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[Reelya]

No, because e.g. a single shooter game, COD4, sold 16 million copies just on it's own. Say that equates to 1.5 players per copy, we're talking about ~25 million COD4 players. And you have to accept that not all shooter players went and bought a copy of COD4, we're probably talking about a total male shooter game playerbase of at least double that - 50 million.

A fair few guys do play candy crush, but there are larger groups who play other games, and you can bet many male players dabble with candy crush on their phone but it's not the main genre. It's the main genre they play for many more women than men.

[smeeprocket]

No, because e.g. a single shooter game, COD4, sold 16 million copies just on it's own. Say that equates to 1.5 players per copy, we're talking about ~25 million COD4 players. And you have to accept that not all shooter players went and bought a copy of COD4, we're probably talking about a total male shooter game playerbase of at least double that - 50 million.

A fair few guys do play candy crush, but there are larger groups who play other games, and you can bet many male players dabble with candy crush on their phone but it's not the main genre. It's the main genre they play for many more women than men.

You are under the assumption that every CoD player not only liked, but considered the game their favorite AND only bought that one game. That seems highly unlikely. It's even unlikely that they only ever bought FPSs. Maybe it's a female thing, but I buy games in multiple genres, is that not true of men also?

[Reelya]

I buy games in multiple genres, is that not true of men also?

That's true, and it's specifically what I was saying as to why the 40 million male Candy Crush players is meaningless.

Consider a more recent "guy" game like GTA:V. In the data you linked, COD players are about 92% male. I think GTA is about the same as that (call it 80% male for the sake of argument). GTA:V sold 34 million copies on it's own, and it's unlikely that 1/3 of all shooter players bought this one game. So, that's probably indicative of over 100 million male players who play shooter games, which dwarfs the male Candy Crush players.

Of course they didn't all just buy COD4 - the newer CODs are even more popular! But COD4 was the one that got a lot of the praise. Plus you have a huge number of other shooters on the market which sell pretty well. It's sounds a bit far-fetched to suggest that people who actually bought COD4 or e.g. DOOM3 prefer playing Candy Crush. Maybe they dabble in Candy Crush when they're on their phone, sure, but as for liking it more than COD4, no fucking way.

If you try the same thing with female Candy Crush players, what can you point to that is of the same scale? Probably Tetris, Wii Sports, and The Sims. Sure all these are popular with guys too, but they are definitely "casual" and you can't point to a comparable non-casual game genre with a large female fanbase. Maybe some RPG element games like Baldur's Gate or Mass Effect, but those types of games only sell around 2-3 million, so they're a drop in the ocean compared to games that sell 15-30 million or more, and don't say a whole lot about what is average or typical.

[smeeprocket]

I buy games in multiple genres, is that not true of men also?

That's true, and it's specifically what I was saying as to why the 40 million male Candy Crush players is meaningless.

Consider a more recent "guy" game like GTA:V. In the data you linked, COD players are about 92% male. I think GTA is about the same as that (call it 80% male for the sake of argument). GTA:V sold 34 million copies on it's own, and it's unlikely that 1/3 of all shooter players bought this one game. So, that's probably indicative of over 100 million male players who play shooter games, which dwarfs the male Candy Crush players.

Of course they didn't all just buy COD4 - the newer CODs are even more popular! But COD4 was the one that got a lot of the praise. Plus you have a huge number of other shooters on the market which sell pretty well. It's sounds a bit far-fetched to suggest that people who actually bought COD4 or e.g. DOOM3 prefer playing Candy Crush. Maybe they dabble in Candy Crush, sure, but as for liking it more than COD4, no fucking way.

If you try the same thing with female Candy Crush players, what can you point to that is of the same scale? Probably Tetris, Wii Sports, and The Sims. Sure all these are popular with guys too, but they are definitely "casual" and you can't point to a comparable non-casual game genre with a large female fanbase.

I couldn't find any numbers for any demographics of any of the GTA games. Do you have a source?

Tetris wii sports and the sims are more mid core, btw, casual is more facebook apps and phone games.

I don't know whether or not the purchasers of COD4 like candy crush better, played candy crush, or even thought CoD4 was their favorite. They may have liked league of legends or WoW more for all we know. and 44% of the MMORPG demographic is female. This is pretty comparable. I think that is the number you were saying didn't exist, right there.

I'm hearing a lot of assumptions and stereotypes without demographic numbers between both genders, age groups, genres, etc to back it up. I'm having a hard time finding the stuff myself, but I'm not going to fall back on stereotypes, especially since I personally do not follow those trends at all, nor do any of the other female gamers I know (and I know a number, I used to run a female guild at one point, actually.)

This whole concept that women just play these little casual games, it's insulting to hardcore female gamers, and even if it turned out to be true, the number of women who are more serious about gaming is a substantial amount, and we are not being represented at all. A ton of women playing Bejeweled, (and I think that was just playing, wasn't it, I've played Bejeweled once or twice, though it didn't appeal to me,) doesn't mean ALL women want to play those games, or that, as Loud Whispers implied, we should restrict our gaming to these games and not expect representation in all the other games because those are "male games".

I WANT to give developers my money if they make games that appeal to me. It is clear they are not in a very capitalist mindset if they don't want to hire developers that have a better grasp of what women want in gaming (female developers, specifically,) and outright ignore us when marketing the game or making characters.

For example, the new Assassin's Creed, I'm certainly not buying it. If they can't be assed to throw in a female character for co-op, because my gender is so unimportant to them, then I don't need to buy their game. But voting with my pocketbook would be a lot easier if there were really that many games that do represent women to begin with. And there aren't.

[Reelya]

http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/09/20/224300193/female-fans-love-grand-theft-auto-v-hate-it-demeans-women

around 15 percent of its fans are women, who find much to like about the game, even if they do have some ambivalence about it.

MMORPGs are dominated by WoW, and I linked figures for the active WoW player base, about 0.5 million women. This is definitely NOT comparabe to an estimate of over 100 million people who play shooters or the 85% of 34 million GTA:V purchasers.

What do you mean assumptions? I've cited every number I game you, except for statements like assuming 1/3 of all shooter players bought GTA:V. But i think that's actually an over-estimate, so I don't think that assuming there are over 100 million shooter players worldwide from that is stretching credibility.

This whole concept that women just play these little casual games, it's insulting to hardcore female gamers, and even if it turned out to be true, the number of women who are more serious about gaming is a substantial amount, and we are not being represented at all. A ton of women playing Bejeweled, (and I think that was just playing, wasn't it, I've played Bejeweled once or twice, though it didn't appeal to me,) doesn't mean ALL women want to play those games, or that, as Loud Whispers implied, we should restrict our gaming to these games and not expect representation in all the other games because those are "male games".

Nobody here ever said all women only play those games, that's entirely something you just said. But the discussion was you doubting that a large number of women do in fact play casual games. It's fact that they do. They're not you and your friends who are hardcore female gamers, but denying they exist isn't realistic either.

Why don't we talk about the sales figures for the most female-friendly hardcore games, and why they're not as good as they should be?

[smeeprocket]

http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/09/20/224300193/female-fans-love-grand-theft-auto-v-hate-it-demeans-women

around 15 percent of its fans are women, who find much to like about the game, even if they do have some ambivalence about it.

MMORPGs are dominated by WoW, and I linked figures for the active WoW player base, about 0.5 million women. This is definitely NOT comparabe to an estimate of over 100 million people who play shooters or the 85% of 34 million GTA:V purchasers.

What do you mean assumptions? I've cited every number I game you.

I don't think your numbers are lining up. More people than that, with a 44% playerbase of women, play WoW, but also, WoW by itself is big, but there are a ton of other MMORPGs out there that you can't just ignore. Together the number for them is much higher.

And yea, GTA kind of alienates women. As much as I love wanton slaughter, it's everything awful about video games when it comes to women. Thank you for the exact numbers though.

Also, you are comparing active WOW subs to one time purchases, which isn't a good way to go about it at all. There are games I've bought that I absolutely hated, games I barely touched, games I intend to play at some point, etc.

I think you are drastically underestimating the MMO market. FPSs might pull in more initially, but I'm not sure how they fair over time, and they aren't mutually exclusive.

But all of this doesn't really regard the point I made about forcing women into this uncomfortable demographic that just wants to play bejeweled and candy crush saga, and should they dare venture from those fields, should expect to deal with the over sexualization and weak development of female characters, assuming they exist at all.

[Reelya]

The core problem is that female-friendly core games never sell more that a few million copies, e.g. Mass Effect, Mirror's Edge, Borderlands, Baldur's Gate. The industry needs just one example of a "success story" e.g. 1 female-centric action game that sells in the 10's of millions and then things will naturally change.

If women are starving for this content, and the market potential is significantly under-served, they need to demonstrate that through their purchasing power.  Normally a shortage of something causes strong sales of what you can get. It's supply and demand. Show that there is demand for something and supply follows. It's not like there's a finite supply of developers out there.

[Caz]

The core problem is that female-friendly core games never sell more that a few million copies, e.g. Mass Effect, Mirror's Edge, Borderlands, Baldur's Gate. The industry needs just one example of a "success story" e.g. 1 female-centric action game that sells in the 10's of millions and then things will naturally change.

If women are starving for this content, and the market potential is significantly under-served, they need to demonstrate that through their purchasing power.  Normally a shortage of something causes strong sales of what you can get. It's supply and demand. Show that there is demand for something and supply follows. It's not like there's a finite supply of developers out there.

I agree with this. There's not really a big difference between the sales of good male-dominated games vs good female-dominated games, simply because it's not the factor that determines how well it does in the market. Much more important is the gameplay, the quality of the plot and characters etc, regardless of gender.

[Fniff]

The thing about publishers (Of any kind, really) is that you very quickly get into this circular logic. Games with girls don't sell because we don't give them advertising and budget because games with girls don't sell _{because we don't give them advertising and budget because games with girls don't sell because we don't give them advertising and budget because games with girls don't sell because we don't give them advertising and budget because games with girls don't sell}

People prefer to think of their own biases being an unfortunate reality rather then them being idiots.

[Reelya]

But the thing is, it's not the case that every game with a male protagonist has an identical huge budget, and every game with a female protagonist has a small budget. Male-protagonist game budgets are higher in the same sense that males are taller than females: only on average. Some games with male protagonists have either big or small budgets, and there is definitely a huge overlap with female protagonists games in terms of market spend.

It's not like they can't physically compare sales data for games with both male and female protagonists that did receive the same budget, because such games exist and there is a huge overlap there even if the male-protagonist game's average budget is higher (that difference is probably highly inflated by a select few AAA titles).

The people who have all the sales data and are making decisions about what to fund definitely have a range of games with both big and small budgets, and a range of genres and protagonists. They definitely can already compare games of the same marketing budget and see which things are selling best, at that price point.

So the entire argument then becomes that the sales executives are so stupid that they aren't capable of a third-graders ability to use the data they already have, so they must be directly comparing sales of games with a $10 million dollar marketing budget vs games with a $100 million dollar budget. But these are professional corporate accountants we're talking about here, and people are trying to say they are making such an elementary error in their accounting/planning process as to compare sales of different products with vastly different budgets? That doesn't even make sense. In fact, what they care about is "sales per marketing dollar spent" and comparing games which received the same amount of marketing budget to see how they did in the marketplace.

So, I will stick to what I wrote with some clarification, that e.g. Mirror's Edge should be outselling other games with a similar development and marketing budget. That would be direct proof that it's serving and underserved market (it's competitors in it's price point should be near market saturation so won't see great returns from marketing budget). I'd like to see the EEDAR's original data for both marketing and sales data because that would put this theory to the test.

[Neonivek]

Well Reelya don't forget everytime someone talks about how there aren't enough women in games

They almost ALWAYS do so by talking about the series with the lowest female demographic with the games that have the lowest female sales.

You never hear them talk about point and clicks, adventure games, MMOs, RPGs, Fighting Games... (well ok you do, I am exaggerating)

It is always Grand Theft Auto and Shooters... and Yes shooters are incredibly popular, but they don't make up the entire genre.

[Caz]

Well Reelya don't forget everytime someone talks about how there aren't enough women in games

They almost ALWAYS do so by talking about the series with the lowest female demographic with the games that have the lowest female sales.

You never hear them talk about point and clicks, adventure games, MMOs, RPGs, Fighting Games... (well ok you do, I am exaggerating)

It is always Grand Theft Auto and Shooters... and Yes shooters are incredibly popular, but they don't make up the entire genre.

Pretty much. FPS games are more dominated by males because more males play them.

[Quartz_Mace]

They should revive the Lara Bow series... or give the Nancy Drew series a bigger budget.

They also need to give Nancy some more common sense. She seemed pretty stupid for a detective last time I tried one of those.
Terrible mistakes Nancy makes (in the games; she's really good in the books)
1.Confronting every suspect she has directly, even when they could kill her so easily (come on!)
2.Not calling the cops when she has the ability to do so
3. Digging too deep into someone's past in a single conversation, leaving them extremely angry so that she can't gain more information from them
4. Lack of regard for personal safety (if any of these criminals thought to pull out a gun, she'd have been shot like 30 times already in the course of these games. I understand these aren't shooters, but there should be some logic, right? Granted, they usually try to kill her in some way)
Of course, antagonists are always making mistakes that counter-act hers, so I guess that's suspiciously lucky.

NOTE:Sorry that that was a very late response. I left after the first 6 derails and just now started getting caught up.

[Neonivek]

Reminds me of Detective Grimoire.

You can basically tell the suspect of every single piece of evidence needed to convict them and it doesn't matter.

I will admit one of the best parts of great detective games is that situation where you know you have to be careful of who you trust.

The first Lara Bow game had a LOT of that.

[Graknorke]

I think that the detective getting into danger in order to solve the case is pretty standard in detective stories. Usually it's something along the lines of if they don't get personally involved someone will get framed, the real culprit will get away, or in some other way it would turn out badly if turned over to the police and left.

Although Nancy Drew doing that doesn't fit with what I remember of the books. She was much more about analysing second-hand accounts and thing from other people, rather than digging into crime scenes and stuff.