91 replies to this topic

[jonnykun]

i've always perceived the gaming community to consist of mostly boys, because...girls play with barbies and makeup and not video games right.
but i have a feeling that that is changing as gaming companies are trying to target more general population (guitar hero a good example). so do you guys think games are played mostly by boys or are girls starting to come on the scene.

[ArticTheTiger]

I feel like the gaming community is still mostly based on males, it's just that females play games more often these days.

[Oaken]

I think it goes without saying that more and more girls are becoming gamers.

I know a girl that turned into a zombie from playing WoW too much. She would go out with friends and then receive a text from someone she plays WoW with asking her to come and do a raid or something....she would just leave her friends and go home. This is an extreme example of a girl gamer but still.....

My wife plays games with me sometimes....in fact she is on the Wii Fit right now. My sister plays online games as well but usually just facebook games.

[Alexa]

I think more and more girls play video games but not the same games. I think girls like more wii games where it's really interactive . Well I prefer the wii compared to the playstation.

[outsidedream86]

That's true...I love playing computer/video games. Just not shoot-em-ups (except Goldeneye). I don't see the appeal of blowing things up and killing endless enemies.

[Elindoril]

There are girl gamers, then there are gamer grrls.

I for one enjoy the company of Girl Gamers.

[Devilfish]

I'm a gamer all around (video games, but roleplay and boardgames too). I do enjoy shooters, was hugely into WoW, loved modding for Morrowind and later Oblivion, playing Dragon Age right now, love me some Left 4 Dead... What I do not like is geekbeards staring at my boobs while I do my thing. Guys letting me win because they want to get into my pants and guys refusing to play me because my genitals differ from theirs. There's a lot of sexism amongst typical gamers here. If you're looking for reasons why there aren't more girl gamers (traditional gaming, I mean, not this Wii Pilates crap), there's one.

[Georgina]

I think on a whole there's probably more male gamers than females, but I don't think the difference would actually be too significant.

The reason why people have the perception that there not many girls though is because of the type of games girls actually do play. Roleplaying, simulators and usually games that aren't totally male targeted are probably 50/50 female/male but war games, shooting game etc wont appeal to many.

Obviously these will be more popular with male gamers, so when you play a game for a year and only ever find 3 or 4 females its going to make you think its the same universally but I don't think its as much as what guys think!

75% of my female friends have or do play games of some sort.

[Joanna]

Ummmm. I fucking love video games. I play xbox live all the time. Ive beaten nearly every game for xbox and I never stop.

[iargue]

See. This "gamers" bullshit pisses me off. We dont live in a day of just gamers. Its Hardcore games or casual games. Girls will play Casual games alot more, but they are still very very very scarce in harcore games. Casual games require minimal skill and effort. Its just pretty graphics and a few hours wasted. And casual games are ruining the hardcore gaming market. Because whenever someone spends an hour and makes dinner dash, and it outsells a game that took 4 years to produce it....people stop bothering.

I've played well over a million matches online, and have never ever once lost to a girl. They simply are not as good at gaming as guys. (Before you call me sexist. A million results is more then enough to be considered viable as a poll)


Take TossGirl for example. She was the best female starcraft gamer in the Korean female league, but she couldnt win any games in the male programmers league. (Then of course, the female league was disbanded because girls dont have rights in Korea )

[Mr. Hobo]

A lot of it depends on the genre of the game. I've noticed that stuff like rockband/nintendo ds, half the people I've played with have been with girls. It's hard to say online though because people usually don't identify their gender, from what I've seen it's like 1/20 but that's only because I've heard them speak or had someone refer to them as a she so it might be higher

[jonnykun]

I've played well over a million matches online, and have never ever once lost to a girl. They simply are not as good at gaming as guys. (Before you call me sexist. A million results is more then enough to be considered viable as a poll)


Take TossGirl for example. She was the best female starcraft gamer in the Korean female league, but she couldnt win any games in the male programmers league. (Then of course, the female league was disbanded because girls dont have rights in Korea )

makes sense, but i'm clueless as to why this is so. video games are not the same as sports in the sense that physical differences between guys and girls don't play a large part in determining who will win in a video game match. so why is it that guys are often much better than girls? at the competitive gaming level, as well as casual gaming.

[iargue]

makes sense, but i'm clueless as to why this is so. video games are not the same as sports in the sense that physical differences between guys and girls don't play a large part in determining who will win in a video game match. so why is it that guys are often much better than girls? at the competitive gaming level, as well as casual gaming.

I think it has to do with the gamer mentality. Guys are much more competitive then girls, and they learn how to do things faster then girls, while on the other hand, girls like shiny, pretty, cute things, and not doing much work.


I have nothing against girls, but I have never ever ever seen a girl who was good at games. And I have played every game thats gotten over a 5.0 from gameinformer since 2000. ( Also played games before that date, but I havent played all of the rated games)

[Devilfish]

See. This "gamers" bullshit pisses me off. We dont live in a day of just gamers. Its Hardcore games or casual games. Girls will play Casual games alot more, but they are still very very very scarce in harcore games. Casual games require minimal skill and effort. Its just pretty graphics and a few hours wasted. And casual games are ruining the hardcore gaming market. Because whenever someone spends an hour and makes dinner dash, and it outsells a game that took 4 years to produce it....people stop bothering.

Hear hear. Remember when the Wii was just called the Nintendo Revolution and thus still awesome? Remember how wicked it was going to be to have lightsabers and swords fer realz? Remember how we got stuck with fucking Wii Pilates? Gah. When my grandma wanted to borrow my sister's Wii, that's the day gaming fucking keeled over and died.

I've played well over a million matches online, and have never ever once lost to a girl. They simply are not as good at gaming as guys. (Before you call me sexist. A million results is more then enough to be considered viable as a poll)

A million results of what? Your personal experience? Do you really start every game with a bout of a/s/l? I'll believe it when I see actual numbers from actual research. In my experience females are usually less competitive. They tend to play for fun, not e-peen. (Nothing personal, I'm sure your e-peen is both huge and delicious.) I don't know. I was in a WoW guild that was about 50/50 gender-wise and the leader was a girl. In a lot of cases, both guys and gals had trouble keeping up. And hey, maybe you're just very good at it and win all the time, to guys and girls. Personal experience is not a solid basis for generalised fact, especially not if you know it's going to piss people off.

Edited by Devilfish, 04 January 2010 - 04:45 PM.

[iargue]

Hear hear. Remember when the Wii was just called the Nintendo Revolution and thus still awesome? Remember how wicked it was going to be to have lightsabers and swords fer realz? Remember how we got stuck with fucking Wii Pilates? Gah. When my grandma wanted to borrow my sister's Wii, that's the day gaming fucking keeled over and died.


A million results of what? Your personal experience? Do you really start every game with a bout of a/s/l? I'll believe it when I see actual numbers from actual research. In my experience females are usually less competitive. They tend to play for fun, not e-peen. (Nothing personal, I'm sure your e-peen is both huge and delicious.) I don't know. I was in a WoW guild that was about 50/50 gender-wise and the leader was a girl. In a lot of cases, both guys and gals had trouble keeping up. And hey, maybe you're just very good at it and win all the time, to guys and girls. Personal experience is not a solid basis for generalised fact, especially not if you know it's going to piss people off.

My wow guild was the top in the first, and managed to achieve the Naxx 25man first achievement. There where no girls in the guild. period. (We raided every single night, even if it was just heroics. I quit....I had a gf and a job, couldnt be there for the raids).

Over 90% of my 1v1 games where with mics, or with talking, and yes, I did ask their name, sex, and location, but purely for my own curiousity. I ran across alot more guys then girls, and maybe some of them where lieing to me, but surveys dont take that into account either. As far as I am aware, I have never ever lost to a girl, and as far as the world of professional gaming goes, girls havent won a male championship.

[Devilfish]

Look, I'm just saying that there are variables other than gender. Your WoW guild, for example, may have been top because of time and effort put in, strict rules and applications, decent leadership... (Also, did this guild exclude women as a rule. Because that would explain a lot.) There are many, many factors to concider other than gender, so you'll excuse me for not taking your personal experience as gospel.

Look, I obviously don't know you and I'd hate to assume, but right now, in this specific thread, you sound like a real 'seriuz bizniz' kind of gamer. I could be wrong, but pretty much all girl gamers I know really, really dislike that attitude. Especially when you mix in this absolute certainty that girls can't be decent gamers. I was in a guild like that (we played together in RL too, in the same room) and I quit because one guy kept trowing temper tantrums everytime someone messed up even a little bit, hitting civilians with an AoE and such. Before that I kept up perfectly fine, but this 'seriuz bizniz' crap put me off completely.

What I'm saying is, maybe there aren't a lot of top female gamers because a lot of male gamers are seriously off-putting.

Edited by Devilfish, 04 January 2010 - 05:06 PM.

[Elindoril]

My wow guild was the top in the first, and managed to achieve the Naxx 25man first achievement.

That doesn't even say much, considering guild got that achievement mere days after WoTLK came out, now if you were still playing and got Deaths Demise, then that would say something about your skill.

[chobitz]

I am a gamer. Have been since Atari 2600 (yeah I am THAT old ). I own all the systems, love most types of games.

I can't play shooters because I have CP and it affects my hands so the whole 'twitch' aspect of gaming is out of my physical abilities. Can't play music games for the same reason either

I loved WoW until it went 11 year old "pwners" and 24/7 raiding. Loved most MMORPGs and most offline RPGS. I just don't have the budget to play online games anymore. I do have a lifetime sub to LotRO but decided to move on, eventually I might go back.

And yes I also liked The Sims 1 & 2, I hate 3.

I also like 'casual games'. Little Planet is awesome.

One of the reasons girls nowadays don't play shooters is the damned gaming companies. Has anyone seen the BS they market to kids nowadays? The "imagine" series of DS games prove my point. Tween games where the girl can be a vet/babysitter/fashion designer can anyone say sexist dribble?

Oh and don't get me started on virtual pet sites. I like neopets because its just a cutesy economics Sim but the newer trash? Horsey, Webkinz, Bella Sara etc are saccharine overloads of cutes but in reality are just bull excuses to nickle and dime parents to the poor house.

As bad as people think NeoCash is its nothing compared to those sites.

So until game companies realize that girls like ALL type of games and stop making pink, bubblegum crap it won't improve...

[jonnykun]

iargue has a point though, i rarely, if ever, hear of a girl winning a competitive gaming tournament. i think it's cause girls aren't as into games as guys are, hence the pool of competitive girl gamers are less than guys, so there's less girls to choose from.

[Vexage]

See. This "gamers" bullshit pisses me off. We dont live in a day of just gamers. Its Hardcore games or casual games. Girls will play Casual games alot more, but they are still very very very scarce in harcore games. Casual games require minimal skill and effort. Its just pretty graphics and a few hours wasted. And casual games are ruining the hardcore gaming market. Because whenever someone spends an hour and makes dinner dash, and it outsells a game that took 4 years to produce it....people stop bothering.

I've played well over a million matches online, and have never ever once lost to a girl. They simply are not as good at gaming as guys. (Before you call me sexist. A million results is more then enough to be considered viable as a poll)


Take TossGirl for example. She was the best female starcraft gamer in the Korean female league, but she couldnt win any games in the male programmers league. (Then of course, the female league was disbanded because girls dont have rights in Korea )

This. I play MW2 and Halo 3 religiously and I've only come across like 3 girls and none were good. Everyone freaked out though and started asking questions and stuff, I just fragged.

[Georgina]

I think part of it may be just purley down to advertising, for example i had seen and heard about neo and WoW and all sorts of other games but usualy the adverts just include some blood shed, running around, and half naked looking female avatars.

How does that appeal to women? It just doesnt, however when you get into the game play, you find that it is actuly a whole lot more to it and then the girls stick to it.

[luvsmyncis]

I think it has to do with the gamer mentality. Guys are much more competitive then girls, and they learn how to do things faster then girls, while on the other hand, girls like shiny, pretty, cute things, and not doing much work.

Men discovered the wheel and built the Eiffel Tower out of metal and brawn. Women have small brains. With a brain a third the size of guys.
It's science.



I don't know much about games, though. I had a Super Nintendo and was pretty good at the Royal Rumble game we had. But only when I played as the Undertaker.

[Georgina]

wow double post - sorry XD

thought id add a pic since my pointless doube post is here anyway

Edited by Georgina, 04 January 2010 - 06:52 PM.

[Elindoril]

This. I play MW2 and Halo 3 religiously and I've only come across like 3 girls and none were good. Everyone freaked out though and started asking questions and stuff, I just fragged.

>Halo 3
>Modern Warfare 2

I WONDER WHY?

Also, just because girls don't win competitions doesn't mean girls with skills up to par with guys don't exist, they just don't make games their entire life like say the MLG people do.

[chobitz]

>Halo 3
>Modern Warfare 2

I WONDER WHY?

Also, just because girls don't win competitions doesn't mean girls with skills up to par with guys don't exist, they just don't make games their entire life like say the MLG people do.

QFT

Women don't have to stroke an epeen with competitions. If they are good they are good and don't need to prove it. Male gamers seem to have to be noticed for their skills.

I use to be a member of one of the biggest Guilds online. It was roughly 45/55 women to men AND we were a 30+ guild. In WAR I use to PVP alot and win but felt no need to brag or enter competitions. I didn't play to get my ego stroked. I played cause it was FUN.