Girls have always been a bit excluded from the gaming industry. Companies seem to think that girls still don’t play games for some reason so we’re never taken seriously as customers. Well, it’s time for game companies need to think twice about not including us as we’ve recently taken over a large percentage of the market.
A study shows that there are more female gamers than there are teenage male gamers, the primary audience these days. Men still take up most of the market with 52%, but that other 48% belongs to us!
“People of all ages play video games. There is no longer a ‘stereotype
game player,’ but instead a game player could be your grandparent,
your boss, or even your professor.”
—Jason Allaire, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at North Carolina State
University and co-director of the Gains Through Gaming Lab
When it comes to purchasing games, there’s no difference at all in percentages. Sales have been shown to be 50% male and 50% female! Thankfully, these things are being taken in account by some companies. Nintendo has always been open to the female market with characters like Samus and amazing female characters in the Pokémon series. In fact, in Pokémon X and Y, a huge percentage of the male audience chose to play as the female character because she was more customizable!
Here are just a few posts from forums on the subject;
‘This time with Y, I find I’m wanting to play as a girl because it seems there’s more wardrobe outfits, and she seems cuter than the boy wearing an athletic outfit with boring hat, and if Im gonna spend a hundred or so hours looking at this character, I want the (in my opinion) superior designed one.’
‘I’m a guy, but I’ve always played female characters ever since Crystal.’
Companies, listen up. Guys are not put off by female main characters, in fact, sometimes they’re preferred. We’re a huge part of the market, time to treat us like it!
