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PC Games (Games) PlayStation (Games) Entertainment Games

Videogames Attract More Women Than Boys? 406

Posted by simoniker from the sort-out-the-etc-etc dept.
Thanks to Yahoo!/Reuters for their story about a new Entertainment Software Association poll showing the demographics of gaming. According to the poll, "...26 percent of game players are women 18 or older, while 21 percent are boys 6 to 17", and the survey also revealed that "...the average gamer spends 6.5 hours a week playing games... while boys 6 to 17 average 7.3 hours per week of game time." Explicit games are also on the increase, as "13.2 percent carried a "Mature" or "M" rating, up from 9.9 percent in 2001 and under 8 percent in 2000."
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Videogames Attract More Women Than Boys? More

Videogames Attract More Women Than Boys?

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  • The Rest? (Score:5, Funny)

    by moehoward ( 668736 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @09:11PM (#6800830)
    The rest are slashdotters.

    Except me, of course.

    • What was the poll question? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by westendgirl ( 680185 ) on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @02:31AM (#6802591) Homepage
      I looked through the article, but I didn't see the question they asked respondents. Consider the difference between "Have you purchased a video game in the past 12 months?", "Have you played a video game in the past 12 months?", and "Have you played a video game more than 10 times in the past 12 months?"

      The first question would garner affirmative responses from parents, spouses, boy/girlfriends, grandparents and aunts/uncles. If we consider that women make most "gift" purchases, then women should show a history of purchasing video games even if they don't play games.

      The second question would get hits from women whose partners pester them to play the occasional game, as well as those with idle interest in playing the occasional game.

      Only the third question would really reveal whether we are talking about gamers.

      That being said, I'm a married woman who loves games. And I don't work in R&D -- I'm a marketer. My husband? A software architect who finds games geeky.

      Andrea

  • I had no idea the Sims was so popular... (Score:5, Funny)

    by benzapp ( 464105 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @09:12PM (#6800835)
    I mean, that is the only game I have ever seen an adult woman play...

    • Re:I had no idea the Sims was so popular... (Score:5, Funny)

      by El ( 94934 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @09:24PM (#6800940)
      I tried The Sims, then discovered it was more fun micro-managing my 2-year old's bathroom habits...

    • Re:I had no idea the Sims was so popular... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by IIRCAFAIKIANAL ( 572786 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @09:46PM (#6801100) Journal
      My wife plays Animal Crossing quite a bit. Course, it's like the Sims meets Playmobil, but still :) She even has an eReader, a bunch of cards, etc for it.

      The wife also plays RPG's sometimes (though as someone that reads a lot of classic literature, the juvenile plots and terrible writing drives her nuts sometimes) and she loves PopCap games [popcap.com] too. She enjoys Bust a Move as well.

      She doesn't like playing the "M" rated games, but she enjoys watching me play them (NGC Resident Evil, Vice City, etc) and yell encouragement like,
      "Honey, grab the katana and gut those fuckers!"

      She's a great woman =)

    • Re:I had no idea the Sims was so popular... (Score:4, Funny)

      by Catharz ( 223736 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @09:53PM (#6801147)
      Bah, my girlfriend has played all the civilisation games to death.

      I won't even try to compete with her in that game. She plays on god level and wins more often than not. I can still remember her outrage when Civ II crashed at ~254%.

      Since then she tries to win in every way other than wiping everyone else out and leaving just one city while she milks for percentage. Be VERY glad she's not running for parliament.
    • My buddie's Mom used to play Myst back in the day. Now that I think about it, I remember my Ex boss telling me back then that his sister was into Myst too.

      Also, the girl that used to cut my hair was into the Leisure Suit Larry games. She thought they were pretty funny.

      So I guess I'm not suprised at all that some girls like video games.

      wbs.

    • Women are playing every game out there... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Fricka ( 583769 ) on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @12:39AM (#6802073) Homepage Journal
      I'm female and over 18 so I fit in that 26% statistic. I tried the Sims and The Sims Online so can fit that stereotype, but I didn't last very long with either one. I also enjoyed Tomb Raider. However; I've played Castle Wolfenstein and Action Quake. I gave Halflife a go too but got motion sickness on that darn ladder (of all things)!

      I know many other women who are playing other FPS games. There are message boards devoted to just such gamers. As well as more devoted to all female clans.

      If you want to see alot of women playing games look to the MMORPGs. Tons of women there. Myself, I've been playing them for awhile and have beta tested many of them, including Planetside, which is arguably more of a "male" game. Another tidbit that might surprise some is that one of the things that kept me playing MMORPGs was the PvP aspect of it. I enjoyed the competition even when most of my victims assumed I was male.

      Bottom line: don't be so surprised at the statistics nor assume that these 18+ yr old females are only playing one type of game.

  • What's next... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Exitthree ( 646294 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @09:12PM (#6800838) Homepage
    Slashdotters with girlfriends? My world is crumbling! Ahhhhhh!

  • That's Amazing... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by lasmith05 ( 578697 )
    I would've never believed that girls could play more video games then guys until I got my sister and girlfriend into playing Age of Mythology. Now everytime I see either one of them, they are CONSTANTLY playing that game non-stop. It's almost like a crack addiction...

  • but really... (Score:3, Funny)

    by sumho ( 701478 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @09:13PM (#6800844)
    aren't we all just playing games with each other?

    • Re:but really... (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      yeah, but I must have gotten the beta without the multiplayer mode :(

  • what the? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @09:13PM (#6800846)
    Laura Croft was the only girlfriend i ever had.
  • there has to be some underlying fact here, (camps of korean chicks forced to play videogames to skew poll results)

  • I don't doubt it... (Score:5, Funny)

    by AEton ( 654737 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @09:14PM (#6800853)

    My girlfriend's Sims get more action than we do.

    AND they own all this cool stuff in their house.

    On the bright side, those bastards can't own cars, so I guess it evens out. Plus, my girlfriend can't turn off my Free Will. (usually)

  • I knew alot of women who love Boulders gate (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Billly Gates ( 198444 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @09:14PM (#6800857) Journal
    It seems they like role playing adventure games with lots of social interaction. Women by nature have better communication skills.

    Men on the other hand like violent games like Quake. Not that women do not play these kinds of games but being masculine and outdoing each other does not appeal to them as much.

    • I found it didn't take too much convincing to get my girl and my sister to play counter-strike regularly. We also had a great game of dreamcast Quake 3. I think girls don't even consider "male" games as an option until someone actually points it out to them. After that, they love the games just as much as us guys...
    • Not that women do not play these kinds of games but being masculine and outdoing each other does not appeal to them as much.

      Yeah, most of the women I know prefer to be feminine while outdoing each other. It's easier, and less messy.

      BTW, both of my 2 past ex gf's and my wife play(ed) FPS games online with me quite often (Starting with Duke Nuk'em, then Quakeworld, Q2, lots of Rocket Arena Q2 and Action Q2, some SoF2, and now Battlefield 1942 exclusively.)
    • Actually when you get into the more team based FPS games like counterstrike or urban terror, I find you get more female participation in the game, especially in the clan tournaments. However the reflex skills are still somewhat daunting; I've yet to see a woman who completely owned all.

    • Re:I knew alot of women who love Boulders gate (Score:4, Insightful)

      by mnmn ( 145599 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @09:50PM (#6801128) Homepage
      <i>being masculine and outdoing each other does not appeal to them as much.</i>

      Well dominating others is a basic human instict whether that is with a railgun or social skills. Outdoing each other is what women love to do.
      1. Chat to the NPC to find out if s/he has anything you need to know.
      2. Wait for NPC to get distracted
      3. Beat seven shades of shit out of NPC
      4. Empathise with NPC as you loot the body
      It's kinda like being married except it's easier to do it repeatedly.

  • The reason (Score:5, Funny)

    by nightsweat ( 604367 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @09:14PM (#6800861)
    It's a joystick envy thing.

  • Yes, more women than boys (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dancin_Santa ( 265275 ) <DancinSanta@gmail.com> on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @09:15PM (#6800864) Journal
    If you are going to lump all women over the age of 18 together and compare that to middle school and high school boys, I guess you could say that the numbers add up in favor of the disproportionately large population.
    • "If you are going to lump all women over the age of 18 together and compare that to middle school and high school boys, I guess you could say that the numbers add up in favor of the disproportionately large population."

      Uh, it's a *percentage*. Frankly, all women over the age of 18 should skew to a lower percentage, since I doubt many grannies get their game on.
    • Oops. So sorry, I'd misread read the damn thing. I thought it was claiming that 26% of women over 18 gamed. Not that 26% of gamers are women over 18. You are right.

    • Re:Yes, more women than boys (Score:5, Insightful)

      by PMuse ( 320639 ) on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @12:42AM (#6802090)
      So, deconstructing the spin, we have:

      Gamers by Age and Gender

      Girls 6 to 17 - 12%

      Boys 6 to 17 - 21%

      Women 18 or older - 26%

      Men 18 and up - 38%

      unknown - 3% (total 100%)

      Adults over 50 - 17% (was 13% in 2000)

      Average age - 29 (increased)

      Time spent gaming/week

      Overall average - 6.5 hrs/wk

      Boys 6 to 17 - 7.3 hrs/wk

      Poll based on a random national sample questioning 806 adults, reporting on the gaming habits of 1,048 game players including kids.

      • Re:Yes, more women than boys (Score:4, Informative)

        by Baron von Leezard ( 675918 ) on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @02:40AM (#6802611)

        The trouble is that this is a marketing survey. They care about the relative size of their marketing groups: i.e. what percentage of the gaming market is represented by each demographic group. What most people want to know is what is the rate of gaming in each group. The following analysis calculates that (in a relative way, based on their data).

        Based on population data from the 2000 US Census [census.gov], the US population breaks down like this:

        female 6-17: 9.6
        male 6-17: 9.3
        female 18+: 37.8
        male 18+: 36.5

        The ratio of the percentage of gamers to the percentage of population gives us a relative measure of "gaming likeliness":

        female 6-17: 1.25 = 12/9.6
        male 6-17: 2.26 = 21/9.3
        female 18+: 0.69 = 26/37.8
        male 18+: 1.04 = 38/36.5

        What the hell does this ratio mean? Well, it can't be translated into an absolute gaming rate since we don't know the total rate of gamers in the population. But it does tell us that males between 6 and 17 are 3.28 (=2.26/0.69) times as likely to be gamers as females over 18.

        So the numbers are really not as surprising as they seem to be. However, they are significant from a marketing perspective: women are an important gaming market these days. This is excellent news and should keep things interesting.

        The real lesson: statistics are tricky.

  • That's my problem! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Ghoser777 ( 113623 ) <fahrenba@NOsPAm.mac.com> on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @09:15PM (#6800870) Homepage
    No wonder I can't find a date - everyone compatible with me is inside playing violent video games! I'd network with them, but they'd laugh at the speed of my dial-up modem...

    Matt Fahrenbacher

  • More Mature Games? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by guamman ( 527778 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @09:17PM (#6800888)
    I wonder what percentage of games are rated mature now opposed to in the past? Perhaps the rating system is becoming increasingly strict and thereby artifically raising the number of mature games used by gamers.
  • is it possible that older females (18+) can afford more games/machines than those poor boys? imagine how hard a 6-year-old boy has to beg to get a game?

    additionally, i would imagine younger children won't be too excited about reporting their game-playing activities since most of them are more or less restricted by their parents.

  • unbelievable (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nsuttitinagul ( 318095 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @09:18PM (#6800898) Homepage
    I really don't think these statistics really indicate the truth.

    First off, video games are frequently directed toward males. How often do video game heroines become sex objects? Lara Croft is the easy example, but there are dozens of others in RPGs, fighting games, adventure, horror, and practically every genre.

    Perhaps the grain of truth in this is that women may be becoming more technically inclined than they were in the past. Certainly as a university student, the number of women in engineering is on the rise. Also, perhaps they see the presence of video game heroines as a show of the power of femininity in these games. Even while Eidos was building Tomb Raider, they were particularly cautious and uncertain about making their main character a woman.

    Regardless, is the show of women a good sign? If it helps create diversity in video games and help manufacturers build more innovative games than "Adventures of Barbie," then this can only help the industry.

    • Re:unbelievable (Score:5, Insightful)

      by soft_guy ( 534437 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @09:24PM (#6800941)
      Yeah, your gut instinct is probably more reliable than a poll that is merely based on actual research data.

    • Re:unbelievable (Score:2, Informative)

      by R5900 ( 699398 )

      Regardless, is the show of women a good sign? If it helps create diversity in video games and help manufacturers build more innovative games than "Adventures of Barbie," then this can only help the industry.

      Here, in Europe, new game genres, less focused on violence / male stuff, make suprisingly good results.

      Eye Toy [eyetoy.com] is the best example. It is innovative, and appeals at much to men than women, according to my personal experience. And what is really unbelivable (and a good thing) is that it is topping UK [gamesindustry.biz]

    • Re:unbelievable (Score:5, Interesting)

      by SmallFurryCreature ( 593017 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @09:39PM (#6801060) Journal
      Oh please. Not this whole sex-object means it is targetted at men. Proof? Every fucking shampoo aimed at women contains a gorgeous naked babe. Why not show a naked guy?

      Women are far less troubled by naked boobies, after all they see them pretty much everyday. They are used to it and unlikely to lose all higher brain functions when things start jiggling. That doesn't stop the fact that the most favored addition to Neverwinter Nights is an erotic adventure created by a female. Women can be just as perverted, in my experience even more so, then men.

      So games really don't need to change all that much unless you are a sexist pig who believes that all men want brainless testorone pumpers and all women want fluffy duffy talkie feelie type games.

      Men and women can meet each other in the middle and together enjoy games. Women will just shrug off the overlarge boobs in say every RPG ever made with a "boys" and concentrate on enjoying the game. That at least is my experience. I have noted that none of the 2 females I introduced to "The longest journey" commented on april's normal physical build. I noticed it, to them it was just a minor detail, just as they did not get a kick out of seeing her in her undies :P wich means they just enjoyed the game and let the fanservice flow past them.

      Still it is amazing to believe one in four gamers is now a woman. Must be going to the wrong lan-parties.

    • Re:unbelievable (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Malor ( 3658 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @09:46PM (#6801102) Journal
      When the first Tomb Raider came out, we had it in glorious accelerated 3DFX loveliness at the computer store where I worked. It was a popular demo.

      One of my coworkers brought her daughter in to see it; she stayed and played it for hours. The next day she brought her friends over, and we had a whole gaggle of teenage girls totally engrossed in the game. I remember being pretty amazed at how hooked they were; one of them would play and they'd all watch, and every once in awhile, they'd change who was controlling Lara. They were *mesmerized*.

      At the time, I figured it was because it was a female protagonist. I remember being acutely uncomfortable with Lara Croft and her Breasts of Impalement being a role model for those girls; talk about your unrealistic images! Even Barbie is rather staid and normal-looking compared to Lara Croft.

      Not sure exactly where I'm going with this. I guess I'm trying to point out that girls do indeed play video games if given material that interests them, and also that the typical male-oriented bimbo with the chainmail bikini may not be doing young women any favors. (or, probably, young men, for that matter.)

      I'm not saying it's going to leave huge psychic scars, but conditioning is probably the single most powerful influence on human behavior, and I suspect that this particular kind of conditioning isn't very healthy.

      (and yes, other media may be worse, but that doesn't make video games any better. It's still wrong for me to beat you with a stick, even if my neighbor would shoot you instead.)

  • Explicit games are also on the increase... (Score:5, Funny)

    by R5900 ( 699398 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @09:19PM (#6800902)
    A even non-explicit ones, such as Tetsuya Mizuguchi's wonderful musical-shooter Rez, give unexpected vibrations [gamegirladvance.com] to some women..

    BTW, this game is really good. Not your average rts/fps clone, but for those who like different games, worth a try [u-ga.com] .

  • What do they mean by "games"? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by corporatemutantninja ( 533295 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @09:19PM (#6800903)
    If they're including on-line play of board games, bingo, and the like, then I'm not at all surprised. Old folks playing scrabble and bingo on the net vastly outweigh us young'ns.
  • It's probably because of over protective parents. It's amazing how obsessive some of them can get. Expecially the one that sued this [realultimatepower.net] dude.

  • Lies, damn lies, and statistics (Score:5, Insightful)

    by El ( 94934 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @09:21PM (#6800925)
    Does this mean that 21% are actually female, or that 21% identify themselves as female when playing online games? I suspect the latter. Polls based on a self-selecting group of individuals are never valid.
    • How DARE you, sir!

      I as an 18 year old female with measurements of 36-24-36 take offense to this! I do because I am not a teenager who is just taking on a role, but a real live woman with actual breasts! I have two of them! Actual, live, real breasts, and not just something I'm thinking about right now and wishing were in my immediate vicinity because I am a real, live actual woman and not at all made up.

      If there was one word I would use to describe myself it would be this: "totally real and not made up

  • misleading stats (Score:5, Insightful)

    by shird ( 566377 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @09:24PM (#6800943) Homepage Journal
    How does this mean there are more boys playing games than girls? The post is comparing two different age brackets.

    more women over 18 than young boys are playing games

    This means there is a higher % of women from 18 to ~80 playing games than boys 6 to 17. Well duh... there is a hell of a lot more people in the latter age bracket. Completely stupid stats.
    • that should read "higher number of women"... or "higher % of gamers are women..."

      Either way, the number/% of women in the 6 to 17 age group is only 12%, compared to 21% for boys in the same group.

  • Thirty-eight percent female? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by frankthechicken ( 607647 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @09:25PM (#6800953) Journal
    And what proportion of those included the occasional(OK, seven and a half hours during the week) game of solitaire, tetris, and spider?

    I wonder if the stipulation of FPS, RPG or RTS playing were made, would the figure be quite so high, it would be nice to see the types of games each demography were playing.

    Indeed how was the poll conducted, whether it was taken at game shops, or merely random questioning?

  • Makes Sense to Me (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MBCook ( 132727 ) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @09:25PM (#6800954) Homepage
    Why is this so suprising? Who has more disposible income? A 12 year old boy, or a 21 year old girl? While it's not the stereotype, I think it makes plenty of sense if you think about it.
    • Why is this so suprising? Who has more disposible income? A 12 year old boy, or a 21 year old girl? While it's not the stereotype, I think it makes plenty of sense if you think about it.

      Depends on how well he's able to dip into his parents' pockets, I guess. But most of the games (at least those I play, mostly strategy but also UT2003, NwN, GTA:VC) require more time than money, at least if you want to finish it. And don't get me started on how long I was wandering around Morrowind.

      I'd rather be guessing
    • "Who has more disposible income? A 12 year old boy, or a 21 year old girl?"

      The 12 year old boy probably. Not because he's a boy and she's a girl, but when I was 21 me and most of my friends were broke-ass mofo's with student loans and Boston rent driving disposible income to the "Mario or food?" point.

    • No kidding (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 )
      This is something that seems liek a total shock to the videogame community and totally obvious to teh rest of us: Adults have more money than kids. I mean look at the PSX. It really supprised the shit out of Nintendo and Sega with its success. Well why did it succeed? Some people claim it was purely based on graphics but that has NEVER been enough to win a console war. Look at the Gameboy and its pathetic graphics. Other features (longer batteries, better games) kept it as king.

      What Sony really did was go

  • Uh... Misleading. Males still outnumber Females (Score:3, Insightful)

    by sielwolf ( 246764 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @09:25PM (#6800958) Homepage Journal
    The number of 18+ women is growing and is more than at least 59% of the market. Ok so "women" outnumber "boys". But boys still play longer than the average gamer and they don't go into it, but I suspect they probably buy more games per capita.

    I also wonder how skewed their info on Mature games is since probably a significant part of those sales are those Vice City. Actually, are they just going by who hands (a father buying a game for his daughter) over the money or who the game is for (the daughter)?

    • I miss-html'ed my message (Score:4, Insightful)

      by sielwolf ( 246764 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @09:29PM (#6800984) Homepage Journal
      No wonder it makes no fucking sense. Here it is revised:

      The number of 18+ women is growing and is more than 18- boys (21%) but the largest demographic is still 18+ men (38%). So that means males represent at least 59% of the market. Ok so "women" outnumber "boys". But boys still play longer than the average gamer and they don't go into it, but I suspect they probably buy more games per capita.

      I also wonder how skewed their info on Mature games is since probably a significant part of those sales are those 18- year old boys getting their older brothers/parents to buy them Vice City. Actually, are they just going by who hands (a father buying a game for his daughter) over the money or who the game is for (the daughter)?

  • Makes sense; but... hours per week? Who knows? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Rhone ( 220519 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @09:27PM (#6800972) Homepage
    Considering there are lot more "women over 18" than there are "boys aged 6 to 17", this doesn't seem too surprising. While women don't seem to have as big a presence in FPS and RTS games, most women I know who frequently use computers like spending lots of time with things like Snood or Tetris. And my mom spends most of her free time (i.e. pretty much all day) playing Poker on-line.

    Regarding average playing time per week--am I the only one who cringes every time I see "How many hours per week do you play video games?" on a survey? I usually end up pulling some kind of average out of my ass, because a) I don't exactly keep logs of game-playing time, and b) how much time I spend playing games per week varies widely, depending on how much free time I have and whether or not I have a game I'm currently hooked on. I don't think I'm all that unique regarding either of those points, so I'm always a bit skeptical of "People spend x hours per week playing video games" statements.

  • Hey, lets compare the oranges to the oranges. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by thepacketmaster ( 574632 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @09:32PM (#6801009) Homepage Journal
    The way this story presents the information, it must have an agenda. Look at the facts objectively: When you compare 6-17 boys with 6-17 girls, and 18+ men with 18+ women, the men are still the biggest game players.
    • 6-17 boys: 21%
    • 6-17 girls: 12%
    • 18+ men: 38%
    • 18+ women: 26%

    The real question is why does the ratio between males and females close as women get older? I would say there are two reasons:

    • First, I would say there is still some sort of ignorant social stigma that says girls shouldn't play video games. But by the time they're 18, the girls get over that.
    • Second, I have noticed my buddies with girlfriends play video games *with* their girlfriends, like any other social activity. And even girls I would consider non-gamers take an interest in their boyfriend's video games, just because the guys play them so much.
    • I still think that men are the primary game players and that this survey is slightly faulty. It only says what percentage of people consider themselves gamers. The fact of the matter is, this was a POLL, which assumes the people answering are telling the truth. I'm not saying anyone is lying, but now it's considered cool to be into games, to the point where people would say yes even if they really didn't play that much.

      Also, I think most women who play games play because their boyfriend plays. I would bet

  • Skewed statistics (Score:4, Informative)

    by LINM ( 255706 ) <mbego00.gsb@columbia@edu> on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @09:34PM (#6801025) Homepage
    The age ranges seem to bias the primary comparison. I know how 'techy' everyone is getting nowadays, but I don't think that many 'boys' below 5th grade actually are able to engage in a lot of serious gaming. For starters, they are very young (at 6 years old - the starting range in the study - 'boys' are only in kindergarden and probably cannot even turn on a computer). Furthermore, boys under 18 are likely to be moderated away from excessive gaming (like my old Civilization to dawn marathons at undergrad with people watching). My parents would have taken the hardrive pretty quickly after that.

    So when you look at it the 'effective' age range for boys is probably 12-18 compared to a 40 year age range for women.

    What probably is better to look at is just that 38% of the gamers are women. Surprisingly high to me, but good for them!

    To sum up the numbers:

    ..............Men........Women
    6-17.......21..... ....12......33
    18+........38.........26......64
    Sum..........59.........38......97

    The remaining 3% have morphed into an unidentifiable classification.

  • Explicit? Mature? I wish! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by swordgeek ( 112599 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @09:37PM (#6801045) Journal
    Man, what ever happened to the computer game porn revolution?

    Serious question here! When you consider the amount of porn sold annually (billions of dollars, even if it almost universally sucks), there MUST be a market for a game that addresses sex in a deeper way than Duke Nukem.

    As for maturity, I'd love to see an adult game with a hint of maturity, but that's never gonna happen. Sadly.
  • My wife plays minesweeper all the time and denies it. I keep offering to put something on her computer that she might like, like SimCity but she refuses.

  • That poll is including MIND games. (Score:3, Funny)

    by mnmn ( 145599 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @09:45PM (#6801089) Homepage

    I think they have it wrong. Playing mind games is not a subset of playing video games. This planet would be a great place to be if women in those numbers played games. The HIP culture would move from racy two-door booming modded cars to the best counterstrike and warcraft players.

    Even including games like Sim Online and cell phone games doesnt give you stats like those. Remember EVERY kid under 16 in the western hemisphere plays video games.

    But then, if you consider playing mind games in relationships, that about includes all women in the western hemisphere above 16. Hmm.
  • According to the poll, "...26 percent of game players are women 18 or older, while 21 percent are boys 6 to 17"

    Someone needs to inform THESE [mac.com] guys of those statistics...

  • 26%!!!!!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by zarthrag ( 650912 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @09:45PM (#6801095)
    What have I been doing with my life! I can't believe that! Do you know what this means?!?!?!? My chances of picking up a gamer chick have just gone WAAAAAY up! All I have to do is figure out what game...God I hope it isn't the sims....
    "On the Moon, we have advanced far beyond rules, and manners..."
  • If I was a woman, I'm sure I'd be more attracted to a game than I would be to a young boy.

  • So what? (Score:4, Funny)

    by dicepackage ( 526497 ) <dicepackageNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @09:49PM (#6801125) Homepage
    72 percent of all statistics are made up.
  • I guess that 52% of sports fans are female also? So if the males in attendance bring their girlfriends to the Stanley Cup Finals that makes the female a sports fan? Just more lefties blinded by equality instead of facts. Sigh.... such ignorant children.

  • Dance Dance Revolution (Score:5, Interesting)

    by HidingMyName ( 669183 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @09:51PM (#6801141)
    And similar games seem to get fairly mixed play at our local arcade, but I'd guess it is still about 2 guys to 1 girl I see playing. Girls are coming into the arcade more, and not just to find their boy friends. Driving games and (to a lesser extent) Soul Calibur II seem popular with the girls.

  • Bias (Score:4, Insightful)

    by GregoryD ( 646395 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @09:59PM (#6801175)
    What I would like to know is:

    Do they include online games like pogo.com? I don't care what you say, something bejeweled and bingo are not true "games". They are, but good luck selling something like bejeweled for 40 bucks a pop. And I doubt they spend .00001 of a percent as much as valve on HL2 or something.

    Also, I know from personal experince that the only people who answer surveys are stay at home types and female. When I worked for a survey place it was easily 25 women respondants for every 1 male respondants. And we didn't exclusivly call from 9a to 5p either. We worked till 10p.

  • I would have never thought... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rustycage ( 550599 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @10:11PM (#6801240)
    I would see my wife playing video games. A few months ago I bought a GBA SP cause it looked cool and I kept hearing great things about Advance Wars. Little did I know that 75% of it's use is by my wife who never touched my PS2. The 3D games "make her dizzy" she says. Seems she real likes the old school platformers like Yoshi's Island. She said she used to play it as a kid(much to my surprise). My daughter is almost as bad with the GBA, except I am ALLOWED to restrict her video game time. Probably going to need to get another SP within a few months if I ever want to finish Advance Wars. *sigh*

  • videogames attract more women than boys? (Score:4, Funny)

    by bongobongo ( 608275 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @10:28PM (#6801325)
    but women attract more boys than video games :)

  • No surprise (Score:3, Funny)

    by One Louder ( 595430 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @10:54PM (#6801437)
    Videogames Attract More Women Than Boys?
    Most women I know aren't attracted to boys.

    Now if more women were attracted to video games than men, that would be a problem.

  • Hmmmm... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by softspokenrevolution ( 644206 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2003 @11:43PM (#6801744) Journal
    So let's say that the average female lifespan is about 78. And women make up about 51% of the population, now, when comparing a group from 6-17 (11 years) with a group that ranges over about 60 years, doesn't really seem like the basis of any fair extrapolation. In all reality this is really a construction by someone to get across an idea that they have and make it appear to be an objective fact.

    In addition, I really can't recall how often 6-10 year olds play video games, it may just be that I really don't know any, but I don't think it can be that many, you're primary market (especially the ones your pumping the M rated games to) would be about 12-17 or so.

    Actually reading the article reveals that the answer to the title question would be a negative, as when you compare similar age groupings, boys still dominate the consumption and play areas. In the 6-17 range boys are doing 9% more gaming than girls and in the 18+ range, boys are doing 12% more gaming than women.

    The lead of the article is Challenging the stereotype that video gaming is the domain of teenage boys, an industry group on Tuesday reported that more women over 18 than young boys are playing games and the average age of players has risen to 29. Now, let's make a logical conclusion, the United States of America has a population of 18+ that far exceeds the 6-17 range, thanks in part to the baby boom and the fact that the secondary boom (which was more in spending than in population) is now moving into the 18+ range.

    The survey was compiled from gamer data, not from the general population of the United States. You are taking a section of the population (gamers) and seperating them into four units (women and men, over and under 18) and then comparing two dissimilar segments (in relation to size) and trying to draw a conclusion.

    All right, let me be coherent for a second. Essentially what I'm trying to say is that the article is stating the obvious that out of the whole, a larger group will make up a greater percentage. What they needed to do was say, We poled 242 kids under 18, now 220 of those are boys, that's right 91% of gamers under 18 are boys. Now, we polled 806 adults, 3 times the number of kids that we polled. Now, the poll seems to have some mathematical problems based on it's 3% error (because 21+26+38+12 equals 97) and when we factor in the percentages for adults we get that out of the total there were 273 women (rounded up) and 377 men (rounded down), added together this is 650. In this group, 58% of gamers are men and 42% are women, almost a 20 point disparity. Overall men make up 66% of the gaming population.

    Now, throw this all out because this survey is trash in regards to following an actual trend as to what gender is growing in game consumption. A real survey would need to be truly blind and poll even non-games to get a good sense of what is going on and see the actual percentages of the entire population which has a larger game following per capita. It's far too late to makes sense.

  • female CS community (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rEWDBOi ( 169608 ) on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @05:32AM (#6803085)
    Hey guys, check out Zockerweibchen [zockerweibchen.de] (German site) for surprisingly good-looking female counterstrike players.

  • Hardcore game players are the minority (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Junks Jerzey ( 54586 ) on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @09:20AM (#6804040)
    People who follow hardware fanboy sites, buy $400 video cards, love throwaway games that you "win" once then never want to play again yet still complain that the games were too short, only play games fitting a narrow genre of 3D polygonal action...these are the hardcore game players. Hardcore games can be big, as witnessed by GTA3 and GTA:VC (over 5 million copies sold of each), but those are the exception. When you realize that the endlessly hyped Quake 3 only sold ~160,000 copies, then you realize what a slim and fickle market this is.

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