Where Are The Games For Girls?

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We touch on the subject of girl gamers at least once a year and it seems we are doomed to never figure when out (gamers or not). This time around the author wants to know, if the number of girl gamers are on the rise, there aren’t more games for girls.

The average gamer in Australia is now 28 years old, up from 24 just two years ago. And despite being largely ignored by the game industry, 41% are female.
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To be honest, you can’t read quotes like that and not think to yourself, if over 40% of gamers are women, there obviously isn’t a shortage of stuff for them to play. What do you think?
 
girls play wii , sim city and stuff.. so no, they should be good to go
 
So wait, girls don't shoot things up or drive cars around or fly spaceships or anything? Do we need games where you have to beat the clock when folding laundry or something? :p

Lots of gender-neutral games out there imo: WoW, Second Life, Tomb Raider (c'mon, sure it's got boobs, but it's a female archaeologist), EQ.. hell lots of girls play first person shooters too.
 
Most woman I know play stupid stuff like Tetris and other stupid online games.... a few like to play the Sims and WoW.... but mostly gay stuff like online flash garbage.
 
P.S. There is some stupid waitress flash game that ALOT of girls I know play... you have to serve your customers fast enough that they don't get mad at you.... 5 or 6 girls I know just love it, and are waiting for the expansion packs?? LOL... it's nuts....

*EDIT* Diner Dash... that's it.... and they have new versions and expansion packs... the girls just love it.
 
dR.Jester said:
The Sims 3

Tell them to be patient. ;)
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QFT. Chicks love The Sims.

I had an ex girlfriend who thought it was hilarious to wall a person inside a very small room, watch them go insane, and die.

She played the game normally as well, but I remember finding it rather funny and disturbing that she did that.
 
What would "games for girls" look like? I don't know a single woman who wants to play a laundry or dishes simulator, or a take the kids to school simulator, or some other garbage. They like to play the same games the rest of us do.
 
It is probably because people still see that games are for the men and are advertised in that manner.
 
My old WoW guild had at least 15 women/girls in it.

My ex-girlfriend played Call of Duty with me for a little while and my current girlfriend loves the Sims.

Snood is the ultimate girl game though and half the women I work with play it whenever they aren't busy.
 
QwertyJuan said:
Most woman I know play stupid stuff like Tetris and other stupid online games.... a few like to play the Sims and WoW.... but mostly gay stuff like online flash garbage.
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Let me guess - you're one of those who feels that if a game does not involve blowing up your opponent, then it's "stupid," right?
 
Part of the issue with that the avatar in most games is either an idealized man that nerds can secretly with they were, or an idealized woman that nerds publicly want to sleep with. The reasoning behind the ability to identify with the avatar is somewhat key to being able to get into a game and I don't know if that's paid much attention or not, but it seems not. Look at popular female cinema or TV shows, their tits aren't hanging out. And the quoted statistic/comment is terribly out of context. Good job news poster taking out what info already fit what you thought. The idea is that deeper, less "casual" games represent a largely female audience and the article is exploring why that is. Yes, women represent a lot of Sims and WoW, hurray, two franchises(more or less two games). Frankly even the desire to bring women more into games outside flash/Sims/WoW would be nice, perhaps we'd have fewer "alpha male shoots everyone else" games. The targeted benefits are probably purely financial, but the fact that more diversity could be achieved on the way to that makes the effort worth it.
 
QwertyJuan said:
Most woman I know play stupid stuff like Tetris and other stupid online games.... but mostly gay stuff like online flash garbage.
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I guess games like Desktop Tower Defense, Offroad Velociraptor Safari, and Dino Run all qualify for gay stuff like online flash garbage?

I can get nearly anyone I know addicted to those games.
 
Pretty sure the Nintendo Wii's library of games are largely attractive to female gamers.
 
Cooking Mama! and kudos for the guy that brought up Diner Dash, my gf loves that. They should just release a full version with nice graphics, that will sell if it cost $20.
 
{EB}NuTSymPToM{EB} said:
My old WoW guild had at least 15 women/girls in it.

My ex-girlfriend played Call of Duty with me for a little while and my current girlfriend loves the Sims.

Snood is the ultimate girl game though and half the women I work with play it whenever they aren't busy.
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QFT, the woman I loved, loved Snood so much she'd skip going out or request a laptop to play on way there... its rediculous, but its funny, and I'd rather see her amused than chat about the people at her work personal lives...

Btw, while your co-workers may hold your secrets from other workers, they hold nothing back from their significant others, because of sheer boredome of all the stuff you've alredy talked about... just fyi.

I'd also like to add that EQ had a massive female population, when I was an addict for 6 years, we got together in Winston Salem, NC for guild BBQs and up in canada and all, and I want to say over 50% were female, and many never mentioned it in-game... the guild was roughly 120 ppl. (Dwarec Mercs, on Terris Thule, and then Immortal Wrath on Prexus)
 
I mostly play shooters, but I do see more female players in the last few years (at least compared to the days of Doom 2). I'm in agreement that shooters and war games are generally more appealing (though obviously not exclusive) to the male gender. The female gamers I know who don't like shooters are usually into puzzle games, WoW, and is some cases the epic adventure games like Final Fantasy.

It seems the recent trend in game production is to make a project on the scope of a major Hollywood movie, and try to gross hundreds of millions - look at GTA4 as an example. It would seem to make sense to be more inclusive of the largely untapped female audience, and games like Final Fantasy would probably be the right formula - but then, I've never played one. Is there a reason there are not a bunch of high quality, high grossing games in that genre? (do they all suck?)
 
There's just a shortage of good female protagonist games like Alice, F.A.K.K. 2, Tomb Raider, NOLF, Unreal1.. most of the time the action protagonist is male with some sort of combat training. I honestly don't think SMORPG (Steel Magnolias Online RPG) or Ya Ya Sisterhood: Modern Combat would sell.... but given a good storyline I see no reason why we couldn't have more diversity in the central char.
 
Maybe there isn't a demand that needs to be met? :rolleyes:

Same reason there is a "shortage" of lingerie for men to wear.

Men and women choose to spend their money on different things.
 
My sister is almost a complete non-gamer, but played a ton of Diablo. She also liked Rock Band when she played it at my place, but probably not enough to actually spend money on it. My fiance liked diablo, starcraft, WoW, Grand Theft Auto, and is interested in PixelJunk Monsters. She's a lot geekier than your average female, though, I think.

I do think that the overabundance of first person shooters isn't helping anything, and that there's probably very few AAA games that women would be drawn to. They deserve their own $100m blockbuster extravaganza. I just have no idea what that would be, and I think half the problem is, neither do they. Ask my sister what kind of game she'd like, and she'd be hard pressed to answer you.

-Nate
 
My wife is a console gamer, loves games with short learning curves. Needless to say I end up playing as many hours in Mario Party and Smash Brothers as I do playing my PC games.
 
That's kind of a ridiculous question to begin with...there is no one genre that appeals to all female gamers. I don't play WoW or the Sims - I don't have the time or patience for grinding. I prefer FPSs - I think a couple of posters mentioned UT and TF2, which happen to be my top 2 games right now. That, and street racing games, space sims, and a smattering of RTSs.

The one stereotypically girly game I do like though - Viva Pinata :D, which I'm surprised no one has mentioned yet. And I know some of you guys play it too but would never admit to it :rolleyes:...
 
I mean, yeah, the 'fratboy' games have always been the 'rage'. (CS, Halo, all the games from the "age of deathmatch": Quake 3, Unreal Tournament, etc...) Out of all my MANY girl gamer friends over the years, a small percentage I knew have preferred FPS or street fighting games over the many alternatives. But there are a TON of other games out there... though perhaps non-FPS's have dropped down in popularity and attention.

But I'm relatively old. Girl gamers were nothing special when I was a teenager... FPS's didn't dominate the consoles back then, RPGs and platformers did (along with Street Fighter type games). Girls would have parties and play their Nintendo/Super Nintendo or alternative. Gaming wasn't meant to be some gender-specific single-gender entertainment. You didn't have to take a girl to a movie and make out, you could go beat Super Mario Bro. 3 while her parents were in the other room and make out...

When PC gaming picked up for me, it was space sims and FPS games (Doom and X-wing/TIE Fighter)... but at the same time, my wife (before I met her) was playing Civilization and Lemmings etc... I knew plenty of girls who played Starcraft in its prime... I think articles like this are actually justified by the media circus that swarms around games like CoD, Halo and GTA. You just don't play as a female in those games, and the role of women is often marginalized. Just look at the marketing and storyline of the 'blockbuster' games coming out... they're marketed towards boy-men. Even the WoW commercials... was there a single commercial that had a woman? I knew plenty of women who played WoW.

Most of my favorite past games are pretty gender neutral: Freespace 2, Sacrifice, Starcraft, Simcity (4), AvP (this one is on the fence)... But there are plenty that aren't. One thing that was great about the original Unreal was that it had a great story that was gender-neutral... something missing from many of the recent big games...
 
I know a total of about 20 women you play WoW. And all but two are absolutely terrible at it. I mean about half of them are nice people, but as far as how good they are... they're just utterly terrible. Their female voices get them their raid spots >.> (My friend actually tested this by getting a program to convert his voice to a female one and apping to the guild).

I never thought that there was an incredible imbalance of genders in computer games anyway. It's just that women tend to hang out with a different crowd then men, despite any sexual attractions, just because it's more fun for them (the same goes vice versa). Even within the same game, there are groups of people that all play together, and those groups tend to be gender discriminant by nature.
 
ethraax said:
I know a total of about 20 women you play WoW. And all but two are absolutely terrible at it. I mean about half of them are nice people, but as far as how good they are... they're just utterly terrible. Their female voices get them their raid spots >.> (My friend actually tested this by getting a program to convert his voice to a female one and apping to the guild).

I never thought that there was an incredible imbalance of genders in computer games anyway. It's just that women tend to hang out with a different crowd then men, despite any sexual attractions, just because it's more fun for them (the same goes vice versa). Even within the same game, there are groups of people that all play together, and those groups tend to be gender discriminant by nature.
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I'm pretty damn sure that there are tons of male gamers that can't play WoW for crap either. In fact, I'm 100% sure there are just as much male gamers who don't know what they're doing.
 
Azhar said:
I'm pretty damn sure that there are tons of male gamers that can't play WoW for crap either. In fact, I'm 100% sure there are just as much male gamers who don't know what they're doing.
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ding! i was in a guild full of granny's and grandpa's. Most of the people in my guild were talking about their grandchildren. :eek:

I tried to play WoW, but i felt its a pointless use of my time. :eek: So i quit.
 
The statistic of 41% women gamers is a bit deceiving. What exactly defines a gamer? Is a girl that owns a Wii with two games that plays a few hours a month a gamer?

My fiancee plays guitar hero and rock band with me at times. Sometimes she drives my car around in games like GTA. But I would definitely not include her in the category of gamer.
 
Azhar said:
So wait, girls don't shoot things up or drive cars around or fly spaceships or anything? Do we need games where you have to beat the clock when folding laundry or something? :p

Lots of gender-neutral games out there imo: WoW, Second Life, Tomb Raider (c'mon, sure it's got boobs, but it's a female archaeologist), EQ.. hell lots of girls play first person shooters too.
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WoW is gender neutral? Short of a scientific survey, I'd have to assume that 99% of the male characters are run by males and at least 75% of the female characters are men.

Regardless, considering that more than 1/2 of the population is female, I'd have to conclude there's a lot of room for improvement.
 
Other than a Princess-Peach type game here and there, my neices play the same games as the boys play. They also play online flash games that don't seem to be made for girls. They have DSs and play Xbox and PC games. They probably play more video games than I do.
 
nilepez said:
WoW is gender neutral? Short of a scientific survey, I'd have to assume that 99% of the male characters are run by males and at least 75% of the female characters are men.

Regardless, considering that more than 1/2 of the population is female, I'd have to conclude there's a lot of room for improvement.
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I disagree. I feel that most Horde females are actually female and horde males male. However I would agree that many Alliance females are actually male. Regardless, I do believe WoW to be gender and age neutral. It's not only a killing game, but on many servers, a role playing game where I think most women like to play on.
 
I know a few females that play WoW endgame, but not many. 95% or more of all players are male, from my experience.

Most female players are bad too. Most male players are bad too, of course, and because of the high population difference it's hard to draw a comparison, but I can try. I know basically 1 good raider that's female (ever notice they almost always play healers?). If I say I've known 20 girls in endgame on my server, that's 5%. Hmmm, 5% of male raiders.....

Ok never mind. 98% of all raiders just suck. I guess girls are about as good as guys as playing wow, there's just a lot less of them total.
 
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