Poll: (research) Why do guys typically play more video games?

[Nazulu]

1. I do believe it's aimed towards boys/men more, yes

a. I think it's because there are men are in the industry who know how to cater easier to other men. I really don't know why there aren't more women in the industry, I just don't know.

b. More money going into the usual action games with plenty of violence, many with big strapping men as the main character.

2. From where I am, easily more men. But from what I hear on the net, it looks equal if you include every type. I'd still say men though. Every guy I've talked to has played games before, and I can't say that for the girls.

3. Really, it should be anything goes. If any creative mind could work with their ideas there would be enough for everyone I reckon. If that's not the exact answer you are looking for then both, but not by force.

4. To stop these greedy higher-ups that know bugger all about games just trying to copy others success or monopolise whatever they can.

We need them to take risks again. Just fuck the research and try something different every once in awhile. To believe in the art of games.

 

[norr]

Hey, I'm doing a bit of research for a project I am doing, If you have a few minuets please answer these questions..!

1. Do you feel that most video games are aimed towards men, And if you think so..
a. Why do you think this is?
b. How do you think it shows through? (eg. Over sexualised female characters)
2. Would you say more women or more men play video games?
3. Do you think video games should be more geared towards men or women?
4. What could the gaming industry change to make things better?

Thanks so much if you answer!

also
stop
everything here seems to be bad form, I'm not a fully fledged academic but from what i remember of this sort of thing,your method appears wrong.
You game out the intent of you study thus adding bias.
your questions should have not asked about feelings and been more geared to asking the sex of the person then asking the amount of games they play, what they like about video games, and aspects of their personality.
In other words a positivist approach would have been better.
No worries.
I'm sorry if I'm just straight wrong, but there seems to be something wrong in your from and for the sake of your research a bit of scrutiny never hurt anyone

I don't see the problem, I'm asking questions about gender in gaming, not what they like about video games or aspects of their personality,
I'm not sure if I gave the wrong impression of what I'm researching for, But sorry if it offended you!

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I don't have strong convictions on this but I'll answer truthfully.

1. Yes.
a. Nothing.
b. -
2. Men.
3. Both.
4. I do not know myself.

 

[CrystalShadow]

As sexist as it may sound, it also wouldn't hurt to do something like come out with consoles of assorted colors believe it or not. Look at what that shit did for the iMac. Imagine being able to pick between a red, blue, black, white, yellow, green, or pink PS4, Xbone, etc. As sexist as this may sound, women really dig that shit. I bet a lot of guys would like it too but many women would find it "cute". And that doesn't cost much to do, just have different colors of plastic.

Nintendo has been doing that for ages, though it's less apparent more recently, and some of the wilder things have become more obscure.

The original gameboy came in at least 6 colours. Later models repeated this (along with many 'special editions' themed around certain games)

There are I think, something like 9 or 10 different colours of N64, though most are from late in it's life. The gamecube also had at least 3 or 4, but by this point it's mostly special editions.

Meanwhile, the DS continued the handheld traditions.

By the time of the Wii however, the home consoles seemed to have lost their variety. Most were white, and only a handful had other designs. (the most prominent one being black)

The Wii U had a black and a white version, but that was it. (and they had technical differences too, not just cosmetic ones.)

Ironic that Nintendo who used to do colour variations a lot seems to have somewhat abandoned the idea...


On topic:

1. Do you feel that most video games are aimed towards men, And if you think so..
a. Why do you think this is?
b. How do you think it shows through? (eg. Over sexualised female characters)
2. Would you say more women or more men play video games?
3. Do you think video games should be more geared towards men or women?
4. What could the gaming industry change to make things better?

1. If you're talking the mainstream triple A industry, then yes. Absolutely.
a - The existing games being mainly aimed at straight white males in a certain age group creates a situation where that's what games are aimed at, which creates the impression that this is all there is, which scares off other audiences, which then means games aren't developed for these other audiences, and so on.
b. Lack of diversity both in lead characters, AND other characters. Poor representations of women (and other groups not part of the core demographic). Game mechanics and play styles biased towards more typically male interests. Story, if present often also biased towards the likely interests of a male demographic.
2. I know from statistical research the biggest demographic is women over 40... XD - But you have to take into account what that means, and what kind of things are included. In my experience I'd say the core AAA market is very male biased, while casual and indie titles show a lot more diversity.
3. Ideally, neither. There's no specific reason for that bias to remain, it's just how the industry formed, and historical trends that caused it.
4. Really simply. More diversity, especially in mainstream games. Larger variety of games, characters, settings, genres. Etc. It would probably help to get more devs onboard who aren't themselves part of that core traditional demographic.
(Not only is the AAA industry targeted towards young white men, most of the people working in it also fit that description.)

 

[Prince of Ales]

Unless you've been living under a rock the last few years, you may have noticed how big casual/mobile games have become. These games get played during lunch breaks, on buses, on the lavatory, sometimes concurrently with other mindless acts (e.g. while watching TV). Got 5 minutes to kill? Might as well repetitively mash away at some livestock or confectionary. These games dwarf the AAA market. My mum plays more video games than I do these days.

So anyway, I don't think such games are particularly aimed at one gender or the other. Since the casual market is the dominant market in gaming these days, you absolutely can't say "most games" are aimed at men. I'd guess women play these games more than men, but that's just based on my own experiences. I don't know. Instead of asking us what we think the answer is, how about you do a proper survey and find out?

 

[chadachada123]

1. Do you feel that most video games are aimed towards men, And if you think so..
a. Why do you think this is?
b. How do you think it shows through? (eg. Over sexualised female characters)
2. Would you say more women or more men play video games?
3. Do you think video games should be more geared towards men or women?
4. What could the gaming industry change to make things better?

Thanks so much if you answer!

1) Yeah, I think they're aimed towards men
-a) Because men are the primary demographic. The flip side would obviously be fashion, targeted towards women.
-b) For the same reason, both markets focus on appeal, typically visual appeal. Magazines targeted towards women usually feature either, and I'm using this in spite, "female power fantasies" in the form of hot women or "objectified" attractive men. On the other side, video games tend to have "male power fantasies" in the form of hot dudes or "objectified" attractive women.

2) Men, obviously, if we're excluding Facebook games and the like

3) I really don't think it matters. If anything, I find it hypocritical (from my perspective) that people are focusing far, far more on video games and the fact that they're a guy's space, as if that's a bad thing, while ignoring fashion magazines, gossip magazines, etc. Same with books, which are both read by and geared towards women for more than men. In that vein, I like having a "guy's space," as I'm sure many women feel about their own "girl's space." So long as people, male or female, are not busting into my space *and trying to change it,* I really don't care about the demographics.

4) Frankly, most (all) male gamers that I've talked to, aside from the dudebros that only play Call of Duty and Madden, are straight sick of the same boring male character with the short hair and otherwise being 1-dimensional. We'd *love* more good female characters, like Samus, that aren't terrible like the faux-Samus in Other M, who was both quite sexualized and quite terribly written.

I feel like I've covered everything.

(Fun fact: Bayonetta was created and designed by a female developer specifically to be over-the-top sexualized, and as far as I can tell, guys like her because she's sexualized, but not because she's sexual. Hard to explain, but she's cool because it's over-the-top, aside from whether or not she's hot. The design itself makes her interesting).

 

[NPC009]

b. I think what's been lost is the concept of what is oversexualised. As the Sword and sandals genre which lead to the creation of the modern muscle bound hero archetype now called Idealisation was designed to appeal to women see http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-big-picture/5550-Hercules-Part-One the strange thing being the modern disparity the moment a woman has boobs in a video games people cry oversexualisation yet when we have I dunno


Then suddenly people are claiming it's an idealised character the simple reality is there are less distinctive traits in men that can be seen as attractive and have held as being attractive throughout. I mean Dante from DMC Devil May Cry fits the other trait of an attractive male character.


It's a strange observable trend that less imposing less "dangerous" appearing Males are attractive to younger women (See the popularity of Justin Beiber in his early days. It's a kind of non "threatening" male image the wouldn't hurt a fly idea.

I don't think the concept was lost at all. Most (modern) women are not interested in muscle freaks, if they were, they'd all be playing God of War or something non-stop. What most of the women I know find appealing is a more complete package. ("Joel is pretty hot. Like how he wants to protect Ellie, world be damned? Total DILF." - random friend) It's not that a shirtless guy can't be nice to look at ("Shirtless Thor! Woohoo!!" - random friend 2), but there has to be more to it than just a nice chest.

So the funny thing is, whether they meant to or not, game developers have designed plenty of characters that appeal to women, yet for some reason the games they're are in aren't marketed towards that demographic.

Also, I don't think it's weird girls prefer men close to their age. I mean, my friends are all adult women and they like their men to be men (though some do like some bishounen on the side as well. ("OMG, sad Loki! Look at Loki being sad! I want to hug him so much!" - random friend 2)). But a teenage girls being into guys over twice their age (and twice her size)? I'd be worried if it were my daughter.

Anyway, compare what women are into to what (marketing executives think) men are into. You don't see women's favourite characters taking T&A poses or walking around in insanely impratical outfits to accentuate said T&A poses. And then there's the fact many of the characters women find hot are still perfectly fine characters to male players as well. (Women think original Dante looks hot, men think original Dante looks cool - everyone wins) Can't say the same for all the Candy McTitsanasses out there.

 

[Dagda Mor]

Hey, I'm doing a bit of research for a project I am doing, If you have a few minuets please answer these questions..!

1. Do you feel that most video games are aimed towards men, And if you think so..
a. Why do you think this is?
b. How do you think it shows through? (eg. Over sexualised female characters)
2. Would you say more women or more men play video games?
3. Do you think video games should be more geared towards men or women?
4. What could the gaming industry change to make things better?

Thanks so much if you answer!

The amount of men and women playing games is actually about the same when you take the casual market into account. But you wouldn't be asking here unless you were talking about core games.
1. Yes.
a. Because people think that games are for men.
b. So many ways that I simply cannot be bothered to list them all.
2. The same amount, but there's a much higher concentration of men playing core games, and a much higher concentration of women playing casual games. I think that this is because the concept of playing video games is still novel to a lot of women, because gaming was a total boy's club until the rise of mobile games.
3. Humans in general.
4. It would need to first make games more accessible to women, and then make women understand that core gaming isn't just for boys anymore.

 

[Phasmal]

Do you feel that most video games are aimed towards men?
Yes.

Why do you think this is?
`Accepted industry wisdom`. The games industry has proven time and again that it is absolutely terrified of taking chances.
They've figured out how to capture this one demographic and they're so afraid of losing it that trying to appeal to anyone else seems like too big a risk.

How do you think it shows through? (eg. Over sexualised female characters)
Yes, that's one way. I think it's probably one of the most immediately visually recognisable ways, but it's not the only way.
There are other, more subtle ways it shows through. Like when an advert for an FPS is like `Come and bro it up with the other bros, bro!`- you kind of get the slight hint they're going more for dudes.
Or how having a female character in a triple A game that isn't optional is like a massive deal.
Or how consumers of video games often feel perfectly comfortable telling women their opinion on a certain game doesn't matter because it's not `for` them. It's `for` men.

But I also think it shows through certain creative stagnation.
Hell they could probably do more for the straight dude demographic than `this straight white dude with slight facial hair had a lady and she got killed lets take revenge`- like we haven't had THAT a million times.

Would you say more women or more men play video games?
Oh, more men, most likely.
But it's not as huge a difference as most people think.
Hell, most women I know who play games either play solo or would never `out` themselves as women. When you're playing online, you've probably played with more women than you think, we just don't want you to know.

Do you think video games should be more geared towards men or women?
Do you think books should be more geared towards men or women?
Do you think movies should be more geared towards men or women?
Do you think art should be more geared towards men or women?
Do you maybe get why this question sounds stupid now?

Video games are a medium. They should be aimed at people who want to play video games.
There should be games for everybody.

What could the gaming industry change to make things better?
Take chances, grow, branch out. Stop treating female gamers like they're invisible.

Don't get me wrong, I think many are trying, and I'm happy for that.

 

[Flight]

1. I absolutely think so.
a. Because despite female gamers becoming more and more active, it's still a male-dominated industry.
b. Over-sexualized female characters, fridging female characters, constantly having scruffy, brown-haired white men with grim personalities as protagonists...
2. I'd say it's about equal, really. I know just as many female gamers as I do male.
3. I think they should be geared towards both. Straight men get the most fanservice, and not just in terms of what's aesthetically appealing. They should make it more accessible to all of us.
4. A lot of things, starting with the utter disregard many companies appear have for women (see: Ubisoft's blatant ignorance of Charlotte Corday in Assassin's Creed: Unity) and non-white people (monochromatic casts of characters with the possible exception of a token non-white, with minorities only sprinkled in the background/non-existent for many games).

 

[cleric of the order]

I don't see the problem, I'm asking questions about gender in gaming, not what they like about video games or aspects of their personality,
I'm not sure if I gave the wrong impression of what I'm researching for, But sorry if it offended you!

I'm sorry, i do tend to have a problem communicating at times especially on a subject I'm not particularly well versed.
but, and this is a very big but I have and will not take offense to your query. A good indication of that might be that i responded with more then dats b8 m8. I was suggesting it might have been better to take another route, albeit poorly.
While i haven't needed to gather public data for like 4 years and was never any good at it I do remember, in piecemeal some of the methods and taboos surrounding that.
My suggestion would be to and take a different route with your questing. firstly perhaps because this is a politicized issue at the moment take a route that would not elicit knee-jerk reactions that could, quite plainly muddy up your results.

Spoiler: told ya

Stupid poll, obviously for a bias. Like, why not just make the data up? It's the same result.

wat

Further more It would have been better to simply get the results of male and female gamers in a positivist manner on the escapist rather then asking about their feelings. Unless, that is your arguments are going to be powered by people's feelings and thoughts. Otherwise known as nothing.
That's why i suggested the positivist list of a persons traits, gender, game time, position in life, etc,etc so you can build a demographic. Then move down to, "do you think games are targeting you?", with the demographics in mind. In all fairness women and men are quite unwieldy demographics and each one of them plays video games suiting their tastes and personalities. it helps sort through quite a lot of information, cuts through outliers and makes it seem more balanced.
Because in all fairness your set of questions assumes the persons in questions has a balanced view of the entire industry, I can say I do not even as a life long gamer. Other people focus on AAA, old style games, new style games, free-muim, egglike, etc etc.
This limit on perception can hinder results. It would have been better again to ask where and what type of games they buy so you can group the indies with the indies, the AAA with the AAA, the adventure gamers with themselves, ETC, ETC.
So you can get a wider picture.
For example if all people that buy exclusively AAA games feel that it is gear towards men, and the indies do not and one out numbers the others then the method you laid down would be separable to seeing only the greater number rather then the reason for it.
Or if all of the men felt it targeted them and the women the same (unlikely but.... you are not here to parrot assumptions).
and so on and so on.
You would see the symptom but not the cause.
Your data would be warped and your results meaningless
However if this piece is more about the perspective of the escapists rather then statistical fact.
I don't know what you really hope get out of that besides that.
(and this is the most reasonable possible use I could think of considering the data you've accrued).

But you can take this with a grain of salt, I'm sick, sleep deprived and not all that good at the empiricism and I've forgotten a lot of my points between today and yesterday.
However like I said before, questioning your shit is good for you and everyone, just take some of it to heart it might come in useful.

 

[laggyteabag]

1. Do you feel that most video games are aimed towards men?

Yes, I feel that more games are aimed towards males, especially big AAA titles.

a. Why do you think this is?

The majority of gamers are male, so it makes sense on a business level to try to attract the largest demographic.

b. How do you think it shows through? (eg. Over sexualised female characters)

Most main characters tend to me muscly brown haired male characters, whereas female characters are often support characters, and sometimes they even wear revealing clothes and have skimpy attires (especially games made in asian countries), but most games have improved on the latter point, I feel.

2. Would you say more women or more men play video games?

Men, but I think that it is approaching a 1:1 ratio of male:female players, but male gamers are still in the majority, especially in my experiences.

3. Do you think video games should be more geared towards men or women?

Hopefully, both. I would love gaming as an industry to grow, but I that specifically designing games to appeal to one particular gender demographic can really harm this growth.

4. What could the gaming industry change to make things better?

I would love it if more games could have an option to play as a male or female character[footnote]Unless the gender of the character is absolutely integral to the game[/footnote]. Sure, this isn't always possible due to time and budget constraints, but it would be nice to see this outside of RPG games. Please no more "But it's too hard to animate female characters" tosh that one particular developer threw around recently.

 

[Scarim Coral]

1. Do you feel that most video games are aimed towards men, And if you think so..
Yes.

a. Why do you think this is?
I guessing it is somewhat of an age old tradation. I mean when it was first release (Pong, Pac Man etc) the majority who owned and played games back then were males.

b. How do you think it shows through? (eg. Over sexualised female characters)
Male protagonist in most games and the female are usual the sidekick/ damsel in distress and are also sexualise.

2. Would you say more women or more men play video games?
Well I would say there are ALOT more women playing video games then it was in the past that is if no dickheads harass them.

3. Do you think video games should be more geared towards men or women?
Neither or both?

4. What could the gaming industry change to make things better?
A few things like for one, more penalty toward those whose harass another and everyone should treat others with respect and equal.

 

[hermes]

1. Do you feel that most video games are aimed towards men, And if you think so..
a. Why do you think this is?
b. How do you think it shows through? (eg. Over sexualised female characters)
2. Would you say more women or more men play video games?
3. Do you think video games should be more geared towards men or women?
4. What could the gaming industry change to make things better?

1. Yes
1a. Socioeconomical reasons. Historically, the kind of technological curiosity was more accepted in boys than girls. That leaded to the earlier generations, the video games public was almost exclusively young boys. Companies saw no need to upset the status quo and focused, almost exclusively, on them/us. In a less cynical worldview, most of the earlier generations designers were men, so it was easier to work on something that they felt would interest them as kids, who grew up to be the next generation of designers, and so forth...
1b. That is one. It gets reflected on themes mostly... Most games focus on armed conflict, sport competitions or adventures where the hero saves the world and gets the girl, which are socially more prevalent in boys games and fantasies.
2. It depends on the definition of videogames. Many would call "real games" to products that have huge budgets, get released on the latest generations of consoles or have specialized PC requirements, a lot more men play videogames than women. But technology in general is very much universal, so if you think a videogame is any game that is run in a technologically advanced device (which includes facebook games, mobile games, spider solitaire, etc), then the market is pretty much evenly split.
3. I think there is room for all: games geared toward men, games geared toward women and games not specifically geared toward one gender over another.
4. I think there should be more attention to games not geared toward one specific demographic or, at least, balance out the market with decent budget games aimed at young girls. So far, 99% of the AAA market is specifically geared toward boys and young male adults; with only The Sims as an example (that I can think of) of AAA budget aimed at young women...

 

[Lieju]

1. Do you feel that most video games are aimed towards men, And if you think so..
I think most games seem to be aimed towards boys TBH, not even men.

a. Why do you think this is?
Because competitiveness and toys are considered male things?
And while video-games don't need to be competitive, they are still a new medium stuck on their roots.
Also they're viewed as childish and men are allowed to be more childish than women lot of the time. People joke about 'boys and their toys' and how boys never grow up, but if that's what people really thought they wouldn't trust men with money or vote them into power, choosing to elect actual adults instead.

b. How do you think it shows through? (eg. Over sexualised female characters)
In general immature writing and character designs lot of the time.

2. Would you say more women or more men play video games?
I dunno. I guess both play games but what games they play might differ.

3. Do you think video games should be more geared towards men or women?
This is like asking if movies or books should be geared towards men or women. It's fine to have genres or titles more aimed to men or women, even things that are just pointless porn or something, but why would not even a genre but a medium be limited like that?

4. What could the gaming industry change to make things better?
More diversity. Not just in what kinds of characters we have but what kinds of stories the games tell and what kinds of experiences they offer. Flashy powerfantasies are fine. Historical dramas are fine. Artsy games about the bleakness of human condition are fine. Sports games are fine. Let's have it all, ok?

 

[NPC009]

It's the idea of culture and counter culture going on. As I said what's considered attractive in a guy changes quite often. There will of course always be the place for the "Non threatening" safe guy image amongst teen girls that's been around for years but eventually the image will change. Heck the resurgence of interest in the likes of Peter Andre is starting to suggest another counter culture forming. It's not the inane muscle man coming back but it is.

Sorry, I'm not really seeing it. What really seems to be really popular right now are fucked up pretty boys like Sherlock and Loki. Of course, it's not as if all women have the same tastes in men, but still...

Heck almost every guy in video games for a while has been Nathan Fillion because the show Castle was testing well with female audiences.

[...]

Except they are the character design is quite deliberate lol.

Nice theory, but nope. What you see in videogames are just generic handsome white dudes. You could see Fillion in them, or other fairly generic looking white dudes - it's a coincidence. Besides, most of the time they're not actually testing these games with women. Typical focus groups consist of young men. Oh, and publishers are absolutely terrified characters that aren't generic handsome white dudes will test poorly with these people. So, they try to avoid putting women on covers and if they can't find a way around it (because the main character is female), well, eh, better show off her butt or something (Remember Me - was that really necessary?).

Think about how messed up that is: these people think that men are so worried about their percieved level of masculinity, they can't stand looking at anyone other than someone that somewhat resembles them. Put on the girl on the cover? No, imagine that people will think it's a game for girls! Others might think they're gay! Better put some dude on there instead, so they can protect their heterosexuality by looking at attractive men. It's a very American way of thinking.

It's quite different in Japan. If you pick up a game with girls on the cover it's likely a game aimed at men, because most men like looking at pretty girls. Imagine that. Another weird (well, no, the opposite of weird, actually) is that developers who do develop for multiple demographics have a better understanding of what their female audience look for in characters. Sure, they'll put in plenty of big boobed hotties of the girls usually get something nice to look at, too, and not just a token generic handsome dude.

Actually it's not entirely that the best example being The Beatles and a band I happen to know who fired their lead guitarist because he didn't fit the image. They're now called The Rhymes and went from club scene to O2 London in less than a year. It's the safe non threatening guys image. A friend of mine is 6'5 and is one of those muscle bound "freaks" he has been since school and was going through school. He's the least threatening person you could imagine personality wise though.

I think it's because most girls want something more than just the physical part to fantasise about. They want to imagine romance, and that's a little hard to do when you only got a pile of meat to go on.

And, no there is nothing safe about it. When it comes to boybands it's not uncommon for the 'bad boy' to be most popular one. Or look at Twilight. There is nothing safe about those guys.

How to please men in an easy base level way. Boobs and flesh. We're that damn simple lol.

I don't really get that. For instance, I'd say Bayonetta is attractive because she's in full control of her sexuality. If she'd been just some pretty face and boobs on long legs they'd have gotten boring very fast. Boring is not sexy.

Also as far as the comment about walking round in impractical outfits or doing things to accentuate themselves. In the Twilight films they used spray on Six packs. Also think for a moment when was the last time you heard any guy mad at a character most guys laugh at the meat head idea put across, they aren't offended by it (though this may be some self image thing) guys mock it and mock Twilight for it lol. /quote]

The Twilight dudes don't have snakes for spines, though...

Anyway, women mock games like Dead or Alive too. But here's the thing, if a man wants to play a game in which the male main character isn't overly sexualised, well, there's plenty to choose from. If a woman want to play a game in which the female main characyer isn't overly sexualised, well, good luck to her because she's going to need it. Female protagonists are rare to begin with and many are designed to 'please men on a base level'. So really, it'd be nice to see some more diversity. I think that'd be better for all of us.

Also I'm going to say it but maybe it's a form of envy on display the idea of competing with an idealised form or character trust me I'm a guy who looks like crap and even sometimes I think I have a shot. I've lived in a flat with a guy who was all of 5 foot nothing and dude still had insane confidence / refusal to let it get him down. No matter how truly epicly impossible something is if it involves trying to pull chances are well try or will if given enough alcohol.

Sorry, I don't quite follow. You mean to say that the archetypical male main characters are a bother to men as well, because they raise the bar impossibly high? I dunno. People like looking at attractive people. Making the main characters ugly is something that may actually hurt sales.

Also, that short guy got it right. Confidence, competence, a good sense of humour - there are many qualities people find attractive. If you can't catch someone's attention with just your looks, you should let your other qualities shine.

 

[Colour Scientist]

Snip.

Also, our hands are too small and dainty and having to period every ten minutes makes competitive gaming a nightmare.

 

[Callate]

Hey, I'm doing a bit of research for a project I am doing, If you have a few minuets please answer these questions..!

1. Do you feel that most video games are aimed towards men, And if you think so..
"Most?" On what level? Certainly I think the majority of the "AAA" console/PC games are aimed at men: the "Call of Duty"s, the "Battlefield"s, the "Grand Theft Auto"s. But RPGs like "Dragon Age" divide nearly down the middle, series like "Assassins Creed" clearly have a significant female player base, Adventure games like "The Walking Dead" seem to have a higher female market share, and the "hidden object" genre seems to have a strong female majority. Likewise, tablet and phone gaming appears to have a feminine majority.

My suspicion is that the most money still goes into games geared towards men, but on a title-for-title basis, I'm not at all sure games aimed at men are the majority any more.

a. Why do you think this is?
Men have been both the consumers and the creators of the vast majority of video games for quite some time. At the same time, girls and women were dissuaded from computers and electronics, as well as math and the hard sciences that run parallel, as "unfeminine" pursuits. For decades, an understanding of a certain level of vaguely arcane knowledge was necessary to either get games running or play them; interest alone was often insufficient to make up for the "head start" enjoyed by boys and men who were encouraged to engage math and science and tinker with machines.

As more and more people came to understand that computers and the Internet were an important area of knowledge for both the workplace and daily life, the time and effort to understand these systems has become more available to women, often from earlier ages, and the systems themselves have to a greater degree been designed to be more accessible to a wider audience.

b. How do you think it shows through? (eg. Over sexualised female characters)
Over-sexualized female characters get way too much scrutiny, in my opinion. Women's bodies are used to attract people to a variety of products; video games are hardly unusual in this respect. "Men's" magazines get covers portraying attractive women; "women's" magazines get covers portraying attractive women. It isn't hard to get a marketing department to give the nod to a design with a sexy female character; their data suggests that's probably a safe bet.

What does show through in that regard, however, is an underportrayal of women as characters in video games, a tendency to under-develop or sideline those characters, and an under-representation of those characters as leads.

More to the point, though, it shows through in that video games have become very good at simulating violence, or at least a fantastic representation of violence (ragdolling, blood spatter, severed limbs and heads, etc.) but still struggles to convey anything resembling a believable human conversation that isn't nearly as linear as what one might read in a book. In many ways, character conversation is still barely better than what one saw in games in the 1980s; arguably, given the near-death of text adventures, it's actually gone backwards.

Violence is an easy source of conflict. Making a game centered, on some level, on success through the application of violence, is a relatively simple task. Making games centered on overcoming obstacles through human interaction that doesn't feel canned is far more of a struggle. But if video games had been seen as a pastime for both sexes from an earlier time, we'd probably have gotten a lot farther by now.

Bluntly, men tend to have greater upper-body strength and a large supply of a hormone that advocates for aggressive responses. Violence is likely always going to be a more appealing solution for men.

2. Would you say more women or more men play video games?
See question one. If it's CoD or GTA, it's probably a man. If it's Candy Crush or The Sims, it's probably a woman.

3. Do you think video games should be more geared towards men or women?
I think that with the trend towards independent game creators and low-cost, accessible systems for game creation, video game creation is becoming more open and democratic, new blood is being brought in, and new ideas are coming to market. I think as this trend continues, we will see more games geared towards women.

I also think a strident drive for some sort of artificial parity is likely to do more harm than good, hindering the market and driving an unnecessary wedge between gamers who have a lot in common. I also think some market initiatives that appear more often in "casual" games (those often played more by female gamers) are bad for games as a whole- "free to play" games designed from the outset with a goal of delivering the most in-item sales being the most obvious example. I worry that such methods are alienating audiences from games as fast or faster than new audiences are created, and that by the time new audiences brought in by "casual" accessibility are ready for a deeper and more sophisticated experience, the markets that could bring such experiences will have withered greatly.

I welcome anyone who wishes to play video games, but I worry what market feasibility does to the art form on both sides- the timid franchise exploitation of the AAA market on the male side, the over-simplification and mercenary "pay-to-play" market on the female side. And fundamentally, I think that if video games are an art form- and I believe they are- it's important that creators be able to make any sort of experience that appeals to them without undue coercion, whether that's Anna Anthropy's attempts to make players understand the experiences of a transgender person or the over-sexed bombast of Duke Nukem.

4. What could the gaming industry change to make things better?
Value creativity more. Take risks. Make room in the budget for smaller games by less experienced designers, and use such programs in part to groom under-represented groups like women, racial minorities, and homosexuals among the employee base. Have some faith that gamers as an audience will play games that are good, whether they look like familiar experiences or not. Actively try to make new systems of conflict and crisis in games that can be resolved by means other than violence. Indulge less in empty echo chamber "discussions" that make condemnation and buck-passing the order of the day, more in quiet action to make people understand these things can be improvements rather than threats to the status quo.