"In fact, women like shooters, as long as they have a story."

[GlennZilla]

http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/dn9595-women-enjoy-smarter-cyber-massacres.html

Women enjoy smarter cyber massacres

Women enjoy shooting computer monsters just as much as men do, providing the violence is balanced by a good story.

That is the finding of Jo Clay at games analysis firm Strange Agency in Middlesbrough, UK. Clay used software developed at the University of Teesside in Middlesbrough to analyse the 34 best games as listed by 76 female gamers.

The software, called Strange Analyst, builds a profile of each game by trawling through online reviews and extracting key words. Clay found women prefer games with confrontation and attack, investigations and puzzles - and a good story line. "Many developers believe that the games females play are confined to those like Barbie," says Clay. "In fact, women like shooters, as long as they have a story."

 

[Teleios]

Interesting.

Being a woman gamer, I can really only attest to what I like and dislike a game. Personally, I love shooters. I love killing things, but having a story really adds to it. I do think there is some truth to it (at least with me) in that I have a tendency to pay a bit more attention to the games that have stories because it helps draw me in further.

Half-Life is by far my favorite game and that definitely has a distinguised story. I also really enjoyed Return to Castle Wolfenstein, No One Lives Forever, and even Unreal Tournament (which does have a story sort-of).

Overall, very interesting - I could see where this is going.

 

[dosboot]

Clay used software developed at the University of Teesside in Middlesbrough to analyse the 34 best games as listed by 76 female gamers.

Why would one use software to generate a profile of a game, especially when there is merely 34 games in question? An accurate profile of a game is gotten by playing the game itself and by playing lots of games in general. Using a keyword search to classify game elements sounds like such a crude method that I would question how many games this person has even played.

This particular study aside, I don't think the results are anything new. Female gamers aren't any different than male gamers. What studies like this ignore are non-gamer women. I'd like to know if women in general do not like the types of video games that men like. Ancedotely females I've met do not enjoy competitive strategy; you can get most guys to play Chess or Axis and Allies, but ancedotely speaking girls strongly prefer party board games.

 

[wildcard [deprecated]]

I think that more women would like shooters if they give them a try. I am in a counterstrike clan and a bti strangely for a CS server we have a lot of ladies playing on there.

I think this is because they dont have guys talking dirty to them etc on our server because we dont tolerate it.

I think women would play more games online if they got a bit of respect.

Anyway, the main reason lots of people, not just women dont like any gaming is because they've never tried it.

 

[GlennZilla]

Well, for an explanation as to why I posted this. I took this same quotation to my wife. She is an ardent non-gamer. Her gaming background ended with Galaga. She's great at it, and used to routinely spank my scores when I was foolish enough to challenge her.

However, when I play games like GTA, Half-Life 2, Halo, Oblivion, MechAssult, WoW or whatever my game du jour seems to be that day, I get the same response when I offer her the controller. An eyeroll and sigh, sometimes it is even followed by a brief glare.

I tried story based games, specificly games that I thought told a great story. She holds a degree in dramatic writing from NYU. Her movie tastes tend toward the thrillers and some supernatural based dramas. But Silent Hill, Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath (OK, just because I enjoyed it), Syberia, and even the vaunted Myst all failed to elicit any response beyond the eyeroll and glare combo. I even tried to tempt her with arcade re-releases and 2D games like Alien Homind, (at least I enjoy it) and Geometry Wars. I thought maybe she'd want to try cooperative play for the comraderie, but she was bored with co-oping with me in about 30 seconds.

When cornered she gave explanations for her game aversion ranging across the spectrum. "The (Xbox) controller is too complex. I like the Atari joystick, just one button." While trying to Co-Op play Halo and MechAssault, "I can't see what I am doing." The most puzzling resonce, "I'm just not into these games. I want to watch American Idol and not have to think."

I must admit that I usually return the eyeroll/sigh combo when asked to watch VH1's, Best Week Ever or Big Brother with her.

 

[JoClay [deprecated]]

Thanks for all your posts on the New Scientist article - pleased it sparked your interest.

We've now released a full report (Games Women Play) which uses our game analysis software to analyse the game playing preferences of hardcore female gamers and establish a set of criteria that an ideal game for women should follow.

Our main conclusion is that hardcore games can be developed, with the female gamer considered, yet still remain as attractive to the mainstream male hardcore gamer.

If anyone is interested in further info please get in touch: [email protected]

 

[heavyfeul]

Jo,

My critique would be a simple set of questions...don't all gamers, male and female, like FPSs with a bit of a story and some varied gameplay? I don't question the accuracy of your findings in regards to the population you are trying to study, but shouldn't it be comparative? You should be sampling both male and female gamers, comparing the results, idenifying the differences, then structure a hypothesis from that.

People have been touting that girls like video games, its just that industry does not cater to them. The simple fact is that most girls just do not like video games. The reason? That is how they are brought up. As parents and role models we implicitly and explicitly tell boys and girls how they should act and what they should like and these choices become ingrained and then passed on to the next generation.

Things may be changing. Since the demographic for gamers is getting older as the years pass, it is possible that more young girls will be enculturated into the video gaming world. Who knows, dad's and their daughters might start to have online deathmatches in Halo 3, or Mario Cart races over the DS's WiFi connections. Instead of the past where it was strictly a adolescent male pastime, maybe an inter-gender/inter-generational interaction will surface to break down the stereotypes. But these changes may be generations away. Who knows?

I just do buy that there is some game formula that can be determined, which will bring young women into the gaming world in significant numbers. We we have is what we got. if they don't like, they ain't gonna play it.

Personally...All I think you are measuring is the quality of the game and it's correlation to gamers', male or female, enjoyment.

 

[Beery]

The software, called Strange Analyst, builds a profile of each game by trawling through online reviews and extracting key words. Clay found women prefer games with confrontation and attack, investigations and puzzles - and a good story line.

The problem with that is that it's a non-sequitor. The fact that women (or people who claim to be women online) use certain keywords doesn't mean they prefer one playstyle over another. It may only mean that they describe their preferred playstyle using different words than men do. Men may like the exact same playstyle but they may describe it differently.

Heck, I'm a man and I won't touch a shooter unless it has a good story.

 

[Arbre]

So you are a woman and you're claiming to be a man! Ha!

More seriously, what are those online reviews?
I suppose they have to be written by staff, and staff only, of magazines of various sorts, officially recognized as being professionals at it.
Otherwise, the system may be sweeping over male reviews which, for various elements, could be understoof as female reviews.

Let's not forget that it only adresses the "hardcore female gamers" branch, that is, the one which is already in the video games, and much more likely to try other genres which are normally not socially attributed to females.

Of those women who wrote online reviews, wouldn't this already poison the pool of query?

 

[penischucker]

I am a female/woman gamer and I like the same games that guys do. It's not like we're a different animal or something. We just have that extra branch you guys are missing on that so-called "Y" chromosome (plus we lack the attached "SRY" gene which causes the testes to descend...).
...

 

[ccesarano]

"Many developers believe that the games females play are confined to those like Barbie," says Clay. "In fact, women like shooters, as long as they have a story."

I think this statement is a bit inaccurate.

Firstly, games like Barbie are intended for little girls anyway, in which case you're really going for a limited selection.

Second, I think developers are more wondering how to appeal to females more and get them into gaming. I think a lot of the male dominance in gaming actually comes from a more casual crowd, in the "I only play Madden and Halo" group of gamers. While I've met plenty of girls of the casual variety interested in games, they would never pay the money for them because they don't have enough of an interest.

To me, I think games just need more mainstream market exposure, as well as commercials focusing on both gameplay and story. But that's more mass marketing than it is getting women into gaming. In other words: it's more simple than people think.

 

[Spinwhiz]

You guys are missing the point. This proves female gamers enjoy a bit of carnage. I see this as a plus and a nice way to start the weekend. I'll say nothing more about the topic b/c it would just make nerds everywhere pissed off

Have a great weekend all!

 

[Lance Icarus]

I just don't understand why people have this idea that women are unable to play certain games for whatever reason. Women are just as diverse as men are in their likes and dislikes. I myself like a game with more substance than just boom boom kill kill. I think when it comes to FPS games, it's not so much a question of if women like to kill things, but of the incredible complexity of the controls for what should be a simple concept.

As a matter of fact, I feel a big reason women don't get into FPS games is the reason why I don't get into RTS games, more advanced gamers. There's a lot of elitism when it comes to gamers nowadays. There's this huge level of competition that really snuffs out new gamers from coming into the mix. My girlfriend had a hard time with Halo 3, but that's because she never got the chance me and my other friends got with Halo 1 and 2 to learn the controls inside and out. Lets face it, to any new gamer the controls of an FPS can be quite daunting. I tried to teach her the controls during a multiplayer match, but didn't get too far as people would keep blowing her up and sniping her for an "easy frag". She got frustrated and quit and I don't blame her.

This same thing happens to me whenever I think to myself "Hey, this RTS looks kinda fun. Maybe I should play it online." When I get there, I'm barely building up my barracks before an army of bombers that would make the US blush fly in and level my chances at victory. I'll get frustrated and quit because gamers would rather just call me a stupid noob than show me the different strategies I can implore to make sure I don't recieve a one way trip to Assplatter BLVD.

Women are gamers, just like the rest of us. It isn't that they're too feminine to enjoy an FPS. They just need to be taught the ins and outs of the genre in the same way I need to be taught how the hell I invade an enemy base when the jerk surrounds it with obelisks and SAMs.

 

[Katana314]

To me it's not their lack of ability to play; it's just that they're not interested. I can sort of see why, as the initial vision of Halo or something like that is very off-putting and stereotype-fitting. I can see some merit in liking Half-Life more; female protagonist isn't a sex icon, there's a bit of story, and the game doesn't force challenges on the player as much as Halo.

 

[Easykill]

I found this kind of useless because I cant believe that men and women are so fundamentally different in any way but culture that women would like shooters less than men. The group it was analyzing was a group of hardcore gamers so they are the minority that isnt affected by our culture, but since this is in my opinion only useful as a method of measuring change in our culture as gaming gets more mainstream, all it does is say what any gamer likes. Of course we like story in a game.

But thats just me, maybe im totally wrong.

 

[[HD]Rob Inglis]

Well, I'm not surprised. Women are people too on an equal level, the only difference is the size of the chest, ( in most cases except for really fat guy, I do feel bad for them). Besides, who on this earth (besides Ghandi) doesn't love to blow virtual shi---stuff sky-high?

 

[Kermi]

My fiancee plays Halo 3 pretty much every night. I accidentally got her hooked on the Beta and she's been running rings around me for the past few weeks, my innate talent at videogames being overshadowed by her dogged persistence.

She loathes the storyline, it bores her to tears. I actually had to co-op with her through the last two levels jsut so she'd finish it - and as much as she wants the Hayabusa armor, she can't be bothered going through it again to find the skulls, so I'll probably just do that for her too.

She likes Half Life 2 as well - though I wouldn't say she likes it for the story. She likes the characters, but the story itself is just window dressing. She also swears at the game a lot, mostly during strider battles.


In short, best girlfriend ever.

 

[Terramax]

My 10 year old sister always loved playing Quake 3 Arena on her PC. An FPS almost absent of story. She also loves Halo I & II.

 

[werepossum]

My wife plays video games probably more hours a week then do I, but never shooters. She loves puzzle and item search games as well as adventure games, all of which bore me to tears, but refuses to play any game that involves killing or being killed, or even dieing in any method whatsoever. But I think part of it is stress - she doesn't work and the kids are grown and gone, so she doesn't build up much stress. When I come home, several nights a week I want to kill something and work off some stress. So as a guess, I'd say women in stressful jobs would probably have greater attraction to shooters.

Still, men and women ARE different. I'd be suspicious of any study that found men and women were attracted to shooters at the same rates. We're just wired differently, and that should skew the attraction rates to almost any given passtime.