The demographics of gaming are clearly changing. I recently completed a strategy campaign for Activision (if anyone wants to know more about this just ask!) and had to do a LOT of research on exactly who is playing games. While many people think video games are only for fifteen-year-old boys in whitey tighties, I found some interesting statistics that prove otherwise.The numbers show that women are becoming an increasingly larger portion of gamers. According to Nielsen, females 25 years and older make up the largest block of PC game players, accounting for 46.2 percent of all players. While PC gaming may include more casual games, such as Farmville or Solitaire, it also includes hardcore MMOs like
The Entertainment Software Association published a really informative and comprehensive report called Essential Facts about the Computer and Video Game Industry (take some time to read it if you can). I found two particularly interesting facts in the report - females make up 40% of gamers and women ages 18 and older represent a significantly greater portion of the game playing population than boys age 17 or younger. The second point is very much contradictory to what most people think! Jesse Schell, an instructor at Carnegie Mellon University said it perfectly in the report:“There are games now for pretty much every age, every demographic. More and more women are going online. It comes down to everybody is playing games. Games are just evolving like species in order to fit into every little niche of our lives.”
So if more women are gaming, why are we still getting heat for it?
Kotaku published an article last month detailing the difficulties women face in the gaming universe. One individual featured in the article is a writer who tries not to disclose her gender, because "you're going to get shit if readers figure out you're female." Another is a WoW player who said most people assume you are male if you play the game, and it is usually better that way. Being a female gamer means you sometimes face harassment, criticism or plain craziness. The website FatUglyorSlutty shows some disturbing evidence of this.I'm not a huge online gamer, so I've never really experienced these things personally. Still, I get comments that are always full of doubt. I think a lot of people don't exactly take me seriously or wonder whether or not I am really as into gaming as I lead on. I don't really post on discussion boards, as a result, because I worry that I'll be picked on. I'm sometimes hesitant to enter an industry that is so typically male, but I believe the gaming world is changing and people are going to have to start accepting it. I just may have to I have to grow thicker skin to deal with it!
To end, I want to pull a story from the Kotaku article:
"I went to PAX – the Penny Arcade expo up in Seattle – and it was an eye-opener. Up ’til that point I saw myself as something of a unicorn,” a metaphor Pittman finds particularly apt, and returns to often, “being a female gamer. At something like that there are going to be thousands of other girls running around, just as nerdy as you, if not drastically more so. It kind of reached this point where I thought, OK, this isn’t abnormal; we shouldn’t be having to hide online, and this is unfair."I really like the unicorn metaphor and relate to it well. Whenever I meet another girl gamer, I'm surprised, but I really shouldn't be. We are a growing breed!
Until next time!
Love,
The Girl Informer
this is totally true. most female gamers i've come in contact with, whether it's in-game or via forums, do not advertise their sex. when they do its all dick jokes and harassment from there. there is just something about a girl kicking ass that pushes guys over the line.
ReplyDeletebut put the shoe on the other foot, guys talk trash to guys with the intent to hurt (i.e gamers and virgin jokes... i don't know what it is)and we get pissed off, talk some more shit and move on. i understand that there is a double standard when it comes to women, but if you throw something back in said assholes face you'll find that there isn't a need to be so sensitive to it. i have actually had some good times going back and forth with chicks on black ops or halo, but there is a point when guys need to shut their mouths and grow up.
i just don't understand the morons that have to degrade women to feel better about themselves. come on people, we're playing video games.