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[cormack12]

Curious as to all the articles about girls playing video games. When I was growing up, it was definitely a boys thing with Champ Managers, Goldeneye, NES etc. to sit with your mates and play round, while sisters would often play with dolls, play house and more practical games with catalogue toys. I don't have kids, but I've seen a lot of posts about girls playing Roblox, golf with friends, minecraft as well as Fortnite etc. am wondering if nowadays girls are generally playing more video games, or still more interested in tiktok, instagram, messenger etc. Do they still prefer practical physical toys? Do they get interested in the mainstream game titles as well?

Does the faact they have video game informed parents allow that hobby to flourish rather than be stamped out by parents who don't want their little girls playing with boys toys?

 

[reezoo]

Father of son (7 years) and daughter (11 years). Due to my personal habbits both kids got interested in gaming. Son is super invested in Zelda right now and can kill any enemy in botw without taking a hit including all types of Lynels. Daughter, initially she showed interest, but started to loose it for some reason which I am still not able to pinpoint. I also bought few games which I thought she may be more interested as she watched the videos of reviews I played on YT like mario party, overcook (not becuase she is a girl but because of family activity), moving out etc. but I have noticed as she is growing older she is showing less and less interests. She does join us in our diablo sessions sometimes. I tried to get her interested in botw but she gets intimidated due to enemy encounters and sort of panic/give up. Still trying to figure out why there is this difference between two kids. She is more invested in group activities with her friends and none of her firends are gamer as far as i know.

Gaming itself I have found as a good hobby to have as for me it has acted as a stress reliever, passing through difficult times and also saved me from getting into some dodgy stuff. Thought it might be good for them also to spend sometime.

 

[Hendrick's]

Mine plays Sims, Minecraft, and now Ooblets.

 

[sonomamashine]

Mine plays Sims, Minecraft, and now Ooblets.

Give them a Nintendo.

 

[Nico_D]

Absolutely. She is 14 now and plays almost all the RPGs I can find and play myself. We are also playing Splinter Cell co op campaigns together. My son hasn't moved unto more adult games yet even though we three played Diablo 3 together a while back.

 

[Lupin3]

Yes. She plays Mario Kart, Smash Bros, Kirby, Mario Odyssey, Yoshi and more. She's 3.

 

[Sethbacca]

I have an 18 year old daughter. She grew up on Nintendo franchises playing Mario Kart and all that type of thing with me and graduated to GTA, Overwatch and all that. Her tastes aren't too far off from my own really.

 

[Exede]

My kids (she 13, he 11) both play games equally. She likes to play Animal Crossing, Pokemon, Street Fighter V (which my son hates with passion), RPGs etc etc. My son is into Overwatch and whatever Roblox is...

 

[The Rain King]

Yeah. All of them do.

 

[16bitwarzvet]

sorta...I have a 5 year old boy who enjoys playing the Farming simulator games and can hold is on with Sonic 2. My 6 year old girl goes through phases but I bought her Animal Crossing and she loves playing that...though she wants me to do all the grinding where she can just buy whatever she wants.

 

[Cock of War]

6 year old daughter:
Minecraft (better than me), Mario Odyssey, Kirby, Gangbeasts, N++, Let's Dance, Snake Pass, Snake Rivals and on occasion Roblox. Loves to watch me play stuff like Cities: Skylines and Dragon Quest XI.

13 year old daughter:
Sims 4, Minecraft, Overcooked 1 & 2, Minecraft, N++, Let's Dance, some sort of life simulator on her IPhone and Mario Odyssey. Also leaning more into tiktok, youtube etc.

Only issue we've had is Roblox and the 6 year old. It was becoming too much of an obsession for her and affecting her temper, so we've limited her time on that.

 

[TheContact]

Yeah my 6yo daughter loves to play Minecraft, Mario Kart, Mario side scrollers, and she "plays" WoW, by that I mean likes to make characters and run around and explore, but doesn't do any of the quests because her reading level isn't quite there yet

 

[JonnyMP3]

My daughters are gamers. They have the Roblox love but also various other weird games like Slime Ranchers and Hello Neighbour... They love the Switch and the cartoony Nintendo style.
And I thank Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare for getting them into shooters too!

 

[lock2k]

My 6 year old doesn't really play games because she gets frustrated quickly with the controls. However, she is really invested into game universes and she knows all the characters and stuff. The interest in the hobby is clearly there, but she still doesn't have the patience to sit and play anything and she prefers to watch me play and pick characters for me, etcetera. She is now in love with Tekken mainly because of Kuma and Panda. She is really into Blanka (Street Fighter) and she loves stuff like Bomberman (because he looks robot like), Megaman (robot), Sonic and Mario, anything involving Mechas and anything Lego (because she is a lego freak and plays with legos all day). She isn't really into a lot of girly stuff (the girliest thing she likes is Lego Friends) and she has no interest in things like Frozen (her birthday was Teen Titans themed). She also likes anything side-scroller and she promptly identifies 2d side scroller stuff as videogames.

 

[llien]

Son (7) daughter (13) both game.
Boy is more into competitive/fighting stuff, girl tends to like stuff like "animal crossing" more, is much more skilled then myself or son at reaction/timing based stuff (e.g. Raymen). I've never won a single game of "rayman football" against her, although I've tried it many times.

Both kids stick with their gender when choosing avatars, dislike it, when there is no choice.

 

[iconmaster]

Two of my three daughters are avid gamers and the third at least dabbles. I don't think it's because I've forced my interests on them; they've just been exposed to the medium and gravitated toward certain games. Minecraft and Animal Crossing are almost not worth mentioning at this point; so I'll note they both love Breath of the Wild and my middle daughter is working on beating the final boss in Octopath Traveller -- a game I gave up on for being too tough.

 

[phil_t98]

I have 2 Daughters, they both play Fortnite,Minecraft and mario kart amongst other games

 

[lock2k]

Two of my three daughters are avid gamers and the third at least dabbles. I don't think it's because I've forced my interests on them; they've just been exposed to the medium and gravitated toward certain games. Minecraft and Animal Crossing are almost not worth mentioning at this point; so I'll note they both love Breath of the Wild and my middle daughter is working on beating the final boss in Octopath Traveller -- a game I gave up on for being too tough.

It's interesting how that happens.

I don't force anything as well but my daughter sometimes grabs old gaming magazines and she starts looking at them and asking me about the characters. It's absolutely true, being exposed and showing interest in the parts that she finds cool, stuff like that. I love to observe and see what she is into, etc. One of those was Megaman. She found Megaman on a magazine and asked me to play the game. Then, she asked me to find the old cartoon and she became a fan. It's so cool.

 

[tkscz]

Yes she does, just not with her little brother. Lately it's been mostly VRChat, Roblox and Gary' Mod. But when her brother isn't bugging her she'll play the Switch.

 

[Kuranghi]

Not a parent, but I'm a cool uncle, suck it mums and dads!

My name is also Ben so I'm Uncle Ben which is funny/tragic depending on how things go: I'm keeping an eye on her to make sure she doesn't become a super heroine and get me killed.

My neice, who is 6, is pretty into Nintendo Switch after I took it round a few times, she phoned me before bed the other day to ask me to bring round the Switch when I came over so we could finish The Stretchers and Abzu and maybe try some Good Job!

I don't think I really need to do too much encouragement, she really likes it. Controller is a bit too hard for her just now because she can't practice when I'm not there, but I'm trying to get my sister to get one for her. Maybe I'll just buy it on a whim, parents love Uncles doing that with games consoles, right?

 

[xXRedxSlugXx]

I own about every well known system and a PC so my daughter (8 years old) was bound to have some interest in games.

She really loves playing stuff on her switch like Dragon Quest Builders 2 and Minecraft, but she has also beat Super Mario Odyssey and a handful of other games.

After I built my new PC recently, I cleaned up my old parts so they were like new and built a custom case for them and let her have own gaming PC which shes really enjoying. Shes been excited to play more stuff like I play. So the first "grown up game" I've let her play is Halo Master Chief Collection. So we've been going through that together on PC and shes been having a blast.

 

[AgentP]

My 12 year old plays Sims 4, Minecraft, Roblox and Animal Crossing. My 16 year old plays very little, but she did play a bunch of Animal Crossing.

 

[Ornlu]

My 14 yr old and 9 yr old play Minecraft, Wii, and Super Nintendo games. The 14 yr old isn't interested in much beyond Minecraft, but the 9 yr old is like a scary smart female version of me and is down with all sorts of games.

 

[ThatStupidLion]

im more interested to hear about daughters who's parents arent nerds that have grown up gaming since the 70s/80s and belong to an uber niche gaming forum

 

[jshackles]

My daughter (now 24!) grew up playing tons of games. Predominantly single player games. She loves dinosaurs, so she played a lot of stuff like Zoo Tycoon with the dinosaur expansion and Jurassic Park Operation Genesis - and later games like LEGO Jurassic World. She also played a lot of games like Oblivion and Left 4 Dead when she was a young teen. She also really enjoyed games like Dishonored, Prototype, Assasin's Creed, and The Darkness when she got a bit older. If I told her she had to play "girl games" or only be interested in Minecraft or mobile games, that would have probably hurt her feelings and it definitely would have been a dick move on my part. It's absolutely okay for girls to like what they like, same with boys.

But she's also a gamer at heart like I am, so she's into a wide variety of game types and genres. My wife just got her Animal Crossing and they've been playing that together.

 

[lock2k]

im more interested to hear about daughters who's parents arent nerds that have grown up gaming since the 70s/80s and belong to an uber niche gaming forum

You do have a point but... at the same time... growing up around certain things is not a guarantee you'll be interested in them.

I was interested in my mom's music but my tastes never matched my father. I feel like I'm from a completely different world than he is. And my daughter is surprisingly very much like me. I think it varies from person to person. So, even if the sons and daughters of people in this forum are influenced by their parents, sometimes, there will be a one person here who has a son, or daughter, who doesn't want to game or that games but in a very casual level. People are different and sometimes the environment plays a huge part, sometimes it doesn't influence the person at all.

My daughter (now 24!) grew up playing tons of games. Predominantly single player games. She loves dinosaurs, so she played a lot of stuff like Zoo Tycoon with the dinosaur expansion and Jurassic Park Operation Genesis - and later games like LEGO Jurassic World. She also played a lot of games like Oblivion and Left 4 Dead when she was a young teen. She also really enjoyed games like Dishonored, Prototype, Assasin's Creed, and The Darkness when she got a bit older. If I told her she had to play "girl games" or only be interested in Minecraft or mobile games, that would have probably hurt her feelings and it definitely would have been a dick move on my part. It's absolutely okay for girls to like what they like, same with boys.

But she's also a gamer at heart like I am, so she's into a wide variety of game types and genres. My wife just got her Animal Crossing and they've been playing that together.

My daughter is a huge fan of anything Dinosaur and I never knew Zoo Tycoon had something like that. Will try it

And I agree with that last sentence wholeheartedly.

 

[ItsGreat]

My 8 year old daughter can beat Lynels and is very close to the getting the motorcycle. Yay!

She also plays a lot of Roblox as well. Boo!

 

[MrS]

If your six year old daughter can't beat Sword Saint Isshin is she really a gamer?