ESA Survey Finds Nearly Half of All U.S. Gamers Are Female

[MrHide-Patten]

How do you define what a gamer is? A single download of Flappy Bird or 100% completion of Dark Souls?

These graphics when not separated into different genres and systems just give suits a reason not to try anything else. "Can we have more strong female protagonists?", "Why should we do that?" says the suits; "research shows women are more than happy to play grizzled men in their 30's".

Am I making sense?

 

[Zontar]

snippity

Because usually, surveys like this are usually made to help people better understand a demographic and also to help professionals to know who they're dealing with. It's usually not just meant to be something to make everyone feel good because "eeeeeeveryone is a gamer".

If I want to make a game, I want to have the feedback of people who actually know what the fuck they want and who know what they're talking about. It's cool if someone wants to play angry birds or candy crush or whatever mobile tra- i mean legitimate game in their spare time, but they're not the core gaming public., and if you want to make a good core game, you don't want to cater to these people, because their expectations and quality standards are different. However you twist it, it's delusional to call people who are solely in the casual market as "gamers", as usually this term USED to be connoted to people who actually spend most of their time not only playing games but also had a fairly good knowledge of the overall gaming landscape in general.

So let me get this straight: you want people to conduct surveys to help people understand the various demographics they could be targeting, but you want them to completely rule out a particular demographic because 'they're not the core' gaming public, even if the survey suggests that they're a lucrative market?

No, what he is saying is he would want the demographic which is relevant to his game (for example: who is playing Triple A shooters?) not "who is playing anything which is considered a game what so ever".

If I want to make an indie horror game, the stats I need are ones which intentionally exclude casual games and the Triple A blockbusters, because including that data gives a false image of the market my hypothetical game is trying to enter.

 

[Eri]

I occasionally play Angry Birds, and I'm a fairly keen 'gamer'. Why arbitrarily limit people who infrequently play particular titles that don't fit your standards from the data?

I think you misunderstand. People who -only- play that. I don't just mean playing it in addition to other titles.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

By the definition of this study, my mom (who plays Scrabble on her IPAD) is exactly the same as someone who grinds in WOW 40 hours a week. Anyone who uses that for marketing purposes is going to be sorely disappointed.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

No, what he is saying is he would want the demographic which is relevant to his game (for example: who is playing Triple A shooters?) not "who is playing anything which is considered a game what so ever".

If I want to make an indie horror game, the stats I need are ones which intentionally exclude casual games and the Triple A blockbusters, because including that data gives a false image of the market my hypothetical game is trying to enter.

Right, and who defines a 'casual' game? Where's that line drawn?

I think you misunderstand. People who -only- play that. I don't just mean playing it in addition to other titles.

So do people who buy an Xbox to only play Halo get excluded? Or people who have a PC but only play The Sims?

 

[Zontar]

No, what he is saying is he would want the demographic which is relevant to his game (for example: who is playing Triple A shooters?) not "who is playing anything which is considered a game what so ever".

If I want to make an indie horror game, the stats I need are ones which intentionally exclude casual games and the Triple A blockbusters, because including that data gives a false image of the market my hypothetical game is trying to enter.

Right, and who defines a 'casual' game? Where's that line drawn?

You draw the line at weather it's for a handheld device with multiple uses or if it's for a dedicated game playing device (for PC it gets a little murkier, but you can tell just in sight weather a game falls into one side or the other). The point is, you can't take people who play apps like Angry Birds or Candy Crush, and then put them in the same statistic as people who play triple A titles and then pretend because X many people play those Apps, that the large blockbuster games need to change to conform to that reality which does not actually exist.

Like I said before, the ESA's annual stats have shown that since 2002 39-45% of "gamers" are women, yet this issue is a very new one by comparisons.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

The point is, you can't take people who play apps like Angry Birds or Candy Crush, and then put them in the same statistic as people who play triple A titles and then pretend because X many people play those Apps, that the large blockbuster games need to change to conform to that reality which does not actually exist.

Well that would be a rather presumptuous interpretation of the data, but I don't actually see anyone doing that.

 

[deth2munkies]

Filter out the 40+ Housewives that click a cow every 6 hours and the numbers change dramatically.

I mean this is not news to anyone, if you say "anyone that has ever played a game" that's the majority of Americans nowadays.

 

[cikame]

My mum played Bejeweled once, she's a gamer, just like me.

 

[Eri]

So do people who buy an Xbox to only play Halo get excluded? Or people who have a PC but only play The Sims?

Yes. Being a gamer means gaming as a hobby and lifestyle. Buying an Airhog RC plane at Toys R Us does not make me an RC plane enthusiast.

 

[clippen05]

Okay, that's cool. But I'd say 80% of the people on this website play more than just mobile games, just as 80% of those female gamers only play on their phone. Does it make them anyway less of a "xXxGamerxXx"? No, but I'm just wondering why anyone on a website for hardcore gamers would care about this news? Why would we care that there are a bunch of gamers who don't know what Activision is, what RTS stands for, or whatever? (not that they need to)Yes, they play games and we play games, but the difference is, we're the ones reading reviews and news and caring about where this industry is headed. All I'm trying to say is that this article doesn't really have much relevance here.

 

[Strazdas]

the important thing i took from this is that female numbers are increasing. 2 Years ago it was 42%. Last year it was 45%. Now its 48%. Looks like the females are getting more into gaming over time here.

One thing to keep in mind is that these numbers probably have a lot to do with casual/mobile gaming. I think it would be interesting to see what the numbers look like if you filter out all the respondents who just play peggle/angry birds/cut the rope/ ect.

During last years report somone looked deeper into the numbers of ESA and done some surveys on their own. The result was not unexpected. Female gamers dominated (80%+) of casual and puzzle games while males dominated (95%) of shooter market. The only thing i remember that wasnt expected is that females were the majority for western RPGs interestingly enough. That is not to say that there are no females in all types of games or that casual games dont count, merely that there is some distinction of game types and you cant really claim that half of COD guys are females at all.

Page 12 is what is worrisome. We're at a 4 year gaming recession looking at unit sales. Looking at dollar figures we're only up a little to the point were it's easily a measurement error to say we're finally out of it.

Where is the huge upswing people who saying would happen from the PS4 and XBO? Another year of this, and who knows what'll happen.

well, it does not take a genius to figure it out. the AAA market is struggling, the new consoles arent worth the plastic they are made of, so the incentive to increase the gaming bubble is far and few between

What I want to know is are male teenagers just a smaller demographic than we've been led to believe or are they leaving gaming for something else (weed)?

dont you understand, they are all planning school shootings now so they have no time for gaming, their training is over!

I think most interesting is the last fact, which now shows that the majority of all game sales are now digital. I'm really surprised that I haven't seen anybody post about that yet.

this has been true for years now. the biggest problem was data colelction because largest digital retailer (steam) does not disclose sale numbers, so most surveys assumed 0.

This is completely meaningless if we don't know what their definition of a "gamer" is.

we do. the definition of a gamer is: a person that plays games.

So much this. People who occasionally play Angry Birds are not gamers. They wouldn't even label themselves as such. Misleading data is misleading.

yes they are. even if they dont label themselves as such they are.

Really, wasn't the first time enough? Or did they only release another one to catch the attention of news sites like Escapist?

they release one every year, its not something extraordinary here.

Yes. Being a gamer means gaming as a hobby and lifestyle. Buying an Airhog RC plane at Toys R Us does not make me an RC plane enthusiast.

No. Being a gamer means that you play games. any games. at any frequency. What you are are talking, which you actually used in your example, is game hobbyists. gamers are moviegoers and game hobbyists are movie buffs. gamers are music listeners and game hobbyists are melomans. Not everyone that plays games have to be hobbyists, just like not everyone that has an Aurhog RC has to be a plane enthusiast.

 

[loa]

This is completely meaningless if we don't know what their definition of a "gamer" is.

we do. the definition of a gamer is: a person that plays games.

Well then this poll is completely meaningless because it includes everyone who has a smartphone.

 

[Strazdas]

This is completely meaningless if we don't know what their definition of a "gamer" is.

we do. the definition of a gamer is: a person that plays games.

Well then this poll is completely meaningless because it includes everyone who has a smartphone.

Not everyone with a smartphone plays games. For example: my parents.
However in general yes, there is little useful information to be extracted from this "report".

 

[Lightknight]

This might as well be a poll telling us the demographics of anyone who has ever accidentally opened solitaire when trying to make a phone call. If they distinguished based on gaming device and play time then we could get real numbers. But this is nearly worthless. Thanks ESA, for nothing.

And what the hell is a dedicated gaming smartphone? Are people buying smartphones now just to play games and not make phone calls?

 

[SadisticFire]

Wow, almost half of us are playing games? I guess I'm super unlucky because it's more of 2%. It takes roughly 50 people on CSS/TF2/HLDM/Even Minecraft before I actually see another female in a server.
Look, I know i'm in the minority, but I don't feel like making as wide as possible net will solve anything. I'm sure it's in the right place, but it will only make more fighting because when people bring up statistics everyone's going to be used to them being skewed and saying "That isn't true! Because they're [casting a really really big net]"
Not that I mind being "alone". Most people actually treat me with respect, I actually rarely see the sexism everyone points to, it seems to be mostly forums. Might be the fact I don't really trump it and people don't find out till I'm integrated. But that's a different discussion.

 

[ngl42398]

I'd like to see how much money women spend on video games compared to men. I bet the split is 70/30 at least, if not even bigger. So feminists and SJWs, please stop saying that you can tell us how to make games, because you can't. If someone can confirm that people who want changes to AAA games spend 40% or more of the total money in the industry, then we can talk.

 

[Robert Marrs]

I'd like to see how much money women spend on video games compared to men. I bet the split is 70/30 at least, if not even bigger. So feminists and SJWs, please stop saying that you can tell us how to make games, because you can't. If someone can confirm that people who want changes to AAA games spend 40% or more of the total money in the industry, then we can talk.

Actual money spent? To be fair women probably do well in that sector as they are usually the ones buying games for their children. In fact women control and spend much more money then men do in the U.S. Of course if moms are buying those games generally they are buying them for young boys. So the spending demographic may be skewed but the target audience is still the same.

 

[MHR]

They'd never bother to publish a survey on the hours accumulated on various hardcore games by males vs females because obvious things that we already know aren't click-bait.

 

[lacktheknack]

My Mother is a hardcore gamer, she plays some serious Spider Solitaire on the Windows PC I installed for her. You bet your ass that she gets at least 6 hours playtime down a week!
Now come the fuck on industry and make multimillion AAA++++ games for her?

So's my Mom. On the other hand, if she participated in an ESA study that ask her if she played games, she's say "No".