Dispelling Myths about Female Gamers
Nick Yee—
Gender is a hotly contested topic in gaming. There is a lot of noise and vitriol, but at its core, much of the debate revolves around the shifting demographics of gaming due to its mainstreaming, and the resulting tension over who gets to be a real “gamer” and what counts as a “real game.” The old guard wants designers to devote their attention to them and derides some genres as not being “real games,” whereas new arrivals advocate for more inclusive and diverse game avatars, narratives, and gameplay.
Empirical game industry data to ground this discussion are rare, and the oft-quoted “50% of gamers are women” statistic can be counter-productive. Detractors point out that if 50% of gamers are in fact already women, then there is little need to produce games that are more inclusive.
For the past two years, I have collected survey data from over 300,000 gamers alongside my colleagues at Quantic Foundry. Our primary research focus is on gaming motivations, but the data set has also allowed us to examine gender differences. Over and over again, we have noticed that cursory examinations of the data often support a gender-normative narrative, but diving deeper into the data reveals far more surprising (and interesting) relationships between gender and gameplay.
At first glance, gaming motivations among men and women seem to align with gender stereotypes: Men are primarily motivated by competition and destruction, while women’s primary motivations are completion and fantasy. But this is only part of the story. For example, consider competition—the motivation that varies the most between male and female gamers—for which, it turns out, age accounts for twice the statistical variance than gender does. Or, to put it another way, the delta in the appeal of competition between younger men and older men is much bigger than the delta between men and women.
Much of the old guard’s angst stems from the assumption that female gamers have dramatically different gaming motivations (which would “ruin” gaming if the industry catered to them), but this is not supported by the data. If anything, we are making a mountain out of a molehill when the elephant in the room is actually age.
We find a similar pattern when we look at the proportion of gamers in each genre who identify as female. The oft-quoted “50% of gamers are women” statistic hides the wide disparity in gender ratios across game genres. In our data, the proportion of gamers in each genre that is female range from nearly 70% in Match 3 games and Family/Farm Sim games, to 2-4% in Sports games and Tactical Shooters. (That is nearly a thirty-five-fold difference in proportion of female gamers.)
It is tempting to assign these variations solely to gender differences in gaming motivations—e.g., women simply don’t like doing X or Y in games—but there is a lot more involved under the surface. For instance, games with lower proportions of female gamers tend not to have female protagonists, generally involve playing with strangers online, and often integrate rapid 3D movement that can beget motion sickness (to which women are more susceptible). Low female gamer participation in certain genres may be a mere remnant of how motivations and presentation have been bundled together and marketed.
As a concrete example, female gamers are often assumed to shy away from violent games; however, female gamers actually find just as much appeal in gory, “in-your-face” weapons (such as swords and hammers) as male gamers do. What female gamers dislike about guns likely is not the violence per se, but rather that conventional guns are the most unimaginative way to kill someone. As one gamer commented on our blog, “guns are the most boring version of the ranged attack.”
What we often think of as gendered motivation differences may actually be historical artifacts. And digging deeper to understand these assumptions is not solely an academic exercise; it can be incredibly lucrative. By way of illustration, about 7% of gamers in a typical First Person Shooter are female gamers. But Blizzard’s Overwatch—which offers a diverse cast of playable heroes and more inventive weapon choices—more than doubles this average, with women accounting for about 16% of players.
The assumption that female gamers aren’t “real gamers” has played out in dramatic ways. In 2016, a skilled female Overwatch gamer was accused of cheating. Two (male) professional eSports players were so sure of this that they said they would quit if this were proven to not be the case. After Blizzard (the game developer) cleared her name, the two eSports players both apologized and left their eSports team. This episode suggests that the old guard’s vexation is not simply about sharing the attention of game developers with the new arrivals, but also stems from the dread of being beaten by “casual female gamers” on their own turf.
Nick Yee is the co-founder and analytics lead of Quantic Foundry. He lives in Mountain View, CA.
Further Reading
Featured image: “video game girl” by paulinapratko, licensed for use on the public domain via pixabay.
So let me get this straight:
“Much of the old guard’s angst stems from the assumption that female gamers have dramatically different gaming motivations (which would “ruin” gaming if the industry catered to them), but this is not supported by the data.”
That is a fairly brutal oversimplification since gamers in general don’t like their favourite series or franchises to be changed, and it’s not a gender based issue. But we’ll move on with this as a baseline for the defence, that women entering the gaming sphere will not alter existing games franchise and thus existing gamers have no reason to dislike the arrival of new gaming groups.
This argument is doubled down again in:
“It is tempting to assign these variations solely to gender differences in gaming motivations—e.g., women simply don’t like doing X or Y in games—but there is a lot more involved under the surface.”
But then the articles goes against this and claims that “For instance, games with lower proportions of female gamers tend not to have female protagonists, generally involve playing with strangers online, and often integrate rapid 3D movement that can beget motion sickness (to which women are more susceptible). Low female gamer participation in certain genres may be a mere remnant of how motivations and presentation have been bundled together and marketed.”
Which starts to undo the articles own argument. It’s admitting that there are fundamental and core differences in what is more popular with not only each gender, but more importantly between the established gaming community (which includes both genders, just not in equal proportions) and the new arrivals to the franchise/series.
More-so the articles goes on to give examples such as women’s preference for bladed weapons rather than guns, and tries to write this difference off as either being insignificant or somehow shaming gamers who prefer gun/firearm weapons as being boring and simple. I understand why this was done since it allows the author to lump together all ‘violence’ into one category and tell existing gamer that adding bladed weapons is the future because they’re not…boring… instead of having admit that there is a fundemental self-admitted data-driven difference in preference based on gender but this is ignorant of the vast number of hyper-complex and narrative integrated ways games have use gun mechanics (Alien: Isolation used their noise to attract the Alien making them as scary to use as to face, Sniper Elite and Ghost Warrior franchises use drop and wind to create more complex puzzle shots mixed with stealth gameplay, Metro Last Light uses guns as visual representations of the worlds barely functional scrap economy right down to bullets being the currency forcing decisions between shooting a bandit for his gear or buying something from the next town, etc…). It also ignores the vast number of narratively interesting worlds not possible with gun-alternatives (historical warzones, sci-fi, milsim, parodies and satires of the previously mentioned). I’d also love to know how a basic hitscan instakill weapon can be made more interesting by simply changing its in-game model from an M-16 to a glowing walking stick… I mean wizards staff…
But that was a bit off topic because the real meat here is how that difference in weapon preference, which this article claims to be backed up with its own data evidence, is more than a change in ‘presentation’ as presented in this article, it changes the fundemental design of a game. Tekken does not use rocket launchers, COD does not use swords and fists, ARMA does not use battleships, and Thief does not use machineguns. Weapon rate of fire, damage, leathality, range, accuracy, and availability are all key parts of level design in both SP and MP modes. It can even effect mechanics themselves. Alien: Isolation would not work if the player was given a sword to silently cut down androids, Soul Calibre matches would be moring first-hit-wins affairs if each contestant was armed with an M134 Minigun, and even within genres BF1 would be unbalanced if one side was given access to M1A1 Abrams. To suggest that existing games franchise, and new games in genres which are directly linked to some real or established world, should be catering to new groups (who happen to be at least partly female) is exactly the kind of enforced change this article berated gamers for believing as a ‘myth’.
Those ‘historical artefacts’ this article bemoans are actually mechanics and structures built up through years of established gaming communities exercising their free market preferences, and now they’re being attacked as outdated simply because they want their preferred IP’s to remain as they are.
This article even gives an example of a new IP doing well by being it’s own thing. Overwatch didn’t face abuse (well, besides some members of the perpetually offended thinking Tracer was too attractive) because it didn’t try to change an existing community. It didn’t attack existing gamers or tell them they had to change because women liked swords and so 98-96% of tactical shooter fans had to suffer for the possible 2% (and that established 2-4% likely loved guns anyway). It came out as its own idea, and thrived.
Which means that not only has this article accidentally argued that the ‘myth’ it presented is indeed based in data-driven reality, it has shown how the real answer lies in allowing different communities with different tastes to exist separately without screaming ‘sexism’ when people want to keep their favourite franchise/series as something they enjoy instead of something other people will enjoy. For this later point I suggest the author read up on some non-gender related incidents in the gaming sphere, they almost all relate to some existing community being offended when their game is changed to appeal to another. From the dumbing down of HOI4 and FO4, to the consolisation of , to real changes like Halo going RTS or XCOM going squad-based ability command shooter.
I don’t think we’ll see eye to eye on this, but I would like to point out that much of your comment relies on hyperbolic strawmen arguments. When I wrote that observed differences aren’t “solely” due to gender differences, you took that to mean that I’m arguing that there are no gender differences at all. And when I wrote that unexplored design spaces exist, you took that to mean existing franchises would have to endure nonsensical “enforced” design changes.
But I’m glad you took the time to leave this comment because it exemplifies the anxiety that discussions of gender differences in gaming can often elicit.
First and foremost I would like to applaud the general tone of this article. I don’t think there can ever be enough pieces pointing out that myths are myths and reality is a far more complex beast than any of us realises, closed as we are in the little bubble of our personal groups of friends.
However, I disagree with statements like this:
‘The old guard wants designers to devote their attention to them and derides some genres as not being “real games,” whereas new arrivals advocate for more inclusive and diverse game avatars, narratives, and gameplay.’
This is a massive oversimplification, and I feel that it undermines the overall tone of the article.
Some of the old guard is indeed responsible of the worst vitriol that has been flung around, but other oldies are squarely in the advocates’ camp – more than you’d think. Some because they are both old guard AND ‘minorities’, like yours truly. But more because they have somehow managed to get older and grow up at the same time.
On the other hand, plenty of the most reactionary gamers are those who are teenagers today, who at least in this oldie’s eyes very much qualify as new arrivals. (Sorry kid, if you haven’t played Beam Rider on a C64 you can’t talk to me about adrenalinic gameplay. I may no longer have the reflexes I had back then, but still.)
Now of course I don’t have any hard data because I haven’t done any research, I just play games and talk with my mates – most of whom are in my age range, some of whom have been gaming for about as long as I did.
It is just fascinating from my vantage point to see whole categories of games, such as puzzles for instance, dumped into the ‘casual’ bin today. Back when I started gaming, in the 80s, a game was a game and the crowd around the arcade machine running Tetris at my local coffee shop was not any different than the one hanging around Street Fighter or Bubble Bobble or what have you. Of course, we had fewer releases back then – especially in a coffee shop that had three or four machines running at most.
It is also fascinating to see so much fuss being made around gender inclusiveness when there are far bigger forces changing and shaping the way games are made now, such as microtransactions and free-to-play. Or the dumbing down of the narrative in franchises like, say, The Elder Scrolls, because everything has to be voice-acted these days and so you simply cannot have the same amount of text that you used to have in Morrowind – it would be way too expensive.
After reading this post by Nick Yee and the reply by Ask_Me_When, I find the reply a more compelling explanation of the data. My immediate reaction to the Yee post, prior to reading the reply, was exactly that summarized in the reply: the data seem contradictory to the rationalization imposed by Yee.
I only leave this brief note to express my disappointment in YaleBooks.com (and, I suppose, Yale University Press) in allowing this sort of marketing effort to reflect poorly on rational and clear-headed thought I would otherwise associate with Yale University and higher education. I realize this is the sort of marketing fluff that is the rule nowadays, but, nevertheless, I am moved to record this concern.