I get the sense it has a lot to do with fear. Mostly that there is a fear whereas they used to be the core audience that the industry serves. With this kind of shift, they might not be the most profitable demographic to serve anymore, and they fear that as a result, more of the money in the industry will be spent on catering to other players. And lord knows that if there is one thing people can't stand, it's the idea that this "other" group might now have more stuff than they do.Kathinka said:
Men: Now a Minority in PC Gaming.
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I don't see how that could happen since any game developer would look at these statistics and realize what the numbers are coming from. Also, I'm not really sure what you mean by using a poll like this to push games in a direction that is harmful to their quality. Are you saying that they might start sexualizing men a lot more to try and appeal to the larger, female audience? I'm not saying you're wrong here (statistics are used to push harmful agendas all the time), just give me an example of what they might do. Maybe I'm just not very imaginative.Kathinka said:
oh no worries mate, my brain is all mushy today, i'm somehow having difficulties properly expressing what i mean.RedDeadFred said:
i agree that publishers are smart (and greedy) enough to check out any statistic they base their businesses strategy around very very closely. i don't really see it happening either. but the direction is a bit there.
as for what i meant with the development being harmful to the quality..maybe i can explain it better via an example.
when arma 3 was made, there was a relatively small, but very vocal and rather obnoxious group pushing hard for the inclusion of the female player models. now, in this case the devs stayed clear of that and stuck with male player models.
however, if this obnoxious and vocal minority gains more moment, maybe they'll be able to push devs into catering to their agenda, expending resources, budged and development time that could much better be used for game play improvements. rather than to shut up one nagging group that represents a small minority of the fan base.
i hope that example illustrated what i mean a little more clearly, sorry for the confusion earlier.
I'm all for more woman getting into gaming culture and communities. But that doesn't mean we include games that everyone knows mostly those who don't even consider themselves gamers play in massive numbers. Not to mention that if woman want more respect by the communities they have to earn it. I think that's the biggest issue that woman are having. They are expecting gaming culture to have the laws and rules that modern day governments force in reality. And that isn't the case. You want my respect as a gamer? Learn to wave dash and L-cancel and do well in a smash bros melee tournament. Post me up stats where you did extremely well in a online match of Quake or Unreal Tournament. Show me that your someone to actually care about and be respected as an individual, otherwise don't waste my time demanding for equality. I treat you the same way I treat men who don't have skill... like noobs. Lambs for the slaughter for those better.RedDeadFred said:
I think it's funny, personally. Watch these kinds of threads and see how long it takes for people to bring up casuals. Even in threads just about women who play games, the conversation shifts very quickly to casuals. Some people can't stop themselves.RedDeadFred said:
And then the whole `but I have never met a female gamer!` thing. That's always a funny one.
I'd like to think that most people would either like more women gaming or are neutral on it. It'd be pretty damn weird to not want women to play games, but I have run into some people like that before.
What's wrong with giving people a choice in what gender they play as? I personally find it more immersive to play as someone who is of the same gender as myself. I imagine that many female gamers feel the same way. Sure, not all (and maybe not you), but I'm sure it would be appreciated. And really, how much extra resources could that possibly require? Actually, this post has just given me another answer to question 1 in the OP. RPGs (especially of the Western variety) tend to let you choose your gender. Maybe women are picking these games more and more because they can better relate to their character.Kathinka said:oh no worries mate, my brain is all mushy today, i'm somehow having difficulties properly expressing what i mean.RedDeadFred said:
i agree that publishers are smart (and greedy) enough to check out any statistic they base their businesses strategy around very very closely. i don't really see it happening either. but the direction is a bit there.
as for what i meant with the development being harmful to the quality..maybe i can explain it better via an example.
when arma 3 was made, there was a relatively small, but very vocal and rather obnoxious group pushing hard for the inclusion of the female player models. now, in this case the devs stayed clear of that and stuck with male player models.
however, if this obnoxious and vocal minority gains more moment, maybe they'll be able to push devs into catering to their agenda, expending resources, budged and development time that could much better be used for game play improvements. rather than to shut up one nagging group that represents a small minority of the fan base.
i hope that example illustrated what i mean a little more clearly, sorry for the confusion earlier.
Anyway, I see what you mean in that maybe devs could get carried away and damage the quality of their games, but I don't see that happening unless women become the vast majority.
Edit: It would also probably require them to have a deep misunderstanding of what female gamers want. I mean, I don't they want shittier games. You having this conversation with me shows that.
I didn't say that we should count those social/casual games that you are referring to. In fact, I said quite the opposite.Artaneius said:
As far as them having to earn their respect... well, there's a difference between being respected and being treated respectfully and I hope you treat people respectfully no matter their skill level. Then again, I think this might just come down to how you and I treat noobs rather than have anything to do with female gamers. I'm not really sure what your point is. If you're talking about the example with my sister, yes, she was a noob. I can understand if people were pissed at her for sucking (though she wasn't even the worst on our team), I just can't understand why that would suddenly make it okay for them to sexually harass her. I'm not saying that you think it was okay, I'm just trying to understand the part of my post you're taking issue with. Maybe you're not actually taking issue with it and I'm just misunderstanding you. If that's the case, my bad.
Thinking about it, my mother probably plays more that I do at this point. My busy schedule prevents me from playing long gaming sessions as I used to. My mother has a very stressful job and has discovered that playing Plants vs Zombies in the evening relaxes her a great deal so she now puts in something like 1-2 hours per day playing that game.kasperbbs said:
oh there's absolutely nothing wrong with it! i too would like to have it. but yes, the additional resources, development time and budged strains are more than just pocket change. the art guys have to create tons of assets, you need female voice actors (pricey!) to record huge amounts of lines, the animation dudes need to do new skeletons, meshes and animations (takes a long ass time and is a lot of work)..it's not prohibitively expensive, but it would require a TON of resources much better spent in other content. there's also a imo rather minor point of balancing with female models and their corresponding hit boxes being smaller. i don't think that would be a huge deal, but it was something brought up in the forums, so i thought i'd include it.RedDeadFred said:
tl;dr: it would be nice to have, but should be much lower on the priority list than say, more vehicles, equipment, map design, quality voice acting and so on.
And I'm still wondering how 'necessary' all of these arguements are. Let's look at the 'casual' game arguement. I feel the EXACT same way as most people. Farmville isn't a game, it's a toy, and a waste of time. However, I add that Call of Duty isn't a game, it's a murder simulator, and shouldn't be included either. (also, the frat boys that think CoD is the end-all and be-all of gaming should have mandatory psychological therapy. But I digress.) At some point, people have to draw a line. Include all the 'computerized time wasters, and categorize them later', or define a gamer, and look at who falls into that definition.Verlander said:
And as far of who's playing... does it matter? WHO CARES if the other people have innies or outies? WHO CARES if more women start playing? Frankly, if you're a cool person to talk to, I don't care if you have green skin and three ears, I'll hand you a controller and 'let's get to fragging'.
As was previously mentioned, we have REAL problems to deal with. If we spend half of our energy that we waste complaining about who's playing what, on something like climate change, we wouldn't have polar bears wandering Denver in 5 years....
Why should they? The line between "real" games and "mobile" games moves with nearly every person who argues about the topic. Those flash games that people mock are often just versions of older games - so are retro gamers not real gamers now? Is Farmville really so removed from something like Animal Crossing?Arnoxthe1 said:
And that's without getting into games that aren't simple mobile ones, and still get dismissed - things like The Sims or visual novels, or the simpler adventure games. Acting as though there's some game/non-game line is absurd.
No it isn't. If I cook a Pot Noodle am I a Chef? If I go to see 3 films in a year am I a film buff? If I check my Farmville once a week for 10 minutes am I a gamer. No.Verlander said:
But even by the logic that they are, it still makes NO sense why this survey would matter. After all people who just play Facebook games and Kongregate are playing a completely different type of game, since they're Free to Play they are not bringing any money into the industry or helping it's growth because most of them don't CARE about the gaming industry. The audience for big triple A releases and Facebook Games are clearly different, so why are they being grouped together like this? This is like grouping together Rugby League and Rugby Union players just because both games have, "Rugby", in the title.
I feel the need to mention I don't care if someone likes to play Facebook games, I really don't care what people do with their free time. However a person who occasionally puts 10 minutes into Farmville isn't a gamer. With that also said I should acknowledge that there is a growing number of Female gamers, I'm good friends with a few, however that doesn't mean that when someone pushes a survey so obviously flawed as this I won't insult it.
But how else could they produce any demographic information? Sure, you could do a breakdown by genre? But my point was that their are genres that cover both. Even if you studied it by console vs phone vs tablet vs PC that's not necessarily telling since you can play everything from Farmville to Baldur's Gate on a mobile device.Arnoxthe1 said:
And I don't believe that if mobile/social games were taken out of the equation that we wouldn't see the same arguments that we see in this thread - the focus would just be visual novels instead of Farmville or something of that nature.
Cool beans.
Also, if you're a person who believes only certain games should count as games and the rest are actually non-games that just happen to be exactly the same thing as games... please go do something some other place where we can't see or hear you. Because you don't make any sense.
Mobile games are games. ~Casual~ games are games. Please get all the way over it.
Also, if you're a person who believes only certain games should count as games and the rest are actually non-games that just happen to be exactly the same thing as games... please go do something some other place where we can't see or hear you. Because you don't make any sense.
Mobile games are games. ~Casual~ games are games. Please get all the way over it.
For some games, I agree, it's definitely a low priority. For others, I think it's really high up. For example, imagine not being able to choose your gender in an Elder Scrolls game. That would be blasphemous at this point. I think RPGs should always allow for this choice, unless of course the narrative is strongly built around the character being male (i.e. the Witcher series). If I was forced to play as a women in Skyrim, I honestly would enjoy the game less. For me, RPGs are about getting immersed in the game world and playing as a character who is a different gender than myself partially breaks that immersion. It's simply because since I am a man, I am going to better relate to my male character. Who knows though, maybe that's just my personal preference and it's not actually as big of a deal to people as I think.Kathinka said:
I would add onto this by saying that western RPGs are often about exploration and self-expression. The ability to create your avatar as you please and fit your preferred self-expression is part and parcel of what makes it all work. So, if one of the only things that prevents a female player from playing an RPG is the ability to create a female avatar, then I 100% agree that you should include female avatars as part of the game production schedule, even if it does eat additional resources.RedDeadFred said:
Heh, I've seen plenty of threads here that slam CoD as being for dudebros/teenagers/casuals-who-think-they're-gamers, so I don't think that would stop the arguments.Arnoxthe1 said:
Still, even without that particular issue, any small sampling of games is going to miss people who aren't fans of those particular ones. Personally, I've never playing anything from the Halo series, and I stopped playing Skyrim two years ago (although I put a decent amount of time in it when it first released), so I wouldn't make the cut. Which is fine, but if your cutoff is eliminating even the kind of people who post on gaming sites, I'd have to wonder how many other people you'd be missing.