I don't get on Facebook as often as I used to but whenever I do I get endless stupid ads. I saw an ad about gaming and how women make up almost half of all the gamers. I could swear I heard that men make up about 80% of gamers. Can someone clarify that? There are plenty of women who enjoy gaming, and I would've loved it if the women I've dated had been gamers. I do see the gaming industry doing the same thing as other industries in our current era. Over obsess about diversity/representation while crapping on your main block of customers.
You're viewing a single comment thread. View all comments, or full comment thread.
Comments (28)
sorted by:
As others said, "Gamer" by their definition is "anyone who has played any game one singular time".
The study it references (though doesn't cite) breaks down what games by genre are played. If you were looking for a "gamer" by your not quite defined definition (or at least for me it would be), you'd probably look at Shooters (male-dominant), strategy games (male-dominant), or MMOs (male-dominant, but much less so than the others).
Fun aside fact from that study: Men play women in games at about double the rate that women play men. Whether that means men are simply less sexist, or that men wish to gain the advantages of women in MMOs, or that men are bestial things that wish to control all the movements of women, is open to interpretation (I know which one Sarkeesan would say), but it is fun to note that men are more gender-equal than women as it comes to gamer preferences.
Which would imply female-led games would do better. Except MOST men, and most women both, still prefer their own gender to play as, and as stated, shooters/strategy/MMOs are male-dominated.
Women, from the study, liked find-the-object, match-three, and other puzzle games. The further away from pure puzzle game you go, the less women you get. When you get a full-on RPG with character building and equipment that uses match-3 mechanics, you lose a LOT of female audience.
As for why they're shitting on their existing customer base... The saying "A bird in hand is worth two in bushes" exists for a reason. Because it is a lesson that needs to be told, that people need to learn. They see the mythical "female market" for their products, a massive buyer-base, and want that money. Except that money doesn't exist. And they assume their existing customer base will be forever loyal, that the bird in hand cannot be lost.
For sure for sure.
I remember a guild back in Perfect World with a veno-MAN-cer who claimed "trap" status (since only female character models could be venomancers), and it caused all sorts of guild drama even though the guy himself didn't give one fuck about it and was clearly and obviously male. The female avatar alone created a simp-circle, though that wasn't the nomenclature of the era.