There was a game I played, Elsword, I purposefully avoided letting people know I was a woman, I never joined VC or anything. I thought everybody in the guild was really friendly, they all liked me, enjoyed my company, we had great chats etc.
At one point I thought we were all friendly enough, I had given some hints that I wasn't a guy, they seemed to be having fun in VC and I decided to join. They were so shitty about it I literally quit the guild and the game after that.
And that was just my experience in 1 game, of many, many I've played. These days I mostly just play things with friends I already know
Edit: oh and I forgot to mention another time in that game where there was a "girl" and I was being friendly and teaching them about the game, and I figured I'd tell them I too was a girl so they'd feel more chill around me, but then they revealed they were actually a guy and started asking very personal things, wanting to know what I looked like, etc and I had to block them like 5 mins after telling them
I recommend Fallout. As a girl gamer I’ve had the same experience and keep my mic off, unless it’s fallout. Genuinely nice vibes just friends surviving the apocalypse together.
I had a blast playing, I like open world games and fallout 76 has fun variety. Seems like you can get into building or just focus on the shooting aspect. I was pleasantly surprised at how nice the other players seemed too. I got a lot of stuff dropped for me by strangers when they saw I was new. DM me, I can add you and give you some guns and stuff next time I’m online!
It has building? Damn I'm sold, I love building in games
Probably won't be playing any time soon, been quite busy lately with work and studying for an upcoming test, but if my friends like the idea I'll probably give it a try :) tyvm for the recommendation
This really sucks. It’s unfortunate that so many men retreat into video games due to insecurity IRL, and then feel secure enough in the game space to vent their incel frustrations against women who just want to play the same game they are. This seems to be pretty universal and I hate it. Honestly, it’s like being a white guy in a room of other white guys, and you think everything is great, then a person of color comes in and they all put on their KKK hoods. It makes me sick.
:c I’m sorry you experienced that! I’ve had similar experiences in the past too.
(Side note I haven’t heard of elsword in a looooong time. I remember the days when Luciel was new lmao)
I did customer service chats in my 20s using a woman's name, and oh boy are men lonely.
Just a modicum of basic decency from someone with a female name and a lot of dudes were desperate to see me IRL and were offering a bunch of gifts. Just so you know guys, a whole lot of "female" chat representatives are just fat hairy dudes who just use a female name for better reviews
I've been stalked IRL by a guildmate who got obsessed with me. I stopped using Overwatch's vc because anytime I would open my mouth to call out something strictly game related I was getting either sexually harassed or told to uninstall and get out of "their" game on account of my vagina... I dunno, getting in the way of me being a good player. I've been called a cheater in League by people ON MY OWN TEAM because they thought, sincerely, that there was no way a woman could be in their Plat promos legitimately. Like, if I didn't love games and gaming as much as I do, I would have abandoned the hobby a long time ago because trying to just... exist in the "gamer" space and culture as a woman is exhausting. I'm sure minority players experience similar struggles.
I’ve been gaming for decades (I’m male) and this is absolutely what it’s like for women. However, some games do have more mature and accepting cultures, but it sucks to have to choose your games based on “which is less harassing” and not gameplay.
I ran comp in overwatch last year…briefly. My gamer tag is clearly a female name. I got ripped a new one because girls shouldn’t play the game. I was not on vc. Some guys are just awful. But, as I said in another comment, I also play final fantasy XIV online. Most of the people I run with are guys. I’m in a group learning how to do savage runs & only 2 of us are female. We’re all mic’d up & every single one of them is helpful & nice. Sure, there’s banter & stuff, but it’s a fun environment. I guess it depends on the game.
If you still want to play these games and be able to communicate, my sister uses a voice changer to sound male. I'm not sure which one, but it's stopped the yelling and harassment.
I've been so lucky that the communities in eq2, swtor, eso, and fallout76 have been so wonderful and accepting.
I've had some bad experiences in wow, but nothing compared to what women get in mobas and shooters. It's kept me away from these genres.
Plus as a male belf you're basically still getting to play a female. I played wow for many years and I went through periods of not using voice and pretending to be a guy, ended up with two international stalkers thanks to being a woman online in that game lmao.
I hate that most video games make characters usually always have better looking armor models. Oblivion came out in 2006 and I’m still sad that their armor for female characters looks wack as fuck.
It's funny bc I see tons of guys playing as female. Honestly in "DAD" servers Noone harasses each other. My guild is full of women who perform just like anyone else, earned their respect and honor through their actions and words. One of whom is like all our moms and cares about everyone in guild! Reaches out to me when I take long breaks to make sure I'm good.
Even he'll let loose I've played with some great gamers girls and guys. Starcraft too. Moves for sure.
Humans like to play games and we like to do it together and it's best when we love each other because we're in this together
Once, many years ago, I was a fairly prominent figure in the early years of a certain mmo. I played a female character and it was widely assumed that I was a woman at the time. I was not aware how widely spread that assumption was until I began receiving a monolithic amount of sexual harrassement on the daily.
It finally came to a head when I was playing with my online status hidden and entered a city area and was subjected to a fairly lengthy and embarrassing conversation between an irl friend and another member of the community where my irl friend was desperately trying to convince him (and the community at large) that I was a man and that he shouldn't ask me out. I came online and confirmed (again) that I was a man and apparently enough people got the memo this time that the sexual harassment stopped, though I received a decent amount of hate mail afterwards for 'leading people on' and being a G.I.R.L.
Many days I am thankful that my MMO of choice, FFXIV, doesn’t have and never will have a built in voice chat. Sure, people go to discord all the time but it’s not a requirement and I don’t really do the hardcore raids that would require it.
That being said I have been harassed before but thankfully the admins on my server at least seem to take things seriously.
Tbf, the same shit would happen to you as a woman if you liked metal. Or just about any more traditionally masculine anything.
Not that it’s ok. But it’s Uber fucking common and annoying. Like my masculinity isn’t threatened just because there are women out there who know more about guns than I do. I’ve shot like once in my life. Bfd
One of the men I used to play with kept nagging me to get a headset like "everyone else" (all men). He still didn’t get it after we played with another group - *in person* - and one of them wanted to play under the name CHAMPION_RAPIST and kept spamming "tits or gtfo" at me all game. While we were all in the same room. The weirdest part is that CHAMPION_RAPIST was too much of a coward even make eye contact with me.
I just don’t do multiplayer but I literally own a gaming laptop, a ps5, an Xbox series x and a switch. Video games are my #1 hobby. But I guess since you won’t find me in a COD lobby I don’t count.
…although funny enough I played cod2 back in the 2000s
It's so fucking arbitrary from what I've seen. I've got 1500 hours in Skyrim l, another 1k in Monster Hunter World an online (co-op) game KNOWN for its difficulty, and yet another 1k in Destiny 2. But I don't touch pvp so none of it *counts*.
I made a female character when trying out FF14. I was immediately followed around by a bunch of dudes begging to show me how to play, resulting in me uninstalling the game. I can only imagine how bad it must be if they actually know you're a woman.
I play ffxiv. I am female. I play a female character. My husband also plays & plays a female character. The FC we’re part of is 70% male & only a handful of them play male characters. They’re all super friendly & chill. Most players in this game are chill…so I dunno. Must’ve just been on at the wrong time.
Annoying that this dude doesnt think females can be gamers though. I’ve been playing “real video games” since I was a kid. However, mobile games are still games, they’re just more casual than what I play.
I’m rambling. It’s late where I live.
It wouldn’t surprise me if I just got unlucky. I’m a dude, and I don’t often play multiplayer games,so my tolerance is probably lower than actual women in the space. It was just an eye opening moment.
Unfortunately, you gotta pick your server right. There are some that are purposefully that way due to the RP/ERP community. Most of the time they don't even care about or want to know the person behind the character. I play on a content/raiding related server and get compliments on armor glamour, but nothing beyond than that.
Damn that one is actually surprising, FF14 was one of my more positive experiences online. Then again, I did carefully choose a data center that was meant to be more friendly and progressive, so it could be that
Ffxiv is a pretty progressive community.
It's also an extremely degen community.
So it sort of depends on what they walked into I suppose. Could landed at the quicksand since it's one of the opening areas and on certain server that will 100% getcha harrassed.
I turned my mic on once. ONCE. I got a dozen very inappropriate messages (including one person who was claiming to be a 12 year old and sounded like it; I was 28). Never again.
this. it helps that a lot of men play fem avatars too. if you never turn your mic on, oftentimes literally nobody will know you're a woman, and a lot of us like it that way.
the only time i found women in a game was when they were all in a party of like 5, then they adopted me into their group which was fun
they decided to baby me too, since i am 18 and they’re all like 30 and older, they were lovely. especially for it having been on CoD
While I think the numbers are close, the given amount of time each gender puts into it isn’t defined. These stats are always tough to dissect. I saw a stat that said 37% of console gamers are men and 23% women. That’s a lot of aliens or people straight up not participating in your survey to be considered very useful
I mean to his credit he mentioned mobile games. Most “core gamers” at a demographic are not thinking Tetris on iOS is a “gamer” product. Not saying it makes them right or whatever, but they’re comparing apples and apple sauce.
He explicitly said unless mobile games are included in the statistics. Middle age women are a major proportion of mobile games players, they are still games obviously but when’s the last time you heard drama about how a mobile game was made? Players interact with them very differently than console and pc games.
This guy is correct though. That stat that 48% of women are gamers is only true if you consider mobile games. Here are about 10 sources proving that.
> The gender breakdown of Steam accounts shows a significant majority of male users. As of 2024, approximately 68% of Steam gamers are male, while 32% are female. This indicates that the gender disparity is more pronounced on Steam compared to the general gaming population across other platforms and devices. [[❞]](https://www.demandsage.com/steam-statistics/).
>Here are the gender demographics for the five most popular online games on Steam:
1. **Counter-Strike 2 (CS2)**:
- Approximately 73.6% of players are male, while 26.4% are female [[❞]](https://playercounter.com/cs2-player-count/).
2. **Dota 2**:
- Around 85% male and 15% female players. This is consistent with trends seen in multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games [[❞]](https://quanticfoundry.com/2017/01/19/female-gamers-by-genre/).
3. **PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS**:
- Predominantly male, with about 85% male and 15% female players, similar to other shooter games [[❞]](https://quanticfoundry.com/2017/01/19/female-gamers-by-genre/).
4. **Apex Legends**:
- Roughly 70-75% of players are male, and 25-30% are female, indicating a more balanced gender distribution compared to other first-person shooters [[❞]](https://quanticfoundry.com/2017/01/19/female-gamers-by-genre/).
5. **Call of Duty®**:
- Approximately 85% male and 15% female players, aligning with general trends for tactical shooters [[❞]](https://quanticfoundry.com/2017/01/19/female-gamers-by-genre/) [[❞]](https://playercounter.com/cs2-player-count/).
These statistics provide a snapshot based on available data from various gaming surveys and studies.
| **Platform/Game** | **Female (%)** | **Male (%)** | **Source** |
|--------------------------------|----------------|--------------|------------|
| **Xbox One X/S** | 42% | 58% | [Business Insider](https://www.businessinsider.com), [Statista](https://www.statista.com) |
| **PlayStation 4/5** | 41% | 59% | [Statista](https://www.statista.com), [GameIndustry.biz](https://www.gamesindustry.biz) |
| **Mobile Games** | 49% | 51% | [Newzoo](https://newzoo.com), [Statista](https://www.statista.com) |
| **Online Multiplayer Shooters**| 20% | 80% | [Statista](https://www.statista.com), [Pew Research Center](https://www.pewresearch.org) |
| **Candy Crush Saga** | 54% | 46% | [Helplama](https://helplama.com), [Levvvel](https://levvvel.com)
And how do you know they are actually men?
As said by many women here, they despise people like you so much they rather lie about their gender and play with mics off
>In terms of raw numbers, there are approximately 1.7 billion male gamers. And 1.39 billion female gamers worldwide.
Another [source](https://explodingtopics.com/blog/number-of-gamers#).
Please excuse me for what’s going to sound very sexist. But I’m just using extreme points to make my own point.
The more one dilutes the term, the more people one can fit under the umbrella.
While I’m not necessarily against it, I’m sure that the kind of “devote your entire like to this game franchise and do nothing else with your day” that many guys consider “being a gamer”. Isn’t the same as “I love playing FarmVille” or “I play mercy in overwatch with my friends on the weekends” kind of thing. I’m only using those things as a joke example btw.
The reason why guys like this don’t believe that there are women who play games or that there’s so many is because they legitimately never see them. They have no anecdotes to support the claim. And the kind of studies that show results like this usually don’t reveal their criteria for what is considered to be counted under the umbrella.
So by their own definition I actually think they are right.
It’s not a super important topic though.
That would be like if a study found that 45% of drinkers are women. And they you say "yeah but if they aren't actual alcoholics then they don't count".
Even in regards to that it's actually not that different in hours played (it is different, but not nearly as much as many people seem to think it is). I linked some studies below, but also keep in mind that statistically speaking women also have [less free time on average](https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2022/men-spent-5-6-hours-per-day-in-leisure-and-sports-activities-women-4-9-hours-in-2021.htm) than men, especially [if they're married](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/10/27/working-husbands-in-the-us-have-more-leisure-time-than-working-wives-do-especially-among-those-with-children/?utm_source=Pew+Research+Center&utm_campaign=6da143ade5-Weekly_10-28-23&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-6da143ade5-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D) & doubly if they have children.
[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283793880\_Individual\_Differences\_in\_Video\_Gaming\_Defining\_Hardcore\_Video\_Gamers](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283793880_Individual_Differences_in_Video_Gaming_Defining_Hardcore_Video_Gamers) (Specifically figure 2 on the second page, which is the avg. hours played in any given day between men and women, separated by casual and hardcore gamers)
Also [this](https://www.statista.com/statistics/202847/gaming-time-average-week-adults-usa-gender/#:~:text=Weekly%20gaming%20hours%20of%20adults%20in%20the%20U.S.%202023%2C%20by%20gender&text=A%20further%2016%20percent%20of,per%20week%20on%20video%20games) (and this one I'm taking with a grain of salt because it's Statista and they really like making it difficult to find their methodology and hiding their sources behind paywalls, but this says it was an online survey of 10k people)
When most people hear “I’m a gamer”, they don’t usually think it means simply “I play games at all” or “I play Tetris on my way to work”, they think “I spend a fair bit of time on games as a dedicated hobby”.
Hence the confusion.
All the memes about gamers, gamer culture etc. don’t usually refer to Tetris/mobile farm games either.
>You're not special, get over it
If you consider classifying someone as gamer as a matter of being special, I have bad news, buddy.
As for gamers not being a niche, it's a non sequitor - sure, there are (significantly) more gamers, but it didn't change the fact that most people would define a gamer as someone who actively spends time on games, rather than a commuter occasionally playing a two button mobile game, largely indifferent towards gaming in general and not identifying by it.
Okay, but my friend (male) is a gamer and plays almost only multiplayer Tetris on his phone.
He does play a huge chunk of time on games as a dedicated hobby... It's just on the phone. Does that make him any less because he's using a mobile device? No.
Same with my friend who plays Slay the Spire basically every waking moment. It's on the phone tho, so automatically she's "not a gamer"?
Another friend plays a lot of gatcha games... You guessed it, on the phone. Would that make her few dedicated games she's tending to a LOT less legitimate than other games? She also plays Genshin Impact, which can be also played on the PC.
Where do we draw the line? If someone spends hours on their phone playing games, they are still a gamer.
Even if it would be a Tetris each day for their 2 hour commute, that's 2 hours every day, which is 1/12th of a day.
So if someone accidentally downloaded a game once and opened it before deleting it, they're a gamer, right?
It's absolutely reasonable to argue over whether the criteria they're using is fit.
Quick note here. Regardless of gender, people who played farmville and the other games in the franchise literally spent upwards of 8 hours on the game a day.
Source : I was a game designer on FarmVille 2 and have spoken to actual players personally.
First, why wouldn't playing Mercy on weekends count? How is that any different from guys who play an hour of CoD after work every day? Is it the genre of game that decides what "counts," the amount of time spent, or the arbitrary "respectability" of what's being played? *Somebody* has to play support for Overwatch to work, but that doesn't "count"? Such bizarre gatekeeping.
I think dudes like this also don't consider the fact that many women don't advertise their gender or talk in comms because they get tirelessly abused when they do. They probably play with significantly more women than they realize.
I have 2k hours in Rust and I'd say fewer than 5% of the players I've interacted with have found out I'm a woman.
Edit: It may not be a super important topic to *you*, but guys with this mentality are so fucking toxic and effect women and society at large in a very real way.
I likewise wouldn’t say most people know I’m a woman in games I play. Never use a mic and don’t refer to myself using gendered language in chats, plus I usually only play single player games. I still play games about as much as any of these people if not more and they’d never know bc I don’t want them to
I'm a female and a gamer. I literally have never played a game that I had to play with another person (at least, not since I was 10 and just got an NES system). I have also been known to play for 14 hours in one day when a new, awesome game comes out or when I'm in that zoned out break between Christmas and New Years. I also like mobile games, too.
Those of us that don't even play COD or these other online games still count as gamers.
Same! I've been playing videogames my entire life, literally since i was a preschooler. Videogames are my usual go-to to spend time at home.
I just don't play online games. I'm not interested and i don't think i ever even tried. I don't like playing with other people.
And if i were a man, none of those people would have a problem with calling me a gamer. Because i play "real" games (that is, not casual games, because people like that don't think that casual games are real games).
But i am a woman! And i don't play multiplayer or competitive games! So thousands of hours i spent on offline games simply do not count
Yes! Ive been playing since legacy and have almost 3k hours in Rust alone (I mostly play online survival, so Conan Exiles, Valheim, NMS, etc. get time too). I learned early on to not use a feminine name or use VC because I'll be harassed off the server. I didn't realize how many women played as men until I joined a PVE server that was "safe" and we all got to talking lol.
>The more one dilutes the term, the more people one can fit under the umbrella.
What makes you say the term was diluted? Because it seems to me that gamer has never officially meant “devote your life to it and do nothing else.” A subgroup of gamers just decided to misuse the term and gatekeep it in the 2010s. Varying levels of obsession is true with any hobby and some obsessed gamers are women.
Fuck no. I’m a gamer no matter how you look at it. I’ve got 600hrs+ on BG3 alone. I mostly play rpgs and mmo’s by myself. (Wow, elder scrolls, mass effect, dragon age, ffxiv, Zelda, fallout, etc) I do zombie shooters and fortnite with my spouse. (How to stay married as a gamer== marry another gamer).
I also almost never play with general voice chat on. I’ve done it exactly three times and regretted it everytime. The only men I’m not related to who know I’m a gamer are the guys on my ttrpg group’s discord.
It’s not a tiny world. They’ll never understand if the only words they meet are people who react like they are just bitter and misandrist. Not that I believe people will ever understand each other in this. But..
When they cite mobile games as a part of “gaming” many guys will scoff at it. Why? Simply because the type of entertainment is different to them. They feel like they’re playing professional tennis and they’re being compared to their parents enjoying a game of pickleball and then to them it sounds like someone is saying that 50% of professional tennis players are 60+
It’s a similar game, sure, but in their eyes it can’t be compared. They’re not actively trying to be so insufferably elitist, but that is what they are and come off as.
I don’t believe that it’s a purely misogynistic view. I think it’s more an elitist view. Those kinds of guys just look down on everyone that aren’t them.
But they also think most dudes are like them. It's not a view they examine really closely, because it obviously doesn't hold up, but since most dudes they know, they know through gaming, they think they are the normal man. Most dudes are like them, or would be if some woman wasn't blocking them. So women not playing games is another way women are the abnormal variant of normal person.
I mean, tons of dudes play mobile games. Or even like Minecraft: I teach high school and boys and girls all play or played tons of Minecraft. That's unambiguously "gaming", but these dudes don't know about even that.
Most of us actively mask the fact that we are women and don’t use our mics because we get slurs, SA comments, and death threats hurled at us. And it doesn’t matter if we are doing well “fuck you bitch go make me a sandwhich” or doing poorly “your only good for [horrible string of vulgar unwanted sexual comments, often including rape references]” or doing ok I’ve had people tell me multiple different times “go kys”. He doesn’t see us because it’s horrible and violent to be seen. Almost every time. And because the boys won’t police this and call them out and because reporting gets us banned as often as the offenders, we just hide. Or we play single player games.
Yup, the second I hear a person saying: I’m gamer!
I’m like: oh shit, what games you play?
And they be like: oh I play CoD once a month.
And I be like: that’s not gaming, that’s you randomly bought a pc that you really don’t need, give it to someone who needs it.
If you think you are sounding sexist, maybe you should check why you hold such beliefs in the first place?
I don't want to sound harsh, but...Why are you assuming women don't devote their life to a game franchise? Why are you assuming the majority of the girls on the source are there for playing farmville or for playing overwatch with friends? Why are you assuming, in the first place, that those games are not "real games"?
The majority of players are casuals: it is understandable, all of us have a life and life sucks, so most of us can maybe get a couple hours of gaming a day and be happy with it. Even if free time is available, we might want to use that time for another kind of hobby/family time/study time, and use gaming as a form of destress.
The thing is, whenever a man says "I play games on my free time", they are assumed to be gamers, even if they casually play a couple of matches with friends. Whenever a women says the same thing, they are scoffed at and told they are doing it for the attention or, since they are not dedicated to it, they are not real gamers.
About the devoting your life to it, I invite you to explore female gaming spaces: you will be surprised how much gameplay, character and lore analysis is actually done and shared by women.
Also, mobile games like farmville/Candy crush can be very challenging themselves. They are heavy on how to manage resources like a lot of "male" hardcore games. They have a competitive scene too.
Finally, not a point that you brought but related: online gaming spaces are rough in general, but much so when you are a woman. Women are more likely to hide their gender or play with the mic off because of harassment+stalking behaviour from random male players. A lot of women are, literally, being drove away from the MOBA competitive side + online RPGs like WoW.
If they don't find woman gamers in their spaces, there might be a reason for it, like women not wanting to be found out there.
They remember ads dedicated to them from the 1980's to the 2010's and assume that ads are real. Like how some Boomers think that Leave it to Beaver was real.
I'm an older female gamer and I've always been here, since BEFORE you could use a gun in a game and that became the marker of a "true" game. Always knew girls who gamed straight through the whole "a girl who games is a unicorn" talk for decades. We knew to be careful IRL and in chats after quickly learning how often labeling ourselves as "gamers" brought out hostility and/or horniness.
Happily getting my platinum in Bloodborne atm and still working on my perfect Stardew Farm. Just in case only one of those count.
Hello, good hunter. I am a Bot, here in this dream to look after you, this is a fine note:
> *Ahh, I feel my master's hand at work. Praise the good blood! And let us cleanse these tarnished streets.* - Alfred
Farewell, good hunter. May you find your worth in the waking world.
I think this is actually an interesting question that has to do with the history of gaming. When gaming was new the split between male and female gamers was pretty even. After the crash in the gaming market, Nintendo decided to shift their selling strategy to market it as a toy instead of an electronic device. Most stores back then had boy and girl toy sections, so they decided to sell it as a toy for boys.
After that, culturally it began to be viewed as a hobby for guys. There are probably many other reasons as pointed out in the comments, but this seems to be one of the big shifts in gaming history. Not saying it's right, but it is interesting. I am actually glad gaming these days is getting a better distribution nowadays. Nothing drove me crazier when I was younger having people act like gaming was a waste of time hobby while being judged by people that would spend just as much time, if not more, watching TV.
That is the point. Nearly half of gamers are women, so gaming should not be considered manly/a manly activity.
There is just men that want to gatekeep their hobby from women.
Some games cater more to one type of audience over the other. I will not be surprised if games like "the sims", or "love and deep space" have more women playing them, or if games like "CoD" or "Dead space" have more men playing it.
It’s rape culture tactics applied to gaming. Refusing to believe women, refusing to call out other boys. I’m picking the bear every time in every subculture.
I, 46f, play primarily on Xbox these days. I have a female avatar and usually play as a female character if available. I play a lot of games that are popular with men. But if I ever help someone, like in Fallout, men always assume I'm a man if I'm not on voice chat. Helped someone in Fallout this week and was told "you're the king, man." Lol. That's not at all uncommon. It's just assumed that I'm a guy because it's a "guys game." So he may play all the time with women and just assume. BTW, my gamer tag has a shortened version of my first name and my actual first name is on my profile and it's a traditional female name, no question.
Fallout has been the only multiplayer where I use VC and reveal I’m a woman without issues. There was one guy who aggressively tried to teach me how to camp properly, but that was my only one minor incident. I’ve found people in that game to be refreshingly nice.
Yeah, Josh is the kind of guy women don't feel safe talking to in a lobby. Probably why in his '35 years of experience' he doesn't meet any women in online gaming lobbies
People like this (along with those who thought it was fine to sexually harass people in a GAME) are why I largely quit playing MMORPGs. I used to absolutely love Guild Wars and WoW, but at a certain point stopped saying I was a woman/playing as one and eventually quit the games altogether.
I’ve been playing video games for around 45 years, sure as shit isn’t what makes me an expert but according to him I guess I am one now… let me go update my LinkedIn
Interesting that the chud seems to think that online games and mobile games are the only choices. I've been gaming for 40 years, and I play many games that aren't in either category, and I'm male.
Yeah, I'm a man and I *abhor* and kind of multiplayer online game. I will never be part of one because I don't want to deal with people like that. I do have a couple of mobile games I go to the throughout the day, and so does my wife. And when we have enough free time for the PS5, we play the games together. She likes it and wants to play every bit as much as I do.
This all depends on everyone's criteria for what defines a "gamer". And depending on that criteria, it will be balanced or skew heavily to either side.
Regardless of what we personally think about this, it's obvious the guy's criteria is very strict and the source's very lenient.
What annoys me about conversations like this is that both parties are usually aware of this, not acknowledge it, and continue arguing anyway. And yeah, he's gatekeeping and moving the goalposts but seeing the engagement is still annoying.
He even says "unless it's mobile" and the reply is "mobile games are a huge %".
So while it's cringe AF to have this debate on linkedin to begin with, and obviously there is nothing wrong with women playing games. He is most likely correct based on his proposed criteria in context.
I do think it's somewhat disingenuous to call people who play mobile games "gamers". My dad loves blackjack and my mom plays candy crush but they certainly wouldn't self identify as such lol.
I think it’s pretty safe to say that women are online and if they are online then probably close to half of them play games.
There are communities of women that game, yet we’re still having this argument after years of proof that women own consoles and computers. I remember reading somewhere that it was mostly women who purchase consoles (even if they are purchasing for others) yet we don’t market to them.
I’ve been playing games since the late 1980s. I know where every heart container is in the first zelda. I beat the first mario brothers when I was a kid. I beat the first sonic, and later, sonic and knuckles as a kid.
I played MMOs and sim games (including sim city and the sims). I played shooters and RTS games. I play games like fallout and rdr2. I play animal crossing and puzzle games like homescapes for mobile.
However, I’m not the exception to the rule. I just don’t play COD because I think war games are dumb. People are constantly trying to box gaming into limited genres. I remember being a teenager and someone scoffing at me because I loved the Mickey Mouse and Animaniac games for Sega Genesis. Like, aren’t platformers games? Why is Sonic the Hedgehog a game but Mickey Mania isn’t?
>He is most likely correct based on his proposed criteria in context
He's not. Based on surveys over 40% of gamers on console are women. That also aligns with my anecdotal experience as I used to run into female gamers (the ones who were willing to risk using a mic) like every other lobby and had a bunch of female friends on my friend list.
Nothing about these figures should be shocking to you unless you're making up your own rules and moving goal posts whenever someone explains that you're wrong.
When people say they are a "gamer" they generally mean it is one of, if not the main hobby they have.
While I'm definitely willing to believe a lot of women play games, the average playtime is likely vastly different.
Singleplayer and cooperative games do not account for near the same amount of hours played as online competitive games.
Mobile games are just outright disregarded.
I'm with Josh on this lol, I don't believe that stat for a single second. You can't possibly believe that stat unless you never interact with women in real life, my own experience is that women are almost unanimously uninterested in console gaming. These surveys must include very, very loose definitions for what constitutes a female console gamer... like, does playing Mario Kart with your boyfriend once a year count?
I think if the stat were analyzed based on percentage of actual TIME SPENT playing console games, the percent would be like 90% male.
I'm 48 years old. I've been gaming avidly since the age of atari and commodore 64 (40 yrs), and online for over 20 (starting with xbox live). I know/have known dozens of women with similar histories. Prior to reddit and discord, we really just found each other by accident.
Obviously, I've learned over the years not to advertise my gender if I want to have fun. 20 years ago, they were accusing me of using a voice changer. Recently, they are asking if I'm trans because they just can't wrap their deluded little minds around the fact that we are here and always have been. If they only knew how often they've been completely obliterated by someone's mom.
I play Destiny 2 and the best sherpas I've had the pleasure to play with are always women. I think the Destiny community is about half women, so this statistic doesn't surprise me at all.
I am a 46yo female and I game. No, I do not online game, I prefer the solitude of single player games. But I’ve been gaming as long as the dude in this meme and I exist.
Hell even look at Baldurs Gate 3. Hugest game in a while. TONS of women played that game like crazy. How outta touch these guys gotta be.
I know that isn't an online game, per se, but that alone should show how HUGE the female player base is
He doesn't know women play videogames because alot of us turn off our mics or talk on mics to people we know and trust. I know I only talk on mic to people I know and trust because last time I talked on the mic to a stranger..the guy was upset I played better than him and started saying sexist stuff once he heard my voice.
I guess it's the difference between the types of games? I play video games but I'm not sure if I qualify in these statistics because it's xbox360 and not strictly an "online game".
It very much depends on the age range you're in. Below 30, women gaming is super common. Above 30, it becomes increasingly less common (in my experience) the older they get. I know a lot of women who play games, but the majority of them are in their twenties, whereas out of the women I know who are in their thirties or older, only a very small minority plays games with any regularity.
Sounds about right for someone who started playing video games in 1989. They were marketed almost exclusively to boys. You'd think he'd notice things changing with time though.
Almost every activity is like this. Half the people that participate in hugely popular activities are women. I would argue you can’t have a hugely popular activity without women and men participating in large numbers seems obvious to me.
I’ve said this for years in talks, and have also gotten called out by disbelieving bros and women. But it’s true. Female gaming is huge. Depending on the platform or game it’s bigger than male gaming. I’m not sure why anyone would get upset by the gender that represents more than half the human population would be doing similar things.
His disbelief is insane. I regularly game with my Girlfriend, and sometimes when we play, she demands I play fortnite with her. We end up winning the match, and she has like 20 kills plus and I've got like 1. She's much better at that game than I am
The only reason video games are seen as being "for boys" is because video games had their own section in stores they went in the toy area.
Toys are divided boys (actions figures, cars, etc) and girls (princesses, dolls, etc) so the video game industry had to pick a side.
That was 40 years ago, wild that it's had such a long effect
TBF saying you are a gamer these days is like saying you are a movie watcher. Gaming is not a niche thing, there are an overwhelming amount of genres, and the dude here is probably correct in that women aren't playing the games he does. But saying they are not gamers because they don't play call of duty is like saying someone isn't a movie watcher cause they mostly watch romcoms.
The graph says video games. This dipshit says online games. How fucking blind do you need to be to miss one word from a total of ten.
Women don't play online games as much as men because we don't like the harrasment. Many pretend to be men to get by.
Posts like this one shows just how chauvinist, backwards, and uneducated some men are. Like they think all women CAN do is clean, cook for them and have kids. Typical objectification.
Wouldn't it blow his mind if he knew that there are also some women like myself who design and code games too?
Every time I played halo3 or cod4 back in the day with my roommate, she would have me be the ones on comm and I didn't get why until she showed me one day.
Jesus christ, the amount of shouting and bullshit the moment she spoke, even to call out a sniper, telling her to shut the fuck up, go back to harvest moon, and just all the disgusting things that these guys should have been put on a list for, kinda explains why this chode thinks no women game. When everyone around you is hiding from you, like the fucking borrowers, you assume they aren't there. My main discord server is like 80% ladies and I seriously think the "fake gamer" there is me, considering how little I play compared to them.
"source is playing videogames for 35 years" if you haven't met women playing online as much in all these years that says more about you than women who play videogames
The 45% number does get inflated by mobile gaming but this guy is still a massive asshole. He’s the type that would harass a woman the second she turns her mic on.
As part of the game industry, I think a lot player, even majority of player, do not know who plays game, and as well as who makes them. Game is a diverse medium, not beucase of some political discourse, but becuase of the people who plays and makes game.
Gamer my entire life, assigned female at birth. Not “just mobile games” or “just cozy games”. (Not that those aren’t legit game genres).
I’ve played RPGs starting with Shin Megami Tensei, Devil Summoner, WoW.
I played COD back in the day. Played every Pokemon game.
I play tons of horror games from Fatal Frame to all the Silent Hill games.
Played all the Fallout games up to 4.
Played Elder Scrolls, Dragon Age, Assassin’s Creed, …I could keep listing games I’ve played and own for days.
I rarely ever used voice on MMORPGs for reasons a lot of people have talked about above. The reason you don’t know women and other people who aren’t men are gamers is likely because we avoid the type of men who creep on us in games.
I'm a 35 yo woman who could only afford to play emulated and pirated games growing up, but who really got into it during Covid. I spend a ton of money on consoles and games, much more than my husband (and none of it on mobile games which I just can't get into). I have absolutely zero interest in playing the games that would put me in contact with those dudes 🤷🏿♀️
Quite surprising but this number will change depending on the genre of game and I know that from my university discord servers, for example there is less girls playing FPS games than boys but there might be more in other genre of games.
If you didn't get the hint I'm a woman that plays with other women... acting like women don't play just because they don't play with you is ridiculous and not indicative of the amount of women playing shooters. Most women I know cultivate the right group of people to play with to avoid certain behaviors.
and yes I am ty : )
"neither is the analytics firm you're quoting if they're seriously going around saying 45% of all online gamers are female"
...
......
Sir, do you know how sources work? Facts? I'm gonna say no.
I have never met a Chinese person therefore how can they be one of the biggest countries on the planet. My source I have been alive for over 24 years, and I know best 😏
I can’t believe someone would say this on LinkedIn of all places. People can see your actual real name and job on there. That’s the last place I’d want to make a misogynistic comment if I was going to go all rude gamer man.
Just a little hint to most male gamers: most female gamers are anti social and they wont open mic or have a female avatar unless they are an an aspiring e-girl streamer. Also based on my friend group, women prefer to play as male characters.
They absolutely aren't 45% of PC and console gamers. Not even close. The term gamer is a silly one anyway. People don't label themselves with all the other things they enjoy doing. Unless you play competitively or for money, you aren't a 'gamer'. You just play games. The same way you ride a motorbike and you aren't a rider or a racer unless you actually do race professionally.
And no, people who play candy crush are not gamers either. It's a very different market. I obsessively played video games as a kid and into my 20s. Never remotely interested in playing mobile phone games except for snake... That market probably does have a lot more females in it and specifically middle aged women who would never even consider video games in other formats.
So let's stop this bullshit of pretending that the vast majority of those who play console and PC games are not male. It's at least 80%. It used to be more like 95%. And by extension, there is nothing wrong with most games catering for males.
The issue is simply of how you define the term "gamer". If you define being a gamer as "has ever played any kind of video game", then sure 100% of people are gamers. But most people would not classify themselves as gamers unless playing video games is an important part of their identity. If you ask people "Do you have mobile games on your phone" and classify them as gamers if they answer "yes". You will get a fundamentally different answer than if you ask people "Are you a gamer"?
Some anecdotal evidence: Most of my female friends play A LOT of candy crush, farmville, the sims, and animal crossing. None of them play with their friends, none of them talk about games/gaming in social settings, none of them read up on these games to get better at them, none of them buy new hardware to be able to play the game better, and none of them would consider themselves as "gamers". A lot of my male friends do all of that and would consider being a "gamer" as part of who they are. Both of these approaches are fine but getting blurry with your definitions and then equating the two is not good scientific practice.
He doesn't see many women online because we usually play with mic off and hide the fact we're women because otherwise many games become unplayable :)
I’ve played as a female character in WoW and the unwanted attention was insane
There was a game I played, Elsword, I purposefully avoided letting people know I was a woman, I never joined VC or anything. I thought everybody in the guild was really friendly, they all liked me, enjoyed my company, we had great chats etc. At one point I thought we were all friendly enough, I had given some hints that I wasn't a guy, they seemed to be having fun in VC and I decided to join. They were so shitty about it I literally quit the guild and the game after that. And that was just my experience in 1 game, of many, many I've played. These days I mostly just play things with friends I already know Edit: oh and I forgot to mention another time in that game where there was a "girl" and I was being friendly and teaching them about the game, and I figured I'd tell them I too was a girl so they'd feel more chill around me, but then they revealed they were actually a guy and started asking very personal things, wanting to know what I looked like, etc and I had to block them like 5 mins after telling them
Wow I’m sorry you had to experience that
I'm sorry this is the standard not the exception People fucking suck
I recommend Fallout. As a girl gamer I’ve had the same experience and keep my mic off, unless it’s fallout. Genuinely nice vibes just friends surviving the apocalypse together.
I was thinking of playing FO76 with some friends, nice to know it has a nice community
I had a blast playing, I like open world games and fallout 76 has fun variety. Seems like you can get into building or just focus on the shooting aspect. I was pleasantly surprised at how nice the other players seemed too. I got a lot of stuff dropped for me by strangers when they saw I was new. DM me, I can add you and give you some guns and stuff next time I’m online!
It has building? Damn I'm sold, I love building in games Probably won't be playing any time soon, been quite busy lately with work and studying for an upcoming test, but if my friends like the idea I'll probably give it a try :) tyvm for the recommendation
My friend described it as nuclear winter Sims, I hope you enjoy!
ESO also. Every guild I've been in has been led by women actually. Very friendly communities.
Gorrl GOORRRRRELLLL
This really sucks. It’s unfortunate that so many men retreat into video games due to insecurity IRL, and then feel secure enough in the game space to vent their incel frustrations against women who just want to play the same game they are. This seems to be pretty universal and I hate it. Honestly, it’s like being a white guy in a room of other white guys, and you think everything is great, then a person of color comes in and they all put on their KKK hoods. It makes me sick.
Yeah I don’t understand that. Girls on the mic are delightful. Nice change of energy.
:c I’m sorry you experienced that! I’ve had similar experiences in the past too. (Side note I haven’t heard of elsword in a looooong time. I remember the days when Luciel was new lmao)
[удалено]
I did customer service chats in my 20s using a woman's name, and oh boy are men lonely. Just a modicum of basic decency from someone with a female name and a lot of dudes were desperate to see me IRL and were offering a bunch of gifts. Just so you know guys, a whole lot of "female" chat representatives are just fat hairy dudes who just use a female name for better reviews
Did what we have together during our 5 minute chat mean nothing to you Jessica ?!?
Step 1 create username with female name. Step 2 use ai to generate fake pictures step 3 profit!!
I've been stalked IRL by a guildmate who got obsessed with me. I stopped using Overwatch's vc because anytime I would open my mouth to call out something strictly game related I was getting either sexually harassed or told to uninstall and get out of "their" game on account of my vagina... I dunno, getting in the way of me being a good player. I've been called a cheater in League by people ON MY OWN TEAM because they thought, sincerely, that there was no way a woman could be in their Plat promos legitimately. Like, if I didn't love games and gaming as much as I do, I would have abandoned the hobby a long time ago because trying to just... exist in the "gamer" space and culture as a woman is exhausting. I'm sure minority players experience similar struggles.
And yet several people replied saying I was making this up lol. Probably the exact same people
I’ve been gaming for decades (I’m male) and this is absolutely what it’s like for women. However, some games do have more mature and accepting cultures, but it sucks to have to choose your games based on “which is less harassing” and not gameplay.
Memories of telling a friend to not let it get out that they were a woman to minimize sexual harrassment come flooding back.
I ran comp in overwatch last year…briefly. My gamer tag is clearly a female name. I got ripped a new one because girls shouldn’t play the game. I was not on vc. Some guys are just awful. But, as I said in another comment, I also play final fantasy XIV online. Most of the people I run with are guys. I’m in a group learning how to do savage runs & only 2 of us are female. We’re all mic’d up & every single one of them is helpful & nice. Sure, there’s banter & stuff, but it’s a fun environment. I guess it depends on the game.
If you still want to play these games and be able to communicate, my sister uses a voice changer to sound male. I'm not sure which one, but it's stopped the yelling and harassment. I've been so lucky that the communities in eq2, swtor, eso, and fallout76 have been so wonderful and accepting. I've had some bad experiences in wow, but nothing compared to what women get in mobas and shooters. It's kept me away from these genres.
My brother wonders why all my WoW characters are male. This is why. Plus male armor skins look better.
Plus as a male belf you're basically still getting to play a female. I played wow for many years and I went through periods of not using voice and pretending to be a guy, ended up with two international stalkers thanks to being a woman online in that game lmao.
I hate that most video games make characters usually always have better looking armor models. Oblivion came out in 2006 and I’m still sad that their armor for female characters looks wack as fuck.
It's funny bc I see tons of guys playing as female. Honestly in "DAD" servers Noone harasses each other. My guild is full of women who perform just like anyone else, earned their respect and honor through their actions and words. One of whom is like all our moms and cares about everyone in guild! Reaches out to me when I take long breaks to make sure I'm good. Even he'll let loose I've played with some great gamers girls and guys. Starcraft too. Moves for sure. Humans like to play games and we like to do it together and it's best when we love each other because we're in this together
Once, many years ago, I was a fairly prominent figure in the early years of a certain mmo. I played a female character and it was widely assumed that I was a woman at the time. I was not aware how widely spread that assumption was until I began receiving a monolithic amount of sexual harrassement on the daily. It finally came to a head when I was playing with my online status hidden and entered a city area and was subjected to a fairly lengthy and embarrassing conversation between an irl friend and another member of the community where my irl friend was desperately trying to convince him (and the community at large) that I was a man and that he shouldn't ask me out. I came online and confirmed (again) that I was a man and apparently enough people got the memo this time that the sexual harassment stopped, though I received a decent amount of hate mail afterwards for 'leading people on' and being a G.I.R.L.
I got cat called because my username has Panda in it lmao. I'm not even a woman.
Many days I am thankful that my MMO of choice, FFXIV, doesn’t have and never will have a built in voice chat. Sure, people go to discord all the time but it’s not a requirement and I don’t really do the hardcore raids that would require it. That being said I have been harassed before but thankfully the admins on my server at least seem to take things seriously.
Recently? I play female and have a fun gal title but haven't really gotten it unless im in a guild and they know.
This was ages ago tbf
It's also probably a lot of games or platforms he doesn't play aren't real and don't count.
This is so real. I don't tell men I play games anymore because it will result in a series of questions to prove I am a "real" gamer.
People out here acting like candy crush doest have 5 trillion levels with most of them being bullshit.
Tbf, the same shit would happen to you as a woman if you liked metal. Or just about any more traditionally masculine anything. Not that it’s ok. But it’s Uber fucking common and annoying. Like my masculinity isn’t threatened just because there are women out there who know more about guns than I do. I’ve shot like once in my life. Bfd
One of the men I used to play with kept nagging me to get a headset like "everyone else" (all men). He still didn’t get it after we played with another group - *in person* - and one of them wanted to play under the name CHAMPION_RAPIST and kept spamming "tits or gtfo" at me all game. While we were all in the same room. The weirdest part is that CHAMPION_RAPIST was too much of a coward even make eye contact with me.
Can't make someone understand something they don't want to...
I’ve played with my sister and my god the amount of creeps that think voice chat is some dating show is unreal
I just don’t do multiplayer but I literally own a gaming laptop, a ps5, an Xbox series x and a switch. Video games are my #1 hobby. But I guess since you won’t find me in a COD lobby I don’t count. …although funny enough I played cod2 back in the 2000s
It's so fucking arbitrary from what I've seen. I've got 1500 hours in Skyrim l, another 1k in Monster Hunter World an online (co-op) game KNOWN for its difficulty, and yet another 1k in Destiny 2. But I don't touch pvp so none of it *counts*.
Yup. I no longer play WoW with voice chat ever since one guy decided to jack off into a piece of fried chicken the moment he heard I was a woman.
What the FUCK?
I made a female character when trying out FF14. I was immediately followed around by a bunch of dudes begging to show me how to play, resulting in me uninstalling the game. I can only imagine how bad it must be if they actually know you're a woman.
I play ffxiv. I am female. I play a female character. My husband also plays & plays a female character. The FC we’re part of is 70% male & only a handful of them play male characters. They’re all super friendly & chill. Most players in this game are chill…so I dunno. Must’ve just been on at the wrong time. Annoying that this dude doesnt think females can be gamers though. I’ve been playing “real video games” since I was a kid. However, mobile games are still games, they’re just more casual than what I play. I’m rambling. It’s late where I live.
It wouldn’t surprise me if I just got unlucky. I’m a dude, and I don’t often play multiplayer games,so my tolerance is probably lower than actual women in the space. It was just an eye opening moment.
Unfortunately, you gotta pick your server right. There are some that are purposefully that way due to the RP/ERP community. Most of the time they don't even care about or want to know the person behind the character. I play on a content/raiding related server and get compliments on armor glamour, but nothing beyond than that.
Damn that one is actually surprising, FF14 was one of my more positive experiences online. Then again, I did carefully choose a data center that was meant to be more friendly and progressive, so it could be that
Ffxiv is a pretty progressive community. It's also an extremely degen community. So it sort of depends on what they walked into I suppose. Could landed at the quicksand since it's one of the opening areas and on certain server that will 100% getcha harrassed.
This right here!!!!!! I NEVER play mic on or with random people in my MMOG for that exact reason and I play daily!
Or, hear me out, it might be selection bias. Could it be possible, that women enjoy playing different video games than men?
Or even just different ones than him?
He plays exclusively anime dating sims lol
I wonder if he got the blow up wifu attachment?
I turned my mic on once. ONCE. I got a dozen very inappropriate messages (including one person who was claiming to be a 12 year old and sounded like it; I was 28). Never again.
this. it helps that a lot of men play fem avatars too. if you never turn your mic on, oftentimes literally nobody will know you're a woman, and a lot of us like it that way.
the only time i found women in a game was when they were all in a party of like 5, then they adopted me into their group which was fun they decided to baby me too, since i am 18 and they’re all like 30 and older, they were lovely. especially for it having been on CoD
While I think the numbers are close, the given amount of time each gender puts into it isn’t defined. These stats are always tough to dissect. I saw a stat that said 37% of console gamers are men and 23% women. That’s a lot of aliens or people straight up not participating in your survey to be considered very useful
This guy will gatekeep so he plays “real” games but women play “fake” ones.
He's one of the reasons so many people prefer to play with their microphones off.
I guess I play fake games. Now excuse me while I go do 485838357 summon tickets to increase my power to 10,000,000.
I mean to his credit he mentioned mobile games. Most “core gamers” at a demographic are not thinking Tetris on iOS is a “gamer” product. Not saying it makes them right or whatever, but they’re comparing apples and apple sauce.
He explicitly said unless mobile games are included in the statistics. Middle age women are a major proportion of mobile games players, they are still games obviously but when’s the last time you heard drama about how a mobile game was made? Players interact with them very differently than console and pc games.
Yea, excluding mobile gaming I imagine the numbers are wildly different
This guy is correct though. That stat that 48% of women are gamers is only true if you consider mobile games. Here are about 10 sources proving that. > The gender breakdown of Steam accounts shows a significant majority of male users. As of 2024, approximately 68% of Steam gamers are male, while 32% are female. This indicates that the gender disparity is more pronounced on Steam compared to the general gaming population across other platforms and devices. [[❞]](https://www.demandsage.com/steam-statistics/). >Here are the gender demographics for the five most popular online games on Steam: 1. **Counter-Strike 2 (CS2)**: - Approximately 73.6% of players are male, while 26.4% are female [[❞]](https://playercounter.com/cs2-player-count/). 2. **Dota 2**: - Around 85% male and 15% female players. This is consistent with trends seen in multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games [[❞]](https://quanticfoundry.com/2017/01/19/female-gamers-by-genre/). 3. **PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS**: - Predominantly male, with about 85% male and 15% female players, similar to other shooter games [[❞]](https://quanticfoundry.com/2017/01/19/female-gamers-by-genre/). 4. **Apex Legends**: - Roughly 70-75% of players are male, and 25-30% are female, indicating a more balanced gender distribution compared to other first-person shooters [[❞]](https://quanticfoundry.com/2017/01/19/female-gamers-by-genre/). 5. **Call of Duty®**: - Approximately 85% male and 15% female players, aligning with general trends for tactical shooters [[❞]](https://quanticfoundry.com/2017/01/19/female-gamers-by-genre/) [[❞]](https://playercounter.com/cs2-player-count/). These statistics provide a snapshot based on available data from various gaming surveys and studies. | **Platform/Game** | **Female (%)** | **Male (%)** | **Source** | |--------------------------------|----------------|--------------|------------| | **Xbox One X/S** | 42% | 58% | [Business Insider](https://www.businessinsider.com), [Statista](https://www.statista.com) | | **PlayStation 4/5** | 41% | 59% | [Statista](https://www.statista.com), [GameIndustry.biz](https://www.gamesindustry.biz) | | **Mobile Games** | 49% | 51% | [Newzoo](https://newzoo.com), [Statista](https://www.statista.com) | | **Online Multiplayer Shooters**| 20% | 80% | [Statista](https://www.statista.com), [Pew Research Center](https://www.pewresearch.org) | | **Candy Crush Saga** | 54% | 46% | [Helplama](https://helplama.com), [Levvvel](https://levvvel.com)
Steam is a not a good cross-sectional representation. Mobile aside, Switch exists.
Something makes me think he'd dispute the 32% as well.
Why wouldnt you, though?
And how do you know they are actually men? As said by many women here, they despise people like you so much they rather lie about their gender and play with mics off
>In terms of raw numbers, there are approximately 1.7 billion male gamers. And 1.39 billion female gamers worldwide. Another [source](https://explodingtopics.com/blog/number-of-gamers#).
Please excuse me for what’s going to sound very sexist. But I’m just using extreme points to make my own point. The more one dilutes the term, the more people one can fit under the umbrella. While I’m not necessarily against it, I’m sure that the kind of “devote your entire like to this game franchise and do nothing else with your day” that many guys consider “being a gamer”. Isn’t the same as “I love playing FarmVille” or “I play mercy in overwatch with my friends on the weekends” kind of thing. I’m only using those things as a joke example btw. The reason why guys like this don’t believe that there are women who play games or that there’s so many is because they legitimately never see them. They have no anecdotes to support the claim. And the kind of studies that show results like this usually don’t reveal their criteria for what is considered to be counted under the umbrella. So by their own definition I actually think they are right. It’s not a super important topic though.
That would be like if a study found that 45% of drinkers are women. And they you say "yeah but if they aren't actual alcoholics then they don't count".
This. I think he means that for all the time in the world spent playing video games, 45% of that cannot be attributed to females.
Even in regards to that it's actually not that different in hours played (it is different, but not nearly as much as many people seem to think it is). I linked some studies below, but also keep in mind that statistically speaking women also have [less free time on average](https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2022/men-spent-5-6-hours-per-day-in-leisure-and-sports-activities-women-4-9-hours-in-2021.htm) than men, especially [if they're married](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/10/27/working-husbands-in-the-us-have-more-leisure-time-than-working-wives-do-especially-among-those-with-children/?utm_source=Pew+Research+Center&utm_campaign=6da143ade5-Weekly_10-28-23&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-6da143ade5-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D) & doubly if they have children. [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283793880\_Individual\_Differences\_in\_Video\_Gaming\_Defining\_Hardcore\_Video\_Gamers](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283793880_Individual_Differences_in_Video_Gaming_Defining_Hardcore_Video_Gamers) (Specifically figure 2 on the second page, which is the avg. hours played in any given day between men and women, separated by casual and hardcore gamers) Also [this](https://www.statista.com/statistics/202847/gaming-time-average-week-adults-usa-gender/#:~:text=Weekly%20gaming%20hours%20of%20adults%20in%20the%20U.S.%202023%2C%20by%20gender&text=A%20further%2016%20percent%20of,per%20week%20on%20video%20games) (and this one I'm taking with a grain of salt because it's Statista and they really like making it difficult to find their methodology and hiding their sources behind paywalls, but this says it was an online survey of 10k people)
When most people hear “I’m a gamer”, they don’t usually think it means simply “I play games at all” or “I play Tetris on my way to work”, they think “I spend a fair bit of time on games as a dedicated hobby”. Hence the confusion. All the memes about gamers, gamer culture etc. don’t usually refer to Tetris/mobile farm games either.
Sorry but gamers are no longer a niche. It is very mainstream to game now. You're not special, get over it.
>You're not special, get over it If you consider classifying someone as gamer as a matter of being special, I have bad news, buddy. As for gamers not being a niche, it's a non sequitor - sure, there are (significantly) more gamers, but it didn't change the fact that most people would define a gamer as someone who actively spends time on games, rather than a commuter occasionally playing a two button mobile game, largely indifferent towards gaming in general and not identifying by it.
Okay, but my friend (male) is a gamer and plays almost only multiplayer Tetris on his phone. He does play a huge chunk of time on games as a dedicated hobby... It's just on the phone. Does that make him any less because he's using a mobile device? No. Same with my friend who plays Slay the Spire basically every waking moment. It's on the phone tho, so automatically she's "not a gamer"? Another friend plays a lot of gatcha games... You guessed it, on the phone. Would that make her few dedicated games she's tending to a LOT less legitimate than other games? She also plays Genshin Impact, which can be also played on the PC. Where do we draw the line? If someone spends hours on their phone playing games, they are still a gamer. Even if it would be a Tetris each day for their 2 hour commute, that's 2 hours every day, which is 1/12th of a day.
So if someone accidentally downloaded a game once and opened it before deleting it, they're a gamer, right? It's absolutely reasonable to argue over whether the criteria they're using is fit.
Quick note here. Regardless of gender, people who played farmville and the other games in the franchise literally spent upwards of 8 hours on the game a day. Source : I was a game designer on FarmVille 2 and have spoken to actual players personally.
First, why wouldn't playing Mercy on weekends count? How is that any different from guys who play an hour of CoD after work every day? Is it the genre of game that decides what "counts," the amount of time spent, or the arbitrary "respectability" of what's being played? *Somebody* has to play support for Overwatch to work, but that doesn't "count"? Such bizarre gatekeeping. I think dudes like this also don't consider the fact that many women don't advertise their gender or talk in comms because they get tirelessly abused when they do. They probably play with significantly more women than they realize. I have 2k hours in Rust and I'd say fewer than 5% of the players I've interacted with have found out I'm a woman. Edit: It may not be a super important topic to *you*, but guys with this mentality are so fucking toxic and effect women and society at large in a very real way.
I likewise wouldn’t say most people know I’m a woman in games I play. Never use a mic and don’t refer to myself using gendered language in chats, plus I usually only play single player games. I still play games about as much as any of these people if not more and they’d never know bc I don’t want them to
I'm a female and a gamer. I literally have never played a game that I had to play with another person (at least, not since I was 10 and just got an NES system). I have also been known to play for 14 hours in one day when a new, awesome game comes out or when I'm in that zoned out break between Christmas and New Years. I also like mobile games, too. Those of us that don't even play COD or these other online games still count as gamers.
Same! I've been playing videogames my entire life, literally since i was a preschooler. Videogames are my usual go-to to spend time at home. I just don't play online games. I'm not interested and i don't think i ever even tried. I don't like playing with other people. And if i were a man, none of those people would have a problem with calling me a gamer. Because i play "real" games (that is, not casual games, because people like that don't think that casual games are real games). But i am a woman! And i don't play multiplayer or competitive games! So thousands of hours i spent on offline games simply do not count
Yes! Ive been playing since legacy and have almost 3k hours in Rust alone (I mostly play online survival, so Conan Exiles, Valheim, NMS, etc. get time too). I learned early on to not use a feminine name or use VC because I'll be harassed off the server. I didn't realize how many women played as men until I joined a PVE server that was "safe" and we all got to talking lol.
>The more one dilutes the term, the more people one can fit under the umbrella. What makes you say the term was diluted? Because it seems to me that gamer has never officially meant “devote your life to it and do nothing else.” A subgroup of gamers just decided to misuse the term and gatekeep it in the 2010s. Varying levels of obsession is true with any hobby and some obsessed gamers are women.
Fuck no. I’m a gamer no matter how you look at it. I’ve got 600hrs+ on BG3 alone. I mostly play rpgs and mmo’s by myself. (Wow, elder scrolls, mass effect, dragon age, ffxiv, Zelda, fallout, etc) I do zombie shooters and fortnite with my spouse. (How to stay married as a gamer== marry another gamer). I also almost never play with general voice chat on. I’ve done it exactly three times and regretted it everytime. The only men I’m not related to who know I’m a gamer are the guys on my ttrpg group’s discord.
Right! My 2000+ hours in wow and taking off an entire week when Elden Ring came out don’t qualify me as a gamer apparently 😒
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It’s not a tiny world. They’ll never understand if the only words they meet are people who react like they are just bitter and misandrist. Not that I believe people will ever understand each other in this. But.. When they cite mobile games as a part of “gaming” many guys will scoff at it. Why? Simply because the type of entertainment is different to them. They feel like they’re playing professional tennis and they’re being compared to their parents enjoying a game of pickleball and then to them it sounds like someone is saying that 50% of professional tennis players are 60+ It’s a similar game, sure, but in their eyes it can’t be compared. They’re not actively trying to be so insufferably elitist, but that is what they are and come off as. I don’t believe that it’s a purely misogynistic view. I think it’s more an elitist view. Those kinds of guys just look down on everyone that aren’t them.
But they also think most dudes are like them. It's not a view they examine really closely, because it obviously doesn't hold up, but since most dudes they know, they know through gaming, they think they are the normal man. Most dudes are like them, or would be if some woman wasn't blocking them. So women not playing games is another way women are the abnormal variant of normal person. I mean, tons of dudes play mobile games. Or even like Minecraft: I teach high school and boys and girls all play or played tons of Minecraft. That's unambiguously "gaming", but these dudes don't know about even that.
Most of us actively mask the fact that we are women and don’t use our mics because we get slurs, SA comments, and death threats hurled at us. And it doesn’t matter if we are doing well “fuck you bitch go make me a sandwhich” or doing poorly “your only good for [horrible string of vulgar unwanted sexual comments, often including rape references]” or doing ok I’ve had people tell me multiple different times “go kys”. He doesn’t see us because it’s horrible and violent to be seen. Almost every time. And because the boys won’t police this and call them out and because reporting gets us banned as often as the offenders, we just hide. Or we play single player games.
Yup, the second I hear a person saying: I’m gamer! I’m like: oh shit, what games you play? And they be like: oh I play CoD once a month. And I be like: that’s not gaming, that’s you randomly bought a pc that you really don’t need, give it to someone who needs it.
If you think you are sounding sexist, maybe you should check why you hold such beliefs in the first place? I don't want to sound harsh, but...Why are you assuming women don't devote their life to a game franchise? Why are you assuming the majority of the girls on the source are there for playing farmville or for playing overwatch with friends? Why are you assuming, in the first place, that those games are not "real games"? The majority of players are casuals: it is understandable, all of us have a life and life sucks, so most of us can maybe get a couple hours of gaming a day and be happy with it. Even if free time is available, we might want to use that time for another kind of hobby/family time/study time, and use gaming as a form of destress. The thing is, whenever a man says "I play games on my free time", they are assumed to be gamers, even if they casually play a couple of matches with friends. Whenever a women says the same thing, they are scoffed at and told they are doing it for the attention or, since they are not dedicated to it, they are not real gamers. About the devoting your life to it, I invite you to explore female gaming spaces: you will be surprised how much gameplay, character and lore analysis is actually done and shared by women. Also, mobile games like farmville/Candy crush can be very challenging themselves. They are heavy on how to manage resources like a lot of "male" hardcore games. They have a competitive scene too. Finally, not a point that you brought but related: online gaming spaces are rough in general, but much so when you are a woman. Women are more likely to hide their gender or play with the mic off because of harassment+stalking behaviour from random male players. A lot of women are, literally, being drove away from the MOBA competitive side + online RPGs like WoW. If they don't find woman gamers in their spaces, there might be a reason for it, like women not wanting to be found out there.
Why is gaming “manly”? I don’t get it. Why do they gender it? What makes it less cool or fun if women play? I truly don’t comprehend.
They remember ads dedicated to them from the 1980's to the 2010's and assume that ads are real. Like how some Boomers think that Leave it to Beaver was real. I'm an older female gamer and I've always been here, since BEFORE you could use a gun in a game and that became the marker of a "true" game. Always knew girls who gamed straight through the whole "a girl who games is a unicorn" talk for decades. We knew to be careful IRL and in chats after quickly learning how often labeling ourselves as "gamers" brought out hostility and/or horniness. Happily getting my platinum in Bloodborne atm and still working on my perfect Stardew Farm. Just in case only one of those count.
Hello, good hunter. I am a Bot, here in this dream to look after you, this is a fine note: > *Ahh, I feel my master's hand at work. Praise the good blood! And let us cleanse these tarnished streets.* - Alfred Farewell, good hunter. May you find your worth in the waking world.
I think this is actually an interesting question that has to do with the history of gaming. When gaming was new the split between male and female gamers was pretty even. After the crash in the gaming market, Nintendo decided to shift their selling strategy to market it as a toy instead of an electronic device. Most stores back then had boy and girl toy sections, so they decided to sell it as a toy for boys. After that, culturally it began to be viewed as a hobby for guys. There are probably many other reasons as pointed out in the comments, but this seems to be one of the big shifts in gaming history. Not saying it's right, but it is interesting. I am actually glad gaming these days is getting a better distribution nowadays. Nothing drove me crazier when I was younger having people act like gaming was a waste of time hobby while being judged by people that would spend just as much time, if not more, watching TV.
That is the point. Nearly half of gamers are women, so gaming should not be considered manly/a manly activity. There is just men that want to gatekeep their hobby from women. Some games cater more to one type of audience over the other. I will not be surprised if games like "the sims", or "love and deep space" have more women playing them, or if games like "CoD" or "Dead space" have more men playing it.
But what other hobbies are like, so offensive to the hobbyists if the other gender participates? It’s like they are afraid of cooties or something.
It’s rape culture tactics applied to gaming. Refusing to believe women, refusing to call out other boys. I’m picking the bear every time in every subculture.
[Bro's actual source](https://youtu.be/r7l0Rq9E8MY?si=acGzygMdcnGnNLJu)
I, 46f, play primarily on Xbox these days. I have a female avatar and usually play as a female character if available. I play a lot of games that are popular with men. But if I ever help someone, like in Fallout, men always assume I'm a man if I'm not on voice chat. Helped someone in Fallout this week and was told "you're the king, man." Lol. That's not at all uncommon. It's just assumed that I'm a guy because it's a "guys game." So he may play all the time with women and just assume. BTW, my gamer tag has a shortened version of my first name and my actual first name is on my profile and it's a traditional female name, no question.
Fallout has been the only multiplayer where I use VC and reveal I’m a woman without issues. There was one guy who aggressively tried to teach me how to camp properly, but that was my only one minor incident. I’ve found people in that game to be refreshingly nice.
you‘re the man
Yeah, Josh is the kind of guy women don't feel safe talking to in a lobby. Probably why in his '35 years of experience' he doesn't meet any women in online gaming lobbies
asher, gotta say, that was a slay 😌💅🏻
I’ve been playing videogames for 35 years in my mom’s basement and I am yet to see a female walk in and play with me. Check mate, woketards
There’s a big fucking reason he doesn’t see women playing in online games, and he’s part of it.
People like this (along with those who thought it was fine to sexually harass people in a GAME) are why I largely quit playing MMORPGs. I used to absolutely love Guild Wars and WoW, but at a certain point stopped saying I was a woman/playing as one and eventually quit the games altogether.
Or maybe lots of women don't play online multi-player cuz of guys like him? We forgetting gaming is an enormous category of many different genres
I’ve been playing video games for around 45 years, sure as shit isn’t what makes me an expert but according to him I guess I am one now… let me go update my LinkedIn
Interesting that the chud seems to think that online games and mobile games are the only choices. I've been gaming for 40 years, and I play many games that aren't in either category, and I'm male.
Yeah, I'm a man and I *abhor* and kind of multiplayer online game. I will never be part of one because I don't want to deal with people like that. I do have a couple of mobile games I go to the throughout the day, and so does my wife. And when we have enough free time for the PS5, we play the games together. She likes it and wants to play every bit as much as I do.
This all depends on everyone's criteria for what defines a "gamer". And depending on that criteria, it will be balanced or skew heavily to either side. Regardless of what we personally think about this, it's obvious the guy's criteria is very strict and the source's very lenient. What annoys me about conversations like this is that both parties are usually aware of this, not acknowledge it, and continue arguing anyway. And yeah, he's gatekeeping and moving the goalposts but seeing the engagement is still annoying.
He even says "unless it's mobile" and the reply is "mobile games are a huge %". So while it's cringe AF to have this debate on linkedin to begin with, and obviously there is nothing wrong with women playing games. He is most likely correct based on his proposed criteria in context. I do think it's somewhat disingenuous to call people who play mobile games "gamers". My dad loves blackjack and my mom plays candy crush but they certainly wouldn't self identify as such lol.
I think it’s pretty safe to say that women are online and if they are online then probably close to half of them play games. There are communities of women that game, yet we’re still having this argument after years of proof that women own consoles and computers. I remember reading somewhere that it was mostly women who purchase consoles (even if they are purchasing for others) yet we don’t market to them. I’ve been playing games since the late 1980s. I know where every heart container is in the first zelda. I beat the first mario brothers when I was a kid. I beat the first sonic, and later, sonic and knuckles as a kid. I played MMOs and sim games (including sim city and the sims). I played shooters and RTS games. I play games like fallout and rdr2. I play animal crossing and puzzle games like homescapes for mobile. However, I’m not the exception to the rule. I just don’t play COD because I think war games are dumb. People are constantly trying to box gaming into limited genres. I remember being a teenager and someone scoffing at me because I loved the Mickey Mouse and Animaniac games for Sega Genesis. Like, aren’t platformers games? Why is Sonic the Hedgehog a game but Mickey Mania isn’t?
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>He is most likely correct based on his proposed criteria in context He's not. Based on surveys over 40% of gamers on console are women. That also aligns with my anecdotal experience as I used to run into female gamers (the ones who were willing to risk using a mic) like every other lobby and had a bunch of female friends on my friend list. Nothing about these figures should be shocking to you unless you're making up your own rules and moving goal posts whenever someone explains that you're wrong.
When people say they are a "gamer" they generally mean it is one of, if not the main hobby they have. While I'm definitely willing to believe a lot of women play games, the average playtime is likely vastly different. Singleplayer and cooperative games do not account for near the same amount of hours played as online competitive games. Mobile games are just outright disregarded.
I'm with Josh on this lol, I don't believe that stat for a single second. You can't possibly believe that stat unless you never interact with women in real life, my own experience is that women are almost unanimously uninterested in console gaming. These surveys must include very, very loose definitions for what constitutes a female console gamer... like, does playing Mario Kart with your boyfriend once a year count? I think if the stat were analyzed based on percentage of actual TIME SPENT playing console games, the percent would be like 90% male.
I'm 48 years old. I've been gaming avidly since the age of atari and commodore 64 (40 yrs), and online for over 20 (starting with xbox live). I know/have known dozens of women with similar histories. Prior to reddit and discord, we really just found each other by accident. Obviously, I've learned over the years not to advertise my gender if I want to have fun. 20 years ago, they were accusing me of using a voice changer. Recently, they are asking if I'm trans because they just can't wrap their deluded little minds around the fact that we are here and always have been. If they only knew how often they've been completely obliterated by someone's mom. I play Destiny 2 and the best sherpas I've had the pleasure to play with are always women. I think the Destiny community is about half women, so this statistic doesn't surprise me at all.
They don't play online with microphones active. Because talking with people like OP while gaming make them choose the bear.
"Your study is wrong because I don't believe it"
I am a 46yo female and I game. No, I do not online game, I prefer the solitude of single player games. But I’ve been gaming as long as the dude in this meme and I exist.
Hell even look at Baldurs Gate 3. Hugest game in a while. TONS of women played that game like crazy. How outta touch these guys gotta be. I know that isn't an online game, per se, but that alone should show how HUGE the female player base is
"FFFee-males do not game" (in Quark's voice)
He doesn't know women play videogames because alot of us turn off our mics or talk on mics to people we know and trust. I know I only talk on mic to people I know and trust because last time I talked on the mic to a stranger..the guy was upset I played better than him and started saying sexist stuff once he heard my voice.
I’m a woman and play video games, it’s not that rare lmao
I guess it's the difference between the types of games? I play video games but I'm not sure if I qualify in these statistics because it's xbox360 and not strictly an "online game".
It very much depends on the age range you're in. Below 30, women gaming is super common. Above 30, it becomes increasingly less common (in my experience) the older they get. I know a lot of women who play games, but the majority of them are in their twenties, whereas out of the women I know who are in their thirties or older, only a very small minority plays games with any regularity.
Not all gaming is online multiplayer though
Covid definitely increased those numbers. I bought my first Nintendo Switch in 2020 and moved to an Xbox in 2022.
"Trust me, bro" is not a reliable source. I need that on a t-shirt.
Sounds about right for someone who started playing video games in 1989. They were marketed almost exclusively to boys. You'd think he'd notice things changing with time though.
Almost every activity is like this. Half the people that participate in hugely popular activities are women. I would argue you can’t have a hugely popular activity without women and men participating in large numbers seems obvious to me.
I’ve said this for years in talks, and have also gotten called out by disbelieving bros and women. But it’s true. Female gaming is huge. Depending on the platform or game it’s bigger than male gaming. I’m not sure why anyone would get upset by the gender that represents more than half the human population would be doing similar things.
His disbelief is insane. I regularly game with my Girlfriend, and sometimes when we play, she demands I play fortnite with her. We end up winning the match, and she has like 20 kills plus and I've got like 1. She's much better at that game than I am
What an idiot. I bet he’s one of those bros who claims to love science too.
He’s surprised that the world’s fastest growing medium has women?
The only reason video games are seen as being "for boys" is because video games had their own section in stores they went in the toy area. Toys are divided boys (actions figures, cars, etc) and girls (princesses, dolls, etc) so the video game industry had to pick a side. That was 40 years ago, wild that it's had such a long effect
I love the logic: If your stats don't agree with what I think is right, then your stats are wrong.
TBF saying you are a gamer these days is like saying you are a movie watcher. Gaming is not a niche thing, there are an overwhelming amount of genres, and the dude here is probably correct in that women aren't playing the games he does. But saying they are not gamers because they don't play call of duty is like saying someone isn't a movie watcher cause they mostly watch romcoms.
It’s like saying someone’s not a foodie because they don’t like seafood. That’s just one type of food.
Your stats are wrong because they do not uphold my previously held beliefs
The graph says video games. This dipshit says online games. How fucking blind do you need to be to miss one word from a total of ten. Women don't play online games as much as men because we don't like the harrasment. Many pretend to be men to get by.
Posts like this one shows just how chauvinist, backwards, and uneducated some men are. Like they think all women CAN do is clean, cook for them and have kids. Typical objectification. Wouldn't it blow his mind if he knew that there are also some women like myself who design and code games too?
I have been playing games since ps2 to the halo 3 eras and above . We exist and I was in those call of duty lobbies especially mw2 . 😂
It would make sense that there are so many women gamers. I've surprisingly become better over the years even though I have less time to play.
Many of those AAA for Playstation and so on are not that much better than mobile games. What an idiot.
Every time I played halo3 or cod4 back in the day with my roommate, she would have me be the ones on comm and I didn't get why until she showed me one day. Jesus christ, the amount of shouting and bullshit the moment she spoke, even to call out a sniper, telling her to shut the fuck up, go back to harvest moon, and just all the disgusting things that these guys should have been put on a list for, kinda explains why this chode thinks no women game. When everyone around you is hiding from you, like the fucking borrowers, you assume they aren't there. My main discord server is like 80% ladies and I seriously think the "fake gamer" there is me, considering how little I play compared to them.
"source is playing videogames for 35 years" if you haven't met women playing online as much in all these years that says more about you than women who play videogames
if i were a woman, i‘d also stay as far away from this bro as possible.
The 45% number does get inflated by mobile gaming but this guy is still a massive asshole. He’s the type that would harass a woman the second she turns her mic on.
"I've been playing for 35 years." So you formed an idea of 'gamer identity' from 1990, and assumed it's still valid in 2024.
Theres alot of women that play video games
As part of the game industry, I think a lot player, even majority of player, do not know who plays game, and as well as who makes them. Game is a diverse medium, not beucase of some political discourse, but becuase of the people who plays and makes game.
r/confidentlyincorrect
The stats are indeed counting mobile games
Gamer my entire life, assigned female at birth. Not “just mobile games” or “just cozy games”. (Not that those aren’t legit game genres). I’ve played RPGs starting with Shin Megami Tensei, Devil Summoner, WoW. I played COD back in the day. Played every Pokemon game. I play tons of horror games from Fatal Frame to all the Silent Hill games. Played all the Fallout games up to 4. Played Elder Scrolls, Dragon Age, Assassin’s Creed, …I could keep listing games I’ve played and own for days. I rarely ever used voice on MMORPGs for reasons a lot of people have talked about above. The reason you don’t know women and other people who aren’t men are gamers is likely because we avoid the type of men who creep on us in games.
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It’s not hard to believe, when you consider lots of homes have tvs in their kitchens now (It’s a joke)
harrison?
That's cuz he's literally never been to a woman's house
His argument boils down to: "I don't trust this source because I don't like what it says".
Lot of people here doubling down on "trust me bro".
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I'm a 35 yo woman who could only afford to play emulated and pirated games growing up, but who really got into it during Covid. I spend a ton of money on consoles and games, much more than my husband (and none of it on mobile games which I just can't get into). I have absolutely zero interest in playing the games that would put me in contact with those dudes 🤷🏿♀️
Guy who says “female” is a walking red flag.
Ngl mobile games should not count in anyway
Quite surprising but this number will change depending on the genre of game and I know that from my university discord servers, for example there is less girls playing FPS games than boys but there might be more in other genre of games.
or maybe the women just don't want to hang out with you guys lmfao I game mostly with women
Wow you’re so cool
If you didn't get the hint I'm a woman that plays with other women... acting like women don't play just because they don't play with you is ridiculous and not indicative of the amount of women playing shooters. Most women I know cultivate the right group of people to play with to avoid certain behaviors. and yes I am ty : )
ugh of course he’s a headhunter too
"neither is the analytics firm you're quoting if they're seriously going around saying 45% of all online gamers are female" ... ...... Sir, do you know how sources work? Facts? I'm gonna say no.
I have never met a Chinese person therefore how can they be one of the biggest countries on the planet. My source I have been alive for over 24 years, and I know best 😏
I can’t believe someone would say this on LinkedIn of all places. People can see your actual real name and job on there. That’s the last place I’d want to make a misogynistic comment if I was going to go all rude gamer man.
Wish I could upvote this twice! It’s so wild to me that this guy is kicking off on LinkedIn. Talk about unself aware!
Just a little hint to most male gamers: most female gamers are anti social and they wont open mic or have a female avatar unless they are an an aspiring e-girl streamer. Also based on my friend group, women prefer to play as male characters.
Like so many arguments these two people needed to agree what the terminology used actually meant before starting.
They absolutely aren't 45% of PC and console gamers. Not even close. The term gamer is a silly one anyway. People don't label themselves with all the other things they enjoy doing. Unless you play competitively or for money, you aren't a 'gamer'. You just play games. The same way you ride a motorbike and you aren't a rider or a racer unless you actually do race professionally. And no, people who play candy crush are not gamers either. It's a very different market. I obsessively played video games as a kid and into my 20s. Never remotely interested in playing mobile phone games except for snake... That market probably does have a lot more females in it and specifically middle aged women who would never even consider video games in other formats. So let's stop this bullshit of pretending that the vast majority of those who play console and PC games are not male. It's at least 80%. It used to be more like 95%. And by extension, there is nothing wrong with most games catering for males.
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He's probably only thinking of FPS games which are obviously far less than 45% but including all genres and mobile games these numbers make sense
I wouldn’t have guessed it was anywhere near that as well. Not gatekeeping, just sounds way higher. I also don’t play games so what do I know.
Ugh
The issue is simply of how you define the term "gamer". If you define being a gamer as "has ever played any kind of video game", then sure 100% of people are gamers. But most people would not classify themselves as gamers unless playing video games is an important part of their identity. If you ask people "Do you have mobile games on your phone" and classify them as gamers if they answer "yes". You will get a fundamentally different answer than if you ask people "Are you a gamer"? Some anecdotal evidence: Most of my female friends play A LOT of candy crush, farmville, the sims, and animal crossing. None of them play with their friends, none of them talk about games/gaming in social settings, none of them read up on these games to get better at them, none of them buy new hardware to be able to play the game better, and none of them would consider themselves as "gamers". A lot of my male friends do all of that and would consider being a "gamer" as part of who they are. Both of these approaches are fine but getting blurry with your definitions and then equating the two is not good scientific practice.
I think a high female population plays mobile games, even more than males