A study published on Wednesday by the Internet Advertising Bureau reveals that 52% of the gaming audience is made up of women. That’s right – the majority of people playing games are women.
Does this surprise you? It shouldn’t. Three years ago that figure was 49%, which is hardly a trifling minority. Women have always played games, and in recent years the growth of the mobile games industry in particular has been driven by a female consumer base.
Yet the stereotype that games are a pastime for adolescent boys is an enduring one, and one that is perpetuated by the aggressive marketing of many big-budget games.
What do we think when we think of a videogame? Most likely a multimillion dollar console title dripping with machismo and bristling with weaponry. Yet the reality is that the most popular gaming device today is the smartphone, and the most popular genres are puzzle, trivia and word games. Less Call of Duty and more Words With Friends.
Now, there will be many who respond to this shift in the marketplace with the objection “but those aren’t proper games”. Mobile games, free-to-play games, social games – all games which, strangely enough, appeal to women in droves – are considered somehow lesser by many in the “traditional” gaming world.
Look at the dismissive responses to the wildly profitable mobile game Kim Kardashian: Hollywood – it’s hard to separate judgments of the game itself from judgments of the kind of person that plays it. It’s no mistake that the Telegraph put its review of the game in the “Women’s Life” section rather than “Tech”.
Whether you think it’s any good or not, the game appeals to a broad range of players. I can’t help but feel that part of its appeal lies in allowing players to choose to be male or female, gay or straight. In that sense, it’s more welcoming and progressive than the vast majority of games.
In the past few years, the very notion of what a game is has broadened to include a variety of experiences that are accessible to a wider audience than the typical blockbuster console title, and that can only be a good thing for an industry which has struggled to position itself in mainstream culture. While hardcore gamers and the industry at large argue about whether these games are “proper” or not, everyone else is playing them.
Which begs a broader question: are more women playing mobile games because women are more interested in mobile games? Or is it because they have been told, over and over again, that “proper” games are not for them? That, more broadly, videogames are not for them?
Videogames with female protagonists are still in the minority, and even being able to play as a woman is often still considered an optional extra by developers and publishers. (And let’s not even get into how games underserve people of colour, LGBTQ people and other minorities.) Despite the fact that women make up the majority of the gaming audience, the number of women working in the games industry remains shockingly low – only 12% of game designers in Britain and 3% of all programmers are women. The number of women speaking at industry conferences and press events is minuscule. And it isn’t because women don’t want to work in games.
While gaming is now undeniably part of the cultural mainstream, much of the games industry still doesn’t act like it. Not only do games fail to represent that 52% of players identify as women, the fact is that women in games – as characters, and as creators – are still barely visible.
But we exist, and we are making games and playing them and talking about them – and the wider games industry is slowly taking note. From a purely business standpoint, it makes sense for the games industry to make an effort to be more representative of its audience. Developing games that appeal to a broader audience requires a broad range of perspectives.
I think, and I hope, that for the games industry and for people who play games, the best is yet to come. Because the facts are in: games are for everyone.
