Why Aren`t More Women Involved in Gaming?
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How many women showed up at your last LAN party? And how many of them weren't just someone's girlfriend who tagged along? While women's interest in technology and gaming has been growing gradually over the years, game companies could be doing a lot more to entice us to open our purses or even pursue careers as game designers.
The computer and video industry is taking up that age-old question of “What do women want?” This is more than an academic or casual question, especially with women’s growing financial power in the marketplace. A company able to tap into the power will find itself smiling all the way to the bank – as Electronic Arts found out when it made The Sims, which sells equally well to men and women. With U.S. players alone spending more than $7 billion on video games in 2004, convincing more women to interact with that glowing screen promises growth for an already large industry.
This is important, because the market may already be reaching a saturation point among males, its traditional target. According to the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), three-quarters of American heads of households play computer and video games, with the average age of a player being 30 – a tad older than the stereotypical teen-ager. Gaming companies still reflect the stereotype, however.
The E3 expo in Los Angeles brings this point sharply into focus. Known as the world’s largest video games show, many if not most of the companies in attendance seem to be heavily promoting action and fighting games aimed at 20-to-30-something-year-old male gamers. It’s also easy to spot “booth babes,” hired to grab the attention of conference attendees, who are primarily male. Doug Lowenstein, president of the ESA, notes that this does not help the perception of the field. “Our own industry, mainly through our marketing practices, reinforces the stereotype that most gamers are men,” he observed.
It’s not as if we don’t play games at all. That was the common perception about ten years ago. But surveys taken in the last year or two show how much this has changed. According to figures compiled by the Entertainment and Leisure Publishers Association (the UK counterpart to the ESA), women make up a quarter of the gamers in the UK, 39 percent in the U.S., and a whopping 69 percent in South Korea. Last year, the Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA) found that 43 percent of all computer gamers are women – and women make half of all game purchases. Even so, that begs the question of how many of those purchases are for themselves, and how many they intend to give as gifts to the boys and men in their lives.
Next: Women’s Gaming Style is Different >>
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