Technology

Why are people so stuck in the 1950s?

Glad to have woman playing. To paraphrase Iwata (Nintendo), gaming should be fun for everyone

Edit: "women" because I have butter fingers

I don't understand why they're surprised. Gaming has been mainstream for many many years now and women are half the population.

This just in, “gamers” react shitty to something.

Just don't do news about Twitter reactions. It's nothing but outrage bait.

basically just elaborating on this twitter thread.

And because Kotaku decided to play a >1min video ad while i was trying to read:

tl;dr:
According to Circana's PlayerPulse:
47% of console video game players are female (+1% vs YA)
50% of PC video game players are female (+1% vs YA)
54% of mobile video game players are female (+1% vs YA)

41% of PS5s in the US are female owned
45% of Xbox Series consoles are female owned
52% of Swich consoles are female owned
50% of gaming PCs are female owned

Most Switch Owners Are Women, Gamers React Poorly

Interesting title. As if "Women" and "Gamers" were two distinct groups.

I... have to admit, other than Switch I'd have estimated somewhere around 20% to be honest.

But I like to be wrong here, cool that it's not that divided!
And I'm not sure it's a good sign that I didn't expect this.

Maybe Men are more vocal (possibly because women are less so, because of bad treatment), or maybe I'm just not as attentive...

I am a woman person and I have TWO switches. This is a source of consternation for some reason?

Really? People are still acting like this? I remember back in the early 2000s when people were giving me crap for being a female gamer. The sad part is that I have been gaming probably before a lot of these new people complaining about female gamers have been born. I started back in the day with the Super NES. I also have a gaming PC, a Switch, and a Steam Deck. I also have various other consoles.

I'm a 38-year-old woman who has been playing games since she was five years old. The myth that women don't play and enjoy games is a long-running one.

“I don’t know ANY women ~~who play games~~!” Is probably half their comments.

I am glad this trend is becoming better understood. A more diverse audience means more diverse stories being told, and while another MCU or Street Fighter is a perfectly good game to release a game targeting that more diverse audience will give more options for me. I typically play games like Risk of Rain, Skyrim, Creeper World, and so on, but I have also lost many hours to Viva Piñata, so I would love to see some more diversity in the games on offer.

I read some digital market reports a few years back, which showed that something like 98% of all people between 13-18 were gaming. Obviously mostly casual games, but nevertheless paying consumers of games. More female than male by a close margin.

When I discussed it on another gaming forum they were really quick to dismiss casual games altogether, despite it being the very largest group. There's probably still a male majority in desktop first person shooters, which seemed to be the only "correct" gamers according to he kind of people following that kind of forum. Anyway, if I were to program a game I surely wouldn't aim at the "stereotypical" gamer. They're a minority with very high demands and very expensive gear. The whole stereotype is gatekept to the point where I don't want to participate neither as a gamer or as developer.

Toxic incel minority that makes a lot of noise. People have known it for years and nobody gives a damn. Videogames are made for every person to enjoy

My girlfriend has been literally using my PS5 more than me since I got it, gamer girls do exist and we should cherish them, not alienate them

Toxicity towards girls and women in gaming is a real problem, but this article doesn't really show that as it's just talking about random people from Twitter It's definitely nice so many women feel free to own consoles nowadays

More information from a closer source: https://twitter.com/MatPiscatella/status/1667172957066600448

47% of console video game players are female (+1% vs YA)
50% of PC video game players are female (+1% vs YA)
54% of mobile video game players are female (+1% vs YA)

For these numbers quoted: n = 10,184
For people interested in PlayerPulse:
Frequency: Monthly
First Data Captured: Jan 1 2017

Methodology: Circana conducts a monthly survey of US active gamers over the age of 13. Surveys are fielded online, via PC and mobile devices, drawing from a nationally representative pool. Respondents qualify on the basis of having played games in the past month (30 days). To ensure consistency across samples and correct for any biases/errors, Circana implements a weighting system for each monthly dataset based on representative distributions of platform use and platform investment. Circana’s models are based on aggregated, cross-product samples, and are updated quarterly to account for market shifts.

Mat Piscatella - Executive Director & Video Game Industry Analyst at Circana (NPD).

It isn't surprising, at least with my anecdotal experience, but still higher than I expected. Two girl friends of mine started to play lan parties with us since covid, and I know another that is completely obsessed with Valorant, and another that is equally obsessed with Football Manager.

I tried to find the original study and can't. The only source that everyone points to is this tweet by the executive director of Circana. Anyone knows where I can find it?

I remember when they took a group photo of all the people involved with the racing games at Codemasters. Around 600 of us... someone commented, "who are all these people?". Well, programmers (AI/Phyisic/Audio/etc), Artists, Sound Engineers, Producers, HR...

And there were women as well. Yes, that's right, women develop games as well. There's one of my team.

Among my personal friends, probably the same ratio of men and women are into Souls games. So like… yeah, women play games. And not just “lady-friendly” fare. As a non-woman, I freaking love Animal Crossing; meanwhile my wife has beaten most of the Souls games and I’ve given up on all of them. Anecdotal, but like… gamers like gaming, and I feel like these days trying to say anything about game preference and gender is just not really helpful.

Glad to see more women picking up gaming! Here's hoping that'll stop my wife from nagging that my gaming habits are purely a "men/boys" problem.

That is the most Onion headline I ever seen for real news. Kotaku? Yeah, the clickbait makes sense.

Clearly the data is wrong. Switches Jane, who owns three hundred million switches, is an outlier and should not have been counted.

Woman like Pokemon as much as dudes. Also Nintendo's awful online experience is a plus for woman that don't want to be exposed to weird online dudes.