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How did boys/men become a core target audience for gaming?

G

gafneo

Banned
Yes their are tons of female gaming communities, but you can't deny most console and PC games are targeted mainly towards men. When you look at lines at Gamestop or at E3, what are you mostly seeing? We have AAA funding going towards things like Gears of War and Uncharted. Both games that are introducing a lot of female characters. Yet you know as well as I do that the balls to the wall fast action gunplay is mainly to incite male testosterone. Do companies really not know how to please a women? Is it that they think all they want is touch and tap, pay to win?

The music, movie, and book industry got it right. Somehow comics and gaming is constantly refereed to as a male dominated culture.

I will agree with anyone who says that geek and sporting culture is comprised mostly of men. It's not that women don't share the same excitement for these type of things. It's kind of like an out of place feeling they get. Maybe it's the slobbering behavior of men, or the contrast of products on the market. Whatever the case may be, it would be nice if we could get rid of the stigma surrounding gaming.
 
S

Storm Raider

Banned
SomedayTheFire said:
Patriarchy.
Click to expand...

image.php
 
H

Harlequin

Member
I think a video explaining this was circulating around the web a few months or so ago. I think it simply came down to supermarkets at the time having separate toy sections for boys and girls, video game companies having to decide whether they wanted their products to be placed in the boys' or the girls' section, choosing the boys and then marketing their products accordingly. IIRC, that is (and according to that video which may well have been wrong?). I don't remember the name of the video, perhaps someone who does could link it?

Regulus Tera said:
Adam Ruins Everything: Why People Think Video Games Are Just For Boys
Click to expand...

Yeah, this was it.
 
S

super-famicom

Member
For years, American society pushed males to study the sciences and not women. This is starting to change, but the majority of game devs are males.
 
Surface of Me

Surface of Me

I'm not an NPC. And neither are we.
Likely has to do with computer technology being a male dominated field, so when those people started making games they made it for tge audience they knew, men. Only recently has there been a push for more women to get into that and similar fields.

I also know plenty if fenales that enjoy Gears, Uncharted, and other similar games. Not sure why you think only males would enjoy action.
 
B

Bedlam

Member
Probably because the early IT industry was severely male-dominated. That's where the first game developers grew out of after all ... young men making the kinds of games they would want to play ... yadda yadda. This "dominance" has carried over to this day.

So no, boys/men haven't become the primary target audience - they always were.

And unfortunately, change takes time and it's also dependent on changes happening in the IT field in general.
 
F

fredrancour

Member
the industry decided that violence was the easiest thing to turn into a core game mechanic and society's expectations made that easier to sell to boys?
 
M

Messofanego

Banned
Advertising. You can blame Nintendo after the videogame crash of 1983 when they started classifying videogames in the toys section of stores. Adam Ruins Everything video and Tracey Lien article above cover it.
 
G

gafneo

Banned
Surface of Me said:
Likely has to do with computer technology being a male dominated field, so when those people started making games they made it for tge audience they knew, men. Only recently has there been a push for more women to get into that and similar fields.

I also know plenty if fenales that enjoy Gears, Uncharted, and other similar games. Not sure why you think only males would enjoy action.
Click to expand...

I don't think that women don't play. I just know those type of games get mass produced and are geared towards males.
 
E

emb

Member
Surface of Me said:
Likely has to do with computer technology being a male dominated field, so when those people started making games they made it for tge audience they knew, men. Only recently has there been a push for more women to get into that and similar fields.
Click to expand...
I think this is probably the correct answer. Or at least a step in the right direction.

Computer science, programming are male dominated. Nowadays, we might be able to explain part of that as being perpetuated by male dominated games. Why was this the case early on though? Probably because mechanics, engineering, and math were all male-dominated fields around the time computing was becoming a thing. Why was that? I don't really know, possibly something involving more men in higher education in the decades prior (that may not be true, someone enlighten me)?
 
P

Platy

Member
The way Nintendo found to survive the Atari destruction of the industry was to sell videogames as toys, not as entertainment and stuffs like that. And toys like always NEED to be boy OR girl because parents fear the if the boy touches a doll he will instantly know the entire Lady Gaga discography

Bedlam said:
Probably because the early IT industry was severely male-dominated. That's where the first game developers grew out of after all ... young men making the kinds of games they would want to play ... yadda yadda. This "dominance" has carried over to this day.
Click to expand...

EARLY IT industry was WOMAN DOMINANT because the first programmers were women because Typing (as in "being skilled with a typewriter) was mainly a female centered skill because of assistant jobs being a women centered jobs. It started change to male dominated field when it started to become important and give more money.

Also, pre-NES games were made from an already Male dominant field of IT and were made for both boys and girls
 
P

Pezking

Member
Consumer electronics were always geared towards men. See TVs, home cinema systems, etc.

Video game consoles were no exception.
 
Strangelove77

Strangelove77

Member
The same way everything else is made for males. Especially entertainment.

As far as videogames go, they're made by males for males. Males have always been pushed towards technology/education by society while females were meant to be kept in the dark. That's how society treats education and advancements. You only encourage your kind to advance.
So that's why computer nerds still tend to be men. And they make your videogames.
It works that way with minorities and the poor as well.
Things have gotten better, but not to an acceptable degree.
 
I

Instro

Member
Surface of Me said:
Likely has to do with computer technology being a male dominated field, so when those people started making games they made it for tge audience they knew, men. Only recently has there been a push for more women to get into that and similar fields.

I also know plenty if fenales that enjoy Gears, Uncharted, and other similar games. Not sure why you think only males would enjoy action.
Click to expand...

Yeah I would tend to agree that it has a lot to do with STEM fields being male dominated because these fields were seen by society as for men only. It doesn't help that stores, and related marketing, made certain that anything considered nerdy was "for boys".
 
DryvBy

DryvBy

Member
I remember growing up without hardly any girls liking video games. My neighbor was one of the few and she had Super Mario All-Stars which made her super awesome. I'm pretty sure there was a time when a huge chunk of girls weren't playing.
 
A

ActWan

Member
Education and society. "video games are not for girls" bullshit is all over the place brainwashing everyone from a young age (and it doesn't end there, but that's for another discussion)
 
N

neerg

Member
DryvBy said:
I remember growing up without hardly any girls liking video games. My neighbor was one of the few and she had Super Mario All-Stars which made her super awesome. I'm pretty sure there was a time when a huge chunk of girls weren't playing.
Click to expand...

Agree, but you have to ask why they didn't like games back then. Because society told them they shouldn't.

Arcades in my youth were pretty much a male only scene (uk). So I guess that's what game makers continued to target.
 
P

pantsmith

Member
Platy said:
EARLY IT industry was WOMAN DOMINANT because the first programmers were women because Typing (as in "being skilled with a typewriter) was mainly a female centered skill because of assistant jobs being a women centered jobs. It started change to male dominated field when it started to become important and give more money.

Also, pre-NES games were made from an already Male dominant field of IT and were made for both boys and girls
Click to expand...

Your counter point isnt really a counter point.

There was never a prevalence of women in this particular branch of development. Software development at the time that video games became a thing was a thing men were encouraged to get into, and society further reinforced videogames as a male-focused hobby via careful marketing.

So you had men making games for men, which encouraged more men to make more games for men. Self-fulfilling cycle.

emb said:
I think this is probably the correct answer. Or at least a step in the right direction.

Computer science, programming are male dominated. Nowadays, we might be able to explain part of that as being perpetuated by male dominated games. Why was this the case early on though? Probably because mechanics, engineering, and math were all male-dominated fields around the time computing was becoming a thing. Why was that? I don't really know, possibly something involving more men in higher education in the decades prior (that may not be true, someone enlighten me)?
Click to expand...

Generally women played huge roles in math and science when society let them, like war time when all the men were shipped off.

The whole problem was that society wouldn't let them when all the men came home.
 
B

Bedlam

Member
Platy said:
EARLY IT industry was WOMAN DOMINANT because the first programmers were women because Typing (as in "being skilled with a typewriter) was mainly a female centered skill because of assistant jobs being a women centered jobs. It started change to male dominated field when it started to become important and give more money.

Also, pre-NES games were made from an already Male dominant field of IT and were made for both boys and girls
Click to expand...
I present to you, the fathers of videogames:
latest


http://videogamehistory.wikia.com/wiki/Tennis_for_Two
Click to expand...
Maybe read up a bit on how videogames came to be and what the environment was like. There are good books out there about this subject (I've read a couple of them for my final thesis).
 
DryvBy

DryvBy

Member
neerg said:
Agree, but you have to ask why they didn't like games back then. Because society told them they shouldn't.

Arcades in my youth were pretty much a male only scene (uk). So I guess that's what game makers continued to target.
Click to expand...

When I was growing up, it was looked down on guys to be hardcore gamers because nerds were considered pathetic and blah blah blah. I just never cared. I don't (and never have) base my life around society.
 
G

gafneo

Banned
emb said:
I think this is probably the correct answer. Or at least a step in the right direction.

Computer science, programming are male dominated. Nowadays, we might be able to explain part of that as being perpetuated by male dominated games. Why was this the case early on though? Probably because mechanics, engineering, and math were all male-dominated fields around the time computing was becoming a thing. Why was that? I don't really know, possibly something involving more men in higher education in the decades prior (that may not be true, someone enlighten me)?
Click to expand...

Yeah, this makes total sense. They should enforce computer science greatly among girls in HS so it's not all about being popular while showcasing beauty as the best remedy for confidence. Knowing that they have higher education is a good enough confidence booster IMO. It's funny how a wrinkle in society can generate a path for millions.
 
H

Harlequin

Member
Bedlam said:
I present to you, the fathers of videogames:

Maybe read up a bit on how videogames came to be and what the environment was like. There are good books out there about this subject (I've read a couple of them for my final thesis).
Click to expand...

To be fair, they said IT industry, not games industry.
 
A

Ash735

Member
Because back in the 1950s, Teenage Girls and Popular Teenage Boys were out enjoying themselves, whilst they mocked the nerds in school, but little did they know, those Nerds were onto something, and as the years passed, the populars played football, the girls were interested in other subjects, but the nerds were the ones who focused on computing and women were not interested in that in fear of being typecasted with the enrds.

And it's all pretty much spiraled out since then over the course of 70 years. Innocent beginnings and all that.
 
B

Bedlam

Member
Harlequin said:
To be fair, they said IT industry, not games industry.
Click to expand...
And I said IT industry, too. That's the point. Those guys aren't videogame developers, yet they developed the first videogame in the late 1950s as a fun side project next to their actual research/work.

As I said, there are many great books about this subject out there...
 
T

tearsintherain

Member
Its not just one reason, there are many. Having 2 daughters and a son, imo the biggest factor is peer pressure in teenage years.

All my kids played video games up till around 10 years old, but after that the girls stopped and my son still played occasionally. My daughters would tell me that video games were childish and not cool, while it never bothered my son or his friends. I noticed that in a lot of other things too, girls want to appear (and be) mature and grown up much earlier than boys.

Plus nowadays social media has replaced video games as something to waste time on, why bother with LOL/DOTA/TV/etc when you could just chat or watch twitch/LPs and your fav YT celeb, while staying social on facebook / snapchat / instagram / etc at the same time?

While there are plenty of girls who like the exact same things boys do (and vica versa), it would be foolish imo to try and convince all girls to like the current crop of male-driven games. Mobile games already are heavily female driven in players and marketing, and it makes more sense to grow from there. I don't know if women want to buy a console and play it on TV or PC, but I think something that enhances a mobile game experience - maybe cast from mobile to HDMI, or more 2 or 3 player local + online mobile gaming - would be a great starting place, since just about everyone has a mobile phone that gets upgraded every 18-24 months now.

The industry eventually feeds on itself, when publishers notice 80% of new game buyers are all the same demo then of course they will cater hardcore to that. Splatoon selling 5m sales worldwide is great, but that is absolutely dwarfed by GTA 5 at 60m or Black Ops 3 at 20m.
 
M

Mesoian

Member
gafneo said:
Yes their are tons of female gaming communities, but you can't deny most console and PC games are targeted mainly towards men. When you look at lines at Gamestop or at E3, what are you mostly seeing? We have AAA funding going towards things like Gears of War and Uncharted. Both games that are introducing a lot of female characters. Yet you know as well as I do that the balls to the wall fast action gunplay is mainly to incite male testosterone. Do companies really not know how to please a women? Is it that they think all they want is touch and tap, pay to win?

The music, movie, and book industry got it right. Somehow comics and gaming is constantly refereed to as a male dominated culture.

I will agree with anyone who says that geek and sporting culture is comprised mostly of men. It's not that women don't share the same excitement for these type of things. It's kind of like an out of place feeling they get. Maybe it's the slobbering behavior of men, or the contrast of products on the market. Whatever the case may be, it would be nice if we could get rid of the stigma surrounding gaming.
Click to expand...

Very pointed gender based marketing for children under the age of 12. Toys with a basis for nurturing and rearing were for girls, toys with a basis in competition and aggression were for boys. While there is a bit of cross over here and there (my buddy, harvest moon), it doesn't change the fact that the realm of video game has always been considered something for boys and not girls. Even as we move into a more progressive scene where games are more accessible for all walks of life, the marketing for those same games are usually testosterone filled and geared towards adolescent males, simply due to the fact that doing so is easier.

A lot of modern day advertising for games reminds me of Stu Snyder's refusal to bankroll things that weren't made in order sell toys, often times slashing budgets and cancelling projects if the "wrong" demographic ended up flocking to the "wrong" product (The old teen titans, young justice). It's sort of why indie devs are in such an interesting position right now. When you have to market yourself, you're less likely to misrepresent your product, even if that means not hitting the traditional market share, which often times means you can get a large chunk of a different market or demographic.

NoblesseOblige said:
You can blame Nintendo for this one.
Click to expand...

Eh. Everyone was pretty guilty of it in the mid 90's, early aughts. I mean...stuff like this was pretty regular and virtually everywhere that games existed.(NSFW btw)
 
M

Mesoian

Member
Raist said:
Tell me why women can't have fun playing Gears or Uncharted etc.
Click to expand...

They totally can. But that doesn't change the fact that, at the end of the day, every single piece of marketing for those games is going to be geared at 12-28 year old boys.

If there are girls and women who enjoy those games, from a pure marketing standpoint, it is nothing more than a happy coincidence. But 90% of the time, women aren't even a consideration when it comes time to sell your game.

It's one of the big lessons the industry is going to have to learn. Just having a female protag doesn't mean the game is geared towards women or has female appeal.
 
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