Girls make love not warcraft
Sadly, it’s true. While 40% of all games players are female (a rather large percentage that often shocks some people), only 15% of them play games like World of Warcraft (WoW).
I think this is probably because of the perceived element of competition in games such as WoW or Runescape (another online game). Girls tend to stay clear of the male stomping ground and focus almost entirely on ‘god sims’: games which give the player complete control over the denizens of a virtual world, such as The Sims — which is, incidentally, one of the largest selling games of all time. The female gamer market share is something most game developers can only dream of capturing. Another popular genre for those lovely female gamers are ‘dress up’ games, where there is more emphasis on a character’s appearance — there’s even a site dedicated to finding such games! The rather cutesy look of the site is probably an indication of the target audience.
Moving onto a more specific area — online gaming – Nick Yee’s research (The Daedalus Project) dwarfs every other body of work on the topic, even if its objectivity is hotly contested by many other academics. There are simply too many interesting statistics available from the project so I won’t bore you with them, but poke around if you’re interested in finding out more the new and exciting breed of online gamers — gamers like me.
The only pertinent statistic, is that 35% of all WoW characters are female — and only half of those are actually played by girls in real life. Not only does this mean that only 15% out of 11.5 million players are female, it also means that 50% of all female characters are being played by boys. Now, gender-bending isn’t a new thing! Tt’s pretty common in online games, where you interact with tens or even hundreds of people each day, and playing a female can give you a certain… edge. Female characters are given gifts, they receive beneficial treatment and generally have a much easier and enjoyable gaming experience than males. Someone is much more likely to stop and help you kill some big, gribbly beasty if you’re female. (Isn’t gribbly the best word ever?)
All of these things are real life phenomena too – this is just one example of virtual worlds imitating real life.
Sadly, in my guild, we only have about 5 girls (well, that I’m certain of), out of about 150 people. That seems a fair bit below the 15% Nick Yee suggests. On top of that, I think only 1 of those girls is an actual ‘free gamer’, and not in the guild purely because their boyfriend is there.
So, this is my attempt to drive more girls to online gaming in general, and my guild in particular. While it’s true that many people play online games like WoW for the competition, and being first, many people play just for the fun. There’s also lots of dressing up you can do, with thousands of aesthetic choices you can make to your character. I guess it’s by no coincidence that most girls prefer ‘Tolkein fantasy’ — they identify easiest with those lithe bodies and pointy ears, right? But still only 15% are female! We must increase that number! For geeky men like me all over the globe!
I think the problem is, at least for a hardcore guild like mine, is that the guys that I play with simply don’t get out. They don’t meet anyone, because games like World of Warcraft require a certain amount of time investment that makes socialising outside of the game a little difficult. I guess, considering women are much more social creatures than men, I’m not drawing a very good picture here. Let me recover with a pretty photo of my character:[SinglePic not found]
See, isn’t it PRETTY? A dragon! and swirly… magical things! Just ignore the skeletal dragon in the background.
Anyway, as I was saying, as the guys don’t get out much, they don’t get girlfriends — or at least socialise with girls. Without some kind of female contact, it’s quite hard to become socially adjusted — and you have to present yourself as a well-adjusted guild if you want to woo those few female players.
Girls just don’t appreciate it when they first thing they see upon joining the guild is ‘Argh, I’ve got itchy balls.’
So, girls, start playing an online game and adopt a geek today. Teach us the arts of grooming.
Today is a day of change, after all.
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lol the title of the post is funny, you watch south park much?:P
January 21st, 2009 at 5:46 amFrom time to time…
And no, I’m nothing like Cartman in that episode!
More like the evil guy…
January 21st, 2009 at 1:25 pminteresting post and thanks for the Yee link. I’ve been looking for that!
I can’t believe that only 15% of players are female! I have encountered so many female gamers on my servers. A lot of them only “come out” to other female gamers for fear of being e-stalked in the game(oooh, i have so many stories!) or treated differently , so maybe that’s why I feel like there are more out there.
I’m not sure if the reason there aren’t more female WoW players is because of competition. I (and my girl gamer friends) LOVE the game for the competition and not for the dressing up of the toons(though I will admit to collecting patterns and saving my black mageweave outfit-sexiest outfit in the game!). I live for topping damage meters with my lock and keeping my designated tank up with my epic heals…hehe.
I wonder what the percentage of female gamers on alliance side is to female gamers on horde
January 21st, 2009 at 1:51 pmoh and do i get points for knowing that the title is a WoW PvP achievement?
January 21st, 2009 at 1:53 pmHey! A female WoW player!
I was going to go into this in more detail, but I didn’t want to scare people off
The girls that DO play WoW are split between two camps — those that are the girlfriends, and those that play the game very hard indeed. I’ve had quite a few girls in my guild (over time) that have been better than their male counterparts. They simply try harder than guys (this is probably similar to real life, where girls are often seen to be trying harder than guys — something to prove? Or just girls being… girls?)
I think Nick Yee has charts on male/female and horde/alliance. I know the reason they introduced the Blood Elf to the horde side was because almost every girl was on the alliance side, playing elves and humans.
I know 15% sounds low, but being part of the small group yourself, you are naturally ‘in’ the circle of female gamers — they ‘come out’, as you say!
It’s funny how many girls play male characters too…
January 21st, 2009 at 1:56 pmNo, no points, as it’s also an episode from Southpark.
But you can have a gold star?
January 21st, 2009 at 1:56 pmHoney, I have enough expensive addictions and time wasters in my life. If I remember correctly, WoW is pretty expensive and requires a lot of time, and probably a fairly decent computer. And I’m not surprised at what pinkie has to say about e-stalking and whatnot. And that girls would play male characters on WoW. It’s always nice to be treated as a person instead of something to be lusted after.
If you want more girls on WoW you have to make it a more inviting place to be – a place where girls want to be. We have to socialize clueless guys in real life all the time, so why would we want to be doing it online for fun?
January 21st, 2009 at 6:03 pmWell, a lot of people play games like WoW because it’s a better time-waste than lots of other things — like watching TV! We have quite a few people in the guild with full-time ‘adult’ jobs too… so it’s possible to balance things!
Obviously this isn’t the case for you, but I’m told WoW is a good alternative to going out drinking — it’s a whole lot cheaper, and healthier
It’s always going to be hard to make it a pleasing place to be. Unlike real life, where there’s a natural ratio of 1:1 male/female, virtual worlds are imbalanced. With a lot of kids reacting in real life, as if they were in a virtual world, we’ll be in for some rough times, unless more girls come and balance us out…!
January 21st, 2009 at 6:12 pmIm playing Bratz the adventures. How sad of me, I know.
ps. In South Park, I believe you’re Butters.
January 21st, 2009 at 7:32 pmButters…
I don’t think we can be friends any more.
January 21st, 2009 at 7:59 pmBut I “got some APPLES”?
January 22nd, 2009 at 5:52 amSo basically I should forsake my social life and sell my soul to Ner’zhul for charity, to help geeky gamer boys?
It’s oddly tempting, actually. I could see myself deriving great pleasure from joining a guild then making it abundantly clear that none of the guys would stand a chance with me
(though if I’ve learned anything from The Guild, it’s that abundantly clear is not clear enough).
I’ll probably give in to the MMOs one of these days. Just a matter of time.
February 11th, 2009 at 3:40 amWe’ve had our fair share of girls like you in our guild, don’t worry!
Doesn’t stop the guys from trying though…
Where’s the fun if you go around treating us male geeks like a lower-class genus of homo sapiens?! We have a lot of love to give, you know …
If you can play on an EU schedule… gimme a shout
February 11th, 2009 at 3:46 amI think there are probably far more female WoW players than you actually realise. A lot just play for the sake of it – its their game of choice and gender means nothing, whether it be character or player so therefore other players are unaware of the fact that the fat Tauren that has been healing their arse is infact in possession of a set of breasty dumplings instead of an impressive set of horns.
March 23rd, 2009 at 9:24 pmHowever the turning point comes when you utter your first words on vent.
Those stats came straight from a fairly authoritative survey! I was surprised by the low numbers too.
The number of EXPOSED girls is very low — 5% or so I think (at least from my experience in the last few years).
The number of hidden, ’secret’ girls provides the remainder, I think.
March 23rd, 2009 at 9:50 pmIt certainly wasnt my intention to “pooh-pooh” the stats, but perhaps because I’m female I’ve been introduced to quite a large amount of other girl gamers, pah, girls, women!
In fact, the last guild I was in (after 4 years am now retired) the guild leader was female and I do believe (though they might not have been too successful due to being a little novel) there was a guild that comprised only women. Scary thought I know, no arguing or fighting, just every 28 days some intense negotiation.
March 23rd, 2009 at 10:12 pmHeh heh… well, they say a group of women tend to ’sync up’ their period over time… It would be ideal to just go on a 3-4 day raiding break for that… period!
And imagine, they could all take the pill, if there’s some difficult content that requires more wipe time… genius!
I think, being a girl, you are certainly privy to that ’secret society’ of girls. I know other girls (that I play with) have told me that my stats are wrong. I guess I have to trust the survey on this one.
Other MMOs (like Second Life) do have higher percentages of WOMEN players, incidentally!
And more girls play on the alliance side …
March 23rd, 2009 at 10:21 pmFor the Horde!
Where else could you be a huge cow that dances like my mother? (Lord knows I love her but family functions are always an embarrassment). Undead are gorgeous and the female Orc – well, what can I say?
I tried Alliance only once but always did prefer to play on what is oddly believed to be the “naughty” side.
You’re right about there being more women playing different games, there is a game that I wrote for for many years that had a large female player base and they absolutely turned out to be more bloody-thirsty than their male counterparts!
And the “syncing” – am rapidly trying to erase that image from my mind.
March 23rd, 2009 at 10:33 pmI only mentioned the syncing because all the girls at my sixth form college synced, after 2 years… until they all had their period at the same time.
To say that it was unpleasant for the boys would be a monumental understatement…
I was at the Blizzard convention in Paris, and the female orc dance, danced by quite a curvy girl, was surprisingly arousing…
What did you play?
March 23rd, 2009 at 11:11 pmUndead female (priest) and Tauren female (druid) and how could I not? I did have an Orc female lock, however I couldnt enjoy being a lock, it was so hum hum…..easy?
March 24th, 2009 at 4:13 pmThe game before WoW I mean!
Priest and druid… how stereotypically female
March 24th, 2009 at 4:18 pmAn online text based game, I wrote quest lines and background history.
Pah! Priestlyness is and always will be next to godlyness (are those even words?) And my wee druid was a Moonkin back in the day when they werent popular!
March 24th, 2009 at 4:22 pmHah, a Hated Hybrid. We had a feral in our guild, back in Molten Core times — back when feral druids were about as useless as it got.
But he stuck at it. He was true to his feral self, and he stayed feral… and ended up tanking throughout all of TBC! Live the dream, man!
Was it a MUD, or a forum-based RPG?
March 24th, 2009 at 4:24 pmAh Molten Core, those were the days! 40 people, 20 of which were doing bugger all.
Mud, but eventually it changed hands and became unrecognisable and then ceased to exist.
TBC was a huge disappointment for me, that was when I decided that I might give real life a go – even bigger let down, its overrated.
March 24th, 2009 at 4:30 pmSome MUDs are still going! I still play one, occasionally, that’s been going for 20 years or so… ! First it was dial-up modem stuff (4 concurrent players max!), and eventually, with the Internet being invented and stuff, it could handle a lot more.
WOTLK > Real life?
March 24th, 2009 at 4:34 pmDecided not to give WOTLK a go, would then have to begin the questing all over again and now achievements? Anyway anyway, its all academic really, maybe one day I’ll venture back who knows?
But your blog is nice and its nice to read about WoW without actually playing, farming at 4am, fishing and cooking.
March 24th, 2009 at 4:38 pmWelcome to the mad house, then
(As a guild leader, I get other people to do that for me)
March 24th, 2009 at 4:40 pmShame on you!
I quite enjoyed farming, 4am was a bit of a bugger though.
Have been reading about your guild, its an interesting community.
March 24th, 2009 at 4:45 pmI helped out a bit, back when it was very tough, in Naxxramas at level 60. TBC and WOTLK have been very easy-going though — I am just a money-making machine now, so that we have repairs/consumables paid for. I’ve made something like 200,000 gold in the past 3 months… which is quite good for an hour a day!
March 24th, 2009 at 4:46 pmNaxx was definitely not my favourite, but BWL was a priest’s dream.
Christ! 200,000 gold? I have to admit that I must’ve been lazy, but then, as you quite rightly said having lady bumps makes all the difference – to a point. Was nice to have the support (makes my ex guild sound like a bra) but to be truthful I was happy to farm for them, aint I nice?
March 24th, 2009 at 4:52 pmWoW is the worst game i have EVER played on and i must have played over 9000 games in my life it is so boring that i had installed it played on it and returned it to the shop in less than a week if it was free then the epic lv of shite whould be live -withable but is $60 for 6 months this in its self is a rip this game shames blizzard who have made some many good game like diablo diablo 2 and diablo 3 (diablo FTW) the skills are under thorght of and too expensive there is not enough of them and the game itself has no story to it at all
June 27th, 2009 at 10:11 pmworst.game.ever
-20/10
Hm, I think WoW, like most RPGs, require you to spend a bit of time ‘getting into it’.
If you’ve not played other RPGs, then WoW might not be for you!
But the fact that it has 13 million players worldwide probably suggests that you’re in the minority.
There is a story, but the format of MMORPGs lends itself more to ‘lore’ than actual ’story’ — players are unable to progress a story in multiplayer RPGs, lest their actions interfere with the thousands of other players.
And it’s that same reason that most people play MMORPGs — to interact with thousands of other people! It’s a social game; if you expected anything else, of course you will be disappointed
June 27th, 2009 at 10:15 pm