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 Super Ready wrote:
Does anyone have any evidence of this NOT being the case?

Yes, from the ESA.

I hadn't looked at the ESA data in particular in-depth... I have now. I'll accept that, the data seems valid from where I'm sitting.

It's obvious we have different definitions on what classes as gaming, and hardcore gaming... but as the latter term is so objective we'll just have to agree to disagree there. I'll bow out by saying that it would be really nice to see women becoming more prevalent in tournaments - assuming the ESA data is accurate, that would make it just about the last gaming demographic to crack.

Frankly, the competitive gaming culture has done everything it can to keep women out without actually banning us.

Well to be fair, women are terrible and would just ruin everything.

I'd imagine that's largely down to the fact a lot of the competitive stuff seems to be team based from what I have seen Mel. I suspect girl gamers trying to break into male focused teams is about as easy as throwing a blade of grass through the eye of a needle at ten paces.

I have noted some very good all female teams, the trend should be broken eventually. Well we can hope.

 Melissia wrote:
Frankly, the competitive gaming culture has done everything it can to keep women out without actually banning us.

Could you elaborate some more on that? I know the environment isn't exactly friendly, but what factors do you think contribute most to this hostility? I've become more interested in this topic since tuning in to the SC2 WCS this week-- there wasn't a single female player from any of the teams.

I guess I'm just not understanding the extent to which these myths are believed, which doesn't seem to be terribly large, and I'm also questioning where the stats in the picture came from.

 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.

He said that males are in the majority, with relatively few females.

You then go on to say yourself that females are a minority in that group.

See where I'm going with this?

 deathholydeath wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Frankly, the competitive gaming culture has done everything it can to keep women out without actually banning us.

Could you elaborate some more on that? I know the environment isn't exactly friendly, but what factors do you think contribute most to this hostility? I've become more interested in this topic since tuning in to the SC2 WCS this week-- there wasn't a single female player from any of the teams.

I really don't know what contributes to the hostility, but certainly I've never gotten a vibe that the competitive crowd is a group of people who honestly respect anyone who's different from them. Racial slurs, misogyny, religious slurs, and general profanity often flows from their keyboards faster than actual gameplay decisions. Or even each other, half the time. If I had to guess, I'd use a guess based on something I mentioned earlier in this thread-- it's treated as an "exclusive" group, and like most groups of humans that are exclusive, it tends towards conformity rather than diversity. People who are different have a hard time being "one of us" in the minds of those who conform better.

I think the studies Sigvatr posted are on the right track, inasmuch as like he said they qualify the questions at stake so that they start to be more meaningful. I mean, the idea that men like video games isn't particularly interesting. The idea that women like them, too, is only interesting so far as it doesn't tally with what a lot of folks (and not just this monolithic category "men") observe in the course of their lives. So the question is, if this exists then why is it invisible? And that's where I'm a bit critical of the studies Sigvatr is reporting to us. They seem very thin on theory and very thick on design. But if the design is not informed by compelling theory then isn't the study, apart from the manipulation of numbers, also anecdotal? I mean, the study basically says that women like games like Dragon Age. Any of us could have told you that without asking X number of German college girls.

I think-- and this is just a hypothesis-- that a lot of the "invisibility" has to do with the negative, and incredibly hostile aspects of geek culture, where being a woman opens you up for constant, unending misogynistic abuse.

http://www.themarysue.com/academic-study-game-harassment/

Some of it also has to do with the assumption that anyone who plays is male unless they specifically identify as female (and in many cases, unless they somehow PROVE they're female). I've gone under the name "Kuromoi" before, never spoke in to the mic, and etc, and everyone treated me like a guy. Also received far less verbal abuse as well.

 Manchu wrote:
So sigvatr would you mind summarizing these unbiased, empirical processes for me?

I'm not Sigvatr, but I can do as asked:

Men game, women game. Different genres appeal differently. Arma 3 and Rome 2: Total War probably don't need to spend a lot of time thinking about catering to a female demo.

 Manchu wrote:
I think the studies Sigvatr posted are on the right track, inasmuch as like he said they qualify the questions at stake so that they start to be more meaningful. I mean, the idea that men like video games isn't particularly interesting. The idea that women like them, too, is only interesting so far as it doesn't tally with what a lot of folks (and not just this monolithic category "men") observe in the course of their lives. So the question is, if this exists then why is it invisible? And that's where I'm a bit critical of the studies Sigvatr is reporting to us. They seem very thin on theory and very thick on design. But if the design is not informed by compelling theory then isn't the study, apart from the manipulation of numbers, also anecdotal? I mean, the study basically says that women like games like Dragon Age. Any of us could have told you that without asking X number of German college girls.

So we're back to normal speech? I'm open for both.

Long story short: most of the articles I posted are peer-reviewed. You claim it's believing in authority, which simply is a wrong statement in regards to how empirical studies work. Peer review basically means that a study is carefully seen through by experts on the matter. The ESA report, e.g. has a larger sample but has huge flaws design-wise, especially in regards to reliability. Not splliting the findings by genres, e.g., is a huge flaw that would never make it through any peer review. Peer review is absolutely necessary for viable data, else everyone could just publish anything he wants. Take the data in the OP as an example - no source, poor design, completely worthless data.

We need to come to an agreement on the use of the word "anecdotal". Any empirical study can only represent a limited part of a population - you can't question all women in the entire world. The main difference to anything anyone in here reports from personal experience is randomisation and lack of personal bias, thus elimination of subjective pickings e.g. friends along with a reliable sample size. With n = +700, and given the example study's items, that's a very reliable result. Personal experience is purely anecdotal because it's highly subjective and therefore has no value at all. I don't really want to write an essay on basic empirical evaluation, but google / Wikipedia will yield easily understandable explanations that help getting a rough idea of it.

What the studies do is emphazizing the need for showing that women play differently than men. Less interest for competitive games and core genres with RPGs as the only exception. This means a very simple thing: women play video games. A LOT of women do so, it's almost the same amount as men. They play differently. There are significantly less core female players as women prefer social and casual games compared to men who prefer action and competitive games.

One thing to note here is that those studies do not tell us WHY that's the case. It could be that women prefer games where they communicate more, it could be that men prefer are more prone to competition that women overall and thus prefer competitive games (iirc there's solid data on that, don't nail me on this one...yet), it could be that the social stigma makes women be more likely to play casual games etc. The difference is that unlike some people, who have demonstrated to lack the ability / will for rational reasoning / thinking (not referring to you Manchu), studies mention that they lack the reasoning and that it requires qualitative studies, a quantitative study just can't do that (again: Wikipedia / Google).

tl;dr: Men and women are both gamers, men play differently than women.

In before random men on the internet saying "women like [x]" in complete disagreement with the women in the thread.

Oh.

I see I'm too late. You're making baseless assertions again.

In before random women on the internet not knowing the difference between average and individual.

Oh.

I see I'm too late.

Are those stats taking into account. Bloody Facebook games like Farmville?

 cerbrus2 wrote:
Bloody Facebook games like Farmville?

Because those aren't really games, not like Cawodoody.

I believe the point in making the distinction between social games and more "traditional" genres like RTS, FPS and RPGs is that they do tend to skew the numbers a bit when they are all lumped in together under the perhaps too-wide umbrella that is the term "video games."

Women tend to play social games much more than men.

http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Women-Flock-Social-Games/1007665

http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Profiling-Social-Gamers/1007537

I don't think any type of game is more "real" than the other, but I think that making the distinction allows for more accurate discussion.

 Monster Rain wrote:
I don't think any type of game is more "real" than the other, but I think that making the distinction allows for more accurate discussion.

Except when the question is 'how many women play video games into comparison to men". Now if the question is "how many women play FPS compared to the number of men who play FPS" then it makes sense to exclude other types of games. It is still a problem, and probably part of the overall issue at hand, that people still treat games like that as not really video games, when in fact they are video games.

If you need statistics to win an argument, you've already lost.
Interpret that as you choose.

 Satan's Little Helper wrote:
If you need statistics to win an argument, you've already lost.
Interpret that as you choose.

That seems a bit to broad to be of any use. We aren't using statistics to win an argument so much as discussing them; statistics aren't the answer, they are the question.

 Ahtman wrote:
Except when the question is 'how many women play video games into comparison to men". Now if the question is "how many women play FPS compared to the number of men who play FPS" then it makes sense to exclude other types of games. It is still a problem, and probably part of the overall issue at hand, that people still treat games like that as not really video games, when in fact they are video games.

I think it's worth asking how worthwhile that "How many women play video games in comparison to men?" question actually is, though. We can't really draw any useful conclusions from it. Women absolutely game, and probably in very high numbers - I suspect it's actually under-reported due to lingering social stigma. Does that necessarily mean that certain genres or sub-genres (or even certain platforms) need to redesign the way they attempt to engage with that demographic, if they bother at all? Only if the population is evenly spread across all the available genres/platforms, which we can probably safely assume isn't the case.

Distinctions between "real" or "hardcore" video games definitely do need to go, though, I agree. Escaping into Tier 1 Tacticool Badass Fantasyland isn't any more ballsy a pursuit than playing Temple Runner on your phone.

 Satan's Little Helper wrote:
If you need statistics to win an argument, you've already lost.
Interpret that as you choose.

While I disagree with Sigvatr in regards to the lack of value of anecdotal evidence (we wouldn't have a basis for saying that women seems to hide their gender in certain crowds if it wasn't for such anecdotal evidence, for exemple), refusing the use of statistics in such an argument as this one is simply dumb. You have access to empirical data around which you can build a judgement on the issue, or alter those of others. Use it.

Seaward wrote:Distinctions between "real" or "hardcore" video games definitely do need to go, though, I agree. Escaping into Tier 1 Tacticool Badass Fantasyland isn't any more ballsy a pursuit than playing Temple Runner on your phone.

Depends. If its Deux Ex HR, then yes, its way more ballsy.

Distinctions between "real" or "hardcore" video games definitely do need to go, though, I agree. Escaping into Tier 1 Tacticool Badass Fantasyland isn't any more ballsy a pursuit than playing Temple Runner on your phone.

It doesn't really have anything to do with being "ballsy", though. Not for me, at least. It's more to do with how seriously the pastime/hobby is taken. There is a definite difference between people who play games casually and as a distraction, and what I would call a "true gamer", that is, someone who spends more time gaming, takes part in the scene and community and takes more than a passing interest in gaming-related current affairs.

To give the example I gave earlier - I play ten-pin bowling now and again, but I would hardly call myself a bowler. The trouble is that surveys and statistics often don't distinguish between what I see as two very different groups of gamer.

 Seaward wrote:
I think it's worth asking how worthwhile that "How many women play video games in comparison to men?" question actually is, though.

I agree that it in and of itself won't be hugely illuminating, but it seems like a piece cornerstone information. It is the questions and data that it opens up that are more interesting, but we need a starting point.

 Ahtman wrote:

 Monster Rain wrote:
I don't think any type of game is more "real" than the other, but I think that making the distinction allows for more accurate discussion.

Except when the question is 'how many women play video games into comparison to men". Now if the question is "how many women play FPS compared to the number of men who play FPS" then it makes sense to exclude other types of games. It is still a problem, and probably part of the overall issue at hand, that people still treat games like that as not really video games, when in fact they are video games.

My point is that "video games" is a very broad topic. It would be similar to having the same conversation about movies, books or music.

It's so vague that I don't know what the point of bringing it up is, I guess.

 Monster Rain wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:

 Monster Rain wrote:
I don't think any type of game is more "real" than the other, but I think that making the distinction allows for more accurate discussion.

Except when the question is 'how many women play video games into comparison to men". Now if the question is "how many women play FPS compared to the number of men who play FPS" then it makes sense to exclude other types of games. It is still a problem, and probably part of the overall issue at hand, that people still treat games like that as not really video games, when in fact they are video games.

My point is that "video games" is a very broad topic. It would be similar to having the same conversation about movies, books or music.

It's so vague that I don't know what the point of bringing it up is, I guess.

I don't disagree, I was more referring to the attitude that is often displayed at people who enjoy games like Farmville as not really being gamers.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
My womens studies teacher said it.
It means the men can count on the women to the house work in a working household, but women cannot.

My wife would beg to differ

Is it really that widespread of an issue, Ahtman? Aside from the spittle-flecked monitors and keyboards of the people that go berserk about this sort of thing on the Internet, I don't see many "social" gamers having an existential crisis as to their classification.

Different genres of entertainment will always appeal to different demographics, but it doesn't make one genre more or less valid.

 Monster Rain wrote:
Is it really that widespread of an issue, Ahtman? Aside from the spittle-flecked monitors and keyboards of the people that go berserk about this sort of thing on the Internet, I don't see many "social" gamers having an existential crisis as to their classification.

I see it fairly frequently, or at least enough to not think it is just one guy that feels that way. What is interesting about it is that you are right in that it isn't the poeple who play those games that seem to want to make the distinction, but the others, the 'hardcore'. It does seem to be declining as time goes on, so I wonder if much of it wasn't the initial introduction of flash and phone games that generated the ill-will.

 Monster Rain wrote:
Different genres of entertainment will always appeal to different demographics, but it doesn't make one genre more or less valid.

You and I know that, but we are enlightened, benign beings.

Edit: whoa, where dis those other two pages come from?