47% of Australian Gamers Are Female

[RicoADF]

Can someone tell me where these female Australian gamers are? I'd love to meet some of them, but they seem a lot less common than us male Aussie gamers. I think I met one female gamer when I lived in a college boarding house out of about 215 residents. In contrast there were at least a dozen men I'd call serious gamers, and many more FIFA/COD etc players.

Obviously this survey included a lot of casual smartphone/social media gamers. If we were to just include "hardcore" gamers (for lack of a better term), I think the results would be very different.

I know a few female gamers and no they don't play casual games. These are people that play L4D2, C&C, Warcraft 3, etc etc with the rest of us. Part of the reason I always found this whole "there's no such thing as a female gamer" so bloody strange. Glad to see the stats showing our group isn't the only one.

Women might not be as forthcoming about their habits for a number of reasons. There's a social stigma against women gaming, and there's one from within gaming, too. There's harassment, antipathy, resentment and outright anger at girls being allowed in the treehouse. A large number of women say they actively hide their gender because of the way gaming treats them.

Interesting and sadly quite true point (at least in the general internet community). It's utterly stupid for a form of media to not only be seen as male only but to also harass and bully those that do have an interest in it. Think how stupid it'd be if only men watched movies, only women read books and only kids could listen to music.

 

[VanQ]

As someone that usually plays 50-60 hours of games a week. If I was ever part of one of these studies and they asked "Do you call yourself a gamer?" I'd probably tell them "Fuck no, games are shit." Not for any reason other than that the gamer label has an unsavory image to it that I don't identify with it.

I have a job, I enjoy the sunlight and I shave my beard daily. And 90% of all games these days are pretty shit and the number is getting higher.

 

[Movitz]

Ah, but are they *face contorts into a disgusted look* casual gamers or *lights up a smoke all cool an' shit* HARDCORE!?

 

[Something Amyss]

Worth noting that until fairly recently, "gamer" was more analogous with "movie buff" than "moviegoer", only really changing in anyone's minds as geeky subcultures became the new trendy thing. That is to say that just a few years ago, calling someone who only plays solitaire on their work PC during their lunch break "not a gamer" would not have been a problem to anyone, now it's whatever-that-person-is-ism to even suggest it.

When I was growing up, people who played a video game for five minutes were called a gamer without controversy. The concept of a "casual gamer" would have been ridiculous. The pushback seems to be headed back towards where it started in the first place. People complaining that a word is being culturally appropriated after they culturally appropriated it are really strange.

Oh hey, it's this discussion again. Most women who play games play casual/mobile games, therefore they're not "real gamers". Never mind that in this day and age that's probably true of men to.

But that's different because ponies.

 

[Drummodino]

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Woah, woah, woah I'm sorry if what I said was offensive or inappropriate, I honestly didn't intend it to be. I genuinely meant it when I said that I would like to meet some female Aussie gamers (IRL, not on sites like these) that play similar games to me, not just mobile/social media games. I was just sharing my personal experience in that I have not met many at all compared to their male counterparts.

I have no problem with females enjoying my hobby, hell I wished more did. None of my close female friends do, whereas many of my male friends do.

 

[Tigerlily Warrior]

Can someone tell me where these female Australian gamers are? I'd love to meet some of them, but they seem a lot less common than us male Aussie gamers. I think I met one female gamer when I lived in a college boarding house out of about 215 residents. In contrast there were at least a dozen men I'd call serious gamers, and many more FIFA/COD etc players.

Obviously this survey included a lot of casual smartphone/social media gamers. If we were to just include "hardcore" gamers (for lack of a better term), I think the results would be very different.

I've worked with guys for years who didn't know I gamed regularly until the subject came up.

My suggestion, when you're talking with girls, bring up gaming and see if they bite or get a blank look on their face. I'd say there's a better chance you finding a girl who plays games as you would finding a girl that's a sports junkie. Like other hobbies people think as male-dominated, we're out there, you just have to ask.

I will admit, I have girl-gamer friends online I've played with for years but not one girlfriend in the area who games like I do. But then again, I don't really talk about it, so I'm in the same boat.

 

[Jamash]

http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/5410

In a Gamefaqs poll of 38691 people, just 7.58% claimed to be female.

Broken down for Australia, 8.09% were female, which is a lot less than the 47% this poll is claiming.

There's quite a big contrast between the results of the two polls, so I wonder which source is more accurate and shows truer representation of the Games industry as a whole.

Is the industry already on the right course with it's male centric AAA games, or does it need to start focusing on more Social Media apps and family friendly activites?

I think both polls are heavily skewed towards showing the results based on the types of people they target, so it stands to reason that a poll from a old gaming website would show a male dominated results, while a poll of households that includes Facebook games at the most popular gaming genre would show a stronger female presence.

 

[RicoADF]

Woah, woah, woah I'm sorry if what I said was offensive or inappropriate, I honestly didn't intend it to be. I genuinely meant it when I said that I would like to meet some female Aussie gamers (IRL, not on sites like these) that play similar games to me, not just mobile/social media games. I was just sharing my personal experience in that I have not met many at all compared to their male counterparts.

I have no problem with females enjoying my hobby, hell I wished more did. None of my close female friends do, whereas many of my male friends do.

I don't know about Zachary but I didn't take your post as offensive, just surprised you don't know any. Guess it's the luck of the draw as to weather you meet a woman willing to admit she plays games.

 

[Drummodino]

My suggestion, when you're talking with girls, bring up gaming and see if they bite or get a blank look on their face. I'd say there's a better chance you finding a girl who plays games as you would finding a girl that's a sports junkie. Like other hobbies people think as male-dominated, we're out there, you just have to ask.

I have tried talking about games with girls before and I usually get the blank face reaction, or they try and shift the conversation to another topic. Apart from the one girl I mentioned in my post, the most I ever found was a girl who played Plants vs Zombies. I guess I'm just unlucky, but I've never had a problem finding a guy to discuss gaming with.

I don't know about Zachary but I didn't take your post as offensive, just surprised you don't know any. Guess it's the luck of the draw as to weather you meet a woman willing to admit she plays games.

Ah, my apologies for the confusion. I was just afraid you'd interpreted my post as being anti-women gamers.

 

[Something Amyss]

Woah, woah, woah I'm sorry if what I said was offensive or inappropriate, I honestly didn't intend it to be. I genuinely meant it when I said that I would like to meet some female Aussie gamers (IRL, not on sites like these) that play similar games to me, not just mobile/social media games. I was just sharing my personal experience in that I have not met many at all compared to their male counterparts.

I have no problem with females enjoying my hobby, hell I wished more did. None of my close female friends do, whereas many of my male friends do.

I was merely pointing to the factors that may be in play. There's no reason to infer specific offense here. I mean, I find the overall treatment to be offensive, but that's neither here nor there.

 

[Something Amyss]

http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/5410

In a Gamefaqs poll of 38691 people, just 7.58% claimed to be female.

Broken down for Australia, 8.09% were female, which is a lot less than the 47% this poll is claiming.

Ahhh, GameFAQs, the height of polling accuracy. I mean, seriously, even their own site takes issue with the polling results.

 

[Cybylt]

Oh hey, it's this discussion again. Most women who play games play casual/mobile games, therefore they're not "real gamers". Never mind that in this day and age that's probably true of men to.

We really need to move into a more descriptive term for enthusiasts. Like "movie buff" or at least an analogue for "couch potato"

To be fair, the men who fit into the casual market alone would also not be called "real gamers" by the same people saying that of the women.

It's a problem of definition as to a lot of people on websites like this "gamer" implies someone to be a fully into the hobby as opposed to the meaning it's taken on for surveys like this which are about as effective in demographic research as asking "do you watch television?"

 

[Jamash]

http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/5410

In a Gamefaqs poll of 38691 people, just 7.58% claimed to be female.

Broken down for Australia, 8.09% were female, which is a lot less than the 47% this poll is claiming.

Ahhh, GameFAQs, the height of polling accuracy. I mean, seriously, even their own site takes issue with the polling results.

How inaccurate can a simple binary poll be?

I know there's no required proof and technically you could have some people claiming to be female when they're male, or some females claiming to be males, and I know that technically you could use proxies to cast more than one vote, but do you really think that this is what happened in this case?

 

[crazy_coug99]

Setting aside the definition of 'gamer,' I find these findings similar to the US statistics of gamers. Of course I may be mistaken but I wanna say close to 50% of gamers are female and the average age is late 20s to early 30s. Which reflect this article.

 

[Tentaquil]

I really hope they don't eschew traditional genres of gaming to focus on casual and social gaming. That would suck something fierce.

I feel this poll shouldn't be taken at all seriously, the many flaws and inaccuracies are showing the unreliability of the end results.

 

[hazydawn]

"Gamers" is an umbrella term meaning anyone who plays (computer) games. Like any genus, there are species; Casual, hardcore, etc.

People who play Farmville a few minutes everyday have the right to call themselves a gamer as much as someone who plays Halo for 8 hours.

I wouldn't call myself a soccer player if I only played from time to time with my friends. That's basically the same.
If not, a destinction between casual and "hardcore" gamers seems necessary to me. Hypothetically speaking if my mother played Minesweeper an hour every day, would that make her a gamer? Is she a part of game culture? I don't think so. Esentially though the destinction between casual and "hardcore" can be never a clear boundary, just like high and low culture.