Core Gamers Mostly Male, Casual Gamers Mostly Female, Says NPD

[Kahani]

A few interesting patterns were discerned about PC gamers spending habits too. 46% of respondents had visited a digital storefront to buy games in the last year

I find this part quite surprising. Less than half of PC gamers visit digital stores at all, let alone do the majority of their shopping their? I'd expect that to be very close to 100%.

The real question is, with all of the many casual games, and all of the casual gamers playing them, why do we still lean on this crutch of refering to this other class of games as the "core?"

Money. As the article makes clear, people in the "core" category don't just spend more time playing, they spend more money. Far from being a "crutch", the distinction between casual and core gamers is incredibly important to developers and publishers, and consequently to the rest of us.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

The real question is, with all of the many casual games, and all of the casual gamers playing them, why do we still lean on this crutch of refering to this other class of games as the "core?"

Seriously, it would be like a guy from Mississippi walking around Kenya talking about how it's amazing there are so many "minorities" there...

I find 'Casual' to be a useful tag when looking at games on Steam.

Personally I don't generally like the kind of games you just jump into quickly for 5 minutes and drop at a moments notice, I like to get involved and invested.

I don't see it as being a derogatory term, I see it as being informative, in the same way I find RPG informative.

 

[iniudan]

No, before people freak out I don't think that makes me better or "more" or a gamer than anyone else. Just that 5 hours seems piddly to me.

Also seem piddly to me, I can't even remember the last time I spent less then 5 hours a week playing video games, since I was 7 years old (when I finally got my own NES for completing first grade), except for the Great Ice Storm in 1998 and living in the middle of one of the most heavily affected area, we were without power for a month. At least some members of the extended family still had wood-burning stove, so didn't have to live in the public shelter.

 

[Something Amyss]

It's funny, I've been reading on here for years people complaining about the declining relevance of NPD. But now that this survey shows women are a minority, I bet NPD is gospel truth again.

If begs the question though... why are some gamers scared that their identities will be swallowed up by casual gamers? As far as I can tell they have no interest in actually calling themselves gamers, and if they do maybe we're giving them less of a chance than they deserve.

But Fappy, you charismatic stallion, this is war! They deserve no quarter! No mercy! For the glory of hardcoria! They must not be allowed to get weapons of media definition!

 

[Trishbot]

Like all surveys and data, this is pretty skewed (especially if the criteria is ONLY PC/Mac).

A vast number of female gamers play portable games, for instance, with a nearly 50% split in RPGs like Pokemon between boys and girls. Are they not considered "core" gamers despite the hundreds of hours of playing one of the most hardcore genres?

So it's a weird and narrow survey, insightful though it may be.

Though, honestly, I find the "problem" two-fold. The first is that continued need to be exclusionary towards other forms of gamers other than "core". It's a strange term, just like telling people who watch and enjoy movies they aren't "core" movie watchers if they only watch a movie a month instead of a movie a day, or people who enjoy TV shows instead of film, or people who watch on Netflix instead of the theater. The criteria is strangely limiting in that regard, just like picking only one platform to survey on.

And the second thing is that, yeah, "core" gaming is still universally marketing to boys, so even female gamers that enjoy gaming are just not important as as marketing demographic (despite the fact my love life was forged in the 90's in the arcades by impressing folks in Mortal Kombat...).

I mean, I know I'm biased because I play a HUGE variety of games (everything from platformers to puzzles to strategy to survival horror to adventure to RPG to shooters to fighting to everything), and yet I've often been said I'm not a "core" gamer because I don't play Call of Duty on Xbox... which, to ME, is the most casual game this side of Farmville, Minecraft, and Angry Birds.

There are people out there who ONLY buy Call of Duty or Madden, and nothing else, and they are considered "core" gamers while someone like me, who due to the realities of life and jobs has limited time to game, but plays and enjoys games like Okami, ICO, Shadow of the Colossus, Bioshock, Xenoblade, Zelda, Blazblue, Silent Hill, Psychonauts, etc., is often excluded from the surveys and demographics because I don't like or enjoy THE most popular and mainstream FPS on the market.

Ultimately, it's semantics, but my final thought is that, for an industry that so often self-implodes, budgets go out of control, and they water "core" games down so often to reach a wider audience, the fact that including women in the discussion or playable releases (hello Assassin's Creed Unity) isn't a priority for the vast majority of developers, despite being a thriving, growing, passionate demographic, is shocking to me.

For all the crap I give Capcom for their terrible business decisions, I can still look at a popular game like Street Fighter IV and see men, women, young, old, black, Asian, Native American, big, small, spiritual, rich, poor, gay, straight, even hermaphrodite characters in the game... and, shockingly, people seemed okay with this and the game is still the most successful fighting game in the genre last console generation.

I would kill to see that same variety in a shooter.

 

[KingDragonlord]

The real question is, with all of the many casual games, and all of the casual gamers playing them, why do we still lean on this crutch of refering to this other class of games as the "core?"

Seriously, it would be like a guy from Mississippi walking around Kenya talking about how it's amazing there are so many "minorities" there...

You will rue the day that Yahoo Dominoes is considered a "core" game.

Denial doth not an argument make. If most of the people playing (and paying) are casual, that's the new core. If most of the folks in this country voted for Ron Jeremy for president, he'd be president. Doesn't matter if the wizened few think it's a dumb idea.

Now, me? I don't think casual games are some awful thing. Clearly, their existence isn't removing classically "core" games from existence. And I play a handful of goofy games on my phone, which I enjoy greatly. There's just this weird idea that even though MOST gamers play these casual games (which includes but is not limited to stuff like Yahoo Dominoes), the other section of games are still the "real" thing.

The real reason casual games do so well, in addition to being convenient, is that they have broader appeal. Candy Crush, the bajillion versions of Yahtzee and Boggle, Hay Day, you know something they all DON'T have in common? The same old gravelly-voiced white male protagonist.

If you read the study, it makes it clear. The people who play those core games spend at least twice as much time playing and twice as much money. The people who play those games are more committed or "hardcore" about their hobby on average. Thats a fair enough basis for distinction.

 

[Fappy]

Also this, I'm not sure why we're so fascinated with dividing ourselves, especially down gender lines.
Seems a little weird to me.

The video game community is not unlike your average schoolyard. Just, you know, with more death threats.

 

[KingDragonlord]

Why is it I get the feeling at least one person is going to use this as justification as to why we shouldn't care about women in gaming.

Because people already are is my guess. The real question would be how fast it'll show up -here-.

I would stand with you if the conclusion people try to reach is "women must be disregarded."

On the contrary, at least some consideration must be paid because 20% of your customers can still make or break a game.

But I've been wanting to see numbers like this because I knew the "50% women" statistic is misleading when the sexism debate has mostly centered around core titles (I knew because after hearing anecdotes, I went out to scrape together what little research I could find on the topic and it did suggests this skew but not in as concrete a manner). Game developers would look horribly stupidly sexist if they were ignoring 50% of their potential consumers but it makes more sense when they're trying to hold onto their 80 percent without pissing off the 20% too much.

Incidentally, I think these numbers show a potential route to more sales. From what I can recall of the studies I saw (which were done with gamers below the age of 18) if game companies made a reasonable effort to appeal more to women (without undermining anything core to the genres in question) they could expect women to represent closer to 30% of their sales probably without losing a significant number of male gamers (you'll lose some simply because change always does that).

To me this means trying to offer more playable female options where you can. If you're not really committed to writing a strong character (i.e. you want a blank slate for the player), go ahead and offer a female option please. If you have a strong character concept, maybe make that character something other than a thirty something white male more often. It clearly doesn't have to be 50/50 on gender both because women are only 20 percent on core titles and because they're already playing. But right now I don't think we're above maybe 5% on protagonists so we could stand to grow. Men will clearly buy games with a female character or else Lara Croft 2013 wouldn't have been profitable (which it was despite not meeting their projections).

As for sexuality, I think this is an area where we can safely ignore the critics for the most part. There is the truly ridiculous like this (from X-Blades):
http://th08.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/i/2011/169/d/0/x_blades_ayumi_by_roosterteethfan-d3j813z.png

That we could stand to have less of but this:
http://hd.wallpaperswide.com/thumbs/lara_croft_2013-t2.jpg

And this (FemShep and Miranda):
http://www.wallpapermay.com/thumbnails/detail/20120626/miranda%20lawson%20mass%20effect%203%20femshep%20commander%20shepard%201920x1080%20wallpaper_www.wallpapermay.com_34.jpg

And occasionally even this (Bayonetta):
http://assets1.ignimgs.com/vid/thumbnails/user/2014/06/27/20823568_bayo.jpg

Are fine (maybe Bayonetta is stripperific but at least the instances of her getting naked during battle have some kind of an explanation because of her powers. The XBlades example is just ridiculous pandering with no logic behind it. Why wouldn't she wear shorts, even tight butt grabbing under her holsters? Why wouldn't she try to keep her hair under control as an archaeologist or treasure hunter or whatever?)

 

[Under_your_bed]

I'm surprised they didn't include "age" as well, as that would be a fairly important factor in what kind of games people played.

 

[Weaver]

The only thing I don't like about the study is you had to play on a PC or Mac to count as a 'core gamer'.

 

[Something Amyss]

Labels are stupid. All this is doing is further cementing the wrong ideas in the minds of easily excited individuals.

At least movie snobs only turn their nose up at the quality of movie watched, not the quantity.

I can't imagine only watching 16 hours of video in a week. Pffft. Noob.

A study is only valid when it confirms my bias, after all.

Exactly. And I'm sure that people will ignore that this is a PC survey, roughly half the PC gamers were women, and go on to talk about how playing Candy Crush on your smartphone doesn't make you a real gamer, anyway. Because that's from the old, unreliable portion of NPD. Not this new, vibrant portion that speaks to what I want to hear the truth.

The video game community is not unlike your average schoolyard. Just, you know, with more death threats.

Something had to replace claims of cooties, damn it.

 

[Vigormortis]

The PC numbers don't surprise me at all. There are a lot of women on MMO's, which holds a huge marketshare of the PC scene. The only genre I can think of where they are in the extreme minority is MOBA's because, well... their communities, I imagine.

And yet, from my own experience, I'd wager at least a third of the people I routinely, or occasionally, play Dota 2 with are female. And by that I don't mean a small group of a few players, but rather a fairly large group of dozens upon dozens.

I'd also like to add that, outside of League of Legends, most other games in the genre do not have overly toxic communities. Certainly no more than any other genre.[footnote]And almost assuredly no where near as toxic as many fighting game communities or the COD communities.[/footnote]

 

[Ariseishirou]

Why is it I get the feeling at least one person is going to use this as justification as to why we shouldn't care about women in gaming.

Because people already are is my guess. The real question would be how fast it'll show up -here-.

I would stand with you if the conclusion people try to reach is "women must be disregarded."

On the contrary, at least some consideration must be paid because 20% of your customers can still make or break a game.

But I've been wanting to see numbers like this because I knew the "50% women" statistic is misleading when the sexism debate has mostly centered around core titles (I knew because after hearing anecdotes, I went out to scrape together what little research I could find on the topic and it did suggests this skew but not in as concrete a manner). Game developers would look horribly stupidly sexist if they were ignoring 50% of their potential consumers but it makes more sense when they're trying to hold onto their 80 percent without pissing off the 20% too much.

Incidentally, I think these numbers show a potential route to more sales. From what I can recall of the studies I saw (which were done with gamers below the age of 18) if game companies made a reasonable effort to appeal more to women (without undermining anything core to the genres in question) they could expect women to represent closer to 30% of their sales probably without losing a significant number of male gamers (you'll lose some simply because change always does that).

To me this means trying to offer more playable female options where you can. If you're not really committed to writing a strong character (i.e. you want a blank slate for the player), go ahead and offer a female option please. If you have a strong character concept, maybe make that character something other than a thirty something white male more often. It clearly doesn't have to be 50/50 on gender both because women are only 20 percent on core titles and because they're already playing. But right now I don't think we're above maybe 5% on protagonists so we could stand to grow. Men will clearly buy games with a female character or else Lara Croft 2013 wouldn't have been profitable (which it was despite not meeting their projections).

As for sexuality, I think this is an area where we can safely ignore the critics for the most part. There is the truly ridiculous like this (from X-Blades):
http://th08.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/i/2011/169/d/0/x_blades_ayumi_by_roosterteethfan-d3j813z.png

That we could stand to have less of but this:
http://hd.wallpaperswide.com/thumbs/lara_croft_2013-t2.jpg

And this (FemShep and Miranda):
http://www.wallpapermay.com/thumbnails/detail/20120626/miranda%20lawson%20mass%20effect%203%20femshep%20commander%20shepard%201920x1080%20wallpaper_www.wallpapermay.com_34.jpg

And occasionally even this (Bayonetta):
http://assets1.ignimgs.com/vid/thumbnails/user/2014/06/27/20823568_bayo.jpg

Are fine (maybe Bayonetta is stripperific but at least the instances of her getting naked during battle have some kind of an explanation because of her powers. The XBlades example is just ridiculous pandering with no logic behind it. Why wouldn't she wear shorts, even tight butt grabbing under her holsters? Why wouldn't she try to keep her hair under control as an archaeologist or treasure hunter or whatever?)

I think you're onto something here. I'm a woman and I'm decidedly in the "heavy core" category, but I'm also markedly more likely to play a game if it gives me a female option, and markedly less likely to play a game if all of the female characters are stripperific. It's not a moral judgement, it's just what appeals to me versus what doesn't. Sexy is fine, equal opportunity sexy is even better, but downright degrading and ludicrous isn't okay (like X-blades chick). I doubt my single sale counts for much, but I've noticed my female friends in the heavy/light core categories feel similarly, and as you say, together we could make or break someone's profitability margin.

 

[Ariseishirou]

The PC numbers don't surprise me at all. There are a lot of women on MMO's, which holds a huge marketshare of the PC scene. The only genre I can think of where they are in the extreme minority is MOBA's because, well... their communities, I imagine.

And yet, from my own experience, I'd wager at least a third of the people I routinely, or occasionally, play Dota 2 with are female. And by that I don't mean a small group of a few players, but rather a fairly large group of dozens upon dozens.

I'd also like to add that, outside of League of Legends, most other games in the genre do not have overly toxic communities. Certainly no more than any other genre.[footnote]And almost assuredly no where near as toxic as many fighting game communities or the COD communities.[/footnote]

Actually, as someone who plays both CoD and LoL, I found LoL was worse. Way worse. Since they've cracked down on the abuse and instituted the honor system it's been better, though. But for a while the LoL community made the CoD players look like considerate, mannered gentlemen.

 

[Fappy]

The PC numbers don't surprise me at all. There are a lot of women on MMO's, which holds a huge marketshare of the PC scene. The only genre I can think of where they are in the extreme minority is MOBA's because, well... their communities, I imagine.

And yet, from my own experience, I'd wager at least a third of the people I routinely, or occasionally, play Dota 2 with are female. And by that I don't mean a small group of a few players, but rather a fairly large group of dozens upon dozens.

I'd also like to add that, outside of League of Legends, most other games in the genre do not have overly toxic communities. Certainly no more than any other genre.[footnote]And almost assuredly no where near as toxic as many fighting game communities or the COD communities.[/footnote]

I can't speak for Dota 2, but I have heard some other MOBAs besides LoL are almost as bad as LoL. I played LoL a lot the first couple years it was popular and of all the games I played I don't remember a single random identifying themselves as female. I played with a girl all the time who I knew IRL from college, but that's it.

As for WoW and other MMO's... I've played with a lot of women!

 

[Something Amyss]

I think you're onto something here. I'm a woman and I'm decidedly in the "heavy core" category, but I'm also markedly more likely to play a game if it gives me a female option, and markedly less likely to play a game if all of the female characters are stripperific. It's not a moral judgement, it's just what appeals to me versus what doesn't. Sexy is fine, equal opportunity sexy is even better, but downright degrading and ludicrous isn't okay (like X-blades chick). I doubt my single sale counts for much, but I've noticed my female friends in the heavy/light core categories feel similarly, and as you say, together we could make or break someone's profitability margin.

This could become even more an issue when you consider that games with female protagonists appear to receive less funding, less marketing, and women in games tend to be featured less prominently (as in, not on the cover, for example). If that's what you're looking for, well, you might not even find it when it's out there.

 

[Vigormortis]

Actually, as someone who plays both CoD and LoL, I found LoL was worse. Way worse. Since they've cracked down on the abuse and instituted the honor system it's been better, though. But for a while the LoL community made the CoD players look like considerate, mannered gentlemen.

Oh, I don't disagree. But when I mentioned the Call of Duty community, I was primarily referring to the Xbox and pro-scene side of it. (notably the pro-scene) I probably should have clarified that. My apologies.

I can't speak for Dota 2, but I have heard some other MOBAs besides LoL are almost as bad as LoL. I played LoL a lot the first couple years it was popular and of all the games I played I don't remember a single random identifying themselves as female. I played with a girl all the time who I knew IRL from college, but that's it.

As for WoW and other MMO's... I've played with a lot of women!

I could fathom Heroes of Newerth being just as bad, but it's become niche enough that whatever toxicity it might have is, I'd imagine, mostly limited to itself.

And just for clarity's sake, I'm not pretending to speak for the vast majority of Dota 2 players, nor as a common representative of the average player experience. I was just clarifying that from my experience, and the experience of many that I know of whom play Dota 2, a pretty sizable chunk of our Dota-specific friends lists are made up of female players.

This may not be indicative of the actual demographic breakdown of the Dota 2 player base, and in fact most likely isn't, but in some small way it's at least a promising sign of the genre becoming more inclusive. Certainly not on par with, say, MMOs, but still; improvement is improvement.

 

[Karadalis]

Also this, I'm not sure why we're so fascinated with dividing ourselves, especially down gender lines.
Seems a little weird to me.

The video game community is not unlike your average schoolyard. Just, you know, with more death threats.

You havent visited a school yard lately have you?

Cause unlike on the schoolyard there has yet to be someone killed by a gamer after a death threat made online.

On the schoolyard however.... some schools have security you think youre at an airport... speaks volumes about wich place you should be worried more about.. heres a hint:

Its not twitter

 

[PirateRose]

"In order to qualify as a core gamer, respondents had to currently play Action/Adventure, Fighting, Flight, Massively Multi-Player (MMO), Racing, Real Time Strategy, Role-Playing, Shooter, or Sport games on a PC/Mac."

This is a key sentence right here. I'm really curious to know if they were to rerun this during Sims 4 release or even the more anticipated Dragon Age Inquisition, if the gender thing would drastically change.

I know that personally, there has not been much lately in games that I've wanted to play in many months. As many people pointed out, games that allow female options attract more females and that may be the problem. So technically I'd fall into the "Casual" box all because there has been nothing new that appealed to me and I haven't felt like playing older games lately. Though I've picked SWTOR again & recently bought Infamous: Last Light (haven't played much yet do to stomach flu & flying colors don't go well with that) to kill time while I wait for Wasteland 2 & Dragon Age Inquistion. Once I get those games I'll be back into my old habits and will probably be in the Heavy Core category again.

 

[eberhart]

Also this, I'm not sure why we're so fascinated with dividing ourselves, especially down gender lines.
Seems a little weird to me.

The video game community is not unlike your average schoolyard. Just, you know, with more death threats.

You havent visited a school yard lately have you?

This argument is better with a clip