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 Melissia wrote:

 Medium of Death wrote:

 Macok wrote:
Myth vs Reality.
Disclaimer: Reality not based on reality.

Excellent!

I think when these polls define games they're taking in anything that can be considered a game nowadays. Hardcore gaming is probably still dominated by Males, with a few vocal Females.

[Citation Needed]

Constantly and repeatedly spreading 100% baseless claims to attempt to act like a minority group doesn't exist or is irrelevant is rather discriminatory.

It depends on what you class as "hardcore gaming". There is definitely a trend towards men playing some of the more 'AAA' titles in recent years like Call of Duty, Assassins Creed and the like... but then that's easily explained because those games are designed for and aimed at a primarily male audience. That's not to say women don't enjoy them - but it's not a stretch to say more men are playing them than women.

When you get into genres like MMO or RTS, the lines become much more blurred... and to me, these games can count as "hardcore".

I wouldn't say it's a baseless claim - but it bears some detailed analysis as to exactly what kind of gaming you consider to be "hardcore". Does it include anything on a fully-fledged gaming platform, thereby excluding mobile gaming and social network gaming? Then that's not male dominated any more. But on the other hand... if you're talking about UberShooter 3000 - the latest game to garner enough interest to have a competitive scene with tournaments and cash prizes - then absolutely. The men are still dominating that particular scene.

For what it's worth, there may be more male 'core' gamers than female right now, but then you have to consider that core game developers almost always have and continue to almost exclusively develop for and market towards a male audience. The female market may very well be there, but we'll never know if publishers continue to blatantly ignore it.

 Super Ready wrote:
I wouldn't say it's a baseless claim

Then prove it.

One of the problems is that when they do decide to market to women, it seems like they think it has to be 'Barbie's Horse Ranch and Shopping Extravaganza'.

 Melissia wrote:

 Super Ready wrote:
I wouldn't say it's a baseless claim

Then prove it.

Anecdotally - when playing the following games online, counting only those players I knew to be male/female through voice, I found the ratio to be around 80% men to 20% women:
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 1/2
Team Fortress 2
Borderlands 2 co-op
Portal 2 co-op
City of Heroes (this was closer to 60% male 40% female)

Going further back, to the days of Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament, that gap gets even bigger. But, that's just me and hardly a worthy sample size.

Instead I'll point you to years of tournament results from what I would consider to be the major competitive games - Starcraft, DOTA, various flavours of Unreal Tournament and just to steer away from solely PC games, Halo. If we're talking hardcore games, you don't get much more hardcore than tournaments where the competitors spend the time most of us would spend on a job or career training in their chosen game.
I'd be happy to consider adding other games to that list, but I'm not going to grab all the results for you - suffice to say they're overwhelmingly male. There are female winners, and on occasion teams of female winners - DOTA in particular has some very high-quality female players - but the number of male winners outnumbers them.

 Super Ready wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 Super Ready wrote:
I wouldn't say it's a baseless claim

Then prove it.

Anecdotally

So you have nothing.

Not that you ever will have anything.

I can counter your anecdotes with more anecdotes, a lot of women I know who play competitive online FPS games skip voice chat because of the sheer amount of crap they tend to receive for being female.

In regard to the 2nd or third post when the poster said " women say i want to get the blue thingy rather than the wraith" , I also say i want the blue thingy, I'm there to play a game not do research. I am also someone who prefers to ask questions to learn and not look up a wiki. Some male gamers responses to questions about the game leave a lot to be desired, and no, having encyclopedic knowlege of a game does not make you a superior.

Most "real" female games i've met online don't make an issue out of being female, and it takes time to learn their gender. Conversely, I really hate female gamers who throw round their gender like it somehow makes them special ( like someone new joins the guild female guildy goes "hi I'm a girl" fffffffffffu) . Sure, alot of male gamers will either fawn all over them or seek to attack them, I really don't give a gak, just don't constantly reference it like you constantly expect people to be excited over it.

This all being said I enjoy playing with female gamers , but treat them "like one of the boys" , this is my relaxation time and if they expect me to change my behaviour to game with them it's goodbye from me. I deal with that in real life not online.

As opposed to the male gamers who constantly attempt to reinforce their masculinity and maleness (especially when female gamers are around), IE, almost all of them?

Masculinity/femininity can be a very important aspect of a person's personality. It's a universal problem, not gender-specific.

 Melissia wrote:
As opposed to the male gamers who constantly attempt to reinforce their masculinity and maleness (especially when female gamers are around), IE, almost all of them?

Citation please.
I very rarely hear that, my female gamer friends have also very rarely encounted gak like that, when they do they shrug it off knowing it is just some backwards stuff.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Bullockist wrote:


Most "real" female games i've met online don't make an issue out of being female, and it takes time to learn their gender. Conversely, I really hate female gamers who throw round their gender like it somehow makes them special ( like someone new joins the guild female guildy goes "hi I'm a girl" fffffffffffu) . Sure, alot of male gamers will either fawn all over them or seek to attack them, I really don't give a gak, just don't constantly reference it like you constantly expect people to be excited over it.
.

God i saw that stuff alot.
Although it seems interesting, MMO's tend to be more friendly to females then other type of games.

 Super Ready wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 Super Ready wrote:
I wouldn't say it's a baseless claim

Then prove it.

Anecdotally - when playing the following games online, counting only those players I knew to be male/female through voice, I found the ratio to be around 80% men to 20% women:
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 1/2
Team Fortress 2
Borderlands 2 co-op
Portal 2 co-op
City of Heroes (this was closer to 60% male 40% female)

Going further back, to the days of Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament, that gap gets even bigger. But, that's just me and hardly a worthy sample size.

Instead I'll point you to years of tournament results from what I would consider to be the major competitive games - Starcraft, DOTA, various flavours of Unreal Tournament and just to steer away from solely PC games, Halo. If we're talking hardcore games, you don't get much more hardcore than tournaments where the competitors spend the time most of us would spend on a job or career training in their chosen game.
I'd be happy to consider adding other games to that list, but I'm not going to grab all the results for you - suffice to say they're overwhelmingly male. There are female winners, and on occasion teams of female winners - DOTA in particular has some very high-quality female players - but the number of male winners outnumbers them.

But here's something to think about your competitive gaming is overwhelming male angle.

There is a still a huge social stigma associated with just playing video games as a passtime, even moreso choosing to play videogames at a professional level and make a living from it. Greg "Idra" Fields Former Professional SC2 player said that his father essentially disowned him and they haven't spoken to eachother in years because of this.

Now women have an even greater difficulty breaking into the professional scene as not only do they have to defeat the stigma associated with gaming the men have to deal with but they also have to deal with the social stigma that playing video games just isn't seen as a thing girls do. Add into that there is still huge misogny in some areas of professional gaming the biggest coming to mind was last year at a tournament a female competitor forfeited a match because of the amount of sexual harrasmant she got from competitors, coaches and audience.

Here's a golden quote from that.

When asked on a later episode by Justin Rae, Twitch.tv’s community manager, "Can I get my Street Fighter without the sexual harassment?" Aris replied:

You can't. You can't because they're one and the same thing. This is a community that's, you know, 15 or 20 years old, and the sexual harassment is part of the culture. If you remove that from the fighting-game community, it’s not the fighting-game community…it doesn’t make sense to have that attitude. These things have been established for years.

So yeah maybe the reason we don't see more women at a competitive level or playing "core" games is because of the culture that surrounds it rather than women just not being interested in it.

 Melissia wrote:
As opposed to the male gamers who constantly attempt to reinforce their masculinity and maleness (especially when female gamers are around), IE, almost all of them?

Masculinity/femininity can be a very important aspect of a person's personality. It's a universal problem, not gender-specific.

THe posturing always makes me laugh, I'm more of a "be an idiot ,have fun" gamer than a "i'm the best and I'm going to harrass someone who i consider worse" gamer. I love those guys, let them run for a while in a guild, then when they've harassed enough people , savage them , make them sook, and get em booted. Everyone is there to have fun not build up some fethknuckles ego.

 Madcat87 wrote:
Now women have an even greater difficulty breaking into the professional scene as not only do they have to defeat the stigma associated with gaming the men have to deal with but they also have to deal with the social stigma that playing video games just isn't seen as a thing girls do. Add into that there is still huge misogny in some areas of professional gaming the biggest coming to mind was last year at a tournament a female competitor forfeited a match because of the amount of sexual harrasmant she got from competitors, coaches and audience.

Here's a golden quote from that.

When asked on a later episode by Justin Rae, Twitch.tv’s community manager, "Can I get my Street Fighter without the sexual harassment?" Aris replied:

You can't. You can't because they're one and the same thing. This is a community that's, you know, 15 or 20 years old, and the sexual harassment is part of the culture. If you remove that from the fighting-game community, it’s not the fighting-game community…it doesn’t make sense to have that attitude. These things have been established for years.

So yeah maybe the reason we don't see more women at a competitive level or playing "core" games is because of the culture that surrounds it rather than women just not being interested in it.

Oh, absolutely. It is a pity and, not to be misunderstood from my previous posts, I would like to see more women in competitive play. ...then again, that's something of a curse since I also know how much hard work it is to play at that level with no guarantee of seeing *any* financial return...

Melissia wrote:So you have nothing.
Not that you ever will have anything.

Do I really have to do this? You're that adamant about tournament play that is, frankly, quite well known as a male-dominated arena?
Very well. Picking on Starcraft 2 as the easiest one to actually find recent postable results from - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOMTV_Global_StarCraft_II_League
The Code S tournaments are the ones still taking place, though seeing as Code A is recent enough the results are still worth looking at... and being Korea these are the very best of the best in Starcraft players.
...every single one of those winners and runners-up are male.
And to prove that female competitors are allowed - http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Eve

As I say, I'm not keen on this trend - but it is there - it's an undeniable fact. That is, unless you can show me tournament results with a much more even gender distribution. That took me about 10 minutes to compile, I'm now heading to work, and to be honest I don't fancy spending any more time looking up something I already know...

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Citation please.

I wasn't making a serious claim, but providing a counter-point to previously mentioned "anecdotal evidence", which was little more than an excuse to spout misogynistic nonsense.

 Super Ready wrote:
You're that adamant about tournament play

I never mentioned tournament play.

Are you trying to claim that no one can be a "hardcore" gamer without participating in some gakky tournament somewhere? Or that only people who play Starcraft 2 "competitively" are "hardcore"?

If a gamer only ever plays starcraft, can they be called a hardcore gamer any more than the hypothetical woman who only plays Farmville? Either way it's just one highly mediocre game, so I'm not really seeing a difference myself. What about someone who plays dozens of games regularly, but despises tournaments? Or someone who plays less often, but is in to the modding scene-- aren't they pretty hardcore, literally altering the game for their likings like that? Or what about someone who plays games often, but only to troll-- even joining tournaments just to feth with people? I've known plenty of those myself, are they "hardcore gamers" to you?

Or more accurately, I believe you're desperately searching for a method to make an exclusive group so that you can feel better about yourself, specifically defining terms to achieve this objective. Including defining terms specifically to try to exclude women based off of your baseless and unproven perception of what games women play.

To bring it back to the point you were trying to raise: you listed a single game and used very, very limited data sets to claim that most women are only interested in what you call "casual games" I could do the same thing to prove that cats like to chew on chain link fences or that men like to dip their head in lime jello. Compared to the years of industry research that has been put out by organizations like the ESA, that's statistical noise.

 Medium of Death wrote:

 Macok wrote:
Myth vs Reality.
Disclaimer: Reality not based on reality.

Excellent!

I think when these polls define games they're taking in anything that can be considered a game nowadays. Hardcore gaming is probably still dominated by Males, with a few vocal Females.

...and here is your solid proof:

 Sigvatr wrote:
That's pretty terrible source

If you want to have an actual discussion on the matter, you should use actual studies on the matter such as these:

http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue4/hartmann.html
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11199-007-9193-5
http://icagames.comm.msu.edu/cr.pdf

or, to a lesser extent:

http://usabilitynews.org/video-games-males-prefer-violence-while-females-prefer-social/

Overall, female video games are a very important group to cater to and video game companies have long started reacting to them. The thing is that you gotta be very precise. The thing you posted, e.g., is worthless for any profound discussion as it is (seemingly) not based on any actual research and it is poorly designed - just referring to video games as one is proof for an extemely poor research design. You'd neglect any genre differences and thus have gaping flaws in your data, e.g. by not acknowledging that there is a huge gender difference when it comes to video game's specific genres.

Science triumphs over trolling, again.

gg easy

 Melissia wrote:
Are you trying to claim that no one can be a "hardcore" gamer without participating in some gakky tournament somewhere? Or that only people who play Starcraft 2 "competitively" are "hardcore"?

I was just using Starcraft as an example.

If a gamer only ever plays starcraft, can they be called a hardcore gamer any more than the hypothetical woman who only plays Farmville? Either way it's just one highly mediocre game, so I'm not really seeing a difference myself. What about someone who plays dozens of games regularly, but despises tournaments? Or someone who plays less often, but is in to the modding scene-- aren't they pretty hardcore, literally altering the game for their likings like that? Or what about someone who plays games often, but only to troll-- even joining tournaments just to feth with people? I've known plenty of those myself, are they "hardcore gamers" to you?

Again, I highlighted tournaments as the top of the "hardcore" tree - but the definition comes down to how each person perceives it. I consider most of the examples you list as true gaming... except Farmville. Yes, it's a game... but someone who plays Farmville (or some other equivalent social networking game) exclusively and knows bugger all about the wider world of gaming isn't a true gamer in my eyes.

Or more accurately, I believe you're desperately searching for a method to make an exclusive group so that you can feel better about yourself, specifically defining terms to achieve this objective. Including defining terms specifically to try to exclude women based off of your baseless and unproven perception of what games women play.

Oooh, this is getting closer... but you've pushed the sexism agenda on me unfairly. I do like to believe I'm part of an exclusive group - and will happily admit that I'm probably wrong and getting long in the tooth and will eventually be left behind by progress. BUT it's nothing to do with gender. I personally can't stand people that only play social or casual games as a time-killer then try to pass themselves off a gamer. In my eyes, these are people who play games but they're not gamers. The view is similar to me enjoying a game of ten-pin bowling now and again, but I would hardly call myself a bowler.

To bring it back to the point you were trying to raise: you listed a single game and used very, very limited data sets to claim that most women are only interested in what you call "casual games" I could do the same thing to prove that cats like to chew on chain link fences or that men like to dip their head in lime jello. Compared to the years of industry research that has been put out by organizations like the ESA, that's statistical noise.

Actually, the point I was trying to make is that Medium of Death's claim wasn't baseless. I only used tournaments and Starcraft as examples - and only then, because you asked me to prove it. But again, I'll point out (as I did from the beginning) that it depends on your definition of "hardcore". As per this:

Super Ready wrote:When you get into genres like MMO or RTS, the lines become much more blurred... and to me, these games can count as "hardcore".

Lastly... I make *NO* claim that most women are only interested in casual games. That's you twisting my words. My own girlfriend would probably chop my head off if I made that accusation... instead, I'm saying that when looking at particular genres of game some have many more male players than female. As an example, let's say the following numbers are accurate:
Call of Duty players - 10m female, 1000m male
Guild Wars - 10m female, 10m male

Same number of female players, indicating no preference either way in what kind of games women prefer. But the ratio is wildly skewed all the same.

In my experience the Bioware games community especially Dragon Age Origins is dominated by women. this is purely anecdotal, just a trend I noticed.

While it is true that game developers have absolutely no iea how to market to women, and in many cases are discouraged form doing so, most of the female gamers I know are into games for the same reason men are, good story, fun game play, cool visuals, great setting and the ability to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women.

So when it comes right down to it men and women want the same things out of a game and buy a game on a personal choice that rarely reflects what equipment they have between their legs. Who know right?

 EmilCrane wrote:


So when it comes right down to it men and women want the same things out of a game

Not true for the most part, as portrayed above. Correct for RPGs.

 Melissia wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Citation please.

I wasn't making a serious claim, but providing a counter-point to previously mentioned "anecdotal evidence", which was little more than an excuse to spout misogynistic nonsense.

So what is it when you point it out? You are doing the same thing, It seems that you think because males act that way, women can too, denying the fact that everyone who isnt acting that way probably hates it.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
So what is it when you point it out?

To repeat myself: I wasn't making a serious claim. I don't honestly believe that statement.

 Super Ready wrote:
I was just using Starcraft as an example.

It's really the worst example that you could have used.

 Super Ready wrote:
Again, I highlighted tournaments as the top of the "hardcore" tree

Sounds incredibly arbitrary to me.

 Super Ready wrote:
but someone who plays Farmville (or some other equivalent social networking game) exclusively and knows bugger all about the wider world of gaming isn't a true gamer in my eyes.

And if someone who only plays Starcraft is not a real gamer to me?

 Super Ready wrote:
but you've pushed the sexism agenda on me unfairly

On the contrary, it was completely fair. I never said you did it intentionally. But that's very, VERY much how you have come across to me.

 Super Ready wrote:
BUT it's nothing to do with gender

Apparently, given the big deal you're making about gender, it DOES have something to do with it.

 Super Ready wrote:
Actually, the point I was trying to make is that Medium of Death's claim wasn't baseless.

It still is. Again, a single data point doesn't make a trend.

 Super Ready wrote:
That's you twisting my words.

On the contrary, your words need no twisting.

I see these stats all the time on the internet but I don't see them play out in life.

 Manchu wrote:
I see these stats all the time on the internet but I don't see them play out in life.

I know more women who are in to gaming than men, myself.

For which I blame sports. Sports fans are even nerdier than wargamers, frankly. [/grumblegrumble]

And i know more men into gaming then women. IT is the company you keep. You are a women, so you are more likely to keep company of women, ones that probably share your interests.
Same with men

 Manchu wrote:
I see these stats all the time on the internet but I don't see them play out in life.

Assuming you refer to the numbers given in the OP, that's the entire reason why there is a need for empirical studies. They are the most objective thing we can get and easily put rest to mindless rambling about personal opininos / observations noone with a clear, unbiased mind cares about.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
And i know more men into gaming then women. IT is the company you keep. You are a women, so you are more likely to keep company of women, ones that probably share your interests.
Same with men

Pretty much - and that's why individual observation has no bearing to a discussion on gender distribution among gaming.

So sigvatr would you mind summarizing these unbiased, empirical processes for me? I imagine these stark figures with all their promise of objectivity result from questionnaires subject to the idiosyncratic perceptions and goals of each person filling them out but pray do correct my biased lack of clarity.

If ye would have carefully used thy visual information processing organs, thee would have come to the conclusion that yours truly has already provided both the primary source of information from a small selection of empirical studies on the matter at hand and a summary of these results of easily comprehensible length previously in this thread. If my memory does not betray me, yours truly has even posted one of these posts twice to further strengthen the previously mentioned content.

I have indeed already espied your mercifully redundant posting and even myself had a glimpse at the materials you so heroically recommend at such obviously great cost to your own honorable person. But alas, despite your mighty efforts to educate me and raise me up from my base subjectivity, these layman eyes of mine can but perceive questionnaires full of seemingly uncritical cultural assumptions applied to populations primed to respond according to a cultural context I am not convinced the researchers understand. Therefore I again humble myself to beseech you, oh herald of android-like objectivity, to elucidate how these Applied Scientific Principles confront and overcome such obstacles.

If thou have indeed had a proper look at the given documented evidence, yours truly would kindly ask thee to bravely point at the oh-so-gaping flaws thee might have observed assuming your welcomed honesty as doubtfully presentated in thy enlightening post of yours.

Yours truly is highly interested in how thy assume your person being more knowledgeable than both fellow scientists and peer-reviewers (partially) publishing for a considerable amount of time.

May I assume that thy are well-versed in judging proper empirical studies? Yours truly certainly expects such a specific knowledge if one is to give a profound criticism and would very much appreciate a honest reply on said matter, asssuming that, at the very least in the issue at hand, ye might succeed in gaining a profitable, expectable, proper distance to the information and the information's presenter at hand, who nothing but a mere messenger of rationalism, falling on sophisticated and preferringly deaf ears alike.

Appeal to authority, as a man of such erudition no doubt understands, is a fallacy. Let us pass over your lapse in that regard and return to the question of which I have already begged your consideration: namely, how do the researchers account for the cultural assumptions inherent to their own experimental design and in their respondents?

Er... what's with all the random wordiness all of a sudden...?

At any rate. Sigvatr and I have provided statistical evidence of there being an imbalance. Does anyone have any evidence of this NOT being the case? Non-anecdotal, mind.

And remember - denying that there is an imbalance only serves to prolong it. If we can admit the divide is there we can work towards fixing it.