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

Reasonable Atheist

New member
Mar 6, 2012
287
0
0
I love how quickly some folk want to reject the poll results as bullshit bassed on just about nothing. If i play on steam all day i will play with maybe two females, lets not cover our ears and shout "LaLALalalala" it is unbecoming.

Most gamers are male, fact.
Would it be nice if more females played with us? Yes, fact.
How do we accomplish this without diminished enjoyment for our male selves? Nobody knows, quick throw a tantrum.
 

Phasmal

Sailor Jupiter Woman
Jun 10, 2011
3,676
0
0
Colour Scientist said:
Phasmal said:
Also, our hands are too small and dainty and having to period every ten minutes makes competitive gaming a nightmare.
Well it's probably for the best.
We wouldn't want to spoil enjoyment for the male selves, coming into their safe spaces 'n shit.

We should all just get back to our knitting.
 

Voulan

New member
Jul 18, 2011
1,258
0
0
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?
Mostly due to the characters used. Most games romanticise the idea of the powerful, heroic male, and most females don't find this appealing. In saying that though, games that feature multiple characters or no gendered characters, or games that place more emphasis on personality tend to go well with both crowds.

For example, I'm a female whose favourite games tend to feature male main characters, but only if the gameplay and their personality is actually any good. Otherwise, my top favourite games are RPGs where I can make my own characters which always are female, because there aren't many good alternatives out there.

b. How do you think it shows through? (eg. Over sexualised female characters)
There are a lot of memes that mock the number of characters that are practically identical to each other (the typical white man in his 30s with brown hair and some stubble, usually quite stocky and gruff and can crack one-liners as he strangles someone to death) and it's sad to see that this is true to some extent. The industry doesn't branch out enough to consider how including multiple kinds of characters with actual character could make games a lot more appealing.

Sexualised female characters have their place - the thing that gets to me is where they're clearly shoehorned. For example, a characters that displays no interest in sex at all would not spend their days dressed in their underwear; likewise in a heavy quasi-realisitc military setting you would not see the one character that takes battle seriously but refuses to wear actual armour like everyone else. JRPGs are seriously bad at this, because they tend to feature innocent, naive female characters who are often underage and extremely shy but wear practically nothing. You can't take characters seriously when their appearance makes no sense compared to their world setting or personality. Characters that openly express sexuality in personality and conversation are perfectly fine.

2. Would you say more women or more men play video games?
Mainstream games are definitely male territory, and that's mostly because of the way it was marketed originally and portrayed in media. Many women, even to this day, feel like they're not allowed to have any interest in games and often antagonise other women that do. Much the same way that some sports are.

In saying that, though, I'd stumbled across quite a few female gamers when playing online. Once playing Borderlands 2 it turned out all four of our team was female, which seems like a statistical anomaly. I think there's definitely more of us out there than most people assume, especially when we keep our gender ambiguous. For example, everyone assumes I'm male unless they intentionally ask.

3. Do you think video games should be more geared towards men or women?
Absolutely NOT. Believe it or not, women do like the games that are supposedly 'more male-oriented' as long as they meet whatever personal tastes they have in genre and are actually good. Games 'for women' are notoriously bad and extremely insulting. They perpetuate gender roles like saying women like pink, shopping and cooking and are less intelligent. The idea that we need our own market is utterly stupid.

4. What could the gaming industry change to make things better?
Marketing is one of the key elements, and unfortunately the media won't be helping things. As long as terrible American news shows portray the everyday gamer as an overweight male with questionable values women will find it difficult to have a place.

All the industry can do is include more diverse characters, including females, and market the games to be more gender inclusive. Likewise, if there is going to be a game with heavy sexual influence, either target both genders in the game or make the sexualisation understandable in context. Otherwise it comes across as creepy and perverted.

Likewise, gamers themselves need to be less shocked about female gamers and more open to the idea that they're there instead of belittling and the like that happens in online communities.
 

Johnny Thunder

New member
May 18, 2014
45
0
0
norr said:
1. Do you feel that most video games are aimed towards men, And if you think so..
Video games are for everyone who enjoys them, it's as simple as that. And the gamer audience, contrary to what your question is implying, is not split into two categories of male and female. I can't believe I have to explain this, but every person is different and not every man or women wants the exact same things as the next man or women.

But alright, I know what you mean, the different target areas of video games do seem to concentrate on demographics that are predominantly male-filled.

norr said:
a. Why do you think this is?
Because somewhere in a high tower in a thunderstorm with lightning bolts cracking around there is an evil corporate male chauvinist who's laughing maniacally: 'I'll never make a game for women, muhahahahahahaaaa!' ... Well, that is what many people on the internet seem to think anyway...

Contrary to those believes, corporations are not driven by moral social ideologies, they are driven by the profit motive. They will appeal to a certain group to exploit it. Supply and demand. Should they detect a profitable demographic that is demanding a game that is filled with mostly things that women want (even though again: different women want different things) they will make an effort to supply that.

The absence of big triple A games filled with things that women want is due to the apparent lack of sufficient demand. No amount of complaining can change that: if there's not enough people who want something it's just not gonna happen. Charity organisations can tell you all about that. Also, it can be due to insufficient marketing research (being unaware about the precise amount of demand for such things) and game studios having a harder time trying to define 'girl things' - because I feel that society at large hasn't reached consensus on that and may never will. Probably a combination of that and more factors.

norr said:
b. How do you think it shows through? (eg. Over sexualised female characters)
Oversexualised is a subjective judgement. When a minority sees a character in an enviroment that is revolving around the majorty group they may start seeing that character as a representation of themself. The more hostile they are towards that majority group the more critical they will be towards that character and the more angry they will be when the character is not a reflection of their own ideals.

Personally, I think the complaints about sexualised women in games stem in large part from the typical American and religious -christian, muslim and others- prudish societies and their fear of anything sex related. Society tells you that looking at peoples bodies in a lustfull manner is bad, nature encourages you to. And I think that some women gamers fear and hatred towards men, caused by some 13 year old prick who called them a whore online, has also something to do with it.

norr said:
2. Would you say more women or more men play video games?
I don't know, I haven't seen the statistics.

norr said:
Do you think video games should be more geared towards men or women?
Totaly irrelevant question because the corporations are gonna do whatever makes the most money. Also thumbs up to Phasmals reply to this question...

norr said:
4. What could the gaming industry change to make things better?
Incredibly vague question. Make better for who?

For demographic 1? Do the things that demographic 1 wants.
For demographic 2? Do the things that demographic 2 wants.
Themselves? Improve their marketing research and get a good insight as to what the consumers are willing to spend their money on. This also makes things better for the consumers themselves! It seems like an obvious thing but a last year Microsoft proved themselves to be totaly incompetent on that part.
 

Aaron Sylvester

New member
Jul 1, 2012
786
0
0
1) Do you feel that most video games are aimed towards men, And if you think so..
No, I don't think so. Certain game genres ARE definitely geared towards males, but I can't find any figures on how many.
Currently if you look at most popular/played games in the world, you'll find they aren't geared towards any gender in particular.

Genres dominated by males occasionally have over-sexualization of females, but this is normal and expected in ANY form of entertainment geared towards males.

2) Would you say more women or more men play video games?
I believe it's very close to 50/50 if you generalized across all genres.

3) Do you think video games should be more geared towards men or women?
That's like asking "do you think TV shows should be more geared towards men or women?"
There's plenty of room for games to be tailored to all demographics, and plenty of room for overlap too (just like magazines).
To answer your question, they should be geared towards whoever the creator wants to aim their product at.

4. What could the gaming industry change to make things better?
Value making good products and respect the gaming consumer base, not just focus on making pure profit. The same thing that can improve ALL businesses.


Good luck with your project :)
 

VondeVon

New member
Dec 30, 2009
686
0
0
I think your research question reveals both bias and imprecision (that guys(source this) typically play more (more hours? more types? more of a certain kind?) video games).

But:

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

No, however I do believe that video games tend to be built upon the same 'male as default' that most of our society is.

a. Why do you think this is?

Because it simply reflects society, because it's easy to not even see, because female developers in positions of control are limited and because female gamers as a consumer force have failed to demonstrate their purchasing power.

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

Over sexualised female characters is just the most obvious tip of the iceberg. More subtle indicators include a lack of sexualised male characters, or male characters created with an eye to the classical or masculine ideal - ie over-muscled, grizzled, borderline ugly. It can also be seen in the under-valuation of things that may appeal more to female audiences such as beautiful/detailed environments (not to say that guys don't like these things, but that other things - such as gameplay, weapon design or character models may take precedence).

It can also be seen through the scorn that certain games gather - from The Sims to Farmville to Final Fantasy - which despite being played and enjoyed by male gamers, get jeered at as chick games (a double insult, as though female interests are lesser or shameful for a male - or true - gamer) or otherwise referred to as the primary domain of those with a vagina. (In the case of JRPGs like Final Fantasy, I've witnessed a seeming upward trend of scorn as graphics have improved. As games got glossier and featured prettier, non-musclebound-male avatars, the view of them seems to have changed from 'Awesome! Only Japan does cool stuff like this' to 'gawd not another girls-pretending-to-be-guys game'.)

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

I think no-one can know until and unless all game devices are equipped to report back the gender identity of their players. Seriously, you can't survey 100 or 1000 people and then assume those figures represent the millions of gamers in the world.

That said, I have met less female gamers than male in my life, at a ratio of about 2:1. I do live in an old-fashioned area of Australia though, where it seems most people would rather play sports or hoon about in cars than have anything to do with technology.


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

Neither. I think the cost of game development needs to go down so that there is more freedom for creators of all genders to make whatever the hell they like and let 'men and women' choose from both.


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

Find a way to open up to feedback from consumers - the things they liked best and least, their gender and age, to help the industry have a more accurate touch on current gamers' pulses. It could be registered to purchased games/gamer accounts to prevent spam and abuse of the system. Competitions to create new game ideas might be good too, allowing fresh ideas from the 'outside'. Considering what both genders like and seeing which can be easily included from both lists to attract as many customers as possible.
 

SoreWristed

New member
Dec 26, 2014
233
0
0
1. Yes, i do.
a. I think standard marketing research would show that white, male 20-somethings are most likely to buy games that are already aimed at them. Vicious cycle really.
b. Female characters yes, also, most protagonists are tailored to be white, male 20 somethings. Tendency has also been to put video games in the 'toys for boys' category. So more parents buy their sons games while they buy their daughters dolls and stuff.
2. Most likely more men, because of reason stated in question above
3. Unisex
4. Use real writers who know how to write 'real' characters. I don't need every woman i meet in video games to be sexy, brainless and dressed in a skimpy outfit. I'd like a character with depth, a backstory that makes sense. It wouldn't hurt either to stop being afraid of differently oriented characters. I know some games have done this before and they have always stirred up the homophobe pot, so to say. Yes, there will always be games that are played more by men, and that isn't bad, but i'd like to see more developers making a game they want, instead of one tailored to the market.
 

norr

New member
Jan 7, 2015
14
0
0
cleric of the order said:
norr said:
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.

norr said:
Fenrox Jackson said:
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.

I'm not doing this research for anything IMPORTANT, I'm not involved in gaming or psychology or anything like that, It's actually part of an art project.
I get that my questions were kind of bias, In terms of all of the questions being about men and maybe influencing answers?
But the questions aren't informing decisions for gaming, or anything important as I said so, My questions are more about the gender bias in video gaming and the gaming industry.

thanks anyway
 

Roxor

New member
Nov 4, 2010
747
0
0
norr said:
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!
1. Yes.

1a. I blame it on unimaginative marketing departments and executives who know bugger-all about making games being allowed to have input on game development. Treat them like mushrooms: Keep them in the dark until ready for harvest. If the game isn't ready to be put onto disc, the marketing department doesn't get told about it.

1b. I find there seem to be an awful lot of games with boring blokes in the game's Steam store card. I know I tend to forget to shave, but do you really expect me to believe that most game protagonists have memories as bad as mine?

2. I'd say it's probably about equal. I played a lot of games with my sister when we were younger. Mainly Tyrian (one of us on the keyboard, one on the mouse), Wacky Wheels, and One Must Fall (the latter of which usually resulted in me getting my arse handed to me). Mum's favourite seems to be a Spider Solitaire clone on her smartphone.

3. I don't think games should be geared towards anybody. Just make something which anyone can enjoy and you'll get an audience.

4. I can think of a few:

Deny the marketing department any input into actually making the game. The first thing they hear of it is that it's done and they need to come up with a campaign to sell it.

Similarly, keep the executives out. If they get input, they'll just ask for the same boring stuff over and over.

Make more games with female protagonists. Heck, half the time you could just take the existing script, swap the player model and voice actor, change a few pronouns and you'd have something decent.

Give us a few female characters who aren't pretty. Playable and non. Have a 70-something year-old lady as Mission Control. Make the protagonist outright ugly and joke about her looks (or lack thereof) when talking to other characters. Have the Damsel In Distress weigh 200 kilos. I don't care, just do something other than "generic pretty" for the female characters.

While we're at it, do something other than "generic tough guy" for the blokes. Throw a few pretty-boys in there, or something. I dunno. Ask some women what makes eye-candy for them, then use that for a few in-game blokes. Can't be any worse than all the boring tough guys we've got now.

Maybe just getting more women designing games which are designed for everyone and having a few of them end up big name designers might help, too.

Sorry if all that sounds rather "heard it all before". It's late and I'm about to go to bed now.
 

sageoftruth

New member
Jan 29, 2010
3,417
0
0
Fenrox Jackson said:
Stupid poll, obviously for a bias. Like, why not just make the data up? It's the same result.
It would be, unless he's posting it on other sites as well, or were you referring to the framing of the questions?
 

NPC009

Don't mind me, I'm just a NPC
Aug 23, 2010
802
0
0
TheKasp said:
Colour Scientist said:
Also, our hands are too small and dainty and having to period every ten minutes makes competitive gaming a nightmare.
Damn, I'm amazed how you managed to write this post in between all this sandvich making you gals tend to do! How would you even find time to play dem big boy games!
Well, there are many handy kitchen aids you can buy nowadays! Not to mention that washing machine my husband so kindly bought me. Thanks to modern technology, I now have the time to watch my husband enjoy his electronic entertainment. He did offer me the control device once, but I wouldn't know what to do with something so complicated.
 

McMarbles

New member
May 7, 2009
1,566
0
0
norr said:
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!
1. In the AAA-space, most definitely.
a. Not due to malicious sexism. The answer is WAY more insidious than that. The AAA industry (with some prominent exceptions like Nintendo) has become so focused on one market that doing things any differently doesn't even occur to them.
b. Certainly over-sexualized characters. And the near-complete lack of any other type of female character. And the dearth of female protagonists of any kind. And the "bro" marketing.
2. More men, but not by nearly as big a margin as the AAA companies think.
3. Games should be geared towards anyone who wants to play them. Men, women, sentient hermaphrodite fungus-people from Rigel VII, anyone.
4. Hiring some women would certainly help. Letting the marketing department know that the species has two sexes would be another good idea. Maybe remove the stigma that gaming isn't for women.
 

Loonyyy

New member
Jul 10, 2009
1,292
0
0
norr said:
Hey, I'm doing a bit of research for a project I am doing, If you have a few minuets please answer these questions..!
I'd just like to mention first you're going to encounter a serious problem with selection bias. Polling here is polling participating members who are (mostly) gaming enthusiasts involved in some way, even if it's just this forum, with the culture. The escapist isn't representative, but also, women tend to participate less in these spaces, at least openly. To be blunt: It's a sausagefest, and most of these threads sort of threads end up with a bunch of clueless guys trying to explain to other clueless guys what the female perspective is, and what they want. You might want to collect further data on the responders in particular to help break things down.

Anyway, here's my opinion. Another clueless guy chiming in.

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 guess because men are the presumed market (As say, the focus testing debacle a while back showed). It's the same base assumption in your headline. They assume the market is mostly men, so they make games to cater to men, so more men are inclined to play them, so they make games to cater to those men and oh, we're running in circles. I guess circles are why.

b. How do you think it shows through? (eg. Over sexualised female characters)
POV: The stories that are told are not stories about how the world is different if say, you're a woman, or any other difference from what they consider their key demographic. Even stories about women, for instance, seem to have a male version of what it is to be a woman. Of course, my perspective here is limited, as a man, but when I think about media that challenged me to view things from a different worldview, well, it was different.
Casting: Certain sorts of people are protagonists, certain people are not.
Art: Yeah, the sexualisation is a thing, but it's not just the skimpy clothes, it's the way that women aren't designed for the game the same way men are. Even relatively benign media shows women using acrobatics and "waif-fu" to fight. This is not fighting. Or how characters are quite literally posed as if for a poster in a 14 year old's bedroom.

2. Would you say more women or more men play video games?
I think my perspective is limited, and not a good judge of that. More men I know than women I know play video games, but I know more men than women. Some research suggests it's closer to parity. At the very least, more men are visible in gaming spaces. It's important to note that playing through a singleplayer title doesn't necessarily make you visible at all.

3. Do you think video games should be more geared towards men or women?
Neither? I don't think the way that the AAA market panders to a certain viewpoint is healthy, and I think indulging it sets up an echo-chamber, which often is rather lacking in empathy. It's also boring as fuck and more often than not just off-putting. I'd like diversity, which means that as a man, I can play games about women (Which they've had to put up with for years), about people of different races, ethnicities, creeds, sexual orientations, whatever. And yeah, there are certain markets that are criminally underserved. If someone makes a game to appeal to women(Hopefully not as shallowly as say, AAA panders to men), good on them, we could do with more.

4. What could the gaming industry change to make things better?
Eh, not much to my mind. I can't change their mind, and I don't think that corporate structures work that way. What will happen is progress. It sucks, because it's slow. But art reflects society, and vice versa, and as we progress, games will progress. Games are still scratching the surface of what they can do, so I can wait. That's not to say that trying to speed things up or working ahead of the curve isn't admirable, it's downright noble.
 

Haerthan

New member
Mar 16, 2014
434
0
0
You are NSA aren't you? Well tell your co-workers that I shall not fall for your traps. Canada shall remain free and strong and snowy. No you can't have our snow. No you can't have our polar bears, igloos and Inuits. Or hockey. You can have Justin Bieber though, we don't want him here.
 

sageoftruth

New member
Jan 29, 2010
3,417
0
0
1. I'm not certain. In the AAA industry, definitely, especially with certain publishers insisting that their devs make their games more appealing to men, like with the cover of Bioshock Infinite or the insistence that Remember Me not have a female protagonist. However, I'm not sure if that's still the case when it comes to indie games, or the mobile games that don't have publishers meddling in their affairs.

a) As my first statement probably hinted, I blame the publishers. Not completely, but I do not see them as members of the game community. As a result, I believe they're more prone to buy into the stigma associated with gamers (that they're teenage male nerds), since one of the best ways to combat stereotypes is to know people who are an exceptions to them. Of course, being businessmen, they definitely follow statistics as well. Unfortunately, I don't know how they collect data for those, so I'll have to leave that part for someone else to explain.
Still, the developers are not entirely blameless either. I know what it's like to create something from your own imagination, like a story, and can say from experience that it's often something I would enjoy. For reasons from decades ago, it seems that mostly men have signed up to work as developers at this point. Also, being about the same age as them, I can say that it was very widely believed that gaming was a boy's hobby when they were young. If not for all the claims to the contrary, I'd probably still believe it today.

b) The evidence I trust the most is the events I mentioned above about the publisher meddling. When it comes to female characters, I've definitely seen tons of improvements when compared to my childhood. Being a guy, it can be difficult for me to know exactly how some incidents in games will affect female gamers and what will make them like it better, so I'll let them answer this question.

2. No idea on this one. As I said before, I used to believe it was mostly guys and at the time I might have been right, but now everyone claims that's not the case anymore, and with gaming becoming increasingly mainstream, I'm not surprised.

3. Not as a whole, but I believe both genders deserve games that pander to them.

4. I would suggest continuing to spread the word that gaming is for everyone and then waiting. They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks, and I'm not sure we can teach the guys currently running the game industry right now how to completely let go of what they picked up decades ago. However, now that gaming is more common, I'm confident that as the millenials get older and replace the current guys in the game industry, things will be a lot more open-minded. With kids everywhere playing video games of all sorts, odds are the next generation of publishers will be gamers. Also, I imagine that women will be a lot less shy about deciding to work in the game industry.
 

HardkorSB

New member
Mar 18, 2010
1,477
0
0
norr said:
1. Do you feel that most video games are aimed towards men?
No. Most AAA releases maybe but despite the massive ad campaigns and mainstream popularity of these games, they are only a small fraction of all the video games being made.

2. Would you say more women or more men play video games?
I would say men play more console/PC titles while women play more mobile/IOS titles.

3. Do you think video games should be more geared towards men or women?
It's up to the developer/publisher.

4. What could the gaming industry change to make things better?
The AAA industry could start releasing full finished games instead of buggy starter sets that serve as a basis for future patches and DLC.
The free-to-play games should be designed in a way that doesn't make them almost impossible to enjoy without paying.
The indie scene is actually doing OK.
 

wizzy555

New member
Oct 14, 2010
637
0
0
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?
Their marketing departments tell them men primarily buy the games - this is probably true depending on the genre you are looking at.


b. How do you think it shows through? (eg. Over sexualised female characters)
Action oriented goals
Sexualisation
Competitive multiplayer

2. Would you say more women or more men play video games?
Depending on genre. If triple A action games then men.

3. Do you think video games should be more geared towards men or women?
They should be geared towards whoever the majority of their customers are.

4. What could the gaming industry change to make things better?
Add diversity of ideas rather than diversity of people who all have the same ideas.
 

Beliyal

Big Stupid Jellyfish
Jun 7, 2010
503
0
0
norr said:
1. Do you feel that most video games are aimed towards men, And if you think so..
Not so much aimed, as marketed towards men.

norr said:
a. Why do you think this is?
Society. The ingrained belief that technology (including video games) is for men so we give them to boys since they are little. And they are marketed for boys. And other boys play them. Overall, it ends up being a "boy thing", even though there's nothing inherently male-oriented in wanting to control pixels on screen. But girls are not encouraged to participate, they often don't have access or are put off by advertisements. In my personal experience, I wasn't put off by the advertisements at all, but by the social stigma that followed when I expressed interest in "boy things". I couldn't play with girls because I was not girly enough, and I couldn't play with boys because I was still a girl. So for a while, I kinda deliberately moved away from games because I didn't have anyone to enjoy them with and because it was easier to fit in. All in all, it's a vicious circle of social conditioning and cultural expectations.

norr said:
b. How do you think it shows through? (eg. Over sexualised female characters)
As you mentioned, over-sexualization is one of the problems. There's also the lack of imagination and creativity. Not only because of ignoring (or stereotyping) women, but because of ignoring (or stereotyping) people of color and sexualities and so forth. Same old characters and character tropes because "they sell". This is not only in the gaming industry, mind you. We are, again, conditioned to believe that certain things would be too risky and unprofitable. Be it women, people of color, homosexuality...

norr said:
2. Would you say more women or more men play video games?
I don't know. In my personal experience, I've seen more men that play video games. Then again, I've always mostly hanged around with men so my perspective could be biased. Generally though, one gaming magazine in my country made some research recently and the percentage of men who play video games is much higher than women, at least over here. It makes sense, since my country is heavily influenced by gender norms, so it shows with video games as well.

norr said:
3. Do you think video games should be more geared towards men or women?
I believe video games should be geared towards people.

I find "men" and "women" to be too wide categories. I also don't think either should be solely deserving of an entire form of media. There's enough place for everyone to have their share. Some games are always going to be more appealing to men, some more to women. But I don't think developers should limit themselves at the start. I find things are most enjoyable when they are accepting of everyone and where everyone can have something for themselves (think Harry Potter for example).

norr said:
4. What could the gaming industry change to make things better?
Look around and acknowledge the diversity that exists on this planet? It seems fairly simple to me, even simpler than the same problem in movies, because in movies you have to cast a person whose skin color you can't change. In video games? No such limitation. You can change the gender, the skin color or the sexuality of a character in an instant, as well as the environments, the story or whatever else you want. Video games are an amazing medium for storytelling that could literally cater to everyone's needs if the developers and publishers weren't so locked inside a single mindset (along with most of other media).
 

TheArcaneThinker

New member
Jul 19, 2014
211
0
0
Phasmal said:
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.
.
And that's where you drop a axe on your leg....
If women dont come out and identify themselves as gamers even among themselves, the industry will never know and for that women themselves need to change first then the industry shall too , automatically .