PC Gamer - PC Games & Gender Survey

Couchpotato

Couchpotato

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PC Gamer has interesting news about a new survey from analyst firm Superdata Research that has the data on what gender plays more games on the PC .

For all practical purposes it's a 50/50 split, but once you get into decimal places, female PC gamers do slightly outnumber males. Women represent 50.2 percent of PC gamers across all genres, including social (Facebook, Kongregate), versus 49.9 percent for men. The scales dip slightly further toward women when it comes to the RPG genre, with 53.6 percent of the market made up of women, while men represent 46.5 percent. In the FPS and MMO genres, however, 66 percent of players are men
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A Senior analyst Stephanie Llamas posted a blog update with her opinion.

"It is true that 58 percent of mobile gamers in the US are women. But it is also true that just over 50 percent of American PC gamers are women," she wrote. "In fact, women are the largest gaming demographic for PC role-playing games (54 percent) and they represent almost 40 percent of MMO and digital console gamers. So to say that women are just casual gamers is empirically false."
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Enjoy everyone and please keep it civil this time.
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More information.
 
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Never,never,never apologizing for playing video games again. NEXT PERSON WHO CALLS ME A GEEK ESPECIALLY A WOMAN OR MY WIFE i'M PULLING THIS SURVEY OUT!

Oh my God! Sheldon Cooper lives and he is me.
 
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This sounds odd to me. I have lots of friend gamers specific to rpgs both tabletop and crpgs and I have seen very few women. Personally I don't care but just stating what I see, guess I don't have many female friends:)

In 30 years gaming I have met or chatted with maybe less than a hand full of female crpg gamers. On the male side its been at least hundreds. Tabletop I have seen more women but its usually wives of male gamers. I don't think I have ever been to a gaming group session with more then 20% females….usually its all guys. Just seems like most people I meet into RPGs are men.

Social games like Facebook and stuff I can see more females, my wife plays some Facebook like games on her phone.

Rpgs on the PC the numbers seem opposite to everything I have ever seen.
 
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On the serious side, I agree with you. The only number other then the Facebook games that seems right is the MMORPG stats.
 
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I've tried many times to get my wife in to gaming with no luck. Come to think of it I don't know any women gamers in my age bracket. (40's)

Before some smart a** asks, yes I do know every women in their 40's in the world. ;)

I wonder if the survey targeted a younger crowd.
 
Yep, seems very fishy to me too. Maybe their next survey will say the vast majority of Sunday football watchers and fans are women as well. (rolls eyes)

On the other hand, if they are including facebook games, which aren't really hardcore games, at least not like many pc games, then maybe that is skewing the numbers. I bet women easily outnumber men on facebook.

Yep, I just checked, Facebook has millions more women than men. http://www.nonprofitfacebookguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Image22.png

The latest percentage I could find is 72% - 62% in favor of women on facebook, when compared to men.
http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/social-media-user-demographics_b38095

Side note:
[By the way, there is a new Larian update video out, I just watched it. Pretty cool, they are still going to make a lot of changes to improve Original Sin.]
 
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Just like everyone else so far, I don't buy it. Would be interesting to see the raw data with which they're reaching the conclusion, but I assume one would have to pay Superdata a lot of money (looks like many of their reports cost $5000) to get that.
 
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The reactions are hilarious and sad.

The data didn't surprise me, the THEESA numbers are similar for the entire gaming nation. Basically, it means that the number of women playing games is increasing at a faster rate than men.
 
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I'd imagine it's entirely possible that it's 50/50 if you take all of gaming into account.

Hell, my mom in in her 70's and plays games on her PC every day - she loses it as bad as I would if her PC is out of commission for any reason. But she only plays solitaire and that kind of thing. She would have no interest and her mind would be blown by the games I play.

I guess it depends how you want to look at things. I kind of doubt it's a 50/50 split when it comes to more serious/beefy gaming, but if you look at all the ultra light games out there on mobile/browser/etc I could easily see it.

My thing is, if you'r website is called "PC Gamer" then post things pertinent to PC gaming and not unrelated and/or misleading garbage....although...since people are talking about it and visiting their site to read it, mission accomplished.
 
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Voqar said:
I'd imagine it's entirely possible that it's 50/50 if you take all of gaming into account.

Hell, my mom in in her 70's and plays games on her PC every day - she loses it as bad as I would if her PC is out of commission for any reason. But she only plays solitaire and that kind of thing. She would have no interest and her mind would be blown by the games I play.

I guess it depends how you want to look at things. I kind of doubt it's a 50/50 split when it comes to more serious/beefy gaming, but if you look at all the ultra light games out there on mobile/browser/etc I could easily see it.

My thing is, if you'r website is called "PC Gamer" then post things pertinent to PC gaming and not unrelated and/or misleading garbage….although…since people are talking about it and visiting their site to read it, mission accomplished.
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Good post, it turns out you are correct. After a little research I found these articles that say "core" gamers are mostly men, while "casual" gamers are overwhelmingly women.

For those interested, see
- http://www.escapistmagazine.com/new...Core-Gamers-Are-Male-Casual-Gamers-Are-Female

And - https://www.npd.com/wps/portal/npd/...ion-age-9-and-older-currently-plays-pc-games/
 
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azarhal said:
The reactions are hilarious and sad.

The data didn't surprise me, the THEESA numbers are similar for the entire gaming nation. Basically, it means that the number of women playing games is increasing at a faster rate than men.
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Yeah, except the minor issue where those numbers say absolutely nothing about how they're defining a "gamer" or what type of games they're talking about. Pretty sure most people were only doubting the numbers are true when it comes to PC RPGs. We don't care who plays Facebook games or The Sims. Find the raw data and we can talk, until then it's pointless speculation.
 
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If the numbers are true, then maybe developers can stop fretting about "what do female gamers want to play"? But otherwise, I'm not sure I really care all that much because the market place is usually going to drive game development as needed.
 
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Yeah, it sounds a bit fishy to me. I don't know any woman that plays games other than Facebook ones. It would be interesting to see a more fleshed out report with different genres represented. I would love it if my girlfriend played games, but she hates my gaming with a passion...
 
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My wife plays games like Balder's Gate Dark Alliance with me as well as a few nerdy board games like Descent, but she would never sit down and play Fallout 2 or something like that solo.

The kind of games she plays solo is crap like Candy Crush.
 
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Indeed, there are a lot of women who play games, but when it comes to people who play games for more than 20 hours a weem, people who play genres centered around exploration or intricate gameplay mechanics where challenge or intense competition is central to the experience or to people who invest a lot of money in games on a consistent basis, suddenly men become the overwhelming majority. By and large it is the level of investment (in money, time, or mindshare) that differs the most in regards to male vs. female gamers.

Men and women simply play (for the most part) games for different reasons, women to blow off steam and play something relaxing, amusing and comforting, while men often want a challenge. I remember a survey that revealed men want above all a challenging game, whereas women largely want a pleasant game. This is more or less a direct reflection of the respective hormonal makeup of men and women which tends to give them different tastes and to behave differently in general.
 
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Humanity has risen! said:
Men and women simply play (for the most part) games for different reasons, women to blow off steam and play something relaxing, while men often want a challenge. I remember a survey that revealed men want above all a challenging game, whereas women largely want a pleasant game.
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I think you're generalizing a bit much, although I believe you are partly correct.

But I'm pretty sure there are lots of woman who play games for the exact reasons you and I do, and lots of men (actually, probably most men?) who prefer their games casual.
 
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My girlfriend plays cRPGs like Fallout 3/NV, Skyrim, Wizardry 8, and particularly Morrowind. My sister sometimes playes these games as well, though not so much. I don't know that many other women who play these types of games though, so I also find these numbers to be a little suspect. However, I'm willing to bet that the younger generation really swamps people my age (30s), and I would be very surprised if younger women didn't make up a very significant proportion of gamers.
 
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