.
Obviously one shouldn't ignore lady gammers for sure but again, most Dev and Dev teams are made up of males and yes --- if there is a strong means of which women want games that cater to them, it would have probably been so a very long time ago.
I just don't think they are into this type of media to the level where you would see such changes.
It's dumb to say "games are for males". Have people even SEEN how many women play Bejeweled, Farmville, Sims, etc? Such broad generalizations and statements are meaningless. It's like saying "games are made for everyone" which completely ignores the massive variety of game types/genres that are targeted towards all kinds of audiences/demographics.
Again, painting in broad strokes is silly when it comes to such a huge topic. Just look at ESA Statistics if you want to see the worst examples of generalizations and how meaningless they are.
Again, painting in broad strokes is silly when it comes to such a huge topic. Just look at ESA Statistics if you want to see the worst examples of generalizations and how meaningless they are.