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For the past week BBC online has been quoting games producer and researcher ‘Emma Westecott’ who says ”Although women outnumber men in playing games online, only 18% of game developers were women”. “Hang on a minute” I thought to myself when reading the article - “Women outnumber men in playing games online… since when?”. I play on Xbox Live for at least ten hours each week, and in three years I’ve only come across two female gamers (and one of those could actually have been a small whiny American boy). Xbox Live was reported in March to have hit the six million member mark - are more than 3 million of those members women, and if so where are they? Since moving to the Xbox 360 in 2005 I had (until yesterday) met absolutely no females at all (more on that later). On closer examination of global industry metrics and demographics, it seems that what is crucial here is the definintion of a ‘female gamer’.

A BBC Research and Development paper on gaming demographics from December 2005 states “We defined a ‘gamer’ as someone who had played a game on a mobile, handheld, console, PC, Internet or interactive TV at least once in the last 6 months: a broad definition designed to capture any ‘light’ gamers as well as medium or heavier gamers.” So here’s where we have out first insight into the definition mystery - what I and many other people define as a ‘gamer’ is not quite the same as the Beeb’s inclusion of people playing ‘Snake’ on a Nokia mobile phone or somebody who plays Internet Solitaire from a PC or TV - this large group sitting in the ‘casual gaming’ sector.

If one does go on the basis of the BBC’s white paper to include casual gamers in the ‘All gamers’ bracket, the demographic numbers are quite staggering: “This research returned the result that 59% of 6 to 65 year olds in the UK are gamers. In total there are 26.5 million gamers in the UK . The average age of a UK gamer is 28 years old, and the gender split is almost even, averaging out at 45% female and 55% male.â€?. Since that white paper publication, a BBC online article published in October 2006 put female gamers lower again at one third of all UK gamers, and then back up to 54% of all gamers last week in April 2007.

The reason for the latest high female percentage quote isn’t that much of a surprise to me; the supporting data comes from somebody at the University of Wales trying to drive up attendees to the ‘Women in Games‘ conference taking place in April. Having looked at the agenda for some insight into the Conference’s content, I note that there are sessions on Virtual Pets and The Sims. The genre of game being discussed does again provide further insight into where these female gamers are hiding - casual gaming. Should this conference instead be called ‘Women in Casual Games’?

A fantastic article I came across from the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) entitled ‘Understanding the Casual Gamer‘ puts ‘casual gamers’ at 63% female - these mainly playing short games via MSN Messenger, Mobiles and the Internet. These industry insider quotes are very insightful: ”It’s also known that females tend to like puzzle games” and “Finally, the shorter playing time and less-violent themes are appealing to this demographic.” So women are playing games online, they’re just not doing it in the same places as men - they’re weapon of choice is a PC and a pack of virtual playing cards rather than an Xbox 360 and a virtual rocket launcher.

Probably the best demographic data comes from Nielsen Interactive Entertainment data quoted in Business Week “While men outweigh women 76 to 24 percent when it comes to MMO games (Massive Multiplayer Online Games such as World of Warcraft), in the casual online games market the split between genders is almost even - 49 percent women vs. 51 percent men” - that was in 2005 so hardly surprising that women have now overtaken men there. Nielsen’s 2006 data is quoted in The Hollywood Reporter: “While women are dominant among online gamers, men still outnumber women in the overall video game space by more than 2-to-1 (70%-30%). Older females make up the largest percentage of casual gamers, usually playing online card and puzzle games. Thanks to casual games and the emergence of massively multiplayer online games, 64% of active gamers play on a PC. About 24% of active gamers engage in gaming on their mobile devices.”

So there we have it - female gamers make up the largest proportion of casual gamers, but not ALL gamers - and the male is still the dominant species when it comes to blood, guts, guns and consoles like the Xbox 360 and PS3. Gamespy’s article on the Xbox Live Arcade service describes the creation of this offering by Microsoft as the company’s attempt to attract women into buying an Xbox 360 for casual gaming: ”The idea behind Xbox Live Arcade is to ultimately create a broader spectrum of Xbox 360 owners than the usual diehard 12-34 year-old male demographic”.

Having done all that reading and research, I’m now more relieved that I’m not going crazy. I accept of course that females do play on the Xbox; my sister is herself a very keen gamer on Halo and Hitman - but not on Xbox Live. I tried a little experiment yesterday in the game lobbies and asked in each one as players entered “Are there any women in here today?” (parodying the Life of Brian line)… to the amazement and surprise of all the boys/men in the lobby, on two occasions a female voice piped up “Yes, I’m here”. It seems that because us men talk such a load of old alpha-male shite in the pre-game lobby, women can’t be bothered to interact unless invited to. The presence of a female gamer on Lost Planet was emphasised still further when, after destroying me with a rocket launcher she walked up to my dead body, turned around and slapped her backside. I don’t think she was telling me to go to Asda either.

 

Technorati Tags: female gamers, women gamers, online gaming, casual gaming, xbox 360, xbox live, microsoft, video games, women online, female demographics, nielsen, BBC online

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