Looking deeper than the '48% of gamers are women' stat

GameZone's Matt Liebl: "When it comes to video games as a business, it’s important to maintain perspective and look beyond the glossy “48 percent of gamers are women” stat. There’s much more to that number that one must understand before attempting to use it when your favorite publisher doesn’t include female characters in a certain assassin game. Or when another company tells you that if you want female characters in a game, it must translate into sales -- even though they really mean profit. Again, video games are a business."

[-Foxtrot]

The main thing you have to think about with this is how many of that percentage can you go up to and ask "You planning on buying Destiny when it comes out?" without them going "Destiny? What's that".

[porkChop]

Yeah I'm assuming many of those female gamers are Casual/Mobile/Facebook gamers.

[ChronoJoe]

I don't know why people care anyway. So what if 48% of gamers are female. That sounds about right to me. Video games have become a socially acceptable medium, so it makes sense that approximately 50% of players are female in the same way it makes sense that 50% of movie goers are female.

Obviously 48% doesn't mean half the people on COD are female, in the same way 50% of the audience for 'chick flicks' aren't males. It's only natural that there are gender preferences within a medium, but that doesn't discredit the futures in any way.

48% of gamers ARE female, so what if many of them play 'casual' games. Gamers are gamers at the end of the day and men should be pleased that their hobby won't completely alienate the opposite sex anymore. It's not like the market has shrunk because of women playing games, it's expanded and that's great. More games for all of us, and much more diverse experiences too.

[brbobcat]

@ChronoJoe the reason is matters is because these sorts of stats get thrown around when people try to paint Ubisoft as the bad guy because they choose not to add a female character

[ChickeyCantor]

"I don't know why people care anyway. So what if 48% of gamers are female. "

Children and women are the biggest markets. From a business perspective you should care. Otherwise, yeah not really.

[700p]

Most are playing mobile games which is true. Most females arent real gamers.

[Halo2ODST2]

@ChronoJoe Don't be so arrogant to just assume that 48% of Gamers are female, Scrabble or Flappy Birds are not real Games, in terms of our standards.

[TFJWM]

You can easily say most male gamers are not "real gamers" as well...

[mochachino]

I think the percentage of women that are console gamers or non-puzzle, cardgame, etc. PC and mobile gamers would be much lower.

[n4rc]

I would think mobile makes up almost all of it..

Its maybe 10% on console in my experience.. At least online.

[brbobcat]

This guy gets it

[PaleMoonDeath]

I doubt 48% of gamers are girls, it's almost a myth these days that chicks play games as guys do, sure a few do but 48% Pffft, walk on mate.

[hiredhelp]

I think its high im glad if its true gaming should not be sexist reason why i beleave its higher is playstation Home on PS3 plenty girls there. sure they could been fake i know there were some. But we have no real evidence to show how many girl gamers out there but I like to think there more than we realise.
Ive gotten all my partners into gaming im not talking puzzles heck theyve even completed games like hitman burnout ect.. Dont under estimate girl power plus they can be stubbern.

[iNFAMOUZ1]

no way is it 48 percent women gamers, more like 20 or 25

[Menkyo]

Most of that 48% is faacebook dude their not gamers their farmville slaves.

[Menkyo]

Once just once I would like one just freaking one of my hobbies to not be taken down a damn political rant or slant.

[ShaqSoda]

It's hard to believe 48% play console/pc. Pretty sure it's facebook and mobile.

[LightDiego]

Exactly, 48% is way too high, let's be reasonable.

[psuedo]

Not to mention the girl gamers usually only play one type of game, and aren't hardcore like the males out there. My mom plays some facebook game. My nephews mom plays COD. She might play GTA too, but I don't really think so. Either way it's still not as big as the statistic makes it out to be. Of course women play games. Just what type of game, how often, and how many different games are the real question.

[MeteorPanda]

I'm actually feeling sick reading the comments here...

Do you know that most of the time a girl won't even broadcast her gender as she plays due to mens insufferable need to yell sexist shit? No one plays farmville except the people who don't know much else, most girls will have their preferred mediums and stick with them from what l've seen, be that a farming sim like harvest moon, rune factory (don't you dare dis these games) Jrpgs,fighting, mobas, etc. Yes at the moment we are not that competitive which l think stems from our more social needs, we like to socialize more then men so we don't have that same drive most the time.

Saying we're all casual gamers is sexist to yourselves as well, what so a man who works a full week can't enjoy being a casual gamer? There's nothing wrong with casuals, Before they had no time for games and now they can fit in a bit on their busy days and l say good on them and the companies that saw the market there.

Everyone here is a person too unique to be sized up on a graph at a meeting, Who is ever a "hardcore gamer" all the time? No one. we all step out of our preferred titles from time to time. For example I'm a high ranking player on lol, play raids in ffxiv, d3, monster hunter, most fighting games and still get sucked into the most casual of games like cut the line...or micromon...

[Spotie]

Get over yourself.

Assuming you actually are female, you should be well aware of how few others of your gender are core gamers. That's the point all these "sickening" comments are trying to make.

There's been an explosion in the mobile and browser market, which includes games like Candy Crush and Mafia Wars. Not gonna lie and say I've never played either, but you and every other person on this site knows damn well that that space us dominated by females. That's where the majority of the 48% is, especially with every teenage girl having a smartphone.

No great influx of women have suddenly started buying consoles and becoming core gamers, even when talking the Wii into consideration. So for various outlets to portray that number as indicative of some shift in the core market is disingenuous. For you to be "outraged" is either because of your ignorance of the truth, or your desire to push an agenda, like many of the prominent female personalities in the gaming media have done in recent years. It doesn't even take hard proof: go into random game stores or do random online surveys, and I guarantee you that most buyers and players of core games and the consoles needed to play them are male, and not by a 4% margin, either.

Yes, women are unfortunately subject to some horrible things.

Welcome to the internet.

I keep my race a secret because it becomes a subject for the idiots to start in on. Being male doesn't save me. In fact, even if I were white, there'd still be SOMETHING to say, because that's how those people are. Gender doesn't matter.

Like many, you're too busy thinking in generalizations. "Men's insufferable need" to do nothing; you've just gone from saying "don't pigeonhole people" to doing it your damn self. Which, by the way, is why many cries of discrimination get ignored: when you accuse an entire crowd of doing wrong, the majority of that crowd- who are invariably not doing that wrong- will reject your accusations.

The point, at the end, is that throwing out the number without context paints an untrue picture, one which certain individuals then use to further their agendas, such as accusing gaming of being sexist for this reason or that, as you yourself did. However, that's almost never the case.

If we break the number down correctly, such things don't happen. And then, when those of us who know full damn well things are not as they're portrayed can stop defending ourselves from unfair accusations- I have no insufferable need to yell sexist anything, eff you very much- THEN we can earnestly address the problems that exist.

In their proper scope.

Thanks.

[MeteorPanda]

so you pick one line of my 'lets all just ignore gender and focus on gaming' speech and focused on one line that hurt you? well done in wasting my time with your copy paste dribble.

You ignored everything l said in favour of holding a really stupid argument about 'women and their agenda' and just reply with "it's the internet" card for sexism...Yes, l made a generalization about something that generally happens and amazingly something you just did to me then and you defend it.

"I keep my race a secret because it becomes a subject for the idiots to start in on. " <-- THIS APPLIES TO HALF THE POPULATION OF HUMANS! THAT IS WHAT WE WANT TO STOP. JESUS IS IT SO HARD??

Also, l'm an iraqi female, l get the race card also but that isn't about race, you attention whore.

[ShaunCameron]

And how many of them bought a console for themselves as opposed to for their kids?

[2cents]

playing Kim Kardashian's game does not make you a gamer

-_-