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

[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

 

[Delock]

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.

What's weird is, as far as I can tell, you don't see this kind of divide in nearly any other kind of "nerdy" hobby. You like tabletop? Cool. The worst you'll see are people condemning certain systems because they don't like the rules, not because the audience doesn't have any less passion for the hobby than they do. How about comic books? Marvel/DC rivalries are like console rivalries: irrelevant and not a real issue. Beyond that, I don't really see any kind of line in the sand drawn between "real" and "fake" comic book readers.

I wonder why that is... :/

Oh, there's the elitism there too. All of these I've encountered:

You buy trades instead of following issue to issue? Not a real supporter of the series
You read superhero comics but don't follow Image, Darkhorse, etc.? Well, you read comics, but you shouldn't have opinions on the medium
Don't know what event is going on because your series didn't touch on it? Well, obviously you're still new to this.
Don't buy variants? Not a real collector.

It goes on

 

[eberhart]

So unreasonably threatened male gamers are still sticking to the completely arbitrary and meaningless core v casual distinction to make themselves better about no longer being the single most important gaming demographic ?

"nazis will take away our games!" = unreasonably
"interest groups, ideologists, parasitic commentators etc trying to affect franchises and studios that were funded by a specific demographic for literally decades (instead of funding a variant that could better match expectations)" = reasonably

I'd replaced "threatened" with "pissed off" though.

"Meaningless" is hardly meaningless when such a big difference in average spending exists. Certain casual games are famous for breeding whales - yet they are still behind even *with* them. That definitely means something.

As for "no longer the most important" - has this been established? Money mentioned above coupled with more dedication suggests otherwise - that this particular demographic is still out of reach. Things did change in terms of specific genres - or did they, really? Studies pointing at different preferences have been around for a while.

 

[eberhart]

"The big game developers should continue only catering to the demographic I am a part of in spite of the fact that we're now a minority and incapable of providing a profit on games solely targeted at us.

80 out of 100 is a majority.
(add plenty of women and some men due to gaming gradually mainstreaming)
100 out of 200 is not a majority.
(divide men into age brackets because reasons)
50 out of 200 - definitely not a majority... but what exactly is this approach worth?

But wait, here's more. The actual number of customers big game developers have the easiest access to didn't shrink - it grew. However, as we already know, those numbers didn't transform their demographic into anything close to 50:50. So yeah, IF they intend to capitalize on genres that gave them their current position, they really should continue. At least for now - and, given the source, at least on PC.

And in spite of the fact that this is because of the ballooning development costs from the constantly improving graphics we demand and our constant bitching about any game that doesn't flawlessly live up to our unrealistic expectations and entirely fan-generated hype.

Since budgeting and reeling in ad expenses are from some lalaland for certain studios, DLCs and other crap to the rescue! There's a number of good and shitty practices that can increase their profit, all carrying various risks. The biggest difference between them and diluting genres and content to fit random demands (or in some misguided "it's for everybody!" delusion) is that the former can exist without affecting the game proper (and if they try, like with some DLC models, fans express their annoyance... a lot). The latter is literally *that*. Even when it isn't, a perception of hand-wrangling taking place is already enough - especially when major outlets are capable of hiveminding when ideologically convenient.

If they want to actually earn a profit, then they have to produce entirely separate products for the profitable demographics while still providing us our own in spite of the inevitable financial losses." = Unreasonable.

Sorry, but if those "inevitable financial losses" became connected to the "core" demographic, I must've missed a total AAA crash that happened years ago, when casual market became so strong. Again, "traditional" demographic didn't shrink, it's on the same level of spending with other groups (at least talking about PC) and definitely outspending them per capita. As for production costs skyrocketing - we are not exactly privy to profit charts from the past, so "inevitable financial losses" claim is hardly sourced - especially when it's far from "smaller profit that before".

Let's not even start with costs associated with switching to "profitable demographics" (again, source?) - given how they seem to focus on significantly different content and genres.

But, in the end, one *can* justify bean bean counters trying everything to have more beans, so studios are, at least partially, off the hook. What is much harder to justify is any attempt to "make established franchises and studios better" from the outside.

If one demographic could spend years and piles of money helping big developers become, you know, big from a level comparable (if not lower) to current indies, then every other demographic should be expected to do the same. Unless, if it's suddenly "too expensive", that demographic is not that profitable as advertised.

I wouldn't mind *more* games from established studios either, but with, as you said, costs skyrocketing, it's hard to expect significant increase. "Better games" sound even more reasonable - but let's say there's a lot of "better" out there, just as there's a lot of "experts" on that. I think prioritizing opinions of those with actual achievements in the industry is reasonable.

 

[neokiva]

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

Core gamers were defined as those who play "core" games for five or more hours per week.

Market research firm the NPD Group (who you may know as the guys who provide sales numbers for games every month) has conducted a large-scale survey of American PC gamers, and come up with some interesting observations. The 6,225 members survey were split into three groups - Heavy Core, Light Core, and Casual. Heavy Core gamers play "core" games for five or more hours per week, while Light Core gamers still enjoy core games, but do so for less than five hours a week, and Casual gamers only play non-core games. The survey found that the majority of gamers in the two "core" groups were male, while the casual group was "overwhelmingly female."

Just FYI, In order to qualify as a core gamer for the survey, 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.

The largest segment is Casual at 56 percent, with Light Core at 24 percent, and Heavy Core at 20 percent. Though Heavy Core is the smallest segment, they spend a significantly higher number of hours gaming in an average week, and have spent roughly twice as much money in the past 3 months on physical or digital games for the computer than Casual PC gamers.

Of all the participants surveyed, 51% were male and 49% were female. The survey also determined that 37% of all participants above the age of 9 identified as someone who played PC games, and the average play time per week is 6.4 hours.

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, and "half of PC gamers who play digital and/or physical games on the computer are expecting there to always be a sale right around the corner," said NPD analyst Liam Callahan.

Source: NPD Group [https://www.npd.com/wps/portal/npd/us/news/press-releases/37-percent-of-us-population-age-9-and-older-currently-plays-pc-games/]

Permalink

showing these surveys to gamers is a waste of time it's not the gamers who are stopping female protagonists it's publishers, and poor market research. show it to them.

 

[Karadalis]

What we're 'afraid of' is people trying to homogenize the market so much we end up with lots of middling, fully politically correct complaint grey piles of sludge and no truly great games aimed at lots of different niches.

Do you have any examples of this happening though? A lot of people are worried about it happening, definitely, but I've yet to see any evidence of that actually occurring.

Yes, some games have changed a bit to appeal to a wider range of demographics (Mass Effect 1 to Mass Effect 2, for example), but I'd argue those series still have their own identity while still being able to appeal to a broader range of people.

Its not so much that casual gamers are really at fault for it.

Its that the industry desperatly tries to tap into the huge casual gamer market to try to get them to play tripple A games.

The thing thought is: no matter how much "broader" they make their games.. it NEVER has the positive effect on sales numbers they want it to have.

Turning rather hardcore games like syndicate for example into a FPS... or Xcom into a FPS backfired horribly. The games where mediocre at best and total shite at worst.

Hardcore players didnt bought them, casual players werent attracted by those games cause they had no investment into these franchises to begin with.

So in the end everyone lost because the industry decided to try and hunt the white rabbit down the rabbithole.

So this conflict is not so much hardcore vs. casual

Its more like industry giants with moneybags for eyes doing stupid things in the name of a broader apeal without realising that they have two elemtarly different markets at their hands.

No matter how much you dumb down your game you will not attract facebook gamers, tablet gamers or social gamers aslong as your game is priced at 50 to 60 dollars.

People who blame casual gamers for the dumbing down of games are looking at the wrong culprit, simple as that.

Its industry idiocy, not casual gamers who for the most part stick to their own game genres and rarely go out of it (wich is fine.. everyone gets to play what they like to play)

Ofcourse it doesnt help that some people want to arbritrary force political correctness and catering to non existant markets into games who have indeed be traditionally be male dominated.. and for good reasons (try to get a woman to spend money on expensive action figures... and get a guy to spend money on expensive shoes, and not just a pair. In the end it wont work, and yes i am saying that guys spend alot.. ALOT more money on whats basically nonsense)

 

[Racecarlock]

I feel like repeating the word "Really?" over and over for about an hour. Partly because it's the morning and I've had a lot of caffeine, but also because we seem to be continuing this completely asinine casual versus core BULLSHIT so that we can continue to not give two shits about the female audience.

Stop trying to invalidate an audience because of the kind of games it plays. Because this distinction has never been anything but a pile of elitist bullshit.

 

[Fappy]

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.

What's weird is, as far as I can tell, you don't see this kind of divide in nearly any other kind of "nerdy" hobby. You like tabletop? Cool. The worst you'll see are people condemning certain systems because they don't like the rules, not because the audience doesn't have any less passion for the hobby than they do. How about comic books? Marvel/DC rivalries are like console rivalries: irrelevant and not a real issue. Beyond that, I don't really see any kind of line in the sand drawn between "real" and "fake" comic book readers.

I wonder why that is... :/

Oh, there's the elitism there too. All of these I've encountered:

You buy trades instead of following issue to issue? Not a real supporter of the series
You read superhero comics but don't follow Image, Darkhorse, etc.? Well, you read comics, but you shouldn't have opinions on the medium
Don't know what event is going on because your series didn't touch on it? Well, obviously you're still new to this.
Don't buy variants? Not a real collector.

It goes on

I've been collecting comics for fifteen years and never really encountered that level of elitism. Damn, that'd drive me absolutely fucking mad lol (especially since I only buy trades these days).

 

[loa]

There should be a godwin's law kind of thing for using the term "core" and "casual".

So unreasonably threatened male gamers are still sticking to the completely arbitrary and meaningless core v casual distinction to make themselves better about no longer being the single most important gaming demographic?

No it's gaming media who excreted that stuff, as seen here. It's all marketing bullshit.
"Male gamers" just gobble it up and regurgitate it ad nauseum as if it had any meaning at all.