64% of Online Gamers Are Female

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."

well...

well, about 20% of those -say- they're women...

Re:well...

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...

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..

.. 100% of those 20% followed their survey reply with 'r U lesbAin? my PuSSy is hott 4u. wAnna cYber?'

Is this really true?

I think they just counted female avatars.

Yeah right.

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.

Re:Yeah right.

Actually, it's "The men are men, the women are men, and the children are FBI agents...and they're men!"

I bet it's true

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...)

Re:I bet it's true

I know quite a few girls who play WoW.

Most of the girls I know that don't play it, had been dumped for it at some point.

Re:I bet it's true

My wife runs a 300 person guild. I don't have the time for WoW, I have to participate in the real economy.

Gamers?

I guess they consider solitaire.

90% of gaming girls are guys playing girls

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:90% of gaming girls are guys playing girls

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.

Questionable Statistic

Where ever there is a questionable statistic, Slashdot is right behind it.

PS. Isn't the higher number of male gamers one of the reasons people claim males are the majority in the IT industry?

Definition Needed

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.

Re:Definition Needed

While we're at it, we need to define the word "female," as it's used online.

Re:Definition Needed

GIRL = Guy In Real Life

Welcome to the internet...

The Internet is the only place where: Men are really Women Women are really Men And the children are really the FBI I doubt that figure is anywhere close to an accurate representation of the "real numbers" if the number of female gamers I know is any indicator. :(

dupe!

dupe!

"YOUR NOT A GIRL"

Real life vs Internet [gprime.net]

fakegirl:Soo big boy, I..
Red:You're not a girl!
fakegirl:What! Ofcourse I am!
Red:A REAL girl?
bystander:Who's a girl?
bystander:I like girls!
Red:Shut up you!
fakegirl:Yes, I am really a girl.. tee hee hee

How to conduct this study!

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.

64% of Online Gamers Are Female

64% of online gamers play Hello Kitty Island Adventure. Coincidence?

Neither figure is surprising...

Women playing online games at a greater rate than men makes sense to me. Every woman I've known, no matter how much she avoids video games in general, will play Tetris for hours on end. The flash puzzle games all over the web are exactly what women like to play. While men may be playing online, they're sticking to MMORPGs, FPS and RTS. And for the other figure mentioned: 8% of gamers being 45+ doesn't seem that outlandish to me. The first video games came out in the early 70's. A 45 year old today would have been 11 when Pong came out. The number of "old" people playing video games will probably see a dramatic increase over the coming years, about the time the Nintendo generation hits 45+.

Re:Neither figure is surprising...

It's rather funny that women are playing with bricks and logic, while men are playing with dolls and avatars

MMORPG

I would say that 20% of the people playing MMO's are women. IRL that is. So flash games must be like 90% female gamers.

I knew i was spending to much time away from my pc

I knew i was spending to much time away from my pc ...

They're all playing Sudoku

The study isn't about RPG players; it includes games like crossword puzzles, Boggle, and Sudoku. So I believe the 64% number.

What I find interesting

Is how many under males under 24 frequent Digg

This was done by a company that prides itself on accurracy and is taken seriously by every major corporation out there vying for the consumer "entertainment" dollar.

Somehow, reality being what it is, you having stupid kneejerk prejudices does not make them true. Thanksfully.

I know a huge share of the market is pre-family, and most of those are male. But in the post-family crowd, the target audience of said company, many more women play things that the pubecent crowd would not believe them capable of.

Personally I know 11 women who play WoW, 3 who play EQ2, and 8 who play BF2 religeously. Somehow I find these numbers might actually be low. But I'll take them at face value.

.

Yup

From my experience in WoW and FFxI, this seems about right. And no, I am not talking about avatars but my experience in both games using vent,so unless some people are faking voices out there on a steady basis the percentage seems right on. Also the percentage of us old folk playing I always guessed at about 10%. BTW all bets are off for Xmas and spring breaks when the younger set absolutely overwhelm the games. Ecartman

No.

If you're talking MMORPGs or Half Life offshoots like CounterStrike or Day of Defeat, or any other first person shooter like that; No. Maybe 5 out of 50 gamers in that sense are female. Those are the only online games. I don't care what you say. I don't care what survey results you have. And those are the chicks you stay away from most of the time. How many women pay attention to Slashdot?

Not so bad

Okay, so you're saying that there's a 36% percent chance that the hot female night elf I cybered with last night was really a man?

"With a name like 'Cryinggam', I figured she just needed a little comforting!"

Yeah well

On WoW, most sexilly claded female dark elves characters had (teenage) masculine voices whenever we got them on teamspeak ...

Wouldn't the correct title be:

64% of US online gamers are female. That is unless you think only americans play online..

More than one third of the U.S. pop is a gamer?

Given that the U.S. is such a major center of power on the Earth's surface, attempting to dictate reality for much of the globe, doesn't it alarm anybody that more than a third of its population lives such a large portion of their waking hours in deliberately false realities?

--Which doesn't necessarily say much for everybody who isn't a gamer, given that something like 95% of the population are also TV addicts.

Dream on.

-FL

Running With the Pack

"On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog [python.org]." - P. Steiner

That is such bull

There are no girls on the internet.

Online gaming not gaming in general

Jokes about female avatars being all men aside, it's quite possible that this result is true. However this is only for online gaming, not gaming in general.

Given that on average women tend to be more adept of social activities than men (at least that's my experience), it isn't surprising at all that women go for games where they are in contact with other people.

In my long experience with online RPGs (from MUDs all the way to WoW and Guild Wars), women (as in confirmed women ;)) would spend a lot more time chatting than men (which tended more often to go exploring and slaying monsters).

Online gaming is usually more appropriated to socializing (pretty much the only exception being FPSs and RTSs) than offline gaming (unless you invite your buddies over for a session of drinking and blasting each other out with RPGs ;))

If your mother's anyhting like mine...

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.

While this might attract some males ...

... I most certainly am not interested in women shooting up other people, period.

Female?!?

Is that "female" as in 40 year old man, or "female" as in 25 year old FBI agent?

Still Not News

Everytime one of these studies comes out, its "big news" all over again. WildTangent did a study and got the same results 5 years ago. Those of us in the online gaming industry have been using "Females First" as our mantra when we design or market online games for the past decade.

FUD

This should be tagged FUD. Its another useless study that tells us nothing. As its been pointed out repeatedly: No mention of hours played, games played, etc. The article even mentions that. 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, more simplistic 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.

I don't see why they're surprised that it shows more old people playing. They've already indicated they realized the study is missing some crucial information and thus flawed.

Hassling people cause of how they appear

There's already several comments here about the hassle women and/or female avatars receive. I'd just like to say, as a Scotsman who wears a kilt on occasion, that women are also a pain in the neck when they encounter someone of the opposite sex in a skirt. Men by and large have learnt not to try and put their hands up someone's skirt. Yes, I know men do this, but seriously women are worse.

Although men probably complain less when they think the kilt-lifting woman is attractive. Reciprocity is a wonderful thing. Beats trading insults as a way of flirting...

The truth about women

My wife is a real gambler and sport addict I see her all the time posting at sport communities like Digg and allaboutsport.info

Nielsen study probably focused on casual gaming

The Nielsen study probably focused on casual gaming sites, such as Pogo.com, Yahoo Games, and MSN Games. The games on there are mostly casual games, such as Bejeweled, Zuma, and your simple card & board games (Spades, Hearts, Backgammon, etc.). If you spend some time around these sites, especially in the lobby/chat areas, you'll find that the audience IS mainly women, talking about their kids and family, etc.

Are they gamers? Sure they are, since they DO play games (and for long periods of time too!). Would they call themselves gamers? Oh heavens no, it's just something they do to pass the time. How many of them are there? Quite a lot, since these sites are often home to hundreds of thousands of players. (Take a look at the concurrent population on some of these sites, especially during the weekdays)

One-girl Case Study

I once knew a girl who spent tons of time playing.... Runescape. I tried it at her suggestion and decided that it was the most mind-numbingly boring thing I'd ever attempted. So why did she play?

"She was away from home, didn't know too many people, and probably used it as a social outlet." The preceding sentence is likely true, but it's also a gross oversimplification. It is not as though she had any respect for the people she interacted with in the MMO world: She said they were all "idiot teenagers." But then, this is a girl who freely admitted that many of her real-life 'friends' were people who were younger than she was or who she considered not to be terribly intelligent: She liked to surround herself with idiots so that she looked better to herself by comparison. Runescape was a convenient idiot-zoo for her.

Online Poker

I started playing online poker about 1 month ago, and was really impressed about the number of women there (not girls, tho :)). About 40% women at least.

117M _US_ gamers?

Somehow, I'm having a hard time believing this number. Here are the stats: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_access_in_th e_United_States [wikipedia.org]. The total number of people who could potentially play online is 204M, including 3 year olds and 80 year olds. So they want to tell me that the majority of users with internet connection play games online? I call bullshit on this one. Online gaming in toddlers and old farts is at negligible levels, and most of the folks I know (age group 25-40) don't play online even though some of them have gaming consoles. And these aren't just some random folks - they're geeks who live and breathe the Internet. They're just too busy to waste massive amounts of time on playing online and I bet so are most of the rest of adult US population. That leaves us with kids 10 to roughly 23 years old.

64%?

I LIKE THOSE ODDS!

Cat got your tongue? (something important seems to

get this shit out of here... this topic has been done, and the consensus was made: your definition of "gamer" differs from the real world's if you're going to include a bored housewife or widowed grandma in the same group as a 13-hour-a-day MMORPG player or CPL-hopeful FPS junkie

verisimilitude

"64% of online gamers..." that 4% makes this statistic at least 58% more unbeliveable. Do we need to distinguish between games found online (pogo.com etc) and online games (WoW, Counterstrike)?

Bring on the pickup lines...

Say, is that a +5 Wand of Probing in your pants or are you just happy to see me?

[apologies to NetHack Wizards]

Sounds reasonable!

There is no reason to think that women are that different from men when it comes to online gaming.

When I installed WOW and started out, I thought of the low WAF when it comes to spending hours on online killing sprees and other such mayhem fun.

So I introduced my wife to the game.
And now she is having as much fun as I do, exploring the world and enjoying the game.

Women can enjoy, running arround with a warhammer banging monsters, just as much as anybody else!

So lets face it! There is no 'math gene' and some of the female avatars actually are women.

The headline is in error ...

They may be pussies, but they are not technically female.

*cry*

OMG! Yes, its true, you got me, all the time I spend online, if not Im not here reading /. Im off playing a damn flash game, cause you know most of us females cant handle anything more... Continue about your day - nothing more here. :)

for myself

I just hit 34 and I have been playing for about 11 years now, My wife is heavily into pogo style games (she is also 34, we are 9 days apart) while my kids play games like pogo or toontown, warcraft3 and CS, and console games. they are 10 and 11

its true

I have two siters who play the ps2 more than me and its mine. They r always on it. I quess guys r more into outdoor activities than women.

Re:yeah right

And 100% of the 45-year-old+ crowd still lives in their mom's basement.

Re:yeah right

Yeah, and those 10 percent are just pre-pubescent boys whose voices haven't broken.

Re:In Other News

90% of Online Gamers Are Fat Hairy Mail Truckers Pretending To Be Teenage Girls

Yes, they're gross-looking postal workers, but are they chicks or dudes?

Re:There you have it!!!

Ahh... no love for South Park at teh /. ...and me with out moderator points!

Re:Slashdot users=closet homosexuals

I am WELL aware that people do that :) But look at all your sexually insecure responses. It's a joke here. I get called Flamebait, yet every one of you pigs spit on women when you make boobie and "it's a guy" jokes. Just forget I said anything and "hang out with the guys" some more, because you obviously don't know any women who play games. It's enough for me to know you little nothing men are so scared of women that you react with that kind of crap.