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64% of Online Gamers Are Female

Posted by Zonk on Sun Oct 08, 2006 04:35 AM
from the good-news-everyone dept.
Entertainment Games
According to a report discussed on 1up, a new study by the Nielsen folks finds that more than half of the 117 Million U.S. online gamers are women. From the article: "The study's announcement release doesn't break down what games they're playing, though we expect sites like pogo.com, which feature a multitude of Flash-based games are rather high on the list. Even more surprising is how many older gamers are playing. While the teenage market dominates in numbers, the study says more than 15 million gamers, about 8%, are actually at least 45 years old."
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[+] Study Claims Men Play Female Avatars to 'Win' 266 comments
mytrip writes to mention a News.com article about the rationale behind male players playing female avatars in online games. The article says that, while some players are probably exploring 'gender roles, many just want free stuff. From the article: "Kathryn Wright, WomenGamers's consulting psychologist, earlier this decade found that 60 percent of male players who don female avatars, or on-screen personas, do it to gain an advantage in game play. An enthusiast with the online handle Jackpot649 nailed the zeitgeist in his response to the About.com query: 'I'm a guy, but if I gotta look at an avatar all day, I'd sooner look at a female avatar. Plus, people give you more free stuff.'"
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64% of Online Gamers Are Female 25 Comments More /

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  • well... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Loconut1389 (455297) on Sunday October 08 2006, @04:37AM (#16353533)
    well, about 20% of those -say- they're women...

    • Re:well... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by dattaway (3088) on Sunday October 08 2006, @04:42AM (#16353553) Homepage
      My wife plays on pogo.com. Simple games, cute sound effects and characters, and a chat window. And they talk about kids and family. That's something I don't hear horny teenage boys talk about, so yes, they are mostly females.

    • Re:well... (Score:5, Funny)

      by OnyxIR (456300) on Sunday October 08 2006, @05:10AM (#16353633)
      My time on IRC has taught me a valuable lesson... On the Internet, all the men are men, all the women are men, and all the children are FBI agents.

      Dont believe the hype!

    • And.. (Score:5, Funny)

      by Channard (693317) on Sunday October 08 2006, @06:33AM (#16353857) Journal
      .. 100% of those 20% followed their survey reply with 'r U lesbAin? my PuSSy is hott 4u. wAnna cYber?'

  • Is this really true? (Score:5, Funny)

    by bangenge (514660) on Sunday October 08 2006, @04:40AM (#16353547)
    I think they just counted female avatars.

  • Yeah right. (Score:3, Funny)

    by SageLikeFool (547462) on Sunday October 08 2006, @04:47AM (#16353559)
    Just because 64% of the characters are female doesn't mean the people playing them are in real life. Like the old joke about IRC goes - The men are men, the women are men, and the children are FBI agents.

  • I bet it's true (Score:5, Informative)

    by joe 155 (937621) on Sunday October 08 2006, @04:48AM (#16353565) Journal
    In my house it's my girlfriend who plays games online the majority of the time. I hardly play online at all, but when I do it's on my DS or maybe a FPS; more indepth "proper" games (if there is such a thing). My girlfriend likes to play on gamerival on the simple little flash games where you just have to do very simple little word puzzles or arranging blocks.

    So it is believable, but it might not be how you think - I doubt they are running round fragging everyone they see, or playing WoW (although some might...)

  • Gamers? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by amirl (813941) <amir,levin&gmail,com> on Sunday October 08 2006, @04:49AM (#16353567)
    I guess they consider solitaire.

  • 90% of gaming girls are guys playing girls (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RubberDogBone (851604) * on Sunday October 08 2006, @04:50AM (#16353569)
    Dunno about everybody else but most of the girls I meet in chatrooms and online games are guys playing as girls. Some of the rest are Dateline plants trolling for men, but that's not my thing.

    Anyway, what's the Second Life slang for guys playing as girls? Gurlz or something?

    Many actual Real Life(TM) girls play as male game characters so they won't get hit on or bothered.

    I play mail and female characters in SL. The guy character gets left alone except by sex workers who want to sell him their wares. He's much like the real me and fairly boring to game with.

    The girl character, who is not at all like me, has an incredibly active social thing going on and has accumulated dozens of friends without even trying. She's fun to play because she's so different from me. But she does get hit on all the time just because she appears to be female. It's common for complete strangers to walk up and make all sorts of rather forward comments.

    My guy character gets none of that.

    I have a new appreciation for some of the hassle girls go through.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by EotB (964562)
      Being in New Zealand and playing a Half-Life mod called Natural Selection at clan level showed me what a large and tight-knit community can be behind an online game. I had met about half of the people that I played with regularly in real life, and the rest I had spent a lot of time talking to over voice comms. Out of perhaps 60 people, 2 of them were women. Even if FPS' are biased towards male players, thats still pretty indicative of any non-MMO games that I've played.
    • I've found the fact you can change your gender by dropping a new body in from your inventory to be quite worrying.

    • Re:90% of gaming girls are guys playing girls (Score:5, Insightful)

      by syousef (465911) on Sunday October 08 2006, @08:37AM (#16354213) Journal
      I have a new appreciation for some of the hassle girls go through.

      Fuck this pseudo sensative snag bullshit. It doesn't matter to me now as I'm no longer single and failing one of us dieing I can see this relationship lasting. But oh to have had such hassles! Girls get lots of offers - many not very good ones, but some good - without having to work for it. Guys have to work very hard and often the girls go for good looking fucktards that treat them like dirt. (Yep men do this too - go for the bimbo that treats them like shit, but not as often, and the bottom line is it's much easier for a female to find a suitable partner, and they usually get a wide selection)

      So girls get hit on. If the guy's unpleasant how hard is it to say "fuck off and leave me alone you small dicked loser". Many guys will get the hint if dropped on them like a sledgehammer. There might be a little bit of unpleasantness back but few stalk based on one conversation. If a girl's in an environment where it goes beyond a few lewd comments she should get out. Only when that isn't possible is there a real problem. But there's a world of difference between being hit on and being assaulted.

  • Definition Needed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Jekler (626699) on Sunday October 08 2006, @05:32AM (#16353677)
    It really depends on how you define the term "gamer". To many people, a "gamer" isn't just someone who happens to play games at some arbitrary point in their free time, it's someone whose primary hobby is playing games. When they're not working, studying, or otherwise busy, they're reading about games, playing games, or otherwise involved in game-related activities (e.g. posting on game message boards, designing characters, planning on the next game to buy, etc.). I know a lot of women who play games, but I wouldn't call them gamers. Even though they play games, when they're not playing games they don't immerse themselves in game-related activities, they have a distinct separation between game playing and the rest of their life.

  • How to conduct this study! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by eebra82 (907996) on Sunday October 08 2006, @06:01AM (#16353765) Homepage
    I have a vague idea about how they conducted this study.

    1) www.mirc.com
    2) install
    3) /s irc.efnet.org
    4) /j world-of-warcraft
    5) /say So how many of you guys are women?
    6) count the results

    Seriously, though. I don't doubt these results at all, but I would love to see the figures of hours spent per week and compare it between the sexes. The results would surely favor men to be the biggest users.

    So does anyone know how many female gamers we have in a game like World of Warcraft? I'm sure the numbers stated above are taken from flash based games and alike.
  • I knew i was spending to much time away from my pc ...

  • They're all playing Sudoku (Score:3, Informative)

    by tomhath (637240) on Sunday October 08 2006, @07:19AM (#16353969)
    The study isn't about RPG players; it includes games like crossword puzzles, Boggle, and Sudoku. So I believe the 64% number.

  • If your mother's anyhting like mine... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by svunt (916464) on Sunday October 08 2006, @09:56AM (#16354561) Homepage Journal
    Then Yahoo! Games and pogo.com are the only things stopping her from harrassing you for yet another crack for yet another Mah-Jong game.

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