there are alot of females in game design or the artistic area of games you just have to look into the credits.Take a look at most of the game magazines most of the female aduience even the writers in the magazine enjoys playing games.down to this forum just right here I think its interesting to see what everyones reaction would be flaming or not flaming on what a women wants in a viodeo game,book,movie,tv show etc the list goes on and on but I have no doubt that they are smarter then we as a male companion should give credit to into designing a video game etc.

BullDogRacing76

What about games with lots of nude males? Would women play such games? Well, if women don''t play them other guys might.

Quite a number of girls like NWN btw...

I just want to comment on the claim that someone made earlier about women wanting instant positive feedback.

Since computer games never have been a big girley thing, only a few women have as much experience with playing them as many men do. Because of that it is not uncommon for women to think that they aren''t going to do very well in games, and nobody likes to be confirmed in the assumption that "I am just too slow and stupid for this". No, we, the butter fingers, like to be patted on the back, and to be told that we are doing well, silly as it might sound.

A repetitive game, where you have to fail a lot of times, before you acquire the skills to get past the hard parts, is a turn off for everybody, who believes themselves to be below average players (like myself) - not just women. Who wants to fight their way half way through a game, only to discover that the level of difficulty at that point exceeds your physical ability?

When I buy a game, I like to have some assurance, that I can complete it with my butterfingers, so that I get full value for my money, and I suspect that women generally thinks the same way as I do. Would you buy a DVD, if you knew that there was a fifty percent risk that there is only half the movie on the disc, and no money back guarantee?

- Tim -

Most of the females I know that are gamers fall into the casual gamer category. That means, games that are easy to learn, and have very short-term goals. Only hard-core gamers (or those that list games as a hobbby routinely)have the desire to sit through an hour of gameplay to get a nifty sword for a fictional character.
The other (few) gamer-females i know like pretty much anything, I don''t think gender has much to do with it. However, as was posted earlier, it is important to make efforts not alienate females through your ignorance or lack of care. If you have create a character mode in your game, add some female models that a woman would *like* to play. Not those freakish giant-breasted things. Women seeem to want to be made to feel adequate( or better), that means taking a character they can identify with, and putting that character through its paces/adventure/fight/whatever. What fun is it if the only option is to play as some crappy stereotyped "male fantasy" that most females feel insulted by. (most that I know)

So, if you can manage to not insult women with your design choices, I think you can count on them playing the game. Unless the game is bad...

Just to add another bit of data here, my (teen) sister enjoys:
-Roller Coaster Tycoon
-SimCity
-Anno 1602
-The Sims (of course)
-Pop-Pop
-Cythera
-Escape Velocity (go to www.ambrosiasw.com for details for this and the two above)

She was initially frustrated with Escape Velocity because the first thing the player must do, landing on a planet, takes a lot of coordination. She never really developed piloting skills and dropped the game after a while. Some of my older male relatives also are intimidated by games because of their unfamiliarity with game controls and game physics. My personal experience backs up the "butterfingers" problem with casual or non-gamers.

All the games my sister really enjoy have a WYSIWYG, point-and-click interface to interact with the game world and have easily read measures of the player''s performance. In games that involve war, she focuses on completely overpowering her rivals rather than crafting strategies. Also, in all the games she plays, the player''s gender is selectable, ambiguous, or irrelevent. She is sometimes willing to play a game of a genre she is not normally into if she can play as a realistic female.

I realize my sister is not representative of all women, but since she gets most of her games from my collection, I know her playing habits very well. There are obvious differences in her gaming tastes from mine even though we share a common background and have very similar personalities.

And, Whirlwind, if you ever do find out what women want, please do share.

My gal told me what she wants in a game, I just need to write it. Oddly, I wouldn''t expect her to be interested in this type of game, but she wants one. On par with course, it is a casual gamer''s game and contrary to her current fix - State of Emergency.

Casual gamer:

- wants some results in about 30-60 minutes
- doesn''t want to repeat a lot
- simple rules, but not simple game design
- simple interface - the menu starts the game

There is probably more, but those highlight the general idea..

Escape Velocity is magnificent, and has a fairly gender-neutral cast to it, unless you count the fact that most mission-related NPCs are male.

I seem to be the only guy here who doesn't have a degree in either women's studies or psychology, so I'll refrain from lecturing you on the nuances of female thought. (That's a joke, by the way. I really DO have a degree in women's studies. [That, too, was a joke. I'm an undegraduate majoring in philosophy.])

I'd say that a large portion of the gulf is social. The girls I know that play video games started because they were dating guys that did little else. These girls tend to prefer games that can be dropped at a moment's notice and/or feature multiplayer mode. Fighting games, GTA3, or other games that can be played in a very shallow way. I figure that they think of games as something they do with their boyfriend, rather than something they do on their own.

I, and the other guys I know who are into games, are much more into them. I'll sit for a long time and play an RPG. I've put in three hours or more of straight-up level raising, and not felt odd about it. In retrospect, thet's pretty weird. Maybe one of you psychoanalysts can tell me what's up with that.

So maybe there's some "Game Gene" on the Y chromosome that predisposes us to playing, but maybe it's just like guns. I love guns, and I enjoy shooting guns, and most of society thinks it's a fine and macho thing for me to fill the car with pistols, rifle, shotguns and ammunition, disappear for four hours or so, and come back and spend another hour or so cleaning them. I think that it would be more bizarre to most people to see a woman do that.

I'm not saying that this distinction is right or wrong, I'm just proposing that it might exist, and that public norms might govern, to some extent, individual behavior.

[edited by - Iron Chef Carnage on November 17, 2003 11:15:09 AM]

I guess what I am really looking for is to make the first "fix" game so that more women are "hooked" on playing games. Doing so would allow for a more catering foundation to exist so that the woman/girl gamer would be statiated. Roughly 51% of the US is female, or about 160 million. I am looking more for a Rosey the Rivetter evolution than a revolution. Besides, having millions of chicks happy about what you do for them is always beneficial for a guy :D

quote:

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Original post by Anonymous Poster
Females lack imagination, females don''t feel like exploring new worlds, females don''t like violence...
Males want to be heros and that''s why they like fantasy stories.

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I don''t know if that''s true. First of all there are alot of female fantasy authors out there as well as readers. Lack imagination? I''ve seen so many great artists who are female.
Take for example the online art and story writing community Elfwood which is about 65 percent or more female.

I really just don''t think this is the case. Somebody bash the hell out of me if I''m wrong.

This topic is quite interesting though. The gap between the number of male and female game players seems so staggering and I''ve always wondered why exactly that is so. Women seem to consume most other media about as much as the men.