Inside The Minds Of Girl Gamers

Is it my preemptive penchant for Gawker and Jezebel in particular that makes their girl-gamer articles the only ones I find enlightening istead of enraging? Regardless, this article got me thinking.

Here's just a few stats based on their study: Women play online more than men (55% vs. 45%). Women play more frequently (and differently) than men. A majority of women gamers like to play on their own (83%). Many women say they play to compete against other people (47%). They made 7 game-related buys in the past year.

They also put women into several separate categories: immersives, competitors, bonders, dabblers and minders. One web supervisor at a university, described as an "immersive," says she can "play forever" and likes games like Left 4 Dead and God of War. Other women gamers, like bonders, love getting physical when gaming, and see it as a great way to connect with their family.

http://jezebel.com/5490199/inside-the-minds-of-girl-gamers

I wasn't going to bring this up...but then I got riled.

I just read this on twitter:

@theborderhouse Why are most casual gamers women? http://bit.ly/actM8L

linking to: http://borderhouseblog.com/?p=1414

This article really pissed me off...it is a glaring example of how most of the media, and possilby many gamers, are thinking about games. Boy vs. Girl...Blue vs. Pink. Guns vs. Unicorns. Spatial cognition vs. social relations.

Why is the author assuming these 70% female casual games are Pink and Long Haired? Why were those the images the website linked to? Casual games can refer to puzzles, murder mysteries, haunted mansions, wizard towers, hidden objects, card games, deserted islands...

This Queen of Hearts blog has lots of women, and I thought about marketing it as such, but I don't want to. It's against the very point.

This is all stuff my friend Lehanna started me thinking about, along with sending me many links to Jezebel coverage:

Games are games and brains are brains. I like playing rogue assassins and am obsessed with treasure collecting (see my user name). I love sniper gunts and anti personnel ammo and mininukes.

The whole "girls play becasue their boyfriends do" angle makes me ill. The people I date tend to like video games because like me, they love fun, and games are fun. I don't play because they do - we ALL play because we ALL like fun.  We all have brains and like being challenged and figuring out problems people before us have crafted for us to play with and solve.

http://jezebel.com/5443722/act-like-you-know-nielsen-research-confirms-that-women-buy-systems-and-play-games

http://jezebel.com/5381665/why-is-marketing-to-female-gamers-considered-challenging

more on this later!