"Male" games vs. "Female" games

[Arch0wl]

This is an interesting topic and everyone's input can be useful here, because I'm sure most of you have opinions on this.

It's no secret that forums are usually overrun with men. Games, for a long time, have also been the same way. Recently though we've seen a few innovative companies capitalize on untapped female audiences: The Sims and FarmVille are perfect examples. Most of us know women who play these a lot, and before FarmVille it was NeoPets. But ruling out FarmVille, clearly there's something about The Sims that attracts women that other games do not have.

I became hyper-conscious of this when I stayed over at my girlfriend's suite virtually every other day for a year, while at the same time I was in theater, which is about 80% female. On a day-to-day basis I was engulfed by women. One thing I noticed was that all genders played a lot of games, but the men clearly played games differently than the women. This is what I mean:



If you think about forums and by association games like FFR, it's pretty obvious why games like this one are overrun with men and why there are so few female players at the top tier: quite simply, women are less invested in the competition. For however much you can say "lol, ffr is serious business", men like competition and view their accomplishments relative to what everyone else does, which is why number-based accomplishments ("429 XP! +1 STR!") are so appealing. Women do not usually do this -- they tend to view their accomplishments relative to what their friends do, or at most what people they know do.

(The best illustration of this happened when my girlfriend complained to me about "comparison compliments." I would say "you're one of the most beautiful girls I've ever met" instead of "you're beautiful." Honestly, I thought I was giving a more meaningful compliment because it was less ambiguous. >_>)

This is also supported somewhat by psychology. An old psych teacher of mine told me about a study where women fared much better in math classes made up entirely of women than they did with mixed genders. Thinking about it this way, it makes more sense, because there's an easily defined group to work with. I've known plenty of girls who would play Pokemon for example competitively among themselves, but they would never, and I mean never think to look up info about ideal team combinations on the internet.

Women, also, tend to fare better than men in vocabulary and remarkably worse in spatial skills. Games which heavily depend on sense of direction, like FPSes or flight sims, aren't going to mesh well with the female demographic. In fact, FPSes are almost anti-female. While RPGs also have a reputation for being dominantly male, they are at least dialogue intensive most of the time; FPSes are so designed for men that strictly speaking they're more male than sports games.

The image of a bunch of women in a room with tea candles and diaries isn't a common image without reason: women tend to like personal things and sentimental things to a much greater extent than men. I know very few men who keep journals, much less scrapbook; by contrast, almost every girl I know has a scrapbook of some sort. The games they play reflect this -- Animal Crossing and The Sims both allow for high degrees of sentimentality and personalization.

It's interesting that most of what has come to be known as "good gameplay" implicitly supports a lot of characteristics of games that men find appealing. Western game creators have gotten very good at making reward systems which make games extremely addicting for men. But the idea of reward systems is still, to some degree, the idea of expansion -- which goes back to that image I posted a while back. Any time you talk about getting better, about beating more people, you're talking about expansion.

And now you probably see what I mean, and see why there are so few female games out there. Most female games tend to focus on maintenance. This is an extremely unappealing game type for a lot of men, so when they do make maintenance-style games they do so in a way that can be played as if it were an expansion-style game. Pokemon can be played this way, as can Animal Crossing, Harvest Moon, and The Sims. By contrast, not many "male" games can be played in a maintenance-style way. They are almost always goal-focused with some sort of objective.

Notice that the maintenance-expansion difference also applies to websites, and why there are plenty of women on the internet -- just not in places you visit. My Facebook friends list is about 50/50 with men/women. My internet friends list, though, is a sausagefest.

What do you think? Does what I'm saying make sense? Do you have an alternate explanation? Either way, I'd like to hear your input.

[rushyrulz]

I want to play some reindeer games

On topic: There are exceptions of course, there are some girls on FFR and screaming their faces off on Xbox Live, and I loove pokemon .

I generally agree with this though, girls are more likely to play games like Sims or Animal Crossing while guys are gonna play Halo and Guitar Hero

[justaguy]

this is why women are perfect in the kitchen. this diagram will be used to support my chauvinism.

no but seriously i have absolutely zero patience for any video game involving maintenance. i'm very much glued to video games with a competitive atmosphere. i'll actually disagree with you on MMORPGs though, i kind of feel they're applicable to both genders. this is purely anecdotal, but a good number of women i know who play video games regularly have WoW accounts. i feel it's because there's a really loose competitive atmosphere in the casual WoW scene to the point where maintenance actually plays a significant role (i agree with your sentiments about women generally finding maintenance games more appealing).

personally i don't have a sliver of patience for MMOs. having to maintain a character and perform meaningless and time consuming tasks that vaguely correlate to anything skill related does not appeal to me. i also feel like MMOs are a perfect outlet for insecure women looking for attention from insecure guys (and vise versa). obviously i'm not implying that people that play these games are insecure, but it definitely happens.

sc2/dota/cs/stepmania (the games i play(ed)) on the other hand are a totally different story. there isn't any gray area for competition and they are very much male dominated games.

[Izzy]

I think it would make sense that women would be more often attractive to those types of games, but I don't think it is right to label such games as more feminine. Anyone can get interested in any of those games depending on their personality or their mood etc.

Women are just less likely to be interested in the competition aspect of games.

[25thhour]

hey, the Sims is fun but I do love Rockband, Guitar Hero, Halo, COD, and other "male" games. While some "Female" games are fun most are cheesy imo.

[bender5]

Quite a fascinating anecdote.

I'd totally agree with a very large portion of what you said, but there's something to say about hayden's point with girls and WoW accounts.

So many people that I used to play WoW with were couples where the gf/spouse would love to be just as involved as her male counterpart, even though the characters they'd play would take a considerably less amount of effort and skill to play

[EzExZeRo7497]

I agree with almost everything you said. Yes, girls do play The Sims, Animal Crossing, Harvest Moon, etc.

However for MMORPGs... not really. I know quite alot of girls who play Maplestory.
For competitive music games, alot of girls I know play Audition (Which is a Korean rhythm game)

Some girls/boys however, just play MMORPGs, competitive games, Farmville, almost any game for that matter just to follow their peers or follow the trend. (In Singapore, Maplestory, Audition, Blackshot) Like my girlfriend, for example. She's playing Stepmania just to get along with me more, probably not for competitive gaming.

So I'm guessing this. People (regardless of gender) play games because of their interest OR it's by an influence.

[Rubin0]

I have always played games that wouldn't be categorized as typical female games. (I'm female) I completely agree that some games are more geared towards women and women are more likely to gravitate towards these games because they involve skills women have been taught to develop their entire lives. Women aren't encouraged to be power seekers as is a typical theme in MMORPGs, but at the same time many of these games allow characters to forge their own paths. As long as women can customize their characters in an MMORPG then they are more likely to play them over games like Eve Online, where you don't even HAVE a character. I never came across another female on Eve, at least none that didn't end up being males pretending to be females. At the same time the SIMS gives a player complete control over characters in a game and the player gets to play God, but it's all about maintaining a balance and keeping them in complete harmony just like you said.

I will contribute more to this thread when I am not Christmas drunk and it's not 1:51AM. But I think this is a great topic.

[spm515]

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2006/10/7922.ars

Interesting thing I found.

[_Stepdude_]

My mom plays like any game except FPS games. Like, Final fantasy (all of em), Castlevania, Diablo 2, The sims, like any rpg's actually.

[iironiic]

LOL before I came on FFR, I used to be addicted to Neopets xD. I'm glad I'm not now haha.

But I agree with everything that you said. Such an interesting topic too.

Also, I think for guys it's either sports or video games. Regardless, there's always a competitive aspect.

Even though I am a guy, I dislike competition but I like the ranking system. I generally view games and sports as a form of "self-improvement" rather than a competition. It's a strange way of perceiving such things lol

[DossarLX ODI]

Originally Posted by iironiic

Even though I am a guy, I dislike competition but I like the ranking system. I generally view games and sports as a form of "self-improvement" rather than a competition. It's a strange way of perceiving such things lol

Exactly this, although I hate sports. I don't play FFR for average rank (which is pretty obvious if you look at my FC/AAA bar) but I do set my own goals of what I want to do. Stepmania was the biggest turning point in my life in terms of how effort is valued more than just beating other players and being able to deal with failures.

For example, most stepmania players don't do rates. I do ABSURD rates lmao. There are only a couple other players that actually do that but I do it because it's different from what other players do and I find it to be a lot more interesting and a nice break from the usual. Of course there is the competitive aspect but it's more about seeing what I can do since almost nobody else does it.

Honestly I don't like labeling "male" and "female" games. I've seen both genders play FFR - while males are the majority of the players, that doesn't necessarily mean that FFR is a guy's game. I could very well play a maintenance game like The Sims but the problem is that there's no reward! It's a never-ending game and I get nothing from it. Stepmania has achievements as well as FFR, and the game itself can be improved upon (different themes, noteskins, stepfiles, and such).

[dragonmegaXX]

This makes a lot of sense.
It also explains why whenever my mom plays family feud on facebook, she loves it whenever she sees her score is like 10 times higher than anyone on her friends list.

[Arch0wl]

oh god, you've gotten me started.

Well, when we talk about sports there's really two things going on here:

(1) team sports (you have "the [city/institution] [noun]s", such as the Notre Dame fighting irish or the LA Lakers or whatever. a group wins, a person doesn't win)

(2) individualist sports (racquet sports, track, wrestling, weightlifting)

No offense to people who like these, but I can't stand (1) for a metric Limbaugh of reasons. The biggest reason is the diffusion of responsibility. If you win, you don't know if you really won or if some other douche won for you, and the same is true for losing. Further, the standards are vague because you are compartmentalized; not everyone can be compared because there are different roles in a team. A linebacker is not the same as a quarterback.

But another more psychological thing that gets to me about sports played on a team is the tribal aspect which has bothered me since I was a kid. As Haidt said in this video, it's to war as porn is to sex. It's group identification for the sake of group identification; it's group v group because some people are addicted to group warfare. There's The [X]ers v. The [Y]ers and you have to pick a side and mold yourself to the wishes of that side. Groupthink flourishes in this environment. I'm uneasy when I'm in this setting because I know that people want me to mold to the pressures of the group just because it's anti- some other group. People who are otherwise very level-headed can engage in collective narcissism when in this sort of setting. It's disturbing to me.

(I suppose you could draw an analogy with bands, though -- there are different roles in bands, after all. What I find different about this is that it's something of a requirement; music which has a beat and backing instruments is usually more entertaining to listen to than music which doesn't, while sports don't have to be about teams. Also, bands are not usually in competition with each other. They can be, but they're usually not. There is less pressure to be a certain way. Having said that, I also prefer playing piano to any other instrument because it's far more individualistic >_>)

Sports of the #2 variety though I enjoy a lot. In a game like tennis, there is always something you can do better -- sure, there are factors that contribute to your loss which are beyond your control. But you are largely responsible for improving your game, and you're on the same playing field as everyone else. There are less divisions -- okay, yeah, there are doubles and singles in tennis and weight classes in wrestling. But you're using the same skills, essentially; even though people will have their strengths at a game like tennis or racquetball, there isn't a division in type as strong as there is with linebacker/running back or catcher/pitcher.

---

This was a huge tangent, lmao. I've noticed that the group v. group aspect is something that both genders do though; in fact, I think women might be more likely to engage in competitive group behavior than men. I don't know why. It just seems to me like women in general fear rejection from membership into a group than men do.

however, I think this only applies for women when it's groups of people, which goes back to the expansion-maintenance thing. men seem to fear group rejection when it's part of a larger group label, like "smart people" or "alpha males", while women don't seem to care as much. my girlfriend for example thinks in terms of who she is beautiful to, who she is smart to -- I, by contrast, ask am I attractive, am I smart, etc., and it's not an issue of who thinks it.

edit: Dossar, I can understand how you would read that as creating a gender construct. I didn't mean "for men." When I say "male" or "female" I'm speaking in generalities and majorities. Think of it this way: obviously there are men who know about fashion, interior design, etc. I've been asked to give people clothing advice on several occasions. But these things are definitely female activities. So in one sense, it's a "girl thing" because many girls do it. However, I don't think it's a "girl thing" in the sense that it's "for girls" or that no one other than girls should do it.

[qqwref]

Very interesting post (@OP), I think there's definitely something to that.

If I may refer to a bit of evolutionary psychology: perhaps men prefer games with expansion/power themes because they would typically have to search for a mate and then be in charge of supporting the family through various skills, whereas women prefer games with maintenance themes because they would typically be in charge of raising children.


About sports, I totally agree with you about team sports. I've never been very athletic, and never really cared about following sports teams, but when I did do sports it was always an individual thing (running, tennis/squash, martial arts) where I could be sure anything I accomplished or failed at was due to only me.

[Minion133]

girl gamers LMAO

[Reincarnate]

I know plenty of female MMO players, but they're usually casual. That's the cool part about MMORPG games -- there's something for everyone, both hardcore and casual. Personally, I hate MMO's because they require so much timesink.

Agreed about "maintenance" though. I can't count the number of times I've heard of female gamers who were really into Pokemon, The Sims, and Harvest Moon, haha.

[Cavernio]

Totally agree Arch0wl. What I want to know, though, is why you women/girls DON'T find competition and winning as meaningful?
I am female, but I definitely feel like I fall on the male side when it comes to gaming. I was raised playing shmups and other quality Apple computer games (which I think we had hacked versions of?), and thanks to my older brother, had lots of exposure to them. I liked to win. These days I don't play many competitive games, although the main reasons for that is that now I'm old and slow, but the main reason is that the damned console controllers where all the GOOD competitive games are on, are unsuited to having a fingerless hand. (Giant xbox controllers are still giant and fail.) It also doesn't help that many competitive games have a single-player version that I don't want to bother playing (so I don't bother learning the controls well), and then I get my ass handed to me in online play. Furthermore, about the gender differences in spatiality (is that a word?), those could easily figure into why women gamers might find it harder to learn the games. Most competitive video games are based on spatial reasoning in someway or another, and if you're just bad at something (and bad at something where people like to rub it in your face that you suck), you're not likely to try that thing again. (Hell, this is why I don't play fps's anymore...I just have a steep learning curve. All that no-fingers crap is bullshit, I've overcome a million 'challenges' to having no fingers that if I really wanted to, I'd suck it up and learn to use a controller well if I wanted to.)
Anyways, I am a gamer, and I totally game (board and video) for the competition, and I feel that games are the perfect mediums to be a douche, because at the end of the day it doesn't matter. I don't want to pull all that competitiveness into real-life situations though, so I guess I do kinda get the non-competitive mentality.

My WoW main, uh, has over 9000, and, ummm, is a male character because ever since the advent of the internet I've hated being treated differently for being a girl.

[Arch0wl]

I assumed women don't find competition and winning as meaningful because, generally speaking, they usually don't. What is true in general is not always going to be true in an individual's case, like yours.

[Cavernio]

I have to say that I enjoy other types of games than just competitive ones though too, so maybe I'm just getting old or rebelling less or something. Recently I've gotten really into co-operative board games.