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Copy Clerk  Posts: 64 Joined: 21 Feb 2008     | |
Paperboy Posts: 22 Joined: 12 Feb 2008 | In general, no. Females do not play games as much as males. Don't ask me why, I have no clue. There are some who do and some who don't. Perhaps, relating to one particular friend of mine, they think it is 'childish' or something. Social standings, I would imagine. Also, it would depend on the game. My sister only plays Final Fantasy games, my ex only played WoW, and another ex was as much of a nerd as I was and knows as much as I do about Dungeons and Dragons rules. People who don't play games .... well, their loss. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 1273 Joined: 29 Dec 2007    | My brother's girlfriend playes Wii. |
Beat Writer  Posts: 196 Joined: 3 Jan 2008    | Yeah dade seems to have a similar experience as me. My current girlfriend likes Half Life and Halo. That's it. It's like they find one thing they like and lock onto it, and it never turns into a hobby. Shooters seem to be the general ticket in. Many of the girls I know prefer games with an instant action feel to them rather than a totally immersive experience. |
Muckraker  Posts: 273 Joined: 14 Nov 2007   | I'll third that: I found that most girls I know who game at all seem to cling onto a select few games, usually those that got them started in the first place. WoW, the Sims, Rock Band, Psychonauts and Warioware are the most common cases here. |
Paperboy  Posts: 44 Joined: 2 Jan 2008 | From what i've experienced most girls see games as a boy thing, and childish on top of that, Which is unfortunate as i think either sex could enjoy games as long as they found the type right for them.
Chris, you lucky man. All I get is harasment for liking Halo off me lady, which is unfair because I keep my mouth shut about her and Mario/Zelda/Pokemon/Super Smash Brothers (Which she is unaturaly good at). |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 2713 Joined: 18 Dec 2007   | AHH Its Fire with his random statistics to the rescue. Do you know that there are more female gamers then there are male gamers under 18? Did you know that? Well its true (I think) but even though many women are gamers you find that women gamers are rare to find. I dodn't find this suprising given the bad treatment some chicks get in Multiplayer games. But the average gamer is still a 33 year old man. I hope that one day soon average wont be able to be taken but I think that day is a little bit off yet. |
Anonymous Source  Posts: 6 Joined: 22 Feb 2008 | Personally, I feel it's a social conditioning thing. Most people are still into the "manly man" & "girly girl" way of raising their kids where if something is not girly enough, then they won't let their daughters play with it. It's easier to tell girls not to play video games than it is to tell boys, mainly because many parents can use the whole "video games are for boys" excuse. A friend of mine (a girl) who's into video games told me that her mom would tell her that all the time to discourage her from playing games. Generally, girls are raised to believe certain things aren't "feminine" enough and that they shouldn't waste their time on such things. On the opposite spectrum, boys are raised to believe that certain things are for men only (video games included) and, as such, are usually prone to fits of sarcasm and taunting when they come face to face with a girl gamer, either a) choosing to believe that she is really a guy pretending to be a girl to mess with people's heads or b) questioning the girl's ability at the game BECAUSE she is a girl even if the girl can kick a lot of ass in whatever game is being played. I have encountered a few girl gamers in my time...not a lot but a few. They're hard to find, especially since it's generally a no-no or turn-off for a girl to be handy with a joystick (unless you mean "joystick" in the double entendre way). |
Muckraker Posts: 282 Joined: 12 Dec 2007 | When I was a young lad of about 10, I went to my cousin's house to stay over with my family (Both my cousins were girls). I initially scoffed at the idea of them owning a mega drive, because I had always had very clearly-defined social expectations of both genders. They still had games that weren't big boom-fests, for instance their lineup included one of the mickey mouse games, and the Lion King, but on the whole they didn't over-use it, it was just something they did sometimes. |
Copy Clerk Posts: 70 Joined: 14 Jan 2008 | Not to be too prejudice but most girls i've met who are into games(or anime) are really wierd. Dunno why though... |
Muckraker  Posts: 231 Joined: 28 Jan 2008 |
I can think of plenty of girls I know that play games, and they're not all weird. Though that depends entirely on your yardstick for defining how weird someone is. |
Paperboy  Posts: 22 Joined: 5 Oct 2007 |
maybe its just bad luck on your part. Of all the girl gamers I know (Which isnt that many, not even 10 id say) only 1 is wierd. I think it depends on what some girls are into anyway. Im an anime fan myself, and Ive noticed that it seems to be that most female anime fans seem to enjoy games too. Most of my female-gaming friends enjoy the final fantasy series, and I know one that really loves to play age of empires. Though Ive never seem them playing FPS games or the likes of GTA, but some of the do play games that have a bit of violence in them (One of them is very skilled at fighting games) |
Copy Clerk Posts: 64 Joined: 21 Feb 2008 |
Nurturing caring and loving. Seriously, isn't that why the Sims is so popular. So the girls can make their fantasy family and life and play with their lives to their hearts content? Whereas most guys with the sims i know get on, make a retarded freak and spend a few minutes torturing it till it dies than leaves to play something with more blood. Wow, that sounds incredibly sexist.... |
Anonymous Source Posts: 1 Joined: 22 Feb 2008 |
I'm sure they'd say the same about you. Here's something to remember: All women are crazy (and by saing that I now have the GirlMafia attempting to kill me for letting out our secrets... ;) If you want to find a "normal" woman who does anything, then I suggest that you give up and play some more DoA. As for why girls don't tend to play games... Well, we tend to have different priorities (like shopping, puppies, and shoes [insert eyeroll]). Obviously, I am being somewhat sarcastic here. Almost all of my female friends (including myself) play videogames, warhammer, or tabletop RPGs. We do tend to go for the less murderous games, and I think that what Fullmetal X said about gaming being seen as not "feminine" is right, but I think it's less about "society" and more about GUYS. I beat one of my ex-boyfriends at Halo maybe three times in out two year relationship, and he sulked for a week. Same with my last best friend, except that he was just really horrible about it. They couldn't handle losing to a girl at something so "masculine". It got to the point where I just refused to play with them any more, which means that I'm a bit wary of they guys I play with now. This doesn't apply to all blokes, obviously. Nothing applies to everyone. As for girls liking the Sims... Well, statistically there's no argument. The fairer sex can't seem to get enough of it. My old computer ran out of disk space because my sister had so many sims expansion packs installed. Personally, I think it's practise for when we take over the world ;) (also, guys, you're being crazily sexist about yourselves, so go right ahead and say what you want about us :P) |
Muckraker Posts: 231 Joined: 28 Jan 2008 |
So you're saying a guy can't be caring, nurturing or loving? And that a girl has never tortured their sims to the point of death? Sure, I guess its more commonplace for guys to do that sort of thing, I know I'm guilty, but shoehorning guys and girls into different categories could be construed as sexist. I know some girls who really aren't the caring, nurturing type (thats not to say they cant be caring or nurturing) and inversely I know guys who aren't complete bastards. |
Copy Clerk Posts: 64 Joined: 21 Feb 2008 |
I never said they can't be. Just speaking in broad generalizations and my own experience. I've been trying to get my wife to play something beyond the sims or tetris for years now, she just straight out refuses to try. I'd love my daughter to be a gamer, but with the missus thinking that it isn't the thing for girls to do will she be trained to think the same from her female role model? |
Beat Writer  Posts: 163 Joined: 22 Nov 2007 | My girl has played World of Warcraft, and actively plays Tales of Pirates, Oblivion, The Sims, and loads of point-and-click and text adventures. She's also on a mission to write a text adventure in every programming language known to man, and as far as I know she's already covered the most popular ones. She tried Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, but found it to be to violent. The admits Half-Life 2 is a great game, but also to much violence for her taste. She's probably as much of a gaming freak as I am, but she doesn't like the bloody killing kind and has a soft spot for cute-looking games. She's not the only gaming girl I know, but all of them seem to prefer Point-and-Click games. |
Paperboy Posts: 33 Joined: 9 Feb 2008 | Answer: Look at any movie, read any book, look on posters, look at those redicilus fashion magazines - Do you really think that "girls" would give it up? Not to mention that girls tend to get hit on by 24/7 whenever they exclaim it in a game that they are females. I say: Stop focus so much on what gender does what and it'll eventually come around by itself. |
Beat Writer Posts: 196 Joined: 3 Jan 2008 |
Whenever I play Halo with my girlfriend on cooperative I make sure I stick a few grenades to the back of her head to make up for any times she beats me. |
Pulitzer Laureate Posts: 728 Joined: 19 Dec 2007  |
I'd say they were just idiots who couldn't handle the prospect of an actual challenge (That sort of attitude, I've found, is not gender-specific at all). I scoff at them. If I got my ass handed to me by somebody at, say, Guilty Gear, I wouldn't sulk about it. I'd try and beat them. I'd practice. And do you know why? Because I'd want to get better than them, so that I could beat them. I'd want to do that so that *they* would practice, so that they would try and beat me, so that the cycle would keep on going. Bah. Bad losers disgust me. |
Anonymous Source Posts: 6 Joined: 16 Jan 2008 |
It also is also called curiosity. Since girl gamers are so bloody hard to get by, the times one of them is located in a game it's all jolly interesting. ;) |
Pulitzer Laureate  Posts: 783 Joined: 9 Jan 2008   | I have yet come across a female gamer that I'm not sexually attracted to. On the subject at hand, I think that most girls don't play computer games because not only the thought of killing someone is horrible to most of them, but because they don't like to be so competitive. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 1722 Joined: 13 Sep 2007   | I fear there is little new ground to cover in this thread. But maybe I'm wrong. |
Anonymous Source Posts: 3 Joined: 22 Feb 2008 | I think I am the only girl to reply to this thread. But, you'd be right. Most girls are the pink loving freaks that think video games are a boy thing. Now, I can say for myself that I do like caring for others and family and girl stuff like that, but for one thing, I was introduced to video games right when it was becoming a big thing... like super nintendo and stuff. And now our family has more than seven systems in the entire house. So really, I don't think it's a question of gender... I belive its a question of how a girl is brought up. I mean I had barbies and stuff like that, but I always played with my dino figures instead. I admit that I have more guy friends than girls who are my friends... but, I can see a major difference in how I was brought up than the rest of girls that I see. Also... about a girl killing someone or the fear of doing so... you'd be surprised at how wrong that is. Most of the girls I talk to bent out their fustrations by punching a pillow, and I said, "would you like to kill people in video games?" They would say yeah... albet they were horrible at it, but they loved it... though when they went back to normal happy levels they would refuse. Yeah, having a girl that likes video games is rare... but thank goodness I'm one of them and not the kind that just talks about guys 24/7... I cannot and would not survive in that type of enviornment. |
Infamous Scribbler  Posts: 541 Joined: 4 Oct 2007 | Postal: The new female-oriented video game! Yeah, I think this topic has sort of been done to death in these forums though. At least we have some input from girls here once in a while. |
Anonymous Source Posts: 1 Joined: 22 Feb 2008 | As a female I can say that girl gamers do exist. However... they're not nearly so plentiful as male gamers. I'm the only female in my weekly pen and paper RPGs, and my console-addict housemates are both male. |
Infamous Scribbler  Posts: 548 Joined: 29 Jan 2008  | I'm in a Game Design class, so I'm at the forefront of girl gamers. Not only are they fairly common, they're also pretty normal (at least as normal as women are for me...I always seem to find the craziest ones out there!). My friend plays games more often then I do, and she can destroy basically anyone in Halo 3. The other gamer girls I've met are also pretty good, too. |
Press Junketeer  Posts: 391 Joined: 31 Oct 2007   | My 2 (slightly zen) cents (hey it's a friday afternoon ;) Men are crazy Women are Crazy A slightly different crazy but more alike than most people think (nearly) everyone likes to play it's just some people are brought up with pre-concieved ideas about it. right i'm off to go find a mountain to meditate on...either that or i'll fire up gary's mod and make one....out of paint pots. |
Copy Clerk  Posts: 84 Joined: 22 Jan 2008 | I know a girl who's heavily into WoW. And D&D. But thats it. I've showed her half-life 2, which she liked for the story and setting, and the fun things you can do in Gmod, and she even played through the beginning of Half Life. But, she couldnt seem to get the hang of the controls (like Strafeing, or crouching), and I dont think she liked the stress of the first level. SHe got to the crashed elevator, fell off, died, realized that the game didnt autosave, and said she didnt want to continue. Didnt seem worth it to go through all that crap again i suppose, which I could understand. She probably picked up bad habits from WOW, and not just the control scheme. In wow, you have a level of detachment and control, via the third-person view. in any semi-horror action FPS, full of scary things or shocking things, chase sequences, and in general, all the things that a good FPS has, it's YOU that being threatened. the horrible tentacle monster or galloping Hunter is flying right a Your FACE. I think she plays games to relax, and sees FPS as a stress-inducer. Could this be revelaing of something, or is it just an isolated case? |
Infamous Scribbler  Posts: 508 Joined: 14 Oct 2007 | Truth is, women do lean more towards games that can either be played on a whim or that have uber-lots of customization so that they can relate to what they are doing. I don't think it is really all about(a bit is) a matter of social conditioning. When the gaming generation first started, people said it was for children and it so happened that male children were the players, but why? Probably because games were about crudely shooting and blowing pixelated stuff all over the place and running around like a maniac from evil pixels that wanted nothing else than erase your heroic pixel. Yes. Male kids related to that. I think it is more about the state of the game industry today; women just have a hard time relating to what we play because of how the content is carried out. You hardly have a competent woman that doesn't have big cans or likes to "be one of the guys". It's just how it is. Women do not relate to that on a primal level like we do. Fact. Men and women follow different thought processes; our brains just don't work the same way. Not sexism, Fact. Women by nature have our very same impulses but work them out differently. If women don't see something that they feel properly represents them they are either not interested or make their own(ergo the Sims). When gaming companies start including women in their mix with the intent of catering to women that's when things will change. Right now, with games about big guns and hot chicks in hot pants & g-strings, girls will just look the other way, and we'll be left with the few girls that LEARNED to like them and deal with them, and are enjoying themselves that way. But would really prefer to play with a capable, determined and emotionally motivated woman that knows how to get things done than some random steroid user, gun toting male out to kick ass, take names and write to santa. (please, before you call me sexist, at least note that I never used a disparaging comment on anyone) |
Anonymous Source  Posts: 1 Joined: 22 Feb 2008 | There is something infuriating about female gamers, that they find the need to insert that they are INDEED a girl playing a game. I find the entire thing rather annoying. The reason I say this is because if you think about it, what is so special about female gamers that they feel need to assert their estrogen encrusted bodies upon us. And then I came up with my answer. Girls themselves think it's rare to be a gamer, so most don't play don't because "what girl does this?" and the other half are doing it because they're trying to be "different and against the grind" It's like games take a backseat to both. Girls that are truly there for the games never state they're a girl. Then when they don't and the male gamer states it "WHOA YOUR A GIRL?" we make no progress at all. I personally think this would all be solved if we simply shut up to begin with. |
Muckraker  Posts: 282 Joined: 3 Oct 2007 | Judging from what my experience in my slow quest to get my wife into gaming, the basic reason can be summarized as thus: Socialization: Girls are taught, most of the time, to play differently, and with diffrent toys, than boys are. When my wife and and I started dating, some ten years ago now, gaming wasn't really on her radar of "fun things to do." It's easy to forget how intimidating to newbies alot of games can be, and unless the person who is introducing her is somewhat patient, the intimidation factor can become higher. Another consequence is that as some games have become increasingly complex, the learning curve to someone entirely new to the genre becomes more daunting. I saw her struggle with FPS type camera controls (the bread and butter for many types of games), and become very frustrated. It wasn't fun for her. Is it any wonder she didn't feel like playing more? Games with more intuitive interfaces (I diablo clone) she got into much more easily. But again, to return to the earlier point, the socialization here is very important. By and large, girls are introduced into gaming by the men around them, and if the guy doesn't care, or is impatient, or whatever, it's not going to happen. |
Anonymous Source Posts: 8 Joined: 30 Jan 2008 | I agree about disliking women who make account names like "Grrlgamer4321" or something. This one girl(maybe) posted on another message board, "blah blah blah, a Girl Gamer's perspective" then began to lambast guy gamers for killing her...IN A MULTIPLAYER FRAGFEST! She said her account name was like that above. The funny thing is, about girl and girl gamers... All guy gamers seem to want a female gamer...but most female gamers care little if their love interest does or not. Its really weird, IMO. |
None of my female friends play games. None have even tried. They just all say no whenever they are asked. Is this because games genuinely don't appeal to the gentler sex or is it more of a social conditioning thing. Before i get people crying out to me "My g/f sister cousin soforth plays games, your an idiot" I'm talking about the general whole. Personally I think it comes from a society that still clings to the archaic ideas that it is bad for a female to be competitive. Any thoughts on the subject?