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Male

265 (71.2%)

Female

22 (5.9%)

Dwarf Male

39 (10.5%)

Dwarf Female

4 (1.1%)

Goblin

42 (11.3%)

Total Members Voted: 372

Voting closed: October 29, 2010, 10:24:03 am

[Eviltane01]

Ok I been wondering about this. I have gamed with a lot of females in my time online and a lot of them have kicked my ass from the planets of Warhammer through wow  to the various battlefields of present or future.

I just cant seem  to get a read on this communities gender bias (if it has one). Do girls love their Dwarfs as much as the guys (well so far i know i do love em and i'm a dude)?

[Hyndis]

Yes, people with XX chromosomes can play games too, and even be kickass at them.

In other breaking news, water is wet and the sky is blue.   

[devek]

My daughter kicks my ass at chess, so lol.

[Eviltane01]

like i said  the females of our species have been kicking my ass for a long time in gaming now.  I just wanted to see what this community looks like away from the screen.

[Deteramot]

It looks like the community is predominantly male.

Or at least, mostly males have come in here and voted.

I'll be honest, I've yet to meet a female gamer irl. I know they exist, elusive though they are, but I've never met one.

[Dakk]

Wha, no male elf option, DISCRIMATION.

But aye, there's a few girls here and there on bay12, they're just cleverly disguised as northen european males who like axes as beards. 85% of all bay12ers are heterosexual males, me thinks.

EDIT: Holy crap typos.

[expwnent]

northen european males who like axes as beards

Axe beards? As in beards composed of axes?

[Dakk]

I'm gonna pretend its not a typo because it sounds damn awesome.

[ILikePie]

We get topics like this every now and then, what was the ratio last time?

[Lawec]

I chose dwarf male.

[NW_Kohaku]

Yes, of course, gamer girls exist, but I think that the nature of DF would make this game fairly unappealing to most of them.

To give an example of a game that does attract probably more girls than guys, I'm pretty sure Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates has a bias towards female gamers, or at least a fairly balanced one.  It's a game that is generally cooperative in nature, fairly mechanics light, and allows one to customize characters pretty thoroughly while building up assets and socializing.  (The Sims, also, has a massive female fanbase, and is a game largely about building and decorating houses, and making pretend social lives.)

Dwarf Fortress, on the other hand, is extremely mechanics-heavy, involves learning about the intracacies of geology or metallurgy or other dry, technical subjects, has a very large focus upon a very non-visceral, casual form of violence, has a graphical ASCII interface that seems there just to appeal to gamers who are rabidly old-school (which harkens back to the times when there were no girls playing), and where the only socializing is on these boards, which have an obvious masculine confrontational bent to it.

So yes, I would expect a serious gender bias, and for most female forumgoers to not particularly want to hop out from behind the cloak of anonymity to identify themselves.

[Eviltane01]

Kohaku with the mention of the Sims you actually brought up one of the reasons why I was interested in finding out what the actual female / male ratio is though I had a suspicion that it would be testosterone heavy.

I figured that Dwarf fortress is in some ways a lot like  the sims. We govern the lives of individual characters  not in a direct way as in the standard RTS but more in a managerial role.  And as some us have proven even men can make their "dwarf" caves quite pretty.To me the 2 games seem very alike on that front.


I concede to you the points on the social and technical aspects though one might also argue that the technical barriers of the game should present the same difficulties to men and to women.  As the counter to that of course one might argue that men have traditionally held more roles in the IT sector and thereby more of us have at least a rough background understanding of whats going on.


The one point I do not really agree on is that you said :

So yes, I would expect a serious gender bias, and for most female forumgoers to not particularly want to hop out from behind the cloak of anonymity to identify themselves.

These forums aren't exactly leet speaking TF2 forums filled with 13 and 14 year olds taking their first steps into the online world and trying to measure out each others e-peens.

These forums here strike me as being used by a very mature crowd although it can become silly sometimes. So I don't think that even if a women was to identify herself she would face any sort of harrassment from testosterone rich teens which is honestly where the vast majority of the "OMG girls" comes from.  Even if she did I'm very confident that a large part of the forums user base would arrange for a meeting between  an Atom smasher and the perpetrator.


There are quite a few gaming communities where women show them self's without any sort of attention being brought to it.

Take the WoW forums for example in those forums women have very little issues with proclaiming who and what they are. Its just simple everyday stuff there. From what I know of the EVE community it is much the same there.


I did provision for the case of a of a female forum goer worrying about anonymity by  writing in the Poll topic itself that votes are anonymous.


Anyway in the end the ratio is becoming quite obvious.  For the sake of a discussion  , what could be done to make the game more female friendly. Would the inclusion of say a Social networking style   "friends chat" or chat rooms with an easy way to transfer in game images  solve the matter to a large extend. Or would we need a serious graphical overhaul.

[Greiger]

...and where the only socializing is on these boards, which have an obvious masculine confrontational bent to it.

That's not true! You are lying! I'm going to kick yer ass! *flex*Urrgh... MUSCLES!

...no I am not serious.  Don't take me seriously.

[breadbocks]

I wonder if there are any goblin GIRLS. If there are, meet me in central park. Wang. Had to do it.

[Vattic]

Many wrongly believe there are no female DF fans but it's understandable as they tend to have mighty beards. This is of course a lie but still I won't trust the poll unless DNA tests are done on all who vote .

On the topic of girl gamers, I gamed with a group at college and I've known plenty of others. The main group I know prefer their JRPGs, plenty of turn based stuff. I used to play a lot of Mario Kart, Tetris and Bomberman, on the DS, with another group of gamers one of whom was female. So they do exist, it seems to be more and more common these days.