Support NeoGAF

[Victor Omega]

I have no data to back this, and if there is id be curious to see for an open mind.

With all of the inclusion we see in gaming: female protagonist, female inclusive story narratives, etc, which have all been suggested to help "bring girls to the gaming industry", I find that, being less of an impact.

I feel that the bigger drive, which isn't even a target to a specific gamers, more egalitarian, is games have become generally more easier.

Video games are also more accessible. Even PC gaming, at the higher end, is far more accessible to everyone that years agoe which allows girl to organically.

 

[Deft Beck]

Game difficulty is less relevant to attracting female games than subject matter and types of play.

 

[justiceiro]

Picking Jill in resident evil 1 was clearly the easy mode.

 

[Soltype]

I think video games being easier, more forgiving and generally less strange has made the medium more popular with everyone, men and women.

 

[Bond007]

I think it has more to do with the generation of millennials bringing games along.
My dad called everything Nintendo @ 30.

I'm 38 and still playing with no stop coming- just less time.
30-40yr olds have made gaming mainstream- and all genders are coming up on it. Its only going to grow as us older games are more open and receptive to letting our kids of all genders play.

 

[StueyDuck]

It's simple really. Game companies/publishers want the most money possible.

It's more likely a woman will play a game because of a female protag than a male. Where as men don't really actually give a fuck (don't fall for the fake narrative that all men hate women grrr men bad, it's nonsense, most men dont actually care).

So making a female lead you have more potential sales than a male lead, at least that is what the research probably shows by these companies which is definitely happening behind the scenes.

 

[Rawbutt Jellybean]

I think mobile games have been a big part of it as well as a cheap/free entry point for getting into the hobby.

 

[alucard0712_rus]

We are used to controls but girls don't?

 

[cash_longfellow]

It’s about money and nothing else. Inclusion exists in video games because gaming demographics are different now. If companies didn’t think it would make them a profit, they wouldn’t do it…although I personally believe forced inclusion does the opposite and drives more people away than anything.

 

[TerribleAtThisGame]

It has to do with social perception and marketing more than anything in my opinion. Video games were mainly marketed as a boy's toy specifically. Especially in the 90s when the entire landscape around gaming was "teenage edgy male nerd".

Nintendo didn't really go that route and I know several women who are way into gaming but it's Nintendo specifically.

Again, in my opinion. That seems logical to me. The difficulty thing makes little sense to me and sounds neckbeard-y to me.

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

Men have become...

 

[Loomy]

I have no data to back this

You should have stopped there lol

 

[WitchHunter]

I have no data to back this, and if there is id be curious to see for an open mind.

With all of the inclusion we see in gaming: female protagonist, female inclusive story narratives, etc, which have all been suggested to help "bring girls to the gaming industry", I find that, being less of an impact.

I feel that the bigger drive, which isn't even a target to a specific gamers, more egalitarian, is games have become generally more easier.

Video games are also more accessible. Even PC gaming, at the higher end, is far more accessible to everyone that years agoe which allows girl to organically.

Women have vastly different interests than men. Which games have a higher female player base than men? The Sims for example. So if you want more women in gaming, make games for them and don't try to include them into playing Call of Duty, by putting a female, but actually behaving like a male, kinda protagonist, coz they won't enjoy the violence, no matter what.

Who watches female mma fights? 90% men...

 

[Magic Carpet]

I saw some study that girl gamers will overwhemingly choose a female character to play close to 100 percent of the time. But boy gamers will choose a female character closer to 50 percent of the time.
It's an issue for games like Overwatch where they have to add more female characters to the roster than male. Don't know if it's still true or ever was, but I read it somewhere.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

I can tell you that the Nintendo Switch is far more popular with women in family than PlayStation or Xbox consoles.

Games like Mario Party and Mario Kart have very low thresholds for entry.

I think a lot of people want to gatekeep when it comes to gaming, but we all generally benefit when the medium grows. Lack of growth while costs increase are reasons the industry turns to things like MTX, DLC, and GaaS.

People also forget that many of us have been gaming since we were 5 years old. We've got muscle memory and coordination down over the course of decades, while many female gamers have not had that exposure.

No one in my family stands a chance against me in Street Fighter and I was never more than an average or above average player in the game and fell off after Street Fighter Alpha 3, but if I were to play any of them in Street Fighter 6, I assume I'd still demolish them.

We also have to remember that we didn't start gaming in 9th generation of gaming. Most of us started in the 2nd generation. The evolution of controls has been natural for us, while they've had to dive in the deep end. When I started gaming there was a directional pad and two buttons.

That being said, representation matters too. My female family members? They like to use Princess Peach and Daisy.

I think Microsoft and Sony could do A LOT better on both fronts, but I also wish we would get better entries than MJ in Spider-Man and 2 and a game that didn't play like Naruto Shippuden. I think they could have implemented some of the same levels but with Black Cat and they could have had two control modes, basic and advanced.

 

[MirageMew2]

Women have vastly different interests than men. Which games have a higher female player base than men? The Sims for example. So if you want more women in gaming, make games for them and don't try to include them into playing Call of Duty, by putting a female, but actually behaving like a male, kinda protagonist, coz they won't enjoy the violence, no matter what.

Who watches female mma fights? 90% men...

doesn’t Valorant have a famously high female player base? Lmao

 

[killatopak]

I personally think it’s more of a societal acceptance.

Playing games, watching anime and cartoons used to be for nerds, geeks and children in the eyes of a vast majority of people. It’s a form of gatekeeping that resulted in some form of being seen as an outcast. Those activities are now mainstream enough that it’s hard to see people being alienated when asked what their hobbies or interests are.

 

[Dick Jones]

Picking Jill in resident evil 1 was clearly the easy mode.

Maybe if that meathead Chris spent more time learning how to lockpick and learning how to count past 6, both would be the easy mode.

I do actually agree with you though. I always picked Jill until I was confident enough of what I was doing. Same for Remake I.

 

[Pelta88]

I will forever be perplexed at how gender and race become such important topics amongst a certain segment of gamers. Especially since the character in question doesn't actually exist.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Women have vastly different interests than men. Which games have a higher female player base than men? The Sims for example. So if you want more women in gaming, make games for them and don't try to include them into playing Call of Duty, by putting a female, but actually behaving like a male, kinda protagonist, coz they won't enjoy the violence, no matter what.

Who watches female mma fights? 90% men...

Girls play CoD. They play the same mainstream casual online shooters that guys do.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

I saw some study that girl gamers will overwhemingly choose a female character to play close to 100 percent of the time. But boy gamers will choose a female character closer to 50 percent of the time.
It's an issue for games like Overwatch where they have to add more female characters to the roster than male. Don't know if it's still true or ever was, but I read it somewhere.

It's probably why so many of Sony's characters have been female as of late:

• Returnal
• Horizon Zero Dawn and Forbidden West
• The Last of Us Part 2
• Gravity Rush
• Spider-Man 1 and 2 (Mary Jane Watson)

Men will still buy and play games with female leads, but they know fewer women will play games with male leads.

I do think this is a bit misplaced as someone mentioned. That ultimately more games like the Sims and Animal Crossing is what will ultimately attract more female gamers.

I think the balance of it is probably why a game like Hogwarts Legacy was so successful by allowing you to create your own character.

It's something Nintendo has been cognizant about with the Pokemon games as well.

 

[WitchHunter]

Girls play CoD. They play the same mainstream casual online shooters that guys do.

Also girls play football and mma, but not the average girls.

 

[Fredrik]

Game difficulty is less relevant to attracting female games than subject matter and types of play.

I could never pinpoint what the subject or game type or difficulty should be.

A woman at work beat Margit in Elden Ring third attempt at a lower level than me. Never even played a Souls game before.

Cousin is a core RPG gamer who make mods, I always feel like a noob talking to her.

And my wife’s PC RPGs and strategy games makes my brain hurt from all the figures I need to keep track of.

I don’t know, I think people can like and be good at any game no matter the gender.

I don’t know any women who’re into old school shmups though. But could just be me not knowing anyone with a taste for those games or maybe those games are just too old.

 

[bender]

Must find Girl and...

 

[WitchHunter]

Girls play CoD. They play the same mainstream casual online shooters that guys do.

Grannies also play cod.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

I personally think it’s more of a societal acceptance.

Playing games, watching anime and cartoons used to be for nerds, geeks and children in the eyes of a vast majority of people. It’s a form of gatekeeping that resulted in some form of being seen as an outcast. Those activities are now mainstream enough that it’s hard to see people being alienated when asked what their hobbies or interests are.

AoT I believe has a surprisingly large percentage of female viewers, but the show has also done a really good job at creating female characters.

You look back in the day at like Dragon Ball Z and it didn't really have great female characters. You could argue that Bulma was a genius inventor, but her role was pretty limited, especially after Dragon Ball. So was chi-chi.

If you look at something like Sailor Moon. I bet the viewership was at least 40 percent male.

Things are changing really quickly and some of the largest anime appeals to women. Haikyu, My Hero, Spy Family.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Also girls play football and mma, but not the average girls.

I don’t understand what you’re saying? They’re predominantly male sports, but there’s loads of female fans. Especially football.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Grannies also play cod.

Yes. The ultra hardcore shooter that only appeals to a select few.

I know of a granny that’s a bigger Skyrim fan than anyone.

 

[SleepySlippy]

Another fact: Other hobbies that girls do more than before are reading, DIY, gardening, drawing or painting.

Another opinion: these hobbies must be easier today than yesterday.

I have no data to back this, but I have the feeling that sexism has not diminished among men... edit: and, ironically, among women.

 

[Dutchy]

I made a 'clan' on Halo 3 a while back that was solely meant to help lesser experienced players with the game's brutal MMR. Wasn't until several weeks later that I found out that the majority is female. Two of which are in their 50's. Gotta say they're a lot more fun to play with than the average dude

 

[ReBurn]

I don't think that the number of girls who game is increasing as much as the number of girls who are asked whether they game is increasing.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

I don’t understand what you’re saying? They’re predominantly male sports, but there’s loads of female fans. Especially football.

I would posit that the cross-section of real core football fans AND are gamers AND are gamers who want to play sports games AND are female is a pretty small number.

There are all sorts of levels to being a sports fan.

Casual fan who watches occasionally
Casual fan who watches their favorite team
Fan who watches football regardless of who is playing
Fan who watches football and probably gambles on games

One thing that has gotten women more interested in football has been fantasy football, but I don't think it's really about the football.

It's going to be a much bigger leap to get them playing madden, especially since the game is trash now, but also because the barriers of entry are high.

 

[AGRacing]

Tomb Raider dev said it best “I’d rather stare at a woman’s ass for 20 hours. The character takes 1/3 of the screen.” (I’m paraphrasing).

I never minded playing as a female until the odd one started trying to educate me on what a misogynistic ass I obviously was.

 

[killatopak]

AoT I believe has a surprisingly large percentage of female viewers, but the show has also done a really good job at creating female characters.

You look back in the day at like Dragon Ball Z and it didn't really have great female characters. You could argue that Bulma was a genius inventor, but her role was pretty limited, especially after Dragon Ball. So was chi-chi.

If you look at something like Sailor Moon. I bet the viewership was at least 40 percent male.

Things are changing really quickly and some of the largest anime appeals to women. Haikyu, My Hero, Spy Family.

That’s because Shounen anime really was marketed very firmly towards shounen/boys. Nowadays however shounen can easily cross over gender. Shoujo anime was really popular back then at least in my circle. We watched Fushigi Yugi, Magic Knight Rayearth and Card Captor Sakura.

Example of some anime back then that crossed gender was Yugi-oh and Pokemon. I had a lot of female classmates at gradeschool that were such yugi-oh buffs. The older guys was more into Magic the Gathering which lacked cross media popularity and seems to be majority men. Digimon cards seems to be more appealing to men. The ultra, mega evolutions and the designs appeal a lot towards boys. It looks and sounds cool.

 

[GrayChild]

Conspiracy theory: There have been more female leads lately due to how nude mods increase the popularity of the games having them.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

It’s about money and nothing else. Inclusion exists in video games because gaming demographics are different now. If companies didn’t think it would make them a profit, they wouldn’t do it…although I personally believe forced inclusion does the opposite and drives more people away than anything.

That comes down to how you're defining forced inclusion.

Both Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel both generated massive sums at the box office. Wonder Woman generated over 800 million, while Captain Marvel generated over a billion.

Their sequels however were both bombs.

Were the first movies inclusion and the sequels forced inclusion? Or were the sequels just bad movies?

I think bad writing and production can lack subtlety and depth and that's perceived as forced, but if you look at other aspects of the production they're probably equally bad.

I can't remember the last great production of anything where I thought, this was a masterpiece except for the bits of forced inclusion. And then you can watch something like Star Trek Discovery which was a poor overall result and the inclusion was also poorly handled, but that wasn't the only element that was hamfisted.

 

[Tangerine]

Bitches be shopping.

That's the reason... I think.

 

[HL3.exe]

It's not about difficulty, it's (like everything) about money and growth.

Diversifying your business and including/catering to more groups of people = more revenue. And I don't see any problems with, unless you want to gatekeep.

I could even argue that game difficulty even has gone up since the PS360 days. It ironic that the peak days of 'bro-culture' in gaming had the most casual friendly difficulty. I remember playing everything on hard in that era just to get a decent challenge.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

That’s because Shounen anime really was marketed very firmly towards shounen/boys. Nowadays however shounen can easily cross over gender. Shoujo anime was really popular back then at least in my circle. We watched Fushigi Yugi, Magic Knight Rayearth and Card Captor Sakura.

Example of some anime back then that crossed gender was Yugi-oh and Pokemon. I had a lot of female classmates at gradeschool that were such yugi-oh buffs. The older guys was more into Magic the Gathering which lacked cross media popularity and seems to be majority men. Digimon cards seems to be more appealing to men. The ultra, mega evolutions and the designs appeal a lot towards boys. It looks and sounds cool.

Which is interesting because I'd say Digimon probably did more to be inclusive and gender balanced than anything yu-gi-oh did.

Even the digi-eggs seem to have been a call back to tomagatchi which was really popular with girls.

 

[SmokedMeat]

I would posit that the cross-section of real core football fans AND are gamers AND are gamers who want to play sports games AND are female is a pretty small number.

There are all sorts of levels to being a sports fan.

Casual fan who watches occasionally
Casual fan who watches their favorite team
Fan who watches football regardless of who is playing
Fan who watches football and probably gambles on games

One thing that has gotten women more interested in football has been fantasy football, but I don't think it's really about the football.

It's going to be a much bigger leap to get them playing madden, especially since the game is trash now, but also because the barriers of entry are high.

I think most fans are fans of their home team. Fantasy football has made following other teams you normally wouldn’t care about, more fun. That’s anyone, not just male/female.

If the female audience has grown, it’s likely that they grew up in households where football was a big deal. They became fans of the sport. That or they got in a relationship with someone that enjoys it, and it stuck with them.

 

[Crayon]

All my life, girls would go straight to a female character if given the choice.

 

[Sethbacca]

I think it has more to do with the generation of millennials bringing games along.
My dad called everything Nintendo @ 30.

I'm 38 and still playing with no stop coming- just less time.
30-40yr olds have made gaming mainstream- and all genders are coming up on it. Its only going to grow as us older games are more open and receptive to letting our kids of all genders play.

I lean toward this being the one that most closely aligning with my own opinion. I'm 43 and when I was a kid it was only the nerdy indoor kids who played games, and it definitely wasn't popular like it is today. Our generation mainstreamed videogames to the point where they're at today.

 

[cash_longfellow]

That comes down to how you're defining forced inclusion.

Both Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel both generated massive sums at the box office. Wonder Woman generated over 800 million, while Captain Marvel generated over a billion.

Their sequels however were both bombs.

Were the first movies inclusion and the sequels forced inclusion? Or were the sequels just bad movies?

I think bad writing and production can lack subtlety and depth and that's perceived as forced, but if you look at other aspects of the production they're probably equally bad.

I can't remember the last great production of anything where I thought, this was a masterpiece except for the bits of forced inclusion. And then you can watch something like Star Trek Discovery which was a poor overall result and the inclusion was also poorly handled, but that wasn't the only element that was hamfisted.

My idea of forced inclusion is forcing a certain type of character, whether it be race, sex, orientation, etc. where it doesn’t fit. An example is The Little Mermaid newer movie. I am all for choice in video games, and like diversity in movies, etc…but I’m not okay with forcing a certain type of character into anything just to try to appease certain groups of people. That’s like trying to make another Black Panther movie with a white main character now. I know both of my examples are race based, but it goes for sex based as well in my mind. Hawaii 5-0, Hannibal, Jessica Jones…all examples of “gender swapping”, and unnecessarily forced inclusion.

 

[ResurrectedContrarian]

In third-person games with behind-the-character camera, female characters are... not always there to appeal to women in the first place

 

[Mister Wolf]

They're going after the female dollar as women are the largest group of spenders in our country. Largest holders of debt as well. Their strategy is no different than the movie industry, comic book industry, and other forms of entertainment media.

 

[Krappadizzle]

Men in general are weaker and less masculine across the board.

But I think that in gaming's case, it's more to do with just giving us something different; and the fact that women make up such a large percentage of the gamer market, it makes sense to try and grab that audience. We've had decades of hyper-masculine dudes doing the same shit forever, we're still gonna get more of those types of stories/tropes in general moving forward, I don't mind it being switched up.

I just don't want it to be pandering. The "Strong Yaaasss-Queen Future is Female" type shit is so obnoxious and instantly turns me off. The whole "female empowerment" trope in general is getting tiring. We've got so many great examples of strong female characters that don't pander or take shit and still come across as believable women.

Give us more Ellen Ripley and less Abigail "Abby" Anderson.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

My idea of forced inclusion is forcing a certain type of character, whether it be race, sex, orientation, etc. where it doesn’t fit. An example is The Little Mermaid newer movie. I am all for choice in video games, and like diversity in movies, etc…but I’m not okay with forcing a certain type of character into anything just to try to appease certain groups of people. That’s like trying to make another Black Panther movie with a white main character now. I know both of my examples are race based, but it goes for sex based as well in my mind. Hawaii 5-0, Hannibal, Jessica Jones…all examples of “gender swapping”, and unnecessarily forced inclusion.

Think you have to open up a bit.

In Ancient Greece, females were so excluded that the roles of female parts went to men.

Your example of the Little Mermaid was a poor one and really not in line with Black Panther.

It's like saying James Bond has to be Scottish and have brown hair. Was it forced inclusion to have Daniel Craig play him? It seems really interesting where we want to draw the lines, but I'm going to leave it there as I don't think it's prudent to keep discussing this in this forum.

 

[Killjoy-NL]

I think it has more to do with male feminism.
More girls getting into games is just a side-effect.

 

[Monserrat]

Game corpos are terrified of losing women to social media, and they want a positive equality index for financial credit.

 

[Jigsaah]

I believe the interest of girls getting into gaming is a combination of games becoming less of a stigma in today's society and the draw of them being able to monetize/capitalize on their own novelty.

What do women crave? At the risk of sounding misogynistic, financial stability and attention....am I right? Well yea, there's that. However, I think there's abit more to it. Girls finally woke up after realizing there's something to the boys splitting said attention between them and games. Also I believe a generation of gamers had daughters and got them into games.

Honestly, I think the only reason they aren't in the majority is because the boys have such a headstart.