Girls Just Wanna Have Fun: Female Gamers Take the Floor
Get a load of these numbers from the ESA : 38% of game players are women, with women age 18 or older representing a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (30%) than boys age 17 or younger (23%). The report goes on to say that adult women play games 7.4 hours per week (an average of two hours more than a year ago), while the average adult man plays 7.6 hours per week. A whopping 42% of online game players are female. A CEA study found that women far outnumber men among game players between the ages of 25 and 34, with a 65% share. What does all this mean to the gaming industry? Female gamers are a serious economic force to be reckoned with.
While the female presence in the gaming world is at its highest level, women are no strangers to the game. Pioneer female developers like Dona Bailey (Centipede), Carol Shaw (River Raid), Carla Meninsky (Warlords and Star Raiders) and Anne Westfall (Archon), just to name a few, paved the way for future female designers and developers. We can’t forget Roberta Williams (King’s Quest) who’s final game Phantasmagoria broke new ground with mature content from an adult woman’s perspective. And while female gamers may not yet have the character choices available to their male counterparts, many games do offer strong female characters , from Chun-Li in Streetfighter II, one of the earliest prominent female action heroes in video games, to Princess Zelda, Jill Valentine and Lara Croft. There also seems to be no shortage of female-only game squads/clans like Girlz Clan, FragDolls, Army Op Girlz, Everground, ID.Femme, FinKL and Wonderland. Websites like ladygamers.com and WomenGamers.com offer a uniquely feminine perspective to the often male-oriented gaming world.
For an in depth look into the impact woman now have, have had, and will have on the gaming industry, be sure to join Sharon Wienbar for her 2008 SXSW Screenburn Panel The Female Takedown of Casual Gaming .