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Girls play more games than boys
Author: Joe MartinPublished: 25th September 2007
Girls play games. Girls like pink. Microsoft likes money. You do the maths.
The target demographic for most games companies in the past has been fairly simple - 18 to 34 year old single, white male. In other words, developers have been writing games for themselves in the past, as this demographic has been thought to make up the majority of the market. The new survey however suggests that the majority of console owners are actually women.
A massive 44 percent of women in the survey said that they owned a games console right now, compared to only 39percent of men. A lot of this is being put down to the Nintendo Wii by industry analysts.
"The Wii has really caused a democratization of gaming, because that has opened it up to all generations and both genders," said Ann Mack, director of trendspotting for JWT.
Personally, the news isn't all that surprising to me and my girlfriend has been into gaming just as long as I have and she often beats me at virtually any game I play her at, except Monkey Island speed-runs. To me the very idea that women gamers need to be targeted differently by developers is a little preposterous.
Meanwhile, Microsoft will be bringing out a range of coloured Xbox 360 wireless controllers next month. Speaking at the Microsoft Hardware Day, a spokesperson claimed that the addition of a baby blue and baby pink controller to the line-up was to "increase appeal to the growing female market"
Nice.
Do you regularly beat your girl or boyfriend in deathmatches to work off steam, or does your partner think gaming is strictly for nerds and geeks? Let us know what you think in the forums.
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I imagine my gf would love a pink controller too, I may have to get her one.
(best steer clear of the "what's pink, contains batteries and is completely wireless" jokes :P )
Hex's Nazbatag? :p
She was more than a little dissappointed when I told her we don't have a Xbox 360 at home...
About time you bought one then. Or she can, or even share! Then we can spike you in the back of the head tomorrow!
Why did you have to strike for the Halo 3 launch!:'(
No, but they know a lot of girls do like pink versions of stuff, like pink DSes. My gf doesn't own anything pink, but she still likes pink controllers and stuff.
Is Kazuo Hirai your god perchance?
In fact, when I showed her the pink controller, the only reaction she gave it was a cussword and a eye-roll.
It's no different to how men are targetted in adverts sometimes. Seen that Head and Shoulders advert? "A guy like jimmy knows he has to look his best..."
I ****ing hate that advert. A guy like Jimmy is probably a poncy testosterone filled pre-pubescent trapped in the body of a full grown man who will, with any luck, catch a particularly virulent STD which will lead to a slow and humiliating death which will leave a strong enough impression on all his ******* children that they try and not turn out like "a guy like jimmy"
****ing FHM readers.
She cant play any first person shootors because she gets motion sickness. She liked the look of bioshock but that made her dizzy. Shame really. but she also cant hanle 3d worlds, she like most women that cant handle 3D environments as they can process the information properly. Thats a known fact.
Im trying to get her into bomberman because thats the family favourite.
Im going to get the Pink 360 pad at some point for the wife, if I can get here addicted to bomberman. I have 2 white and 1 black at the moment and a Pink will brighten things up :).
My Mum loves Saturn Bomberman and Mariokart on N64.
My mum is probably the oldest person going that plays runescape, nuff said. :) I tried to get her into WoW but she wasn't having any of it, although she does like guildwars
no
A lot of people might cast doubt on the Wii as a "serious" gaming platform, but, from my point of view, as a source for family orientated fun it's unsurpassed.
A combination of Sims2 on her PC (she plays it so much she gave me money to upgrade the PC for her ) and several games (including more sims ones) on her Nintendo DS.
Strangely she never seemed particularly bothered about my brother's Wii.
She's one of those women that is never happy, she complains when she has too much work (i.e. any work, she's a workaholic so she puts stupid amounts of time into even the smallest exercise) and when she has no work to do she complains she's bored and has nothing to do. If she turns into her mother any more I may have to give her the boot :p
Hmm, Hannah loves Burnout too - esp road rages.
That said, she hates it when I tell her how to do things, mainly because I know the games we play inside out and give her very indepth advice which she doesn't want. She gets so proud when she beats me though and never lets me forget it.
Evil Genius is another one she really likes, but she's got stuck and doesn't like the idea of replaying the game from the start to do things better, even though the last time she played it was almost two years ago.
When my brother and I were younger he got the consoles for birthday/Chrismas, while I got the arts & craft stuff, but we played against each other on 'his' games, and painted each other (and the house) with 'my' arts & craft stuff.
As we got older I managed to wrangle the better stuff like a TV, video player and an N64 the week it was out (to think, I was so excited about it at the time), and by then I prefered RPGs like Zelda, while my brother wasted his meagre pocket money on sports games.
Now my brother works for a living, and can afford the new consoles as they come out, I can only play on them in the holidays as
I'm a poor student at Uni with my faithful ps2, a maxed out overdraft, and a laptop that's just a little better than I can really afford.
But in our student house (3 girls) we have 4 laptops under 3 years old, 2 ps2s, one playstation, 1 N64, 1 DS, 1DS Lite, 3 colour gameboys, 1 PSP and half a Wii (don't ask)
My favourite game is FFX, (although I could live without the blitzball) with the other FFs and FFstyle games , one of my housemates loves the Lara Croft and LOTR games (it's the killing, mostly), while the other prefers Brain Training, Guitar Hero and the GTA series.
But it was similar in halls, in our girls only building, anyone who paid out for a TV licence, had a games console too, and those who couldn't afford it invaded their friends' rooms.
I would have to say that in the 16-24 age group, the lure for girls is either diversity (most common in halls were ps2's which play cds, dvds and have so many games available, that everyone can find at least one game they enjoy) or size (DS lites were also very common, and they easily fit in your bag for when you're stuck waiting/travelling).
Most girls I know are at best indifferent to (male driven) companies offering everything in pink, and a good proportion are insulted (me included - I don;t even like pink!) my friends and I prefer small consoles in black or silver that don't look out of place by the TV (or are easily hidden), or shout out their existance and get stolen (and are easily hidden).
PS: Me and one of my housemates spent ages at the EA Tourtruck at Download 2007, while my brother and his male friend took one look at the que, and went back to the tent to sleep!
Wake me up when they play games like HL2, etc.
Wait doesn't that only make 83 percent, whats the other group?
I think it's more that we are surprised that anybody else was surprised by this news. Of course girls play games. D'uh.
Does that include mums that own a console for their children ?
Then again, its hard to judge, none of the females i know could even turn on a games console, let alone use it
Why not!!!
Either you dont know your female friends, or you dont have any (Ouch)
Out of all the females I know, about 70% of them play games.
In the area i live, gaming isn't that popular (well as far as i know) and most people will go out drinking or chat on MSN, instead of playing games