Women Gamers
wotmud was nice enough to leave this link in answer to my last post.
http://womeninleadershipandtechnology.blogspot.com/2007/09/female-gamers-on-increase.html
It sounds like the person who wrote that post is in the gaming industry, so she has a different perspective on it than I do. However, she does state this:
Female players tend to be casual, interested in easy-to-pick-up social games but not willing to fork over $30 to $50 for more “tough guy games”. The lure is in getting girls to obsess over games the way they obsess over boy bands or shows like Hannah Montanna.
There are some games I get obsessed over. I’ll fully admit that I used to be addicted to MUDding. A bit of that feeling has been coming back lately, when I log on. I used to be addicted to Asheron’s Call, though I never was for Everquest because I had too tough a time with that game. If I had had more time, I probably would have gotten addicted to that too. Fortunately, I’ve learned to control my addiction to gaming so it does not interfere with my work or family life.
However, as a former AD&D player, the type of game I go for is going to be different from those who aren’t interested in fantasy roleplaying games. My son has picked up some of the same interests, but he likes first person shooters and other military games.
One of the drawbacks I’ve seen listed is the high cost of the gaming platform… Though my son had a PS2 (he broke it), we play mostly computer games. In that case, the gaming systems are something I would have in the house anyway — did I mention I’m a computer geek? LOL
That said, I am cheap. Though I have paid to play Asheron’s Call and Everquest, and for my son to play World of Warcraft, I prefer not to. That’s why I like MUDding.
I may like to solve puzzles, but games like http://puzzlepirates.com just don’t interest me for more than a month. I get bored with doing the same puzzles over and over to go up levels. I prefer to be doing different things.
I may have to check out other MUDs to see how many female gamers playing on them.
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Hi Sharleone, it’s me again 🙂
My experience broadly backs up what you’re saying. Boys prefer the HnS, gaining levels and PK side of MU*s. They don’t mind doing quests or grinding if it gets them better eq or more pracs to go PK with. Girls tend to be there much more for the social and creative aspect, which in our place manifests itself as roleplaying. They quite like crafting and questing, but their main love seems to be roleplaying.
I suspect the amount of female gamers you’ll find on any particular game will depend on its focus – the more PK heavy ones less so. Also, the general theme probably matters a bit – for example in the wheel of time which we’re set in, women are immensely powerful – in essence they control magic.
This certainly skews the statistics because many blokes who want to play the big old magic user then play females. In our MUD the playerbase character distribution is 77% male 21% female. I wouldn’t actually like to estimate what percentage of our players are female. I’d guess around 20%.
Nass