/ Xeni Jardin / 12:33 pm Mon Aug 9, 2010

Who spends the most time in online gaming? (Surprise: Your mom.)

From the New York Times, a stat sure to shock the misogynist trolls that swarm gaming sites: "Women [...] outpace men in photo sharing and shopping, and in what may come as a surprise, gaming, favoring casual puzzle, card and board games. Female gamers over 55 spend the most time online gaming of any demographic by far and are nearly as common as the most represented group, males 15 to 24." Granted, we may be talking Farmville, not Call of Duty, but still...

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  1. Ignoring the “mysogynist” bait and why anyone would think it is a shock that women play casual games, the statistic in this article I’m most shocked by is the 1/3 of women online who visit porn sites.

  2. no surprise to this mum! These days I’m more of a kongregate fan than a raid leader, but that’s more because you buggers still won’t help with the housework. >.>

  3. Betty White sniped me in Call of Duty once. I didn’t even realize I was playing a WWII combat game against older women until I heard some Grandma’s voice chirp: “Oh! My husband was in this battle!”

    1. That was just a mp3. Some 15 year old taped his Grandma saying it and plays it regularly so you freeze out of shock and then get scragged.

    1. Farmville isn’t a “game”.

      There is one sentence prominently displayed on the home page of the Farmville web site. It reads “Farmville is a game where you can farm with your friends.”

      Take it up with them.

  5. In digital marketing, this is something we have known for quite a while. It is almost impossible to convince a number of our clients of this fact, however.

  6. I’m pretty sure most of these ‘gaming trolls’ would simply dismiss it totally by saying that Farmville or Solitaire don’t count.

  7. I used to be in the gaming industry, and regularly attended GDC (Game Developers Conference) for several years.

    In general, game developers where young males who were in to “hardcore games” –FPS’s and the like — and tended to define games in that way. They had a real blind spot about what just a game was.

    But when you opened up your definition of games to include, well, you know, games, even back at that time (2000-2005) the data were very clear that the demographics for games was much less age- and gender-limited than the developers and game makers thought.

    I don’t think there was any misogyny, though, just the human propensity to project your own experience and desires onto others. The (minority) women game developers seemed to have the same kind of blind spots, as they too were most into hardcore games.

    As for misogengy on game sites; don’t go to them, don’t know. I am so glad to be out of that industry. I never really liked computer games…

  8. I commented anonymously but got impatient and registered.I’ve been gaming since Pong, and while I don’t play it any more my EQ character would be 12 next year. I’ve met metric arsetonnes of other women playing MMOs in particular. I used to go round to other girls houses as a teenager to play crappy racing games on the spectrum. These days though, casual games fit my lifestyle better with the heavy caring demands of family and high stress levels + interruptions, so you’re more likely to find me faffing with tower defence than spending days on Fallout or something. My WoW days are definitely behind me.

  9. My mother, 53, discovered Bejeweled on Facebook a few months ago, and played it daily for about three months. She is someone who strongly dislikes games in general. In fact the only other game I ever remember her actually playing and enjoying is Tetris. (She does love to brag that she once killed Bowser by shutting off our NES after we refused to come and help with the dishes.)

    Some games can reach an almost universal appeal, and usually the simplest concepts do the trick.

    As a female gamer myself, I tend to gravitate towards games that require strategy more than hand-eye coordination. Which most of the time means RPGs, casual games, or puzzle games.

    1. “As a female gamer myself, I tend to gravitate towards games that require strategy more than hand-eye coordination.”

      Hmm, I never thought of the divide that way, but I’m actually the same. Thanks! Now I can explain it more neatly to people.

      I keep telling my boyfriend I have no interest in FPSs, nothing against them, I’d just rather spend my time *not* being endlessly frustrated by my lack of co-ordination, but he’s convinced that I just need to find the “right one.” (I also dislike most horror films, which eliminates a lot of more dramatic but scary FPSs.) Oh well.

      It’s funny — my boyfriend has a significant bias *against* RPGs, because he doesn’t find the simple “point and click” mechanic challenging enough. I wonder if we can form a contentious debate about whether RPGs should constitute “games” if Farmville can’t?

    2. Another gamer chick here who started out on a Pong box so many, many years ago

      “As a female gamer myself, I tend to gravitate towards games that require strategy more than hand-eye coordination. Which most of the time means RPGs, casual games, or puzzle games.”
      Yep, that would be a “me too!”. RPG has always been my favorite genre in games. I love casual games… just sit down and have a short game session whenever you feel like it. But I get too addicted to them, so I have to stay away. I had to go cold turkey on Tetris because I was getting carpal tunnel syndrome and I need to be able to type (I’m a coder). I currently have time for only one game addiction, so WoW is my poison of choice. :)

      I do sometimes play multiplayer FPS:s, but as cannon fodder as it’s really not where my strength is. I rather play something where I have time to assess the situation, ponder on what is the best way to move forward, and not to just have to instantly see the situation and gogogogo. In WoW terms… love battlegrounds, not arenas, play PVE mostly solo.

      I think that women tend to be more of a dedicated casual players. We may not play a lot, but what we do play we play it more and for a longer time.

  10. This young lady would like to say that not only do I lead raids that are at least half female– my mother does too. (on a different server, thank god.)

    But then again, my guild jokes that the number of girls in a guild is inversely proportional to the number of “misogynist trolls” so really, how would they know we play, if we won’t play with them?

  11. Dismissing Farmville as “not a game” is a mistake. I don’t play, but I see the messaging going on between players on FB. Trust me, some people are putting in as much time and effort as the most powerful WOW guild leader. They organize events, plan for better group farming dynamics,campaign for improvements in rules and trade equipment to make their neighbors farms more viable. I don’t doubt, that for some, there is just as much strategy put into “fertilize my crops” as there is for “raid on a dragon”.

    1. Trust me, some people are putting in as much time and effort as the most powerful WOW guild leader. They organize events, plan for better group farming dynamics,campaign for improvements in rules and trade equipment to make their neighbors farms more viable. I don’t doubt, that for some, there is just as much strategy put into “fertilize my crops” as there is for “raid on a dragon”.

      Time and effort, sure. Strategy? Highly unlikely.
      WoW addons exist that are probably more complex than farmville.

  12. All the gamer trolls I’ve ever seen putting down women do so SPECIFICALLY by saying they play casual online games because the “real” or “serious” gamer games are too much for them. So this is kind of like saying, “despite misogynists claims that women can’t hack it as professional chefs, women do a greater percentage of the home cooking.”

  13. aye! but can they circle-jump?
    I feel that more women could be better at first person shooters. Being able to predict what your opponent is likely to do and imputing that into the formulation of your attack really stimulates all those mirror neurones.
    Gutting it out through a year of being railed by some 14 old on the other side of the map, however, may be a slight impediment to encouraging our slightly less spacio-mechanically aware siblings that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.
    Other than the rail.

  14. This would be the same paper (NYT) that published an article on Sunday “Taliban Kill 10 on Aid Trip in Afghanistan: The military personnel, including six Americans and three women, were shot to death…”

    It seems that Americans and women are different kinds of people.

    1. That’s now how I interpret that statement at all. “10 dead Including six Americans and three women” could mean “four American men, one American woman, two non-american women and three non-American men.”

  15. I play a lot of games, and am an older woman. I actually like FPS, but won’t play them. There is generally a lack of teamwork, and a getting screamed at by 12 year old boys for hours on end during the learning curve period, is not worth getting good enough to get good at it.

    I’ll play solo games instead. I’m not much for MMOs, but I do a lot of RPGs and casual games. I do more casual games when my time limited, but I do longer more “hardcore” games when I have a couple weeks off.

  16. “My mother, 53, discovered Bejeweled on Facebook a few months ago…”

    Yeah finally my mom is starting to see beyond local Freecell and is now playing Zuma’s Revenge on MSN. She is 63. I keep telling her, you can play games like backgammon or cribbage, poker, etc. online, against real people – and it is a lot more fun than playing against the computer.

    “I actually like FPS, but won’t play them. There is generally a lack of teamwork, and a getting screamed at by 12 year old boys for hours on end during the learning curve period, is not worth getting good enough to get good at it.”

    Yeah that is an annoyance for men, too. I remember the days when Quake was new, and people were much more, i dunno – empathetic? People would discuss how to make teams fair (original CTF FTW!) for all of us to enjoy playing. Not so much now. People frequently switch to the winning side, just to be on the winning side, which is cowardly in my mind.

    The amount of anger and envy is also surprising to me. If you kill them, you are cheating. If they kill you, they ask you, “how does my wang feel in your mouth?”

  17. Call of Duty? Maybe not, but Team Fortress 2 has a lot of really avid female players; women are hardly a rare presence in FPS games, either.

  18. Another female gamer chiming in. I play because my mom played. She bought me my first Atari, Nintendo, Playstation, Tomogatchi pet etc. She decimated Zanac for the NES and rocked Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. These days she’s more into Webkinz and Facebook games but only because she doesn’t have the time for more involved games. As for me, I mostly play RPG’s with my husband (WoW, Guild Wars, Final Fantasy etc) but love all genres. My first PC games were Doom, Quake and King’s Quest but now I’ll play anything from Silent Hill, the Sims, Bejeweled, etc. I play at least 25% more than my husband and find that more of our female friends and family play games than their male counterparts. I hope the game industry figures that out soon and starts to make games with women in mind.

  19. I think that a lot of the female “casual” gamers wouldn’t think of themselves that way. They’re not gamers, they just like to play games.

    My mom loves all of the solitaire games on her computer. I installed Bejeweled on her computer, and she played that for hours on end for months. But she’s not a “gamer”.

    There are far too many people who play Farmville. I doubt that even 5% of them would describe themselves as “gamers”. They just log in and spend their turns and log off, and that’s it.

    The sex of the people playing has nothing to do with it. It’s more about “hardcore” versus “casual” gamers. You want to see a “hardcore” gamer’s head explode, talk about how your kids really love playing on “the Wii”.

  20. I could not disagree more, FnordX. I am a “hardcore” gamer (1650+ hours on BF2, closing in on 500 hours on BC2 – rank, 50, 6M+ points) but I believe anyone who plays games on computers are “gamers” – even with respect to “hardcore” gamers who win championships with a simple chess board.

    As far as Farmville, I have never played it, but I thoroughly enjoyed playing Trade Wars just as much as Wolfenstien – and was dedicated to doing my turns in Trade Wars every day.

    As far as the Wii, well, I played with it a bit (gave my cousin’s kids a decked out Wii, that’s what they wanted for Christmas) but I really abhor consoles. It is still a gaming platform.

    I really don’t like how people with set abstract standards expect others to live up to them, yet get pissed when they don’t stand up to the standards others have set.

  21. I wonder if the women are visiting the same popular porn sites or drifting toward the erotica and female-produced stuff. The 1/3 stat doesn’t surprise me at all. I’ll bet it’s a lot higher and some women won’t admit to it on a survey.

    For the record, I would admit to both gaming and an occasional walk through seedier side of the web – and I’m one of those over forty females. No Farmville here, either. ‘Left 4 Dead’ works 4 me, (but not 4chan.)

  22. I’m a veteran game developer here, and I’m intrigued by this topic.

    I realize that the article is referring to the supposedly “fascinating” new statistics about games and gender roles..
    BUT
    Most of this is just obvious and old hat.

    Human beings play games for lots of reasons. We don’t just play games in our childhood and adolescence, but throughout our lives, and for different reasons in different times of our lives. The games we play grow up with us.
    This is partly because we use games for two main purposes: Escape and Modeling.
    We can use games to distract us from our lives by involving us in gratifying narratives, no matter how simple they may be. OR we can use games to challenge us with solving puzzles or completing near impossible tasks, some of which may emulate simplified versions of the real world.

    Whether you are interested in one, the other or aspects of both, you will find that our gender roles will affect both the social acceptability of games, as well as the expectation of the types of games we play.

    It is interesting to me as games make in-roads to the mainstream of popular culture.. are they becoming better and a more diverse and complete medium as games gain a larger market share? Or are they being corrupted and diluted with mass-market drivel?

    Many, many games (FPS/strategy wargames)that people consider “hardcore” are tailor-made to pull the triggers of competitive adrenaline response in young boys.
    Equally tasty in the mind of the marketing department is the simple social climber / slot machine mechanic of Farmville or other casual games.
    Are either of these things wrong or discouraged? Should we as game makers feel pressure to adopt one without the other?

    I’m a concept artist.. should I refrain from drawing big boobs and giant biceps on characters?

  23. Puzzler fan here.

    Actually, the more I think about what I like about gaming (and I’m homebound — I play more than an hour or two most days) I realise how our preferences are molded by our needs and experiences.

    Brainteasers good, Match-3 bad
    3D platforming good, 2D platforming bad.
    Metroid Prime good, WW2 FPS’ bad.
    Adventure and RPGs good, minigames (usually) bad.
    Fight games good, racing cars bad.

    I want games to intrigue and challenge me, and some of the most rewarding moments of my life relate to gaming.

    Like when I finished playing Elebits and realised I had just been tricked into learning how to play an FPS! Or when I fell in love with sandbox-style and cel-shading thanks to Jet Grind Radio on the Dreamcast. Or found out how precise (if punishly difficult) We Cheer really was. Or found out I couldn’t do the next level on Gain Ground cause I had no characters who could reach. Or even the first time I “looped” 2600 Asteroids. (Though it’s amazing to realise now how much time we put into simple arcade experiences)

    TL;DR version:

    Gaming can be transforming, or it can be yet another fragfest, or it can be mindless. The difference is behind the controller.

    –GimpWii

  24. I just don’t think the stat of women playing games isn’t at all new. In the early 90s, there were surveys saying that the primary users of the GameBoy game, Tetris were women. The conclusions the study had come up were quite deliciously sexist: Women are gathers so they play fewer hunter games like Castlevania or Double Dragon.

  25. My work took to a lot of cable head-ends and if a tech was there he likely had the soft-porn channel on (many breasts, hunks, and implied sex). I asked how many subscribers there were? Turned out to be a pay per view. Peak viewing was in the afternoon. Now we know why the soap ratings have been dropping.

  26. My mom plays more online games than me, my three sisters, my two brothers and my dad put together. Seriously.

  27. I am 60 and I play games such as Navy Seals Weapons of Mass Destruction, Socom, 2 and 3, Counterstrike, Halo and go back to Quake, occasionally. When my some was still at home he was “Player” and I was “Player’s Mom”.

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