6 ms·

The mobile gaming audience has trended female for quite a while now. It's only in the other categories that men the majority of the audience (consoles, pc, etc)

The mobile gaming audience has trended female for quite a while now. It's only in the other categories that men the majority of the audience (consoles, pc, etc).

novok 6y ago
I think more specifically it's the genre of game. I think the 2 genres that are female dominated last time I've heard are match 3 (think bejeweled) and life/farm sims like the sims. I'm not sure if stardew valley and animal crossing are female dominated or not, but I guess it would be since I think that is the same genre.
- neonological 6y ago
  I remember when I was like 3 or 4 years old the themes of the pictures I drew were markedly different from the pictures girls drew. I drew pictures of warriors, ninjas, dinosaurs, jet planes, guns, swords, explosions and weaponry. I noticed the girls always drew pictures of houses and family and I thought that was the stupidest thing ever. So yeah it's definitely the genre, and dare I say definitely in part biological in origin.
  - lazyasciiart 6y ago
    If this is something you find interesting or where your opinion might matter to other people, I encourage you to look into the enormous amount of research that has been done on differences between men and women in our current society and what might cause those differences. If you don't feel like doing that, a good alternative is that you should not be definite about any of it.
    - neonological 6y ago
      >If you don't feel like doing that, a good alternative is that you should not be definite about any of it. I can be definite about anything I want. Additionally, how do you know I haven't already looked at the enormous amount of research? Either way, the research supports my views in a pretty definitive way. I'm just saying that game genres should cater to the definite biological differences in interests between men and women. Do you disagree? Fine. I accept your disagreement. Let's agree to disagree and not let this turn into a gender flame war. I'm not going to reply this thread.
      - lazyasciiart 6y ago
        I was giving you the benefit of the doubt that if you'd looked at research, you'd know better than to make definitive statements or to rely on your personal anecdotes from toddlerhood. I was also assuming that you were not actually intending to make inflammatory statements prompting people to correct you (what you are probably referring to as a gender flame war), but from your various responses I am no longer sure that assumption is valid. It's somewhat ironic that your participation here consists of a) a thread where you strenuously argue that it is not possible to make definite claims of truth backed by science b) a claim that you know the definite truth about a particular scientific question.
        neonological 6y ago
        Hey, stop being a creeper. Don't stalk my old posts, wtf.
        lazyasciiart 6y ago
        I'd say we have different definitions of creeper. And stalking.
        neonological 6y ago
        Tell your colleagues that you’ve read their past instagrams then. You only do this bs here because it’s anonymous.
    - tryonenow 6y ago
      Sociology is absolutely infested with progressive dogma. I imagine anyone who dared to ask, let alone research, whether there were biological origins for gendered behaviors and tastes would be cancelled, if they could even get funding. So there is an implicit pressure not to ask certain questions, and any modern research into the subject is going to be horribly biased. This idea that all gender differences are purely environmental is at odds with the sexually dimorphic specialization that we observe across time, culture, and species. It makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. We know that hormones influence behavior. And then there are physical differences between men and women that also will inevitably combine on to manifest as innate gendered preferences. This all in addition to the verified differences in male/female brain structure and processing. This anti-intellectualism is particularly dangerous because, as your comment illustrates, the vast majority of people who are aware of the "research" are completely ignorant of the very real dogmatic pressures pervasive in academia which suppress entire opposing viewpoints. The result is increasingly poor policy in the corporate and political spheres.
  - Talanes 6y ago
    When I was five, the things I wanted most were a Power Rangers Dragonzord and an Easy Bake Oven. Never got either... It's fine that your childhood preferences aligned perfectly with gender stereotypes, but experiences vary. As an aside to the potentially harmful aspect of stereotypes in childhood, I think I could have been more athletic. Not an athlete, mind you, but I definitely had the physical prowess to have learned to enjoy sports as a child. But adults told me I was smart, and the culture told me that smart people didn't enjoy physical activity.
  - filleduchaos 6y ago
    While we're sharing anecdotes, I have also been into warriors, ninjas, dinosaurs, jet planes, guns, swords, explosions and weaponry since I was a young child. What I 100% was not into was: - all the bullying and exclusion I got from boys when I tried to do or talk about "their things" with them - the way I was inevitably the one that got called away to help out with one chore or errand or the other - being scrutinised (to the point of pathologising) for openly being unbothered by violence and gore - on the flip side, the rather weird expectation that I should or would be open to (receiving) violence and aggression in real life just because I do so on a screen, or that I could not also like teddy bears and flowers and family - the reinforcement from many of the games (and other media) themselves that these were Boys' Things for a Boys' Club that I was just intruding on - the step beyond bullying and into actual, pretty vile harassment when I eventually started trying to play or talk about games in a bigger context (i.e. online)
  - meheleventyone 6y ago
    Honestly it’s amazing you can recall what you drew at 3 or 4 in enough detail let alone what your classmates drew!
  - renewiltord 6y ago
    Surely this comment is beyond Poe's Law.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - bregma 6y ago
    Gender conditioning starts before birth ("should I paint the nursery walls pink or blue?") and slams the child the moment they;re squeezed out. Toddlers are not good or bad, they're "good boys" or "bad girls", reinforcing gender-role stereotypes from the earliest learning years. Don't assume that after 3 or 4 years of full-time operant conditioning that there is anything inherently organic about your gendered behaviour.
    - marshmallow_12 6y ago
      -Toddlers are not good or bad, they're "good boys" or "bad girls" ...huh? Am i missing something? Is there a problem with telling children what gender they belong to?? Am i just being thick? Help me, anyone. Please
      - andrewzah 6y ago
        No. They're saying that toddlers also get socially conditioned from birth. So the behaviors that they display are not 100% inherent. So how toddlers act isn't really a good (scientific) argument for nature vs nurture.
    - neonological 6y ago
      I urge you to read the below: https://sites.psu.edu/evolutionofhumansexuality/2014/04/07/gender-identity-nature-vs-nurture/ https://sites.psu.edu/evolutionofhumansexuality/2014/04/07/g... TLDR: males castrated at birth and raised as females still had a male gender identity. There is no controversy behind this in science. Most of this controversy exists in gender politics. But the politics is so strong one of my repliers just assumed I didn’t do any research when the opposite is true. Research indicates gender identity is biological if you don’t know this you didn’t do the research. You can still choose to hold a different conclusion then the entire scientific community... that is your right. Now I’m not here to start a debate. I couldn’t resist replying to you but for the sake of not starting an off topic gender flame war and violating HN rules I’m not going to respond. Just read the evidence and take what you will from it is just information to add to your existing knowledge.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- est31 6y ago
  Link to a study about the subject: https://quanticfoundry.com/2017/01/19/female-gamers-by-genre/ https://quanticfoundry.com/2017/01/19/female-gamers-by-genre...
- maxflow2 6y ago
  Stardew Valley subreddit poll (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScdywbXfs07mL6OARU_BPEI4Lj_H24GrmNwtEaegIZr0Wt97g/viewanalytics https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScdywbXfs07mL6OARU_...) had almost as many women as men. Dragon Age: Inquisition demographics (https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/NickYee/20170120/289534/Beyond_5050_Breaking_Down_The_Percentage_of_Female_Gamers_by_Genre.phphttp://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/NickYee/20170120/289534/Beyond_5050_Breaking_Down_The_Percentage_of_Female_Gamers_by_Genre.php https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/NickYee/20170120/289534/Beyo...) also boasts 48% female which is very high compared to genre averages. There is likely a lot of untapped market in the RPG and simulation genres if games want to cater more to women. Probably less so in stuff like FPS.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  Don't overlook https://www.bigfishgames.com/us/en.html https://www.bigfishgames.com/us/en.html . I remember a comment on HN years ago pointing out that there seems to be virtually no awareness of Big Fish in places you might expect, like computer game journalism or computer enthusiast forums, despite the fact that they essentially fill the market niche of "Steam for women".
nitwit005 6y ago
It doesn't matter when it comes to owners and investors. They can hire female writers and artists to create products aimed at women. Realistically, since the gaming market is global, no individual will be representative of the market. Japanese women aren't going to know what Mexican women want in mobile games.
Ygg2 6y ago
Mobile gaming isn't gaming. Most of the games are just thinly veiled gambling machines, with few outliers.
- andrewzah 6y ago
  Let's not gatekeep gaming. Playing games is gaming. There are plenty of actual games on mobile. Just because you don't play those games, doesn't mean mobile gaming as a whole isn't "gaming".
- xodice 6y ago
  Playing a game is gaming. Just because you personally do not like a genre doesn't instantly make it not a game... Even people playing board games are still gamers. People playing sports are gamers. They just play different game genres than you. A game is a game.
  - Ygg2 6y ago
    > Playing a game is gaming. > A game is a game. If that was true we wouldn't regulate gambling. After all. It's just a game. Of chance. Right? And,yes I am pro regulating video game, especially lootboxes.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - xodice 6y ago
      Yes, of course gambling is a game of chance. I don't get what you're getting at? I also am for regulating loot boxes, I still do not see how that changes the fact a game is a game.
      - Ygg2 6y ago
        Do you count gamblers as gamers then? Because you then enter a contradiction. Because gamblers aren't (video) gamers. They are more people addicted to a mechanic and less about enjoying the medium.

The mobile gaming audience has trended female for quite a while now. It's only in the other categories that men the majority of the audience (consoles, pc, etc).

novok 6y ago

I think more specifically it's the genre of game. I think the 2 genres that are female dominated last time I've heard are match 3 (think bejeweled) and life/farm sims like the sims. I'm not sure if stardew valley and animal crossing are female dominated or not, but I guess it would be since I think that is the same genre.

neonological 6y ago
I remember when I was like 3 or 4 years old the themes of the pictures I drew were markedly different from the pictures girls drew. I drew pictures of warriors, ninjas, dinosaurs, jet planes, guns, swords, explosions and weaponry. I noticed the girls always drew pictures of houses and family and I thought that was the stupidest thing ever. So yeah it's definitely the genre, and dare I say definitely in part biological in origin.
- lazyasciiart 6y ago
  If this is something you find interesting or where your opinion might matter to other people, I encourage you to look into the enormous amount of research that has been done on differences between men and women in our current society and what might cause those differences. If you don't feel like doing that, a good alternative is that you should not be definite about any of it.
  - neonological 6y ago
    >If you don't feel like doing that, a good alternative is that you should not be definite about any of it. I can be definite about anything I want. Additionally, how do you know I haven't already looked at the enormous amount of research? Either way, the research supports my views in a pretty definitive way. I'm just saying that game genres should cater to the definite biological differences in interests between men and women. Do you disagree? Fine. I accept your disagreement. Let's agree to disagree and not let this turn into a gender flame war. I'm not going to reply this thread.
    - lazyasciiart 6y ago
      I was giving you the benefit of the doubt that if you'd looked at research, you'd know better than to make definitive statements or to rely on your personal anecdotes from toddlerhood. I was also assuming that you were not actually intending to make inflammatory statements prompting people to correct you (what you are probably referring to as a gender flame war), but from your various responses I am no longer sure that assumption is valid. It's somewhat ironic that your participation here consists of a) a thread where you strenuously argue that it is not possible to make definite claims of truth backed by science b) a claim that you know the definite truth about a particular scientific question.
      - neonological 6y ago
        Hey, stop being a creeper. Don't stalk my old posts, wtf.
        lazyasciiart 6y ago
        I'd say we have different definitions of creeper. And stalking.
        neonological 6y ago
        Tell your colleagues that you’ve read their past instagrams then. You only do this bs here because it’s anonymous.
  - tryonenow 6y ago
    Sociology is absolutely infested with progressive dogma. I imagine anyone who dared to ask, let alone research, whether there were biological origins for gendered behaviors and tastes would be cancelled, if they could even get funding. So there is an implicit pressure not to ask certain questions, and any modern research into the subject is going to be horribly biased. This idea that all gender differences are purely environmental is at odds with the sexually dimorphic specialization that we observe across time, culture, and species. It makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. We know that hormones influence behavior. And then there are physical differences between men and women that also will inevitably combine on to manifest as innate gendered preferences. This all in addition to the verified differences in male/female brain structure and processing. This anti-intellectualism is particularly dangerous because, as your comment illustrates, the vast majority of people who are aware of the "research" are completely ignorant of the very real dogmatic pressures pervasive in academia which suppress entire opposing viewpoints. The result is increasingly poor policy in the corporate and political spheres.
- Talanes 6y ago
  When I was five, the things I wanted most were a Power Rangers Dragonzord and an Easy Bake Oven. Never got either... It's fine that your childhood preferences aligned perfectly with gender stereotypes, but experiences vary. As an aside to the potentially harmful aspect of stereotypes in childhood, I think I could have been more athletic. Not an athlete, mind you, but I definitely had the physical prowess to have learned to enjoy sports as a child. But adults told me I was smart, and the culture told me that smart people didn't enjoy physical activity.
- filleduchaos 6y ago
  While we're sharing anecdotes, I have also been into warriors, ninjas, dinosaurs, jet planes, guns, swords, explosions and weaponry since I was a young child. What I 100% was not into was: - all the bullying and exclusion I got from boys when I tried to do or talk about "their things" with them - the way I was inevitably the one that got called away to help out with one chore or errand or the other - being scrutinised (to the point of pathologising) for openly being unbothered by violence and gore - on the flip side, the rather weird expectation that I should or would be open to (receiving) violence and aggression in real life just because I do so on a screen, or that I could not also like teddy bears and flowers and family - the reinforcement from many of the games (and other media) themselves that these were Boys' Things for a Boys' Club that I was just intruding on - the step beyond bullying and into actual, pretty vile harassment when I eventually started trying to play or talk about games in a bigger context (i.e. online)
- meheleventyone 6y ago
  Honestly it’s amazing you can recall what you drew at 3 or 4 in enough detail let alone what your classmates drew!
- renewiltord 6y ago
  Surely this comment is beyond Poe's Law.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- bregma 6y ago
  Gender conditioning starts before birth ("should I paint the nursery walls pink or blue?") and slams the child the moment they;re squeezed out. Toddlers are not good or bad, they're "good boys" or "bad girls", reinforcing gender-role stereotypes from the earliest learning years. Don't assume that after 3 or 4 years of full-time operant conditioning that there is anything inherently organic about your gendered behaviour.
  - marshmallow_12 6y ago
    -Toddlers are not good or bad, they're "good boys" or "bad girls" ...huh? Am i missing something? Is there a problem with telling children what gender they belong to?? Am i just being thick? Help me, anyone. Please
    - andrewzah 6y ago
      No. They're saying that toddlers also get socially conditioned from birth. So the behaviors that they display are not 100% inherent. So how toddlers act isn't really a good (scientific) argument for nature vs nurture.
  - neonological 6y ago
    I urge you to read the below: https://sites.psu.edu/evolutionofhumansexuality/2014/04/07/gender-identity-nature-vs-nurture/ https://sites.psu.edu/evolutionofhumansexuality/2014/04/07/g... TLDR: males castrated at birth and raised as females still had a male gender identity. There is no controversy behind this in science. Most of this controversy exists in gender politics. But the politics is so strong one of my repliers just assumed I didn’t do any research when the opposite is true. Research indicates gender identity is biological if you don’t know this you didn’t do the research. You can still choose to hold a different conclusion then the entire scientific community... that is your right. Now I’m not here to start a debate. I couldn’t resist replying to you but for the sake of not starting an off topic gender flame war and violating HN rules I’m not going to respond. Just read the evidence and take what you will from it is just information to add to your existing knowledge.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
est31 6y ago
Link to a study about the subject: https://quanticfoundry.com/2017/01/19/female-gamers-by-genre/ https://quanticfoundry.com/2017/01/19/female-gamers-by-genre...
maxflow2 6y ago
Stardew Valley subreddit poll (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScdywbXfs07mL6OARU_BPEI4Lj_H24GrmNwtEaegIZr0Wt97g/viewanalytics https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScdywbXfs07mL6OARU_...) had almost as many women as men. Dragon Age: Inquisition demographics (https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/NickYee/20170120/289534/Beyond_5050_Breaking_Down_The_Percentage_of_Female_Gamers_by_Genre.phphttp://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/NickYee/20170120/289534/Beyond_5050_Breaking_Down_The_Percentage_of_Female_Gamers_by_Genre.php https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/NickYee/20170120/289534/Beyo...) also boasts 48% female which is very high compared to genre averages. There is likely a lot of untapped market in the RPG and simulation genres if games want to cater more to women. Probably less so in stuff like FPS.
thaumasiotes 6y ago
Don't overlook https://www.bigfishgames.com/us/en.html https://www.bigfishgames.com/us/en.html . I remember a comment on HN years ago pointing out that there seems to be virtually no awareness of Big Fish in places you might expect, like computer game journalism or computer enthusiast forums, despite the fact that they essentially fill the market niche of "Steam for women".

nitwit005 6y ago

It doesn't matter when it comes to owners and investors. They can hire female writers and artists to create products aimed at women. Realistically, since the gaming market is global, no individual will be representative of the market. Japanese women aren't going to know what Mexican women want in mobile games.

Ygg2 6y ago

Mobile gaming isn't gaming. Most of the games are just thinly veiled gambling machines, with few outliers.

andrewzah 6y ago
Let's not gatekeep gaming. Playing games is gaming. There are plenty of actual games on mobile. Just because you don't play those games, doesn't mean mobile gaming as a whole isn't "gaming".
xodice 6y ago
Playing a game is gaming. Just because you personally do not like a genre doesn't instantly make it not a game... Even people playing board games are still gamers. People playing sports are gamers. They just play different game genres than you. A game is a game.
- Ygg2 6y ago
  > Playing a game is gaming. > A game is a game. If that was true we wouldn't regulate gambling. After all. It's just a game. Of chance. Right? And,yes I am pro regulating video game, especially lootboxes.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - xodice 6y ago
    Yes, of course gambling is a game of chance. I don't get what you're getting at? I also am for regulating loot boxes, I still do not see how that changes the fact a game is a game.
    - Ygg2 6y ago
      Do you count gamblers as gamers then? Because you then enter a contradiction. Because gamblers aren't (video) gamers. They are more people addicted to a mechanic and less about enjoying the medium.