Men: Now a Minority in PC Gaming.

[DementedSheep]

I think the data is wrong. If you count the people just killing time, the numbers might add up but the thing is these people arent really playing. I have cousins with family sharing on steam, and the girls wont even touch games like COD. They just play extremely casual stuff and even the ones who play LoL dont play it competitively, more like a time sink like I said earlier. I've already tried getting them to try some games like the CODs or Tomb Raider but the shooting action or reflex type games, like Ninja Gaiden, makes them feel overwhelmed.

"oh sure they play games but since it's not games I personally like they're not REAL games and even those that do play games I like totally aren't playing them properly"

Always a fucking loop, yeah?

Dont be a smart aleck bub! Anybody randomly tapping on a tablet to Flappy Bird could be called "playing". The thing is most of these casual players arent going to set aside some money or block off significant amounts of time in a week to play the latest releases. Usually its just passing time at the office or staving off bordedom.

So they have steam but don't buy shit? Flappy birds isn't even on steam, LoL is but hey that doesn't count when they play it. Who are you to decide if if someone is only doing it to "starve of boredom" not because they actually enjoy it? Do you ask them?
Is playing the latest releases the new bullshit qualifier? because regularly blowing $80-100 (or $60, which seem to be the price in the US) on a single new release game just means you have a lot of spare money, you don't buy many games or you're irresponsible with what you do have. It doesn't make you more of a gamer.

Thing is they're not going to make an effort if the stuff wasnt just out there in the open. A person happening across a TV showing a basketball game doesnt automatically qualify them as a basketball fan. That's your bullshit qualifier right there. I actually asked them if they actually understood what was going on and the fact is they dont really understand it.

What constitutes "just happening" across a game? going to a site that specifically sells games is not just happening across games. If you have to make an effort to find things not out in the open to be a gamer then every stat for "gamers", male or female is completely wrong and majority of people being counted as gamers aren't. Playing the highly publicised releases like CoD, Halo, Battlefield, Tomb Raider, WoW and Madden shouldn't make you a gamer. Anyone who just goes to a game store, finds something that looks relatively interesting and gets it isn't a gamer. Anyone who just boots up a game and doesn't really research or pay enough attention to get in-depth knowledge of the mechanics isn't a gamer. Most people who play games don't spend large amounts of time researching or trying to understand games yet this is only bought up to dismiss female gamers.

 

[Matthewmagic]

1. Why do you think more women play RPGs than men?
Single player experiences lend themselves to the fun of videogames without having to deal with 13 year olds online going "Show me yo tit-tahs". I don't think there is anything special about RPGs that lend themselves better to women than men, they enjoy them for the same reasons as everyone else.

2. Why do you think more men FPSs than women?
Online gaming is full of unsupervised sexist, racist, homophobic 34 year olds.

3. Mobile, Social or "Casual" games are included in these numbers, do you think they should be discounted, if so, why?
Absolutely yes. People forget this but the first game to ever be released "computer space" had a manual the size of a dictionary and was impenetrable to people who didn't have a degree in physics or who wanted to talk to their friends at a bar instead of reading a book.

Pong, videogames first major success had one instruction "Avoid missing the ball for highscore". So in short the casuals where here first and acting like they just showed up is pure ignorance.

 

[Grobari]

this forum is testament to what is wrong with gaming. people caring about this stuff is what's ruining gaming

no one should need to ask anyone about their opinion pertaining to the questions in the OP because IT ONLY MATTERS WHEN YOU PAY ATTENTION TO IT

fucking stop paying attention to who's playing games, creating games and reviewing games. only then will we have equality in gaming

 

[Something Amyss]

Sorry if you think I hate actual feminism or equality, but I hate studies like this one. It makes no separation between 2 completely different markets because it tries to push an agenda.

Except....

1. I don't have an opinion on your stance on feminism or equality. This ties back to your making up motives for me in your last post, too.

2. This study had no agenda, at least not the one you're looking to pin to it. The Gamergater who made this thread is the one who tried to ascribe motives to it. It's ignorant and/or dishonest.

Stop doing that.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

I think it's interesting that whenever a study or some stats pop up or something along these lines it's all "But they don't play real games and don't count" for whatever reason.

But when it's "Games aren't dying, the Industry makes Eleventy Billion dollars a year!" not such device is brought up. Remember, casual and mobile games making Billions only count sometimes.

 

[jklinders]

I think it's interesting that whenever a study or some stats pop up or something along these lines it's all "But they don't play real games and don't count" for whatever reason.

But when it's "Games aren't dying, the Industry makes Eleventy Billion dollars a year!" not such device is brought up. Remember, casual and mobile games making Billions only count sometimes.

This is a very good point. There is massive money in the casual game market ans I cannot refute it's impact on the industry. But I can protest the negative influence it is having on the AAA game market. If King.com can make multiple hundreds of millions of dollars on a little piece of derivative shit like Candy Crush then is that going to have a positive or negative impact on how many titles like Mass Effect or The Witcher? I know that's not the topic of the thread but more emphasis on the casual market is going to hurt the more immersive time consuming experiences most of us here love sooner or later.

Even though the economic impact of casual gaming is obvious, I cannot ignore that there is a different culture to the casual market. I feel it's in how the time is invested. Most people are not dropping hours at a time into Farmville like is done on any MMO. It's a whiling away time on the bus or before going to work thing as opposed to using a chunk of your meaningful free time on gaming.

I'd personally prefer not to see casual gaming dollars applied to the financial viability of the game industry's success at all unless they are just talking about casual gaming. I feel the markets are so different from each other as to make them completely different industries. The same way that economy cars are not hitting the same market or demographic as cube vans. They both have 4 wheels and an engine but their use and purpose are different.

 

[RavingSturm]

Casual games marginalizing the core games market would be just as bad for the industry. What happens to all the AI programmers, scripters, mo-cappers, engine creators and artists? Obviously they can't all cram themselves into the casual mobile market just to make the next tapping, tower defense, or farming game. The industry would grow stale and boring. You cant have casual games without core games providing a contrast.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

I think the important bit to remember is that Games aren't a zero-sum... err, game.

If there's money in it, there will still be games made, the "core" won't dry up and blow away if the "casuals" take over. Heck, back when adventure games "died", they weren't actually dead. They were made on roughly the same budget as always, marketed to "casuals" (ie, women), and were sold on that CD rack with the foreign language stuff.

Changing demos relegated them to an area with less marketing, but they were always around. And if the core demo changes again? Well, that's what Indies are good at.

 

[bumbledog]

Excellent point RavingSturm, that set my mind at rest.
back to OP: "50.2% of all PC gamers are women"
Hypothetically assuming this wasn't a rubbish study; 50.2% doesnt make men a minority any more significantly than it makes women a majority.
"Personally, I think it's a good sign that the PC Game Market has achieved an almost-equality in the gender distribution" Last time I checked 50% was half. Half is good. Better than "almost-equality". You cant waste too much energy trying to balance the needle. That's just making non-issues into headlines and feeding the keyboard-crusaders.
According to http://www.geohive.com/earth/pop_gender.aspx for example, the world population in 2010 was 6,895,889,018 with 3,477,829,638 men and 3,418,059,380 women, which makes men the majority (4 years ago) by 50.4%. Shocker. Is that significant enough to write home about as a majority?
Everyone just chill.

I agree with Grobari: it's not a problem unless you make it one. Even if the entire world saw those results, generalized it to all platforms and took it completely literally what harm would it do? Maybe we'd see a few new IP's on store shelves! Variety is the spice of life and gaming could do with more variety, both in players and titles.

I'd love to see more NEW "proper" games that interests my girlfriend, sisters and female friends (aside from the old usual suspects like Portal, The Sims, Minecraft, Lego, Skyrim, Assassins Creed etc...). I'm glad gaming is a hobby I can enjoy with my girlfriend and I only wish there was more out at the moment that interests her demographic. I literally can't think of more than a few games explicitly for girls. I wouldn't play them myself but I doesn't hurt me that they'd be on sale and I can share my hobby. I dont understand why gamers behave like a dragon guarding a mountain of gold. How quickly forums tend to degrade into so much venom is what put me off ever posting literally anywhere before today- which seems to have kept rather civil for an internet discussion.

However, on the other side of the coin- if the gender distribution in PC gaming is already (supposedly) approximately 50% doesn't that imply that to some extent the female demo is already content with what we currently have? PC is famous for FPS, strategy games and simulation games- they're obviously not all gender exclusive. Regardless, as Jim (thank God for him) would remind us; cowardly big AAA companies would still meekly continue to churn out sequels for the same old tripe we all know and "love"- rather than invent fresh new IP's. Like altnameJag points out; Thats why we love Indies.

Long time lurker. First post. Eat me.

 

[RavingSturm]

I think the more interesting question would be who is actually paying for the platforms these people are playing on. Kids cant obviously pay for tablets or computers by themselves, college students are usually broke, so most likely its still the adults paying for them. Are couples/single parents paying? Which spouse is doing the paying if only one is spending for the user/s?

 

[bumbledog]

That, I'd like to hear too.
Then you'd also need a further breakdown of spending habits per group and platform. As a kid I remember waiting till Christmas or birthdays for a new game on ye olde Sega/PS1, whereas these days with Humble Bundle and Steam Sales my steam library has tipped over 200 in 3 years. So I'd agree its probably an older majority who are buying the most games, whether for personal or gift use.
But then again, PC games tend to be a bit more affordable.

 

[Erianda]

>are you a male or female?

question on sign up as evidence.

How do you suggest 'proving' it?

 

[sumanoskae]

I'm always sceptical about the data collection on these things. I also don't want to do a no-true-Scotsman on this but I don't think they should have included mobile games. This is just my opinion but I don't think killing time while waiting at a bus shelter with Fruit Ninja is the same as actually gaming as a hobby.

Well... Why included shooters or sports games, then? There are a good many people for whom most of their gaming time is just a match or two of COD once or twice a week (if that), or just playing the new madden when it comes out every year. Those people aren't exactly huge game enthusiasts either.

I would argue neither of these things should be compared to playing through a 40 hour RPG, but I would still maintain that consistently playing an online shooter is closer to that ideal than the majority of mobile games, only because FPS's have a considerable learning curve and difficulty level simply by virtue of being competitive.

I'm not likely to be able to engage the average COD-only gamer in a discussion about design theory, but I will recognize their enthusiasm.

Still, I'm more interested in how many people consider video games to be high art than how many play them as a hobby.

 

[ResonanceSD]

Ah yes, Farmville and Neopets, those hallmarks of the PCMasterRace.