apmpnmdslkbk:
I knew it and EVERYONES an idiot (including me) so plz learn to deal with it cause theres no escaping 'em (yes that means your an idiot too).

Some people are just more of an idiot than others.
-----------------

Honestly, if a girl isn't a gamer already, there's not much you can do to turn them on to gaming. Even a so called "girly" game is a still a videogame, and a lot of girls won't be interested because of that.

If a "girly" game was made, not only would a lot of non-gamer girls not buy it, but most of the girls who do game wouldn't be interested, since they are busy playing the same games as the guys.

All of the gamer girls I know are far more interested in the quality of a game than how feminine it is, and I can't see that changing in the near future.

Anyway, I absolutely hate it when they try to gear games towards either males or females.

Indeed. The instant you try and market a game to a demographic other than "People who would like to play this type of game" is the instant you start driving away some (If not most/all) of your potential customer base.

Never have children.

Seconded.

Blayze:

Indeed. The instant you try and market a game to a demographic other than "People who would like to play this type of game" is the instant you start driving away some (If not most/all) of your potential customer base.

This.

The example of the FPS genre is laughable. I don't think slapping a female main character will suddenly make all the women purchase the game. Can't strip out the violence or action, since that makes the FPS. So what would you do to make it less "geared towards men"?

Also, what makes you think most guys are drawn to over buffed meat heads in games? Many guys could care less who the main character is as long as the gameplay is what they're looking for.
I'm going to assume that any real girl gamer is the same way.

ZettaSan:

lesserdemon:
I'm going to assume that any real girl gamer is the same way.

For the love of God, stop treating us like mythic creatures.

And for the record, it doesn't matter. As long as the characters are well rounded, or atleast nice looking.

I'm not assuming your mystic creatures, but as I odn't know many girl gamers other then the ones that I've played with in MMOs, anything I say is just an assumption.

Don't need to get uppity just because you took the line out of context.

ZettaSan:

You're still treating us as if we deserve to be treated any differently or that we think differently. PROTIP: Unless they're femnazis, we don't think any different.

All I said was that I assumed female gamers cared more about the game it's self and not the avatar just like the majority of their male counterparts. I never said you needed to be treated differently.
I just don't know alot of female gamers and the OP of this thread made it sound like buff macho meat heads turned off female gamers which strikes me as a fairly stupid assumption on the OPs part.

Shove the protip. Not all men are slack jawed neanderthals.

PedroSteckecilo:
Apparently we need the gaming equivalent of the romantic comedy?

Hahaha! *boom* Teeheehee! *bang*

LoganAsh:
This un-tapped resource is astounding, according to recent polls, "more than 40% of game players in Australia are in-fact female". That's right, 40 percent! The same is true all over the world, women are interested in games and it's about time the industry took real notice.

After all let's face it, the only console out there that realisticly offers instant accessibility for those of us who haven't been training our thumbs incessantly since birth, is the Nintendo Wii. But this seems a little limiting when you consider that the Wii isn't to every gamers fancy. I've met several women (that's over a period of years by the way) who've generally agreed that although the Wii is fun for the odd get together, the current attitude that most women can't handle the complex workings of an X-box or PS3 controller and instead ought to settle for twirling a stick about is a tad patronizing.

Logan Ash

Sorry but I think you're drawing the wrong conclusion from the data. 40%+ of Australian gamers are female. Now let's look at the games on the market right now, most of the large selling games are those you classify as male oriented, and the female gamers are buying them too, so just going by the numbers there are all ready games to service the female gaming market, or at least the female subset of the larger gamer market.

The last bit of the quote I grabbed is just kind of funny, at the very least it's very elitist. The female with the gamer inclination will have been playing games at least as long as the average guy gamer, would be my guess. So that's a bit of a non-issue, the topic you seem to be leaning toward is more of a comfort/ability to pick up the control scheme issue. Based on what I've seen this tends to track more closely along generational lines then gender. My parents take longer to figure out games than I do, but I have found that this only really applies to contoler based games where most of the basics are assumed to be understood, dual analog control for FPS and so on.

The best quote I have ever seen on the topic is 'The reason why female gamers seem so scarce isn't the games, it's the gamers' I don't remember who said it but it should be pretty accurate.

Pocket_Elf:

J'aen:
No, First person shooters are not designed to attract men. They are designed to attract people who enjoy action and killing things. It just so happens that more men enjoy these things than women.

For example, if something is geared towards rap fans, and many rap fans are black, that does not mean it is deliberately geared towards black people. Many black people will buy it, due to being rap fans, but that was not the original intention - it's just a happy bonus.

Inb4 accusation of racism for daring to mention black people.

I agree 100%

So do I because I'm black and I hate rap music. Metal and rock FTW:D

I do think there's a perception that girls "shouldn't" play games, a "Games are for boys" mentality, sort of like girls shouldn't be car salesmen. Some things just appear to be imprinted with "boys only." (Similarly, despite the HUGE amounts of money to be made these days, guys really don't enroll in nursing school.)

Some of the perception is generated by the content, though, of high-profile games. The games getting the publicity are shooting-oriented FPS or MMORPG. Hmmmm. . . repetitive button mashing or grinding for hours? Neither appeals to this woman. Sure, chicks play them, but sometimes I think it's because they're online, social,and competitive, not because the games are "so much fun." The socialization is fun, the competition, but how many girls played Halo campaign only?

I also think there's a perception that "games are for boys" because most games greatly underdress their female characters in an effort to cater to the male libido. It's not much fun to play a game where the women (who are supposed to be smart and strong) are dress like their bimbos who are looking for a hook up.

PedroSteckecilo:
Apparently we need the gaming equivalent of the romantic comedy?

We already had that. It's called The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

LoganAsh:

The best quote I have ever seen on the topic is 'The reason why female gamers seem so scarce isn't the games, it's the gamers' I don't remember who said it but it should be pretty accurate.

That's what I've seen IRL as well as elsewhere.

Ex: First day of class; everyone gets a turn to introduce themselves. I mention that I've studied video games and the background arts/sciences behind it. I also mention I'm very into games and a girl across the table immediately pipes up about racing games. The weird thing was that several people before me had mentioned games. I figured either she noticed cuteness in the room, or I was the last person in the room needed to eliminate social stigma.

It's mostly about what you are made to think since you are a baby i think, males in a way, females in another, few people are arsed to think outside the box.

LoganAsh:
complex workings of an X-box or PS3 controller

Tell them to stop whining and hand them the hotkey list of any given rts game other then the oversimplified version of cnc3 and see what happens.

Girl gamers sometimes manage to outdo the elitist males. At a house party, a female gamer joined Halo 3 (I just watched.) after quoting that she had rented the game and didn't think much of it. Five minutes later and we were all engrossed to the television, listening to the agitated screams of a twelve year old that could not handle being fragged and the witty comebacks of the girl in the armchair that managed to achieve three snipes within the first thirty seconds.
Games are genderless, but seeing as this girl is a gamer despite not having any isolation traits, I think that games have as much appeal to females as there is to males. That being said, games aren't going to attract any form of loose women or anyone involved in clubland etc into a life of gaming.

Susan Arendt:
Game developers don't need to try and attract more women, they need to try and attract more people (of which women are a subset, last I checked). The learning curve to get into gaming is huge. Not just learning the complexities of the controller (which is quite a task for someone who's new to gaming) but also in the type of game experiences offered. Most games seem to require a certain amount of innate knowledge of the player, things we, as gamers, don't even realize we know. What's a hit point? What's mana? What does "respawn" mean? Even something as simple as moving through a 3-D landscape can be daunting to the new player.

People don't like to feel stupid, and a non-gamer trying to make sense of so much information all at once very frequently is left feeling stupid, and as a result gives up.

So the industry doesn't need to worry about attracting women, it needs to convince people that a) the money they would spend on a gaming system would be worth it, and b) they, too, can have good experiences in the gaming world.

I concur

In my own experience, my gf was very impressed by Oblivion and wanted to make a character. She breezed through the choices of character creation, but as soon as it came to even moving around the dungeon, it became startlingly apparent how many 'invisible' skillsets games assume their target demographic already possess. My gf has never been a gamer and grew up without playing with any consoles or computer games, save a few exceptions. When faced with the rather abrupt demand that she knew how to operate a camera in 3D to orient her WSAD movements, her adventure became a stitlted tutorial in one of many skills most gamers have been honning for years. Combine that with knee-jerk combat reflexes, virtual acrobatics, 3D camera aiming, the lexicon/lingo...

I have no point regarding how to make games more intuitive, or that the industry should be doing so, but I figured this anecdote would serve as fair account in support of the quoted posters argument.

I agree as well, i had the same experience ith my g/f and Oblivion.. she loved the iea, but fonud it too overwhelming. I mean one of my main points originally was that because gaming has always been labeled socially as "for guys" (and let's be honest, it really has) girls often havn't had the chance to train themselves in all the subskills that many male gamers learn, often are encouraged infact to learn, from a younger age.

The issue is, as gaming becomes more popular, if a female decides she wants to get into gaming, she'll find it very hard to do so because of the assumption games make that you have experience. Many games ignore their potential female market, it's not about making girls play games, it's about letting those who want to play games, gain access.
Well anyway, good discussion, glad the post got so many replies.

Maybe the best thing to do about female gamers would be to...not do anything? Theres nothing to do! If girls want to play games, thats fine. Games arent especially geared towards guys, so nothing has to change if more girls are going to start playing.

The biggest problem people are likely to experience with more female gamers would be the little 8 year olds that go "Oooh, a girl!!" every time they come across one online. Which leads me back to my crusade to get rid of everyone who plays videogames that hasnt atleast started puberty yet.

girls often havn't had the chance to train themselves in all the subskills that many male gamers learn, often are encouraged infact to learn, from a younger age........

Many games ignore their potential female market, it's not about making girls play games, it's about letting those who want to play games, gain access.

So in other words, it's not about ignoring the potential female market, it's about ignoring the potential market of people new to gaming or to specific genres or styles of play. Makes sense. I wonder how we could go about solving that problem... Players unfamiliar with control systems need to be able to get to grips with them, but it could be difficult attempting to teach a gaming skillset to somebody when they've got other things that they could be doing - other games that they could be playing - and enjoying a lot easier.

A friend of mine is a simple guy, and he doesn't have time for RPGs. He gave Baldur's Gate a try a few years ago, but never took to it. But sit him in front of Unreal Tournament ("Run, jump, shoot") or Command and Conquer ("Make buildings, build tanks, attack enemy") and he's away.

Do games need to change? Probably not. For every girl or boy gamer that likes grinding away for XP on WoW, there'll be another rabidly seeking out their next victim on Unreal, ready to turn them into gibs. Traditionally, games have been portrayed as a 'boys' thing but as time goes on, I'm sure we'll see less and less of of it, as the gamers of today raise the gamers of tomorrow. One of the first prezzies I'll be buying my first child for it's 10th birthday will be a console of some sort, whether they are a boy or a girl.

I've known a few ladies in my life that have played games,and it was interesting that all have varying tastes in games. One of my best friends is a hardcore gamer, enjoying at least one game in pretty much any game genre, although she does like to frag things or run around on Final Fantasy. My lil sister loved nothing more than whuppin' my butt on Bloody Roar 3. My mother, who's age I won't reveal because I like to live, recently told me she'd had a go on Burnout 3 and managed a 34 long Takedown Streak. My response was two minutes of shocked silence.

As far as I see it, games are pretty neutral and there's no such thing as a 'Boys' game, although there are games that are definitely aimed at girls. I doubt there's an influx of guys buying the Bratz game. Urgh. The only tweaking to games I'd want to see for the benefit of the ladies is the inclusion of more female avatars for online modes and heaven forbid, the odd female lead. Plus, I'd like to see this odd culture of dissing women when it comes to games.. end.

Im a girl and I hate the war games but I love popping caps in pedestrians in GTA... is that wrong?

neonorangcrayola:
Im a girl and I hate the war games but I love popping caps in pedestrians in GTA... is that wrong?

And you like alien strippers?

And no liking shooting people in the head is not wrong. Also as it was said girls are social. So having a little kid saying suck my dick on the mic scares them away. Because idiots scare them away?

shatnershaman:

LoganAsh:

My point exactly. I never said make the games all girly, most girl gamers aren't girly (a large issue is companies thinking that if they make a girly game, they've catered for females, which is dead wrong) but games that are more balanced would be much more widely received I believe.

I point to games like these for that:

Smash Bros
Halo 3
Portal
Oblivion
Nintendogs
Viva Pinata

Just a tiny bit sexist. I'm a girl (Obviously) and I HATE Viva Pinata and Oblivion. I'd much rather play a FPS, then something aimed at 6 year olds like Smash Brothers.

And Portal isn't exactly aimed directly at women, either. It's aimed at people who like puzzle games.

Why not make games where the main protagonist is a female? Perfect Dark did it. Not the best example of a GOOD game, but you get the idea. I mean, why is it so hard to believe that women aren't better gamers or would make a game more interesting without making them drop-kicks with a huge chest who run around getting into trouble. That's what annoys me about Tomb Raider.

Radelaide:

shatnershaman:

LoganAsh:

My point exactly. I never said make the games all girly, most girl gamers aren't girly (a large issue is companies thinking that if they make a girly game, they've catered for females, which is dead wrong) but games that are more balanced would be much more widely received I believe.

I point to games like these for that:

Smash Bros
Halo 3
Portal
Oblivion
Nintendogs
Viva Pinata

Just a tiny bit sexist. I'm a girl (Obviously) and I HATE Viva Pinata and Oblivion. I'd much rather play a FPS, then something aimed at 6 year olds like Smash Brothers.

And Portal isn't exactly aimed directly at women, either. It's aimed at people who like puzzle games.

Why not make games where the main protagonist is a female? Perfect Dark did it. Not the best example of a GOOD game, but you get the idea. I mean, why is it so hard to believe that women aren't better gamers or would make a game more interesting without making them drop-kicks with a huge chest who run around getting into trouble. That's what annoys me about Tomb Raider.

You heard of the game WET? I don't think she will have basketballs for breasts i think..

Bulletinmybrain:

You heard of the game WET? I don't think she will have basketballs for breasts i think..

Nope, haven't. Sorry to say.

Radelaide:

Bulletinmybrain:

You heard of the game WET? I don't think she will have basketballs for breasts i think..

Nope, haven't. Sorry to say.

Well info's hard to come by. Hell the almighty wikipedia has only a paragraph of information. I found out by researching this years title>.>